Bob and Carol's Wedding Tips
And Fun Ideas

Church and Reception Location
Dressing for the Day-*-Wedding Extras
Flowers-*-Photos and Videos
Entertainment-*-Scrimps and Savers
The biggest tip of all....

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And so I came to my senses. I went to the book store, and to the library to find books on how to plan my wedding. There were LOTS! You can find many of the books I recommend right here. They all had a variety of info and some great ideas and details, but one common theme. Organize!!! What did I really want....what should we spend money on and what should we scrimp on?? My now husband and I had some talks about wedding planning and came up with rule #1.. IT MUST BE FUN!!! We decided then and there that we were going to have fun and enjoy our wedding. We decided on how large the wedding will be, chose places to get married at as well as a reception hall. Since we live in Cleveland, the weather in early May can be anything from snow to 80 degrees and everything in between. An outdoor site was out of the question. We also wanted to be married in church. We looked at churches and reception sites in our area and selected The Old Stone Church and The Patrician Party Center for several reasons.... one they were both available on our chosen day and two, they came all-inclusive for a reasonable price. The church included the minister, organist, soloist, marriage seminar and wedding assistant. The reception hall included the food, alcohol, centerpieces, table cloths, napkins, bartender, servers, cake, wedding decorations, tax, tip and gratuity. We really liked having everything included in one package. While it does not offer you much choice from the standard offerings, we were happy with what was offered and didn’t find that a problem. It also meant that we did not have to shop for an organist or look at wedding cakes. Hey we wanted it to be fun!! We went one evening to the hall and selected our menu, chose our cake and decided how we wanted the tables arranged and chose the centerpieces etc. We met with the minister and went over the ceremony, then called the organist with our music selections. Everything went perfectly because they do this all the time and we did not have to make any other arrangements.

OK the major decisions were done...now what to wear! The dress I chose was one of the first few I saw. It was perfect, everything I had ever hoped it to be. Except for the price. As I was trying to rationalize spending more money on a dress that I would only wear once then anything I have ever bought before, I thought....why not shop around?? I do that when I but jeans....why not now?? And so in my search I found the very same dress for $300 cheaper. Then I looked at veils...$150 to $200. NO WAY!! I think....how much could this cost to make??? I examine the veil in question...hmmmmmmm. Now, I am pretty crafty.... I can do this.... and so I did.....total cost $28 even with the long detachable chapel length piece. And I was able to get a shiny tulle that complemented my satin gown beautifully. I even thought of making my dress, but that wouldn’t have been fun for me.... but with more time and wedding help, you could save major dollars by making your own dress. Other dress options are renting a dress (there are places to do that and they can be altered) buying a used dress from a consignment shop, borrowing a dress from mom, grandma, sisters or friends, (be careful of the sizing though) or getting a white bridesmaids dress rather than a brides dress. Bridesmaids dresses are significantly cheaper than wedding gowns. Speaking of bridesmaids.....also shop around for the best prices on their dresses. A local seamstress may be able to make your bridesmaids dresses for a fraction of the cost. (Remember that the fewer the bridesmaids, the less trouble it will be to decide on a dress) I also found a few discount bridal ordering places on the web.....too late for me to use them but all of them seemed to need the maker and style of the bride’s or bridesmaid’s dresses which can be tricky to get sometimes because the bridals shops are not happy giving out that information.....(they want your business) Actually, I read something somewhere that when a bride enters a bridal shop, the salesperson’s job is to get every last dollar from that bride..... now I know why I felt like meat in those shops.... This is a great link for those who want to sew wedding and evening clothing. This is a link to Pearl's Place, where you can order a wedding gown, this is to The Knot where you can view and shop for your dress in the privacy of your home. This is a good all around wedding site.

Other bridal clothing, jewelry, etc..... If you need a special bra for your dress go to a good foundation shop or specialty underwear merchant. A good garment will make your dress look its best. A great thing to borrow (something borrowed) is the crinoline slip that most brides dresses need to look good. Check with friends and family and borrow it!! save yourself $50-60. Don’t know anyone with one?? Rent it! Check at a local consignment shop or some bridal shops also rent them. You do not need $30 pantyhose. No one will see them. (ok your husband will... but all he will want is them OFF!) I went to Payless and got dyeable shoes, glued on some leftover bridal appliqués and voila! neat shoes. I also dyed them black after the wedding so I can rewear them. (Do make sure your shoes are comfy). Check out this fun idea! Wedding Reception Sneakers !!! Same idea as what I did, just in kit form. Any jewelry and accessories that are labeled “BRIDAL” will cost like 50% or more than the exact same item in a department store. I bought my earrings, pearl necklace etc at a local department store when they had a sale. There are lots of small, tempting items that will catch your eye. Remember, this is all suppose to be fun, so have fun! But keep your budget in mind.

