Handtied bouquet of white roses surrounded in sage
Here’s why you should opt for herbal bouquets:
1. Instant wedding memories at every Sunday roast.
Imagine this. If you have herbal bouquets, then every time for the rest of your life tha you have a nice roast lamb stuffed with sage or a juicy roast chicken stuffed with rosemary and thyme, you’ll be transported back to dizzy wonderfulness of your wedding day.
2. Unbreakability.
Herbs are easy to play with if you’re doing a DIY bouquet, and set off roses nicely. However bad you are a floristry, they still wont wilt or snap.
3. You can make the boys buttonholes herbal too.
Leave your ushers smelling sweetly with rosemary and rose buttonholes like these:
Rose and rosemary buttonholes for the gents
4. Herbs symbolise all manner of positive things.
Rosemary symbolises remembrance, love, loyalty and fidelity. And apparently it can improve the memory.
Sage symbolises wisdom, long life and immortality.
Thyme symbolises activity, bravery, courage and strength.
Sedum symbolises welcome and traquility. Technically it is a herb, not an edible one, but still a herb, and a good filler.
You can get a huge two-handed bunch of mixed herbs from New Covent Garden Market for a tenner (if you’re prepared to get up at 5am two days before your wedding).
Me with a small forest of herbs and mixed roses in my hands
So normally I don’t like to show my mug on my blog, but here’s a once-in-a-blogtime exception, so I can show you my bouquet. It’s a mix of pink tipped roses, hot pink roses with green tips, ivory roses and pink roses mixed with sage, thyme and rosemary. I felt like a walking bouquet garni (in a good way).
My best woman and flowergirls with a selection of the finest herbal bouquets
These are my lovely flowergirls and best woman - each has a different colour rose and a different type of herb (except the sedum, which is technically a herb, but not the sort you’d put in a dressing). The ribbons are all different colours, matching with their mismatching outfits. But more about this in subsequent posts…
In cost-per-wear terms your wedding dress is likely to be by far the most expensive piece of clothing you’ll ever buy. And the likelihood is, you’ll never wear it again. Unless of course, your first marriage doesn’t work out and your next fiance is both frugal and unsentimental. Or, you do one of the following:
1. Trash it. This American tradition involves putting the dress back on and getting a photographer to shoot you destroying it on camera.
Run through forests, throw yourself in a river, roll in hay - whatever it takes for the perfect picture
2. Donate it. Oxfam have a number of specialist bridal departments that can make a decent amount of charity cash for your dress.
4. Dye it. No, not yourself, you’ll inevitably cock it up. Get professional dyers to do it. Worst case scenario is a polyester lining that’s shrunk and hasn’t taken the colour properly and has puckered the seams of your lovely lace outer, plus lace and beading that’s still its original colour.
Only silk dyes properly, anything synthetic wont really work (polyester, acetate, polyester satin). Nor will beading or lace. 2BirdStone on Etsy dyes your crinoline to order if you fancy.
Dye your wedding dress pale pink and have it shortened. Maybe it'll look a little like this Reiss dress...
5. Shorten it.
5. Turn it into throw cushions. Or a baby blanket, or a quilt.
Erica Mills, in California specialises into turning your dress into a Christening outfit
7. Preserve it. Get it dry cleaned pronto, before any stains have time to become part of the fabric. Then vacuum-pack it in a sealed carrier with acid-free tissue between the folds. Plastic can discolour fabric over time, so make sure you have tissue paper around the outside of the dress as well. Add moth repellant and keep it away from light for the next 30 years… until your daughters tell you they’re lesbians and even if they weren’t they’d never wear your dress anyway because it’s stained, moth-eaten and 30 years out of date.
Wow. A special boxes with plastic windows to keep you dress in.
Signs cost nothing but a lick of paint and a little bit of effort. Go crazy on signs, signage and anything vaguely arrow shaped to create drama and intrigue at your wedding. It’s a fact found in all good Wedding Encyclopaedias – cool signs at weddings = cool photos = cool memories of your wedding. See below for undisputable proof:
A boxing round card style cake cutting sign? That's so good I'm going to faint. On purpose.
Get your bridesmaids to hold up signs letting guests know what stage of the wedding you’re at.
Utter brilliance. No need for cheesy grins when a sign explains your situation.
Whether on weathered wood or hanging from a tree or even both wedding signage looks best when it’s DIY.
A wooden sign? Hanging from a tree? What's not to like?
A wedding sign with personality - a rare thing.
A classic wedding sign. No one would complain about this one.
Bridesmaids. It's just not dignified. Hide your faces in shame.
Just say you’re a feminist. And your friends are in their thirties, maybe already married with kids. Just say one is an important civil servant, another a high flying career girl, another a life-saving highly qualified anaesthetist. Maybe being a frou-frou bridesmaid just seems a bit silly for them.
Yes bridesmaidy ladies. Hide your faces behind pixels. The suffragettes fought for this?
But how to show them you love them? How do you make them feel just a little special? The answer… Usherettes.
They’re like Bridesmaids Lite – so no matching dresses, no matching bouquets and no meetings to co-ordinate shoe colour. Just the honour of being Officially The Bride’s Top Few Friends.
So, all you ned to do is this - just as you mark out ushers with a buttonhole, give your usherettes corsages. To make your life even easier – give silk corsage flowers rather than fresh flowers. Modern day genius.
Corsages by Bando
There’s also spiritual bridesmaids. These are like bridesmaids in disguise. The beauty of this is that only you and your selected ones know about it, which means no one can get offended and you can have as many as you like. Phew.
I bet this bride had no friends at school.
Another canny trick is to make would-be bridesmaids readers. That way, they get to have their 15 minutes of Corinthians-inspired fame.
Or, finally, just have a maid of honour. Which, to be a bit more Equal Opportunities you can call her your Best Woman and get her to do a hilarious gag-heavy speech and then perv over the ushers.
The classic black dress/ multi-coloured shoe combo in case you absolutely must have bridesmaids.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bride-to-be with a wedding coming up will be in want of a non-schmoltzy wedding reading. Luckily, having scoured the whole literary universe from Austen to Chaucer and back, I’ve come up with a few. Enjoy.
First up, “I do , I will, I have” by Ogden Nash. This man produces melt-in-the-mouth rhymes, and though he can edge on the twee at times, this poem is cynical enough to work. It celebrates the endless disagreements of coupledom, ending with the lines:
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.
Read the whole poem here, or watch a (slightly dodgy) reading of it below:
Next up is The Promise by Eileen Rafter. This is one of those odd poems that seems to have crept somehow into The Virtual Book of Wedding Readings and is by a totally unknown poet – it sounds like she’s actually a physician who made the final of some Australian poetry competition. Despite this, the poem is quite cute, whilst expressing the woman’s practical objections to marriage on the basis they’ll probably break their promises and because she might learn to “ignore/ Dirty socks or damp towels strewn all over the floor.”
The sun danced on the snow with a sparkling smile;
As two lovers sat quietly, alone for a while.
Then he turned and said, with a casual air
(though he blushed from his chin to the tips of his hair),
“I think I might like to get married to you.”
“Well then,” she said, “there’s a thought.
But what if we can’t promise to be all that we ought?
Can you promise me, say, that you won’t rage and shout,
If I’m late yet again, when we plan to go out,
For I know I can’t promise I’ll learn to ignore
Dirty socks or damp towels strewn all over the floor.
So if we can’t vow to be all that we should
I’m not sure what to do though the idea’s quite good.”
But he gently smiled and tilted his head
Till his lips met her ear and softly he said
“I promise to weave my dreams into your own,
that wherever you breathe will be my heart’s home.
I promise that, whether with rags or with gold I am blessed,
Your smile is the jewel I will treasure the best.
Do you think then, my love, we should marry – do you?”
“Yes, she said smiling, “I do.”
And finally, for some eloquent cynicism (or is that cynical eloquence?) try The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. This is from a passage in which Lord Henry Wootton explains his views on marriage:
The real drawback to marriage is that it makes people unselfish. And
unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. Still, there are
certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their
egotism, and add it to many other egos. They are forced to have more than
one life. They become more highly organized, and to be highly organised is,
I should fancy, the object of man’s existence. Besides, every experience is
of value, and, whatever you may say about marriage, it is certainly an
experience.
Watch the Dorian Gray excerpt here, read by the lovely Dan Stevens in The Carte Noire Readers here:
Click the image to watch Dan Stevens read Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Darling, what about Kenya for the honeymoon? There’s white sand beaches, coral reefs, safaris, elephants, snorkelling…”
“Sure, sweetpea, but how can we afford it?”
Well, for a start, you can cut costs by avoiding tour operators. ‘Tailor-made’ holidays tend to follow the same pattern anyway – white sand beaches on the Indian Ocean, followed by a safari on the rolling grasslands of the Masai Mara and maybe a visit to Mount Kilamanjaro. Simply copy a honeymoon itinerary like this one yourself.
To remove the costs of the middle man, simply book your hotel direct. Asha Cottages, a boutique eco-hotel on the white sands of Diani beach resort on the Indian Ocean, just 30 miles from Mombasa, is offering 20% off for honeymooners who mention The Credit Crunch Bride. Yippeee!
Honeymooners get a 20% discount at Asha Cottages - the sea-front, family-run boutique eco-hotel on Diani Beach, Kenya.
Then, get the hotel’s advice on activities and good excursions – their knowledge is probably going to be as good if not better than any tour operators. If you’re lucky, they might even book your safari trips for you, like the good people of Asha Cottages.
View of the Indian Ocean from one of the five cottages of Asha Cottages
Go off the beaten track. Avoid the hordes of the North Coast and Malindi (and the inflated prices that come with them). And for your safari what about trying the more low key Shimba Hills National Reserve rather than the Maasai Mara, Samburu, Tsavo East etc. It has more bio-diversity, elephants and antelopes than Eden itself.
No trip to Kenya is complete with a quick safari trip
Love The Lonely Planet for Kenya. It may be the backpacker’s bible, but it can also be a honeymooner’s friend. Here’s their top picks for Kenya:
5Mombasa Old Town – The coast’s focal port, with an earthy old quarter and the mighty Fort Jesus
The rare Colubus monkey - often found hanging out in the gardens of Asha Cottages.
Love TripAdvisor too. This website, made of user reviews, is the place to find out about if the toilets were dirty or the service slow. Don’t book any hotel, spa or safari without checking this first.
Massage and pampering are compulsory even on a honeymoon on a budget.
Deconstruct old clothes and turn them into catwalk pieces
Cover off “something borrowed” by walking down the aisle in a recycled wedding dress. It will keep your carbon footprint light and fluffy and your wallet with a few pennies left in it.
For East Londoners, Junky Styling are specialists at creating something new from recycled clothing. They can either scour second hand shops and jumble sales for you to find beautiful pieces of lace to make your dream eco-dress or alter and re-fashion a piece of clothing you bring in. Run by Annika Sanders and Kerry Seager and a team of designers on Brick Lane, they’re immensely creative and admirably unpretentious. They’re not wedding specialists, but sometimes that can be a good thing. Here’s some they made earlier…
A little bit of rouging and a buttoned off-shoulder cowl neck
Recycled wedding dress by Junky Styling. Groom, bride's own.
Layers of vintage lace add interest to a simple silhouette
Vintage lace gets a make-over
Shortening an old wedding dress gives instant modernity.
Take a wedding dress, then shorten, add ruffles, and voila. Your wedding dress = pimped.
And if you’re really really on a budget, you can always fashion a wedding dress out of old white T-shirts…
A few T-shirts, some sewing skillz and by golly, that's your wedding dress sorted.
Beginning with something light, here’s the infamous song from The Wedding Singer. An immensely practical and domesticated avowal of love and good intentions…
I wanna Grow Old With You from The Wedding Singer
I wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad carry you around when your arthritis is bad all I wanna do, is grow old with you
I’ll get you medicine when your tummy aches Build you a fire if the furnace breaks So, it could be so nice growing old with you,….
I’ll miss you Kiss you Give you my coat when you are cold Need you Feed you Even let you hold the remote control.
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink Put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink Oh I could be the man that grows old with you I wanna grow old with you.
Next up, the ravings of a lunatic/ the words of a man who truly understands the power of love. This could be the one for you, if you’re not too worried about following the learnings of a man who spent the last couple of years of his life swaying between furiously painting or being furiously crazy before topping himself.
Rest from Work (after Millet) by Vincent Van Gogh in his St Remy days
Letters of Vincent van Gogh
It may well seem to you that the sun is shining more brightly and that everything has taken on a new charm. That, at any rate, is the inevitable consequence of true love, I believe, and it is a wonderful thing. And I also believe that those who hold that no one thinks clearly when in love are wrong, for it is at just that time that one thinks very clearly indeed and is more energetic than one was before. And love is something eternal, it may change in aspect but not in essence. And there is the same difference between someone who is in love and what he was like before as there is between a lamp that is lit and one that is not. The lamp was there all the time and it was a good lamp, but now it is giving light as well and that is its true function. And one has more peace of mind about many things and so is more likely to do better work . . .
