Wedding February 2009

[Mel A]

Feeb Lyrebird falls is fantastic. It would have been beautiful.

[Mel A]

Ok Ceremony,

I broke each bit down into stages.

Arrival
In a Car, how long will it take you to get there form where you'll be getting ready. In stead of being late I planned to be exactly on time and invited guest 1/2 hour earlyer. Invite said 4pm, I arrived at 4:30.

walk down the Isle, or throught the people on the beach. Music what will it be, will it last bridal part and yourself. or do you need two songs. How will the music get to the beach, who will start it.

Make sure the crowed know where they need to be, you don't want to be weaving in amongst them to get to your man. Have chairs for oldies and pgt women. Makes sure these people are directed to the chairs.

Vows. Talk with the celebrant. Remember you'll be on a beach, and every one including yourself will be standing. be respectful of this and don't make it last 2 hrs.

Signing of the register can take approx 5 min, play some music.

Don't forget to take your engagement ring off before you get to the alter.
Dave had mine in his pocket. I put it on after the ceremony.

Have a shedule for photos, also think about what your guests are going to do during this break, Give them some options as an attachment to the invite.
(I just sent the to the reception centre and gave them food and grog till i got there)

I have some great tips about saving money, If your interested.
I made a list of what I wouldn't compremise on. Dress (no budget) Photographer (no budget) Everything else budget budget budget.

[Mel A]

Have to work but thought I add some tips that really saved me money.

Think about the weddings you have been to. if you don't remember what the [enter thing here] (eg. centre pieces, favours, name cards) looks like, or if you got one at all, save money on them or to really save money. eliminate them completly.

some ideas for less expensive ways.

So for centre pieces in a beach theme, you could have a strip of sprinkled sand (Free and you can put it in any shape you want) with lillies, shells and tea light candles (reject shop, $1 for 10) Low enough to talk over, and can be combined with your theme and colors. plus it would only be about $2-$10 a table depending on the lilly price.

For flowers go to the market and talk directly to the growers and do the flowers yourself. or contact the local TAFE and talk to the floristry class teacher, your wedding could be a project for one or all of the students, you pay for the flowers and they do the rest.

Name cards, It could be a feather with a piece of paper tied around the end or collect shells and get a permenant texta. This also becomes part of the table decoration. I had 1 piece of paper with everyones name who was to sit on that table, rest was up to them.

The cake can be dessert. I had a lemon tart. We got a a chocolate heart made with our names on it and just produced one of the uncut tarts with that on top and some flowers on the plate. We cut it. then out the back there were 9 more and presto, dessert.

The bridal table doesn't need decoration, just have spots for yours and the bridesmaids flowers, instant decoration.

Pull in favours where ever you can. People (women) love to help with weddings. I borrowed cars, had all my friends out with lists collecting candles of certain colours, shells leaves.

Look on e-bay especially under scrap booking. I got 100xA4 sheets of recycled paper for $18 delivered.

Hand deliver invitations to everyone you will see. It is more personal and saves on stamps..

Think outside the box, there are no rules that say you must have flowers. A friend of mine had a fan instead. Looked great and very usefull on a hot day.


so many ideas so little time...

[lisa.]

Thank you Mel A for your great tips on saving money, it help big time. i come back bit later and let you all know how my planing going

[Mel A]

Lisa with the flowers, select your colours first, then you'll know which flowers will support and match.
My fried selected pink roses then picked pea**** blues and greens as her colours, needless to say we changed her pink roses. She ended up having a fan made out of ostrich feather instead of flowers. It was great it was about 35 that day so the fan was great and looked beautiful.

[JamesFrier]

I think February is actually a nice month to get married in. Of course only if you are more south and its still warm, but an out door wedding in crisp air of February could be refreshing. different photo opps to, not as much green everywhere, could be very striking scenery.

[briggsy's girl]

we got married in Feb 2006 - and it was the hottest day of the month!! there was rain the weekend either side of it, but 40+ the day we got hitched! one thing i would suggest - make sure you have a contingency plan just in case it rains - the last thing you want is to be looking fantastic in your wedding gown, hair and makeup - and find it's all been destroyed by the weather! hopefully you won't need it - but it's always better to be safe than sorry. we decided that, if it rained, we'd head to our reception venue early, but sometimes that's not possible...!

i think the other suggestions have been fantastic. make yourself a budget and stick to it. we did everything ourselves, from the invites (which i've since been employed to do another 3 weddings, so they must have been ok!), guest gifts, place cards, through to the centrepieces we had on the tables... we did almost everything on a budget - though dress and photographer were open slather!

definitely decide on your theme and colors before picking your flowers - and look at LOTS of options. i'm a tall person, so had a sheath rather than a tear drop - worked so much better for me - and i wasn't feeling like i had to hold it in a particular way - it was simply cradled in my arms. my bridesmaids also had a sheath - i'd been in a couple of weddings and always felt uncomfy trying to work out how to hold the flowers so they were in the right place and comfortable! also decide in advance if you're going to keep the flowers and have them dried out at home or preserved (freeze dried) professionally - if so, you'll need to arrange someone to get them to the appropriate people as soon after the wedding as possible. it's also something you'll need to get a price on so that you can budget for it - i figured, seeing flowers CAN be a big expense, i wanted to be able to keep them!

decide in advance if you're going to hire or buy your centrepieces - and make sure they fit what you're doing color and them wise. DH and I love roses and rose gardening, had sapphire blue, gold and silver for our colors, so had floating silver rose candles on each table. the bowls cost us $5 each (so $60 in total) and the candles were about $30. we gave each couple a home made CD of music from the wedding as their gift - again, we made them ourselves. think it cost about $50 in total including discs, stickers to label them, cases and the paper for the covers. we included one of the readings for our wedding on the front cover, and a message thanking everyone for attending on the inner cover (got our thank you's out of the way in advance!)

hmmm, lots of waffle there - maybe i'll come back another time and add more!

[smiles4u]

Oh, love the bottom one (bouquet that is)

Beach photo looks so lovely

Hey FEBE ... My DP's younger brother got married in Kallista, not sure where as we rudley never got a Wedding Invitation with the address (most people did)

Anyway, we turned up at DP's parents house & we got onto a mini bus that took us there. I was too busy chatting on the bus that I never looked to see an entrance sign to the reception place to see the name of the place.

It would have been lovely in it's days BUT was badly in some need of renovations.

We danced to music over the P.A system (was so daggy), main meal was cold (vegies under-cooked) & not a decent portion (I was starving), drinks warm ... And MP was the most underdressed I had ever seen. She was so over weight she struggled to walk. No makeup & hair put in plaits

The grounds had a rotunda & there was a chapel attached the reception. When you entered the building there was a large open fire place.

FEBE do you have any idea what the name of this reception is ?? ... Just so I can warn anyone that might consider it as a reception !!

It cost them a fortune for this particular wedding reception ... Lucky for them the brides folks paid for most of the Wedding !!

[feeb]

No i dont know what it would be called we only looked at the one place up there and that was lyrebird falls where we had the wedding and it was gorgeous and had the best food!! BONUS was desert was a buffet of 12 deserts and they were served up to guests but they had a huge choice!!!!

Most places have rotunda and a chapel up there do u remember what road it was on??