Day 7: Saving Money on Stationary: Save-the-Dates, Invitations, and Thank Yous

I have been a Shutterfly addict since I found out about the site. I love the quality and the prices are really reasonable too. The thing I love most about Shutterfly is their promotions. I love taking advantage of their super cheap prints as well as their other deals.
The best piece of advice I can give is to stock up on Shutterfly coupons, credits, etc. They always have some sort of deal, and 99% of the time they send new coupons in with your order.

When we were looking to order our Save-the-Dates, I happened to have received a 10 free cards promotion. It may not seem like much, but it did save some money, and they were exactly what we wanted.
When I was looking for layouts, I anted the most simple, yet most customizable card I could find. I came across this and fell in love. We ordered 100. We paid for 90 because of the 10 free card promotions. I was also able to use an old credit I had on my account for $25.
The total for our Save-the-Dates was about $70. This may seem like a lot, but it definitely paid off later.

For our invitations we didn't choose to go the Shutterfly route. What I wanted was too specific, and it was not possible with their layouts. I instead turned to Etsy.  I came across a store called Boots and Burlap. All of her designs were super cute and completely customizable. I told her what I wanted, she designed it and sent my PDFs for $10.

I shopped around for print prices. From what I found, Office Max was the cheapest. However, I was lucky, and was able to print all of the invitations at one of my bridesmaids offices. It saved a ton of money, and were very high quality.

One tip I would give, would be to not print invitations at home. In my experience, home printers go through ink really fast and do not produce the best quality. There are a lot of places, such as colleges, office supply stores, etc., that will print things for fairly inexpensive. If you have access to a professional quality printer, use it (just make sure its ok with your boss first)! You can have professional quality invitations for less!

I also ordered pocket sleeves for our invitations. I ordered these from Cards and Pockets.
Their Signature Pocket sleeves only cost $0.63 each and their corresponding envelopes were $0.23 each.

               

Lastly, you have to send Thank You cards. I have not had the time to fill out and send them yet, but I did get them ordered and just got them in.

Our save-the dates came with a 40% of coupon. Since I did not use Shutterfly for out wedding invitations, I decided to use this coupon for our thank you cards. I ended up spending $30 for all of them.

So the final word is... when looking for stationary, look for deals an discounts. There are tons of card making sites, and you can almost always find some kind of coupon for them. With coupons you can get exactly what you want for less.
Also, like always, shop around. I looked at multiple pocket fold websites before I found Cards and Pockets. I'm so glad that I didn't give up because the other sites charged twice what I paid.


This is day 7 of a 31 day series. To see the rest, click here.

 

 

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Day 6: Helping Hands

When I started planning my wedding, I was determined to do everything. I was too proud...ok... too picky and detail oriented to ask people for help. I had so many people offering help, but refused everytime.

Eventually I came to my senses and started allowing, even asking, for people's help. It was one of the smartest decisions I have ever made wedding planning-wise.

I have so many amazingly talented friends and family members. I was lucky enough that they were willing and excited to help with my wedding! It not only cut down time, but saved me a lot of money too.

One of the major details of a wedding is the wedding cake. Wedding cakes can run anywhere from $3-$15 dollars PER WEDDING GUEST.  For us that was $360-$1800 for our 120 guests. Cue jaw drop. There was no way I was paying that. I would just make cupcakes if I had too! Luckily, I didn't have to.
My aunt and cousin are amazing. They ended up making our wedding cake. It turned out so much better than I ever could imagine, and only cost us about $150.
If you have someone who is willing and able to make your wedding cake at cost, buy everything as cheap as you can.
I bought all of the fondant, gum paste, etc at Hobby Lobby. I downloaded the app and made multiple transactions so I could get everything 40% off. It saved a chunk of money.

