False economies- when DIY blows the budget

It’s really easy when planning a big event like a wedding to get caught up in the whirlwind of amazing DIY ideas. I check out new stuff on stumbleupon (great site if you like inspiration) all the time and often post ideas up on my blog.

BUT, since I’m all about budgets- a key piece of advice is not to forget to ‘cost’ your DIY projects. Some things may seem cute, and because you’re making stuff yourself you think it’s somehow ‘cheap’ or ‘free’. Not so. You are also only human and can’t do everything.

The cost of DIY projects can soon mount up

Here are two of the top ‘homemade bank-breakers’:

Invitations:

I was very tempted to get arty crafty with ours- but then I added up the costs. Blank Cards and envelopes for 150 invites + embellishments to go on top would come to at least £50-£100, maybe more depending on what kinds of cards/ patterns/materials you use (and that’s before you factor in the time taken to stick everything together). Our Vistaprint invites were free + P&P.

The same can be said for other stationery (service sheets/name tags) There may be cheaper options than getting tied up with ribbon and covered in glitter.

Homemade favours- Pots of jam/chutneys etc

There’s been a recent trend in giving home made treats as favours- which I think is both lovely and admirable. However- before you plan to slave over a preserve pan, don’t kid yourself that you are saving money. Sure- this will be a thoughtful and cute gift for your guests, but once you factor in the money for sugar, fruit, preserving kits and most importantly the jam pots themselves- this is not a budget option and it will take TIME. You are potentially looking at more than £2.50 per guest, which if you’re having lots of people really starts to add up. (Our favours were around £1.20 per guest, and included a £1 charity donation)

Don’t get me wrong here- I absolutely love crafty touches- and have saved lots of money on a few, like making my bouquet for example. I also really enjoy the process, so if you are one of those people who loves jam making, maybe you’ll relish (pardon the pun!) the chance to make up a mega batch to bless your guests.

Just be aware of what the real costs are before you get knee deep in sugar, chutney and glue.

RSVPs and why I LOVE my wedding website!

Our wedding website

The deadline for RSVPs is fast approaching and we’re at the point of chasing up quite a few people. However, having an online RSVP facility through our FREE wedding website really helps, as it literally only takes 2 min to fill out their answers online so stragglers can easily RSVP last minute.

There are lots of free wedding website companies out there, but I went with weddingpath who have an easy template to follow, the RSVP function (which you can customise depending on what info you need) and a table planning function (which I may or may not use).

The RSVPs go straight onto a dowloadable spreadsheet- meaning you literally click a button and all the info is there right in front of you in a very easy format to send to caterers etc.  My mum and dad have had a few snailmail RSVPs and they just quickly upload the answers online, so everything is in one place. Also- because its held somewhere in the internet ether, if the worst happens and you lost your files, your data is backed up.

Anything that takes the admin out of a wedding is a wonderful thing as far as I’m concerned, and I love it!

 

The story of the clown and the bride

My husband to be, is as my dad loves to point out ‘a bit of a clown’.

My dad is not being cruel when he says this, the fact is that as a key player in froggle parties  my intended does indeed make a living through entertaining children, and has been known to don a wig and a red nose in the name of fun.

It was early on in our engagement that he came up with the idea of having him as a clown on our cake.  Bespoke cake toppers  seem to be all the rage nawadays, but also carry a hefty price tag, so I thought I’d buy a £2.50 piece of modelling clay and have a go. (We wouldn’t want them made of icing anyway as we like the idea of keeping them).

They turned out ok- with a cute sense of fun, so we decided to feature them on invites/stationery etc and in a way, they became the ‘theme’ to our wedding- with primary colours being used in the decorations and flowers.

Buy some clay and do it yourself!

* We didn’t put these directly onto the edible icing- they had their own little icing platform to sit in.

On top of our homemade 'chocolate guiness' cake

Invites for free and other stuff

Snapshot of our invite design (front)

Every wedding magazine comes with numerous stationery adverts, and there are plenty of companies out there wanting to charge £1.50 and upwards per wedding invite. That’s before you even get to £3 for 10 name cards and the same again for thank you cards.

Even though we are having a ‘budget’ wedding of sorts, we wanted to include as many friends as possible and so we had a big list and needed around 150 invites.  Unwilling to spend hundreds of pounds on posh stationery, I thought a bit creatively.

After making the ‘clown and the bride’ I’d taken some shots of them nestled in M&Ms (no need to pay for the personalised ones since our initials already match!) and I decided to use these images as a basis for our wedding stationery

I’ve used VistaPrint for business stuff in the past and often get offer emails through from them. I had a few ‘100 free postcard’ offers and decided to cash in. They have hundreds of templates and you can customise images, colours and text, so you come out with a really professional and personal product.

Because they are great at adding in the freebies, we ended up with 200 postcard invites (custom-made using our own images), envelopes, customised RSVP labels, 100 thank you cards, a custom designed guest book, 200 places cards (redesigned business cards) and a few ‘thankyou’ fridge magnets for the grand total of £60!(even including P&P).  Everything matches, its individual and totally unique- Love it!

business card name cards