DIY wedding decorations in Wisconsin

All photos by Shruti Mathur

At this point, I think I need to create a "Shruti" label because she keeps coming through for me! My favorite Wedding Attender recently had a grand time at a wedding in Wisconsin (state of cheese!). This wedding, she says, was a major do-it-yourself affair -- not so much because of the cost, but more because of the bride and groom and their personalities. Aw, shucks, let me let her tell you herself.

Jen and Kyle were engaged for two years but I'm not sure if they started planning the wedding until maybe less than a year before. On top of that, Jen spent the summer in Mongolia, coming home about three weeks before the wedding. So, if you can't tell, they are a really easy-going couple and their wedding reflected that--in the best way possible.

Their wedding perfectly encapsulated them and it was really lovely and comfortable and fun. I think that is the highest compliment anyone can pay about someone's wedding---that it fit their personality perfectly. (I only hope people will say that about mine.)

The week before the wedding we went to IKEA to pick up vases, candle holders and candles for the wedding--and anything else that caught the bride's eye. The day before the wedding they visited a flower farm and picked wildflower bouquets and created potted plants in mason jars, which hung from hooks in the wedding tent and were set on the table at the reception.

Rain is supposed to be good luck on the wedding day, but it was unfortunate that it rained the entire time. They had a backup plan of using the marquee tent for the ceremony and the reception was already planned for the lodge--though I am sure they also had planned to let people spill out onto the lawn instead of stuffing themselves inside!!

Instead of a seated or even buffet-style dinner, they opted for "heavy hors d'oeuvres." And, amazingly, this appetizer dinner was really filling! They had wheels of cheese, fruit trays, crackers, pulled pork with buns, home-recipe chicken satay, mini-spanakopitas, hummus, pita, thin slices of beef, mushrooms stuffed with sausage and cheese and this whole fish that you flaked off chunks of...it was scary. I am certainly forgetting foods. I was STUFFED...which was good, since it was an open bar. It was in Wisconsin after all!

Now, I'm just going to interrupt Shruti's great narrative real quick to point out a few things. I LOVE the mason jar idea. How cute! And I love it that they're filled with sand. Remember what I said about lights and candles -- so important!

Case in point! Japanese paper lanterns at a Wisconsin DIY wedding reception? Why not! In the end its all about lighting up the space and creating ambiance. And it also helps dim the soggy outdoor area that people were supposed to be able to wander about in, but for the rain.

I believe this was the bridal bouquet, with white and green mums, white and green roses, and what appear to be green buds. Simple, but so pretty.

Candles in the fireplace, surrounded by greens and branches with red berries. Kind of a nice, fireplace effect in a, heheh, fireplace. With all that Wisconsin drinking, I think a real fire would have been unsafe.

The cake, adorned by a vase of flowers and the bridal bouquet.

The couple, also recognizing that the park was way from our hotel and also it was Wisconsin, land of drinking, provided a small bus to get to and from the hotel. This was very nice touch, I thought.

Park rules stated we had to be out by 10:30 that night. We managed to squeeze in a lot of dancing and fun before that time...and the bridal party plus a few hardy friends headed to a local bar to just hang out.

This wedding, by the way, took place at Bukolt Park and Lodge in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And its a perfect example of a wedding not needing a year (or two) and the budget of a small city to pull off a one-day event. Do it yourself! It makes things pretty fun. And by the way, I love the idea of heavy hors d'oeuvres. What a great idea. I'm saving that for my next party.

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Wedding gifts and questions

I had these very questions not long ago. What do you give when you don't have much? What if the couple's registry only asks for gifts $100 or more? What if they're simply asking for cash? What if you're just plain having a hard time and would like to attend, but feel weird about attending if you can't give a "worthy" gift?

Photo by Flickr's aspence61

Yeah, I know how you feel. I don't know how some of you do it -- going to wedding after wedding, buying gift after gift. Just about nothing is cheap in relationship to weddings, not even simply being a guest. There's travel, there's buying appropriate wear, there's buying a gift. It's not all, party, hearty, I know.


Shruti, whom you might remember from posts about weddings in Maine and St. Louis is contemplating this very topic, since she RSVP'ed to five weddings this fall before getting laid off recently. And I know there has got to be so many people in this boat right now. So, what to do?

