Wedding on a Budget

After a failed attempt at making my centerpieces, I decided perhaps that is an area of design I am just really bad at. Time for me to spend some money and have a professional do it. It will kill my budget but what I made was supper ugly.

Then Dr. Myers came to rescue me! She came, took my vision and helped Brian and I make a centerpeice prototype. It was great. The three of us went to Michael’s and we all participated in picking the flowers. We got home. Brian had a white russian and we started working. The first foam ball wasn’t great but the second, got us this.

That is not the vase we will use. We are ordering some 24″ trumpet vases. They will sit on a round mirror and rose petal will be scattered around the vase. I’m so excited. The vases won’t be here until after our cruise so that will be what Brian and I will work on in March.

Without Dr. Myers, I would be paying a lot of money for centerpeices. Yay for great friends!

R.S.V.P. stands for a French phrase, “répondez, s’il vous plaît,” which means “please reply.”

I suppose that I know certain people are coming to the wedding and I don’t need the RSVP to know that. I probably didn’t even have to send them an invitation. However, for those that haven’t told me, then please RSVP. I included stamps!  In fact, it would be nice to get all back because its something I’d like to keep in my scrapbook.

Please reply.

The other thing that our event coordinator asked us was if were going to have programs. Hmmm….I hadn’t thought about until then but told her yes because I think it would be nice. I could print it on some 8×11.5 card stock and fold it in half.

Then I was inspired by a blog I came across online. The bride had made a custom program. After reading how she did it, I was like, “this is easy!”

Here is my first prototype.

There is still some more tweaking to be done and I still have to finalize the information on it. I also need to get my eyelets and crop-a-dile tool to really see how the fan can open and close. I also think I need thicker card stock. 110 lb. doesn’t feel like its going to be enough.

Since it is a May wedding and it will be outside, fans actually might come in handy.

Okay, so when we went to our planning meeting a few weeks ago, our event planner asked if we were bringing cocktail napkins. “We don’t know.”

So I decided to get some pricing. I figured, red could be cute. But if its too expensive then I would just let them use the plain white ones the venue provides free of charge. I really should not even look. This is a budget wedding so why not use the free ones. Then I found the perfect cocktail napkins. A little more than I wanted to spend but how could I resist? It had double happiness on it! I ordered red with the personalization in gold. I can’t wait to see them! And I can’t wait for you to wipe your mouth

Well, it’s been a long time, folks.  Time for an update!

And the crowd goes wild!

So, coming from a really small town where the economy has never seemed all that great, I always thought that some of the things that get done for a wedding seem, well, pretentious.  Things like rose petals and chair coverings and limos.  Not to mention, these often add significant cost to a wedding, which is kind of counter to the whole “Wedding on a budget” mindset.

Well, I guess it is time to call myself pretentious.

Kim and I had an appointment yesterday with a linens place, and we ended up with some colored satin linens for the wedding.  Lots of red and gold, and because of that, I also thought we should mix it up just a bit where we could.  My first idea was called “dizzying” by the linen consultant and Kimmie.  I toned it back a bit,  so now below we have the two arrangements for our chair coverings, the red with gold sash for the guests, and the gold with red sash for us.

And below, you will now see an example of our guests’ tables: red tablecloth with gold overlay.  There will be red napkins for the guests.  Ours will be reverse from this, and the cake table will simply have the red tablecloth.  More on the cake to follow.

So what is all this finery adding to our costs?  About $230.  But it looks so pretty, and it was something I heavily participated in!!!  And we think it will look striking at the venue. We went with First Impressions (http://www.firstimpressionsrentals.com/).

And, since I mentioned it above, it is time to talk cake.  Yes, we did this yesterday as well.  We had sampled some of the preferred providers at a recent food tasting at Payne-Corley, and one of the bakeries had some cake that very much tasted like the cakes my mom used to make.  They were all good, but, I had to consult with that bakery.

Our appointment went well, and we’ve already gone ahead and paid for our cake ($313).  It will be a three tier white cake with white buttercream frosting, the top tier on a pedestal.  On the top of the of second layer, flowing down the side will be roses made from frosting, and each layer will have a soft rolling design in red.  Finally, the cake will be topped with…

Nah, I’m going to wait to tell you what’s going on top — we don’t have them yet, but we’re working on it. 

I know its been a while since I’ve written anything. Work has been busy and we haven’t really done much for the wedding planning.

Let’s see, we finished our first dance class. It was much better then we both expected. We learned Waltz, Swing and Rumba. I think we have the Waltz down. Swing is getting there but we need  a lot help with our rumba. We plan to take another class after the new year. We also plan on taking some personal lessons after we figure out a song for our first dance. We have no idea yet. Suggestions?

We have our first meeting with our event specialist at the Payne Corley House the second week of Jan. That should be good. We’ll get to see the place again and start thinking about layouts of tables and decorations.

We still have not met with a cake place yet. We really need to. *sigh*

As we enter 2010, hopefully, I’ll have more updates.

For those who don’t know, last night an event happened that had many of us concerned about Kim’s health status. I know some had been trying to find out whatever information they could to find out if Kim is alright.

Kim is fine. I only stepped on her foot once during the whole dance class.

Doubters.

NO WAY!

So we both realize we might not be very good.  I might be a little better than Brian.

Today, I officially signed us up for Ballroom Dancing for beginners. Hopefully that will give us a good base to work with. Going to the club is one thing. Formal couple dance is a totally different story. Classes start Nov. 2 and run for 6 weeks. Wish us luck!

We are taking it through a local instructor that holds group classes at county parks. Her site: http://www.allaboutballroom.net/

If all goes well then we might take the intermediate class after the first of the year. If we really like her then we’ll get some private time for her to help us with a dance for our first song.  Should we do a traditional dance or change it up and bust some moves?!?!??!?!

So along with the invitations that I purchased a Big Lots (talked about in a different post), I also picked up a flower baskets and ring pillow set for a whopping $2.00. However it didn’t match our wedding color, red.  We aren’t going to have a ring bearer and flower girl either. I bought it and thought, it I toss it, whats two bucks?

As it sat there on my dining room table while I worked on Save the Date cards, I got inspired to do something. I went out to Wal-mart and picked up two small spools of red ribbon at $1.00 each and here is the result.

We can use the pillow to set the rings on ahead of time at the front where our officiant (Newbie) will be. The basket…..I can fill it with petals but it can be for decoration on the sign in table or something.

So the last DJ we interviewed was dramatically different from the first one we met. When asked how he kept up to date with his music…his response, “I stay very up to date, see….” as he pulled out a stack of papers with song titles. He said he had personally typed them himself. If we sign then we would get a copy and were to highlight what we wanted.

– What kind of equipement do you use?  Real good equipment.

– How do you back yourself and make sure things are available for the day? (aka, the song list) I have backup of everything. In fact I make you a disc of the songs for you so if anything, we can play from CD that I will make for you.

– Do you offer Karoake services? Yes, but you shouldn’t pay the extra. Anyone that is going to sing will already know the lyrics. Let people sing along to the music and save some money.

Sigh…the first DJ had and elaborate website that DJ’s buy into and everything is online, from song selection to event planning. He stored his music repository on laptop, external hard drive, etc.

I’m sorry, you can’t be shuffling papers and CDs with all the technology that is out there today. This last DJ is “NOT” making the final cut. I am not a tree hugger but I do think technology has replaced the need for paper in many situations.