Giveaway Winner

The winner of the 500 Uprinting business cards is the Bicoastal Bride who said she'd use them as photo sharing cards.  Congratulations!

Look out for another great giveaway starting tomorrow morning.  This one will be available to 3 different winners!

Cute Thank You Cards

I won a giveaway on Weddzilla's blog a couple weeks ago and I got my prize earlier this week.  I could choose between 50 save-the-dates, 50 invitations, or 50 thank you cards from Vistaprint.  I chose the 50 thank you cards, obviously since everything else is done for the wedding.

I found the cutest design that worked perfectly for our wedding.  Two little love birds.  Perfect!  I will be using these thank you cards for all the presents we receive before the wedding (I'll be making thank you cards for presents after the wedding with our thank you parasol picture).  

This was an easy project and there's not really a tutorial for it.  Since our guests have to walk down a path from the parking lot to the ceremony site, I wanted to make sure there was a sign directing them to the correct location.

Here was my inspiration.

Since we're using chalkboards as part of our reception, I thought making the sign a chalkboard would be a cute way to tie that together.  I came across the arrow at the Dollar Tree.  It was originally a sign for a tiki bar, but after I painted it, you have no clue.  I painted it with a couple layers of black paint and then put some chalkboard paint on it.  Then, I just wrote wedding on it in chalk.  I'm going to have someone with prettier writing write on it the day of the wedding.

 

I'm going to hang it on a tree near the parking lot.  It was a quick simple project and it will do it's job perfectly.

Total Cost: $1

All I had to buy was the sign.  I had the chalkboard paint leftover from the chalkboard menus I made a while back and J brought the chalk home from work.

I submitted this project to the CSI Project:

DIY Thank You Parasol Tutorial

I ordered my parasols from Oriental Trading months ago, but I just now got around to starting to paint them.  I saw this inspiration picture on Project Wedding and knew I wanted to do one for myself.  I think it will make a great picture to put on the thank you cards.

These parasols run about $50 if you get someone to do them for you, so I figured I could DIY it for much cheaper.  It was definitely a hard process and I don't really recommend it.  But, if you're more patient than me, it might be the project for you.

What You Need:
- A parasol
- Microsoft Publisher
- 80 lb. or heavier white cardstock
- Exacto knife
- Tape
- Pencil
- Sharpie

1. Open up a 20x20 banner in Microsoft Publisher.  Type "Thank You" in Edwardian font, size 600.  You may need to move your text around some to make it fit.

2. Print out your banner.  It will print on multiple pieces of paper.

3. Carefully cut out your letters with an exacto knife and tape them together.  Try to be as exact as possible because this is going to be your stencil.

4. Lightly tape your stencil to the top of your parasol.

5. Trace around your stencil with a pencil.  This is the hard part because of the curve of the parasol.

 
6. Trace over your pencil lines with a black sharpie and then fill in the letters.  I would do this over the period of a day because doing it all at once will make your dizzy from the smell of the marker.

7. Leave your parasol open to dry for about a day so that you don't smudge the ink.

I still need to make some touch-ups to mine because my sharpie started dying, but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Total Cost: $2.50!!!  The only thing I had to buy was the parasol.  I had everything else already in my house.  Even if you don't have all the items, it should still be less than $10 because sharpies and exacto knives are pretty cheap.

PS. I will be selling my parasol after my wedding if anyone is interested.

Blog Updates

I wanted to pop in and let you know what to expect in the next couple of months leading up to the wedding.  I'm sure a lot of you know that these last two months are the most hectic parts of planning a wedding, so please bare with me if I go a couple days without posts or posts get posted in the evening instead of first thing in the morning.  I'm going to keep up with everything I'm doing, but it may get hard. 

Here's some of the things I'm planning for the next two months though:
- Tons of DIY projects with tutorials.  I still have a lot of stuff to make for the wedding and I will definitely show each and every one of you how to make.  Actually, I have a tutorial for a "Thank You" parasol being posted this evening.

- Templates.  I'm working on compiling a list of the best wedding templates from around the interwebs so you only have to go to one place to find what you're looking for.  This should be posted within the week.

- Real Wedding Features.  A lot of your expressed interest in seeing real weddings on my blog, so every Wednesday, I will feature a new one.  Don't worry, they will all be budget weddings under 20K (most of them WAY under).

