Affordable Wedding Receptions
By Rachel PaxtonWhen planning a wedding reception, location is key. Depending on how many people are invited, you may need a sizable place to have the reception. Weather permitting, your wedding reception could be held in someone's back yard or at a local park. My own wedding ceremony and reception were held at a local park in a specially reserved area (including gazebo) that cost only about $60 for the entire day. My mother and I recently hosted a wedding reception for my sister in our mobile home park's club house. A $150 deposit was required, but the deposit was returned after we cleaned up and left the club house the way we found it. We had full access to a fully equipped kitchen, sitting area, tables, chairs, and restrooms for an entire day. Everything we needed was right there and didn't cost us a dime.
Decorations that can be used after the reception is over more than pay for themselves. For my sister's reception we created beautiful centerpieces for the tables by buying some glass Pyrex cereal bowls ($1 each at a local outlet mall) and placing green glass marbles from the craft store in the bottom of each. We then filled the bowls half way with water and placed a white rose- shaped floating candle in each. These attractive centerpieces were very easy to assemble in just a minute or two and in addition to lending their candlelight to the room made a wonderful inexpensive gift for the bride and groom--a complete set of matching cereal bowls!
Food also doesn't have to require too much effort or added expense. My own wedding reception was a pot luck luncheon. My mother provided the sandwich rolls, sliced meat and cheeses, and condiments, and close friends and family members were asked to bring side dishes and salads. My husband's aunt made the most beautiful multi-tiered wedding cake for us, and our expense was minimal! No one went away hungry.
My sister's reception was more of a sit-down affair, but still did not cost us a fortune. Knowing the reception would take place in October, we thought that it was taking place close enough to the holidays to have a Thanksgiving-style dinner. Most of our relatives don't have the opportunity to see one another during the holidays anyway, and we knew this would be a great opportunity to get everyone together and spend some time visiting and eating a wonderful meal.
My husband barbecued a turkey, my mom baked a ham, and we again asked close friends and family members to bring their favorite holiday salads and side dishes. The dinner was a huge success. A family friend made the wedding cake and let us borrow her punch bowl. The wedding cake included the cake top that had adorned our own parents' wedding cake more than 30 years ago. This was a surprise for my sister, as was the crystal cake plate that had been a wedding gift to our parents from a great grandmother.
All of our family's wedding receptions have been huge successes, and while requiring a lot of effort on the part of many friends and family members, have never cost any one of us more than $100 or so. When planning your next wedding reception, don't focus on the lavishness of the event, focus on creating a memorable day that will live on in your family's memories for years to come.
If you'd like some ideas to get you started, I found some neat web sites you might want to take a look at. The Wedding Crafts Page is a compilation of links to do-it-yourself wedding crafts, including decorations, centerpieces, flowers, albums and keepsakes, and much more. WedNet has some great ideas for wedding favors, and here's a great article about cutting food costs, including some great ideas for different food themes.
About The Author:
Originally published at Suite 101. Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of What's for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For recipes, tips to organize your home, home decorating, crafts, holiday hints and more, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com.
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RE: Affordable Wedding Receptions
My suggestion- if you have the time DO IT YOURSELF
Flowers 2 words- SAMS CLUB. look at samsclub.com. Want roses? app $60 for 100 stems! lillies and orchids are app $50 for 50.
Also check overstock.com type in bulk flowers end pick to your hearts delight.
I live in Tallahassee which has gorgeous city public parks, and The only fee we have to pay is a $30 connection fee if we want power for any park we choose. This includes using the gazebos. We're doing a November wedding here which means beautiful weather not too hot, not too cold, and rain is rare, so we're planning an outside early evening affair. All I need to supply is seating and tables for our guests. We're doing our own set up. We're using the same place for both the service and the reception, and renting a local senior center for a rain location. ($80 early registration fee)
Also never doubt the wonder that is EBAY. We're doing a favor bag that includes lucky bamboo and a handblown glass ornament with our monogram painted on it since we're going into November. (see below) The place cards are actually small palmetto fans that have cards on them, just in case of it being warm (blissweddingsmarket.com)
On the tables we're supplying an inexpensive variety of small wooden dollar tree games to provide icebreaking among table groups.
For our decorations we're doing branches painted silver with the ornaments hung on them mixed with holly (free from my tree) dried lavender (ebay) and Eucalptus (overstock) in clear dollar tree pillar vases. The ornaments will be $163 for 300, ribbon to tie them will be app $30 for 300 yards.I'm also setting up beeswax pillar candles the I made on the tables surrounding the vases.
We're hanging inexpensive white paper lanterns and parasols from the trees above and weaving christmas lights in them so they glow.
Granted we're blessed to have a brother who's a baker, so the cakes taken car of and one of my best friends is a concert pianist who has recruited some friends to provide a band as his gift to me. One of my fiancee's cousins is a notary public, so she's doing the service. (you can have a trusted friend become ordained online)
We're taking advantage of the discount offered off the marriage license for pre marriage counseling.
We're making our invitations by printing them on a sheet of ivory vellum and putting that in a trifold of card stock in our colors. ($15 for 40 invites) We're asking RSVP by e-mail or phone to cut down on postage.
My dress is very basic and I'm making my own veil ($20 includes comb, lace, netting etc) My something borrowed is my mothers wedding petticoat, my something blue is the sash on my dress, my something old are the pearls my grandparents gave me when I graduated.
My grandmother and future sister in law are doing the pictures. my grandfather is vidoetaping it.
We're having the rehearsal dinner at the same place and will probably do a buffet meal of some sort.
Well here's my issue-
I need ideas for inexpensive dinner meals!
We're at $1500 right now. I want to keep it under $2000. Any ideas?
Post By jan (Guest Post)
RE: Affordable Wedding Receptions
For my wedding reception my mom baked a ham and a turkey, we then asked certain members of the family to bring some of the family favorites, potatoe and macaroni salads, fruit kabobs, french bread, 7-layer dip and chips, and I even made spinach dip and baked beans the day before. The men of the family got the beverages. We had plenty of food for the 35 guests that attended.
Post By donna (Guest Post)
RE: Affordable Wedding Receptions
I made very inexpensive wedding favors by using small plastic bags from the craft store(candy making dept./used for lollipops).I put 4 chocolates in the bag. I printed out the names, date and different wedding clipart pictures on cardstock and cut these out in strips, punched a small hole in the corner and threaded it onto a small wired rosebud and used this to close the bag. The rosebuds were about 50 cents a dozen. I bought chocolates with blue wrappers to match the wedding colors. I made 75 favors for about $15. They were a big hit with the bride and groom as well as the guest.
Post By Lisa (Guest Post)
RE: Affordable Wedding Receptions
I attended my friends wedding yesterday: she and her new husband are true tightwads. Nancy looked at 'renting' plates at 40 cents each for the 150 guests, instead she purchased ceramic but mismatched plates at yard sales and thrift stores for 10 cents or less each!
Post By Julia (Guest Post)
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