Tuesday, June 19, 2012

10 Cost Savings Tips for Wedding Decorations

Decorations help transform an ordinary wedding ceremony or wedding reception into an extraordinary event. To help decorate a wedding space, bride's may recruit wedding decorators, florists, event planners, balloon specialists, or use a wedding planner from a wedding venue. By using a little creativity, a bride or wedding couple can manage to pull together a very stylish and beautiful wedding celebration and save themselves quite a bit of money.

The following are 10 cost saving tips for wedding decorations.

Tip 1 - Incorporate Water Beads into your Wedding Decorations
One of the newest things seen at weddings are water beads especially used for wedding reception table centerpieces. First you start out with glass bowls, glass vases, or glass tower vases. These glass containers are filled water beads, water bead crystals are mixed with water and they form beautiful water beads. Up through the bottom, floralytes may be used to add a beautiful glow to the beads. On top you might add ostrich feathers, flowers, floral bouquets, or some kind of plant. Many brides will use the color beads geared to their color scheme. The water beads very often create a stunning visual and if they are created yourself or by a dear friend, they aren't that expensive to create. You might find these products at flea markets or arts and craft stores. Websites that offer some of these products are as follows: www.waterbeads.net , www.rainbowwaterbeads.com , www.uievents.com , www.koyalwholesale.com , www.codwholesale.com , www.fabulousfeathers.net .

Tip 2 - Use Candles for your Wedding Decorations
You can either make a trip to a candle outlet store of check for candles and candle holders in dollar stores. You have a number of options when it comes to decorating with candles. Candles come in all sorts of sizes, shapes, colors, and fragrances. You can fill a large wine glass, glass bowl, glass vase, or glass container with water and float candles on the water for a dazzling effect. Spread glitter, confetti, or flower petals around the decoration. You also might place a pillar candle inside a vase colored to your wedding scheme. Purchase candles in bulk and many vendors will offer you a bulk discount. Many little candle lights gives your event a fairy-like brightness that creates a mystical atmosphere. You also might think of using votive or tea light candles.

Tip 3 - Use Christmas Lights for Wedding Decorations
Buy many Christmas lights right after Christmas to take advantage of after holiday sales. Buy either white, clear, or color schemed Christmas lights. Use Christmas Lights for wedding center pieces, for poles, for railings, for bushes, or in trees to decorate your wedding space. Christmas Lights help make your space sophisticated, attention gathering, beautiful, and are rather inexpensive.

Tip 4 - Do It Yourself Wedding Decorations
Many wedding decorations you can create them yourself. If you use creativity, you may be really surprised with what you really can come up with. Look in dollar stores, arts and craft stores, and look online, look for vases, bowls, containers, colored stones, colored marbles, mirrors, plastic plants, silk plants, napkin holders, colored ribbons, colored string, and when looking you may come up with other ideas. You might try brainstorming ideas with a store manager. You may gain some ideas on wedding decorations by viewing Youtube videos on your computer, laptop, or IPad. Just go to Youtube and plug in a wedding decoration topic that might interest you and see what ideas you can come up with.

Tip 5 - Buy Colored Fabrics instead of Linens
Very often businesses markup the price of linens. You might save yourself of bundle of money by buying fabrics at an Arts and Supply store or from a Sewing Store. Sometimes, you might even find a fabric that is perfect for your color scheme. Many fabric stores can cut the fabric to the size you need. Consider fabric to create swag to your decor or use fabric to add a little color to your table linens. You might also use fabric to create a hanging effect or use for an eyesore such as an ugly pole.

Tip 6 - Recruit Bridesmaids to Help Prepare Wedding Decorations
Very often bridesmaids get almost excited about the wedding as the bride does and many times are happy to help out in wedding decorations. If there is a need, recruit your bridesmaid to help create your wedding reception table centerpieces, they may help in place cards, wreaths, wall decorations, create flower pieces, wrap wedding favors. You may recruit them for brainstorming and tinkering to come up with a beautiful wedding decorations.

Tip 7 - Collect Greenery and Photos of your Past
The months leading up to the wedding, keep your eyes out for greenery and other nature items. Collect eye appealing greenery, sea shells, sea glass, plants, flowers, or any type of items that may be geared to your wedding theme. Maybe your having a beach wedding, be on the lookout for beach items, look for inexpensive items, that will add to the theme of your wedding day. Just be on the lookout when you go out to places. Also gather pictures of you and your beau of when you were growing up and of the time you met. You might take some wedding theme items and photos and put frames around them.

Tip 8 - Decorate with Balloons
Today, many balloon places have come along way in the world of wedding decorations. It may be worth a trip to your local balloon or party store to investigate what type of decorations can be created for your wedding. Balloons can be created into pillars, some balloons are made into different shapes, and balloons come in many colors. Then there is the balloon drop. Check what your local balloon company can come up with to decorate your wedding, they night come up with a dazzling display and save you significant money.

Tip 9 - Rent Wedding Decorations
Check out rental stores, party stores, event rental businesses, hotels, and florists. Many of these businesses will rent out wedding decorations enabling you to save money. You might rent table centerpieces, linens, decoration pieces for your wedding ceremony, or some type of decorations for your walls, lights, hanging fabrics, or potted plant or floral decorations. Try to pick up a rental brochure to review what items are for rent and their cost. Renting instead of buying can save you sometimes a third of the cost of buying the item.

Tip 10 - Find a Venue with a Clean Palette and Really Decorate
Many couples will see a venue that is quite inexpensive and will think the place will never do. The thing to remember, many vanilla venues, can be elaborately decorated and will still cost much less than a beautiful reception hall. The key is decorate using a color scheme, add hanging fabrics, updraft lighting, colored linens, beautiful flowers, beautiful table settings, and beautiful centerpieces. Some of the most beautiful banquet halls and wedding tents started with a blank palette and transformed into a stunning venue. It all started out on the cheap and with much of the cost savings applied to wedding decorations, a beautiful reception venue was created, by using creativity thinking.


Cost savings can be found other ways too, for instance, a florist might provide a significant discount by bundling floral needs. A bride may get her bouquet, bouquets for the bridesmaids, boutonnieres for the groomsmen, flowers for other bridal members. A couple may get a significant discount for decorating the wedding ceremony and for wedding table centerpieces. Investigate if florists might offer you a discount for decorating your venues. Family members, friends, churches, or community centers might offer you decorating helpers, ideas, or decorating items, so check them out too.

See you on the other side!


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

10 Cost Saving Tips for Wedding Flowers

Flowers enhance the beauty of your wedding. They add the extraordinary effect of enchanting beauty and the smell of flowers puts a romantic smell in the air. You should try to include flowers in conjunction with a color scheme you have chosen for your wedding.

Wedding bouquets and wedding decorations usually start out with an anchor flower which is a flower with a strong structure that features bolder blossoms which is the primary color to your wedding. Surrounding the anchor should be softer compliant flowers which has a supporting role in the design of the floral arrangement. You should consult with an expert and utilize a color wheel when deciding what flowers to go with. Floral arrangements often include a hint of green with a little decoration of evergreen, ivy, boxwood, camila leaves, magnolia leaves, or many other types of greenery.

You should find a good florist who will educate you about the world of flowers, one who will spend a little time with you offering you ideas and suggestions reviewing a number of brochures and include flowers from decorations they have created themselves. A good florist knows how to mix and match colors and shapes into a thing of beauty, knows what flowers mix well and what flowers don't mix well that would create an arrangement that would look more busy instead of beautiful.

The following are 10 cost saving tips for wedding flowers:

Tip 1 - Buy Flowers that are Local and in Season
If costs are a concern when ordering wedding flowers, try your best on ordering flowers that are grown locally and in season during the time of your wedding. If you see a beautiful bouquet or wedding centerpiece from a brochure but the flowers are being sent from very far, the shipping cost of the flowers adds a lot to the cost of the flowers. Remember that flowers are only fresh for a fairly brief period. Wedding flowers must be prepared a few days before the wedding to look fresh and have an aromatic smell. When working with a florist, ask the florist to try to find flowers to your color scheme of flowers that can be found locally, and this save you significant dollars on your wedding flowers.

Tip 2 - Use the Same Flowers for your Ceremony Site and Wedding Reception 
A good way to save some money, is use the same flowers for your wedding ceremony and arrange to have the same flowers used at your wedding reception. Maybe have a beautiful floral display used at the wedding altar again used as decorations for the head bridal party table. You could also have the bridesmaids bouquets used to decorate the tops of wedding reception table centerpieces. A flower arrangement from a wedding ceremony can be split apart to add decorations to a tower vase. Flower arrangements can be pulled apart and loose pretty flowers can be scattered on wedding reception tables. You must consider how much time is available to redecorate the wedding reception hall.

Tip 3 - Share a Flower Arrangement at the Wedding Ceremony with Another Bride
Work with your church or ceremony site wedding coordinator. Very often there might be a number of weddings the same day or the same weekend as yours. Often the coordinator could put you in contact with other brides that are getting married the same weekend as yours. In some cases the coordinator may make contact for you themselves. An arrangement can be made to keep the wedding flowers at the church for a number of different weddings and instead of paying for the floral arrangement yourself, instead the flowers at the church can be split maybe two or even possibly three or four other wedding providing significant cost savings.

