Handling the Alchohol and its cost to you!

Alcohol is a very expensive part of the wedding arrangements and it can use up a lot of your available cash very quickly.

Having an open bar can be very dangerous for your wallet particularly if your guests prefer spirits or other expensive beverages.

You can limit the time that the bar is open or the type of beverages that are available. The time of the day or night that you have your wedding can also affect the type of alcohol that is preferred and the quantity that is drunk with most people less likely to drink as much if the wedding is earlier in the day.

Many people are having alcohol free weddings these days and that is an alternative that you might like to consider or even just offering the cheaper beverages such as beer and wine rather than champagne and spirits.

It might also be well worth considering just having specific amounts of alcohol on each table to maintain a level of consumption that your wallet can handle.

Often people will have an arrangement where everybody gets one glass of champagne when they arrive at the reception area and this can be a nice touch where you can have some control over the amount of consumption.

From there you can offer a choice of red and white wines on the table and possibly have beer on tap for a certain time at the reception.

You are free to mix and match your plans to suit your guests, your wallet, and the way that you would like to see your wedding run.

At the end of the day no one specific aspect of the wedding should have so much emphasis as to affect the overall enjoyment of the event.

If there are wedding guests that you know will consume too much alcohol then you will need to take this into consideration when planning your beverages.

Let Them Eat Cake - Wedding That Is!

A wedding cake can be as simple or as extravagant as you like and accordingly can be relatively inexpensive or enough to break the bank.

The reason wedding cakes are often so expensive is due to the intricate work that is involved and the many hours of labor that are required to create the decorations.

For some people this is an expense that they feel is unnecessary and a simple cake or alternative form of 'symbolic food' such as a favorite dessert or something similar can be used.

More often than not however people prefer a traditional wedding cake and in keeping with the rest of the theme of the wedding it is generally decorated in colors similar to those of the flowers and any other decorations at the reception.

Certainly by reducing the size of the wedding cake it can help to keep the costs down and also by keeping the cake less intricate in its decorations you can save yourself a lot of money.

You can also use your flower arrangements or other forms of decoration that are more cost-effective to enhance the look of the wedding cake and keep the cake itself relatively plain and simple.

It really is a case of weighing up the expense with the importance that you put on the style of cake that you prefer and whether you can save money elsewhere to get the cake you desire.

Once again do your research and get some prices from various different suppliers of wedding cakes and also consider asking your friends and family if they know anybody who does cake decorating as many people do it for a hobby and will be only too willing to help out on the special occasion.

Often you can get somebody to create your cake for the cost of the materials alone and this can be their gift to you for your wedding rather than paying for something else.

One important thing that you must remember however is to check their work to see if it is up to a standard that you would be happy to have at your wedding and don't feel obliged to use their services if you aren’t satisfied.

A Smart Remark!

When I married the first time - a little while back now - on the morning of the "great event" my fiance came a knocking at my door to give me a huge bunch of flowers. Now being of a somewhat superstitious nature I thought Lovely but bad luck - you know the old superstitiion " a groom should never see his bride before the wedding or else" or words to that effect.

Anyway I took the flowers inside and said "see you in church" before reading the card.

The card read - "Congratulations on your good choice!"

I still laugh over that one.