Frugal Me #2 - A Flowerless Wedding

I know it is very early on to choose such a big thing, but here is a very brief summary about my relationship with flowers you help you understand why.

1. I receive the gorgeous arrangement 
2. I put them in water (the arrangement suffers drastically)
3. I forget to change the water (or that they are there in general)
4. They Die
5. 3 weeks later I finally notice and throw out the smelly science experiment they have become

On top of that if you look at my general wedding pinterest board it is seriously lacking in flower inspiration. Even the newly created bouquet board has almost no flowers on it. So clearly my subconscious couldn't care less about flowers. AND! Flowers are REALLY expensive! So I saw an opportunity to save some cash by not having any flowers at my wedding.

Now let's talk numbers for a sec. I used http://www.costofwedding.com/ to do their default calculation for a wedding of 100 guests with a total cost of $21,851 (this is basically the average cost for a typical wedding) Here is the section on flowers.

-Bride's Bouquet - $167
-Bridesmaids & Groomsmen - $284 + $146 = $430
-Centerpieces & Decor - $355 + $471 = $826
-Ceremony Flowers - $471
-Flower Petals - $103 (this seems like a silly category to me, but whatever!)
Average cost of flowers total - $2,025 (9.3% of total average wedding cost)

Via

A quick pinterest search brought up this gem (Right) that I can do a basic estimation from.
1 Flower = 1 Yard of 1 inch ribbon
50 yards = $20
Supplies needed & costs:
Needle & Thread - $3
Wire - $40
Main Bouquet Ribbon - $ (50 Flowers)
Bridesmaids & Groomsman (10 total) Ribbon - $ (160 Flowers)
Centerpieces Ribbon - $ (200 Flowers)
Ceremony Ribbon -$ (200 Flowers)
Extra Ribbon - $12 (30yrds)
Supplies total: $299 (610 Flowers)

Cost difference of fresh flowers vs super basic ribbon alternative: $1,726!

Also this will take a lot of time so you would have to decided if the time it would take to make all of these is worth the $1,726 difference. For me that was a pretty obvious decision since I would spend my TV watching couch potato time making them. I don't plan on just using ribbon flowers either. I want to have a mix of several things keeping with my vintage carnival theme.

Via

Hate ribbon? Here are some other options I came across when looking for ideas.
-Broaches
-Pin Wheels
-Candy
-Paper/Origami
-Silk or Fake Flowers
-Feathers
-Fabric & Lace
-Toys!

This list could really go on forever depending on how crazy you wanted to go with your decor. And keep in mind this is a great and unique opportunity to insert some of your personality into your wedding. On the right is a fun example of boutonnieres I found in my flowerless search.

What other ideas are out there? What cool flower alternatives did you use or plan on using? Let me know in the comments!

Also I will be doing a Pin Party! later this month on my favorite non flower options I found so stay tuned!

How I Accidentally Found my Dress

It didn't hit us until we started walking to the car. We REALLY just bought our wedding dresses! I certainly felt weird buying my dress over a year before my wedding, but it just seemed so right. Here is how it happened.

The week before I was going through my email and I had a message about a wedding event in Napa. It was strange because the past few events I had been to were never so close. So I asked Olivia (my maid of honor) if I could drag her to another wedding show. She of course said yes and a few days later we got lost (in the town I live in) looking for the event...

So when we finally got there we looked around. It was a bit smaller than I had thought but there were A LOT of dresses! This was a Brides Against Breast Cancer event.

Brides against breast cancer is a non profit organization that collects donated wedding dresses and resells them at a discount to raise money to help people with cancer. Since wedding dresses are usually only worn once it means these dresses are usually in pretty good shape. All the ones at the event I went to practically looked brand new other than a little pull or stain here and there. Easy fixes! Overall they do a really good job and I would really recommend buying your dress at one of their events. Plus you will save a ton of money and what you do spend goes to a great cause! Win Win!

So back to shopping! We started looking around and instantly found tons of hilarious dresses! It was too much fun looking at the crazy dresses that someone actually wore on their big day! So I grabbed a few short dresses that I thought might have a chance and then Olivia and I both decided to try on one of the silly dresses just for fun. I chose a big poofy long dress, the complete opposite of what I wanted or planned on getting.

Can you guess what dresses happened to look amazing and fit us both perfectly?
Yeah, the silly dresses...

When I looked in the mirror after zipping it up I actually said "Oh no!" because I really really liked it and it fit like a glove. I then looked at the price tag hoping it was too expensive. It was really affordable! DARN!

Olivia's was an amazing deal also and we ended up getting them. It didn't really hit us until we were walking out to the car and we weren't entirely sure what to do after because of the shock of doing something so impulsive. It was a strange day.

