Wedding on a budget tips

[Promomx2]

Just send higs and good thought to you.

 

[Resseda]

A couple thoughts...

Regardless of what FMIL and other people want, please remember that this is your day, you and your fiance, and you need to do what you need to do to look back on this in twenty years and happily recollect the day, as opposed to remembering why you didn't do the things you wanted.

Along with others, I say skip the favors or minimize them to do-it-yourself candy bags or something. Really, who needs to take home another candle or another potpourri sachet? In lieu of favors, we made a donation to a charity, and they sent us a nice certificate that we set out at the reception. Of course, that would get into the whole "Why did you give to that charity and not this other one?" thing, but it worked for us.

Really, without being rude, I think you and your DF need to just sit his mom down and let her know that you appreciate her "help", but that you guys want to make the decisions yourselves, without her. Or, it may help to give her one, clear-cut task...like making the favors. It will give her something to focus on and feel useful about, without interfering. And if you feel the need to un-do some of her requests, than just be nice about it, but do it. "I'm sorry, Sis, MIL must have misunderstood us when we got talking about the wedding and attendants. I'm only planning on having So-and-So as my Maid of Honor. Maybe you'd like to offer a reading/prayer/toast/etc?"

Ress

 

[Mouse House Mama]

Just a word of advice. Take it if you'd like or not.
While it may be "your" day, sometimes sucking it up and doing something for the future harmony of the family is worth it. Personally, I don't think it is right to have some siblings in your party and not others. You have to remember that while you don't have a lot of family your future husband does. Your fiance did not tell his Mom that he didn't want his siblings in the wedding. He just said you were "keeping it simple". I think maybe he doesn't want to cause waves with you or his family so he is not really giving an answer to anyone hoping to make everyone happy. I know it is your day etc. but in reality it is just a party. The marriage is the most important part. Is is really going to ruin it if you have an extra person standing up there? I would have been very hurt if my sister didn't want me in her wedding party. While I do agree it would be weird for the Mom to be a bridesmaid I think leaving some siblings out just because you want an even number is going to cause some hurt feelings. You are totally within your rights to have whoever you want but sometimes you have to really think about whether or not it is important enough to you to cause a fight and/or hurt feelings over. As for keeping a budget I think that is great! You can find a lot of nice stuff at the craft stores! Good luck!

 

[Shleedogg]

can i see a picture of your pocket fold. Is there a template to make one?Thanks for the link

I'm so sorry I wasn't watching this thread!

I don't have a pic, they were hosted on my husband's website, the domain name got sold when he was a day late on the renew. I did it by trial and error.

Took a 12x12 sheet of card stock, cut it in half, each piece will be an invite.

Measure down 5 inches, score the cardstock so it will fold, measure down another 5 inches, do the same. You'll be left with 2 inches, that will be the pocket. Fold it up and glue the sides, use a very thin line of glue, but something very strong.

If you're looking at the pocket vertically, the top section will be where the printed invite part is, we printed it on pieces cut I think at 4.5 x 4.5 on our home printer and glued that on.

The second section is where the glued pocket is, that's where we put reception card, directions and an RSVP postcard. I don't remember the exact measurements, but it was tierd. RSVP was smallest, then reception, then directions. We had to play w/ the spacing a bit so that you could only see the "title" of each card when placed in the pocket and not the rest of the info.

That's it! You can embellish it if you want, we had a ribbon running around the invite that we glued on. We also did some trials where we put our monogram printed on a small piece of card stock glued on.

I would highly recommend buying a paper cutter. We got one at AC Moore for $10 and it has a cutting blade and a scoring blade which was very important for us.

I hope this is clear, if you need any more help let me know, or feel free to email me at bateman.ashley at yahoo.com. I know this is late since you needed to send them soon, again, I'm so sorry! I blame the pregnancy brain!

Good luck!

 

[Shleedogg]

Also, one more budget tip! Our favors were take home cookies. We had some big Italian cookie trays for dessert in addition to cake and had cellophane bags and twist ties so people could take them home.

Table numbers, we got cheap $1 picture frames and did pictures of us growing up in them, Table 1 was a pic of each of us at age 1, etc. DH scanned them into the comp and did the top half of the pic of me, bottom of him.

 

[dreamin_disney]

A couple thoughts...

Regardless of what FMIL and other people want, please remember that this is your day, you and your fiance, and you need to do what you need to do to look back on this in twenty years and happily recollect the day, as opposed to remembering why you didn't do the things you wanted.

Along with others, I say skip the favors or minimize them to do-it-yourself candy bags or something. Really, who needs to take home another candle or another potpourri sachet? In lieu of favors, we made a donation to a charity, and they sent us a nice certificate that we set out at the reception. Of course, that would get into the whole "Why did you give to that charity and not this other one?" thing, but it worked for us.

Really, without being rude, I think you and your DF need to just sit his mom down and let her know that you appreciate her "help", but that you guys want to make the decisions yourselves, without her. Or, it may help to give her one, clear-cut task...like making the favors. It will give her something to focus on and feel useful about, without interfering. And if you feel the need to un-do some of her requests, than just be nice about it, but do it. "I'm sorry, Sis, MIL must have misunderstood us when we got talking about the wedding and attendants. I'm only planning on having So-and-So as my Maid of Honor. Maybe you'd like to offer a reading/prayer/toast/etc?"

Ress

Thank you for the adivice. I've been very patient with her and have given in to a lot but at what point do i say enough is enough-lol! I just suck it up not to cause waves but its stressing me out to the point that i dont df its my wedding and i dont want mil to plan my day. She asked me twice about the braidsmaid dresses, i think she is going to want her dd to be able to pick out her own dress or shall i say she will pick it our=t for her. I talked to fr and asked him not to mention when i will go dress shopping for myself or the braidsmaid dresses. I figure i will look for a different styles and have the girls vote on them but i want to have the final say. I know MIL will make sure to be there at the voting session. df said his mom will be seating in ther front and thats that.

