After It's All Said & Done!

So it has been 22 days since we have been married, and after everything is all over I can now focus on posting about things I did to make our day perfect! So here goes the breakdown of major costs from our wedding:

1. Food (36 dinners @ $20.95, plus 9.3% tax and 18% gratuity): $960.10
2. Dress (with alterations of $115): $716.14
3. Drinks (beer & wine, plus 18% gratuity): $568.76
4. Venue: $350
5. Flowers: $288
6. Photography: $250
7. Cakes(with delivery cost): $176
8. Sound System Rental: $164.25
9. Officiant: $150 
10. Bride hair and makeup: $110
11. Groom Tux Rental: $110 
12. Decorations still need to be tallied up.

Grand Total: 3843.25

Although $3800 is a lot of money, in wedding-sense it definitely is not! I was very happy with how everything turned out, although if I had the money to have people set stuff up for me I would have paid for it! Other than that, it was everything I hoped it would be :)

Finalized DIY Centerpieces with Flowers!

After debating with myself on how I wanted my centerpieces set up, I realized that the cylinders I bought from the dollar store were not big enough for the large tables at the wedding. Good thing I decided to get bigger vases because the flowers that were ordered would NOT have fit! After looking around at Michael's for some vases, I found some that were only $7.99 regular price. 

Of course, I didn't actually pay $7.99 for them! I bought I think just one for regular price, and the other 4 were bought with a 40% off coupon. This made the total price for all 5 vases (with tax) $29.69!

This is the completed look. I wanted to have clear gel balls as the vase fillers (would have taken 5 packages from the dollar store for each vase) but somehow with all the other things I had to think about I forgot and ended up not having anything. But that's OK! One of the best pieces of advice I was told before the wedding was: "if something goes wrong, you will be the only one to know because you are the one with the plan in your head". That is SO true and helped me not care about tiny details not going the way I envisioned. 

(This was a "practice run" after I gathered everything I wanted, including fake flowers to somewhat see the vision)

The table runners were originally supposed to be a table overlay. I bought this gold organza from Joann's on sale for $5.99 a yard. I brought it to my venue to see how big I should cut it, but the fabric was not wide enough to make it an overlay:( The lady who was the event coordinator suggested that we just made a runner out of it. This idea was actually perfect because it ended up being cheaper in the end because I could make 4 runners out of the fabric I bought which would have been enough for 2 overlays (had that worked as planned). 

Flowers were a big part of my excitement for the decorations! I will make a post about flowers, but for the sake of the centerpieces post, I will just break it down by approx cost per flower (we bought in bulk). We bought white hydrangea, light pink roses, and pink spray roses. 

Each centerpiece had 4 stems of hydrangea, about 10 light pink roses, and 6 stems of spray roses (each stem had 2-3 bulbs on it). This brings the total to about $29.08 per vase. Each pink vase also had one stem of hydrangea so the total cost of flowers on each table $32.54.

This price does not reflect the head table which had my bouquet as the main flowers, and two small $1  fishbowl vases from the dollar store and about 7 roses in each (total $12.18).

So here is a breakdown of the finalized centerpieces(all include WA sales tax of 9.3%): 

1. Flowers: $162.70
2. Vases: $29.69
3. Cylinder with Gold band @ $3.81 each: $19.05
4. Floating Candles @ $2.18 each: $10.90
5. Pink vase (painted the inside myself, so with one bottle of acrylic paint): $7.09
6. Glitter candle holder (2 per table, glittered them myself with "Glitter It" included in price): Made 12, came out to $1.03 each with a total of $12.39.
7. Table Runners ($3.43 each x 5): $17.14

Total for 5 tables: $258.96 or $51.80 each!

Seems like a lot now that I look back on it, but it was money well spent! Everyone complimented me on them and I can always sell the vases and runners (which I plan on doing soon).

The head table was a last minute decision! I thought we would have just a sweetheart table since it was already a small wedding, and that would give my sister and now brother-in-law a chance to sit with their families during the reception. The night before the wedding, my husband asked me if we were having a head table, and when I told him we were only doing a sweetheart, he was very persistent on the idea of a head table. So the next morning I had to tell them to set up a head table, and luckily there were spare flowers because I had my sister in law stop at the dollar store and get 3 little fishbowl looking vases for some extra roses. 2 of these vases went onto the head table with about 6-7 roses in each.

 I had planned on having the P and J as part of our monogram guest book but I am SOOOO happy my lovely sister-in-law suggested we hang them up on the table with the ampersand (&) I made for the head table(it was just a piece of foam paper I bought for $.99 and cut out and painted). The last minute head table ordeal worked out and didn't take up too much of our set-up time. 

