Wedding Tips When my husband and I got married in 2005 we had planned for a year in advance for our wedding day.  I’ve been asked a lot, over the past few years, for ideas on how to organize a wedding.  I hope that some of these tips help you plan your special day.  If you have any tips you would like to include on this page just let me know. If you still need some extra help planning, I know some wonderful wedding planners that can be contacted at the following website. http://members.tripod.com/sassyoh_4/bestbeginnings   Planning:             It’s really important to plan ahead and stay organized.  When you first get engaged it is tempting to go out and spend money on items that you don’t really need.  For example, people buy all kinds of books on planning, dresses, flowers, or food.  You can find all of this information on the Internet.  When it comes to weddings there are a multitude of educational websites you can use.               When it comes to staying organized I would suggest making your own wedding planner book.  Go out and buy a three ring binder or an inexpensive durable notebook that you can attach your ideas too.  You’ll create tabs for each item that you are planning.    Tab examples are……The Dress, Bridesmaid Dresses, Flower Girl Dress, (or an overall tab for clothing), Entertainment, Church or Wedding Site, Reception Site, Food, The Cake, Honeymoon, Rehearsal Dinner, Photographer.     You may want to include different tabs to organize your book as you go along, the above examples are just a general guide to go by.  A great website to check out is…                                                                                                                                                www.theknot.com   The Knot is a free website that has a lot of information about getting married.  You can look at dresses for ideas, get a timeline checklist for everything that has to be done, and read about different wedding traditions.  I would suggest printing out the timeline and putting it in your wedding planner binder.  Take a highlighter and mark the sections that would pertain to what you want to do for your wedding.  This will really help you stay organized as you plan   PLAN AHEAD:  It is very important to plan ahead.  If you aren’t cramming everything into a few short months, you have the opportunity to shop around and get the most “bang for your buck.”    Choosing wedding colors that can save you money:  My sister in law gave me this idea when she got married to my brother.  When you choose your wedding colors try to think of a holiday that is associated with the colors that you choose.  For example, the colors I chose were red and white.  Red is a VERY easy color to associate holidays with.  We have Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, and Independence Day.  Think of all of those sales after the holidays are over.  Go out and see what great deals you can get.  You can buy very inexpensive tablecloths, napkins, or ribbon.  You may look around and get ideas based on the items that are on sale as well.  Don’t go into it thinking, “I don’t know what I need so I won’t go and look.”  You’ll most likely get ideas as you walk around.  A great example of what we did is the Hershey Kisses for our wedding favors.  After Valentine’s Day we went out and bought the red and silver Hershey Kisses on sale.  We got a GREAT deal and they matched everything perfectly.    Make It Don’t Buy It:               I know, you may be thinking that you’re not crafty enough to make things for your special day.  I still firmly believe that everyone has just enough creativity to handle this part of the wedding preparations.  Plus, if you can’t come up with ideas on your own the Internet or your local library has a plethora of information for you to use.              Making Your Own Invitations:  Making your invitations ads a personal touch to your wedding.  You can design them to look exactly how you want them to and save a lot of money while you’re at it.  With all of the fonts that you use on your computer, your invitations will look just as good or better than what you could buy.    When I did my invitations I bought a kit that had red rose petals around the outside of the paper.  So, the final invitation was half of an 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper with rose petals around the outside.  I used clear vellum to print the invitation on and attached it to the rose paper with a clear red ribbon that I bought at an after Christmas sale.  I found really cute Irish charms on the Internet that I attached to the red ribbon since we were having a Celtic wedding.    You can apply all of the above information to making your own thank you cards as well.  You’ll want to make plenty of these up ahead of time because you will need them for your wedding shower as well.  As you get gifts write up thank you cards right away.  That way you won’t be doing them all at the end after your honeymoon is over.  Also keep a list of all of your gifts with the names of the giver next to them and put it in your wedding planner book.   Making Your Own Table Centerpieces:  I went to a craft store and bought a box of the round bowls and used a hot glue gun to glue lace, ribbon, and silk flowers on.  I put cracked ice and candles in them all.  They turned out really beautiful.  Think about where you can go to find inexpensive votives.  Dollar stores like Deals or Family Dollar are a great place to start looking for centerpiece ideas.  You can find all kinds of vases, glassware, plates, napkins, tablecloths, decorative stones, and potpourri at a Dollar store and save a lot of money.    The Reception Site and Catering:               It is really important to book your reception site well in advance.  