I wanted our wedding to be as personalized as possible. But of course without the hefty price tag. I wanted to focus the theme around us and our personalities. So when it came to deciding what our “wedding colors” would be we simply went with his favorite color and mine…. pink and blue!
Then I searched all the popular sites to get ideas on props, favors and décor. I fell in love with etsy.com. Not only was it a great site but it was mostly handmade products. I found an adorable sign to direct our guests for the ceremony for $89.00 (this included the shipping cost).
I also found my gift card box on ETSY for $70.00 ($50.00 plus $20.00 for shipping). This might seem like a lot for a box but it was so adorable and well worth it. I figured since I had to cut a lot of the big ticket items out of my budget, I could add a little extra drama to the little things.
I ordered fans to place in each of the chairs during the ceremony. An outside wedding in Florida….you always have to be prepared for heat and rain. I had a covered patio as back-up for rain and fans for the guests during the ceremony. I found wine labels for our wines which you could easily make yourselves but I got a little lazy at this point with the crafts (http://www.myownlabels.com). I had pink labels for the white wine and blue labels for the red wine.
The beauty of Davis Islands Garden Club is all the amazing things you can do without being tied to their catering, liquor and all the other services tied in when having a wedding at a hotel. Granted, you have a little extra more work on your hands but you can turn an empty canvas into your own little masterpiece. Davis Islands also had some extras you could rent thru them. I’m not going to say I was pleased with their pricing on the “extras” but they help transform the venue. The garden club rented out draping for the back patio for $300 and then they rented out white cushions for the patio seating that wrapped around the patio….that was $400 (for pillow cushions)!! That was absurd to me; however it was a must because it made the area look empty and bland without them. The white patio cushions dressed it up nicely. So, I bit my tongue and paid the fee. I also was able to negotiate with Davis Islands for the Anastasia Chandeliers. These made the back patio look so elegant.
I then found very reasonably priced items on The Knot’s wedding shop. I ordered personalized cocktail napkins and matches. This too was a nice little detail that added a lot to our décor.
I had a “travel” theme wedding which I will touch more on in another post but I had found a 3 ft wire Eiffel tower for the escort card table on eBay. I think the shipping cost more than the actual tower.
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| I didn't have a picture of our Eiffel Tower but our videographer did and he used the image for our highlight video! |
We splurged a bit and got a cigar roller for the reception. This was a HUGE hit with the guys. The guys had a cigar in their hand all night long….
I used http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/ for our "Save the Dates" that turned out awesome and I used http://www.zazzle.com/ for our menu cards. These were both very reasonable and turned out great!
My purpose of this post is to relay to all you brides that you can really dress up your wedding at a much smaller cost, you just have to put the work in. There are thousands of websites with good deals, just spend some time looking for them and I guarantee you will not only save money….you may find some other great ideas for your wedding along the way.
http://www.moderndayevents.com/
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