Guys have it easy...tuxes are pretty much the same price all around. Do take advantage of any sales or deals you may get from bridal shows. Does he need the fancy shoes?? Not necessarily...if he has basic black dress shoes then you may be able to save a few $$ there.....(see the COMMENTS Page)

Wedding candles...... another “BRIDAL” thing that was marked way up there. I couldn’t believe it!! A really UGLY, TACKY candle was $40. A kinda nice one was $60!! And it didn’t include the holders or the smaller tapers! NO WAY I said.. .. I can make that for a lot cheaper. Now mind you.....I bought stuff at a craft store and at Kmart.....total spent $15 including the candle holders. Time it took... 30 minutes. Tools required were a hot glue gun and a pair of scissors. AND I had the extra appliqués to put on my shoes. Judge for yourself.....

Invitations: There are so many kinds of wedding invitations available in many different kinds of markets. Invitations are sold by retail outlets and mail order catalogs, and vary in cost everything from full list price, to 20-50% off the marked price. We chose to go the catalog route, since it appeared that the local card stores were ordering from the same catalogs we had. Cut out the middle man. The prices were good but variable and we could compare and shop at home. We had about 10 catalogs (free off the web), and you can ask for samples of most invitations. Of importance to us was a simple invitation “set” that we could get out for a 32 cent stamp. No one would remember that we had fancy invitations or gold lined envelopes. Spending all that extra money on something people will just throw away seemed like a waste to us. Having the addresses done in hand calligraphy seemed like a waste too. We used the computer for addressing the envelopes and the bonus was a wedding database we used to mail the thank you cards from. After all the searching, we came down to 2 choices, neither of us could decide on which one. So... we flipped them out into the living room..the one that landed face up was the winner.... (some choices are just that simple). There are some great do-it-yourself kits for making invitations and thank you notes on your home computer. CLICK RIGHT HERE to see some affordable options.

Favors and other stuff: We chose to have bubbles instead of rice after the ceremony. Many places do not permit rice or even birdseed any more. As you saw in the picture, it was fabulous! I got the bubbles on sale for $5 for 2 dozen (watch the newspaper ads for local craft stores). I hand decorated each bottle and tied a tag to each with a poem, our names and wedding date on it. These were easy to make, and a great project to work on together. Another popular option to rice are these little "wedding bells". Something different at least. Be sure to watch the prices on these too. A new option is "wedding rice" which is suppose to be bird-safe. If you can't find these things locally, a great source for all of these items is avaialable by clicking RIGHT HERE

Our favors were Hershey bars wrapped with our own “Carol and Bob” wrappers. The labels were made our computer using a very simple graphics program. The wrappers had little icons all over the back, signifying our special interests and personalities. For fun, we had large size “Official Bridal Size” wedding bars for the bridal party... :) Chocolate is a good thing :) Catalogs, wedding centers, and web business offer these kind of favors for $1 - $2 ! Our cost including the candybars was about 50 cents each, but it did take us a few nights to print, cut and glue 180 wrappers. The candybars went ove r great! Even after your guests eat them, they can keep the label as a remembrance of your wedding day. If you are not so inclined to make something like this, a simple favor of Jordan Almonds in tulle and tied with ribbons is nice. I also saw a favor made with a color coordinated spoon and 2 Hershey kisses tied in tulle on the spoon. Making favors is easy, but can be a bit time consuming. There are lots of options, look at bridal shows for ideas that you can do yourself and save some money. There are many differnet favors you can share with your guests, from candy, to music CD's, to picture frames.... and it all depends on your budget and your tastes. For some other wonderful ideas, CLICK RIGHT HERE

Another thing we could have had was an ice sculpture on our buffet. This was $240. I know...it just stands there and melts!! We did look into an option to rent a rubber mold that you fill with water and freeze to make a sculpture. We never did find one. Our party center had their own source for ice sculptures, and did not wish us to bring in an outside source of any kind (a drawback). As an alternative, I made a dolphin topiary for the buffet table. This is a wire frame “shape” covered with greens and flowers. Unfortunately it did not turn out as well as planned but no one seemed to notice anyway. We would have done better having nothing at all (especially since I burned my ring finger on the hot glue gun 3 days before the wedding making this thing...)

