Wedding Favours: Part 1 - Our Favours

Wedding Favours are a tradition started by European Aristocrats. Sugar used to be rather expensive, so the rich would put sugar, sugar cubes or other confectionery in side trinket boxes (usually covered in precious stones) and give it to the wedding guests. It was a bit like a peacock flashing it's colourful feathers, only think rich people waving their cash around saying look how rich I am! As sugar got less expensive more people started to take on the tradition of presenting their guests with a small gift to thank them for being a part of their special day - Interesting little background for you there! Hehe!

It can get expensive buying even a little gift for so many people, but if you shop around & get creative you can do this on a budget as I did.

Part one of my exploration in to wedding favours will be me sharing & discussing the wedding favours from my wedding:

As Butterflies were the running theme in my wedding, with red & gold being the main colours, I was very excited to find these little beauty's on my old friend E-bay. Butterfly Favour Boxes - I went with gold as I already had a lot of red decorations on the tables & ribbons on the chairs. I purchased them on E-bay for £2.40 (including p&p) for 10. I purchased 70 in total to make sure I had plenty, that if any were damaged I had replacements etc, and that came to £16.80 in total. The seller I purchased them from doesn't seem to have these in stock any more, but I have checked and these are readily available in other colours if you wanted to purchase them. The come flat but are very easy to assemble.

Inside I had a little scroll & a heart shaped chocolate. Next to my boxes I placed bubbles, because every one loves bubbles, especially me!

The bubble wands were another e-bay purchase. I paid £18 for 70 of them. This may sound a bit steep, but I first purchased little champagne bottles from Poundland & I couldn't open them. When I eventually managed to open one, the bubbles didn't work & the liquid went all gloopy on my hands. The budget bride was caught out going for too cheap an option so second time around I made sure I spent a little more, and it was worth it. Besides it works out at £0.26 per wand which is great!

The heart chocolates were actually a freebie. I used my nectar points to purchase a £20 amazon gift card. (I have linked the websites so you brides to be can go & get yourself a nectar card and check out amazon) It was £5 for 50 chocolates, so I purchased 100. I can't remember exactly how much postage & packaging was, but I think it was around £3 as I had £7 left that I used to purchase other wedding type things. I don't really use my nectar card a lot, but I get points if I provide my gas & electric supplier with readings every month. I made sure I did this every month & before I knew it I had over £30 of nectar points. Normally I would be lazy & forget to provide readings, or let the points sit there, forgetting to use them. But if you have a nectar card or similar points style reward card then use it. It's basically free items for you.

The scrolls were another e-bay gem. Now don't get me wrong, you could easily make these yourself if you bought some paper, ribbons & took the time to type them up, add some pretty pictures etc. But honestly I had already taken on a lot of DIY projects. This would have been one thing too many to add on my list. As mentioned in my 20 things to do once you say yes Blog Post you have to be honest with yourself and know your limits. So I cheated and had someone else make them for me! I purchased them from http://stores.ebay.co.uk/personalised-weding-scrolls-gifts (Hessianback) I don't know if the exact variation I had are still available as they seem to have cute little flowers wrapped around them instead of bows now. Honestly though the flowers are probably better, as the ribbons were a bit fiddly to tie. I paid £5.98 and £1.70 p&p for 60 of these. I have kept one for me & hubby to put in our memento box & honestly I am just over the moon with them. I think they are just such a novel & cute way to say thank you, and for £7.68 you can't really go wrong. So that was my favours.

Stay tuned for Part 2 which I will put up on the weekend for you all. In Part 2 I have decided to compile a few little ideas for you, and being the lovely little helper I am I have taken things ranging in price range to suit all budgets. I may be a bargain bride, but I know not everyone enjoys scrimping & saving as much as I do! I will discuss some ideas I have seen, linking websites you can find these ideas & will discuss ways to save money for those of you on a tighter budget.

As always, thanks for reading! xxx

Have your cake & eat it too - Part 1 My lovely cake

When you think of your wedding day you think of marrying the man or woman of your dreams. You think about who you will have as Bridesmaids and who he will pick as a best man. When planning your day the dresses, suits, flowers, decorations & venues will come to mind pretty easily. But if like me, the first wedding you ever attend is your own, it can be easy to get caught up in those the fantasy/excitement of the day and forget about another important part of your day, a tradition I think we should all follow, after all it involves cake!

