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Lately, I’ve been obsessed with DIY wedding stationery. Not only is it a great way to stick to a tight budget, but what better way to give your guests a sneak peek at your wedding style? And whether you’re going the print-at-home kit route, or cutting blank cardstock for your own creations, your invites don’t have to look plain. It’s easy to use decorative elements to pack a punch and add a bit of personal flair. After all, your wedding should be your own!
The source of my inspiration is this lovely invitation envelope. While the paper itself is your standard white and brown, it gets prettied up with vintage-style stamps and a touch of lace, both of which are easy to achieve.
Let’s start with the lace edges. The practical side of me wonders how the delicate lace on the outside envelope would hold up in the mail. A nice alternative might be to use paper doilies instead — you achieve the same effect, but with more strength. And did I mention doilies are super cheap? (You can find packs of 30 for about $2-3 each.) If you need a little direction on how to cut and position the doilies, here’s a great DIY tutorial.
On to stamps. While there are plenty of custom postage designs on the web to choose from, they require a little more dough than you’d spend at the post office (usually double or more). And when you tally up all the stamps you’ll need to buy — for save-the-dates, invites, reply cards, and thank-you cards…well, let’s not get into how much all those custom stamps would be! That’s why it was refreshing to find that the pretty stamps on the inspiration envelope can be purchased through the post office…at every-day stamp prices. Yay!
Featuring pretty herbs, you can mix and match these 29-cent stamps at your pleasure.
If vintage and flora aren’t quite your style, the “Love: King and Queen”designs are a good bet, and less ho-hum than the Wedding Roses and Rings designs.
Or maybe you’re an unconventional bride, and you’d rather have and “pretty” isn’t a concern to you. With an open mind, you’ll find the post office carries many other choices. You might like something a little quirky, like the Mark Twain design, or even American Scientists. Neat!
How are you making your stationery special? If you’re going the DIY route, what special touches do you think you’ll add?
May I be the 30th person to congratulate you on your engagement. Welcome to Wedding World! Many of us have to stick to the bottom line when it comes to planning our weddings. So, here are some very short answers to your burning budget bridal questions:
1. How much is my wedding and reception going to be?
Set aside half your budget. It’s one reason why you should find your venue and caterer before you find anything else.
2. Can I shop for my dress even though I haven’t found my wedding venue, yet?
Like I could stop you. Remember that half of your budget is already gone, please. And then grab your friends and a strapless bra and have fun.
3. What’s the best way to save money on my reception?
In order: a. Lower your guest count b. choose a less expensive venue/caterer c. Limit the bar, either by type of alcohol or by length of time. You don’t have to do all of them, but any of these will help.
4. What’s the #1 thing that might bite me in the butt when I’m booking my reception site?
Tax and service. Tax here in L.A. is 10%, service is 20% =30%. 100 guests @ $50/pp = $5,000, tax & service = $1500 extra. What is it where you are? Have your potential site write a proposal so you can see the full cost in print.
5. Is DIY’ing my wedding going to save more money?
Yup. But the trade-off is the time it’s going to take to do it. And don’t let the learning curve frustrate you. The pay-off is going to make you feel like a rock star, though.
6. Invitations?
Save yourself some paper and twice the stamps and have your guests RSVP online. Or go with e-vites, if you’re feeling bold.
Simple, beautiful and seasonal. (Courtesy of Up Imagery)
7. Flowers?
Stick with flowers that are in season. If you have your heart set on something that’s not, ask how you can make any arrangement less expensive.
8. Cake?
There is always leftover cake. Always. You can get a smaller cake, and then back it up with a sheet cake. But there will still be leftover cake.
9. D.J. vs. ipod?
The ipod is less expensive, obviously, but needs a lot of monitoring. The D.J. can play the music and direct the party, which makes them worth the cost. My recommendation is to get a DJ you can afford.
10. Photography?
One of the only things, aside from your spouse, that you’re taking away from your wedding. You don’t have to splurge, but you will regret skimping. Go for quality, whatever your price point is. After looking around, you’ll recognize it when you see it.
11. What’s your best advice on sticking to my budget?
Simple: Stick to your budget. It’s just that easy, and just that hard. If you can’t afford it, walk away. Something you can afford and will love is out there. Don’t give up until you find it or find out how to do it. Giving up is stupid. Ask as many questions as you can until you get the answers you need. Don’t give yourself too hard a time if you splurge on something, you can figure out how to save someplace else. Just don’t make it a habit.
Do you have anything to add to my advice, or more budget questions? And, seriously, what is tax and service coming out to where you live? Let me know in the comments below.
It’s a new year, which means it’s time for new videos! Last year we made a bunch of fun craft and advice videos, and now a whole new batch are done and ready to share. Hunter and I get pretty silly this time around
First up: How to Make DIY Fabric Poms for your wedding or event!
Special thanks to our friends Shabby Apple for my pretty dress, and ban.do for the Heart Headband! Love.
(PS: Shabby Apple is having a store-wide sale right now! 20% off, enter code NEWYEAR at checkout)
And for extra-easy reference, here’s how it all goes down…
Materials Needed:
♥ Yarn
♥ Hands
♥ Scissors
Why poms?
Poms are kind of a no-brainer for budget, handmade-chic weddings, bridal shower, or any event! It’s a quick, fun craft that allows you to add interesting accents to your decor without spending much money at all.
You can scatter them around your wedding, string them up in the venue like a bunting, or put them on clips in your hair or belt. Heck, you can even use them for a toss alternative to flower petals! They’re super charming and sweet and you can customize them to any color you desire. It’s a great, simple craft for doing with friends, or during a Veronica Mars marathon. Best of all, they practically cost mere pennies to make.
Step 1: Roll the Yarn Bundle
Take bundles of yarn in the colors you want, which you can easily find at a fabric or crafts store. Using your palm as a measuring device (or your fingers if you happen to have very large palms), wind the yarn around your hand. Keep winding and winding and winding!
When you have a significant bundle of yarn wrapped around your hand (trial and error will help you decide how much you need for poms as bushy as you desire), simply snip the other end of the yarn. It doesn’t need to be precise.
Step 2: Tie & Trim
Carefully remove the yarn bundle from your hand, careful to keep it intact. Then take an extra length of yarn and tie it around the middle of the yarn bundle, like you’re cinching its waistline.
Finally use your scissors to cut through each of the tops of the loops like you see in the video. Then trim all around the pom until you get the length you want, edward scissorhands-style… like you’re trimming a hedge! Voila! You now have simple and easy pom poms to use as your heart desires!
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Whaddya think? Will you be making poms for your wedding?
When I met the lovely, effervescent Daffodil Campbell at Camp Mighty, I was a bit starstruck, as I’ve long been a fan of her writing. When she turned out to be just as, if not more lovely in person… I quickly identified my mission: make her love me. Ok, so maybe it was a bit less stalkery than that, but I sensed in her a kindred spirit and couldn’t wait to get to know her better. And I did! It worked out marvelously. Mwahahaha.
Over dinner our final night, she mentioned having blogged about a broke-ass food challenge of sorts, in which she fed a group of 40 for $5 each, and I asked if I could re-blog it here for my masses. I love this recipe. It’s comforting, healthy, impressively ethnic, and can be prepared vegetarian or vegan or not, depending on your inclinations and the crowd you’re feeding. I figured it could be just the thing for some of you industrious brides to take advantage of for an engagement party, rehearsal dinner, hell… why not your wedding? While I don’t necessarily recommend slaving over a stove on your big day… with the right group of volunteers and stealthy prep-work, it can be done! Or, you could just throw a bad-ass party for no good reason at all, and impress your friends with your culinary prowess while your pocketbook stays fat and happy tucked away in your purse.
So, without further ado… take it away, Daffodil!
(PS: more on Camp Mighty, coming soon!)
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Last weekend we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary with a group of friends. I had considered having the food catered – picking up trays of food from our local grocery store, and saving myself a lot of time and stress. But the prices were high, and I wanted the food to be hot and fresh. Besides – I love to cook.
The response from friends hearing that I was cooking for about 40 people on my anniversary ranged from “You ARE?” to “Are you sure?” to “Of course you are!” to “I am so glad you are – yummy!”
