Wedding Guest Book Alternatives
Wedding guest books are one of the essential bridal accessories that you will need in your wedding reception. Typically, it is a bound book with lines for your guests’ names, their physical address and sometimes, a space for a short note for you and your new hubby. So stale and unoriginal, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be refreshing to find some unique wedding guest book alternatives to “wow” your guest? Look no further, gathered below are great alternative ideas for your wedding guest book.
Small note cards with matching envelopes – Choose card colors and/or design that match your wedding theme. Stack these cards and envelopes on a table outside your reception hall and ask your guests to share their thoughts, “marriage wisdom” or simply congratulatory note on these cards. The cards will be placed inside the matching envelopes and simply dropped into a decorated wish glass jar, like the one shown from www.kindnotes.com . These private messages can then be opened later to be enjoyed by you and your new husband.
Wedding Day Emergency Kit
Murphy’s Law states “if anything can go wrong, it will.” No matter how much planning you do, unexpected “little things” can happen that could cause delays and some anxiety before, during or after your wedding day. Don’t get caught unprepared when these emergencies come. If you want to save money, you can make your own “Wedding Day Emergency Kit” (see instructions below). However, if you prefer saving time and want to avoid the hassle of collecting what you need for the kit, purchase a pre-made wedding emergency kit. We looked at several vendors that offer this product and our choice is the Essentials “In the Bag”
This “bridal survival” kit is perfect for a small wedding party of 1-4 women. The bag itself is made of quality materials that you can reuse when all the products inside are consummed. The kits contains over seventy brand-named items for fashion, cosmetic or minor medicinal emergencies. Read more
Fake Wedding Cake, an Economical Elegance
Wedding cakes can cost from $300 to over $3,000. For a bride on a budget, the thought of getting a cake that is more expensive than her bridal gown is upsetting, to say the least. Our “Economical Elegance” ( ideas for cutting your wedding costs) tip for this month could save you, the bride-to-be hundreds of dollars, not to mention helping you lessen the stress of preparing for your dream wedding without breaking the bank.
Instead of ordering an expensive wedding cake, why not opt for a “fake wedding cake”? These cakes are made of styrofoam and are beautifully decorated. They can stay on display all day long, even outdoors with no worries about bugs or humidity. They look so real, your guests won’t even have a clue it is fake. But, how about the “cutting of the cake” tradition? Depending on which cake rental company you choose, the fake cake can have a “secret compartment” where you can store a real piece for the bride and groom to cut and feed each other. Some fake cake rental companies will have a piece of the sheet cake already cut and placed behind the fake cake. Either way, when the photographs of the cake cutting tradition is over, the fake cake is wheeled over into the dining area and a sheet cake sliced in serving sizes is wheeled out for the guests to partake.
Creating Personal Wedding Website
Creating personal wedding websites are becoming more and more popular these days. Should you follow the trend and create one? You decide.
A personal wedding website is not just for posting your pictures and wedding date, it can be used to enable your guests instant access, 24/7, to your gift registry information, maps and directions, video clips and a message board for live interactive discussions and planning, to name a few. Your wedding website can also become a centralized source of information for your checklists, guest database, address book, budget manager and payment tracking. Read more
A Destination Wedding Alternative
Formerly the exclusive domain of the “rich and famous”, destination weddings have become popular with today’s couples who want an unforgettable, unique wedding. With proper planning, destination weddings could cost less than a traditional hometown wedding. As an added benefit, you and your guests can turn this special event into a “mini-vacation”. With the current trend of destination weddings, there are so many locations for you to consider. Just pick up a bridal magazine or search for “destination weddings” and you will be bombarded with various choices. From the tropical locations that are closer to or even within the United States to far away places in the other side of the world. Your choice location will largely depend on how much you want to spend on your destination wedding - the Caribbean islands, Mexico, Hawaii or Fiji, Italy and Indonesia. Before making your decision, consider the following tips: Read more
Planning your Wedding Reception
Your wedding reception, quite possibly, can be the most costly item in your wedding budget. By shopping around, you can get some really great deals for reception locations and caterers. But before the search begins, you should have settled on the following:
- your guest list, so you know how many will be attending the reception
- the wedding date, which is also the ceremony date
- the type of ambiance you want for the reception, i.e., formal, semi-formal or informal
- the wedding reception theme
Setting Your Budget for Your Wedding
Prior to setting your budget, you and your fiancée should have decided on the size of your guest list and the type of wedding (either formal, informal or semi-formal). As you research your reception site, figure on about 80% of your wedding guests will come to the reception. In addition, the more formal the wedding, the more expensive it would be. Also agree on who pays for what. In previous days, the bride’s parents pay for the wedding while the groom’s parents pay for the reception. This is no longer the norm in this century. Most engaged couples are now paying for the wedding expenses themselves. With the cost of weddings these days, it is not uncommon to ask your parents to pitch in with the expenses, if they so please. Read more
Should You Hire A Wedding Consultant?
Most of today’s brides-to-be are older, more mature and has launched their own careers apart from their future husbands. With the competing demands of their career and personal lives, planning a wedding could be stressful and tasking, while exhilarating at the same time. Are you one of these ladies? Even if you are not planning to hire a professional wedding consultant, wouldn’t you want to know what services does a wedding consultant offer and how much would it cost? Then, read on…
Those of us who saw the hit movie “The Wedding Planner”, which stared Jennifer Lopez as the wedding planner, have a clear idea of what wedding consultants do. They coordinate the numerous details that go into planning the perfect wedding from dealing with wedding suppliers to choosing flowers and wedding reception venues to making sure that everyone arrives on time for the wedding day.
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Planning A Wedding Step 1
According to the latest Wedding Report published by Wedding Industry Trends, the average cost of US weddings in 2007 is $28,732. That is not a small change. The rise in wedding cost could be attributed to men and women waiting longer for marriage, thus, they have more money to spend. Also, the parents of the soon-to-be-married couple usually share in the cost of the wedding. No matter what the reasons are, it is best to determine early in your wedding planning stage what you want or what you can afford to spend and stick to it. Yes, I am talking about creating a budget. “But”, you ask, “where do I start?”
There are two elements in your wedding planning that will determine how much the wedding would cost you - the size of your guest list and the theme or style of your wedding. It does not mean to say that the fewer guests you invite, the less money you’d spend. It depends on how much the reception would cost per guest. The same applies to the style of your wedding. You could save money by choosing an informal wedding in a neighboring public beach, But if you chose a beach in one of the Caribbean island, it would add up to the cost of your wedding, unless you do not plan to invite many of your friends and relatives to your wedding.
Weddings are not only for the bride and groom. It is a celebration of love and, thus, wedding is an event to share with people you care about – friends and relatives. People are more important than money. For many bride and groom, they would rather have a less formal wedding than to cut their friends and relatives out of the wedding.
Consider your guest list as one of the major determining factor in setting your wedding budget. Making a guest list should be the first step in your wedding planning. On average, the biggest cost in your wedding would be the reception at 42%, next comes the rings at 20%, then bridal gown and groom’s rental tux at 7%. The rest of the expenses go to photography or videography, invitations including save the date and thank you cards, limousine, Music, ceremony, flowers, and cake.
Do you want more information about how to plan your wedding? Visit our blog often. We will write a series of articles on ideas on saving money on your wedding.