Tip 4 - Avoid Late Minute Orders on Wedding Flowers
Try to avoid last minute orders for wedding flowers. If flower orders must be shipped due to color changes, design changes, or additional orders for additional bridesmaids added at a late hour to the wedding party. Rush fees are expensive and flowers on a different order may end up with a different color hue. Try to have your wedding flower order at a relatively early stage, optimally 6 months before the wedding, avoid late minute orders and this could save you a bit from having high wedding flower costs.

Tip 5 - Watch Those Delivery and Set Up Fees for your Wedding Flowers
Many florists will really get you for delivery and set up. Many florists handle delivery and set up fees differently, labor costs can be really high. Depending on the situation, in some instances the florists costs are reasonable and in other situations the florists have exorbitant fees. If the fees are high, maybe you can find family, friends, ask another florist if they know of young students that can handle floral delivery and set up the flowers for your wedding at a good price. Make sure in the hunt, you find someone who knows a little bit about flowers or get instructions on delivery and set up of your wedding day flowers. Maybe you or a family member can pick up your wedding flowers yourself a day or two before the wedding and make sure they are kept in a comfortable environment so they don't wilt.

Tip 6 - Get Smaller Flowers for your Bridal Party
You don't have to have just as beautiful wedding bouquets for the bridesmaids as the bride. The bridesmaids bouquets can be much smaller or they each can have one single flower instead of a bouquet. Also a stem flower for the groomsmen can be used instead of a boutonniere. The important wedding bouquet is the one used by the bride, the other bouquets and flowers are dependent on the amount of money that is available for wedding flowers, the wedding flowers are not so important if there is a need for cost savings for your wedding budget.

Tip 7 - Use Silk Flowers instead of Wedding Flowers
If the bride or any members of the bridal party is allergic to flowers or looking for savings on wedding flowers. If brides are bothered by pollen or hay fever they may be better off buying silk flowers instead. Many silk flowers, today look like real flowers, gone are the days silk flowers look fake or cheesy. Many silk flowers are made from either silk or plastic. Many of these flowers last a long time and are reusable. Look to use silk flowers if there is not much time to plan your wedding or for much flower savings. Silk flowers never wilt, you can order them far in advance and not have to worry much about wedding day flowers.

Tip 8 - Buy Decorating Wedding Flowers from Grocery Stores and Greenhouses
In this day and age, many of your bigger grocery store has a flower section. You can get substantial savings if you buy your flowers at your local grocery store. If you need flower petals for the flower girl for your wedding aisle, or flowers and plants for your wedding reception centerpieces, you can save substantial money getting flowers from your grocery store and also from greenhouses. Greenhouses are often places where flowers and greens are grown and the middleman savings is passed onto the consumer. Buying flowers from a greenhouse is often a lot cheaper than from buying from a florist.

Tip 9 - Grow Your Own Wedding Flowers
If you have a nice yard for growing flowers, what you could do, is figure out what flowers you need for your wedding and order flower seeds of the flowers you want. You do have to plan ahead and grow them in the proper season, maybe convert them to a greenhouse if the flowers bloom out of season. You do need educate yourself on growing the flowers you need. If you grow your own flowers for your wedding, your wedding guests will be impressed, you will save yourself a lot of money, and the flowers will be extra special because you grew them yourself.

Tip 10 - Take Lessons from a Florist and Create your Own Floral Arrangements
You could save yourself a lot of money by Do It Yourself Wedding Flowers. You could find a florist and take lessons on creating flowers yourself. It's a great time to take lessons if you have the time for you now have the knowledge to create flower arrangements for many years, especially one day if you want to have a flower garden. You will need to get yourself some flower arrangement supplies. You will need things like cellophane, chicken wire, floral foam, florist scissors, a spray bottle for flowers, rubber coated tape, sticky tape, a long knife to cut floral foam and a short knife to scrape stems, pruning shears, and ribbon. Another option is find florists from "Youtube" and learn to make flowers from online lessons.


A little more advice, if you can educate yourself a little about wedding flowers and understand wedding flower basics such as knowing the names of different bouquet arrangements you are less likely to end up with a florist that may overcharge you. The fact is most florists are very good and honest, there are a few that will overcharge you, pretend the flowers are hard to find and state flowers are shipped long distance when in fact the flowers are local. Find a florist you bond to and trust, a florist who spends the time in reviewing flower options. Check out, find flower arrangements they have done themselves and get some referrals from other brides that have used them within the last two years.

See you on the other side!