So that is how I accidentally bought my wedding dress! Well, one of them anyway... but that is story for another day!

Simple DIY Abstract Art

A crucial part of wedding planning is to STOP PLANNING!

Allow me a little tangent real quick!
It is really easy to get burnt out on all this stuff and I think if my best friend hadn't gotten engaged soon after me (CONGRATS OLIVIA!) I would have been just about sick of teal carnivals! Luckily I can help her plan a totally different adorable theme, Valentines Day wedding! It is like a breath of fresh air to think about her wedding, but keep all the momentum I had built from the planning I was doing for my own.

If you are not crazy like me and enjoy taking a break from wedding planning by wedding planning, I would suggest spending some extra time on your favorite hobbies. I am going to try this too with my blog. Every month or two I am going to have a completely wedding free post. I will share fun things and tutorials that I am doing around the house. I think this will be a nice break for all of us and might help tame the inner bridezilla!

I am going to start things off this week with a abstract painting I did recently with my hubby to be! It was very simple and had unexpectedly amazing results!

We started off with 5 blank canvases we bought at a craft store for super cheap. They were all ready to paint on so we laid them out and marked where we wanted them to sit next to each other. We moved every other canvas up 2 inches to give it a fun look.

After everything was measured and in the right place we taped across all the canvases to hold it together.

We used electrical tape. It wasn't my first choice but it gave us really clean lines in the end so it all worked out!

Then we went tape crazy! We tried to have more tape lines in the center to create a focus point. Next we grabbed the colors we thought would look nice and started painting the sections that the tape made. The center we left the paint solid, and as it got closer to the outside edges we started mixing the colors.

We got a little too excited and ripped the tape off before I could snag a picture with all the tape still on. It was messy and looked weird. At that point we really didn't have high hopes of the project looking like we had planned, but then we took the tape off and it was perfect!

Ta Da! We hung it up in the living room and now we get to look at it everyday!
This project was super easy and fun and I would highly recommend it to anyone no artsyness required! If you can paint semi in the lines you can do this. After buying the canvases, paint and tape the whole project cost under $30.

So go out and make some art!

Frugal Me #1 - Learning Calligraphy

Hello Internet!

Today I am starting the first post of a series called Frugal Me, where I will tell you about the ways I saved some serious cash on my wedding. I don't have much of a budget at all, but that doesn't stop me from wanting things that I simply can't afford. So I am doing what I can to eat my cake and have it too!

One of these things was Calligraphy for the invitations and other paper goods for the wedding. It can be really pricey and doesn't leave room for last minute additions (I think I would have a panic attack if I didn't have the option to do things last minute!) Being pretty artsy I saw it as a way to save some cash if I do it myself and after my mom told me that I can't (thanks mom!), I decided it was definitely happening!

After some research online I bought these 2 books:

                 
 The Calligrapher's Bible                                Learn Calligraphy

Both books are very good but the calligraphy bible is AMAZING!

What I love most about it is it takes the scary "What is this magic!?" out of calligraphy. It has hundreds of alphabets and gives you the stroke by stroke for each letter of every one of them! (see right) 





After reading the Intro and jumping to a page I thought looked doable this is what my first attempt looked like.

Not bad right? it certainly isn't perfect but it looks like letters and you can read it so I am going to count this as a win.

I have to admit I had a little experience with dip pens before, but it was for illustration, and calligraphy is a whole different animal! All I could really transfer was knowing when to dip the pen...

Speaking of pens! I purchased this set from my local art store and it has been working great for me!

Speedball 6-Nib Calligraphy Lettering Set

...and how could I resist getting some teal ink! (I know, no one's surprised...)

My first practice project was to make valentines and had a blast! I never thought how much fun this was going to end up being. I did it initially just to save money, but this is something I see myself doing for a long time. I will keep you updated with my progress. Next I want to practice addressing envelopes, since that is mostly what I will need to do for the wedding.

What cool artsy projects have you been up to lately? Ever wanted to take a stab at calligraphy? Let me know in the comments!

Creating a Wedding Budget You Can Afford

Hello Internet!

I hope last post's tips help you save some cash in your wedding planning! This week I am going to get down to the nitty gritty of how I came up with my budget since I took a different route when calculating it.

Since I don't have the $25,000 to spend on my wedding like the average, I started by figuring out how much I had to work with. Since we are pretty much paying for our wedding ourselves and I didn't have a wedding savings account full of cash, I decided making said savings account would be a good start. After creating the account I looked at my regular monthly budget and figured out how much I could afford to put into it each month. Once I had all that figured out I had some hard numbers to work with.

Now this budget gave me a total number that I would have saved by the wedding date we picked, but that doesn't help much since I only have access to a fraction of the total each month.