For a bit of seventeenth century poetry, try Abraham Cowley...
And now for something a little more old-fashioned…
Abraham Cowley
Go bid the needle: his dear north forsake; to which with trembling reverence, it doth bend. Go bid the stones: a journey upwards make. Go bid the ambitious flames: no more to ascend. And, when these false to their own motions prove, Then shall I cease, thee alone to love.
You, who men’s fortunes in their faces read; to find out mine, look not, alas, on me; but mark her face and all the features heed; for only there is writ my destiny. Or, if stars show it, gaze not on the skies; but study the astrology of her eyes.
If thou find there kind and propitious rays, what Mars and Saturn threaten, I’ll not fear. Per chance the fate of mortal man is writ in heaven, but O, my heaven is here. What can men learn from stars they scarce can see. Two great lights rule the world; and her two, me.
Say no to the white icing hegemony. Reject the conservativism of the sponge. Turn your back on marzipan. Have a cake cutting ceremony without cake…
Bring on The Cake of Cheeses.
With a cake of cheeses you can have the drama of tiers without the associated overload of sugar.
The Haldon cake of cheese from The Cheese Shed - £199
Decorate your cake of cheese with flowers, ivy, fresh figs, cake toppers or even cherry tomatoes. You can go to town on decoration, because a cake of cheese could never be seen as twee.
Go for black and white cheese reels for ultimate drama.
Plan on needing about a kilogram of cheese per 10 guests. It seems to work out at £20 for 10 guests, from looking at cakes from The House of Cheese, Fine Cheese and The Cheese Shed.
Decorate in olives, grapes and other cheese-friendly edibles.
Five rounds of cheese looks pretty impressive. Start with something harder and less expensive for the base – like a nice Cheddar. Stick mainly to harder cheeses if you want to avoid a squished, stinky cheese mound. Then have soft goat’s cheese at the top.
Mix up your Wensleydales with your Camemberts for interesting textures
Then all you need are some crackers and a selection of chutneys and you’re ready to go.
You could even source local cheeses if you want to lower your carbon wedding footprint, like this lady.
The wedding cake. Expensive and often not that tasty. Certainly not as tasty as my mum’s cherry cake or my friend Suzy’s lemon drizzle cake. So why pay some baker to create you some white marzipan encrusted monstrosity? No, this is your chance to have (drum roll)… THE ULTIMATE WEDDING CAKE BAKE OFF.
Bring on the bake-off
Not only do you avoid astronomic wedding cake costs, but you create something totally individual, collaborative and a mini-event in itself. Ask close friends and family to bake and bring along their favourite cake.For extra competitiveness pitch the bride’s family against the groom’s family. May the best bakers win.
Finally, instead of a cake cutting ceremony have The Bake Off Awards. Award prizes to all the bakers (Best Carrot Cake Award, Best Coconut Cake with Lime Buttercream Award etc.) Appropriate prizes could be a silver cake fork or an apron.
Decorate cakes with flowers
One final advantage is Cake Diversity – you end up with lots of different cakes, so guests are likely to at least like something. Here’s the top ten most requested cakes according to the New York magazine:
10. Chocolate-almond cake, chocolate ganache, and mocha buttercream
9. Banana cake and chocolate buttercream
8. Coconut cake and lime buttercream
7. Hazelnut-almond cake, chocolate ganache, and raspberries
6. White cake, lemon buttercream, and raspberries
5. Chocolate devil’s food cake, chocolate ganache, and praline buttercream
4. Lemon cake, lemon curd, and vanilla buttercream
3. Yellow butter cake and chocolate buttercream and/or chocolate ganache
2. Chocolate devil’s food cake, vanilla buttercream, and raspberries
1. Chocolate devil’s food cake and vanilla buttercream
And to avoid last minute panics, encourage your trusty bakers to bake in advance. Once the cakes are cooled wrap them in clingfilm super tight, then wrap in foil just in case, then pop them in the freezer. Then the night before just defrost, add fillings and decorate.
Bake your cakes in advance, wrap tightly in clingfilm then defrost the night before
Keep decoration simple. - There’s no need to get OTT about decorations. Some whipped cream for fillings, a little icing sugar on top, followed by a handful of berries or a flower can look marvelous.
Hoping to avoid identi-kit wedding readings? Here are a few less obvious selections, courtesy of my marvelously well read sister-in-law-to-be. And no, 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 is not included. Hopefully they avoid patronising lecturing on how to have a good marriage, and don’t mention that sickening word ‘joy’ too much.
First, up is a twentieth century American poet, Ogden Nash.
The versifier extraordinaire, Ogden Nash
My Dream by Ogden Nash
This is my dream, It is my own dream, I dreamt it. I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.
The next extract is by an American contemporary novelist, Richard Bausch and it positions love as all about the little moments and domestic trivia.
Richard Bausch
The Last Good Time by Richard Bausch
There was a lovely time, long ago, too private to tell anyone, or too ordinary. It had nothing to do with anything, really: it was almost embarrassingly humble. One December night, unable to sleep, he had glanced out the bedroom window to discover that it had snowed. He woke his wife and made her come to the window, and the surprise of it delighted her as it had delighted him.
They dressed and bundled the baby up and took a walk, and watched the dawn arrive, and when they returned to the house, he took the day off. They played with the baby, cooked dinner, and baked bread. They listened to the baby playing in his playpen, and they talked idly about anything that came into their minds, and that evening, late, they lay whispering to each other about what a beautiful day it had been.
He thought about all this on his way down to the grocery store. The memory of it came through him like a breath, and then he was savoring it, basking in its warmth. And he thought that this is what love really meant: this very ordinary memory. That love was easy and plentiful as grass, and as still, as calm somehow.
Next up, Charles Darwin’s memorandum on marriage. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed “Marry” and “Not Marry”. Brilliantly practical.
Darwin's two columns: Not marry? Marry?
Notes on Marriage by Charles Darwin
Not Marry? Freedom to go where one liked choice of Society and little of it. Conversation of clever men at clubs Not forced to visit relatives, and to bend in every trifle to have the expense and anxiety of children – perhaps quarrelling – Loss of time – cannot read in the Evenings – fatness and idleness – anxiety and responsibility – less money for books if many children forced to gain one’s bread (But then it is very bad for one’s health to work too much). Perhaps my wife won’t like London, then the sentence is banishment and degradation with indolent, idle fool.
Marry? Children – (if it please God) – constant companion, who will feel interested in one (a friend in old age) – object to be beloved and played with – better than a dog anyhow Home, and someone to take care of house Charms of Music and female Chit Chat – These things good for ones health but terrible loss of time My God, it is unthinkable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, and nothing after all No, no won’t do Imagine living all one’s days solitarily in smoky dirty London House – Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, and books and music perhaps – compare this vision with dingy reality. Marry! Marry! Marry!
Cutting your guest list is the single easiest way of cutting down wedding costs. It means a smaller venue and a leaner food and drink bill. And you could even get to fuss the people you invite more.
On the downside, you could end up alienating friends and creating family feuds which last for generations if you cut the guest list without being sensitive. Here’s how not to offend everyone you know…
Find a natural cut off point. Not every guest list finishes at an exact multiple of 50. If you’ve got 43 family and 23 close friends, then go for a guest list of either 43 or 66 rather than a round 50. Realsimple call it ‘creating tiers’.
Create blanket policies and stick to them. No one cousin will be offended at not being invited if you have a no cousins policy.
Bin anyone you haven’t seen for a year (unless they live abroad).
Scratch any would-be friends i.e. people you’re thinking of inviting because you’d like to be friends with them in the future.
If they didn’t invite you don’t invite them. If they didn’t invite you to their wedding you are totally off the hook. Unless their wedding was before you met them.
Don’t invite any work colleagues. It’s just not professional anyway to let them hear your Dad’s story about the big poo you did in public when you were a toddler. It won’t advance your career.
The biggest wedding headache – the guest list
Always refer to your wedding as “a small family affair”. This is a perfect white lie, and prevents either side from embarrassment.
A very small family affair
Do block un-invites. If you don’t invite anyone from a whole social group, then there’ll be less awkward conversations.
Only invite people you’ve met. This means no ‘plus ones’ and if you haven’t met someone’s partner there’s no need to invite them. People you don’t know yet cant get offended about not being invited, surely.
Don’t invite people you don’t like. This rule isn’t really about not alienating people, it’s about making sure you and your guests enjoy themselves. If you wouldn’t want to sit next to them at dinner, probably none of the rest of your guests will.
Limit parents’ friends. Even if they’re paying for the wedding, their friends list needs to be kept in check.
If formal wedding line ups make you want to hurl and paying a couple of grand for a wedding photographer seems just a little too much, then there are other ways to create fabulous wedding photography…
Bring on the DIY photo booth - it’s like the disposable camera thing, but with an upgrade.
Hang up a back drop with a drape and a piece of cord, and there you have your very own photo booth for guests.
Guests at Nathalie and Corey's wedding wrote messages on a little chalkboard
With the aid of a digital camera on a tripod and a piece of string you can create your very own Helmut Newton style photo machine, in which guests trigger the shutter and flash with either a camera radio remote or a camera remote control cable.
For the ultimate wedding snaps
Encourage curtseys and bows at your home made photo booth
To encourage true silliness with the guests, set up a laptop so they can review their shots. This does get a little more complicated, but luckily here’s a tutorial on setting up your own photo booth. And here’s how another couple did it.
And for ultimate dumb guest behaviour create speech bubbles for guests to write messages on.
And finally, once you’ve got millions of amazing user-generated shots, print your own album by uploading it to a digital photo book maker like Bob books.
Upload your own photos to create your own photo book at Bob Books
Your budget may be sorrowfully paltry, but you flowers don’t have to be. Avoid your centre pieces looking sparse and your bouquets looking sad by choosing the right flowers.
Use Hydrangeas for bulk. They can be a little tricky in bouquets as the stems need to be kept short to stop them wilting, but for centre pieces they really work. A single stem is the size of about four roses, so despite being about £4 a stem they can work out fairly cheaply. They come in pink, blue, green, purple, aqua and white mainly, are in season from spring to autumn, and can even be dried if you really need them in your bouquet. Plus, there’s half a chance you’ll know someone who has an enormous bush of them, so you might even be able to snip them for free.
Use hydrangeas for bulk.
Fill with baby’s breath. Florists everywhere use baby’s breath (gypsophilia) to bulk up bouquets.
Forget the other flowers and just go with Baby's Breath
Shrink your vases. It’s the same principle as dieters use when they eat off smaller plates – the smaller the vase, the bigger the flowers look. Go Lilliputian if you so wish.
Apothecary bottles make ranunculus look giant
Big up the foliage. Bear grass, pittosporum, eucalyptus or even ivy can help supersize your flowers.
The irony of the broke-ass bride is that at a time when what she really needs is cash, cash and more cash, instead she will be putting together a gift list full of presents that she couldn’t normally afford, even in less stretched times. It’s like doing Supermarket Spree when you know you’re off to the Debtor’s Prison next week.
Considering you wont be able to afford to buy anything for months/ years/ decades after your wedding, you’d best get your wedding gift list right. Here’s the Credit Crunch Bride’s dos and don’ts…
Do a tour of your home. Look what items you’re missing or really need an upgrade. This is the time to replace that nasty studenty cutlery and that cheapo Ikea laundry basket you never liked.
Do keep it practical. Bed linen, towels, wine glasses, crockery, bakeware, cutlery, cushions, vases, jugs, frames, photo albums, lamps, clocks and rugs will always get used.
Even something as absurdly practical as a tea towel can be pleasurable with Emma Bridgewater
Do keep it classic. Don’t buy things you’ll go off or want to upgrade after a year or two. Get the best version of the smaller items, rather than stretching to cheap versions of big items. This is your moment to get that toaster of your dreams.
Let someone treat you to the best toaster in the world
Don’t ask for gifts you’ll never use. Ask for gifts for who you are, not who you plan to be. If you never normally use a decanter, you’re not going to magically start, just because you’re a Mrs.
Unless you have previously owned the following items, you probably wont start using them regularly, just because you’re married:
- The ice cream maker. Just as surely as eggs should come from chickens, ice cream should come from shops, not from badly-designed home ice-cream makers.
- The cocktail shaker. Enjoying drinking cocktails is not the same as being good at making them. This requires sobriety, the correct ingredients, impeccable mixing skills and the correct recipe. This present is likely to sit in its packaging for years.
- The bread maker. There’s a reason eBay is full of bread-makers ‘used once’.
Don’t ask for presents you wouldn’t buy yourself. If you wouldn’t buy this present for yourself or someone else, it probably isn’t meant to be.
