We had always been thinking about a handmade/DIY wedding, and we most definitely still are. I can't wait to see what kind of beautiful decorations and things we can come up with in order to make this wedding unique and special for us! We are planning a casual wedding at the beach in the fall (October, more specifically), and a lot of our ideas are centered around the beach theme as well. Right now we're thinking lots of sand, seashells, mason jars, twine, burlap, bamboo, bright blues and teals with light greens, candles and twinkle lights. And we want to make and create as much as we possibly can on our own. And luckily, I have a super crafty man who will be awesome at stuff like this. (Y'all remember my handmade Valentine's card?!)
But at the same time, there are things that we can't do or make on our own, and those will probably end up being the most expensive. For one, we'll probably have to rent tables and chairs. That's kind of unavoidable, so whatever... But other things like invitations? I'm not really planning on hand-making those, but I also can't spend tons of money on them either! And I want to be able to do cute favors, without spending a fortune.
Sooo...I'm calling out to all of you! I would looove to hear your ideas, tips, tricks, awesome websites, places to buy bulk for cheap, or just whatever you can offer. If you've already planned your own wedding on a smaller budget, let me know how you did it! Or if you haven't planned your own wedding and just saw something cute that you want to share, leave a link for that too :) I need all the help I can get here ladies. Help me out with whatever information you have, and I'll be sure to check it out. And I'll of course be so grateful for the assistance of this amazing blog community!
But mostly, I cannot wait to marry this goofball with crazy hair, no matter how much we spend on the wedding :)
20 comments:
Have fun planning the wedding.
One of my besties is getting married in October in Destin, FL and pretty soon I am going to be elbow deep in center pieces and decor for her.
xoxo
Holly
Eeeeek! I'm so excited for you!! We are definately in the same boat - its so fun and exciting and totally overwhelming! We are doing a vintage/shabby chic DIY wedding here in town next February, are you this October? Email me - I may have something for you for the invitations/save-the-dates.....
Also, btw, I've named your wedding Coastal Chic ;)
I used etsy for my invitations. You pay for the design {mine came with save the dates, programs, directions to the reception card, and the actual invitation} and you take care of printing them. The design was thirty bucks and I had them printed. If you cut them yourself, you can get away with spending very little money!
We did our wedding for under $5000! Here is some of the ways we saved money: family members made most of the food for the reception including our cupcakes. We got a small cake so we would have something to cut during the reception. We made all the table decorations. Did simple flowers for the bouquets. That is all I can think of right now but if I come up with more I will share!
Oh, and we made our own invitations!
Get on theknot.com, I am still in touch with girls from my monthly board on there (they break down boards into months so you can talk with people on the same schedule as you)and we got married in 2010!
Invites: I think it's easier to order rather than DIY. I would not include extra papers and envelopes, they cost more $$. Also beware of oversized or square invites - we did square and the postage went way up on each one. There are a lot of invite sites out there and many run really good deals.
yay for wedding! and yay for getting crafty with it! it hink handmade adds an awesome personal touch!
dropping by from GYB hop
trish @ tales from ...
YAY for wedding planning. Walmart has good prices on Mason Jars & if you get their brand they are completely unmarked which is good if you want to decorate them (I was going to paint chalkboard hearts on them for guests to write their name). I shopped at TJMaxx over 6 months and collected all the pieces for my centerpieces so that I didn't have to pay that rental fee with my florist. I am attaching a link to my wedding sneak peek..if you like the centerpieces I am selling them so just let me know. I also bought the purple table overlays to go over the white cloths from the rental company, I know purple isn't your colors...but it definitely saved me money! Here's the link to my pictures: http://jerdanblog.com/home/?p=1721
Keep checking clearance sections of stores (especially after holidays) to see if anything you could use is on sale...decorations, candies, fabrics, etc. Even if something is a holiday/seasonal item, you may be able to change or tweak it so that it fits in with your wedding theme.
Also, if any stores have display pieces (shelves? stands?) that you think are interesting, don't be afraid to ask if you can have them. Some just get thrown away.
