Wedding Crafts on a budget

Well it has been a while since I last posted anything.  My wedding was last weekend so I have been a busy bee getting everything together!

 I want to make it clear that I was not trying to have a 'trendy' vintage wedding like so many people are doing right now.  I love the idea, but I wanted to try and make it look like my wedding decor could have been used in the 1940's.  During that time almost all resources were used for the war effort leaving civilians to make do with what they had, or make it themselves.  Since losing my job I actually ended up having to ration my money like many would have in the 1940's.  Good thing I had already picked out this theme for my wedding.  So this is a post about some of the things I made and how much it cost.

First I will show off my bridal bouquet

 My Mother In-Law had to specially order the purple carnations, which I thought was crazy! Carnations can be dyed any colour.  I had planned on using the beige coloured tulle That I used for my original bouquet post.  But I thought the colour was wrong, and I happened to have this white tulle, which happened to be wrapping from one of my bridal shower gifts.  I also put in some crystal picks I got on sale from Micheal's and wrapped the stem with the same ribbon as the boys medals. As I did not pay for the flowers I can't give the total price of my bouquet.  Here is the break down of what I bought

35 white carnations at $0.80 each - $31.64 with tax
1 Spool of ribbon using 40% off coupon - $2.40
Flower Tape using 40% coupon - $4 (3 spools came with this and I have 2 and a half left which means I only used about $0.66 worth)
Pins - $1.13 from the dollarstore
Flower Picks $5 
The cost without my purple flowers $43.79

Use coupons when you can! 

  I also made my own centrepieces to go with our WWII time theme.  

I found small mirrors at the dollar store to use as chargers. I have 6 mirror tiles from my brother's old house so I only had to buy 6 more.  The small jam jars and quart pickle jars were found at half price after last years canning season. When planning a wedding on a tight budget it is nice to have a full season beforehand to purchase 'out of season' items that you wish to incorporate into your decor.  The floating candles I made.  I thought I had written a post about how I made them, but I did not so I will later and link it back.  I used food colouring to make the water purple.  Inside the quart jar is a bundle of white mini carnations to go with the bridesmaid's bouquets. These were purchased from Costco for $10 a bundle.  Very inexpensive and went well with the theme.  I became very savy with Microsoft Publisher and created an air mail letter that soldiers were given to write home with.  One was placed at each table for our guests to write in. I printed off pictures of air planes flown in the Second World War and used them as table names.  The card stock was purchased on sale for 2 for $1.  We used 4 for the pictures and the small tent card with the air plane facts.  Since I printed the pictures out myself I did not pay for any printing fees, and The ink cartridges cost $30 which was used to make all the reply cards, save the date cards and address labels. 

Total cost for each of the 12 centrepieces was $5.30

To help keep the 1940's War Time Wedding theme alive I made some tissue paper decorations for the walls ceiling.

The dollarstore has a great variety of tissue paper for cheap!  Which was perfect for me since most decorations were made of tissue paper.  I did not want to pay $7 for one medallion so I just made my own by accordion folding the paper and then making it into a circle.  Easy.  I had created a stamp that looked like a postmark with our names on it and taped it to the centre of the medallions.   I found the letters on the Martha Stewart web page, these were used to label the guest book, table for cards and gifts.  I also made some tissue paper pom poms that were meant to be hung from the ceiling, but instead they were hung from the walls. 

I will post more once I'm organized.