Don’t ask for things you already have. If you already have lots of lovely bed linen, don’t ask for more, just because it’s what people put on gift lists. Ask for what you don’t have, be it things for the garden, boardgames, tools, meals on your honeymoon or a firegrate.
Don’t take the fun out of giving. No one wants to give a boring present, like a sixteenth of a sofa or a fifth of a pair of curtains. Each gift should be an object which the giver feels is their personal blessing of your marriage.
'With this Sophie Conran low casserole dish from The Conran Shop, I bless this marriage.'
Wedding guests are a little like small children who ignore their birthday present and spend hours playing with the cardboard box it came in – their interest is often not in what you’d expect. It’s the little, often inexpensive things that are remembered. You spend thousands on an expensive venue, and then people just remember that sweet thing you did with the hat clips or the seating plan board. Damn them. Unless, of course, you’re flat broke, have a cheap venue, cheap dress and cheap eats, in which case you’ll be happy they’re so easily pleased.
Here’s five ways to distract them with details:
1. Crazy table naming – do something special with your table names. Be it giant numbers, the names of your favourite films or, perhaps, all the places you had your best shags (“So daughter, why is our table called The Back of The Nissan Micra?”)
Giant table numbers
2. Giant balloons.
Giant white balloons fade any bouquet into paltry insignificance.
3. Chinese paper lanterns – each guest lets their off at the end of the evening. Watch them float away over the countryside (and hopefully not land in a tree, start a fire and land you in the dock on arson charges).
Fly me to the moon
4. Windmills, masks and fake moustaches. All are amusing when discovered at table settings, after a couple of glasses of bubbly. Then again, most things are amusing after a couple of glasses of bubbly.
5. Guest-generated photography. Disposable cameras on tables or a photo booth will create equal amounts of genius and terrible shots as well as the occasion rude photo of genitalia.
6. Sparklers - Even adults go gooey-eyed over sparklers
The classic Caribbean honeymoon with the classic honeymoon pricetag.
Ah the honeymoon – a chance to relax post-wedding, and drink in your new-found coupledom in total peace and solitude. Oh no, what’s that knocking? Oh yes, it’s the Back Of Your Mind reminding you how much the honeymoon is costing you per minute.
There’s nothing fun about a holiday so ludicrously lavish that you spend it worrying about how you’ll ever clear your overdraft. So here’s how to honeymoon on a shoestring:
1. Keep it short. You don’t need to be a Nobel Prize winner to work out that a 3 day mini-break will be cheaper than 3 weeks away. A mini-break is long enough to breath out slowly, gossip about the wedding with your beloved and write your thank-yous.
2. Don’t be a lemming. If you choose popular honeymoon destinations and stay in honeymoon suites in honeymoon type hotels you’ll pay honeymoon prices. Try the Finnish Lakes rather than the Bahamas, Java rather than Barbados or Damascus rather than Marrakech. Anything that makes the Top Ten Honeymoon Destinations is likely to cost you.
3. Go out of season. If you insist on going to Hawaii, go May – June and September – December (before Christmas). Otherwise the Caribbean is off season (and hotter) from Spring – July.
White sand beaches can only truly be idyllic when they're as empty as this.
Look for low season discounts:
Asha Cottages is a tiny family-run boutique eco-hotel in Kenya with just five guest rooms During low season (now) B&B goes down to 50 euros per night per person. You can really easily just spend a week chilling there, getting massages, eating great food and lolling on the beach without it costing and arm and a leg. Yippee!
Asha Cottages, on Diani Beach on the South Coast of Kenya near Mombasa
5. Play the ethical card. Volunteering could be your way of affording a tropical destination. Oh, and yes, it might help you both be better people. Help out at orphanages, painting, cleaning, washing and preparing meals in Thailand, South Africa, Kenya and Fiji through Hands Up Holidays.
At least 10% of profits made are given back to community partners that you are involved with on your honeymoon. Sweet.
6. Lie. Pretend to your friends you’re going on honeymoon and then switch off the phones and create a holiday from life in your very own backyard. Bring on the take aways, roll out the DVDs.
It’s one of life’s great answered questions. How come most women before getting engaged are fans of many contrasting and clashing colours in their lives, and then moments after The Proposal go all matchy-matchy? Before The Proposal they were happy with wearing co-ordinating separates, painting accent colours on their walls and not owning a single twin set, and then suddenly After The Proposal everything must must match. Weird, but unquestionably true.
Matchy-matchy weddings, where the chair bows must match the favours, the save the date cards and the mother-of-the-bride’s corsage are both stressful and expensive. Luckily, with a mismatched theme to your wedding, all these problems seem to melt away. Here’s how to do it:
1. Mismatch the bridal party. This means they can just wear an outfit of their own with zero cost to you.
Bridesmaids wearing their own dresse
2. Mix up your outfit. Having a white dress doesn’t mean you also have to have all your accessories in white. Avoid forking out for accessories you’ll only ever wear once by jazzing up your outfit with bright accessories.
This bride has taken mismatching to a whole new level
3. Mismatch your flowers. Who said every table has to have the same flowers? OK, some people do, but you don’t have to. And if you’re DIYing it, it means you have much more freedom with the flowers you get.
4. Mismatch your table settings. A different table cloth for every table. Yay.
5. Mismatch your husband. Not really. However, you could post-rationalise your mismatched theme by claiming that you already have the perfect match. Aah.
If you’re more prosaic than poetic, or find that poetry makes your head swim, maybe a wedding reading from a novel might work out better for you. Plus, if you have a burly chap doing a reading, prose might prove less emasculating for him.
Here’s a selection of the finest wedding readings from novels:
1. From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
For those who go slack jawed for some period drama romance, try Mr. Darcy’s response, when asked by Elizabeth how he came to fall in love with her…
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.
But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.
To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.
It’s all about the little prince learning to value a rose because it is his particular rose, the one he watered and looked after. Kooky, with just a touch of the hallucinogenic about it.
“Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses…
6. From The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
Here’s a profundity, the best I can do: sometimes you just know… You just know when two people belong together. I had never really experienced that odd happenstance before, but this time, with her, I did. Before, I was always trying to make my relationships work by means of willpower and forced affability. This time I didn’t have to strive for anything. A quality of ease spread over us. Whatever I was, well, that was apparently what she wanted… To this day I don’t know exactly what she loves about me and that’s because I don’t have to know. She just does. It was the entire menu of myself. She ordered all of it.
The cost of wedding flowers is an outrage. It’s a science fact. Luckily though, you can make up for any paucity of flowers, dodgy DIY centrepieces or lack of floral complexity by the clever use of containers. Here’s the Credit Crunch Bride’s guide to vases to outshine your flowers:
1. The single stem vase. Elegant AND built for those with a very tight flower budget? This is as good as a baby without the childbirth.
Put single tall blooms in single stem vases for maximum dramatic effect
2. Apothecary bottles a.k.a chemist’s bottles. These are perfect for the shabby chic look. For proper collectibles go here or here, otherwise you can pick them up on eBay for about a pound a pop.
Apothecary bottles
3. Vintage bottles - Perfume bottles, old coca cola bottles, whatever the junk shop offers really.
4. Teapots. If you’re hesitating over doing that Alice in Wonderland theme, this could be the tipping point.
Teapots give flair to any floral arrangement, not matter how messy
5. Jam jars. No country wedding is complete without wild flowers in jam jars.
6. Tin cans wrapped in pretty paper. An ultra low budget option for the baked bean eating bride.
7. Tureens and silver cups.Not necessarily cheap, but certainly cool.
Put your feet up and shoe shop online with Zappos.com
Price Tag Shock Syndrome is frequently reported in regard to bridal shoes. The cost-per-wear is incredibly high and generally they’re icky, tasteless items. Here’s the Credit Crunch Bride’s guide to avoiding wasting vast amounts of cash on shoes you’ll never wear again:
1. Fashion first, wedding second. A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t dream of wearing that style normally, don’t let your fashion suffer for your wedding.
2. Don’t do white. Pewter, red, gold, taupe or silver are infinitely more re-wearable.
3. No one will see them. If you’re wearing a full length dress, get something cheap, comfy and not too high. It’s not as if anyone will ever know if you even wear trainers. Pick up cheapos from Monsoon and save your Jimmy Choo budget for another time.
From Monsoon's bridal collection - Marlena £55
4. Highstreet can work. Coast and Dune have lots of bridalish options.
Coast shoes in beige and silver now on sale for £29 - a bargainista's wet dream
Ladies, a ring is a symbol of your love and commitment. It’s not an exact replica. A big rock does not mean he loves you more, neither is it physical proof of how valuable you are in this world. If you’ve chosen to marry the man you love rather than a balding billionaire, you may have to compromise a little in the one carat diamond stakes.
Hand made ring made by manipulating the silver while molten
Best starting point is to dare to be different. If you insist on a platinum ring with a single solitaire diamond (brilliant cut, natch) and then a matching platinum wedding band, the Wedding Industrial Complex will make you pay big time. Diamonds are not the only stone; platinum is not the only metal.
Concrete rings surely must symbolise permanence. From 22designstudio
Here’s some less eye-wateringly expensive, alternative ring choices:
1. Don’t wear one. My mother never wore one, and has managed being married for 34 years and counting. Indeed when I was a child, she once told me rings were symbols of slavery (she’s since denied this).
2. Yellow gold is very fashion forward. For some it’s the metal of grannies and gypsies, but it’s half the price of platinum, hardwearing and is making a come-back in the fashion world.
3. White gold. This is basically gold with a coating. You may need to get it re-coated at points, but it’s still cheaper than platinum.
4. Titanium. If you’re an active woman, or star frequently as one of the rollerblading, sports-loving extras in tampax adverts, you may want an unbreakable, unscratchable, lightweight, titanium ring. It also happens to be easy on the credit card.
Titanium. If it works in hip replacements, you know it's forever.
5. Go vintage. Portobello Market in London has a series of antique jewellery stalls which have hand-cut Victorian diamonds bigger than your iris for much less than a new diamond.
5. Use your engagement ring as a wedding ring as well. The ground will not open up and swallow you up if you have just one wedding band not two.
7. Choose an unusual cut or design. What your ring lacks in expense, it makes up for in imagination.
8. Embrace flaws. A slightly yellow diamond or one with a tiny flaw goes down in the gemology ratings. If you want a big rock, just get a flawed one. No one will know, unless you’re in a habit of whipping out your gemology certificate and pointing at the clarity rating your stone has. Anyway, slightly coloured diamonds have more character.
It’s the interior designer’s most famous secret – you can turn any interior into a haven of chic with some decent mood lighting. Turn even the most grim of village halls into welcoming place with some clever lighting. Here’s how:
1. Sack off overhead lighting. It makes everyone look ugly and no one wants to feel like they’re in a Topshop changing room.
2. Fairy lights work wonders. Make your own DIY flower fairy lights here.
Cherry blossom fairy lights could replace flowers at tables for evening weddings
3. Tea lights are cheap as chips and far less calorific. Hang them in jam jars outside for a higgedly piggedly country knees-up effect.
Cute AND wind-proof? Whatever next.
If wind is an issue, you could even go for LED fairy lights and make pretty covers for them, like this.
Make your own tea light covers (involves putting glued thread in the microwave)
4. Church candles at every table create a feeling of opulence. Find them at online bulk discount stores like Candles on the web, Covent Garden Candles or for the Americans, Barn Loft Candles, though watch out you get decent ones not spluttery ones with wicks which burn too fast. Read the Independent article on church candles here.
Pillar candles at different heights. And a birdcage. It's lighting nirvana.
5. Paper lanterns create soft, warm lighting, and are financially-friendly, easy to put up and even easier to take down afterwards.
Pack the ceiling with paper lanterns for a many mooned feel.
6. Sparklers are a perfect end-of-the-night treat and create cutelicious photos.
The loveliest, most heart-warming thing about the World Wide Webulator is that it is basically free. Millions of people run free blogs and create websites using free web builders. Strangely though, the Wedding Industrial Complex still manages to convince couples to pay to set up a wedding website, when non-wedding websites can be created for zilch.
On the other hand, wedding websites can cut down the amount of info you need to put in your invites, can simplify rsvps and allow you to update your guests on last minute changes. It’s basically a sliding scale of hassle vs. price.
Here’s four decent options:
1. If you’re going to go for a wedding website provider, WedSimple is your best bet. It’s probably the best on the market – It’s easy to use, the webdesigns aren’t bad and it’s not badly priced. It’s $10/ £7 a month or $80/£56 for an unlimited package. However, your URL (website name) will include the words ‘wedsimple’ in it, which you may not fancy.
Sample of one of the 70 designs available on Wedsimple
2. If you don’t want to pay a penny you could set up a simple blog totally free with Blogger. Change the settings so that post dates and times are not displayed, then your guests simply scroll down to see all the information. In this instance has a great post on how to set up a DIY Blogger website.
