Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Vintage

If you are into vintage stuff or an artsy, creative, unique wedding - be sure to check out vintage items for saving money. Some things old are now actually very modern and very costly. One of the best places to find things at the best price is estate sales. The following website is a great place to start. 

Other places would be your local thrift shops, vintage shops, garage sales... You can find all kinds of wedding items someone purchased and never used. Or just creative items that you can use that no one would think to use for a wedding. 

A few things that I have found to use for my own wedding:

* mismatched vases (white, clear glass and blue)
* mismatched cake plate stands (white, clear glass and blue)

Coming soon...All About My Wedding Cake!
 

Ring Shopping

My guy is just one of the best shoppers! He is always good at finding deals and things most of us would miss. When I told him about this blog he said, to be sure to write about the wedding ring shopping. At first we looked at the typical ring shops, then I told him why don't we check out the department stores. This is when we realized we needed to look in the clearance section. 

When you go wedding ring shopping or any shopping at all - the sales people never are going to just lead you to the clearance section. Right now with the market going down - they list jewelry as something that has gone down in price. So be sure to not pay full price! My guy got my wedding ring and my Christmas gift ring in the clearance section - paying maybe a quarter of the original price! 

With my guy I have learned to not jump in thinking that I might want a specific style or thing... Because once he has looked around he seems to find things I never would have picked up! When I put my ring on and imagined holding my flowers on the big day - I was sure that it was the right ring! I love it! 

My Christmas ring came from the same place as my wedding ring. I love it too! 

I get complements on both all the time. :)


_MG_5770-1

FREE Wedding Websites

One of my favorite found things since wedding planning! My FREE http://www.mywedding.com wedding website. 

* LOTS of Great Designs to choose from
* Easy to use
* Many page options
* Photography upload

If you have images uploaded in flickr - it is very easy to upload the html for your images to your wedding website! 


Monday, February 23, 2009

My DIY Bridal Bouquet













To view more pics from our wedding planning - I will be posting at the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahannaphoto/sets/72157614261159357/

I went to the flower shop and requested a quote - I have always wanted fresh flowers at my wedding. Yet, I did not want to spend the $$$ when I saw the bill! I spoke with the lady and took some things off, asked for smaller bouquets - still the bill didn't change much. I thought the lady should have sat down with me again or called me... She might have worked out some business from me, instead I started to think creatively. I love the vintage bird cage veil and wanted one - although it doesn't fit the style of my wedding dress. I found with some of them they had fabric flowers and vintage pins. I decided that we could make similar flowers for the bouquets. Pretty much costing me under $20 - green floral wrap, some wire, fabric, thread, feathers, beads, vintage buttons... Most of which I already had-

Right now we have my bouquet finished and I love it! It is much better in person, personally. But, I have included this quick snapshot - some of the flowers are made from vintage fabric I purchased last summer at an estate sale, then some is my mother's wedding gown.

I hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

if you are on a lower budget but want to look fabulous!

PART 2

i have a few reasons why i just LOVE outdoor weddings!


1. they are gorgeous!

2. they are much easier on the pocket or can be - i have seen some costly ones too.

3. the camera is going to LOVE it!

all three of these could go wrong with the wrong vision. we will start with location since it is the foundation of a wedding event.

with the choice of the LOCATION if you choose an outside location as my sister and i both have. you can also choose to have both the wedding and the reception at the same location. this will cut not only costs but make for less stress to you and your guests.

one location can also at times help keep costs down with your photographer.

i knew that i wanted a beach wedding - well honestly it had nothing to do with the cost - i just thought that a beach wedding would be beautiful! my sister's wedding was on a lake in a forest preserve - it was also gorgeous and very much her outdoor girl style. you can find lots of outdoor locations for a wedding - the thing i found when i was looking was that some are not so inexpensive and/or have lots of rules. so be sure to do your homework when looking for an outdoor location.

outdoor PHOTOGRAPHS! i just love them - the thing is, i have seen many outdoor wedding photographs that would just make one want to cry. a gorgeous hot summer day - that should be easy enough to photograph - right. well if you know what your doing - otherwise over and under exposure can hit you at the worst time possible, high contrast photographs in a bad way is not my thought of beautiful wedding photographs.

if you want the cute little church wedding - which we did consider. you can still usually find one of those smaller cute vintage looking churches to have your service inside for a reasonable cost - then they usually have more of a garden like yard that you could have the reception. (it is all about keeping it at one location and keeping your costs down.) over the years i have been to so many church weddings - with the reception in the basement or overflow room. i guess it makes it easy, no worry of the weather...honestly lets think outside the box more creatively. if you don't have the cute yard or you will be too worried about the weather. rent a white tent - sure if your in a budget i don't recommend your tent turning into "the father of the bride" wedding tent with crystals, ice sculptures, china and swans out front... but you could still make a pretty gorgeous wedding reception without all of that stuff.

if you check out some of the DIY (do it yourself) wedding websites you can get great idea's. tons of my own wedding idea's to cut costs way down came from looking at the amazing expensive stuff they have out these days. so look around, get idea's - just don't get drawn into the "you have to have it all idea".

well so now you have me thinking of all the amazing decor idea's one could do on a budget and yet still look fabulous! so for now i will stop...i will soon return with more layers of wedding planning cost cutting idea's and my own examples!

my gorgeous wedding on a $4,000 budget!

PART 1

a wedding on a small budget is possible!

true I come from a long line of creative ideas! yet when Kevin & I got engaged this past September 12, 2008 - we knew we wanted a gorgeous yet inexpensive wedding! well right now we are pretty much planned out and under $4,000! we have about 150 guests invited - although we did start with a goal of 50 guests. had we started with more I'm sure that we would be well over 150 now. one thing that has helped us to stay with in that head count is our reception location (which is just inside of our wedding location) has a fire code of 150.

my sister and her husband married outside in a forest preserve years ago. they have been my inspiration for our inexpensive wedding. it was on a small lake, it rained the day before and after. yet the day of the wedding it was gorgeous and the photographs from the day are beautiful!

being a photographer photographs are a very, very important part of my wedding. with that said, i will continue this blog with more details on how we are creating an amazing wedding on a small budget!

***TIP: when i started all my wedding planning back in September I wanted a wedding website - yet i didn't want to pay $25, $40 or what ever they seem to be charging... I looked around for the free options and on my second try I found the BEST FREE wedding website! http://www.mywedding.com i love many things about this site, one being you can post tons of photographs!

Enjoy!