Another place to recruit your friends and save money is makeup, hair, and nails.  These have all become an important part of every brides big day. I started calling around and pricing these services for my girls and I. The average cost I found was $55 for hair, $25 makeup, and $35 nails per person. That is $115 per person. Not only could I not afford that, but I didn't want my girls to have to spend that kind of money either.  Not only that, everyone I called was already booked for my wedding day. So... I started asking around. Luckily, if I haven't mentioned it before, I have wonderful friends.

 
 
 These lovely ladies are two of my best friends. They did my hair, make up and nails. Not only did they do an amazing job, but they did it as a gift. They are both such amazing people and I love them so much! They even helped out with the bridesmaids make up! 
 
 





When I told my bridesmaids that I had no one to do hair, they immediately decided to get together and do each others hair. We had a hair party at one of the girls houses and spent a good chunk of a night Pinteresting, YouTubing and practicing hair. The girls found super easy, and super cute hairstyles they could do on each other. They all looked stunning and didn't have to spend a fortune!

A major theme in this series is saving money.  But I also want to hit on tips I wish I would have known before planning my wedding.

I asked for help way too late. Instead of being stubborn and thinking I could do everything on my own, I should have welcomed help with open arms. I was so stressed about the wedding, I made myself sick on multiple occasions. I was constantly worried about how I was going to get things done. I can not tell you how much I wish I could go back, have the same wedding, but have more help from the get go.

 

If you have loved ones who have skills that will be beneficial for your wedding, as them for help. The worst thing that could happen is they say no. Your friends and family love you and would feel honored to help out with whatever they can.

 

I hope you all are smarter than I am, and welcome all of the helping hands you have in your life.

 

 

This is day 6 of a 31 day series. To see the rest, click here.

 

 

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Day 5: Frugal Favors

 Like many of my other wedding inspirations, I found this while looking through the wedding section of Pinterest. This is what I found:

 

                                       

A cookies and  milk toast for kids. I LOVED this idea. However, I wanted to take it another step further.

This is when my husband and I talked about having a cookies and milk bar. I knew several people who had candy bars at their wedding and loved the idea of something sweet. However, candy bars seemed so overdone, that cookies seemed perfect!

I will now disclose every detail of planning, prepping, and the final details of our cookies and milk bar.

 

Milk Bottles

 

Also in my Pinterest journey, I came across this pin.

 

                                            

 

 

 

 

The Starbucks bottles were perfect! They looked like old fashioned milk bottles. I can not tell you how happy I would be if I never had to drink another bottled Frappuccino again. We bought a case a week. My boss bought cases for everyone at work to drink. We gave people cases of them to drink.  There were Starbucks bottles everywhere.

The first thing I did with the bottles was soak them in soapy water fro about an hour. This made the labels peel right off. Then I stuck them in the dishwasher.

After the had been washed once, I used acetone to remove the leftover adhesive residue, as well as the date stamps on the side and bottom of the bottle.

Then I stuck them in the dishwasher again.

 

Lastly, I (actually two of my very good friends) spray painted the lids teal. They turned out awesome!

Cookies:

 

After finalizing my guest list, I realized I needed about 300 cookies. I kind of had a slight panic attack trying to figure out how I was going to bake 300 cookies the week before I was getting married. My husband mentioned just buying cookies. I thought that was cheating....and tacky.

So..... I enlisted all of the help I could get. Mom, bridesmaids, friends staying at our house, the best man's mom and sister-in-law. Everyone helped bake cookies. There were so many kinds and they were all so delicious!

 

 

 

Little Details:

I ended up ordering the multicolor paper bags off of Amazon for $3 a bag. Each bag came with 12 bags. I loved the colors and they fit perfectly with the color theme of the wedding. I made the sign.. I will go into detail on those later in this series.

I also got the square vases for the bags to go in from Amazon. They were $26 for two of them. I wrapped them in yarn like everything else at our reception.

We put the milk in tin buckets we got from Target. They were so cute. We just stuck them in and filled it up with ice.

This is day 5 of a 31 day series. To see the rest, click here

 

 

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Day 4: DIY project: Centerpieces

These were our centerpieces.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, got this idea from another wedding I found on Pinterest. You can fin that wedding here.

