<p>Would love some advice from those intrepid folks who threw their own wedding celebration – i.e., cooked the food, decorated the venue, etc. Anything we should be aware of? </p>
<p>S1 and fiancee are having a small civil ceremony soon due to visa issues and job offers, and plan to have a celebration here on the opposite coast next summer. Fiancee’s family is overseas. We are located in between and seem to be the logical location. This is the party that we are organizing.</p>
<p>Be very careful selecting the venue. And you may have to do it asap…the more flexible sites book quickly. You want to be sure you can bring in the food, use whatever florist you like, etc. Read the contract to look for limitations on decorating, food service, etc.</p>
<p>Buy cut fresh flowers at the market. Put cheap vases from Walmart/thrift store on each table, put a few flowers in each one. Put a shiny ribbon around each vase. Get a bouquet holder (not sure what they’re called) to make the bouquet. Buy cheap lace at the sale racks and use it to cover up anything unsightly, with some ribbon and flowers attached if needed. Get a few people to pitch in to cook–nice casseroles. Buy stuff at Costco, ready to serve. Make playlists on your computer or I Pod for all the music: before ceremony, during ceremony, during reception.</p>
<p>One hot tip: Have the ceremony on Sunday at noon or so, see if you can find a nice restaurant that will reserve a section for you for brunch. Brunch usually includes champagne, so you save $ that way. Reception 1 to 4, then an after-party with music at the house?</p>
<p>We were married thirty one years ago, part of the Olmstead designed Azalea way in the Washingtn Park Arboretum. **very ** lucky as it was early June, and that can be quite chilly around here. The garden was gorgeous, with the azaleas in bloom and it was warm and sunny! The reception was held in a church on the other side of lake Washington, no decorations really that I can remember, I did have champagne,and deli sandwiches.
A guitarist friend played at the wedding and tapes at the reception.</p>
<p>I’ve been to quite a few ipod parties. Works well, you can have a variety of playlists.</p>
<p>For decorations, white table clothes and nice flowers is really truly all you need.</p>
<p>I’d put my effort into good food. Though it can be as simple as crudites, tea sandwiches and cookies or as nice as appetizers from all your favorite restaurants. (I always get cocktail samosas from my favorite Indian restaurant, and Jamaican patties from my favorite Jamaican take out.) If you have access to some teens you might want to hire them to pass the appetizers. My brother has a dance party twice a year and they always get the local teens to help keep food on the table, pass it around and clean up glasses as the party goes.</p>
<p>How much stress can you take?
If you can afford it, do it at a venue where they provide all the food, tables, linens,chairs. You can do the decorations if you wish, but it’s best to be able to just show up and enjoy.</p>
<p>I have found sometimes it is about the same cost to have it catered than doing it ourselves. You could provide your own drinks (often that’s 50% of costs) and do your own decorations. For my parents birthday party I bought roses from Costco ($15 for 2 dozens) and made some very nice center pieces.</p>
<p>Great cost-saving idea from a wedding I attended a couple of weeks ago. Mother of the bride gave each of her good friends a mason jar with a pretty ribbon and a hand lettered tag that said “From the garden of …” She asked each of us to fill the jar with flowers from our gardens and bring the filled jars to the reception. The jars beautifully decorated the tables, and at the end of the celebration she had each of us take home a jar from someone else’s garden. Beautiful and inexpensive, and very meaningful to the bride to have the participation of her mom’s friends.</p>
<p>My parents had their wedding in my mom’s sister’s yard – which was a nice-sized yard. They paid to rent a tent. They had friends chip in to make the food and a professional chef friend made the cake. My mom got her dress on sale at Macy’s and it was perfect for what she was looking for and cheap for a wedding dress.</p>
<p>They did have friends who loved to cook and were passionate about food (my parents met because my mom was working on a natural food truck) so that worked out well for them, but if you have people in your friend group who like to cook, I think it can be a good idea. They’d probably love to help.</p>
<p>We didn’t cook the food, but pretty much everything else we did. The wedding and ceremony were at our house; DS was man of honor and made the cake; DD (the bride) and I did pretty much all the planning. We had a wood-fired pizza oven parked in the driveway (a huge success) and a local caterer for the rest of the food. We rented pretty much everything we needed, from wine glasses through silver through tents and chairs. Napkins were cloth and tie-dyed by DD and I several months before the wedding. (You can buy 5 doz cotton napkins at a very reasonable price from raglady.com.) DD designed and colored the invitation, then photocopied (color copier) and mailed them. We found a pretty good (and very reasonably priced) photographer through Craigslist. Music was supplied by the groom’s band and his friends–they did a phenomenal job. (And, yes, the groom played during the ceremony…)</p>
<p>It certainly kept costs down and it was very friendly and intimate, because we had 95 people in not quite enough space. I highly recommend inviting too many people!</p>
<p>Oh yes, and flowers from my garden and the grocery store.</p>
<p>Check into purchasing glasses from Ikea and silverware from a restaurant supply store–saved a lot when our niece recently married. Decorations included a lot of tissue paper poufs in various sizes, we all took home tissue paper and made up poufs as we had time…they looked great.</p>
<p>Our Trader Joes was willing to let me order all white orchids for a banquet. They came in planters with ivy and were very reasonable (a lot less then we spent on flowers alone the year before–the organization owns the vases). It was very easy to set the flowers down on the tables–didn’t have to worry about water spilling or anything. They looked great. You could pick them up well in advance, they easily lasted 4 weeks before dropping a single bloom.</p>
<p>Should mention that you could sell the glasses/silverware after the event. Check Craigslist for those selling items now that you could use and then resell (a friend did this, and really saved a lot of money).</p>