- More giveaways.  I have a couple more giveaways in the works right now, with the first one coming Monday, February 1st.

And of course I'll still provide you with the trials and tribulations of being a budget bride.  Hope this sounds good to everyone and please stick with me through the next couple of months.

Thrifty Thursday

Discounts
Ten23 Designs -- $10 off a $100 purchase (Expires January 31st)


Giveaways
Uprinting Sticker giveaway over at With This Ring, I Thee Blog. (Ends January 29th)
Hello Lucky Wedding Invitation giveaway over at Style Me Pretty (Ends January 29th)
$50 invitation giftcard giveaway over at Saving Money for a Wedding (Ends February 11th)


I also very exciting news for all you ladies who like to shop online.  RetailMeNot.com is a site I swear by when shopping online.  I also go there and look for discount codes before I order anything.  Well, now they have an entire page dedicated to weddings.  Here's the press release about it.

RETAILMENOT.COM LAUNCHES NEW WEDDING COUPON CENTER

Number One Online Coupon Site Makes Finding Wedding Deals Easier

Melbourne, Australia – January 27, 2010–RetailMeNot.com, a top consumer destination for coupons, discounts and promotional codes for merchandise, groceries, travel and services, today announced that they have created a special Wedding Coupon Center for budget-minded brides that brings together the best wedding related coupons, deals and promotions.

The new Wedding Coupon Center will showcase a continuously updated list of the top wedding-related coupons from among the more than 400,000 coupons currently offered on RetailMeNot.com. In addition, the page will feature a live Twitter feed, offering real-time updates of both deals and discussions about the big day, providing users with an all-inclusive resource for insight into how other people are saving during their planning process. 

RetailMeNot.com’s Wedding Coupon Center will help brides plan their dream wedding while staying on budget for all aspects of the event—from discount wedding favors, to free shipping on invitations, to bridesmaid gifts, to coupons helping to make the honeymoon less expensive—all conveniently located in one easy to navigate page.

“Spending your life savings on your big day isn’t necessary and a low-cost wedding doesn’t mean giving up style or sentimentality,” said Guy King, co-founder, RetailMeNot.com. “We hear stories from our users all the time about how coupons made it possible for them to afford the wedding of their dreams despite a small budget. Our goal with RetailMeNot.com’s Wedding Coupon Center is to make planning that big day not only more affordable, but a little easier.”

For the latest coupons and shopping tips, follow RetailMeNot.com on Twitter: twitter.com/retailmenot

About RetailMeNot.com

RetailMeNot.com is a top consumer destination for coupons, discounts and promotional codes for merchandise, travel and services with over 15 million visitors per month. RetailMeNot.com’s online community posts, uses, recommends and ranks more than 400,000 online discounts and promotions for more than 100,000 retailers, restaurants and brands, including Amazon, GameStop, Macy’s, Dell , Home Depot and Gap. RetailMeNot.com’s mission is to help consumers save money and enjoy a hassle-free discount shopping experience. RetailMeNot.com, a division of Stateless Systems, is located in Melbourne, Australia.

www.RetailMeNot.com is a registered domain of Stateless Systems. All other domains, names and trademarks mentioned herein are property of their respective owners.

Booked my Coordinator(s)

I've been looking for a day of coordinator for the longest time.  I don't want my friends and family to have to work on my wedding day, so I want someone there to help us make sure everything runs smoothly.  I've been keeping an eye on WeddingBee and Craigslist to find someone who will do the services for free or cheap.  Well, I was in luck last week.

I came across an ad on Craigslist for a wedding planning business who was just starting up and was looking for clients to help build their portfolio.  Well, I met with them yesterday and they were awesome!  It's a team of sisters who really seem on their game.  They are more organized than businesses that have been in service for years!

Since we're still a couple months out from the wedding, they're going to help me with more than just the day of coordination.  They're kind of going to be a month of coordinator.  They're going to attend all final vendor meetings with me to make sure that everything is in order and also help me build a wedding day timeline.  They're also going to help us run the rehearsal and of course be there on the day of the wedding to make sure everything runs smoothly.

I think these girls are going to be a terrific asset to my wedding and I can't wait until they get their website up so that I can introduce you to their wonderful services.

Are you having a DOC/MOC?  If not, why?