Paying someone to make centerpieces is ridiculously expensive. I found that this is definitely one of the MUSTS for a DIY list. I have come up with a few pieces of advice for saving money and DIYing centerpieces without stressing, and I will show you what I did for my wedding.

Lets go over advice first.

1. Start looking early. You may notice that this is a theme for this series. I found that doing things early not only cut stress in half, but I was able to shop around and find deals on all of the materials I needed.

2. Pick materials that are inexpensive. If you have a decent size wedding, you are going to find that you are probably going to have to make more than a few centerpieces. If I have learned anything from my dabbles into the crafting world, the cost of materials can add up quickly. For my wedding I chose cheap vases, yarn , mason jars, floating candles, and wine bottles.  I asked on Facebook for any of our wino friends to save their empty wine bottles and we already had mason jars. Your wedding is a great time to repurpose things you have laying around your house and make them beautiful again, and it saves you a lot of money if you do so.

3. Get help. I did a lot of the decorations myself when I was up at night watching Dexter with my husband. However, my bridesmaids came over multiple times to help out with the centerpieces, and I am so glad they did. Not only was it nice having company, but it went faster and there were more brains to figure out the problems that popped up along the way.

4. Work diligently and don't put these off! I had so much going on the week before the wedding, there is no way I would have been able to make centerpieces.

Easy and Inexpensive DIY Centerpiece:
These centerpieces were seriously so easy. Like....stupid easy, and they looked amazing! I really loved the look of mismatched bottles. I felt like it gave the wedding a simple, chic feel, which was perfect because my husband and I are not formal-wedding-type people at all. I used mason jars, wine bottles, and simple cylinder vases.

Materials:
7 1/2 inch vases - $1 from Dollar Tree
Mason Jars -I had them, but you can get 12 at Target for $10
Wine bottles- Ours were donated from friends
Yarn- I ordered in bulk and on clearance online from
Floating candles- 25 for $13 on Amazon

Vases:
The vases were the simplest of the three.

                          

 

 

 

 

 
 

 



The first thing I did was tie the yarn in a knot towards the bottom of the vase. I made sure to leave extra.













 Then I started wrapping. I didn't diligently wrap the yarn. I wrapped it as fast as I could, then I pushed all of the yarn towards the bottom of the vase. This gave it the tightly wrapped look in no time.

                                      

After I had it tightly wrapped as high as I wanted it, I messily wrapped the yarn in a second layer going back down the vase.

When I got to the bottom, I used the extra yarn from the original knot, to tie a know and secure the yarn. And Voila! A wrapped vase.



Mason Jars:

I followed the exact same steps as I did the vases. However, because of the shape of the mason jars, I started the yarn higher, and ended lower than the vase.  This worked out perfect with the floating candles I put in them.

                              

 

 

Wine Bottles:

And then there were the wine bottles... Oh my... I was so mad at myself the first night my maid of honor and I tried wrapping these suckers. They were such a pain in the butt! But, we finally found what worked, and I was super happy with the end result.

     

First I tied the knot like I did with the vases and mason jars.
I wrapped the bottle the same way I did the vases and mason jars as well, up until the neck started getting smaller.
This is where we found most of our problems. After experimenting with different methods, we found that brushing on some Modge Podge was the solution. We brushed it on and let it get a little tacky before wrapping the yarn over it.

We wrapped slowly and purposefully, making sure to lay the yarn flush against the yarn below it.

After the bottle was completely wrapped, I let it dry all of the way and messily wrapped the yarn back down the bottle. This gave it the look of multiple layers and allowed for us to tie off the yarn with the original knot, same as with the vases and mason jars.

                             

 

This is day 4 of a 31 day series. To see the rest, click here!

 

 

 

 

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Day 3: Say Yes to the Dress...for much, much less

I absolutely ADORE my wedding dress. I would wear it everyday. It was perfect. But you know what I love most about my wedding dress? It was custom made and cost me $350. Yep, this dress was only $350.