<p>In my family, everyone did it all themselves. The most recent one was an immediate (parents and sibs of the bride) family only event. Grooms family couldn’t make it, so the officiant came by the brides parents’ house on Saturday afternoon, heard the vows, signed the papers, and stayed for cake afterwards. The rest of the family was informed by email after the wedding, and two aunts of the bride who live nearby made pit-stops for wedding gifts on the way over for dinner that night.</p>
<p>What you have to find out from the happy couple is just exactly how fancy they think this needs to be. Once you know that you will be able to determine whether all you need to do is show up at the courthouse, or if you’ve got to scavenge up a social hall somewhere and find a band.</p>
<p>We have identified two locations that will let us self-cater. DH and S2 used to do the catering at our synagogue and have cooked for 175. While they are not licensed caterers (which is required at most venues in our area) they know what they are doing. </p>
<p>Getting a caterer is still an option; the caterer S2 used to work for is pretty reasonable. S and fiancee are paying for the wedding, and $100+/guest is way beyond what they want to spend. Will have ~100 guests. They are thinking about wine at the tables, but no open bar. Don’t know that there will be flowers on the table; they have some other ideas for table decorations, though I have thought about the gorgeous flowers at Costco for decoration in other areas.</p>
<p>How we go about finding servers is a big question, esp. since we would likely not be using a caterer. Also – how do you manage setup on the day of the wedding?</p>
<p>One of the places under consideration would let us rent the facility for two days so we can decorate/cook in advance. Drawback: it is a conference center within an unusual location.</p>
<p>Now I could see S1 and fiancee liking tie-dyed napkins… </p>
<p>Fiancee’s mom and friends are avid gardeners, but alas, they are all in the UK, which makes it hard to bring in flowers. OTOH, getting her friends back home involved is a wonderful idea.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it would take a LOT of landscaping (think taking out 60’ trees and re-leveling and planting grass in the backyard) in order to have the party at our house.</p>
<p>The place DH and I visited yesterday rents china and glassware for 25 cents per piece – and gets their champagne glasses from the nearby Ikea. Love the idea about looking for dishes online, though, if we go with the other self-catering option.</p>
<p>Future DIL is somewhat crafty and I am also very much into this stuff (made my own wedding gown and bridesmaid outfits long ago). Will need to balance what she can ship here from CA vs. what makes sense for me to get organized here, depending on when she plans to get here before the wedding. Also suspect an order from Oriental Trading will be on the agenda – the glowstick necklaces would be popular!</p>
<p>Thanks for the idea on TJ’s orchids – I had thought about Home Depot or Lowes for perennials I could plant afterwards. </p>
<p>For servers, check with the Youth group at the church/synagogue for responsible teens who could use some money. Boy Scout/Girl Scout Councils may be a good source (I am very involved in Girl Scouts–call and ask for the person who co ordinates Gold Awards, she will know most of the Advisors for Ambassador level troops). The high school CSF advisor likely knows some responsible teens. What do you want them to do–serve a buffet line or actual table service?</p>
<p>I like idea of setting up in advance, that’s what we did for our niece (backyard). How unusual is the location? Is it just different or is it hard to find?</p>
<p>I did petunias in three colors for D’s First Communion. I used three colors of tulle (JoAnn Fabric with a coupon)and pushed the tulle down into the bags with the pots of petunias. The tulle sort of ruffled around…it was casual but pretty.</p>
<p>We really had no money for our wedding. The key to our budget wedding was the time of day. We got married at 1 in the afternoon. Our wedding was actually at a friend’s house. We had several appetizers, a champagne toast, and cake. There was a champagne punch and a plain fruit punch. We had a few vases of wild flowers on the tables. A good friend gave us the cake as a gift (and it was awesome), and another friend took photos for us. Our best man bought a few cases of beer. </p>
<p>We only had 40 people but it was quite inexpensive…largely because we didn’t serve a full meal. Our wedding reception was an extended version of what many couples have for their cocktail hour, and it was really nice!</p>
<p>One thing we did for our dd’s reception was to buy cheap clay pots and spray them with chalk board paint and plant with an annual and put chalkboard markers near them for people to write on. These were the table centerpieces. My youngest was at a potluck reception recently that she said was a lot of fun and she was in another wedding where all the bridesmaids wore floral sundresses of their choice.</p>
<p>Over 20 years ago my H officiated at a DIY wedding that was lovely. The family didn’t have much money, and they planted the flowers ahead of time that their daughter wanted for the wedding. The mom was an excellent seamstress (she made my maternity clothes!) and made the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses. She worked at a fabric store so got a big discount on the fabric. </p>
<p>It was an afternoon wedding so the food, while nice, wasn’t a big, full meal. </p>
<p>Because I was close to the MOB I was aware of the wedding preparations and the budget, but I don’t think I would have noticed it otherwise. It was very nice!</p>
<p>Another friend saved a lot of $ on her wedding by having it at Christmas time. Their church was already decorated with poinsettias and greenery, which saved a lot of money on flowers.</p>
<p>I do a lot of sewing and am thinking of offering to make the dresses for the little girls in the wedding (four young cousins).</p>
<p>One of the locations on the list is a conference center/social hall within a campground (which also has cottages with fire pit available for hanging out afterwards). Am a little concerned about location, but has the advantage of renting for two days and is very affordable. Other possibilities are an arts center, a log cabin lodge on parkland, and an old mansion (also owned by the parks dept.) which is near their favorite contradance hall and has onsite lodging. </p>
<p>If I could offer community service hours, I’m sure I’d have no shortage of volunteers! </p>
<p>I think S and fiancee want buffet-style serving, but then have the plates cleared after dinner. Future DIL does not want us to spend all evening running the kitchen!</p>
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