Some halls may not be as big and beautiful as others, but the price may fit your budget better.  Remember, the hall is not decorated when you go to view it.  Try to imagine what you could do to it to make it look better.  You can go to a discount fabric outlet and find very inexpensive fabric that you can drape around the reception site.  Go to after Christmas sales and buy white lights that you can string up to ad an element of romance along with your draped fabric.  It’s worth going to the extra work if need to rent a less expensive hall.  There are lodge halls that won’t cost as much money as renting a party center.  Plus, many party centers make you use their own catering service if you use their hall.  A large cost of weddings is the catering.  If you can do this yourself you will save a LOT of money.  Even having a small restaurant cater your event is less expensive than hiring a caterer.  If you have family that will help you they can set up a buffet table and let people walk up and help themselves to the food.                Try to think of the types of things that you could make ahead of time for your reception.  I bought bulk cashew nuts for the food table to go by the cake.  My grandmother made cream cheese mints for the table as well.  You can find recipes and molds for making cream cheese mints online. You can get some great entertainment booked at the following websites. www.akronceiliband.com      or      www.akronpiper.com   The Cake:               As always, if you need a cake for a wedding I will give you a good deal on it.  You can get all kinds of ideas for cakes online and let me know what you want it to look like.  I can make you a cake topper or if you’re feeling crafty enough you can make your own.  Adding a special homemade element to your cake is a lot of fun, even if it’s a flower arrangement.  If you want me to make a topper that looks like the two of you, let me know and I can sculpt it out of clay.    The Flowers:             We had silk flowers at our wedding.  If you prefer real you can order those ahead of time from a local florist.  Stores like Sam’s Club have beautiful flower arrangements for a low cost that you can use at your wedding and carry over to the reception.  If you choose a simple bouquet that costs less money it won’t be any less elegant than a large and beautiful one.  If you make your own bouquet out of silk flowers you do have a lot more options and it will cost a little less than fresh flowers.  Try to think of places that you can get your flowers from.  You might think this sounds crazy, but even grocery stores have beautiful inexpensive flowers that you can order ahead of time.    Entertainment:             Think ahead when it comes to entertainment.  If you can’t afford to pay for a band, or even a DJ, you can rent sound equipment for your hall and make your own CD’s for the music.  If the hall isn’t very large, your home stereo may work just as well.  With all of the options of music software, you can burn your own mix of music and know ahead of time what will be playing at the reception.  Designate a family member or friend to periodically change the CD’s throughout the night.  You’ll want a lighter sounding CD to listen to while people eat and maybe something more fun for later on.              The same information could apply to your wedding as well.  If you want something a little more special you can look into hiring a live musician to play at your wedding.  We had a bagpiper pipe me down the isle at our wedding.  If you’re interested in something like this you can check out the website….www.akronpiper.com.  You’ll also want something playing while people are waiting around for everything to start.  I would suggest burning a CD for this as well.  If you have more money in your budget you can hire musicians to do all of this for you too.   Photographer:             We saved money on the photographer by just using them for a few hours instead of buying a large package.  We did not buy a book from them, but got all of the proofs with an option to buy any of the pictures at a larger size.  I love to scrapbook, so I made a beautiful book just using the proofs.  Then we had family and friends take digital pictures that we used in the scrapbook as well.    Disposable Versus Digital:  We used disposable cameras on the tables, but I wouldn’t suggest this.  To be honest, the pictures really didn’t turn out very well.  I would just ask as many friends that have digital cameras to take pictures for you and burn them to a CD.  Then you can pick and choose which pictures you want to print out and not spend a lot of money developing prints that won’t all look good.    Helpful Websites:   Napkins and Favor Boxes:  I went to www.theprintingbarn.com to order my napkins.  They gave me a great deal, so I ordered my favor containers here too.  They do beautiful work, get it done fast, and don’t charge a lot of money for their services.    The Knot:  To stay organized don’t forget to register on www.theknot.com  Best Beginnings:  http://members.tripod.com/sassyoh_4/bestbeginnings   Entertainment:  Check out www.akronpiper.com   www.akronceiliband.com   The Cake:  Don’t forget www.icingprincess.com   The Dress:  Check out resale shops or look on www.ebay.com.  Don’t be scared to buy a dress that was used before.  There are a lot of them out there and you can get them at a great price.  My favorite site to look at dresses was www.davidsbridal.com.  I love their selection of bridesmaid dresses.      Helpful Tips:   Plan ahead!!!! Book everything well in advance. Be creative. Shop with your budget in mind. Look for the best deal. Don’t be scared to shop around. Buy used. Stay organized.   Once again, If you have any tips or ideas that you would like me to include on this page let me know.  HAPPY PLANNING!!!