A big challenge was the cake top. Bob and I “discussed” a variety of options for our wedding cake top. Everything from fresh flowers, flashing lights, frosting flowers, and even the typical.. yet ever so cheesy looking... plastic bride and groom were considered. The cake tops sold in party stores and wedding centers cost anything from $20 to $75 !! Bob chose to be a bit more creative, and we came up with a truly unique cake top! Since we chose dolphins as our theme, we made our own dolphin cake top. The basic parts to make this were purchased at a local candy supply store, and the dolphins were a small, inexpensive statue we picked up at a local candle shop. Add a little lace and ribbon with the hot glue gun, and we had a wonderful cake top that was uniquely us, and cost somewhere around $15. This was another fun project the two of us did together.

Flowers.....another big bridal expense. It is not uncommon for people to spend $1000 on flowers for their wedding. Lets face it..the more bridesmaids you have, the more your floral bill will be.. (Bridal shops love to see large bridal parties !!! Cha-ching!) Shop around. Find a florist that will get you a fair price for what you want. There are probably local flower shops that specialize in weddings. Be careful with these... as they can be a tough sell, and worst of all--- they probably will be doing flowers for several weddings the same day as yours. Many couples have chosen to make their own silk bouquets and flowers which will be a huge money saver, but I like real flowers. FUN TIP: have the florist put baby spider plants in the bouquets. The bouquet doesn’t last for very long, but you can plant your spiders, and have them for years to come! It is really special to have plants growing on my window sill that came from my wedding bouquet. Other wedding “musts” pew bows, aisle runners, ballons, car decorations, church bouquets etc., are a personal choice. You can check out many of these accessories by CLICKING RIGHT HERE . For us, putting our money where it was most visually noticed was important. An aisle runner at $40 was not a good use of money...who will notice?? Also beware of cheap runners!! Shoe heels go right through them! We chose to skip this, and avoid the cost and hassle. Our church was of unique construction, and had 2 side aisles and no center aisle. To decorate all four sides of all the aisles would have been a huge expense. We chose 2 bouquets for the altar area , and we were required to take with us after the ceremony. No problem! We had one of the family members take them to our reception, where they were used to decorate our bridal table. You can save money by making the pew bows yourself......but then, no one noticed that we had no pew bows. Since our centerpieces were included with our reception site, all we had to get was the candles, which the party center even ordered for us in our colors. Our floral bill was only $300...not bad!

Photographer and Videographer.....this was another of the very major expenses. It was also our biggest disappointment. When we toured the photographer’s studio (store front??), we checked out the sample photos they had on display, and they looked great! We booked quickly to get our date locked in. Take some time at this point to consider how many photos you will want, and where you would like them to be taken. Because of the unpredictability of the weather, we booked the Cuyahoga County Court House for our photography site as we were shown beautiful photos taken of couples in this area...... Unfortunately our photos turned out dark and shadowy. Ditto for the church photos. Good thing for us that the day turned out sunny and beautiful , so the outdoor photos came out pretty good. Without our outdoor photos, we wouldn’t have any really good picture of us.(see the comments page). I do not know more about selecting a photographer but I do recommend taking a closer look at the samples shot by the photographer that will actually be taking your photos! We didn’t even hear from the actual photographer until two days before the wedding. Meet him WELL in advance! Ask alot of questions as to how a picture was taken and how to make sure that that photo will work for you. Make sure the photographer is familiar with the sites you choose. Seems that some of the display photos had an extra backflash to lighten them up which was not available for us, and our photos looked little like the samples we were shown. The video... We were really pleased with and I am very happy that we chose to get the video. We did debate this awhile and decided that this would be one of our splurges. We can watch our entire wedding anytime we want... and to see our friends dancing at our reception and doing funny things is just the greatest!! We plan to get a video capture card for our computer, and pull off some great still shots to place on these pages. Other photography options include asking around of friends and family. Sometimes you will be surprise about who-knows-who who is a great photographer or video guy. Another fun thing to try (done at my friend's wedding) is to leave "wedding cameras" on each table. These proved to be a lot of fun, as they seemed to catch candid action the "real" photographer never knew was going on :o) . CLICK RIGHT HERE for more details on the disposable cameras.

