Any Ideas for a supercheap black and white "retro" wedding?

Miss_Communicate

Things are coming along nicely with the black and white wedding plans just to update you- have no decided to cater it ourselves- by having a picnic basket on each table! Large wicker basket from ikea, full of picniccy goodness- french bread, cheeses, meats, salads etc. People can help themselves from their own tables. There are some logistical things to be worked out (keeping the food cool- storage etc.) but it is far the best idea we have come up with and I think it would be a lot of fun! Plus it should be quite straightforward to do- nothing should need preparing other than sticking the hampers together & we should be able to do it quite cheaply .
We would also have paper plates and cutlery- so we don't have to hire any in. Although we will hire in glasses as drinking from glasses is always nice!

Also now decided to decorate the venue with lashings of bunting (black and white of course!) and greenery (ivy and the like) collected from road verges (and so free and pretty!) Will also get loads of fairylights in the sales after christmas- as well as a load of those £3 per bunch roses for white roses to plant about in the ivy branches.

We are getting there slowly. 11 months to go today!
What dya think?

lilgreenmomo

Remember Tesco et al do free glass hire - you don't even need to buy the booze from them - & they won't charge you for minimal breakages either.

SallyUK

Ooooh just been reading this thread from start to finish and wondered how plans are progressing now?!

Sounds absolutely fabulous!

Sal
x

Miss_Communicate

I tried updating plans on here a while ago- I wrote pages and pages and then the thing didnt save properly and I lost it all so I gave up at that point.

update on plans.

1) Bridesmaids dresses are being brought from eBay from china, have brought one in and it appears to have no problems so will buy the rest in now- £33 inc. postage for specific sizes although 2 of my bridesmaids are iregular sizes so will get theirs custom made for £60. (so long as none of their dresses cost more than mine -£62 then I am happy!)

2) Wedding rings- being made for us by Mr C's mum and stepdad as our wedding present.- mine needs to be made specifically to fit my engagement ring which is an unusual shape.

3) Randomly found a local caterer who does picnics and specialises in locally sourced food (the wedding is now an eco one- economy and ecological!) who may be able to do the picnic for around £5 per head- this would remove a lot of the stress.

4) Pre-wedding pampering- there is a local beauty college who offer massively discounted treatments so I will having lots of those in the run up to the wedding!

5) Ordered ALL my day and evening invites and thankyou cards from vistaprint for FREE and only paid postage (worked out at about £15 in total). We uploaded our own design that a friend mocked up.

6) Designed my own orgimami folding game thing for the wedding tables and a mate who is good at photoshop is going to spruce it up for me and then will get my wedding sweatshop to get folding (I teach a class of post 16 girls who are all obsessed with my wedding occasionally I rope them in!)

7) Got wedding bubbles instead of confetti - were £9.99 for 24 reduced to £4.99- got 96 of them- they are very unusual white rose design http://www.confetti.co.uk/product/view/64234-0-0-rose_bubbles_pack_of_24.do?a28=f854&a39=f1080&a26=f684 but they looked a bit odd on their own so got some fake rose leaves from eBay tied that around the base with some black and white curling ribbon and a sticker on the base with love bubbles and the date of the wedding on and now they look ace!

8) Have decided not to hire tablecloths instead am going to buy a massive roll of white fabric from eBay or a wholesaler and use that instead. Should work out cheaper.

9) Favours are still seeds but someone on the Hitched forums was selling mini corked bottles at a discount price so I am buying them from her and will work out how to incorporate it.

10) Vases for the tables are now clear ale bottles (smaller than wine bottles and more vintage looking) Mr C likes this one as he gets to drink lots of ale! I intend to come up with a fancy design and paint it onto the bottles with black glass paint so they should look quite unusual. (could then follow this design onto the mini corked bottles to follow the design through!)

11) Cake is a massive sheet cake in the same design as our invites it is only costing £60 to feed up to 150 people and will black icing that can be removed to prevent the black teeth and black poo effect!

12) website is set up on weddingpath and explains the whole eco wedding thing to also explain why we didnt send any info out with the invites!

13) We have set up a photo storing site where we will get our photographer (a close friend) to upload the pics- have also set it up with a shared login and password for our guests to also upload their own photos of the wedding. Had this info printed on the FREE vistaprint business cards that we can put in each place and give out to evening guests.

14) the picnic baskets are all brought http://www.candigifts.co.uk/items/product-range/wicker-baby-baskets/blue-gingham/blue-gingham-lined-white-shopper-8006-detail.htm (though most were a bargain on eBay so average cost was about £5 each for 26!) have dyed all the linings black and the effect is very striking (dyed them burgundy first and that didnt look so nice) cost of dye came to about £25 (including the dying mistakes!)

15) have brought a load of wooden roses in our colours as we can wind them around the handles of the baskets as decorate with ribbon. We can also wind them into the greenery we are going to nick from verges and use to decorate the venue! Also going to buy some battery operated fairy lights to wind in as well.

16) Got the battery operated tealights for a bargain from the pound shop - 4 for £1 so 25p each compared to 79p each on eBay. Got 40 frosted votives from a hitcher for £10 so another bargain.

17) Brought 2 paddling pools for 50p each which may end up being used for ice and booze (could get messy) as the barn has no refrigeration and parking for a refrigerated van is a massive issue!

19) Honeymoon is either thailand (my preference but not very eco!) or camping round britain (mr c's choice but is eco!)

20) got half price fairy lights on twigs from BHS to put around the venue whcih is currently lit by halogens so lighting will be an issue!

That is about all I can think of for now planningwise. Am more organised than I thought- 7 months to go!

lilgreenmomo

Wow! Absolutely wonderful stuff. I love your attention to detail sounds like your day is going to be absolutely gorgeous. I'm tempted to gatecrash

Another suggestion for your 'chiller' issues could be those garden trugs you can find in B&Q among other places. We've used those before for parties & they work very well.

Pamalia

When I got married I struggled to find caterer that charged a reasonable price for outside catering. After paying out for my wedding dress, invitations, and wedding venue, there wasn't much left in the kitty I hunted high and low before I found a fish & chip wedding caterer that was under £8.00 per head :jIf you get stuck and your on a tight budget try fishandchipcatering .co.uk they cover most of the South and around the M25. :T

snapping_crocodile

Pamalia wrote: »

When I got married I struggled to find caterer that charged a reasonable price for outside catering. After paying out for my wedding dress, invitations, and wedding venue, there wasn't much left in the kitty I hunted high and low before I found a fish & chip wedding caterer that was under £8.00 per head :jIf you get stuck and your on a tight budget try fishandchipcatering .co.uk they cover most of the South and around the M25. :T

Reading the thread i think she actually got married last year But your post may help someone else :T

shellsuit

Pamalia wrote: »

When I got married I struggled to find caterer that charged a reasonable price for outside catering. After paying out for my wedding dress, invitations, and wedding venue, there wasn't much left in the kitty I hunted high and low before I found a fish & chip wedding caterer that was under £8.00 per head :jIf you get stuck and your on a tight budget try fishandchipcatering .co.uk they cover most of the South and around the M25. :T

Thanks for the spam Pam.