Budget Wedding Articles

I know the economy sucks. I was laid off from Disney myself back in January. But don’t worry, I’ve got a new gig (after 6 months break) at Kaiser Permanente. I kinda like the change. Anyway, I’ve met several couples on a tight wedding budget and thought this list of articles will help some of you out there as well.

• The Knot – Wedding Budget: Little Ways to Save
• Wall Street Journal – I Do… for Less
• Go2Wed – A Day to Remember… on a Budget
• eHow.com – How to Plan an Awesome Budget Wedding
• Online Wedding Boutique – Wedding Budget Tips 

Hiring a wedding planner will really help you stay on budget because we know vendors and industry pricing/rates, the type of freebies they can throw in *wink*, give you inspirations and ideas.

Do-It-Yourself is also a great way to save $, but remember to DO IT YOURSELF, dont volunteer your friends or family member if they didnt volunteer themselves, because the last thing you want them to remember about your wedding is, ‘omg, i can’t believe we have to do all that for her wedding, ugh!” 

Plan out everything before you go to Michael’s, IKEA, Target, Wal-Mart, retails shops and spend all your money on candles, vases, or everything of your wedding color. If you can’t help yourself, please keep the receipts, so we can return or exchange them.

Email me if you need a wedding coordinator for month-of to tie up loose ends, or full wedding planner to help you locate vendors, monitor budget and payment schedule, and set up everything on the big day.

Jane & Rico’s Wedding

Forecast predicted storm and rain all weekend, but not this one. We had beautiful sunshine for Jane & Rico’s wedding day!  I met up with my friend/assistant, Paoling and the wedding party at the Sheraton Hotel in Cerritos. Paoling delivered the flowers to the St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church. The bride and her mother were running late from the Salon, but we were only about 5 minutes behind schedule for the ceremony. Before the ceremony, the groom’s father told me that they wanted to have the groom’s god parents walk down the aisle before the mothers. Good thing everyone knows their positions and lined up accordingly. Paoling and I tied the floral arrangement on the church candelabra, at one point I thought the arrangement was too heavy and might fall off with just 4 twisty ties, but everything worked out well. After the processional, I rushed to the reception site to help Paoling set up.

The korean-chinese restaurant, Imperial Mandarin Palace, had a big banquet room that could accommodate 15 tables, but since we only needed 8. the tables in the back of the banquet room did not have table settings. The room has mirror walls, if budget wasn’t an issue, I’d pipe and drape the whole thing and add ambiance lighting. Each table has a lazy susan  in the center with soup bowls already laid out, so we couldn’t do much with decoration. It would’ve been nice to have tablecloths and chair covers to jazz up the space a bit, but that’s another item not in the budget. Since the food will be served family style on the lazy susan, our centerpiece would have to be removed, so Jane decided that we will forgo the floral centerpiece and go with a favor tower (inspired by martha stewart). We had hershey’s kisses boxed and ribboned and stacked them on a glass pedestal. It took  me weeks to research and built various prototypes to figure out a bargain way to DIY them. Basically, you take the clear glass salad plate and mini dessert wine glass from IKEA; add a litle bit of clear museum gel from the container store to temporarily secure the two pieces, and TA-DA! you have a cake stand/tabletop pedestal. (more lazy susan decoration)

Jane and Rico didnt have a budget for wedding cake, but we HAVE to have cake! I recommended them to King’s Hawaiian Bakery in Torrance, and they got a nice deal on a pretty 3 tier buttercream wedding cake wrapped with red ribbons that matched her wedding colors. To make the presentation even more yummy. I bought four of these 16 inch diameter 1 inch height styrofoam from Michael’s and taped them together to give the wedding cakes a little more height. Paoling and I covered the riser with a silk red fabric and added rose petals. The cake table was beautiful!

For the escort cards, I had to bust out my foam boards again. I think it’s a great way to present the escort cards instead of just laying them in rows on the table. For Jane & Rico’s wedding reception, we used empty cardboard boxes to prop up the foam boards. We covered the boxes with extra tablecloths and created a ruffle effect at the bottom of the boards. With rose petals and red votives (we used battery powered flicker lights) as accents, along with the pretty floral arrangement on the sign-in table, the whole emsemble came out perfect.

Overall, it was a beautiful wedding ceremony and reception. I had tons of fun with this valentine’s day event. Thanks Jane & Rico for giving me the opportunity to help plan, organize and coordinate their wedding.

Pretty pictures by Susan Sabo: