Planning My Own Budget Wedding - Twice Over! Part 11

My second wedding was almost exactly ten years after my first wedding.

Second Wedding

For my second wedding, my fiance and I paid for most of it ourselves and I organised the whole thing myself, which was a bit of a task because I had to do it long distance, as we lived about a 5 hour flight from where the wedding was held.

We timed our wedding to coincide with my younger brother’s wedding, he got married on the Saturday and we got married the next day. He and his wife were quite happy for us to do that as it saved us a couple of thousand dollars in flight fares and accommodation not having to fly down to my home town twice.

The wedding was an early winter in Brisbane, Australia which has a temperate climate so the weather was just perfect. It was a crisp clear day with blue sky and white puffy clouds. The birds sang in the trees as my father lead me down the garden on a red carpeted aisle as the crystal sounds of harp music softly played in the background. Get the picture?

My Wedding Planning

Wedding Catering

It was impractical to try and cater the wedding ourselves so after a lot of research, we chose a lovely wedding reception centre which was situated on a rise on the banks of the river overlooking the city and surrounded by elegant gardens.  The place also offered hotel-style accommodation for us and our guests. We only had 40 guests and the wedding package we chose was very reasonably priced at $42 per guest plus the drinks tab, which cost another $800.

We had the wedding ceremony in the garden setting which was filled with naturally growing pink flowers. There was a marque set up in front of a backdrop of green vines with cherub statues lining the way to the marque and white garden chairs for guests bordered a red carpeted aisle for me to walk down.

 Wedding Cake

My parents paid for our two tier wedding cake which was made by a local cake shop who also delivered it to the reception venue. It had white icing with pink flowers and a thick white satin ribbon.







 Wedding Music

I wanted harp music for my wedding ceremony and looked through the yellow pages for a harpist. I found a lovely young lady who had never done a wedding before but was willing to play at my wedding. I let her choose the music that she thought would be appropriate for a wedding as I didn’t want anything traditional as I walked down the aisle.

I also auditioned a couple of DJs for the music at the wedding and went with one who had a good cross selection of music and also allowed for guests to make requests. I told him exactly what I wanted and on the day he proved to be a great DJ, playing appropriate dinner music at the right volume and then later he played popular dance music from different generations that went down well with all the guests.

Wedding Attire
For both weddings, I hired a dressmaker to make my wedding dress. My first wedding, I had a cream lace dress with a slight train. The bridesmaids bought their own dresses, they were long in yellow lace on satin.

For my second wedding my sister’s sister-in-law made the bridesmaids outfits from fabric that I had bought. The dresses were three quarter length with long sleeves and a v-drop waist. The bodice was pale pink satin and the skirt was a pink floral print on white. My dress was three quarter length and made of cream lace on soft satin.
Once my dress was finished, I hand-sewed tiny pearls and sequins onto the bodice just to add a bit of glamour.

I kept my first wedding dress for some years until my second marriage, then I cut it up to make dresses for a couple of nieces. I have been married to my second husband for nearly 18 years now and I still have that dress which I will keep for the rest of my life as it is very special to me.

The groomsmen and the father of the bride all hired tuxedos with maroon satin vests and bow ties, they all looked very dashing on the day.

Wedding Rings
We didn’t have a jeweler where we lived so we had to wait until after we got to the city to buy our wedding rings. To have wedding rings sized and made would have taken a few weeks but as we only had a week to go before the wedding we decided on choosing something in stock, that was less traditional and that was in our size.

Wedding Photography
My sister had a professional camera so she was elected to do the wedding photos. I just made up a list of photos I wanted taken on the day for her to use as a guide. We also had a friend who did a wedding video for us as a wedding present.

Flowers

I had a local lady make all the floral bouquets and headpieces for the wedding using silk flowers. The main flowers were gardenias in pinks and creams and white baby's breath and ivy. I had to pack them carefully to take with me on the flight down to the wedding.

