Little Miss Fortune reader karliss reminded me last week (when I begged you guys for anniversary gift ideas) that I promised way back in this post to get you the how-to for my handmade paper wedding flowers. So I figured I’d do that and take the opportunity to share some other handy ways to save while planning what will likely be the most expensive six hours of your life.
I’m going to go ahead and put the how-to at the bottom of this post, since once you read it you’ll realize I’m actually insane and you won’t want to be friends with me anymore.
So here are your money-savers:
- Negotiate. Prices in the wedding world aren’t set in stone. If you like a venue but are freaked out by the site fee, ask if they’ll lower it if you hold your wedding on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon (instead of any time on Saturday, which is the most popular day). If you’ve found your dream dress but didn’t want to spend quite that much, ask the boutique owner whether they sell floor samples (lots of shops do every few months) or look online to see if other nearby shops are holding sample sales. Also check sites that sell “pre-owned” dresses; if the style you like is popular they’ll likely have a few. (Wedding do or don't: Short dresses?)
- Shop retail. Anything with “bridal” in the name (“bridal shoes,” “bridal gown”) automatically costs about eight times as much. So instead of looking at bride-specific shoes, for example, find a pair that makes you smile (ivory or otherwise). Here are mine, which are Nine West. (The girl who writes this blog is always finding gorge party dresses that would work as wedding gowns.)
I bought them on Amazon for around $60. Thanks to FootPetals (the purple liner thingys) I kept them on all night.
Related: Why you should consider renting your wedding jewelry.
- Shop early then wait for sales. It’s tempting to pounce once you fall in love with something, but try to exercise some restraint. My bridesmaids wore J. Crew dresses, which they got for $55 less than the original price, thanks to some well-timed patience.
That’s Rory’s oldest friend, Brad, my oldest friend, Kate, and our dog, Bradley (named after the aforementioned Brad—long story).
- Enlist in the help of friends. I still owe several thousand thank yous for everything our friends did for our wedding. Not only did my friends help make the flowers, a handful set up the arrangements before the party started. Our friend Robyn designed our invites. Another friend, Adam, played guitar during our ceremony. And a third friend, Oren, married us and did a kickass harmonica solo with our wedding band. (That is so not a joke. And it was so amazing.)
That’s my friend Betsey, hard at work. You can also see a teeny tiny Heidi (also hard at work) in the background on the right.
Another money-saver: Our invites only had two pieces, the travel insert, and the invite itself. The reply card was a tear-off postcard on the bottom of the invite. This saved us money twice. First, we didn’t have a bunch of envelopes inside the main envelope, so the invite was lighter and cost less to mail. And second, since the reply card was a postcard, we paid less in return postage than we would have if we had sent traditional reply cards in envelopes.
Related: Are expensive wedding flowers worth it or a waste?
Our programs (which Rory designed based on the invites and we put together) were too cute to not include a picture of. They were also “hinged” on the bottom, so the pages spread out and they doubled as fans.
- DIY—within reason. Making my own flowers was probably not the most reasonable undertaking. It did probably save us a couple thousand dollars, but I was still cutting and gluing the night before the wedding. Making my own favors (little jars of marmalade that also served as seating cards) probably was reasonable, but I didn’t give myself nearly enough time. Instead of spreading the project over a few weekends, my friend Leslie and I made 200-something jars by working 21 hours straight. Insane. There are plenty of things you can do yourself though, like table numbers; mine were just click and print (and cut out) you can download them here.
I almost didn’t post a picture of these, just because seeing them gives me flashbacks to that night of sticky badness.
Rory wasn’t happy he had to cut out 22 ovals three days before the wedding (I guess that’s hard?) but he wasn’t crossing me at that point.
OK, we’ve waited long enough. Here’s the flower how-to. I won’t say I regret making them—all 2,000-something of them. But I will say I could have used about three months more time. (And a few dozen more friends.)
Steps 1 and 2 are in on top. Steps 3, 4, and 5 are on bottom.
1. Punch circles out of paper using a craft punch. (For the actual flowers, I used vellum, which I bought here. For the how-to, I just used plain paper.) I did 3-inch, 2-inch, and 1.5-inch circles. 2. Fold a circle into eighths, then trim the top of the folded circle into a teardrop shape. 3. Unfold the circle, then cut out one full “petal” and a third of the petal next to it; trim the top of that petal so it’s flat, then stick a miniature glue dot on it. (You can sort of see the glue dot in the picture, if you squint.) 4. Stick the glue-dotted petal behind the full petal below it to close the flower. 5. To make the stem, cut 24-gauge floral wire into different lengths. Grasp one end of a wire in needlenose pliers, then wrap the wire around the pliers to make a circle. Slide the circle off the pliers, then bend the wire so it looks like a lollipop (a circle on top of a straight line). Poke the straight end of the wire through the flower, then put a dab of white glue below it so it stays in place.
Can you guys think of any wedding money-savers that I missed?
Want more wedding inspiration? Check out all the genius wedding ideas over at our Smitten blog!
Azure Photography
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