Working on my centerpieces

Every day or every other day I go to my kitchen table and look around at what I have bought already for centerpieces. I bought a few things from Dollar Tree that I wanted to see if they'd work without looking cheap. So far I have only bought one cylinder (about 7 inches tall)

 a roman urn glass, 

a single glass taper candle holder, 

and two bunches of flowers in pink so I could get an idea of how they would look. I bought a strip of gems to put onto the cylinders, and each one would take one strip each ($2.50). In the pictured cylinder I cut the rhinestone strip in half length-wise so I could save a little bit of money but it looks better with the whole strip so that's what I'll do. I painted the inside of the urn glass (a weird name) with light pink paint I got for about 57 cents at Wal-Mart. For some reason I decided to try to paint the taper candle holder with gold but it was hard to get a thick coat but in the end I liked the effect of it being lightly gold tinted so I left it. I also bought a pack of taper candles (2 in a box) also from the DT but I found a website that sold the candles for cheap in different colors and sizes, you can see them here. I must say it makes me want to buy a TON of stuff but this bride has got to stay FOCUSED!!

I saw somewhere on Pinterest some candle holders with glitter on the inside and decided I had to have them. I found some "glitter-it" at Hancock Fabrics on clearance for $2 and bought some gold fine glitter for 3.99 (I couldn't believe myself when I decided I would buy glitter for $4 without it even being on sale, but I was impatient that day). The little candle holders I had at home were from Walmart for only 50 cents each! I had 4 of them lying around the house because I never got around to doing anything with them so I got to work and did them. A couple days ago we went to Walmart and I was hoping they had them still because I bought the 4 almost 2 years ago. It was my lucky day because they still had them! I finally got around to it today and made 12 glittery candle holders making my total 16. I plan on putting 2 per table (I will have 5 tables, and then a sweetheart table). Here is the finished product: 

I rounded up all the other stuff I had just to see where I'm at. It's hard for me to picture it in my head because I don't have the linens in place (or the actual flowers). I'm still working on it so any of these items could go. Just trying to get a small sample before I make a bigger commitment and buy the rest!

 

What I really want is some manzanita branch centerpieces that I can hang candles from, but I don't know if I want to spend $100+ for just the branches. I'm sure I could sell them, but I just want to keep costs down. But I suppose if I had those then I wouldn't have to spend much on flowers. Which reminds me!

I don't know where I heard or read it, but COSTCO!! Who doesn't love Costco??? I looked on their website and they DO have flowers you can order at least 4 weeks ahead of time. I haven't done any other shopping around, but some of the ones I looked at were a pack of 6 pink rose centerpieces for 379.99 (which made me panic a little) but they also have bulk packs so you can really DIY. I really like hydrangeas and roses so if I wanted to I could get 20 stems of hydrangea for $100 and 125 stems of roses for $199. I'm still at the beginning of searching for flowers but I am definitely not going to spend too much on these bad boys. Just in case any of you brides out there are looking for a lot of boutonnieres and corsages, they also have packs of 15 of each for about $150. I don't need a lot, but they do have packs of all different sizes to suit needs.... I just think the bouquets and centerpieces are a little simple so that is probably why I haven't heard a lot of brides talk about them. Alrighty, time for me to get off here and look online some more for stuff I need!

 

Venue Booked!!

So excited! The whole "free room rental" was too good to be true. I must say the venue was gorgeous but for us having a small wedding, it wasn't working out. They still wanted to charge us a fee for everything like extra bar set up fee and 5% increase on food prices. The venue we chose has gorgeous scenery and no extra fees for being smaller party and all costs of alcohol is what is actually consumed rather than just a fee per person who may not even drink more than a glass of wine anyway!

Cost of my venue? A whopping $350 (which I learned as we were signing our contract had recently been increased to $500). I wasn't concerned about having a ceremony and reception space being separate but this venue includes an awesome outdoor space for ceremony included in the fee! So now I am scouting out for ceremony decorations that I can make to hang from a tree we are going to have it under. 

Now I am more excited because I feel like things are coming together! <3

 

Guestbook Monogram Done!

 I'm extra excited because I finished our "guestbook" and its fabulous. I've always wanted a big monogram decoration like I have seen on Pinterest but didn't want my letter (N) so it's perfect that I can now have a special one with my new last name that I will acquire... I bought this paper mache letter S for only $8.99, gold paint $1.49, gold glitter paint $1.99, and half a yard of ivory tulle for only $0.75 (score for checking the fabric clearance area even though tulle is already cheap). 

 I wanted to add a flower to the letter and found this tutorial on the blog 11 Spring Street. I used just a tiny bit of the tulle and I had these pearls just laying around from Christmas crafts I have done.

 I already had my S painted gold with just the edges painted with glitter over the gold so I added the flower! 

 

And voila! Our completed guest book which I will have guests sign and then I can have it on display at home!

 

The total cost of this project was under $13!

Trying to keep calm...

