Wedding Bells

“We’re going to the Chapel and we’re gonna get married, goin to the Chapel of love…."



It was this time last year that I was planning my one of a kind country wedding. There is no more stressful time in a young couple’s relationship than when planning a wedding. I’d like to pass along some advice to anyone planning a wedding on a tight budget or any budget for that matter.



We started our engagement in a non traditional way. I am a very practical person so diamonds aren’t necessarily my best friend. With the economy and student loans coming due, I couldn’t justify asking my boyfriend for an expensive diamond ring. And quite frankly, diamonds don’t really suit either of our personalities. I wanted something that was more affordable, pretty and unique to us. Our favorite color is red. Strangely enough, we have the same exact same birthday in January, (so we have red birthstone) so, a red garnet just seemed like the perfect color. Then we found out that garnets symbolize gentleness, affectionate nature, kind heartedness, sincerity, frankness, charity, constancy, and truthfulness.. All around something red…seemed more appropriate. I started looking at different garnets online and sending them to my hubby to be. From there he picked out a gorgeous rhodolite garnet with diamond accents on a white gold band. He was able to purchase my ¼" diameter ring for around $500.00. A diamond this size would have been close to $5,000.00.



We got engaged and set our wedding date for 10 weeks later…right in the middle of the winter season. I thought it would be fun to have a winter themed wedding. I went with white, silver, brown, and sapphire blue as our colors. I made out invitations using simple white card stationary from Wal-Mart. I got 100 with envelopes and thank you cards for $50.00. Each card was like $.25 when you consider the thank you cards were included. The box included a website with templates to use online. I made a Venn diagram using our initials and mimicked it with our cake topper (details below). Everyone thought they were professionally done!



Our ceremony was held at our little country church. I used poinsettias for the stage decorations. I thought it would be beautiful if I used white poinsettias and put them in galvanized buckets. I tied blue and brown ribbon around the base, with a little miniature silver bell in the middle of the bow and I was able to incorporate all of my colors. I had to use fairly large buckets, 10 quart to make sure they would be big enough. The poinsettias were donated by my college horticulture department because I was a teaching assistant and alumni. The buckets were $7.35 a piece. I got 6 (3 for each side). Total cost was $44.10.



At the end of the pews where our parents and grandparents were going to sit I used mini galvanized buckets to hold a single poinsettia bloom. I tied a small piece of blue ribbon with bells matching the ones on the stage around the pail. I got 6 buckets for about $6.00! And I got 25 bells for $6.00 (not including shipping tho). So I had some extra bells, but they worked out in other crafts later on.



We had no groomsmen or bridesmaids to keep from hurting anyone’s feelings. We only had ushers. Most of my friends are male so it worked out well. I bought each of them a sapphire blue tie and asked them to wear a black suit. The ties were $7.50. I bought 10 and paid about $90.00 including shipping. They each got to keep their ties. I also bought one for our fathers and the pastor that performed the ceremony.



When our mothers and grandmothers were seated we played a Hobbit’s Song from the Lord of the Rings. It was light and fun! No one really knew either. I came into Forrest, Forrest Gump, the title track from the movie Forrest Gump. It was absolutely beautiful. Forrest Gump is my favorite movie so I couldn’t resist. My hubby to be decided that if I was going to do something from my favorite movie he had to too. We came out to the Throne Room song from Star Wars. It sounded really cool, because there were trumpets playing. It was very unique and everyone knew he had picked it out.



Our reception was held at an old ski lodge that has been closed since the 80s. The Summit Haus sits atop the highest ski slope (hence the Summit). We had a family member that lives in the gated community around the building so she was able to reserve the building for only $75! We kept the silver buckets theme going with the center pieces. I thought it would look really neat if there was “ice" in the buckets so I found some clear stones and blue cloth. I put blue cloth in the bucket and filled it with the rocks. The stones and the rocks were about $1.50 per bucket and I needed 15 making the total, $22.15. Then I found card picks at my local floral shop for $.25 a piece. I printed off pictures of our engagement and put them in the card holders. Our napkins were given to us as a wedding gift so we used some of them to anchor the buckets on the table. I opened them up and turn them so it looked like they were diamonds. They were sapphire blue and white. The tables were a dark brown wood so I let them stand alone with no table cloth.

As a wedding favor and as part of the decorations we gave everyone a homemade candle inside more of those mini galvanized buckets. The candles were easy to do with a candle making kit that I found at a local craft store for about $40.00. I made white candles and made a sticker label with our names, the date and a thank you for coming. I tied small bits of ribbon to the handles. I had several on each table and one extra, burning. Any that weren’t taken we kept for our selves. We had 15 tables with 4 chairs so I made 75 candles. The cost for the candles came to about $140.00 with the ribbon, candle kit, and buckets.



I made my cake topper using wood letters and a small quilting ring that I found at a craft store. I wanted to do our monogram for the top. I got the last initial, J, a lot bigger than the other letters. I painted the letters blue and silver and the inside quilting ring I painted brown. I then hot glued everything together. My best friend’s mom made our cake for free on a floating cake stand. She attached a glue stick to the bottom to put in the cake. It came off really easily so I could just put the cake topper up on our wall when the wedding was over. It looked great! We topped the cake with painted liatrice and put a band of sheer blue ribbon around the bottom of each layer.



I made all the boutonnières for the ushers and the corsages for the moms. I just used a leaf of English ivy that was collected outside a building on campus where I went to school, a bloom of alstromeria and a sprig of liatrice to accent. I wired it all together and taped the wires with floral tape. I didn’t pay for anything, it was all donated.

Our photographer was an ex-wife of one of my uncles. They have a great relationship even though they’re not together anymore. He recommended her to us as a photographer. She did over 500 wonderful pictures for only $300.00. We got the digitals and a few printed. We were able to do anything we wanted with them.



For our food we decided to do a pot luck meal and asked everyone to bring the recipe for their dish. I collected all the recipes and made a cook book from it to give for Christmas this year! To make sure we didn’t have all sides or all main dishes we put in the invitation for the bride’s family to do the side dishes and the groom’s family to do the main dishes. We also figured there would be some time after the ceremony that we would take pictures. We asked our friends to bring appetizers and snacks so everyone would have something to eat while they waited.



We borrowed a projector from a friend of mine and looped childhood pictures of us through the entire reception. Our first dance was to Dave Matthew’s, You and Me. It was absolutely beautiful. We had a short reception because we were anxious to start our honeymoon.



The one decoration that I hadn’t mentioned was provided for free and it was the one thing that really made the wedding. I mentioned we got married in the middle of winter, what makes a winter wedding a true winter wedding? You got it, snow…lots of snow! By the time it was said and done there was two feet of snow on the ground. As much as it was annoying it was absolutely gorgeous and it was powdery so it prevented a lot of accidents. We invited over 200 people and only our closest friends and family were able to make it. We had such a wonderful time. Now every time it snows I think about our wedding day.



The main thing to remember about planning a wedding is to do it your way! I had a lot of opposition to the ideas we had from my family. We decided in the end to compromise on the few things that didn’t matter, but stand firm on the ones that did. My family still talks about our crazy snow wedding.