Like most brides, as soon as we were officially engaged,  I began scouring the internet for wedding dress. I was horrified and my heart sank when I saw how much wedding dresses cost. The cheapest being about $2000. There was no way I could afford that, but I kept looking.
I fell in love with a designer dress that cost $1900. I went to the local bridal shop and tried it on. I knew this was THE dress. I cried knowing that I wouldn't be able to afford it.
I started spending hours on used wedding dress for the dress, but no such luck.
Then one day as I was browsing Etsy, I came across their wedding dress section. I had no idea that you could even buy wedding dresses on Etsy. I found a listing for "custom wedding dress" and reached out to the shop owner.
I told her exactly what I wanted, sent her the link to the designers website and waited. She messaged me back saying that it would be no problem and told me what measurements she would need.
I was super nervous about ordering a dress online. What if I hated it, or it looked nothing like the dress I tried on? The shop owner assured me it would be great, and offered a 100% guarantee. I ended up ordering my dress 9 months before my wedding, and it showed up at my door 25 days after I ordered it.
When I got the dress it was too short! There was some confusion on whether to measure with shoes or not. I contacted the shop and she told me to send it back, and she would take care of the issues for free, I just had to pay shipping ($30 DHL). So back it went and about a month later I had my dress again. It was perfect! It looked exactly like the dress I tried on at the bridal salon, and fit me perfectly!
I was ecstatic! By buying the "knock off" dress, I got my dream dress for about $1500 less than the designer. This opened up $1500 to spend somewhere else for our wedding.

A couple pieces of advice. If you are ordering your dress online, order SUPER early. That way you have time to send back for alterations if necessary.

And two, always measure with your wedding shoes on, and be generous with your length measurement. Its so much easier to hem extra fabric than it is to add length to a dress.

For those wondering, I got my dress from the Etsy shop Kiss Bridal.

This is day 3 of a 31 day series. To see the rest, click here.

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Day 2: Budget Savvy: Areas to Splurge

As I mentioned our budget was small compared to an average wedding. We spent $8000 on a wedding that I have been told looked like we spent at least double that. Now if you look at the pins along the lines of "What you don't need at your wedding", they do a very good job at showing you what are luxuries.. However... Everything I found on these lists, I wanted, and I didn't want to sacrifice. And I didn't. What was our trick?

We budgeted and we decided what was most important to us.
The main things that were absolute musts were:
1) Venue with outdoor ceremony/indoor reception space
2) Good Food
3) A good photographer (we had the best!)
4) A DJ

These were the big ticket items we knew had to happen. So, we budgeted the majority of our money to these areas. Everything else I shopped for, I looked for bargains, and 99% of the time, I DIYed.

Venue:

The venue will probably be your largest expense when it comes to the wedding. One of the saving graces when it came to being able to stick to our budget and not skimp on our wedding was that we found a venue that did not charge you to rent the area.  Instead, you simply had to spend a set amount with them and you could uses the spaces for free. For this particular venue, catering, set up of ceremony and reception, linens, lights, etc. all counted towards that set amount.

Another awesome feature of our venue was that it could be used for both ceremony and reception. This was not only super convenient, but it also saved money since we didn't have to rent two different locations.

When researching your venue, definitely look into places that offer all-inclusive packages like this. This allowed us to have an awesome venue and saved up about $5000 compared to some of the other places we looked at.

Food:
I definitely wanted out guests to enjoy  the food. Our food was included in our venue price and it was AMAZING.  One thing that allowed us to get everything we wanted at a decent price, was I asked the banquet coordinator if they did smaller portions at a cheaper cost for children.  They did offer kids food at 60% of adults. Since 25 out of 120 of our guests were kids this actually saved us a large chunk of money...about $400 to be exact.

A lot of venues wont tell you about discounts like this. Ask. It never hurts to ask and could save you a lot of money if you do.