Example Blogger Wedding blog
If you don’t want a Blogger URL (i.e. www.mariandroger.blogger.com) you can just buy your own custom URL and put a redirect on your Blogger blog (i.e. www.mariaandroger.com). This normally costs about £10-20 with someone like Names.
3. A third way is to use a normal website builder and provider. This is generally far cheaper and you get more flexible designs. The best for someone new to building websites is squarespace. It’s a one stop website shop with templates which designers wouldn’t sniff at.
Squarespace templates
4. And finally, you could make your life really easy by just emailing a beautiful pdf invite and a web link. No need for paper invites at all…
Parasols instead of bouquets? Practical and pretty? It cannot be.
To misquote T. S. Eliot, April is the cruellest month, if you’re getting married and banking on good weather. It could be baking, freezing, rainy or snowing.
However, you can turn the truculent weather to your advantage if you like…
Opt for pretty umbrellas instead of bouquets. They’re cute, far cheaper, can double as a gift for your bridesmaids and will protect delicate dresses from all the elements. Plus, you and your bridesmaids can spend the day twirling them in a coy and demure fashion. Signature Bella do some beautiful pagoda umbrellas.
by Bella Signature
Wedding brolly from Brollies Galore £11.7
Don’t forget your wellies if you’re going anywhere near lawns. Damp toes just aren’t very in keeping with a perfect wedding.
A bride with wet feet is a miserable bride.
Invest in a cover-up. It’s a royal waste when brides spend a fortune on a dress, only to spend half the day covered up in a cheap cover-up.
Invest in a cover-up
Go for ranunculus or anemones. They are not only in season, but they’re the sort of flowers that can turn dried up goats into wobbly-lipped slushpiles of romance.
Here comes the bride. All in ivory, with ivory shoes, ivory veil and a bouquet in a co-ordinating colour, followed by bridesmaids in the coordinating colour and ivory bouquet. And here comes The Wedding Industrial Complex, ripping you off left right and centre, with plaintive cries of “and surely you’ll be wanting ivory napkins with that?” and “I assume you’ll be wanting the table runners in the co-ordinating colour?”
Say no to The Wedding Industrial Complex. Reject their colour scheme. Give their colour-coordinated price tags the karate chops they deserve.
Instead, choose the only colour scheme they could not in one million years approve of… The Anti Colour Scheme: rainbow. The only rule is, no colour must be the same.
Here’s how to bring rainbows your wedding:
Who could be down on rainbow bridesmaids? Not I.
1. Rainbow bridesmaids – if Sex in the City’s finest can have non-matching bridesmaids, so can you. Plus, your bridesmaids can choose to wear colours that suit them. They could even wear dresses they already have.
Buttonholes and socks in all sorts of merry colours
2. Ushers each with a differently coloured socks.
3. Different types and colours of flowers at every table. The beauty of this is that you could pick up a dozen different bouquets from your local supermarket, whatever they have in stock, and suddenly it all seems planned.
No one can feel sad at a rainbow wedding.
4. A multi-coloured bouquet. Gerberas, ranunculus or carnations work perfectly here.
5. Rainbow wedding cake. (see earlier post on the joys of the rainbow cake).
Why stick to one colour when you can have five?
6. A non-white dress. Shocking, to some, but more wearable and you’ll probably get something far cheaper that’s far better designed.
6. Any colour stationery. Here’s a secret. No one will remember if your invites match with the rest of your wedding. They just won’t. Is it something you’ve ever double-checked when you’ve arrived at a wedding? No, you were probably too busy worrying about laddering your tights or being late to give it a second thought. Just go with whatever.
For the financially challenged bride, there are many things you can’t splurge on – the dress, the venue, the number of guests, the booze, the flowers. Luckily there is one thing that you can go crazy on, really splurge right ahead on, and comparatively not totally blow your budget. Yes, ribbons. You can fill your wedding with the most exotic, luxurious of ribbons. Add a swathe of Dupioni silk ribbon here and a loop of extra wide satin ribbon there for an atmosphere of outrageous opulence. Here’s where you can put ribbon to use at your wedding:
Big up the stripy ribbon
1. Wrapping your bouquet Huge draped bows of fine silk will add class to even the most amateurish of home-made bouquets.
2. Tied on invitations, placenames, signageor wedding favours.
3. Embellishing your dress
Crazify a plain wedding dress with a ribbon sash
4. Tied in flower girls’ hair or even your own.
Velvet ribbon in hair
5. Round chair covers and wedding cake. Get some nice fat Grosgrain ribbon from CarnMeal.
As a bride, it is very likely your duties will include walking down an impossibly long aisle very slowly. Meanwhile a hundred or so guest will scan you up and down. You will be nervous. All eyes will be on you. Your hands will be shaking. This is where the bouquet comes in. It gives you something to do with your hands, other than fidget or flap. In that way, it makes sense.
However, bouquets can be eye-wateringly expensive. So what on earth do you hold in your shaking hands instead? Well, what you normally would, of course. A clutch.
Boden floral clutch - comes in 4 colours
Clutch from Viabella at Etsy
The clutch-instead-of-bouquet option has the distinct advantage of giving you a place to hide your lipstick etc.
All from Etsy: From L to R: The Spring Fling; Pinch Puff Clutch; Satin Wedding Clutch with Flower; Georgia Navy; Olivia Ivory; Peacock Feathers Clutch
This clutch with a luxurious bow is a wonderful bouquet replacement (again, Viabella at Etsy)
And if you’re going to have a clutch, why not replace the bridesmaids bouquets with clutches too. No truly fashion-loving bridesmaid would prefer a bouquet to one of these Nelle clutches.
The peony is the classic wedding flower: indulgent, romantic and terribly thirsty
Peonies are sensitive souls, flowering for 4-6 weeks between May and July. However June is their big moment, so if you’re planning for June nuptials the peony is within your grasp. Yay. In fact, what with global warming and the early onset of Spring, peonies could even work for an April or May wedding. Double yay. Post-a-rose is already advertising the arrival of its peony season, starting mid April. Triple yay.
Post a rose's pink peony & green alcimilla robustica bouquet
Indeed, June is a good bet for an environmentally-friendly wedding, as you can source home-grown English peonies and avoid flying out hothouse flowers. The rest of the year you might be better settling with David Austin St Cecilia roses, which are basically like longer-lasting, counterfeit peonies and can be sourced from the UK.
David Austin St Cecilia rose - the counterfeit peony
If you’re full of beans or bridal ambition, you could even grown your own. Or not, because that would, on second thoughts, be a ridiculous and highly stressful plan.
Which peony?
Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Bernhardt and maybe a couple of stems of Sarah Bernhardt? All the florists advise using this one as it’s big, pink and fluffy, just like your dreams. And it’s perfick for cutting.
Sarah Bernhardt peonies - the ideal peony for cutting
Peonies come in all the romantic hues - red, pink and white
Making it all about the peony
For the clever bride, you can think backwards and make your wedding iconography all about the peony. Then everyone will assume you have terribly joined-up thinking, not that you’re just retro-fitting the flower that happens to be in season into your wedding.
Luckily the peony seems to be the motif du jour amongst the trendy bridal magazines.
The classic peony invitation - by Papeterie
And if you want to go matchy-matchy mad, you could even have peony stamps.
If you don’t fancy handing over a wild amount of crisp notes to a wedding baker, then a home made cake is the way to go. The secret is to avoid the traditional…
1. The Rainbow Cake - Cut through the white icing to reveal rainbow sponge. This is modern day genius.
OMG, simply the most awesome wedding cake on the planet.
2. Big balloons, tiny cake. The cutting of the cake isn’t really about cake. It’s about drama. Create an exciting cake environment, and no one will notice the frugality of your actual cake.
Big balloons, tiny cake
3. No cake. Really, you wont spontaneously combust if you don’t have cake.
4. Sweetie Bar. Or, as the Americans say, a candy bar. You could sack off the cake, and have your photo taken opening the Sweetie Bar by cutting a ribbon with an ornate pair of scissors. It could be called The Opening of The Sweetie Bar Ceremony.
Even the most DIY-allergic bride can manage putting a single rose in a vase
The first rule of sourcing anything wedding-related is ‘never talk about weddings’. Mention the W word and suppliers eyes light up as dollar signs spin through their retinas. The same goes for sourcing your own wedding flowers. Avoid florists, especially bridal florists where possible. They’ll only charge you up the arse.
Here’s some thoughts on how to fulfil your DIY floristry needs:
2. Online bulk flowers – Post a rose does a dozen roses for £19, or even a potted white rose for £17.
2. Supermarket flowers - You could save yourself a load of hassle and get all your centrepieces delivered from Asda Flowers at about £22 a bouquet.
A bunch of 10 roses and 10 freesias for £14 from Asda Flowers
2. Wholesale suppliers. If you happen to run your own company or know someone who does, you can register with your company number to order bulk flowers online at places like flowersforflorists.com.
And for the Yanks, Costco do online flowers at great prices, though they are known to be a little unreliable…
3. Flower markets – If you can deal with a very early morning a couple of days before your wedding, then this could be for you.
New Covent Garden Flower Market
New Covent Garden Market, near Vauxhall, London is open early mornings every day but Sunday. Expect sneery looks, no advice but a huge range of boxes or big bunches of cheap flowers.
4. Buy silk flowers. They’ll pretty much never droop or wilt. Try Sarah’s Flowers.
5. Get bucketloads of water for when any delivered flowers arrive. They’ll be parched and on the verge of wilting, so make sure you top up the water as they drink it up.
6. Warmth opens. As a general rule to open flowers, give them warmth – so a steamy bathroom and buckets of warm water for closed buds; cold water and a cold room if they’re already ripe and open on arrival.
7. A drop of bleach in vases will keep them alive longer. Just a drop, mind.
8. The days before… For Saturday weddings, get the flowers delivered on a Thursday,make up the centrepieces on Friday, the bouquets later on Friday and buttonholes on Saturday morning.
All-green, textural bouquet with herbs, cockscomb, and mums
If lavish expense is not going to be a feature of your bridal bouquet, then you need something else to draw the eye. What could this key feature be, that would stop everyone noticing how utterly inexpensive your bouquet is?
Well, how about a green bouquet…
1. Green as in eco – Seasonal, locally grown flowers are environmentally friendly and far cheaper than their hothouse cousins.
2. Green as in foliage – This is a marvellous double-fingered rejection of the classic wedding obsession with petals. And, sexy foliage is far cheaper than any sort of bud.
3. Green as in the colour – The colour, if not the quality of flowers, will encourage amazed gasps.
4. Green as in a herbs – Waft your way down the aisle with a bunch of rosemary, lavender, oregano and thyme. If you believe the old wives’ tales, rosemary is the herb of remembrance, sage indicates long life, good heath, and domestic sweetness and Sweet marjoram spells goodwill. Here’s what all the herbs signify.
Herbal bridal bouquet with lavender, rosemary, mint, and basil
Herbs make smellicious boutonnieres for your ushers
5. Green chrysanthemums to some are funereal. Poppycock. These bouncy pompoms of limey lusciousness are clearly harbingers of positivity and happiness.
Alice in Wonderland: the perfect Credit Crunch wedding theme
So, here’s the secret. If your wedding isn’t being planned by The World’s Leading Wedding Planner with a diploma in Co-ordinating Colours, and is rather more of the budget variety, the Alice in Wonderland theme could be for you. It excuses all sorts of ridiculous randomness, wonky home-made cakes, mismatching decorations and strange behaviour. In fact, it encourages it.
Courtesy of Bridalcheek
Here’s a few requirements to keep the Cheshire cat grinning and the Mad Hatter sipping:
1. Croquet.
Croquet with flamingoes as mallets and hedgehogs as balls
2. Wonky wedding cake. Get a friend to make one and encourage her to wonk it up.
3. Top hats. The more ridiculous and ill-fitting the better.
4. Eat me, drink me signs. These can be adapted for any situation throughout your venue. Drive me, follow me, avoid me, wee inside me etc.
5. Ornate tea cups for your very own Mad Hatter’s tea party. Indeed, add a tea party flavour to your canapes with tiny sandwiches and mini scones.
6. Whimsical nonsense such as stopped clocks.
Ushers with stripey socks: a must for all serious Lewis Carroll fans.
Home-made invites don’t have to look like a sad child’s attempt to copy Blue Peter, full of splodgy glitter and badly cut out stars. OK, you’re not going to get letterpressing on your Epsom printer, but with a little bit of imagination and thought, they can look mighty fine. Here’s how to create that a non-rubbish DIY invite:
1. Create a moodboard of invites which tickle your fancy.
Invite moodboard by Credit Crunch Bride
2. Question your abilities. Take an honest look at your design abilities. If you’re a bit wobbly on design, then use the K.I.S.S. principle – Keep It Simple Stupid.
3. Buy a border. Istock does all sorts of cute vintage borders.
Delicate scroll and leaf set from Istock
3. Choose a typeface. Dafont.com is where all the beautiful free fonts go to hide. Pick up some beauties there and download them to your computer.
