Wedding Tips Part 2

Use what you have


One thing I learned when I was getting married that there are more than enough people who want to help or participate. So what do you do about that? USE THEM!!!!!! Use them in every capacity that’s possible whether it’s setting up the rehearsal dinner (if you aren’t going to a restaurant) to helping slice the cake at the reception. When I was getting married I was blessed to have contacts with a florist, DJ, and a videographer so I got all of those services at a very reasonable price.

However, what if you don’t have a family friend who is a florist or a friend who is a professional videographer? I’d like to share a really neat tip that a friend of mine did when she got married. She wasn’t planning to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. She wanted it simple yet nice. Her parents had a nice yard so they planted a flower garden. They planted the flowers that she wanted to use in her bouquet. On the morning of her wedding, they cut the flowers in the flower garden and put them together in bouquets so that she and her bridesmaids had fresh cut flowers to carry down the aisle. They were beautiful!

When it comes to food…
The bride and groom have said their vows and now it’s time to head to the reception hall to celebrate. Many couples choose to have their wedding catered but some of us, like myself, would rather do it ourselves. My sister and I both did not have our receptions catered and in my opinion the food at our receptions was better than at some of the catered receptions. I’m not saying that catered receptions aren’t nice by any means. I have been to several catered receptions that were outstanding. It’s all in who you choose to be your caterer.

Our reception could be almost considered a planned potluck/cover dish meal. All of the food was planned out ahead of time ( ham biscuits, shrimp, cookies etc.) and the people that we knew who were really well known for their cooking we asked them to bring certain items. Some items that are great for receptions are cheese balls. They come in many flavors such as the traditional, chocolate, key lime, and more! There are many flavors for the many kinds of people. My husband even likes a pizza flavored cheese ball!!! With lots of careful planning it is easy to create a nice reception for a fraction of the cost of a catered one.

Wedding tips

As requested, here is a blog on weddings. This blog is going to last for several days so keep checking back and see what else I have added!
It’s almost June. Spring is in full bloom. Birds are singing, the air is getting warmer, and before long church bells will be ringing all around the country to signal that yet another couple has gotten married. Hmmm…as I have said before I am NOT an event planner. The only experience that I have with weddings is the one I planned for myself and the ones I have helped with. So today I will share with you some of the ideas and things I learned from planning a wedding.
1. Re-use and recycle

I have seen some absolutely gorgeous weddings in person and on television. All of the tulle, flowers, tissue paper, you name it is used. But what happens to the decorations when the ceremony is over? Most likely a lot of these decorations end up the trash. It doesn’t have to be that way. With pre-planning and thinking outside of the box you can easily reduce the amount of items that are thrown away. This is one of the reasons I got married at Christmas. I decided that if my colors were red, white, and green I could easily use Christmas decorations as my wedding decorations. If I had waited 2 more weeks I wouldn’t have had to decorate the church because the church would have already been decorated for Christmas. However it was very simple to decorate the church. For the unity candle we didn’t buy one of those beautiful gold or silver colored candelabra type things. Instead, my bridesmaids and I got together and made Yule logs. They were all about 12 inches long except for one which was about 24 inches long. The largest Yule log was the unity candle holder. The smaller logs were placed on tables in the reception hall as centerpieces. They were gorgeous! My husband and I kept the larger one and it is always on our mantel at Christmas. The flowers for the church were potted poinsettias. The window swags we were actually able to borrow from a community church to use for the wedding. The favors for guests were actually dove Christmas ornaments that had been bought in bulk and I typed little cards with our names on it and the date of our wedding and attached them to the dove ornaments. After the wedding was over, I gave the poinsettias and the Yule log centerpieces to the many people who had worked so hard helping me to put the wedding together as a thank you gift.

About Me

First of all let me say welcome to my new blog! I'm Melanie and I'm a consultant with a gourmet food company but I also love to plan parties and gatherings. I am NOT a professional event planner by any means. This is just something I enjoy doing. If you want a professional I can help you contact several. I am just sharing thoughts, ideas, crafts, recipies and products, my journeys, tips and websites that may be able to help you. I went to a bookstore the other day looking for a book on event planning and they didn't have ANY!!!!!!! Yes they had lots of helpful information for planning weddings but not for general events. So welcome to my muli-faceted blog and I hope you enjoy it!!!!