Saving on Weddings
Today's newsletter was on weddings. You can read the article here.
I also had some great reader comments and thought I would share them here also.
Hope this gives you some frugal ideas on weddings! Tawra
From Gerri:
Wedding Savings for 200 people.
Not everyone is going to approve of this one...
Decorations- Free!My brother in law worked at a
funeral parlor. I ended up with many large
bouquets of flowers for my wedding which we broke
down into smaller bouquets and table toppers. I
also got all my pew markers and misc too.
Alcohol- Free! My uncle provided homemade white &
red wine as his gift to us.
Bartender- $100.00 Nobody wanted to be
responsible for this. We paid a bartender
$100.00 to provide the service with a reasonable
drink prize. Whatever profit he made was his and
we didn't have to worry about the bill. This
worked out great.
Invitations- Free. My husband exchanged some
work with the owner.
Wedding Cake- Free. I borrowed a wedding display
cake and made a real cake to replace the top
layer for cutting.
Cupcakes- Cheap enough. We served platters of
chocolate cupcakes with "icing dip," and various
sprinkles (cookie crumbs, coloured sugar) in the
center so you could create your own wedding
cupcake. (My way of not having to ice anything).
People LOVED this!!!! How many weddings did you
to play with your food at????
Church- $100.00 donation
Hall- $50.00 My in laws have been members of the
masonic hall.
Food- $500.00 Again the Eastern Star ladies
provided the family style meal. I wanted to
stick with the basics. So the meal consisted of
roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, scalloped
potatoes, reg salad, Caesar salad, corn, carrots,
white & whole wheat buns, plenty of butter &
gravy. This fed 200 people plus take home
packages for the families housing wedding guests.
To this day I still have people tell me that our
wedding was so relaxed, fun and I'm amazed myself
how many people thought that we had the best meal
ever!!!
Always ask & brainstorm for ideas. There is
always something new or unique out there.
P.S If you do decide to go the funeral route
keep it to yourself. Some things are best kept
to yourself!
From April:
I am planning my wedding at the end of May and we saved big time on invitations! As a web & graphic designer I was able to custom design my own email invitations that matched some blank printable invitations that were bought at Hobby Lobby. I took it a step further and used my E-Market, email newsletter software to send the invitations. For just $30, plus 3 cents per email, I was able to send the email invitations and monitor who opens them and when. This way I can follow-up with a phone call or by mail. I took it one step further and incorporated an online rsvp system. I created a database to store everyone’s rsvp information and sort yes, no and calculate the number of attendants. No sort or counting needed. So many invites loved this idea that I have decided I am going to market it to other brides. You can find out more information by visiting http://www.designsbyalm.com/weddings
Tawra,
I very much enjoy your web
I agree w/ your wedding tips We were married
19 years ago . My father gave me some Money
but i spent about 6,000. and I had a very large
wedding In today's times That would be 25,000 to
30,000.Value I do not understand why people
getting married spend so much . When my own folks
were
married they only served cake and wine .
A wedding is w/ two people making a commitment
to live their life together
and having a wedding can be very simple
and it should stay that way
and i enjoyed what you shared
Tracy
From: Debbie T.
Saw this on the news the other night and thought
it might be good info to put on your wedding
discount site!!
http://www.filenesbasement.com/bridal.jsp
I could spend from $249. to $699. and get a
designer gown worth up to $10,000 or more. Great
deal for those who want that look!!
Blessings, Debbie
Note from Tawra:Ok, I admit stampeding for a dress is just way over the top for me. This just seems like the ultimate in our selfish society but hey if you really want that dress I guess it's a away to save.
I also had some great reader comments and thought I would share them here also.
Hope this gives you some frugal ideas on weddings! Tawra
From Gerri:
Wedding Savings for 200 people.
Not everyone is going to approve of this one...
Decorations- Free!My brother in law worked at a
funeral parlor. I ended up with many large
bouquets of flowers for my wedding which we broke
down into smaller bouquets and table toppers. I
also got all my pew markers and misc too.
Alcohol- Free! My uncle provided homemade white &
red wine as his gift to us.
Bartender- $100.00 Nobody wanted to be
responsible for this. We paid a bartender
$100.00 to provide the service with a reasonable
drink prize. Whatever profit he made was his and
we didn't have to worry about the bill. This
worked out great.
Invitations- Free. My husband exchanged some
work with the owner.
Wedding Cake- Free. I borrowed a wedding display
cake and made a real cake to replace the top
layer for cutting.
Cupcakes- Cheap enough. We served platters of
chocolate cupcakes with "icing dip," and various
sprinkles (cookie crumbs, coloured sugar) in the
center so you could create your own wedding
cupcake. (My way of not having to ice anything).
People LOVED this!!!! How many weddings did you
to play with your food at????
Church- $100.00 donation
Hall- $50.00 My in laws have been members of the
masonic hall.
Food- $500.00 Again the Eastern Star ladies
provided the family style meal. I wanted to
stick with the basics. So the meal consisted of
roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, scalloped
potatoes, reg salad, Caesar salad, corn, carrots,
white & whole wheat buns, plenty of butter &
gravy. This fed 200 people plus take home
packages for the families housing wedding guests.
To this day I still have people tell me that our
wedding was so relaxed, fun and I'm amazed myself
how many people thought that we had the best meal
ever!!!
Always ask & brainstorm for ideas. There is
always something new or unique out there.
P.S If you do decide to go the funeral route
keep it to yourself. Some things are best kept
to yourself!
From April:
I am planning my wedding at the end of May and we saved big time on invitations! As a web & graphic designer I was able to custom design my own email invitations that matched some blank printable invitations that were bought at Hobby Lobby. I took it a step further and used my E-Market, email newsletter software to send the invitations. For just $30, plus 3 cents per email, I was able to send the email invitations and monitor who opens them and when. This way I can follow-up with a phone call or by mail. I took it one step further and incorporated an online rsvp system. I created a database to store everyone’s rsvp information and sort yes, no and calculate the number of attendants. No sort or counting needed. So many invites loved this idea that I have decided I am going to market it to other brides. You can find out more information by visiting http://www.designsbyalm.com/weddings
Tawra,
I very much enjoy your web
I agree w/ your wedding tips We were married
19 years ago . My father gave me some Money
but i spent about 6,000. and I had a very large
wedding In today's times That would be 25,000 to
30,000.Value I do not understand why people
getting married spend so much . When my own folks
were
married they only served cake and wine .
A wedding is w/ two people making a commitment
to live their life together
and having a wedding can be very simple
and it should stay that way
and i enjoyed what you shared
Tracy
From: Debbie T.
Saw this on the news the other night and thought
it might be good info to put on your wedding
discount site!!
http://www.filenesbasement.com/bridal.jsp
I could spend from $249. to $699. and get a
designer gown worth up to $10,000 or more. Great
deal for those who want that look!!
Blessings, Debbie
Note from Tawra:Ok, I admit stampeding for a dress is just way over the top for me. This just seems like the ultimate in our selfish society but hey if you really want that dress I guess it's a away to save.
posted by Tawra Jean at 2:45 PM
2 Comments:
Tawra, I also wanted to comment, that you can order 75 Roses from Sam's club for $116.42 overnight shipping included. Now this doesn't include greenery or babies breath, and someone needs to be available to receive the flowers and put them in water, but it is a great buy. They also have other flowers in bulk. I used the Sam's roses for a large shower that I threw and they were beautiful.
We did a wedding for 220, with a meal, for only $1,000 almost 10 years ago.
I'd read that only 4 percent of daughters choose to wear their mother's wedding gown, and I'd seen many such boxes taking up lots of space in closets, so decided to borrow a dress and veil. She let me pay only to have it re-preserved.
For $60, (thank you again, Hobby Lobby!) a friend did all the flowers for the wedding party, all the couples reading Scripture, all 7 children in the wedding, etc. My groom grew my 2 favorite kinds of flowers for my bouquet. :-)
We chose a radical reception location, too---right in the church (where most receptions used to be held until a few years ago)! Since we were church members, hey wouldn't charge us anything except for the janitor afterward.
The meal was sandwiches (on bread from the best bakery in our metro area), chips, veggies and dip, and other sides. People really liked being able to go straight to the reception, and get started eating, instead of having to wait on us while we were doing photos. (Especially bec. it was a mid-morning wedding, with lots of children there!)
Friends did the decorations by themselves, and we didn't have to worry at all about them, (except for paying for the helium) and our church's wedding coordinator did all the sanctuary decorations by herself, also at no cost to us. And may we say they were gorgeous--but simple: Lots of candles, two candelabra, a little greenery and bows.
The photographer was a church member who let us pay only for the film and developing...and took such great shots that we get lots of compliments on them.
An extended family member was learning to decorate cakes, so ours was donated by my MIL. Turned out to be kinda crumbly, but didn't bother us--hey, we were still married!
No one in the wedding party had to buy outfits, either--everyone has a nice dress or suit, (or access to one), and all the little girls already had a pretty church dress.
The 5 flower girls (my whole Kdg Sun School class, minus the little boys, who weren't interested!), had gorgeous (spray-painted, from garage sales) keepsake silk flower baskets with pearl strands and lots of ribbons, and darling head wreaths that matched. They treasured them for long afterward.
We're still deliriously happy, by God's great kindness and our good choices, after "nearly 10 years of wedded bliss," as we like to say!
Oh--and it was also delightful to plan to have enough money left over to give double the honoraria to our pastor, the organist, etc....AND to have enough left over to have a 2-week honeymoon at a Christian camp cabin on Lake Superior (with lots of sentimental meaning to us from college days), plus some camping in Canada after!
Another area where we would really urge people to concentrate their spending is on solid premarital counseling, including the PREPARE Inventory, which predicts compatibility and measures strengths and weaknesses in all areas of marriage. Plus the Meyers-Briggs Scale, which "saves a lot of years of fighting," as we'd heard on Christian radio. And it's true!! We're 14 of the 16 possible types apart (!), but are able to process that without much negativity at all, based, also, on our training from the Christian psychologist who administered the tests.
Divorce runs rampant in both our families of origin, so we were determined to do as much prevention as possible. Many of the ideas came from "Focus on the Family", "Family Life Today," and other Christian radio shows, plus the book, "Marriage Savers," by Mike McManus.
We LOVE Marriage Encounter's slogan: "The wedding lasts but a day; the marriage lasts a lifetime!"
Tawra, your own wedding stories are inspiring, too....and so are the entire site and blog!! Thanks so much!!
Kim and Gordon
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