Archive for the ‘Weddings’ Category
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How-to: A wedding dress for less than $200
Okay, I know under $200 might be pushing it. Unless you’ve gone all Oxfam chic (which is fine) and also plan on NO alternations/additions/cleaning of the garment, any British woman would be hard pressed to find any sort of luxury dress for so little.
The reason my dress was so cheap? It was handmade and not by someone who shows during Paris Couture Week. It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you have the talent at hand to do it, you can get a perfectly fitted, handmade dress you can use forever at a fraction of the cost. And it’ll be couture in the proper sense of couture:
cou·ture
n.- The business of designing, making, and selling highly fashionable, usually custom-made clothing for women.
How did I do this? By doing a DIY wedding must: use personal favours (a brilliant reason to not ask people for too much in daily life. Favours are best used when truly needed). My wonderful Aunt Kathy is the most skilled, creative dressmaker I’ve come across and she offered to make my dress. Hurrah! For my wedding, we were thinking of a classic cocktail shift with a bit of accoutrement at the waist nipping it in. Nothing too fancy and something that I could definitely use again.
After trying on endless dresses at the shops, we got a feel for what looked best and headed to the big fabric store in the not-so-nice neighbourhood to which serious sewers go for their goods and began the search for cut-out organza by the yard. We stumbled across this fabric and the dress was born — a shorter, updated version of Hepburn’s Funny Face dress with black embroidery, a detachable organza belt and bow and a giant red flower pin (into which genius Aunt Kathy sewed an antique button to cover the ugly plastic center).
The materials cost approximately $190.00 for the white organza, black organza, flower (from the fake flowers section at the habberdashers), liner fabric and tulle. Aunt Kathy had the extras (pin back for the flower, hook clasps for the belt, zipper, thread, extra fabric for collar, boning) sitting around her work studio. If this dress had been commissioned by someone to whom I am not related or BFF, it would have been priced well over $1,000.
Plus it fits my every curve perfectly. There’s no loosing weight or having last minute alternations to let it out (not to mention my self-confidence remaining in tact as the fit makes me feel so good, and that is priceless). I also opted for non-traditional fabric and style… it’s short (my dad says I look like a cupcake). Both of these help to save money on fabric and the labour costs if you are paying someone to create it for you.
Not everybody is lucky enough to have an Aunt Kathy (although everyone needs one. I thank god that she’s mine). So calling in this sort of favour is not always an option. But rack your brain when you start your planning. Do you know someone who sews or someone who knows someone who sews? Friends will always cut friends a deal and as long as you’re not Bridzilla, the process isn”t difficult: buy fabric, have fittings. If you aren’t blessed with friends who sew, there are still elements of this that you can take with you to the shops for cheaper off the rack gowns.
First, opt for a cocktail dress (or a simpler pattern and cut) instead of a tiered silk, trailing confection in a bridal showroom. Less fabric + less-complicated pattern = less expensive. If it’s a dress that’s not specifically marked as a bridal gown, all the better. Chances are it’ll be priced like a regular dress instead of in the highway robbery price range common in the bridal industry. Go to a department store instead of a specialty store or shop on Etsy for an affordable wedding dress. I found many a white wedding dress on the US department store website Nordstrom.com ranging in price from $88 to $570.
Additionally, if you buy/make a dress you can wear for other occasions (to other weddings, black-tie affairs, etc.) then you’ll continue to save money as time goes by. Who wants to pack their wedding memories into a box to collect dust anyway? Every time you wear it you’ll be reminded of the big day. Now isn’t that better than never seeing it in the light of day again? Detachable details (like the belt and bow) can help make the dress look different each time it’s worn.
The golden rule to remember when calling in personal favors to help you economise for the big day is that you can’t just take ‘em and run! Even if you don’t pay someone with cash, you need to acknowledge what they’ve done for you and thank them in a tangible way, whether it’s with a bottle of wine, a week of foot massages, making cupcakes… whatever. Use your talents to give them something they need just as they have used theirs to give you something you need. It’s like a bridal barter system. If you’re worried you’ll forget to pay them back or they don’t know you’re giving them something, give them a thank you card with an IOU. For me, my gift will be creating an Etsy site for my Aunt Kathy to sell her wares. It’s incredibly bad manners not to reciproate and no one’s going to help you again if you just take the favour and run.
And that is the story of how my bridal cocktail dress (and the dresses of all my sisters and cousins for every major life event) came about.