Entertainment - There are lots of options for a live band, DJ, or even your CD player and a stack of CD’s. Cost can vary from $100 to $10,000 if you hire a big band! Use your head here! Talk with your friends, go to showcases, and ask your caterer for referrals. Your choice is important here, as the whole mood of your reception, as well as its flow, fun and excitement... is established by your DJ or MC. We found our DJ at one of our ski club meeting where she was hired to play for a party. She was great!! She was inexpensive!! She was easy to work with!! She played great tunes and kept the action moving!! One of the reasons we were so pleased is that we heard her play at the other event and we liked her style. She worked as a DJ as a sideline, and has fun doing it. We avoided the DJ companies and agencies that send “someone” out to the wedding (sorta like a blind date). Most important to us was fun, and that’s what we got!

Splurges: Well, you cannot skimp on everything! Although we planned and paid for our wedding ourselves, we wanted our wedding day to be memorable for everyone. Our biggest splurge was the limo. Other than the fact that it was great fun to ride around in a large stretch limo all day long, it was a really practical choice. Our wedding and picture sites were in downtown Cleveland area with limited parking spaces close by. By having a limo we were dropped off at the doors with no one having to worry about parking. The limo held the entire wedding party. (Another big advantage to a small bridal party) We all could celebrate together and not worry about drinking and driving. After the pictures, we went down to the world famous Cleveland Flats and went to the local brewery, sat at the bar and had drinks and appetizers. It is one of my favorite memories of our wedding day and would not have happened without the limo because it would have been too much of a hassle.

A small splurge that had a huge impact was a bubble machine at the reception. It was amazing to dance our first dance among the bubbles. The bubble machine flowed many times throughout the evening and it was so much fun to dance!! Many of the guests will always remember that bubble machine at our wedding.

As above, the videographer was another splurge. I am very glad that we hired him since our wedding pictures were not as great as we had hoped.

There are other little detail splurges you may consider. You may want custom printed napkins, matches, toasting glasses, guestbooks, ring bearer pillows, ya know, stuff like that. This is all on personal taste, and it all depends on your budget. One thing to keep in mind is your BRIDAL SHOWER!!! BE SURE to drop a few hints! Cake Servers, Cake Tops, picture frames, photo albums, and other stuff like that make WONDERFUL shower gifts. Don't be afraid to be specific, or you might end up with something you don't much care for, but will "have to use because Aunt Blabby gave it you". Also, do not forget the gifts that the bride and groom traditionally give to the bridal party as a "thank you". Remember, these are your best friends. This is one place NOT to buy cheap crap. Be creative!! Guys like beer mugs, women seem to like jewelry. But if your girl friends like beer, by all means get them mugs too! I got my maid of honor and matron of honor very nice earrings, dolphin pins (to go with our wedding theme), and a gift pack from the Bath and Bodyworks Store. Bob got his groomsmen some sort of multi-purpose-do-everything tool (sort of like a pocket knife on steroids, definately a guy thing). The guys love it. Check out our Gifts Page for some more ideas.

The Rehearsal Dinner: Since we were planning and paying for everything ourselves, and had many out of town guests, it seemed practical to have the rehearsal dinner at our home. They would end up here anyway so may as well save $1000-$2000 at a restaurant. We made lasagna, chicken casserole, cookies and froze it 4 weeks before the wedding. Also on the menu was salad, shrimp cocktail, a deli tray, garlic bread and a variety of simple appetizers. While most people would say “whoa cooking dinner for 30 the day before your wedding??” it wasn’t that bad. We did have some family help at the last minute but the heavy stuff was already done and just needed to heat up in the oven while we were in church practicing. A great time was had by all!!

Other scrimps included not having a wedding consultant. These people charge a fee for their services but theoretically are supposed to save you more then their fee. I cannot imagine that happening. We were too frugal! As above, we saved alot of money by making and doing things ourselves.

Lastly, you want your wedding to be a day that you will treasure forever... (or at least that's what the books and magazines say). Do what makes you happy. If you want to elope to Jamaica..DO IT!! If a simple Justice of the Peace wedding is your style.. GO FOR IT!! This is your day and it should please the couple, not their parents! Be happy and enjoy the whole experience.. (I know...how can you, but do try!) Have a great wedding ..I wish you all the happiness that we have.