 

[dreamin_disney]

Just a word of advice. Take it if you'd like or not.
While it may be "your" day, sometimes sucking it up and doing something for the future harmony of the family is worth it. Personally, I don't think it is right to have some siblings in your party and not others. You have to remember that while you don't have a lot of family your future husband does. Your fiance did not tell his Mom that he didn't want his siblings in the wedding. He just said you were "keeping it simple". I think maybe he doesn't want to cause waves with you or his family so he is not really giving an answer to anyone hoping to make everyone happy. I know it is your day etc. but in reality it is just a party. The marriage is the most important part. Is is really going to ruin it if you have an extra person standing up there? I would have been very hurt if my sister didn't want me in her wedding party. While I do agree it would be weird for the Mom to be a bridesmaid I think leaving some siblings out just because you want an even number is going to cause some hurt feelings. You are totally within your rights to have whoever you want but sometimes you have to really think about whether or not it is important enough to you to cause a fight and/or hurt feelings over. As for keeping a budget I think that is great! You can find a lot of nice stuff at the craft stores! Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. For the last several years i've done what you mentioned but at times felt like i got lost because i was to worried pleasing others that my own wants got lost. MIL jumped the gun when df told her about the wedding... 1. she right away told him her first two kids are in the wedding right? ... he told her it would only be maid of honor and best man. I decide to add our siblings to please her but df told her it wasnt in stone, well in less than an hour the dj knew, and the sibling knew, which i think she should have waited for us to ask them instead of her telling them . At this point if anyone drops out i'm not adding anyone in df even agreed that his younger sibling would just not be in it. His main thing was to have his brother be bestman, df also wanted to keep it just Best Man and MOH. Df having a big family has also meant that they come first with the holidays too, df is ok with slipting the holiday in half or trading off but MIL get upset. I've had to put my feeling aside many times so if someone drops out someone will get hurt but they will get over it just like i've had to several times. I know it sucks. I just feel like i cant please everyone all the time and this is a time that i just dont have the energy to try or just give in and me be the one unhappy.

 

[dreamin_disney]

PLEASE do not waste your money on table favors that will just get thrown away. I looked at the cute little plastic baskets and plastic shoes at Michaels; and the first thing I though was, what happens to this when someone takes it home? Well, it gets trashed. Plus, they were 50 cents each (in 1991!) and to buy 120 of them was $60. I ended up buying a pack of tulle circles; and two 3-pound bags of Kisses - one plain, one almond (wrapped in gold foil). I put 4 Kisses in each circle (two of each color); tied it up with about 10 inches of ribbon, tied a little plastic ring into the bow and that was that. Total cost for 120 table favors was less than $50. The though of a tulle circle getting tossed out was easier than me spending $60 on something plastic that, while it was cute, would end up in a landfill.

As you get closer to your wedding, you will come across a lot of things that will sound great but cost lots of money. Resist the urge! It seemed like $80 was the magic number for me. About 2 weeks before my wedding I thought was would be nice for the bridesmaids to have gloves. The ones I liked were $20/pair. It would have cost $80 for "nice", for all four bridesmaids. I passed. Same price for the florist to decorate my cake knives. I passed on that too; the cake knife and server were just plain.

Good luck!

i agree. df and i wanted those heart tins, we bought 2 pks with 50% coupons so spent $20 for 60 but now we need to fill them up with jelly bellys $10 for each jar and we need two. We did get costco coupons so the jelly bellys will be about $14 =$34 for favors. I'm liking the hershey favor idea. Little things are what add up and bite you in the behind-lol! DF's family keeps asking about the bar. I let them know its cash bar. Well they let me know we can purchase an amount of ticket to give to the guest for free liqour(which we would have to pay for) I let them knwo df said people can buy their own. He said we would go broke"Big drinkers"

 

[dreamin_disney]

Just send higs and good thought to you.

i sure need those hugs. I'm drained. Its even to the point where every night i dream of centerpieces, flowers, wedding dresses, that i wake up so tired. I get vacation time in 1 1/2 weeks yi[eeeeeeeeeeeeeee1

 

[readingteacher]

I used a company called Globalrose.com to do my own fresh flowers, all roses. They have all different kinds of flowers. Very cheap and turned out beautiful!

 

[bensathomas]

Here are some tips for cut wedding budget:
1. Choose to have a morning or early afternoon wedding. It's less expensive since it costs less in food and clothing, plus most weddings held at these times are more informal, so you won't need elaborate decorations.
2. Holiday weddings are more expensive because you are competing for catering services.
3. Before signing a contract with a photographer, be sure you will receive all the proofs from them. Some photographers keep the proofs and the only way you can get any pictures is by ordering them through the photographer at inflated prices.
4. Order extra envelopes when ordering your invitations. It is inevitable that you will make some addressing mistakes.
5. Some churches have their own wedding coordinators who often have a lower fee than an outside wedding consultant.

 

[MoonFaerie]

I'm a wedding photographer, and here are my observances on wedding favors: Most people don't take them. I had a wedding in 2008 where the favors were fabulous homemade soaps. The mother of the bride sent me home with a pile fo them because everyone left them.

The current trend (that was at every single one of my 2009 weddings) is a candy bar instead of favors. They put out glass dishes of various candies and some sort of small containers. (Budget wise, I'd say the best bet would be small clear cello bags, like these: http://www.nashvillewraps.com/cellophane-bags/clear-cello-bags/c-052109.html with ribbons/ties in the wedding colors.)

 

[Poohlovr]

People--please notice that this has been bumped from 2008 by someone who previously had a link to a wedding planning service as their signature!