I’ve been spending a lot of time in front of the television in the past few days making these crepe paper flowers for our centrepieces. I think they’re turning out beautifully, and I’m really excited to see the final product. I plan on fully assembling them in a couple of weeks when I take a trip to my mom’s house.
The cost so far:
$2 on crepe paper
$2 on crepe paper that I didn’t use because the colours weren’t right
$2 on the inside stemy things (peach and white)
$2.50 on brown floral tape
$1.50 (on average) for each vase
$0 for sand I’ll take from the beach (and will return)
$0 for the branches I’ll take from my mom’s property
Score!
Our least favorite part of wedding receptions is the sit down dinner part of it- it makes both Clive and I feel uncomfortable and clique-y, so we really wanted to avoid having the formal dinner at our wedding. Originally we weren’t even going to offer tables, but Clive’s family was adament about having somewhere for people to sit if they wanted to. We met in the middle: Clive’s mom paid for the rentals and I only booked enough tables for 30 people to sit down at once when there are close to 40 people attending. We’re having a barbecue anyway, and well, barbecues are not equipped to feed 40 people all at once, so I don’t think we really have to worry about people not having anywhere to sit.
I finally found a solution to my tablecloth dilemma. It kept me awake for days, I’m not even joking. I’d just lay in bed thinking: “Do I rent? Do I buy second hand mismatched tablecloths? Do I make them myself?” I got a price quote for renting and it was close to $70 (plus tax). I went around to second hand stores and saw nothing I liked. I decided to take a look at fabric at my local fabric store and LO! The discount fabric that I love to buy (at $2/m) was 50% off! I could not say no to $1/m fabric, so I bought 15.3m of one kind of gray for all of the eating tables and then another grey (they didn’t have any more) for the cookie station/snow kone/guestbook/wedding license signing tables. A couple of days later I found an older pale yellow lace tablecloth for $1 at a second hand shop.
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I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but I rented two of these pop up tents and four sidewalls (at $25 per wall there was no way I was going to get eight of them) totalling $175 per tent. $350!! But I wanted something that would be easy to set up in case of rain. I didn’t know there was any other option until I walked by an ivory polyester and mosquito net gazebo in front of a grocery store the other day and it was only $150! $25 cheaper than my super ugly tents and they were the same size and very, very pretty. I did some more research and found similar popup gazebos at Wal*Mart (sigh) for a mere $59 each. Sold!
Delivery and pickup of a snow kone machine, forty chairs and seven tables? A whopping $400. But the good thing is, is that I don’t have to worry about the stuff getting there and getting back AND the price quotes I got for cargo vans or a pickup truck rental (plus the gas cost) is almost identical to what the courier company will charge me.
It’s all coming together.
Tomorrow I’m buying the wedding license. I had to wait for Clive’s mom to send me his divorce papers, otherwise I would have got it last week.
I found shoes that make my dress a nearly perfect length, and they’re second hand and only cost me $7, which is great because I will never wear them again. We got the wedding bands back and they’re perfect. People are STILL RSVPing, even though there’s only a month left and it’s pretty obnoxious, but oh well.
Most of all, I’m getting really, really excited to see all of my favorite people. The ones that will be there are amazing and I love that they’re going out of their way to visit us and share in our celebration. It means so much that so many people are coming. I can’t wait to party!!!
:D 