I'll share one tip I got from a very knowledgeable friend -- my pastor's wife! She once advised me to take a look at the couple's registry and find out the color of their towels. Purchase the same (or similar) color towels (and comparable quality) at another store, for less. Everyone can always use more towels, right?

That's a tip you can extend to different items, like picture frames, blankets, sheets, etc. Just because you don't care to spend your hard-earned money at Macy's, or Nordstrom's or Pottery Barn doesn't mean you don't like your friend as much as any other wedding guest.

Photo by Flickr's Graham310

Of course, if you know the couple really well, you could always go off the cuff the way this guy did. Heheh. A couple might appreciate the gift of free alcohol at their wedding -- or not!

I also happened to stumble upon this idea, which I absolutely love:

Newlyweds receiving a wedding gift from Stacy Gerlich these days can expect a little disaster when they unwrap her present. The Los Angeles Fire Department captain forsakes the traditional toaster oven or personalized bric-a-brac, instead stuffing backpacks with goggles, bottled water, toilet paper and other earthquake-survival items.

"Ten out of 15 couples said it was the best gift they've ever received," said Gerlich, who heads the department's Community Emergency Response Training, a seven-week disaster-training program for city residents.

This really is a great idea, since couples are quick to buy all sorts of stuff, but always procrastinate when it comes to emergency kits or savings accounts. Yeah, yeah, I'm one of those people. If someone gave me an off-the-registry earthquake kit (or hurricane preparedness kit, or tornado kit, or snowstorm kit...if there is such thing), I think I might be really touched. Like...."Wow, you really care about me and want me to stick around for a while!" Heheh.

Anyway, I do want to emphasize that if you, as a guest, really shouldn't be so worried about what you will give as a gift. That sort of negates the whole idea of gift-giving. The whole idea of a wedding has mutated into a sort of mutually-beneficial racket (we give you party, you give us extravagant gifts we pick out on our registry). If you're really worried the bride or groom won't like your gift, you might be better off just not going.

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Coolest Save-The-Date idea EVER

I've gotten a few save-the-date notices myself, and not to knock them, but they mostly range from a simple card to magnets. The engraved corkscrew to the left, for example, is a pretty unique idea, but probably a bit more expensive than what is needed for what is essentially a notice. I think cards and magnets are pretty standard. In fact, I think most of the discussion on "Save the Dates" is about wording.

But in surfing my wedding blogs the other day, I have come across what may be the coolest idea I've ever seen.

Via The Ink Spot, I present to you a movie trailer-style video "Save The Date:"


'Getting Married' Trailer from David Malki ! on Vimeo.

This video, I swear, is so well edited it really looks like a movie trailer. Plus, I like that they chose to go with Vimeo rather than YouTube (Vimeo and Blip.tv, in my opinion, are the best quality video-sharing sites online). Plus, if you shoot and edit the video yourself, all it takes is some work on your end, and its free, and environmentally friendly -- no sending out pieces of card or paper that will just be thrown away! And I think its a lot more personal.

OK, enough gushing from me. What are some of the cool "Save The Date" ideas you've seen?

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Wedding decoration ideas in the Ikea catalog

I don't know about anyone else, but the Ikea catalog that just seems to magically arrive without you're doing anything is massively dangerous for me. There are always so many thinks you can see in your own home, am I right? Anyway, as I thumbed through every page, I saw various possibilities for a budget wedding. Follow me inside the catalog...



On page 334 and 335 of the catalog is Ikea's vase offerings. All of them are really nice, with some lovely colors, but there are a few I'd really like to point you toward. I really like the BLOMSTER bowl, a glass, shallow bowl. They're $9.99 each and can easily be filled with water to hold floating tea lights or candles and a few blossoms.



On the same page, at the end of that top row is the SNARTIG (sorry, I have no umlauts) vase. This vase has a narrow mouth, so you can't have too many flowers in it, but picture it with some food coloring-dyed water (matching your colors, of course, with a white Casablanca lily or a similarly thin-stemmed, big blooming flower. Nice, huh? This vase is only 79 cents each.

Below it, in the middle of the second row, is also called a BLOMSTER vase, but this one is a bit cheaper at $3.99, with a small mouth, but a very round, almost apple like shape. I'd say you should also go with some big bloom flowers for this vase, also -- maybe a hydrangea or even a fully matured rose bloom. The flowers in this picture are also very nice; I think those are baby roses, but I could be wrong.