The King & Queen font, from DaFont
4. Choose your paper wisely. Atlantis art supplies, in London E1, has a big rainbowfest of colours and stock. It’s about 30p per page or envelope. Or, order colour envelopes from UK based Colour envelopes.
5. Get printable wedding invites. If, after hours of trying you realise you’re not the next Saul Bass, you could get an invitation template designed for you at this Etsy shop to print out yourself. It’s kind of like half DIY invites.
The Brecon Beacons kicks the ass of some tropical honeymoon destinations
Imagine yourself on under an umbrella on an exotic beach, sipping a cocktail as the palms waft in the breeze. Mild-mannered, uniformed flunkies hover about, eager to serve you watermelon slices or obscure cocktails. However, there’s just one nagging thought that keeps floating into your honeymoon nirvana. Oh yes, you’ve just remembered you’re in The Biggest Recession of Your Lifetime, have another round of redundancies due on your return and a rather large hotel bill to pay. All of a sudden, your exotic dream honeymoon seems like financial self-harming.
And all of another sudden, a honeymoon in the UK seems like a far less stressful plan. There’s absolutely no chance of getting in-flight thrombosis, very little chance of catching a tropical disease or having your passport stolen and only a small chance of Grade I sunburn.
Here’s some UK honeymoon ideas fit for an eco-friendly cash-strapped bride:
Purton Green, an isolated Landmark Trust property in the heart of the Suffolk countryside
1. Hire a historical property in the country. The Landmark Trust has an amazing bank of heritage properties in remote corners of the British Isles. If you’re looking to really get away from it all or are secretly hermits, try The Landmark Trust’s cottages on Lundy Island, off the Devon Coast.
2. A week in a Scottish castle – For less than cost of two tickets to the Maldives, you could create a week of gastronomic excess without a mosquito bite in sight.
3. Walk the Dales.If your guests look askance when you say you’re off walk the Yorkshire Dales or cycle round the Lakes, then you should look them back askance. Only a philistine would be incapable of appreciating the beauty of Beatrix Potter country just because it doesn’t have an all-inclusive bar.
Camping doesn't have to be about sodden grass and mouldy canvas
4. Go camping. Some find it hard to compute that a couple really could need nothing but each other, a pair of Millets sleeping bags and a nylon tent to be entirely content. Guests may give you that funny look again. It’s ok, you’ll have a fabulous time. A hoot no less.
Cosy up on a camper van honeymoon
5. Hire a VW and take a tour of Cornwall’s beaches. Hire a board in Bude and ride some tubes.
6. Last minute honeymoons. Take the same approach you might with a last minute break and just go where the cheap flight takes you. Try lastminute.com and also the late availability section of Mr & Mrs Smith and on The Landmark Trust. A little bit of spontaneity amongst all that wedding planning can be a good thing.
The Tigerlily, Edinburgh
7. A city break in a boutique hotel. There’s something terribly classy and understated about vacationing in Bath, Brighton, Edinburgh or London. Mr & Mrs Smith have some eye-wateringly cool boutique hotels.
8. Boating. The Norfolk Broads is calling you. You know it makes sense.
I’ve never known a pageboy to be disappointed in the quality of his shirt, or frown at the way the pleating falls on his chinos. Mainly they’ll be rolling in cake on the lawn. Best not to spend a fortune then… Here’s some ideas:
1. Fancy dress page boy. More people should do this. Really. It is better for the world. Small pageboy, dressed as a monkey or dinosaur, bish bash bosh, everyone’s happy. Do it, do it, do it.
2. High street pageboy. The high street is full of cute pageboy outfits which you can put together yourself. There’s absolutely no need to go to a bridal shop. Indeed it’s madness until you’ve checked out the likes of Next, Debenhams, BHS and Marks & Spencer.
Debenhams page boy shirt for £12
3. Casual page boy. Little boys trussed up in grown up suits have a habit of looking uncomfortable. How about a more beachy look – with a short sleeved summer shirt and long shorts.
Copy this relaxed beachy pageboy look by Stephanie Staub at Little Eglantine
A simple sash cumberband turns shorts and a summer shirt into an outfit worthy of any wedding
Flower girls have an alarming tendency of coming in not ones or twos, but threes or even fours. All that organza can stack up if you’re not careful. Luckily, if you avoid bridal shops and hit the high street you might just find something cute, fashionable, affordable and un-hated by its wearers. Who knows, they might (and this is of course a fabulous cliche), but they really might just wear them again.
1. Get flowergirl accessories from Monsoon. Their dresses are amazing too, and start from £55.
2. Go for the non-bridal girls dresses. Any long white girl’s dress with a sash ribbon at Marks & Spencer, especially in its Autograph range, is miraculously twice the price of its normal girls’ dresses.
Have more relaxed flowergirls with Marks & Spencer: pink dress £18, white dress £25
3. Try online kid’s clothing – La Redoute, Littlewoods or Boden do bright unpretensious summer dresses.
Pink floaty summer dress, £24, Boden.
£16- £24 at La Redoute
4. Have no fear of patterns. They can look remarkably chic.
Tea dress, £16-21, Next
5. Co-ordinating colours can work too. And if the girls are sisters, they can re-wear them more easily.
Boden gypsy dress, £22
6. Love the High Street. Next, BHS and Debenhams are big winners. Even Tesco can look cute on really little ones.
Flower Embroidered Bridesmaid Dress £30, Signature Vintage Bridesmaid Dress £36, both from Next
Used since the times of Neanderthal nuptials, bridal bartering is an ancient and oft-forgotten skill. However, in these times of fiscal hardship its making a swift come-back. Here’s a mini guide to becoming an Extreme Bridal Negotiator:
1. Work out your swappable skills. You’re skills don’t have to be wedding related; they just need to be something a wedding vendor might need. So if you’re an accountant, a builder or a hairdresser, you coudl be in luck.
2. Be cheeky. No asky, no getty. This couple managed to get a £12,000 wedding for £3,000…
The wedding car Dan and Gemma bartered their way to
3. Offer exposure on your blog if you have one. There are plenty of photographers who are willing to do free photos in exchange for online exposure.
4. Share flowers – if someone’s getting married earlier in the day in the same registry office, or if there’s a Friday wedding at your venue, maybe you should go halves on flowers? Fingers crossed your floral tastes will align.
5. Use swap sites – There’s Big Day Barter in the States, with the quite unique tagline “You’ve bought the garter, now’s time to barter”. Over here in middlingly grey England there’s Swapcycle for general swapping, and Freecycle for getting rid of stuff you don’t need.
Catering is the main cost of a wedding. Ironically, most wedding food is bland and disappointing. Perhaps it’s the difficulty of serving over a hundred guests something that none of them will hate or be allergic to, perhaps it’s a lack of imagination. Here’s some ideas on creating the gourmet effect on a Lidl’s budget:
1. Go ironic. Kate Winslet served fish and chips at her wedding, and somehow managed to still seem elegant and cool, on account of it being Ironic Fish ‘n’ Chips. You could also serve Ironic Bangers & Mash or even (for the very Ironic) Children’s Party Food.
Michelle & Noah's picnic wedding
2. Have a picnic. This is ultimately the same as a cold buffet, but everyone gets their meal pre-packaged in a little wicker basket, and you sit on blankets on a sunny lawn.
Everyone loves a good wedding spit roast. Sorry, did I just make that joke? Yes, yes, it appears I did. Apologies.
3. The hog roast, or indeed a BBQ. A whole roast lamb feeds about 40 whilst a whole roast pig feeds more like 100. There’s also a certain drama in seeing a huge skewered animal being roasted.
4. Choose a theme. Like Italian or Mexican. Even the most gourmet pizzas or burritos will be cheap in comparison to your standard 3 course affair.
5. Go for a fork buffet. A cold one is cheapest. If you have lots of interesting salads, a delicately poached salmon and a joint of gammon can be amazing.
6. Choose less expensive cuts. Fillet of beef is more expensive than sirloin.
7. Don’t have a sit down meal. A shorter wedding with canapes and drinks can work as a lower key affair. Indeed canapes can be tiny works of art. Just make sure they’re suitable for ladies wearing lots of lipgloss and trying to remain elegant.
Here’s a guide to how many canapes you’ll need per person.
Wedding canapes often outclass the main meal
8. Do your own catering (ok, get your mum to do it). This pair actually did it, at their $2,00 wedding, so it is possible. Inevitably though, it would be a Big Stress, unless you are actually Nigella Lawson. However, there is no doubt it will save a great deal of money, plus there’s something sweet about having food cooked by the bride. If this sounds too ambitious, you could just cook the wedding cake or the puddings yourself…
9. Sweat your caterers. Get comparative quotes and make sure they’re not going to hit you for surprise extras, like charging you for providing the dishes in which the food is served or similar nonsense. If they think you’re a besotted bride whose brain has turned to financially-illerate mush, they’ll hoik up their prices.
If you’re going to shell out for a beautiful dress, you might as well get the most beautifully designed one you can. And unless you’re an astoundingly talented dress designer, it’s probably worth taking some inspiration from some of the most beautiful classic long dresses known to womankind. In other words, if you’re going to steal, do it from Waitrose rather than Costcutters.
Joan Crawford:
Joan Crawford wears a streamlined dress as Letty Lynton in 1932, designed by Adrian. It demonstrates the fashion for classical drapery with its bias-cutting, draping and wrap details."
Greta Garbo:
Greta Garb
Rita Hayworth:
Rita Hayworth in a pink and silver lame evening dress designed by the famed Hollywood designer Howard Greer.
The £3,000 wedding at Knights Templar Wetherspoons
Wetherspoons is not a destination synonymous with weddings. Some would say it is, ahem, more known for lager louts and beer swilling. However, in the midst of a recession that has Mervyn King shaking in his boots, it suddenly seems a glorious idea.
For £3000 you can have an all-inclusive wedding for one hundred guests at the surprisingly picturesque Knights Templar, London.
The ultimate pub wedding venue
For your money you get:
• exclusive use of the venue – Sat until 1am; Sun until midnight.
• three-course sit-down meal or buffet for 100 people.
• sparkling wine for the toast (up to 100 guests).
• wine on the table – Coldwater Creek wine to accompany the meal.
• table decorations.
• post-meal capacity for 300 people.
• live DJ (or you can arrange your own or a live band, at your cost).
• a wedding host.
• assistance with booking discounted rates at top local hotels.
Gift lists are an inherently hateful entity. It’s basically like writing your ‘what I’d like from Santa’ letter directly to your friends. They expose the ugly commerical contract behind invites and thank you cards i.e. I buy you dinner, you buy me a gift, we end up even(ish). It says ‘I expect a present, in this price range, and yes, do feel obliged.’
Saying that, if people are going to buy you presents, they’d want to know it was somethinyou’d like.
Here’s how to deal with the minefield of obligation and expectation that is the wedding gift list:
1. ‘Your presence is gift enough’. If you’re just having a relaxed cheapo affair or are getting people to travel and pay for a weekend away, maybe you shouldn’t expect a present too. However, if you say no gifts, you have to stick to it. No hints of ‘if you insist’ as this actually just means more anxiety for guests as to if you’re really asking for presents or not.
2. No one likes to give the gravy boat. Think about what will give your guests pleasure to give. Each gift should be something they’d be proud to have bought themselves. Something complete is far more satisfying that half an expensive item, or the fifth bowl in a set of crockery.
2. The Charity gift list. There’s an aura of middle class smugness which surrounds the charity gift list. It gently reminds the guests that they failed to be as altruistic on their wedding day, and you’re a slightly better person than them. This said you can’t knock the morality of it. The Alternative gift list lets you give to a wide variety of national and international charities. Alternatively, Oxfam Unwrapped have packaged up charity-giving beautifully, so your guests can give a goat or a toilet to African villagers.
3. The Honeymoon Fund. For people who’ve got all the toasters and ceramic soap dishes they need, the honeymoon fund gives the couple something they actually want. However, guests don’t like to feel their money has fallen into a hole, and prefer to buy something tangible – a meal, a diving lesson or a night in a hotel. There’s a few honeymoon fund websites which do this: Honey Fund
Buy a couple a safari tour or a helicopter ride
4. Multi-shop gift lists mean avoiding ending up with a John Lewis catalogue house, which can only be a good thing. Bottom Drawer seems to be the best – it’s ‘hacker-safe’ and you can choose items from almost anywhere online, including every big department store, chain or big charity. It is a money contribution list, so you only buy the actual items once the list closes. This means you’re free to change your mind about presents, but it is a little more risky if it folds (as Wrapit did last year). One thing to bear in mind is that you have to pay £90 if you take the money and don’t buy the presents through the site.
Alternative gift lists
What to give - another money contribution list
Marriage gift list doesn’t seem to have any hidden charges. (Has anyone used them?)