Inspired and wanting to rise to the challenge, I sat down with my cookbooks. I wanted to find recipes that were simple – the more ingredients a recipe has, the more it will cost. A tip – if you need a spice or other ingredient that you don’t use often, find a store that sells spice by weight – lots of health food stores do, and you can buy just what you need for the recipe, not a whole jar that will then sit in your pantry. Also, I have a limited diet these days SO I was hyper-aware of this, but it’s a good thing to remember: You want to make something everyone will be able to eat. I decided on a big salad, daal, rice (all vegetarian and very filling, with plant-based protein) and chicken. I started cooking that afternoon and it took me about 2 hours. I had hoped to let the chicken marinate more but it just didn’t work out that way, so I put them on the grill to start them off and add some smoky flavor, then stabbed them repeatedly with a fork (which also helped my stress about cooking for 40 people, since I was feeling kind of stabby by about 4pm) basted, and cooked it on a low heat in my convection oven to allow the flavors to develop slowly.
A caveat about cooking for a large group: YOU NEED BIG PANS. Big ones. And big serving dishes. And a lot of silverware and dishes. We discovered that we needed forks about an hour before the guests started to arrive.
Awesome. Added to the stabby vibe.
The following is a detailed description of the menu, with some overly-simple directions. Sorry about that.
Dinner for 40, for less than $3 per person.
SALAD
The salad was set up salad bar-style. This meant that leftover greens could be bagged and refrigerated, along with with the individual garnishes. People could choose what they wanted to put in their salad, and how much. No dressing? NO PROBLEM. Hate carrots? HEY ME TOO.
The salad bar had dried cranberries, mandarin oranges, sunflower seeds, sliced cucumbers, sprouts, some goat cheese, shredded fresh and crusty french bread (better than croutons!) and balsamic strawberry vinaigrette.
Balsamic Strawberry Vinaigrette
Ripe Strawberries
Balsamic Vinegar
Salad oil blend or olive oil
I am embarrassed to even call this a recipe, actually. I chopped up a bunch of overly ripe slightly wrinkly strawberries into small pieces, put them in a bowl with their juices, poured in enough balsamic vinaigrette to cover them, stirred enthusiastically while gently giving the strawberries a little smooshing, and then let them set. Just before serving, I added salad oil (about the same amount of oil as balsamic) and gave it a good shaking. That’s it! Also great with blueberries. The trick is to use a very sweet, juicy, extra ripe fruit.
RICE
For dinner I made a huge pot of rice. There is a trick to making rice of you don’t have a rice cooker. If you live in Hawaii, you know what a rice cooker is. If you live in rural America, you might have no idea what I am talking about. I learned about rice cookers when I moved to Maui. They are like crockpots – but for rice. They cook rice quickly and efficiently and have an automatic shutoff when the rice is done. I don’t know how they work exacty, but we’ll just call it a miracle and move on. I don’t have a rice cooker. I make my rice in a big pot.
Public Service Announcement: Instant rice is not rice.
Confession: this technique for cooking rice was taught to me by Kevin Flaherty during the middle of a very memorable weekend at his parents beach house off-season. He also taught me some fun things to do with climbing ropes and carabiners. Thanks for the memories, man.
Melt a small pat of butter or heat a tablespoon of oil in the bottom of a pan. Makes sure the bottom of the pan is fully coated. Wash your rice. Just do it. Pour however much rice you need in the bottom of the pan. DO NOT STIR. Pour cold water over the rice – 2 cups of water for one cup of rice. Turn the heat to high – and when the water comes to a boil turn it down and simmer until the water is gone. You cannot put the lid on tightly – if you want to use a lid it has to be slightly off-center so steam can escape, and you have to keep an eye on the pan – once the water is gone you must turn off the heat or your rice will burn! It’s easy to tell when the water is completely gone – look for bubbles on top of and between the grains of rice. Bubbles = water still cooking off. I used one cup of uncooked rice for every 5 people – so 8 cups of rice and 16 cups of water.
DAAL/DHAL/DAL/LENTILS
I used a huge, heavy ceramic-coated cast iron pot with a lid which prevents sticking, minimizes the chance of burning, and is good for slow cooking.