Photographer:
PLEASE, if there is one thing you splurge on, make it your photographer ! Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life. You are going to want to document it. Sometimes we trust people to take pictures who...well...are not professionals and you are left feeling disappointed.

We were lucky to know an amazing photographer. She was very reasonably priced. Even better, she offered discounts if we booked our engagements with her as well. I know a lot of photographers in my area that do this. When shopping for a photographer ask if they do special packages like this. She also teams up with other local photographers for weddings. So we had two fantastic photographers shooting our wedding

Another piece of advice, find a photographer that gives you a disc of your photos, not prints. Those prints can add up, and a lot of the time, you only have  certain time frame you can order prints. With the disc, you can purchase prints a little at a time so it doesn't end up being a huge, one time expense and you don't have to worry about missing out on pictures because you cant afford them right after you just got done paying for a wedding.




 DJ
Let me just say our DJ was awesome! After hearing stories about weddings that didn't have DJs, I knew we wanted one. I did not want to spend the time on making playlists, or end up having someone play music from their Ipod that I had never even heard (this happened to my SIL) at my wedding. We wanted to have a good time and listen to good music.
There is a myth that DJs are expensive, but they don't have to be. I shopped around for DJs when a friend of mine told me that a kid we went to high school with and his family DJed on the side. We hired him and his family for $300 less than what the well-known DJ in our area charges.
I met with his mom multiple times. They completely customized everything to our taste in music, what we did and didn't want played, and when we wanted certain songs played. They were awesome.
Even my husband who isn't really a dancing type of person had fun.


If music is important to you shop around, ask if anyone you know has a relative that DJs as a hobby, check with college music programs to see of there are students who DJ. You don't have to pay a ton of money for a DJ.



Throughout the rest of this series, I am going to give you tips on how to cut costs so that you can afford all of your must have, big ticket wedding items.

This is day 2 of a 31 day series. To check out the rest, click here

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Day 1: Getting Organized

Getting organized is probably the most important piece of advice I can give you. Make lists, write out everything, and settle on a definite budget. If you don't, I truly believe you are setting your self up for a lot of extra stress.

The first thing you should always do is settle on your budget. You need to know how much you can realistically spend. NEVER overestimate on a budget!

This right here was my lifesaver. My wedding binder. There are tons of links throughout Pinterest on how to set up a wedding binder, I'm going to show you what I did.

  I kept everything in this binder. From the venue brochures, information I picked up at bridal fairs, receipts, inspiration...Everything. It was so convenient having everything in one place...especially because I am prone to losing things.
 I also had envelopes for every vendor and expense for the wedding. Flowers, DJ, and décor were just a few.

 This was my envelope for my DJ. I wrote down the agreed contract price on the outside, and kept a running total of payments as well. A lot of pins I have seen suggest organizing things with dividers. I personally chose envelopes because while I was still paying off the vendor, I would put a little bit of money from each paycheck in the envelop until I had the full amount saved. This made the budgeting and saving for the wedding much easier and didn't seem like a huge hit whenever we went to pay the vendor.

 The next section of my binder had important information, such as guest lists, day of schedules. I kept this at the front since I accessed it more than anything else.

Lastly, I filled the back of my notebook with inspiration. I printed off pictures of décor, games, cakes, etc. If I liked it and thought it fit with my wedding vision, it ended up in the notebook. I found these images on Pinterest. I am not ashamed to admit that I copied them exactly. This is what I envisioned in my head and leaped for joy when I found it.

 If you want to see more of this wedding, which I got a lot of inspiration from, look for my centerpiece post of this series.

After I started putting together my binder, I spent a lot of time researching wedding planning check lists. The best one, and one I used the entire time I was planning was from TheKnot.com.

TheKnot was wonderful for inspiration and the planning check list was phenomenal. They even have an app which was super convenient and a lifesaver!

This is day 1 of a 31 day series. To check out the rest, click here.

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