There’s also Present Wise, thought it isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as Bottom Drawer. And yes, that does matter.
Confetti do a gift list, but they charge guests £2 per contribution as well as £15 to sign up, the cheeky blighters. Here’s an article slamming them, written by the MD of Bottom Drawer…
5. The single store gift list. Heals and its many pretty things can be turned into a gift list here. You could do John Lewis if you’re happy to be part of middle class suburbia. Or Debenhams, if you fancy getting a £50 free voucher on sign up (you don’t actually have to use the list…) Selfridges does a pledge list (a money contribution list) so you have a day out shopping and choosing presents after your wedding.
6. Guests buy your wedding. At youbuymywedding guests pay for your wedding. The downside is that everyone will know exactly what your wedding cost. And guests might think it’s outrageously cheeky.
With 40% of an average wedding budget disappearing into food and booze, it’s worth thinking about how to cut corners without looking a cheapskate. Here’s how:
1. Make it look pretty. A raspberry on the side of a glass of champagne or edible flowers frozen in icecubes will be remembered more than whether your wine was from a vintage year or not.
Strawberries with your bubbly, ma'am?
2. Bring a bottle. Instead of a gift list, encourage guests to bring a bottle of their favourite tipple. It’ll probably work out cheaper for them present-wise, and will mean everyone gets to drink what they like.
3. Cava not champagne. Champagne is a marvelous invention, but its Italian cousin Prosecco is a fraction of the price and just as nice. Cava also results in the same bubble-fuelled hilarity as champagne. You could even try a dry pink New World sparkling wine or a pink cava for your toast.
4. Don’t follow tradition, because tradition = expense. Try champagne cocktails like bellinis or Kir Royal (with sparkling wine, natch). Alternatively provide beer, or to give your event a whiff of Henley, serve Pimms and lemonade.
5. Limit happy hour. The more hours of boozing involved, the more will be drunk, the more your overdraft will shudder. What about a shorter wedding, say just afternoon tea or drinks and canapes. Or how about a cash bar later on.
6. Go wild on soft drinks. It’s worth having lots available, and making them look like attractive classy options. How about elderflower presse, or home made lemonade.
Lemonade sir?
7. Start expensive, then go cheap. After afew glasses, your guests palates will be much more accepting of vinegary wine.
8. The booze cruise to Calais has been made a little less financially exciting, due to the pound’s demise. However it’s still worth doing.
9. Buy wine on a sale or return basis. Ooh, and if you’re using a catering company, count the empty bottles to check the swines don’t over-charge you.
10. A drinks fountain is cheaper than someone serving drinks, and more memorable.
Here’s some real life recessionista brides and a few of their stories of stealing not splurging.
The back garden wedding: Nicola and Stuart.
Nicola and Stuart's back garden wedding
This pair tied the knot for under £5,000. Here is their cunning plan:
They had a service at their local church then walked to a marquee reception in their garden. There they served cava (at £3.50 a bottle thanks to a French booze cruise)and a sit-down home-made buffet of poached salmon, salads and strawberries and cream. They got everyone to help out in some way, from giving patio heaters to doing the photography to making the wedding cake for them.
The eBay wedding: Chris and Odette
The eBay wedding
This marital union was constructed for the princely sum of £600. It was thanks to eBay that Odette bought her dress for £52, her stiletto black boots for £21 and the bridesmaid’s earrings and necklace for £5.99. They have purchased second hand rings for £19 each and asked guests to bring their own food and wine. The local radio station provided the wedding car and the local paper did the photography.
This frugal pair paid £460 for the hire of a Bentley and a Daimler, which would have cost an extra £100 on a Saturday. A further £50 was saved on catering, and the wedding photographs, which could have cost up to £700 on a Saturday, came in at half that. It cost £4500 in all about 25% cheaper than it might have been on a Saturday.
Please do write in with your stories and photos of being a real life bride of the recession.
6. Fake cake. Have a real cake on the top tier and plastic replicas on the lower tiers. They’re iced with a gummy fondant. Some people have the whole thing fake, with just one edible slice which they cut around. Find them at Cake Rental in the States.
A faux cake from Cake Rental
In the UK, there’s an Ebay seller doing them for £150 for four tiers.
Real icing over plastic foam
7. Supermarket cakes. Marks and Spencer do an ivory coloured three tier sponge cake simply iced for £75.
Marks and Spencer wedding cake
8. Decoration by guests. Get guests to decorate cupcakes with a choice of hundreds and thousands and chocolate drops.
Found by the ingenious Budget Bride
9. DIY Decoration. Decorate your cake yourself, with fresh strawberries, silk flowers or edible pansies.
10.Have a sweetie bar instead.
A wedding sweetie bar courtesy of Stickers and Donuts
It’s OK if you’re a Christian isn’t it? Just wheel out the Corinthians, and Robert’s your father’s brother, readings = sorted.
However, what if you are a) a feminist b) have taste c) were not raised in The Romantic Period with Wordsworth as your best friend? It’s a fine line to tread between the not very funny ‘comedy reading’ and a pretentious sermon that makes your guests start studying their fingernails. Hopefully these suggestions will balance nicely on that line between vomit and lead balloons:
1. Film extracts. Film is far more relevant to most peoples lives these days, and it likely to be less turgid. The monologue by Robin Williams about how much he misses his wife’s idiocyncrasies in Good Will Hunting will create an entire congregation of lump-filled throats. Or, Adam Sandler’s “I Wanna Grow Old With You” song from The Wedding Singer, which features rhyming couplets like:
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink.
Put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink.
2. Song lyrics. No need to read bits which go “la la la”, obviously. There’s ‘Forever Young’ or ‘The Wedding Song’ by Bob Dylan, or how about Fairport Convention’s ‘White Dress’ which has bouncy rhymes like:
Feel how the wind blows, December despair
Bring me a ribbon to tie up my hair
I’ll be your bride, go where you go
All of my life, you’ll be my beau (continued here)
3. Write your own. Tread carefully here. These are usually dire. Sweet, but dire.
4. Prose can work. Sidestep Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and look at Khalil Giblan’s piece on marriage in The Prophet. It encourages space within the marriage, as “the oak tree and the cyprus grow not in each other’s shadow.” Ooh, and it’s not too long. Alternatively there’s a piece on loving the wrong person in Daily Afflictions by Andrew Boyd:
“Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way.”
5. Modern poetry. It seems weird to sum up your love using words like “twas” and betwixt”. Modern poetry avoids this issue, though it can sound a little less grand. Pablo Neruda works if you want a bit of mild erotica in your big day. From ‘Your Laughter‘:
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter. (continued here)
‘I’ll be there’ by Louise Cuddon
I’ll be there my darling, through thick and through thin
When your mind’s in a mess and your head’s in a spin
When your plane’s been delayed, and you’ve missed the last train (continued here)
‘I like you’ by Sandol stoddard Warburg – an extract, as it goes on rather. It’s a tad corny, but sweet nonetheless.
The poem that goes on and on...
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it’s special
And you remember it a long, long time. (continued here)
And for the more cynical bride there’s ‘Lovesong’ by Ted Hughes. It’s a superbly dark, inappropriate and beautiful journey through a relationship. Not for everyone.
5. Slightly less modern poetry
‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’ by Robert Browning in response to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Unfortunately, it mentions God, so that rules out civil readings.
Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be!
‘I carry your heart’ by e e cummings, performed here by the much revered Cameron Diaz:
Get the poem on a moleskine or printed on canvas, via etsy
There’s a burgeoning industry in pre-wedding beautifying. First, you’re advised to have 6 months of facials, then there’s teeth whitening and tanning,not to mention fitness trainers to shout you into a smaller dress size. Brides get whipped up into a frenzy of panicky weight loss and facial masques and suddenly pre-wedding beautifying is a small event in itself. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s how to beautify without those beastly costs:
1. Water is free. Hydrate til your pee is like liquid diamonds and your skin glows like an Evian models’.
2. Dry brushing is the secret to being cellulite free. OK, it’s a bit like self-flagellation, but it does wonders for those dimply thighs.
Brush in long strokes towards the heart and think of England.
3. Expensive body exfoliators are a waste of money – get the cheapest you can buy, or just use salt granules.
4. DIYIntense Pulsed Light hair removal – For the price of a few trips to Madame Bikini Wax and a little bit of patience, you can actually get your hair removed forever. Boots has just introduced a DIY non-laser Intense Pulsed Light hair removal kit, called Smooth Skin, for an introductory price of £250. That’s a great deal cheaper than salon hair removal, which can cost thousands, and means those mortifying trips for Brazilians could soon be a thing of the past.
Boots Smooth Skin takes 6-12 weeks to de-fuzz you
5. Awarded high street products – Superdrug Instant Radiance and Boots No 7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum are prize winners.
Even my mother recommends this
6. Sleep costs nothing. You’ll always look like poop if you’re tired.
7. Beauty schools - get all your beauty treatments done for a song, by nervous but enthusiastic students.
£12 for Galvanic cellulite treatment? Happy days for your orange peel.
8. Shop around for beauty products. Otherwise, you just pay lazy tax. Jersey Beauty Company do tax-avoiding Dermlogica and Saint Tropez products. You can normally get a third off or more for any product on ebay (unused, obviously).
9. DIY Facials – According to You and Your Wedding, here’s how to do it:
Mix two teaspoons of fine oatmeal with enough natural yoghurt (for oily skin) or almond oil (for dry skin) to make a paste. Leave it on for 20 minutes then wash off.
10. DIY make up – No need for an expensive bridal make up lady, or the pre-wedding make-up trial. Learn how to do your make up better yourself. It’s cheaper, plus it’s a skill you can keep forever. You can get a free make-up advice in most department stores. If you ask the nice lady her advice, and don’t mention it’s a wedding she’ll surely help you out. Alternatively, teach yourselfwith Lauren Luke’s YouTube make up tutorials. There’s endless make-upstyles to choose from:
If you can’t afford to spend on the big things, at least make the little things brilliant. So, you may have a reception in a draughty cowshed, but at least the ushers’ buttonholes (or boutonnieres) will be fabulous. Michelle Ragu made these beauties.
And finally, LaLaLaurie from Etsy has some mad aunt inspired boutonnieres, full of buttons, feathers and birds.
Would look a treat on your most butch of ushers
Button holes that are a little less girly
Finding a boutonniere which isn’t effeminate can be an arduous task. A shell boutonniere is all very well for a beach wedding, and yes, silk boutonnieres will last forever, but they’re not exactly manly. What about a neatly folded pocket square? They set all the chaps suits off, are useful for wiping away tears and might even be used again. Learn how to fold one beautifully here.
The silk pocket handkerchief, perfect for an English gent.
You know it makes sense. If a supermarket stocks them, they’ll be cheap and hardy. Here’s some ideas for those who wish to embrace Tesco’s Finest:
1. Re-doing a mixed bunch. Buy one of those mixed bunches from Asda, bin the excess foliage, remove any clashing colours, cut the stems to length, secure with wire, wrap in ribbon, bang in a few pearl headed pins, and wham bam thank you ma’am – Bouquet a la Supermarche.
Before
After
2. Now for table displays, mums and daisies are easily available and work wonders if you’re looks for a sunny yellow theme.
Making the sun shine at Sainsbury's
3. Meanwhile a mix of irises, statis and carnations kicks ass if you’re doing a blue or lilac theme. There’s a guide to supermarket wedding flowers at Real Simple.
4. Pink carnations, a.k.a Carrie Bradshaw’s favourite are as ever, a winner. Mix them up with copious filler flowers.
Mix up your carnations
How to do a carnation display, according to Martha Stewart:
Hide distracting sepals and stems by clustering the blossoms into a tight dome. Soak five blocks of floral foam in water until saturated. Line up three of the blocks in a shallow bowl. Center another block on top of those three. Cut the remaining foam block in half, crossways, and place half on either side of the stack. Trim each carnation stem to two or three inches. Working your way from bottom to top, stick each carnation’s stem into the top foam block. When you’re finished, trim or rearrange flowers to fill out the dome and fix “bald” spot.
5. Tiny vases - This is a bit like the small plate principle when you’re dieting, except this is more of a floral diet. Even a tulip can look grand and imposing in a miniature vase.
From Toast and Tables
6. No fear. It’s scary doing it yourself, but then so is ending up in years of pointless debt because of an outrageous floristry bill.
Watch this florists’s video on pros and cons of supermarket flowers – she says the quality is fine, the prices great, it’s just the arrangements that can be a little.. well.. common. However, with a bit of DIY rearrangment you’ll have flowers fit for a lady.
After the enthusiasm for The Totally Cheapest Bridal Bouquets Ever, it seems time to release Part 2. Ladies, put those floral worries aside, here’s some alternatives to the classic bridal bouquet:
1. The dried flower bouquet - it’ll never wilt and you can put it together yourself weeks before. Imagine the aroma of lavender wafting down the aisle.