Our wedding budget was $10,000 (is it tacky to talk numbers? Oh well) and we funded it ourselves. We were all about DIY, thank goodness we had a lot of friends and family members willing to share their talents. One thing we did to save $$ was hire a photographer who was just starting out. She was amazing, but because she hadn't done many weddings, she couldn't charge that much. We hired her for 4 hours--enough to cover a little bit before the ceremony, the ceremony, group pictures after, and the very very beginning of the reception. Then we had a few friends bring their DSLR cameras to the reception and asked them to catch snaps of the first dance, cake cut, bouquet toss, etc. Those moments are candid and you really don't need high-quality professional shots. Plus you can always find someone among your friends who knows a thing or two about photography!
One piece of advice: Don't obsess over an arbitrary budget number. If it goes a little over, it goes a little over. You only get married once, so it's worth it. When I finally made peace with that and took our budget as an approximation, I was MUCH more laid-back!
I wish I had some tips for you! I think it'll be fun to have a DIY wedding. Will make it more special :)
Etsy my friend. Get on Etsy. They honestly have so much stuff on there that fits everyones budget. I don't know how fancy you want to get with the invites, but you can order the PDF rights from someone on Etsy for under $100 and then print them yourself. That can include the invite, RSVP card, directions, ect. We might be doing that...it's my back up option in case our first option falls through.
Figure out what is the most important to you both and use the majority of the budget on that. For me, that was photography and videography. We are paying for that ourselves (the rest my dad is paying for) but I knew to get what we wanted, we needed to come out of pocket. If you can't do that, then just decide what means the most to you.
I agree with Kate above on getting a newer photographer, but you run the risk of the pictures not being great. There are horror stories out there of people who used cheaper photographers and regretted it afterwards. Just be careful with that.
First Congrats! Planning a wedding is super fun and can be overwhelming at times too. But it's all worth it. Hobby Lobby was my favorite go-to shop when I was planning our wedding. We also relied on a lot of help from friends and family.
Despite the fact that neither of us are particularly crafty hubby and I made our invitations. Someone else designed them, but we put them together. And I loved how they turned out.
My biggest piece of advice is not to skimp too much on your photographer. Some of them definitely do charge way too much, but 10 years later (and 50 years later) you still want to look at those photos and know that the captured every minute of your day perfectly.
Wedding planning can be so much fun!! I actually really miss planning my wedding. We did a lot of stuff ourselves. For our invitations, I couldn't find anything that I liked in all of those sample books or online, so I actually went to a small printing company and had them custom design them. It was way cheaper that way. We had to assemble them ourselves, but considering how much we saved, I didn't mind it.
And anything you can do DIY is usually going to be cheaper. We did a wishing tree for our wedding and I think I maybe spent $10 on it and our guests loved it.
Also, look for places that are running deals. We got married in January, which is considered an off month, and because of it, we got a great deal on our venue and for our DJ. So look to see if you can find stuff like that.
The one place that I would say you definitely shouldn't skimp on is your photographers. You really do get what you pay for. We used a student photographer, and they got some great shots and some not so great shots. So definitely do your research and make sure that you are comfortable with who you are choosing.
Here is a link to all of my wedding posts. Hope it helps with all of your planning!
http://www.elliottwife.blogspot.com/p/our-wedding.html
Wedding on a budget is do-able! We paid for our wedding...it was $7000...I learned a lot about what did and doesn't work on trying to cut $$ corners. I blogged about it too. Anytime you have any questions let me know! A friend of mine stepped up and helped me in more ways than she knows. I'd love to do the same for another. :)
We gave up on trying to come in under budget and eloped!
First of all, congrats!! Wedding planning is so exciting but it can get a little overwhelming too. I'm getting married in August this year so we're in the same boat. The two biggest things I've been told to save money is to look on Etsy.com for invitations, favors, etc and sign up for theknot.com to look for deals and tips from others.
Congrats again! Biggest thing I learned, vistaprint.com has cute invitations, especially for budgets. Good luck planning!! I miss it =))
Post a Comment