Crafty Countdown Book Review

The Crafty Countdown is the second book written by the DIY Bride.  Just like the first, it has tons of wonderful DIY projects, but this one makes it even better.  It gives you a timeline of when you should do each project.  That will help you manage your time better with all your DIY projects.

A Little About the Auther
Khris Cochran is the author of The DIY Bride and creator and founder of the award-winning DIYBride.com, one of today's most popular bridal crafting websites.  In addition to dishing out wedding expertise daily on DIYBride.com, Khris teaches craft classes and workshops of all kinds in the San Francisco Bay area where she lives with her husband and son.

The Crafty Countdown includes 40 projects ranging from save-the-dates to centerpieces.  All these projects are arranged to be made in the months, weeks, and hours before your wedding.  For each project, Khris gives you the amount of time it should take and whether you should tackle the project alone or with others. 

There are definitely a few projects from this book I'm going to tackle, including:

Memory Lane Table Markers (takes about an hour to make 10-15)

Cupcake in a Jar Favors (takes about four hours)

Customized Water Bottle Labels (takes about 30 minutes to complete half a dozen bottles)

At the end of every project, Khris includes tips and hints to make the project easier for you to create.  Then, she gives you a cost comparison of the store cost vs. making it yourself.  For every project in the book, it's so much cheaper to make it yourself.  A lot of these projects take a good bit of time, so make sure you're committed to them before you start.

About half of the book are projects that you should start to make about 6 months before your wedding (including tons of cute save-the-date and invitation ideas) so I recommend buying this book really early in your planning.  I wish this book would have been out when I started planning because I would have used on of her invitation projects.

I highly recommend this book and The DIY Bride to anyone looking to make some of their own projects for their wedding.  It will help save money and you can add in your own personal touches.

Uprinting Business Card Giveaway

Uprinting has another fantastic giveaway for you!  They're offering 500 business cards with free shipping to one lucky reader.

To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment telling me what you would use the business cards for.  This is going to be a short giveaway, so I'm only allowing one entry per person for this giveaway.  Please make sure to leave me a way to contact you, whether it be your blog or an email address.

You have under Sunday, January 31st at 5pm EST to enter this giveaway.  Good luck!

Something Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

Everyone's heard of the tradition of a bride carrying something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue when she's walking down the aisle.  Do you know why you're supposed to carry these though?  Each item is supposed to bring you a different kind of luck.

• Something old symbolizes continuity with the bride’s family and the past.
• Something new means optimism and hope for the bride’s new life ahead.
• Something borrowed is actually supposed to be loaned from a happily married friend or family member, whose good fortune in marriage is supposed to carry over to the new bride.
• Something blue goes back as far as ancient Rome, when brides wore blue to symbolize love, modesty, and fidelity.
• The silver sixpence represents a wish for wealth and good fortune.

So, since all of these are supposed to be important on your wedding day, I've been thinking hard about what I'm going to do for each of them.

Something Old:

My mom got me this necklace on my sixteenth birthday.  She always got upset with me because I never wore it.  It's really big though and it has a lot of sentimental value, so I was always scared I was going to lose it.  So, to honor my mom, I'm going to tie the necklace around the stem of my bouquet.

Something New:

The majority of the stuff on me will be something new, but I'm considering my dress to be the main thing.  It's my favorite thing that I'm wearing that day.

Something Borrowed:
This is the one thing I haven't decided yet.  My grandmother has offered to let me borrow some of her jewelry, but I haven't seen any of it, so I'm not sure.

Something Blue:

I found these panties at Charlotte Russe and I knew they were perfect for my something blue.  I'm going to put my new last name on the butt with rhinestones (tutorial coming soon!)

Sixpence:

Most brides just buy a knock-off sixpence online, but my family is British, so I was lucky to be able to get a real one.  My grandmother found one in her bureau for me.  It's even more special because the year on the sixpence is the year my mother was born.  I'm going to have to tape this inside my shoe because it would fall out otherwise.

Boudoir Photography

Yesterday I did boudoir pictures with Kelly at The Bond Between Us.  I got my hair done yesterday morning at the Aveda Institute ($12 baby!) and then went to the Staybridge Suite to do our shoot.  I was very nervous, but Kelly was very professional, but very personable at the same time.  We laughed and had girl talk throughout the entire shoot.  She shot for about an hour and took around 150 pictures.  I did 3 different outfits.