3 tbs butter or ghee
1 onion, chopped
1 tbs fresh ginger (I buy the prepared ginger root puree in a jar)
3 tbs garlic puree (also purchased in a jar)
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp dried chilis (Confession: I once used a package of crushed chili peppers I got from Pizza Hut that I found in my junk drawer to season my daal - Now I have a bottle of them.)
Sautee all in pan until onion is clear, then add:
1 cup lentils (I used french green lentils) stir around well to coat, then add:
3 cups water
1 cup veggie broth
1 can chopped tomatoes with chilis
Bring the whole thing to a boil, turn down the heat and put a lid on it. Stir *very* occasionally, cook for 1 hour and see how the lentils are doing. They probably need another hour to get really soft. Once lentils are pretty soft, smooosh them with a potato masher to break them up a bit. Then add a little lemon juice, some pepper, and a lot of salt. You have to do it to taste – but lentils in my experience need a lot of salt. However, salt will keep them from getting as soft as they should – so don’t add it until the lentils are soft.
This made enough for 10 people – so I quadrupled it. Like I said: you need big pans to cook for a crowd.
SPICY MASALA CHICKEN
First, to clarify: This is NOT CHICKEN MARSALA. No, no it isn’t.
Sauce/Marinade (enough for 10 chicken thighs)
6 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp ginger puree (same stuff I used for the daal)
1 tsp garlic puree (same stuff I used for the daal)
1 tsp crushed dried chilies
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp molasses
2 Tbsp honey
Confession: This recipe calls for marinating the chicken, but I don’t have the time or the space to marinate chicken for 40 people, so I basted with the marinade and it was really yummy. If you have time and space, go ahead and marinate the chicken for a few hours or even overnight. Another problem with marinating – I used frozen chicken thighs. Bone-in, with skin, that you can cook from frozen without having to defrost. They are cheap and flavorful. The fat cooks out of them, and the skin comes off during cooking…….so go for it. I counted on 1/2 pound of chicken per person, and so I bought 20 pounds of chicken. Turn your oven on to 300 degrees and let it preheat while you grill the chicken a bit for flavor. If you have a convection oven, use it. We put the thighs – still frozen – on the grill skin side up. Put the heat on Medium, closed the lid, and grilled for 10 minutes watching for flare-ups due to the fat cooking off. Don’t want to burn down your house while preparing for your dinner party. That’s called irony.
After 10 minutes, transfer the chicken into a large pan (I needed three large pans – 9×12 with high sides) and peel off the skin and excess fat. Spread the chicken out single layer with slight overlap, which prevents the edges from getting overcooked and dried out during slow cooking.
STAB THAT CHICKEN WITH A FORK.
Go on, STAB IT ALL OVER.
Now drizzle the sauce/marinade all over the chicken using a spoon to conserve so that you have enough for all of the pieces. Put it in the pre-heated oven and bake for about 45 minutes.
So that’s it. The bulk of the food cost was baby greens ($8), the chicken ($25), the lentils ($5 or so), and the rice was less than that, and everything was delicious!
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Thanks a million to Daffodil for sharing her wondrousness with us! Make sure you check out her super duper blog, Adventures in Paradise. Before you know it, you’ll want to make her love you, too
What do you think? Would you use a recipe like this to cater your own event?
Pnina Tornai gowns are a certain kind of special. They are expertly crafted, sexy yet sophisticated and detailed to the bone. There’s a reason why their price tags are so high. But that doesn’t mean us broke-ass brides can’t get the same look for a fraction of the Pnina price. Let’s see what bride Taralin had to say:
Love this dress but can’t seem to find anything similar – and definitely can’t afford the Pnina. Any ideas? Thanks!
I am in love with this week’s request because it deals with two of my favorite things: Halloween and “Beauty & the Beast”. Today’s featured bride is having a “Beauty & the Beast” themed wedding on Halloween. How fun is that? Let’s see what Natalie had to say:
I am ABSOLUTELY in love with this dress. “Beauty & the Beast” is my favorite story and my fiance and I are kind of running with that theme for our Halloween wedding. I am looking for something way cheaper though because a designer gown just doesn’t really fit in our budget.