Total spent: $190.00 (£124)
Total saved: $810.00 (£532)
Posted in Bargains & Markets, Fashion, Weddings
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How the DIY wedding adventure began…
It all started in a midwestern high school way back in ‘97. Seriously. However, there were eleven years of romantic whimsy and wanton deviance of all sorts between our awkward adolescent fumbles and a two-week courtship in December ‘08 that led to an impassioned engagement and subsequent whirlwind wedding taking place this month (and, no, I’m not preggers, before the thought even enters your mind)!
Which, in very short form, brings us to here and now, with my fingers furiously and nimbly crafting away as my mind goes through a mini-checklist of ‘to dos’ for the forthcoming DIY nuptials.
Getting married is hard work (but the prep is satisfying too and I am silly excited to become Mrs. Teas). No doubt about it, dears. Even with shed loads of dosh, I bet it’s still a full-time job. The minutiae of it all boggles the mind. The Future Husband (henceforth referred to as FH) and I decided to do it on a temporal (out of necessity) and monetary budget (out of principle. I would rather die than spend a mint on a wedding), having only four months and limited finances to pull it off. Now, if you truly wanted to do DIY, you could just elope and carry a crate of wine to a mate’s house for a cozy party but doing that would have broken my mother’s heart and I don’t want that on my conscience. If elopement’s not an option, then I’m hoping my blow-by-blow posts might shed some light on how to make a wedding look fabulous without costing a fortune and leaving you insolvent before the words ‘I do’ even leave your lips.
The challenge: spend as little as possible while creating a stylish, intimate wedding by hand where possible; maintain my sanity; have a good time (I outright refuse to be so stressed out that I don’t enjoy the lead up to the big day or the day itself. What’s the point if I don’t enjoy it!?).
The checklist:
- Booze
- Cake
- Centerpieces
- Decor
- Dress
- Flowers
- Food
- Games
- Glasses/utensils, etc.
- Guest book
- Guest Favors
- Hair and makeup
- Honeymoon
- Invitations
- Judges
- Marriage license
- Music
- Parents gifts
- Photographer
- Rings
- Suit
- Tables/chairs, etc.
- Thank you cards
- Venue
- Vows
(You’ll notice a few things missing, like ridiculous engagement ring, rehearsal dinner, bridal party and all its trimmings, shower et al. The first and easiest way to cut down on the price of your wedding is to cut out all the unnecessary faff.)
And now the fun begins. Tools needed are: elbow grease, creativity, an eye for bargains and a well of personal favours. To date, we’ve nearly completed our wedding checklist for just shy of $10,000 (approx. £6,000. Sounds like a lot but add up everything and it’s a steal, really). The average cost of a wedding in American in 2009 is apparently $30,000 says the Bridal Assoc. of America. (And let’s be honest… I don’t know many who’ve spent even close to 30K… as FH has said, 100K is just an entry figure in the parlance of so many people. Stats are misguiding and this one is a national average and thus includes the full spectrum of weddings. Plus, it doesn’t include the price of engagement rings, which men spend too much on.) So, in reality, we’ve planned ours on a fraction of the typical spend on a big wedding nowadays (we still have 100 people coming. Big families).
And it’s friggin’ fun.
How are we doing it? Visit this space to find out.
(We’ll break down the numbers below for you post by post as they’re written since this in a sort of reverse chronological order.)
Total spent: £6,280 ($9,500 at today’s exchange rate)
Total saved: £13,554 (based on the average cost of an American wedding at today’s exchange rate)
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Where can you find an off-the-peg designer wedding dress for under £500 [Part 3]
Many thanks to reader Fiona who suggested that we check out Etsy for affordable wedding frocks. In fact, we liked her genius idea so much that we decided to investigate further, and found that handmade weddings are indeed big business on Etsy. Here’s my top six Etsy wedding dresses under £500…
Above, from left: ‘Helen’ silk charmeuse and silk chiffon wedding gown,US$600 by Love June; and ‘A peaceful afternoon dress’ in ivory silk and antique lace, US$515, by Sarah Seven.
Above, from left: ‘Calla Lilly’ empire-cut sheath in heavy double crepe with a matt satin bodice, US$500, by London Demimonde; and Organza lace, silk satin wedding dress, custom-made to order (with matching veil), US$975 by Bellina Bridal.
Above, from left: ‘June’ tea-length wedding dress in Italian silk Duchess satin, US$800, by Lizzie Jane’ and ‘Ghost dress’ in cascading English net and tulle straps, US$650 by English Dept.
