Gifts for Groomsmen and Bridesmaids

Here's an idea for those who want to save a little money on their attendant's gifts.

1. For guys - if you would like to buy flasks, buying them from Things Remembered can get expensive, depending on how many attendants you have. My husband and I bought his groomsmen flasks after Christmas for half price. We found ours at Wal-Mart for $5 each.

2. For girls - We bought our female attendants jewelry, flip flops, and photo albums. I loved the idea of buying flip flops that my ladies could wear during the reception. To save money on these items, check out sales on jewelry after prom. I bought my ladies matching necklaces and bracelets from Deb after prom season. Their flip flops came from Hobby Lobby for $1-$2 a pair. The photo albums were also clearanced and were bought from Goody's (which isn't in business anymore, unfortunately).

Clearance, clearance, clearance... that's key! If you have long enough to plan, you can use coupons from Michael's and Hobby Lobby throughout the year to buy gifts for your attendants at 20-30% off.

Photography Fees! EEK!

One of the most expensive parts of a wedding can be the wedding photography. Many professional photographers have starting base packages at $2000. If you are having a $10,000 wedding, $2000 for wedding photography just isn't feasible.

Patrick and I had this problem when we were planning our wedding. I have many friends in the wedding photography business - and they are excellent photographers.... there's only one problem - the COST! Instead of paying $2000 for photography, we ended up paying $375! How did we do it? We checked the local classified postings for cheaper photographers. We lucked out in finding someone who had been a photographer full time but now was working at my graduate school. Instead of charging an exorbitant amount and basing her yearly income on her photography jobs - she did photography as a hobby. At the price of $75 an hour and free engagement photos - we just could not say no!

Here's what I would suggest - think outside the box. Many times you can find photographers running specials in the paper or even students studying photography who need some real life experience. And you can always check out my photographer, especially if you are in the Bloomington area: http://www.psphotographyonline.com/.

Couture Silk Invitations

Even though I provide advice on this site for brides who want to save a buck, one of my friends recently started a handmade invitations business. If you are interested in couture silk invitations, check out http://www.revelryinvitations.com/. I love her invitations - they are extremely classy :-)

Wedding Flowers

Most people when planning a wedding want flowers.... lots and lots of flowers. When you visit some florists, however, it's easy to have sticker shock. Many florists will charge upwards of $250 just for a simple brides bouquet! When you add all of the bridesmaid bouquets, flowers for the men, flowers for the parents, and centerpieces, your flower cost can easily total $2000.

It is really easy to cut the cost of your flowers.....

Here is how - first off, decide if you want real or fake flowers. A lot of people will tell you that fake flowers are tacky - but if that is what you want, don't listen to those people. The cheapest way to get fake flowers is to visit Michaels when they are having a clearance :-) One of my friends had fake flowers in her wedding and all of them came from Michaels. They were very beautiful. The plus side of having fake flowers is that they will last! Buy the flowers and make the bouquets yourself. It really isn't that hard.... Check out this site: http://save-on-crafts.com/bouqmakbas.html.

I decided to go with real flowers for my wedding. Real flowers are typically more expensive than fake ones. There are a couple places you can buy real flowers cheaply. If you want to have roses, check out www.freshroses.com (also known as 2G Roses). They have wedding packages that are fairly inexpensive, comparatively. I had a friend who ordered all of her flowers from Fresh Roses (dot) com and they were beautiful. One of the nice things about this site is that you can have a test bunch sent to your house with different colored roses before your wedding to decide on your color scheme. Then you can test how long it takes for the roses to open and how to make your bouquets.

You can also purchase bulk flowers from Costco or Sam's Club. I actually had all of my flowers shipped from Sam's Club. I ordered LOTS of daisies and hydrangea (see pic above). The price for all of my flowers was $150. Not bad for all of the centerpieces and bouquets! One thing to keep in mind about these stores, you need to have a membership to purchase bulk floral from them.

Happy Bargain Hunting!

David's Bridal "One Love" Contest

Win a FREE wedding package from David's Bridal.

David's Bridal has released a new contest: the "One Love" Contest. All you have to do is upload a picture of you and your man, tell them your personal story of how you knew he was "the one," and put together a wedding collage with 6 items from David's. If you are selected to win, you will receive all of the items in your collage.

Enter here:

http://www.davidsbridal.com/onelove1.jsp?cm_sp_o=PybgLdbltCjCBEwkBMwCjCwMwEf5zTw

Dyed Crinoline

Another neat thing to do to set your wedding apart from all the rest is to dye your crinoline. When I found pics online of other people dying their crinolines, I knew I just had to do it. And since my wedding colors were tiffany blue and white - I had to dye it blue!

To begin, I checked to be sure that the material that my crinoline was made out of could be dyed. Luckily all of the crinolines from David's bridal can be dyed. Amanda and I headed off to WalMart and bought some rit dye.

We added the dye to the washer and turned the water to hot. We also took the crinoline to the shower and got it wet before adding it to the washer.

We stuffed it down in the washer and every few minutes would open the washer to redistribute the poofiness ;-)

It turned out to be a beautiful shade of blue. We let the washer run again after pulling out the crinoline and added some vinegar to the wash so that the blue dye would not get on our next load of laundry. We hung it up to dry and it only took a little while.

Wedding Card Box

One of the hip new things appearing at weddings is a variation on the traditional "card box." It is customary to have a box or birdcage at weddings for guests to place their cards in for the couple. What all brides discover when shopping for wedding supplies is that card boxes are very pricey. Many run between $20-$100 ( http://www.weddingcardboxes.com/).


My maid-of-honor and I, however, in my quest for saving money on my wedding, decided to make my card box. My wedding colors were tiffany blue and white, so I wanted to make a card box that looked like stacked Tiffany & Co. boxes. I found some stackable cardboard boxes at a flea-market in Michigan for about $6. I bought the perfect color blue paper at the Card & Party Outlet, and some white sparkly ribbon at Michaels.

Amanda then cut a large opening between the boxes and an opening for the cards in the smaller box lid (see pic above). Then we wrapped the boxes and decorated them with the ribbon. Below was our result. The total cost of our project was $10.