My solution!

I flipped over my Wedding Planning Timeline and wrote what amounts would be in the fund in each corresponding month. Mind blowing right!?

Next I went through and found all the things I would need to pay for in what month and put them on the backside. This gave me a good idea of how spread out my purchases are. Then I estimated my big ticket items (based on what I would have), subtracted those amounts, and then recalculated what I would have each month. Then I did the same thing with lower cost items. I had to do some rearranging to make sure I had enough money when each of the purchases was scheduled to come up, but I made everything fit.

This systems worked great for me because it made sure I stayed on the budget that I know I can afford and won't go into debt for a party. It also helps keep me in check  because I can visually see what would happen if I made a bad fiscal decision.

For example if I go over budget on the centerpieces in May I won't have enough money by August to pay for my invites. If the invites go out late because I had to save up more money, then the timeline gets thrown off and I have a panic attack and die!!!

Okay maybe not exactly like that, but you get the idea!

This plan is a "Work with what you've got" strategy instead of struggling to afford things I think I need.

And remember it is a big party you don't need to go overboard!

10 Simple Tips To Save Money on Your Wedding

"On average, US couples spend $25,200 for their wedding. However, the majority of couples spend between $18,900 and $31,500. This does not include cost for a honeymoon."

Via costofwedding.com

Ouch! When I found that out I freaked out! I don't have that kind of money for a party!
Then I realized family and friends are more than happy to help out any way they can and depending on who you know it can really cut costs. The panic I felt is now gone and I have my Top 10 Easy Tips to calm the shock I may have just given you!

10 Simple Tips To Save Money on Your Wedding

Tip #1 - Call in every favor you can! 
This is the time to use those favors and IOUs you have collected over the years. Try to think of anyone that may be able to help out and ask them to! Usually they are happy to help for big events like this.

Tip #2 - Offer a Trade
This works great if you know it would be a burden on the person to give you their services for free. Is there something you can give them to make it worth it for both of you? Do you have a chef friend? Will they cook if you buy the food and supplies? This works with people you don't know also. If you have a service that someone is willing to trade their services for, Go for it! It never hurts to ask.

Tip #3 - Do It Yourself (if possible)
I have heard a bunch of disaster DIY wedding stories and it certainly can turn you into bridezilla quicker than anything else, but it is one of the biggest ways to save money. The key to this is to start early! I bought a bin for my storage shed and got started on anything I could make ahead of time and threw it in the bin when I finished it. I was at the 18 months before mark and I was already starting on my centerpieces.

Tip #4 - Splurge Smart
Don't go over the top, it is just a big party that only lasts one day. Talk it over with the fiance and pick one or 2 things that really matter to you. Those are the things you should splurge on. Try to go as cheap as possible on all the other things that don't mean as much to the two of you.

Tip #5 - Keep An Open Mind
Don't be too quick to say no to something because it is too cheap, expensive, or weird. There are lots of ways to work an expensive look into a cheap budget. Something that may have seemed weird when you first started planning may end up being perfect once you learned more or really hammered down your vision.

Tip #6 - Push your date back
The farther you are from your wedding date the more time you will have to save up money. It also gives you more time to DIY and plan!

Tip #7 - Trim Down Your Guest List
This is a hard but very effective way to save money! Mentally it makes it easier to take people off the invite list if you remember it is about you! Each and every person you are inviting should be someone you want there with you that day. Figure out an estimate on how much each person is costing you to be there and you will quickly realize it is NOT cheap with a lot of people! Food, invitations, rental items, and more will all go down in price with fewer people.

Tip #8 - Get Your Decor On Sale
You can find color themed decor on clearance after major holidays like Christmas and Valentines Day. Easter and Christmas are great decorating holidays that have a larger variety of colors to choose from. Also keep an eye out, some holidays may have colors that don't instantly come to mind. For example if you think Christmas you think Red and Green, but it is also a great time to find Silver, Gold, and Light Blues!

Tip #9 - Get Creative!
A lot of little savings add up quick if you can get creative with your choices. Maybe you can go with a cheaper in season flower, or even skip flowers all together and do candles or another fun item for the decor. You can do a signature themed cocktail instead of having an open bar. If you keep your theme in mind taking a lot of simple shortcuts can save A LOT of money.

Tip #10 - Start a wedding savings account
Throw a set amount of money in there each paycheck and DO NOT touch it! The items you couldn't find a free or cheap way to do have to get paid for somehow and this is how. Knowing how much money you can put into it each month will also help you get an idea of how much of a wedding you can realistically afford.

Next time I will talk about how I figured out my wedding budget.

Now it's your turn! What are your best tips for saving money on your wedding?