Thanks so much,
Natalie
I did a little digging and discovered the “Belle” dress costs around $1000. So I found Natalie some lookalikes for under $600.
If you’re looking around your broke-ass digs and thinking “Hmmm, how can I make this more holiday-tastic?”, well then you’re in luck! We’re reposting this DIY Christmas classic from last year! ENJOY!
On Thursday, Hunter and I leave to spend 3 weeks in Chicago for the Holidays, so we decided that the space a proper Christmas Tree would take up in our house isn’t really justified considering our lengthy absence. In fact, I’m cool with nixing the traditional tree altogether, at least until we celebrate the holidays here, at our own house. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want any Christmas spirit up in our living room… I’m a sucker for the season! So I had an idea to make a 2-dimensional tree instead, using reclaimed wood, some paint, string bulb lights and ornaments… and we whipped ourselves up an affordable, crafty, reusable and festive space-saving spin on an old tradition!
We found this old cabinet door at our local architectural salvage, for $25. Yeah, we’re eco like that. Plus it adds character! I love the little knob on the side. Its thin enough to suit our drilling purposes (about 1/2″ thick), and can easily be hidden away somewhere after the season until next year.
Hunter, all sexy in his carpenter-artist mode, removed the hinge on the side, and sketched out a tree shape in pencil.
We shopped at a local, indie art store for the art supplies. Paintbrush: $1.99. We used 2 shades of green to add a little pizzaz and contrast. The lighter green paint was a test can for only $3.99, the dark green and brown were $0.75 because we needed so little. We got the lights for $6.50 at Rite Aid.
Once it was dry, Hunter used a wide-gauge drill bit to make holes big enough for the bulb part of the lights. Then he drilled halfway through the backs of the holes with the next-largest bit, so the rear of the hole was wider, but the front narrower.
That way, the fatter light socket could fit through the back of the hole, the thinner bulb could fit through the front, and they could “mate” somewhere in between, thus holding the lights in place juuuuuuuust right. I love those bigger multi-colored lights at Christmastime. They feel so cozy to me!
Then we strategically nailed in some small ball ornaments that we got in tubes of 6 at the dollar store. We went with red, silver and white ones, about the size of golf balls, some matte, some shiny. Cost: $2.00
We thought about painting on a yellow star, but then we had a better idea. Paco’s favorite toy happens to be a stuffed yellow starfish, with a face that seems to say “oh noooooo!” but for our purposes I see it more as Noooooooeeeeeell! (or something). Voila! Our tree:
Total cost: $40.98. Lean, green, and bursting with holiday cheer! We just leaned it up against a bare patch of wall, but I think next year, we’ll hang it!
We absolutely love our kitschy little tree and its warm, cozy glow. Everyone at our holiday parties loved it too. We’re gaining confidence in our ninja crafting skills, little by little…. and this project was pretty darn easy peasy. What do you think? Would you DIY your Christmas Tree?
A little while back, real-bride Mallory turned out an incredible DIY or DIE post on origami flowers. I was intrigued. I was perplexed. I was… determined to try them for myself. As a decidedly less-than-innately-crafty chicken, it was a challenge I couldn’t quite resist. Plus, the promise of paper pointy monster fingers with which to play was just too tempting.
RAWR.
And I decided, if I could do it, anyone can. So to prove my point and help you along in your own paper-folding forays, we put together an episode of Broke-Ass TV to teach you how! You can also read Mallory’s tutorial here.
The finished blossoms are pretty bad-ass, dontchathink?
Are you foregoing formal foliage in favor of folding your own flowers? (also, are you a little turned-on by my sexy alliteration skills? Yeah, I thought so.)
Got a video request for us? Let us know, yo! We specialize in making dreams come true, you know.
I am absolutely in love with the gown bride Alexis sent me. It’s made by one of my favorite bridal gown designers, Elizabeth Dye, and once you see it, you will dye at the sight of its epic beauty.
Hello Broke Ass Bride!
I need your help! I’ve fallen for an Elizabeth Dye dress that’s out of my budget. It’s $1200, and the most I can spend is around $600.
I love the lacy detailed bodice, yet how simple and casual the dress is overall. It doesn’t necessarily have to be tea length.
Herbs stamps – Roll of 100, $29.