Here's another opportunity flex your creativity muscles. If you want to do this on a budget it can be done but it's a bit of a challenge, involves a lot of shopping around unless you are lucky enough to know someone who can do it for you.

 To start with I will share with you a picture of my cake and discuss that. As this is a two part blog, part two will discuss some amazing ideas based on other cakes I saw & loved, hopefully giving you some ideas of what you can achieve and the inspiration to get your ideas flowing. 

Beautiful! This cake actually cost me nothing. I was lucky enough to have a mother who made the fruit cake  tier herself, and who paid a family friend to make the rest. The family friend literally only charged for the ingredients. I believe she purchased butterfly cutters to make icing butterflies but didn't charge us for those as she said she can re-use them. 

I purchased the butterfly/crystal cake topper from e-bay but my Mum reimbursed me for this purchase. The Cake topper was £16.95 via http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/crystal_wedding the item was very good quality for quite a low price, it was dispatched quickly and when it turned up I was so impressed that it looked as good as in the pictures, which we all know doesn't always happen with e-bay. I think the 100% positive feedback score says it all about this seller and it was the perfect topper for my cake.  The larger stocking butterflies, I genuinely can't remember who bought these, where from or for how much. But having looked on e-bay these appear to be readily available for around £2 for 6, and there are colour variations available so shop around.

Inspiration? - I had a fair idea of what I wanted in the sense that I didn't want white. Same as my dress, I knew the icing would have to be cream/ivory. I wanted a three tier cake, and at least one layer had to be a chocolate sponge (my favourite!). I wanted butterflies for decoration & red ribbon to tie it all back in with the colour theme. I knew I didn't want a bride & groom cake topper but a butterfly related cake topper. My mother and I looked at a few cakes in magazines, I visited a few websites and eventually me and Mum came across this cake it in a Marks & Spencer's catalogue & I knew that was what I wanted:

http://www.marksandspencer.com/Romantic-Pearl-Fruit-Wedding-White

At £200 I wasn't about to go & but the Marks version (sorry Marks!) so we discussed ways we could do this ourself, including asking the family friend to help! We decided to put red ribbons to kick some colour back in to it. I asked for bottom tier to be fruit, middle sponge, and top chocolate. I wanted butterflies spiralling the cake to bring back in the butterfly theme and then of course found the cake topper on E-bay. Our family friend did a fantastic job of bringing this to life don't you think?

I am estimating, as my Mum dealt with the finances for the cake, but in total I think my cake cost around £100 (including cake toppers, ribbons etc). I loved it, exactly how I pictured it. The only downside was I didn't want to cut it, it was just too pretty! We asked the Venue to slice our cake & serve it with coffee while our room was rearranged ready for the evening reception. This went down a treat with our guests!

Hope you liked the little insight to my cake, stay tuned for part two 

& 

As always,

Thanks for reading! xxx

Have your cake & eat it too - Part 2 - 5 Ideas for a Show Stopping Wedding Cake

OK so after sharing my beautiful cake with you here's the 5 ideas I have seen & loved along with some advice on picking that perfect cake. Just remember although it may seem like "just a cake" you will spend a good 20-30 minutes of your day having pictures taken 'Cutting the cake'. This will become a focal point of the day and you will want this cake to look perfect so make sure you put the same time & effort selecting this as you did choosing the perfect dress.

1) Cupcakes: I love cupcakes, they are so cute and on the plus side you don't have to slice an entire cake for your guests. Any left over after the wedding day won't go stale as quickly as a sponge & you can get really creative with cupcakes. Plus you know how many guests are coming so it's a lot easier to cater for, where as with a sponge you are estimating that a certain sized sponge will serve so many. Also you can still have that small one tier cake to allow for the traditional 'cutting of the cake' Here are two examples of cupcake Wedding Cakes I think are just amazing:

I love that these little cakes are iced & topped in the same way as the top tier. It looks so cute the way it's all tied in.