She posted a teaser on her blog.  I'll just put up the link so you're not forced to look at it if you're not comfortable with that kind of stuff.

http://thebondbetweenus.blogspot.com/2010/01/hard-day-at-office.html

I definitely recommend boudoir photography for anyone thinking about doing it.  It was so much fun and made me feel a lot more comfortable in my body.  I can't wait to see how the rest of the pictures turn out!

If you have any questions about my experience, please feel free to contact me!

RSVPs are coming in!

We're already starting to get RSVPs for our wedding.  It's so much fun running to the mailbox every evening to see if there are any new ones.

I put to use our program baskets by making them yes or no baskets for the RSVP cards.  As soon as I receive the card, I insert their response into our excel spreadsheet and then put them in the basket.  That way they're easy to find when I start the seating chart later on.  Left is yes, right is no.

Here's our tallies so far up to today:

This is for the rehearsal dinner

103

14

4

This is for the actual wedding

103

29

4

The total for the wedding is higher because that includes some verbal RSVPs and also our bridal party.  I'm not sure if everyone is able to come to the rehearsal dinner yet, so I'm waiting to include them in that count until I'm 100% sure.

Let There Be Cake!

We finally booked our cake baker!  After many months of going in circles about it, we finally decided to go with The Cake Shop here in Tallahassee.  We are very happy with our choice and can't wait to see the final product.

This is the picture I took him as the inspiration.  This was actually a cake they did last May for Beth's wedding. 

We plan on getting a 3 tier cake with the same kind of ribbon scheme.  We will have pearls at the bottom of each tier, but they will be more round than the inspiration picture.  We're going to have the monogram on the middle tier to match the green ribbon and will not have the bow on top. 

For flavors, we're having yellow cake with raspberry filling for the bottom and top tiers and then yellow cake with buttercream filling for the middle tier.  The entire cake will be covered in buttercream frosting.  We plan on packaging and saving our top tier for our one year anniversary.

The cake will come out to a total of $283.00 including the rental of the cake stand.  We will be picking the cake up ourselves to save us a $75 delivery charge.

Embossed Cocktail Napkins

I love the look of professional quality napkins, but at the price of $20 for 100 napkins, I couldn't justify buying them for myself.

So, I went out and bought the supplies to emboss my own napkins and I think they came out beautifully.  You can make them even more personal if you want to buy a custom stamp from an etsy seller.  I just got a C stamp from Michaels and then borrowed the bird stamp from a previous knottie.

Here's what you need to do to make your own.  Really simple after you get the hang of it.  It took me about an hour to emboss 150.

What You Need:
- Stamp of your choosing
- Slow drying stamp pad (I used Delta Embossing Ink Pad from Michaels)
- Detail embossing powder in the color of your choice (I used Stamp n Stuff Detail Gold from Michaels)
- Embossing heat gun
- Cocktail napkins

1. Start off by saturating your stamp with ink.  You want to make sure the ink covers the entire stamp.  Then, press the stamp firmly on your napkins, wiggling it a bit to make sure the entire stamp is set.  It took me about a bunch of trials to make figure out the best way to wiggle the stamp to get it to come out perfectly.  You might want to do trial runs on paper first.

2. Immediately after you stamp the napkin, pour embossing powder of it.  Make sure you get enough to cover the entire stamp.  Dump the excess back into the powder container so you don't waste any.  Blow lightly on the napkin to get off any stray powder that is around the image.  If you don't get it off, it will be permanent as soon as you apply heat.

3. Turn on the heat gun and move it slowly over the image.  Hold it about an inch or two away.  You'll start to see the powder bubbling.  As soon as the entire image has bubbled, remove the heat.  If you get too close, it will burn your napkin.

Now you're done!  Very easy project!

The hardest part for me was finding the correct gold embossing powder.  I bought two different ones.  The first one I bought had too big of glitter and didn't emboss correctly.  It looked like the right color in the jar, but it just didn't come out right.  This powder was by Stampendous and it's called Jeweled Gold.

So, I went back and found another gold embossing powder.  This one looked way too brown in the jar, so I was weary, but I took it home to try it anyways.  As soon as I applied heat, it raised correctly and turned a very shiny gold.  Perfect!  This one is Stamp n Stuff Detail Gold.