I feel the slight panic of wedding planning that I have heard so much about. The more I look online for items that I am trying to make, the more I feel stressed out. I am excited to make stuff but until I actually have something that is a big staple (like centerpieces) done, I will have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that the clock is ticking!

During lunch at work I browse my Pinterest app looking for inspiration. I have a planning checklist app from theknot.com that I can look at any time to see all the things I need to do.

My biggest concern is budget. I really want to stay at or under $3000. The food and drinks (because the thing we want to have most at our wedding is alcohol! No, we are not alcoholics but we love to have a good time:)  )are really gobbling up a majority of that from what I have estimated so far. 

On a lighter note, to ease my ever-growing anxiety, we finally bought invitations! Yay! I found an online template for printing my own on cardstock, which I thought would be an easy thing to do, but then I thought about envelopes and the response cards and all this other "crap" so I just decided it would be best to buy a box from Michaels. OF COURSE they were on sale, so instead of 39.99 we got them for 30.00! They are here . The only think I have thought to change on them so far is we bought some pink ribbon (it's the same width) and I will cut it to be the same length. I also want to get some pink paper to put underneath the paper the kit came with to have it slightly more pink because I don't want it all ivory (I plan to trim the edges so it shows more). So now all I have to do is set my date and I can print them!!

DIY Aisle Runner

After seeing DIY aisle runners on Pinterest I decided I had to have it, that is, if the price is right. I searched the internet for fake petals that were not ridiculously expensive and then I found them. Dollar Tree has 300 petals for $1. That's ONE whole dollar! After reading different DIY blogs about how they made their runners, I decided to go with a simpler approach. I didn't want a full aisle cover, just the sides. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on this project so I went to Dollar Tree and bought one 8yd roll of tulle (YES, they have TULLE for only $1!) and a single pack of white and a single pack of pink petals. They only have red, white, and pink, and luckily for me my wedding colors include pink and white. 

I discovered two ways to make this runner: Spray adhesive or hot glue. One gal glued each petal individually, which I thought sounded tedious, and another did spray adhesive. I didn't want to spend a lot on spray adhesive (which I found for around 11.99 but not the one in the picture) but thought it would be the quickest way. I found this Elmer's spray adhesive at Fred Meyer for 4.99 with a 20% off coupon. I laid out some wax paper and a little bit of the tulle and sprayed it and then pressed down the petals on it. Even after letting it dry for 2 hours, most of them came off after I took the tulle off the wax paper. I tried different ways, like laying down the petals first, then spraying, and then laying the tulle on top of them, but it was unsuccessful.

Next up my handy glue gun!

 She may be small, but she was sure handy. I think I may have ended up using around 10 small gluesticks after about 7 and a half yards. I read on one blog that a gal used a baking sheet to glue on top of and then sliding it when adding more. This proved to be the best method. Don't get scared of the next picture because this cookie sheet is the worst one I own and decided it would be used for this project and no more cooking on it after that. 

 I decided to start with the edges first to make sure that the petals were covering the edge of the tulle. I only have two colors even though I have thought about somehow spray painting some white ones into another color. I am not picky about making sure they are pink-white-pink-white-pink-white. I just pressed out the glue and grabbed petals to put on there as soon as I could, trying my best to put the pointy edge toward the middle.

As you can see in the middle petal, it is not the best one because it is not creased like the others. I decided to make sure all the petals that look like this are in the middle and not on the edge.

The process is fairly quick after you get the first few down, and then it ends up looking something like this. And then the (almost) completed project looks like this:

I will be going back and putting more where some have fallen off and where there are blank spots, but I figured there is no rush because my wedding is somewhere around 5 and a half to 6 months away. It was also sitting on my table and I decided to toy with the idea that it could be a table runner if I decided not to use it as an aisle runner. Hope this helps!

I'm a winner!

So after I already started this blog, I went to my local wedding expo in Tacoma, Washington. I went for fun and some inspiration because most of the vendors at these places are pricey, but that didn't stop me from entering in drawings for prizes there. With that being said, the venue that I was looking at the most had a booth for a free drawing for free room rental. I had nothing to lose but money to save so I put my name in. A week later, I received an email saying I won the drawing! I thought it was spam mail so I called just to make sure, and sure enough I did. 

Now I feel like this blog will be misleading for people who really want a low budget wedding without any hook-ups. I guess the message I really can spread is that go to a wedding expo even if you think you won't find anything because you never know!

Winning this venue has saved me $500-$800. I decided to have one room for the ceremony and reception to save money. After going to visit the venue, they informed me it would be $300 extra (on top of the 500) because having the ceremony and venue in the same room needed more for a fee for labor to move the room around. I was going to argue that the room layout would have everyone at their seats already because I didn't want to move anything or rent an extra room. Luckily with the win, I don't have to worry about that anymore!

 If you are interested in what venue I chose, it is the Tacoma Landmark Catering & Convention Center. www.tacomaslandmark.com