 What I love most about this cake is that the top tier is a giant cupcake! I mean come on, that is how you do cupcake my friends! Mega cute but I don't know that I could cut this. I'd have to pretend.

Price wise for a cupcake wedding cake it will vary hugely depending on whether or not you want a top tier for cutting, how many cupcakes you want, flavours & just how extravagant you want the decorations but roughly you are looking at about £60 for 50 cupcakes & about £30-40 for the top tier/cake. This is rough & of course will vary dependent on your cake provider but certainly doable for around £100.

2) Single Tier Wedding Cake: Provided your cake is sufficiently sized for the amount of guests you have there is no reason why a single tiered cake can't be just as dramatic, attractive or show stopping. An added bonus with this option is that it is so much cheaper. For a large cake you will get around 60 servings and that would cost you about £50. 

This heart shaped cake is a lovely idea and reminded me there is nothing to stop you varying the shape of your cake, it doesn't have to be square or round. Heart, Book Shaped, Infinity signs, Hexagons & Star Shapes are just a few of the variations I've seen.

3) Cheesecake: Not everyone is a lover of sponges, or maybe you just fancy doing something different. One of the ideas I considered was a cheesecake, but too many people I know wouldn't have eaten it including my husband, so it seemed a waste. However this idea really grabbed my fancy, is it something you'd consider?

If I had decided to go cheesecake it would have had to be something like this, chocolate fudge cheesecake topped with profiteroles. For a three tier version of this you are looking at around £175-250 and thats to serve about 50/60 guests so its not cheap, but shop around see if you know any secret cheesecake masters.

4) Themed Designs: I personally stayed very traditional and just incorporated my theme of butterflies by having icing butterflies spiral up the side of the cake, however if you want to be less traditional, and far braver than me, you can create some spectacular themed cakes. Here's a few that sparked my interest, but price wise these would be pretty expensive unless you were decorating the cake yourself:

This cake is just WOW! I love all the shells, sand & of course the deckchair cake toppers. For a wedding abroad or even just a summer wedding this would be the Perfect cake! Stunning!

For the couple who like to travel, or are about to set off on an adventure how cute is this! It's different but not too outlandish. Shape-wise the Sponges are easily made it's just the icing that is a little intricate, but if you are good with icing, or know someone who is I think this is a little treasure!

OK, so it's not for every-one and is bordering big fat gypsy wedding style wise, but what Princess doesn't need a castle? It's different, not for everyone but I like it.

It's disney, what is there to not like about it! If I ever get in to cake baking & decoration I will be making this when my best friend gets married. She loves Disney as much as I do ... probably more as I don't love it enough to have a Disney Wedding but I'm pretty sure she would :)

There are so many ideas out there. Use google to your advantage, look up ideas. You don't have to use the idea in full but take the elements you like and use them to create your dream cake.

5) Why have cake at all?: Not a fan of cake? Not bothered about the traditional slicing of the cake? Then the world is your oyster. Here's some ideas:

Croquembouche - basically a stack of profiteroles. Decorate with fruits, flowers, sugar arts. Or just cover in Chocolate!

Rice Crispies any one? - Rice Crispy Cake, a very unusual idea but yes, I see the attraction. Easily made yourself too - recipe for Mars Rice Crispy cake is coming up some time soon I think!

Fruit. For all those health conscious, or just non cake type people why not provide a selection of melons, pineapples, strawberries etc to feed your guests instead of cake.

Basically you can do what ever you choose! Cakes can be decorated with flowers, ribbons, icing, butterflies or any number of things you want. Make sure you set a budget and stick to it. Find people who can & are willing to help. If friends or family offer their assistance check prices with them. You don't want to assume your Aunt is throwing in a freebie & then get lumped with a bill you can't afford. Talk money before you agree to anything! 

It is especially important to remember that this is your cake for your wedding. If family are helping then remember to stand your ground and get what you ask for (within reason). If you ask a company for three tiers & they only provided two you would complain. Be polite but apply the same principle to anything friends or family are doing for you, especially if you are paying for it. Freebies are what they say on the tin, but if you are paying for a service then make sure you get that service.

Hope this gave you all some inspiration! As always, Thanks for reading!