Californian based Lavender Fanatic
2. The origami bouquet - if you are blessed with endless patience, this could be a route for you.
A solution for brides who don't have jobs
3. The Wire Bouquet – This one’s more for the rock chick bride. Make it barbed wire if you’re really alternative.
wire bouquet for the 'hard as nails' bride
4. The Etsy bouquet – there’s always an alternative version of a bouquet on Etsy, which is an online marketplace for independent designers. Try The Storque for recent creations.
$105 for 24 silk roses, each with real branches
5. Balloons as your bouquet. Flower girls with miniature balloons? Whats not to like?
A bouquet of balloons
6. A fan. Blushing brides with fans are sexy, it’s a science fact.
7. Peacock feathers. A single one, or a fan of them.
The carnation is the recession-friendly flower. It symbolises love to your guests and a less badly dented wallet to you. They come in all the colours of the rainbow, are hardy and last days. Some say they are the flowers of petrol station forecourts. Some, like Charlotte in Sex in the City, call them ‘filler flowers’. Not I.
The power of a single colour. Kaboom.
In single colours they have impact.
Two tone bouquet
In two similar-but-different shades, they look as complex and interesting as George Clooney.
So many styles. Not sure about purple though, because purple is for crazies.
For glamour on an Audrey Hepburn level, add a brooch.
The monochrome bouquet
Martha Stewart shows you how to make a black tie carnation bouquet, with ingenious, but somewhat fiddly ribbon flowers…
Ribbon Flower How-To For each flower, cut a 9 1/4-inch length of 1-inch-wide satin ribbon.
1. Measure 1/2 inch from one end; mark lightly in pencil. From there, mark 1 1/2-inch intervals five times (for five petals).
2. With matching thread, hand-stitch semicircles from mark to mark.
3. Pull thread to gather; knot.
4. Sew ribbon ends together, right sides facing, to make flower; snip off extra ribbon. For stem, stitch flower to looped and twisted end of white floral wire.
You know the credit crunch is really crunching when Marks and Spencers start selling an engagement ring and wedding band set for £18. It comes in 4 sizes, with a ‘M&S’ hallmark on the inside. Perfect for the really loyal M&S customer.
Not quite a month's salary. Unless, of course, you're a very poorly paid illegal immigrant
Meanwhile Ernest Jones is selling a nine-carat white gold ring for £115. Their cheapest engagement ring costs £275. Also, ‘Jazz it up’ is selling engagement rings for £150. See article here.
Alternatively, you could go for:
1. A vintage ring. Portobello Road is a good place to look.
3. An online ring at mydiamonds.com.You get much more diamond for your buck apparently.
5. A non-diamond ring. Moonstones, pink sapphires or even your birthstone are far less identikit than your average solitaire diamond. Look at stones here.
The hunt for an affordable wedding dress is a long and arduous one. The hunt for an affordable, slinky, 1930s inspired wedding dress not made of polyester or covered in stains, is a long, arduous, grueling and time-consuming one. Here’s a load of general tips for finding a cheap wedding dress that I blogged about earlier. Here’s where the hunt has taken me so far:
1. Personal shopper at Selfridges - Great service with two assistants running around the designer floor looking for non-bridal designer dresses. I found this amazing blue Balenciaga dress. Unfortunately it was £1300. Oh.
3. Ritva Westenius Despite being outrageously posh, they were very nice here. I found two beautiful dresses, ‘Eleanor’ and ‘Gilda’, which I’m now scouring the net for second hand versions in size 10. Anyone?
Ritva Westenius 'Gilda'
4. Caroline Castigliano. Here I was asked by a very frightening Miss Haversham type what sort of wedding I was going to have, as she eyed me up, trying to work out how rich I was.
“A nice one?” I replied. It went downhill from there. The only slinky, non-meringue dress was by Sharon Hoey. Again, I’m now on the hunt online for a second hand one (size 10, bias cut, cowl back,no cleavage anyone?)
This lady is selling hers for 1000 euros, size 8
5. Etsy seller Miss Bombshell ticked my fancy with this silk charmeuse number.
Miss Bombshell's 1930s dress. Found by etsywedding. $500
Confetti shouldn’t cost a thing. It is simply daft to spend any money on something that is literally going to be tossed on the floor. Some people release doves, or blow trumpets. Okaaay. Here’s some confetti ideas that are as cheap as they should be:
1. Rice. The classic option. I’d say long grain easy cook is a winner.
2. Hole punch confetti.
Simply hole punch a lot of coloured card
3. Dried petals, stolen over a number of weeks from your local park. For kleptomaniac Londoners, Victoria Park has a marvellous rose garden.
4. Bubbles. Also, very eco. Just make sure they wont stain your dress.
5. Lavender rice.
6. Brightly coloured popcorn. Sweet, not salty. Again, be warned about staining your gown.
7. Birdseed. Very eco (ahem, cheap).
8. The big balloon release. Very grand, very un-eco.
9. White feathers. No need to add tar.
Or, blow the confetti budget on.... ostrich feathers
To wear a veil or not to wear a veil, that is today’s question. There’s something just a little crazy about a young woman draping herself in netting. However, on one’s wedding day a small dose of crazy can a good thing. Wear a small birdcage veil on your face, and no one will notice that your dress pulls slightly under the arms; adorn your hair with a silk flower and the plainest of dresses will seem glamorous. Here’s a selection of affordable headpieces to turn you into the star of your own wedding drama:
1. The fabric flower. Elegant, and reusable as a corsage/ brooch.
Ivory organza flower £85 from Million Design
2. A vintage wax blossom headband. Here’s a secret. I don’t actually want to tell you about this because I’d quite like one for my own wedding, and I wouldn’t want them to sell out. However, I saw some cryingly wonderful ones at Annie’s Vintage, on Camden Passage, Islington, London at the weekend. £48 a pop.
This one isn't from Annie's Vintage, but it's similar
3. The birdcage veil – easy to DIY if you’re getting your hair put up. Also, not quite as OTT as the full scale veil
4. Crazy feathers for the crazy bride within.
Feather headband for just 35 of your American dollars on Etsy
5. Diamante clips. A profusion of these can make you look a million dollars.
Here’s how to make your wedding photographs achingly beautiful on the cheap:
1. Rope in friends for an hour each. Nominate friends to take photos for different sections of the day. That way no one gets lumbered with all the responsibility, and they’re likely to concentrate for their section.
2. Make everyone jump. In every photo. All day. Even the elderly. Smiling is passe, jumping is very 2009. Do it, you know it makes sense.
Jump to it
3. Find a photography student to hire for the day. There’s a good chance they’ll be more talented than your average wedding photographer.
4. Disposable cameras are a handy addition, but not really something to be totally relied on.
5. Polaroid cameras are far better, though a bit pricier.
Polaroids
6. Get a photobooth. Or, make your own Helmut Newton style self portrait machine.
Hire a photo booth
7. DIY super 8. Get a friend to do a super 8 film for you. It’s pretty easy to operate if you’re doing daytime filming, and even the most amateur operator can create a sense of wobbly nostalgia.
Super 8 films
8. Sod it and get a decent photographer. Someone told me the one thing they regretted in their wedding was not getting a photographer, because all you’re left with are the memories.
For the more relaxed bride, Reiss has some chic cream cocktail dresses on sale. There’s also some silvery satin stilettos on sale. Have a look at the three-tone cream, nude and grey stilettos in their spring range. They are sensational.
On sale in Reiss for £100
Jamie dress from Reiss
There’s also some re-wearable dresses for bridesmaids.
Today Credit Crunch Bride comes bearing gifts. Well, ok, not gifts exactly, but definitely 20% off discounts.
Mid action, naturalistic shots express the couple's personalities
Lyndsey Goddard is a London-based photographer who travels all over. Her forte is capturing naturalistic moments, real smiles and quirky details, which give you a sense of what the day was really like.
There's something Virgin Suicides about this shot
Simply mention Credit Crunch Bride when you book this wonderful photographer to receive 20% off her normal ‘off the peg’ price of £950.
Not a forced smile in sight
Unlike some photographers, she doesn’t do that sneaky thing of holding you to ransom over the prints. Instead she gives you a disc with all your pictures on, so you can get as many photos printed as you like. Plus, you get a hardback coffee table book with all your pictures beautifully laid out in it, which is the icing on the cake, in my book.
Lovely shallow depth of field, interesting composition - these are the things that make hiring a photographer worth it.
What is this Save The Date thing that has suddenly become de rigeur? In my mind, just another way to rip off young, insecure couples. However, there are as ever cheap ways of doing it:
1. Use the phone. It’s a nice way to catch up with people. And if you don’t have their number in your mobile, should you really be inviting them?
2. Take inspiration from all over, then design your own. Ooh look at these…
So, I’ve blogged about Oxfam Brides before, on Credit Crunch Weddings Dresses. However, now I can blog with the benefit of experience. Yes indeed, I am now endowed with the experience of one Leatherhead Oxfam Bridal department, just round the M25.
After a particularly filling afternoon tea on Leatherhead’s High St, my friend and I (both soon to be wed), headed off to our appointment upstairs at Oxfam. Admittedly, upstairs at a charity shop is not where most little girls imagine finding their dream dress. However, the assistant was very nice and didn’t seem to have any Cruella De Ville tendencies at all. There was a good 80 dresses, 79 of them unworn and direct from designers, and hardly any were nasty polyester.
More to the point, my friend found her dress, an raw silk, ivory, high halter neck, mermaid creation for £300. I’m sure it was by some outrageously expensive designer, but the labels had been cut off.
Leatherhead bridal shop
It’s probably time you made all your white wedding dreams come true at Oxfam Bridal.
It’s enough to turn you to Andrew Lloyd Webber. OK, nothing could be that bad. However, The Bridesmaid Issue is a thorny one. The more popular you are, the more The Wedding God punishes you. Here’s how to keep bridesmaids costs in line with your bank balance:
1. Buy plain high street dresses. Reiss, J Crew and Banana Republic will give you some thing nicer, cheaper, more fashionable and less taffeta-based than any bridal shop.
J Crew's Erez range
2. Each bridesmaid has their own colour. If Sex in The City can do it, so can you.
Sex in the City
Indeed, you can even create a rainbow icecream effect, like these lovelies:
By Kay Unger
3. Bridesmaid’s all wear black. This marvellously simple tip was was sent in by Elizabeth. See what else the lovely Elizabeth has done to keep prices in check for her wedding here.
4. Don’t have bridesmaids. If you’re over 30, or are developing fine lines, it’s undignified anyway.
5. Go young with bridesmaids. The younger they are the less they’ll realise what a cheapskate you’re making of them.
6. Let them wear what they like. They’ll probably thank you. No one ever uses bridesmaid’s dresses again, however much they lie to you they will. It’s a science fact.
7. Buy hair accessories, matching ribbons and bouquets, not dresses.
I love the morbidity of this theme. Post-flapper, post Wall St. crash, this is surely the most appropriate theme for 2009. It was when the rich just partied, because there was no money to be made.
Guests can dress as 1930s stars – Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Laurel & Hardy, Ginger Rogers or even Mrs. Wallis. And Shirley Temple for little girls.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
You even have a Ginger Rogers style wedding dress:
Ginger Rogers' dress from 'Swing Time'
Ginger Rogers in her wedding dress
The first dance could be ‘Brother wont you spare a dime’ by Rudy Vallee. Too bleak? Perhaps. More cheery is ‘Two sleepy people’ by Hoagy Carmichael, written in 1938, or ‘Coffee in the Morning (and kisses in the night)’ by the Boswell Sisters.
Vintage can be the cheapest of all themes. Followed closely by ’shabby chic’. Here’s how to win at Vintage in a few easy steps:
1. Get a repro dress made - Find a fabulous vintage dress, then get it copied. The one below is from a museum, but would probably look far better on you.
1930s antique dress with bugle beads
2. Raid your grandparents’ attics – everything shabby can be used.Old jars, old fabric, even old suitcases.
Battered old suitcase becomes box for programs
3. Get guests to go vintage. A 1920s theme is easy for example. A pencilled on moustache for the chaps, a couple of tassels and headbands for the ladies, and suddenly the ice is broken. It’s one of the peculiarities of the English that their incredible stuffiness can be dispelled with the aid of a few items of fancy dress.
4. Roll out a vintage crooner – not necessarily any more expensive than Dave’s Disc, and altogether more classy.
Hanging decorations certainly aren’t compulsory in The Official Book of What Must Be Done At Weddings. However, they do add an air of jaunty celebration to proceedings. Here are some which wont have you spiraling into financial depression:
1. Coffee filter garlands. Hats off to Pam Garrison.
2. Bunting wears the happiness crown, and can be home-sown with mismatching fabric.
Bunting
3. The hanging jar lantern – works wonders with any theme, and makes even the most hard-nosed bride go a little wobbly-lipped.
