Wedding advice and tips

A few people have asked for my ideas that I had for my daughter's wedding and any tips I have.
Well, make as many things as you have time for and let the bride and groom have final say. I told my daughter from the start that I would throw out ideas and if she didn't like them to say so and that would be the end of it. She liked most of my ideas, some she didn't and I didn't push a thing. If I thought she had an idea that wasn't quite going to work out or maybe a better way, we discused it.

The best thing we did was have a theme. Since it was a fall wedding, my daughter wanted celtic oak leaf. We were so lucky that the groom is an artist and drew one. That became the theme and was used on EVERYTHING from the invites to the garters. I had a stamp made of the image in 2 sizes. DD is very talented with Microsoft publisher and she used the image on everything she made. We made the invites, programs, place cards (ones on wine corks and mini-pumpkins), centerpieces, pew decorations (the wheat sheves), garters, guest book. The best luck I had was 2 gals I work with recently got married so I used the people they knew that were good. The cake lady works out of her home, the decorator was very reasonable and had all the stuff, but we opted to make our own centerpieces and pew decorations (grooms idea to use wheat) .

These were the bridesmaid garters, DD promised them garters to hold the flasks she got them for gifts. I made them out of ribbon and the oak leaf is the celtic one on shrink plastic. I made one in blue and put on the brides garter too for her something blue.

A big savings we had was on invites. I was lucky to be able to use the color copier at work for a very reasonable cost. DD perused the internet for invites she liked and then we worked on recreating them adding our personal touch. She picked a beautiful one with ribbon, no stamping but she used the celtic oak leaf in a watermark background. I did a lot of searching and found a place to get stardream cardstock and envelopes at a wonderful price. http://www.envelopemall.com/

Here are the pew decorations:

The invites she saw were $6.50 each online. We made them with the response cards (postcard type)and stardream envelopes for less than 80 cents each!! Plus I have leftover cardstock for my personal stamping. I watched sales for the ribbon and another thing, I took the mockup to the post office before I made them all to make sure postage wouldn't be extra. So watch the thickness and size, square are more postage.

Another big saving we had was on photos. My brother is pretty good so we had him take them. My other suggestion would be to have a helper if you do that, someone who will do some research and be good at setting people up and making sure you have all the photo's you want taken. We own all the photos this way. Some friends have told me that they found people that will do that for about 1/4 the price of a regular photographer. IF my DD was still in town, I think we'd do that together, I could pose and she'd take pictures (she has the camera).

This was the guestbook I made using handmade paper and matt board, a small centerpiece and the programs, the wrap on them had the celtic leaf embossed and was made out of left over pieces from the invites..

If anyone has any questions, please contact me and I'll see what I can do to help.