I hope my trials helped someone who was wanting to emboss gold, but couldn't find the correct color.

Edited with cost of 150 napkins:
6 packs of 25 napkins: 99 cents each = $6
Embossing powder: $2.25
Ink pad: $3
Heat gun: $6 (I bought from another bride.  These run about $25 at Michaels and then use a 40% off coupon with it)
Stamp: $1

Total: $18.25

It seems high, but I would have bought the napkins without the personalization anyways, so that takes off $6.  So for the personalization, it came out to about $12.  Plus, I have tons of powder and ink leftover so I can do tons more napkins and then will be able to sell the extra stuff after the wedding.  So really the cost isn't high at all.

Featured Wedding: Beth and Paul 05-16-09

I might eventually turn this into a regular thing if you like this!  So let me know!

I decided to feature this wedding because it has been one of the main inspirations for my own wedding.  As a lot of you know, my original colors were Tiffany Blue and Damask, but then I decided to change to pink and green.  Beth and Paul had the exact same colors and I fell in love with their wedding.  So a lot of elements in my wedding came from theirs.  Actually, I have some of their exact decorations that Beth generously gifted me.

So, without further ado, Beth and Paul!

What aspects of the wedding were very personal to you?
I did a ton of DIY stuff.  All paper products were DIY.  Guestbook was DIY.  Standing photo frames for the reception were DIY.  I also wore family heirlooms, including my grandmother's wedding set, as my something old.

What was the main thing you did to save money?
DIY paper products.


What was your biggest splurge?
Photography.


What was your favorite aspect of your wedding?
Besides actually getting married and celebrating with our family and friends, I loved the location we chose (the Southwood house).

What advice would you give to other brides still in the planning process?
It WILL all come together, even though it seems really stressful at times. Don't be afraid to ask for help from friends, family, and most of all, your fiance. It's his wedding, too!

Thanks to Beth and Paul for letting me feature their wedding!  It was gorgeous guys!

Vendors
Photographer -- Forever by Kylene Photography
Venue -- Southwood Plantation House
Rentals -- Party Line Tents, A-Z Rent All
Rings -- Delmas Diamonds
Hair and Make-up -- Sarah Millar, Athena Salon
Cake -- The Cake Shop

Rehearsal Dinner Food

A good bit of our guests are going to be coming from out-of-town and we barely ever get to see a lot of these people.  We'll be so busy on the wedding day, that it will be hard to see and talk to every single one of them for more than 10 minutes.  So, we figured we'd invite them all to the rehearsal dinner so that we could see them on another night when we're not so busy! 

To save money, we're having the rehearsal dinner at a local park and I'm going to be making all the food myself.  We were originally going to do cookout food, but I thought that would be too close to our Sonnys catering for the wedding.  Then I came across the idea of a pasta bar and I was in love!  J and I eat pasta at least once a week and it would be an easy meal to cook.

The food shouldn't take very long to prepare at all.  I can cook up some pasta the day before and store it in a serving tray with a little water.  Then, I'll place it on a chafing dish at the park to help warm it up.

I plan on making a couple different kinds of sauces, but I haven't decided what kinds yet.  I'll probably end up just using jarred sauces to make my life a little easier.  I will definitely be going with a marina sauce and then probably an alfredo and maybe a butter garlic sauce.  That will give everyone a choice of their favorite.

I'm going to have a bunch of little bowls filled with different mix-ins as well.  That way everyone can customize their pasta the way they like.  I will include tons of different kinds of veggies and some ground beef or chicken.

I found Parmesan shakers like this the other day at Michaels for $1, so I picked up 4 of them.  I'm going to fill 2 with Parmesan cheese and 2 with red pepper.

I will also have a bowl of salad tossed up with a couple dressing options and then some garlic knots.

I think it will be a delicious dinner and easy cooking for me.  What are you doing for your rehearsal dinner?

Rehearsal Dinner Dress

I don't wear white very often, but I figured since I'm the bride, I can wear white as often as I want.  So, I want a white dress for our rehearsal dinner.  Here's a few I've found that are under $100.

David's Bridal -- $69.99

Forever 21 -- $27.80

Target -- $39.99


I'm probably going to buy the second dress for my rehearsal dinner.  I really want the first one, but I don't think I have enough money for it.