Hanging jar lanterns by Martha Stewart
4. Fairy lights. Courtesy of Muji, Habitat,our your local pound store.
5. Ribbons. Gazillions of them. Draped luxuriantly from every tree and vertical item in sight.
Ribbon extravaganza
6. Or… Paper bags? Find out how to make them here.
An old-fashioned English village fete is an inspired option for those wishing to ward off the bailiffs. You can be quite loose about the period, and it’s ideal for all things hand-made. The perfect ingredients for this theme are:
1. Its all about Outdoors games. Boules, croquet, badminton are your classics. Giant games like jenga and dominoes can be bought cheaply here.
Giant garden chess game - only £29
2. English garden party food and drink. Old-fashioned pink lemonade in glass jugs and Pimms in the garden is perfect on a summer’s day in England. Canapes could be tiny Yorkshire puddings, mini cucumber sandwiches, miniscule quiches. Then a picnic lunch followed by cupcakes.
3. Penny sweets, such as you find in an old-fashioned English sweet store make even the most miserable aunt nostalgic. Put gobstoppers, rhubarb & custard, humbugs and any other penny sweets in old-fashioned glass jars, and come 10.30 everyone will be dipping in. You could even have these instead of flowers on tables. Find them here for £12.95 a jar.
Penny sweets
4. Jam jars for flowers. You and your family need to acquire a sensational love of jam and marmalade over the coming months to make this happen. That, or jam bulimia.
5. Picnic blankets will create that air of festivity. You can use throws and bedspreads, though they’re likely to get ruined.
6. Deck chairs. Even a couple will help set the scene.
Deckchairs
7. Bunting and endless ribbon is totally compulsory.
Bunting made from Cath Kidston fabric from Scrummy Things
8. A gramophone for your pre-dinner drinks is hard to find but just too memorable not to mention. Splash out by hiring a giant one here. Alternatively, scour antiques shops. If that fails, beg, borrow or steal from friends’ granddad’s. Or finally, hire a venue just because it comes with gramophone and gramophone records, like Middleton Lodge in Yorkshire. You may have to arm-twist a small cousin to wind it up at intervals, but that’s probably part of the charm of it.
Its your chance to communicate directly to your guests, so make it personal, creative or at least amusing. This will make them resent you less if they’ve travelled miles just to not get to speak to you all night.
As ever, lets focus on the more ‘frugal’ place cards:
1. Give each guest a flamboyant pre-fix. The Notorious, The Right Dishonourable, The Illustrious, The Fantastic, The Wondrous etc. It makes everyone feel good about themselves and is an ice breaker.
i.e.
“So, why have they named you The Insatiable Emma Brown?”
“Because I’m a slut.”
“Oh.”
2. Use the power of words. Paint your guest’s name on cut-out hearts made from newspaper cuttings. Perhaps using the lonely hearts section would be appropriate. Or you could cut up a book of love poems. If you make each cutting personal to the guest, so much the better.
3. Badges and medals. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a party a success.’A place card that doubles as a badge’ is such a good idea it should be trademarked. Badge makers are surprisingly inexpensive at £20 a pop. Buy here.
2. Impossibly tall candles. Or church candles in storm lanterns.
3. Floaters. Petals, roseheads or tea-light candles floating in goldfish bowls.
Ikea do cheapo vases.
5. Wild flowers in jam jars.
6. Mismatching vases.
7. Birdcages
8. Cacti
9. Candles on mirrors.
10. Articificial flowers.
11. Cake stands stacked with party poppers etc.
12. Number twelve is a secret.
13. At lucky thirteen, we have goldfish. This is the best option by a kilometre. Give them to guests as favours. Then get done by the RSPCA for cruelty to fish.
Flowers, according to You and Your Wedding, should be costing a bride £300. £300 is a lot of meals for orphans though, isn’t it. So here’s some cheapskate options. Yay.
1. The imaginary bouquet. Not having flowers is hands down the cheapest.
2. Fall in love with carnations. They are extraordinarily cheap. The DIY carnation bouquet will, I believe, be the bouquet of The Crunch (as in Credit Crunch). Carnations are by far the cheapest flower, and in white look rather chic.
Then you can add a cornucopia of carnation for your table decorations. Hell, give your wedding a Hawaiian theme and drape your reception with Carnation lei.
Sometimes just one is enough
3. Single sunflowers. Sublime and ridiculous and ideal for DIY bouquets.
4. The classic rose. Hardy and not wildly expensive.
The green bridal bouquet
5. Chrysthanthemums. Not everyone’s cup of lapsang souchong, but outrageously cheap, especially if you order them online.
6. Seasonal bouquets. As a general guide, pastels are seasonal in spring, primary colors are in summer, gold, red, and purple are in autumn, and red and white are in winter.
7. The hand-tied bouquet is cheaper than its wired counterpart if you’re paying for a florist.
8. DIY crepe bouquet. Now that is cool, though somewhat labour intensive.
Crepe flowers by Martha Stewart
Find out how to make one here. Also, have a gander at Miss Wilkins paper flower inspiration here.
Frankly, I pity people who got married before the Internet. They wouldn’t be able to do all these amazing things:
1. Automatically save every draft of your wedding seating plan, invite list or budget on Google Docs. you’ll need a Gmail account (easy to set up) and then you can access it from any PC so you’lll be able to update it from work or home. You can also share the document online with your beloved. He can make amends which you can both see, like adding yet another guest who you barely know and care very little for.
2. Invite everyone via Facebook. Set up an event, keep the settings on ’secret’ and the guest list hidden and you’re all go.You can add photos, videos and details.
3. Get your dress made up in China by an Ebay power seller for a song, in the safety of knowing the last few hundred customers were all happy with the service. TopRunway comes highly recommended if you’re going for a non-weddingish sort of gown.
4. Do price comparisons on everything before you buy.
5. Research everything. When information like the top 10 most popular (or cliched) wedding dances is available online, you have no excuse for kicking things off with ‘Lady in Red’. Then again, there’s never any excuse for that.
Someone has to make everything, why shouldn’t it be you?
1. Make your own decorations. Even those allergic to sewing can manage bunting.
2. Make your own placenames. These, from Once Wed, are like giving all your guests a medal.
Paper medallions
Alternatively, make placepebbles like this couple. Simply steal pebbles from beaches round the country over the coming months (I have successfully done this from Chesil Beach using an extra large anorak). Then write placenames on said pebbles with silver marker. This will give you an A+ at Placename College.
3. DIY disco. It’s what the ipod was invented for.
4. DIY bridal make-up. You probably know your face better than a make-up artist anyway, it is what greets you every morning in the mirror. And if you think you need some tips, hang around the make-up counters in department stores until you get given a make-over.
5. Become a floristry expert. Even ladies who are a little soft in the head can manage to create a simple dome-shaped rose bouquet. Get a tutorial:
6. And for the advanced credit crunch bride, grow your own flowers.
When it comes to wedding transport the credit crunch bride needs to ‘think outside the box’ as the ad men say. It’s time to re-think those wedding fantasies, taking them away from Bentleys or horse-drawn carriages, and more towards vehicles like Indian Ambassador cabs, £40 an hour from Karma Kabs.
Karma Kabs
Better still, have a ceremony and reception in the same place, and stay at the venue, avoiding the need for car hire.
Or finally, arrive on foot. Very eco-friendly, very 2009, very cheap.
a) Fold up a fiver really small. Stand in gutter. Squish said fiver through grill of drain.
b) Buy a brand new non-sale wedding dress from a bridal shop.
The beauty of used wedding dresses is that they really will have been worn just once. However, thousands insist on paying double or even triple to be the first wearer of their dress. It defies all logic, even the logic of a bride drunk on romance, to do this in our redundancy-infused times. Here’s some tips on finding the perfect bankruptcy-avoiding dress:
1.Take window shopping to a whole new level. Go to as many ghastly over-priced bridal shops as you can, and try as many wedding dresses on as they’ll let you. Lie flamboyantly about your budget so you get to try the best dresses. Make sure you take down the names/ product codes of the dresses.
2. Get serious with Ebay. Set up a search for the exact model and make of dress you like, save it and receive updates when one comes on the market.
There’s also online shops specifically for second hand wedding dresses, but they tend to be a bit more expensive.
3. Go old school. Well, vintage anyway. Camden market has a great range of vintage bridal dresses. Or if you want to go a little more upmarket, there’s The Vintage Wedding Dress Company for about a grand a pop.
The Vintage Wedding Dress Company
4. Book into Oxfam Brides. They’ve got 10 bridal departments, mainly full of unworn designer dresses. Make an appointment at a branch, they’re all do-gooder charity types, so are extra helpful. Good ones are Bracknell, Leatherhead, Southhampton, Eastbourne. Expect to pay £250 a dress. At that sort of price, you could buy two. Hell, save the second one for your second wedding.
Oxfam Brides
5. Borrow your mate’s. It’s crazy, but it just might work.
6. Never forget China. A billion tailors, all waiting for your custom. They’ll do rip offs of anything you can get clear pictures of. If you can manage to measure yourself properly (or get a friendly local seamstress to) then they can make it.
7. Don’t under-estimate the high street. Monsoon, Littlewoods and the American J Crew all do great dresses for £200-350. And if you’re a big fan of polyester, there’s always the BHS wedding outfit with shoes for £100.
J Crew Erez dress for $395
8. Don’t wear white. Amazingly, you won’t turn into a pumpkin if you walk up the aisle in dove grey. Gold or any metallic has an element of theatricality, and red during winter rocks. Then you can get a designer dress without any Bride Tax.
9. Get a personal shopper. They’re free at Liberties, Selfridges and many department stores. They can help you get an idea of what shape suits you, or even find you a non-bridal dress which just happens to be white.
10. Go knee-length. Knee length dresses in ivory pretty much never get hit with Bride Tax.
1. Have some imagination, ladies. There are thousands of places other than Tudor mansions to get married. Pubs, boats like HMS Belfast, museums, sports venues, spas, farms and school halls have their own charm.
2. Don’t pay corkage. There’s no point getting a cheap venue, which then sodomises you on the corkage. Here’s some no corkage venues:
London Canal Museum, Kew Steam Museum,York House (Twickenham), Hylands House (Essex), Dodmoor House (Northamptonshire), Longstowe Hall, Netherwitchendon House. Plus a place called Orchard Leigh in Somerset has low corkage.
3. Go gay. Gay-friendly venues tend to be cheaper and are often more interesting.
4. Get married on a weekday. Obviously no one will come, and they wont drink as much because they’ve got work the next day, but hey, you save on guests AND booze that way.
5. Call in favours. If you’ve got a mate with huge fairy tale pad, see if you can borrow it.
6. Avoid wedding venues. If you look on wedding sites like You and Your Wedding for venues, you’re immediately competing with thousands of other women for the same venue. Which means one thing – inflated costs.
7. Go kooky. If the venue is weird enough, it makes inviting only a tiny crowd somehow ok. What about a blessing at St Helen’s Church on Lundy Island off the Devon Coast, then a reception for up to 40 in the island’s only pub, Mariscos.
8. Retro-fit your theme to your venue. If you decide on The Wapping Project (a former power station in East London), then make your theme modern minimalism. If you decide on a farm, like South Farm in Hertfordshire, make the theme rustic charm, and people will think your choice of venue was just part of your bridal vision, rather than a hard-nosed financial decision.
The beauty of the environmentally-friendly wedding is that it’s secret theme is cheapness. Suddenly you’re not a cheapskate but an eco-warrior. Here’s some tips for your perfect eco-wedding:
The child labour that makes your engagement diamond shine so brightly
1. Avoid blood diamonds, as in any new diamonds, they’re bound to have been mined by Congolese slave types. Plus, vintage diamonds, or a non-diamond ring is way cheaper. To get extra eco points, go for a wood ring, like Touch Wood Rings.
2. Go big on something borrowed. If your friends have got married recently ask them for table runners, left over ribbons, cake tops etc, all under the cunning ruse of saving the planet.
3. Plump for potted plants. No one wants to see flowers being cut to death, so love the planet, love your wallet and have a potted flower as your centrepiece.
4. Arrive on foot. Dont use up the world’s valuable oil resources.
5. Love the charity shop. Insist that not only your dress but all the bridesmaids’ dresses are ethically sourced from charity shops.
6. Donate your gift list to charity. This may hurt, but to keep up the ethical pretence, it really is necessary. Ask guests to donate the price of a goat at Oxfam Unwrapped, rather than buying you John Lewis crockery.
7. Email your invites.
8. Make the cake yourself. Or get your mother-in-law-to-be to do it. That’ll keep her out of trouble for a while. FairTrade carrot wedding cake recipe here.
DIY carrot cake
9. Talk the ethical talk. Stuff like ‘being true to our values’ and ‘neutralising our carbon footprint’ goes down a storm.
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er. They’re free at Liberties, Selfridges and many department stores. They can help you get an idea of what shape suits you, or even find you a non-bridal dress which just happens to be white.
