Wedding Wonders

It's Wedding Season! I absolutely love weddings - watching a couple become man and wife and declaring their vows before God as they gaze lovingly at each other, the stunning bride in her dazzling gown, the beautiful bridesmaids gracing the scene, the entertaining speeches, the teary mothers and dancing the night away . . . what's not to love?! And I have had the joy and privilege of being able to marry my Tom twice!

"What?!" I hear you say. Let me explain.

Two years ago, in 2020, otherwise known as 'The Year of The Covid', Tom and I made the decision to get married two months earlier than planned, due to the ever-increasing threat of the Coronavirus rearing its ugly head and not only gate-crashing our wedding, but putting a stop to it altogether. We came to the conclusion that although we might not be able to have the day we had planned for, but we certainly weren't going to allow Covid to keep us apart altogether. So on the 19th March 2020, we had a very small and quiet affair, where we pledged our lives to each other and became man and wife, enjoying a beautiful albeit very different wedding day than planned. Two days before Lockdown.

We had decided to still have the bigger wedding celebration later on, so that we could celebrate with family and friends properly, once Covid had died down and we could go ahead with planning the 'big day' in the way we wanted, but were also determined not to spend a ridiculous sum of money on having a 'Wedding Take Two', as we lovingly came to call it.

I am a big believer that weddings don't have to be ridiculously expensive and cost the earth. The most vital part of the wedding, is the bride and groom, and the solemn vows they make to each other in the sight of God as they promise to love and be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives. That was the single most important thing to Tom and I when we pledged ourselves to each other on that chilly and windy day back in March 2020.

In September 2021, we set the date to enjoy our 'Wedding Take Two' for the 12th March 2022, almost two years on from when we first said, 'I do'. Then, the planning commenced.

In this blog post, I wanted to share some ideas on how to cut some costs in planning a wedding, and I hope they might prove encouraging and useful to any readers planning an upcoming wedding of their own. I want to show you how you don't have to spend a fortune and yet still enjoy something special and beautiful.

The following are a few of the methods Tom and I used to economise at our wedding celebration this year, and I hope they might inspire you, too!

The Cake

Wedding Cakes are often one of the big money crunchers at the Wedding Reception, and yet, in my opinion, it is only appreciated for a short time as everyone gathers around the bride and groom as they cut the cake, and then it is carried off to be cut into pieces, and largely left uneaten by the already-full guests. Now, wedding cupcakes are becoming the new 'in-thing', with many couples going for this option rather than the traditional tiered-styled wedding cake. Not only did Tom and I select this option, but Tom had a rather excellent brain-waive about baking them ourselves, and they turned out rather brilliantly (even if I do say myself!). We found two simple cupcake recipes online for two different flavoured cupcakes, one chocolate and the other lemon and vanilla. We bought the muffin cases on Amazon, the perfect colour match to tie in with our sky-blue scheme, and the dainty iced flowers for the toppings we also bought online. The cake stand we also purchased on Amazon for under £30, and we perfected our icing skills through watching a simple tutorial on YouTube, and purchasing the correct piping nozzles in Hobbycraft. Not only did they look and taste delectable (and dare I say, professional?), but it was a real couple-bonding exercise in baking and decorating our own wedding cupcakes together, and made them that extra bit special. I will let you judge for yourselves from the picture below whether they look wedding-worthy or not. In total, we probably spent about £50 for the ingredients, cake stand, cupcake cases, piping nozzles and the iced floral decorations.

One Meal

Another cost-effective way of doing a wedding, is to get married later in the day. When we celebrated our 'Wedding Take Two', we had the ceremony at three o'clock, so by the time that had concluded and we had done some group photos, everyone was sat down for a reception meal about 4:15pm. We enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea, with sandwiches, cakes and scones, which was an extremely satisfying and filling spread (there were even leftovers), and so no second meal was required later on. Most weddings will have a sit-down meal in the afternoon, followed by a buffet of some sort in the evening. As nice as that may be, I can honestly say it's not needed. Start your wedding later in the day, provide one meal and you will cut down the costs considerably. I promise you, all our guests were perfectly satisfied, and even too full later on to manage any cake!

Design Your Own Decorations

Our table decorations were also made by our own fair hands, from the writing of the name place-cards, to the table centrepieces and the table-plan. We purchased the plain name-cards in Hobbycraft, and I spent a few evenings writing them in fancy cursive. I Googled 'how to write calligraphy-style' and found a little website with useful tips on creating that calligraphy look. I wrote them out in pencil first, and then went over them in a fine black artist's pen. They may not have been as perfect as a true calligraphist would have done, but they served their purpose, and I still earned some praise from them, so they can't have been too shabby!

Tom and I also took great joy in designing our own Table Plan, which we have kept and put on the wall on our Landing upstairs as a momento after the wedding. Here you can get as creative as you want, and have fun! We decided to print off photos of ourselves (pictures of us at different stages in our relationship) which we stuck on a large canvas board, and wrote out our guests names on plain white card which we then mounted onto blue card, and then stuck that to the board. Again, another lovely 'coupley' activity to do together and it now has pride of place on the wall upstairs.

They say 'less is more'. It is very true, and this is what we went with for our table decorations. We were gifted with some glass bottle-jars, which we used for all the tables. We bought bunches of artificial white flowers, which we cut down and placed one stem in each jar, and then we bought some blue ribbon, which we cut down in strips and tied around the neck of the jars. We had three of these flowers arrangements in a triad together at the centre of each table, and not only do we now have three of them as a centrepiece on top of our piano at home, but several of our guests now have them as well, so none of these went to waste. Artificial flowers are not only a cheaper option, but they will last forever, so you have a lasting keepsake from your special day.

The artificial flowers and the ribbon we bought from The Range, and were certainly an inexpensive alternative to having a wedding decoration coordinator arrange our tables for us. We roughly spent in the region of £40 - £50 for the floral centrepieces (this was for the artificial flowers and ribbon, as we were given the glass jars).

These are only a few ideas, and I'm sure there are many other cost-cutting wedding secrets that others have employed. Please feel free to leave a comment and share any other helpful wedding tips that might serve useful to other couples reading this post!