Next to that picture is the BLADET bowl, which is $12.99. It's a bowl, so you'll have no trouble putting things in it. The arrangement here is interesting -- they appear to be flowering roots in rocks -- but I would suggest something a little more flashy if you want it to be a reception centerpiece. Maybe colored water, maybe colored rocks? Shoot, you could even put a stack of Granny Smith apples or plums in there, depending on your color.

In the bottom row, at both ends, are more traditional vases. The BLADET vase is the most expensive of the bunch at $14.99, and its apparently 11 inches tall, which is not bad at all. There are so many possibilities for a vase like this.

Many possibilities for a vase like the second one that caught my eye -- the VASEN vase. Its 8 inches tall, and costs $1.49 each. I think this one might be the best deal of the bunch, really. It's got that interesting hour-glass shape and a wide mouth. And its cheap!



A couple pages over is Ikea's candle page. I really liked this section too and I think there are so many possibilities with these candle holders -- especially when you combine them with the vases. :)

The KARABODA lantern is really nice. It's made of glass and steel, is 11 inches tall and goes for $2.99 each. I like the texturing on the outside. However, I wonder if the handle on top gets hot?

The STOCKHOLM candelabra is really nice. It's pricey at $39.99, so maybe this would be something nice to decorate the cake table or sign-in table with. If you do use this candelabra, I think it would be very easy to decorate the foot of it with some flowers.

Check out the HALLARE tealight holder. I know that there are some who like the idea of the long guest tables that hold many on both sides of the table, rather than the round tables that have been in fashion for so long. A tealight set up like these would be ideal for ambiance along each side of the table. This tealight holder is 22 inches long. I can also see it being used on a round table, maybe 3 of them in a triangle, but with all the stuff put on a round table, there may not be enough room.

Next to the tealights is the GALEJ candleholder. I really like these. They're 9 inches tall and are $3.99 each. You can simply add a tealight with your color, or maybe add a blossom of some kind for a little pizzazz -- I think I've seen a gerber daisy used with a candle holder like this one.

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Need to cut down on your wedding costs? Get away and get married!

Photo by Flickr's willshoot

I'm a big fan of personal finance stories in the Washington Post, so I was pretty interested in this article recently that some brides are saving money by having a destination wedding. To me, that seems counterintuitive -- wouldn't having your wedding somewhere else make the costs skyrocket? But I make sense of the entire paradox -- eventually.


The biggest cost of a wedding is people -- bridesmaids, groomsmen, sponsors, guests. Most people would invite everyone and their mommas, daddies, nieces and nephews, if you think about it. So by having your wedding in some exotic locale, say Maui like in the photo above, you end up pre-excluding some because a lot of people usually can't afford to fly somewhere, put themselves up in a hotel, and give you a gift. That's just reality.

From the article:

These unromantic downers are forcing couples to take a hard look at what they're spending on their special day. In many cases, the new economic reality means downsized ambitions. Couples are scaling back on their guest lists, replacing filet mignon with chicken, and crossing out honeymoon plans to Italy because of the sinking value of the dollar. Some are choosing exotic destination weddings instead of hometown fetes to keep their guest numbers low. Others are making small cuts where they can: getting professionals to print invitations but stuffing envelopes themselves or replacing expensive peonies with cheaper roses.

...skip

Richard Markel, director of the Association for Wedding Professionals International, estimates that couples are spending $1,500 less this year on the average $28,000 wedding.

Tough times also are hitting wedding vendors: photographers, caterers, planners. "People are coming in with smaller budgets, but we're trying to make the most of what they have to still give them a special experience, and if that means losing $100 to $150 for us because of the cost of a better quality of meat, that's okay for us," said Dan Capobianco, president of American Catering in Centreville.

Experts say there are many ways to cut wedding costs. "This is the time to prioritize what you need and realize that there is always something in your budget" to economize, Markel said.

The article continues on to say that hometown celebrations often come with guest lists of 200, 300 or more, but when it comes to destination weddings, it mind end up being 50. That's a lot of $100 dinners you're cutting from your wedding budget. Read the whole thing its very enlightening.

Anyway, there's another plus. If you bring your wedding to one of these resorts, chances are you won't need decorations. I know, I know, as a former wedding decorator I shouldn't be advocating for no decorations. But I'm also in love with the beauty of nature. And if you've got a view like the one from the pictured Maui wedding, you really don't want any flowers distracting from the simple beauty of your surroundings.

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