Skeptickle

Our favors were definitely a labor of love. It was easy deciding what we wanted to give our guests. We both love the raspberry-flavored candied almonds that we sometimes get from our local farmers market. They taste lovely: resting on the junction between fruity, floral, and nutty. After asking around, I derived that people appreciated edible favors rather than random trinkets that they never wanted in the first place. So we bought about 10 lbs of the almonds and stored them in the crisper to keep them fresh until we were ready to use them. I researched extensively on what we should put them in and I found that nice favor boxes can end up costing just as much as the favors themselves! I had the idea to do mini Chinese take-out boxes because my parents ran a Chinese restaurant for the first half of my childhood. I grew up on Americanized Chinese food (leftovers from the restaurant) and my parents would pack them in those quintessential take-out boxes to bring home with us. Obviously they have meaning to me but I wasn’t willing to shell out $1 for each mini version just to hold our favors and then to be thrown away afterwards.

Not ones to be deterred by unreasonable prices, we decided to DIY the take-out favor boxes ourselves. I absolutely love shopping at Paper Source and while there, I was inspired by one of their sample diy take-out boxes. So I bought a bulk stack of lake blue 8″ x 11.5″ card stock, gold brads, Japanese Yuzen paper, and lake blue ribbon. We made the following template so feel free to download it:

Free Take-out Box Template (Be sure to only cut out the outline of the box, the slit, and punch out the circles. Go over the rest of the lines with a bone-folder to make clean creases for easier folding.)

My brother came over to help Rob and I assemble the boxes. We put them together by inserting one of the gold brads through the holes on one side of a box and then threading it through one end of the ribbon “handle”. Next, holding it like a sandwich, we carefully bent the brad’s legs outward to hold it together. Repeated on the other side. Then we filled them up with the almonds, cut out Japanese paper “sashes”, rolled the sashes through our Cuttlebug with a swirly embossing folder for texture, and finally glued both ends of one of the sashes to the bottom of the box to keep them taught. Cute huh?

My brother was proud. No, that slight frown had nothing to do with us treating him like he’s our wedding slave elf. Don’t worry, he survived .

Rob was passed out somewhere. It took a lot more work than we had initially thought but I think it was worth it! Here I am with my babies…

Sorry for the delay in wedding posts. It’s just that after the wedding, there’s really very little motivation to keep posting about it. I’d really rather post about all the stuff that has happened since the wedding and are much more current. However, I know that my posts are useful to future brides so I’ll just keep chugging them out. This is especially important because we just got our pro pics back a couple of weeks ago and I can’t wait to share them! Thanks for your patience!

One of the venders that we skipped on was a florist due to our budget constraints. I was pretty confident that I can make my own flowers and centerpieces for a fraction of the cost to hire someone else to do it. Keep in mind that this is not for every bride. If you’re super-anal about things looking perfect or if you don’t have a ton of time then I’d recommend hiring a florist. I heard good things about Huckleberry Karen in SF.

For our centerpieces, I needed something nature-y and romantic to fit in with the setting. It had to be simple because I wanted it to blend well with the surroundings. I’m not a fan of huge showy pieces that block people’s view of one another, at least not for my wedding. Most importantly, it had to be quick and relatively easy to assemble for our DOC.

I liked the idea of using manzanita branches for our centerpieces for several reasons. Rob and I love the smooth reddish bark, it’s so unique and beautiful. Manzanita branches are very robust so they won’t break easily and would provide a stable structure for our centerpieces. Lastly, many manzanita species are native to California so they are easy to obtain. In fact, it it weren’t illegal, we would’ve cut down a few branches from the manzanitas growing on our nearby walking trail and used those. Instead, we bought them from a guy living a couple hours away for $10 each. I’ve seen some huge ones at the SF Flower Mart selling for $30-$50 that would be great for wish trees or hanging escort cards on.

Continue reading Affordable DIY Centerpieces

 Goal #3: Stay within budget!

The U.S. average cost of a wedding last year was 30k. The average cost of a wedding in the Bay Area was 40-45k (depending on the source). We worked within that range (U.S. AND Bay Area averages) just so we’re realistic about the cost. I can happily say that we successfully worked within our budget and even came out on top. I know that’s a lot of money anyway and that’s not to be taken lightly in this economy but both Rob and I agree wholeheartedly that it was worth it.

Rob’s mom generously helped us out for most of it, so we did not go into much debt at all. I was able to cut out a lot of the cost by DIYing things and negotiating with our venders to get the most value out of the money we spent. That said, the two things I’m glad we splurged on so far are our photographer Junshien and our venue Nestldown. We hired a videographer at the last minute and he may be part of this list but I won’t know until we get our wedding video. The one indispensable book I found to help save me money on the wedding was the Bridal Bargains book by Denise and Alan Fields. Here is their website. I recommend this book to anyone who has a budget to stick to but don’t want to serve turkey sandwiches at their reception (unless that’s your thing *shrugs*). I wish I found it early on in our planning because we could’ve saved even more!