New Year – New Beginning

Here’s a photo wrap up of the wedding of Nenette and Rob’s wedding on 01/01/10 at 11 a.m.

Remember – this is a wedding with a $300 dollar budget for 25 guests, and two weeks to plan – with a bride that was arriving from out of the country one week prior to the wedding. (Thankfully, she carried on her wedding gown, since the airline lost the luggage that contained her niece’s Jr. Bridesmaid’s dress and other clothes and precious mementos.)

I had spoken to the bride, Nenette, just a couple of times by e-mail and determined that her favorite color was lavender. She agreed to trust me with all of her wedding prep and I promised to make it as pretty as I could and stay within budget.

Tulle is always fairly inexpensive. The ribbon is a Costco purchase – I buy the 50 yard spools of white and hold onto them – you never know when you’ll have a last minute wedding on a budget… Luckily, I had a roll of silver/white also. At less than $7 for 50 yards you can’t go wrong! And silver is a great complementary color with lavender/purple.

We made use of the purple candle hurricanes (purchased at Home Goods for $15 each) from the wedding last November. My daughter Michaela was a stand in flower girl with a black and silver dress purchased at Costco after Christmas for less than $10. The dress that the Jr. Bridesmaid wore was on clearance at Penny’s. We added a black bolero jacket from Michaela’s closet to bring the two together.

The table arrangements are “off  the rack” from the Target Christmas collection. I liked that they had an ice frosted look rather than a snow flocked look. I added floral picks with hues of purple and silver berries and loops of amethyst ribbon. I used the same technique on the coordinating wreath around the bottom of the punch bowl. The small votives surrounded by a tiny silver/frosty berry wreath and the silver napkins are from Home Good’s.

 

 

 

 

 

The purple sand and glass container for the sand covenant were purchased at Hobby Lobby. Love those 50% off sales! I used straight sided bud vases from Wal-Mart for the sand during the ceremony.

The toasting glasses are another Home Good’s purchase. Have I mentioned how much I love, Love, LOVE that place?

The bouquets, corsages and boutonnières I made using flowers from Costco. The bouquets are tied with amethyst ribbon by Offray. I like to have the flowers do double duty, using them to decorate the reception as well. Flowers can be one of the most expensive aspects of a wedding – stretch their use and you stretch your budget.

The wedding favors are simple pillow boxes from the Wal-Mart wedding department. They’re filled with silver and purple Hershey’s Kisses and tied with silver ribbons to dress them up a bit. It’s that we didn’t use from my in-laws 50th Anniversary celebration favor boxes – since gold ribbon was better used there…

With these last minute weddings on a budget I really try to give the bride as many keepsakes as I can. She probably doesn’t have a notebook full of swatches and pages torn from magazines… there are no printed napkins or engraved invitations. In this case she’ll have photos, the covenant sand, dried bouquet, wedding favor and program (not pictured since it’s full of names…).

The reception food was very simple: veggies and dip, fruit and dip, dinner rolls and sandwich fillers (like egg salad), crackers and cheese. Most of the food came from Costco. The serving dishes and baskets are part of my ever growing stash.

The cake is another sheet cake from Costco  decorated with flowers also from Costco. I used the same technique I used at the November wedding with instructions here. The topper on the cake is from Hobby Lobby. Watch Hobby Lobby for huge bridal department sales – everything goes 50% off!

The crystal candle sticks are part of my stash and the silver candles I found rummaging around in Home Goods.

I have a very generous friend that has a small guesthouse on her property just on the outskirts of town. She offered it to the wedding couple for their wedding night.

They even had space to entertain their family  afternoon  while opening their gifts that afternoon. We had filled the fridge with some leftovers from the reception. I keep bottles of sparkling cider and champagne flutes on hand also – for those impromptu celebrations.

Yes, I gathered up leftover rose petals to scatter around the little suite. I’m not above that… anything to save a few pennies. I also pulled out some pretty votive candles to further set the romantic mood.

Don’t forget some paper and a pen so the couple can record what gifts came from whom for their thank you notes.

We wish Rob and Nenette many blessings as they start their new life together.

ETA:  I am sad, but also happy, to say, they have since moved out of state and now live near Nenette’s sister, husband and niece. it’s good (most of the time) to be near family.