Wedding Transport
We didn’t need wedding cars as I had the bridal suite to use to get ready and then only had to walk downstairs into the garden to get to the wedding. The afterwards we only had to walk from the garden inside to the reception.

Well, that’s my wedding planning story told. I hope it gives you the idea that you can have a beautiful wedding to.some inspiration and tips on how to organise your own wedding on a budget.


PS. I'm pleased to report that my second marriage has been an almost 18 year success and still going stong!

Planning My Own Budget Wedding - Twice Over! Part 1

Weddings have always captured our imagination as being romantic and so it’s hard to imagine that getting married may become a thing of the past, if you can believe what the latest news predictions are claiming.

Imagine, no more wedding gossip about the perfect wedding dress, elaborate celebrity weddings, outlandish wedding themes, or complaining about how bad was the wedding feast. What would we have left to talk about ladies?

I for one would hate to see weddings go out of fashion any time soon. You could say I’m a wedding fan, having had two weddings of my own, been married twice, and to two different husbands. The weddings were nearly exactly ten years apart and both very different. Here is how I planned my weddings on a small budget with some tips on how to save money.

First Wedding

My first wedding was when I was 23 and I didn’t know much about weddings except that my sister got married the year before me and I helped to organise it, so I knew what was involved.

My parents paid for most of my first wedding which allowed my fiance and I to save for a lovely tropical honeymoon. I decided on yellow and cream as my colour scheme and used doves and cherubs as the main elements.

Wedding Invitations

I am an artist so I had a lot of fun creating my own unique wedding invitations.  So I decided to make scrolls for the invitations and tubes to put the scrolls in. I used mottled yellow cardstock to cut out scroll shaped background sheets and then lightweight cream paper for the text which was pinned to the backing with a thin yellow ribbon bow and gold cherub stud. I made a tube out of the card stock to use to carry the invitation.

I tied a piece of thin yellow ribbon around each tube and then typed up name and address labels which I glued onto each tube.  As most of the guests were local I could hand deliver or get other people to deliver the invitations for me without having to pay for postage. For interstate guests, I folded the scrolls and put them in envelopes to be posted.

Wedding Ceremony
The wedding ceremony took place in a church and the reception was held in the hall next door. 

Catering

It was a self catered affair with just over 100 guests and several family and friends helped out with preparing and serving the food and beverages. My mother prepared the menu and then she and some of my aunts cooked the food either the day before or the morning of the wedding.

My father hired a keg with a tap for the beer and then organised for a friend to manage it on the day. We also had wine, punch and soft drink and champagne for the toasts and then we had tea and coffee after the wedding cake was cut and served.

My family also helped to decorate the hall and set up the tables and chairs. We used white tablecloths. Cream and yellow balloons were tied together and placed around the hall.

The catering equipment such as tables and chairs, tablecloths, crockery, cutlery and glassware were all hired from a catering company.

Wedding Cake

My aunt was a cake decorator so she offered to make and decorate the wedding cake. We just paid for the ingredients and the cake topper. The icing was white with tiny yellow and cream flowers as decoration.









Wedding Music
We had the minister organise one of the ladies from the church choir to play the wedding music during the ceremony which was included in the ceremony fee. We didn’t bother with flowers or decorations for the church as it was such a lovely church, it didn’t need any.

The reception music was put together from music collected from family and friends and included dinner music and then dance music for afterwards. 

Wedding Photography

My godfather was a photographer enthusiast and so he offered to do all the wedding photography and get the photos developed for us.

Wedding Flowers

My mother and I both had florist businesses so we made all the bouquets using silk flowers and arranged small bouquets of fresh flowers for the table centerpieces.
                                                                                                              


Wedding Transport

The wedding cars were borrowed from friends who had a couple of classic silver sedan cars.







I hope my personal wedding planning journey on my first wedding gives you some inspiration and tips on how to organise your own wedding on a budget. But wait, there's more to this story, my second wedding was very different to this one, to see how I planned my second wedding, read "Part 11".