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

£5 Charity Shop Challenge

While enjoying a Starbucks with my bestie this afternoon and discussing all the lovely ideas she & her partner have for their lovely new home I had a bit of a brainwave. The £5 charity shop challenge! After all, being the budget bride and loving anything that saves me money it seemed time to pass on a few tricks to saving pennies to help out a friend... and maybe a little bit for my own amusement as well!

I challenged the lovely Donna to purchase something she needed or wanted for her house, totalling no more than £5, it couldn't be any old rubbish and it had to be something she would buy if she saw in a normal shop. You can't buy much for £5 these days, but being the good sport she is it was Challenge accepted! So off we set to the shops! We started off in a Barnados charity shop, they had lots of lovely glass vases, vintage tea sets, tea pots, trinket boxes, cake stands etc. Unfortunately a lot of it was either outside of the budget, slightly damaged or it was very pretty but not needed however, after a bit of digging around Donna found herself a little gem! 

There were four of these lovely crescent moon shaped, white side plates. Which I was assured would be lovely for the hors d'oeuvres she will be serving & for onion bahji's. £3.99 for the four.

Next we went to PDSA which had a lot of lovely signs for the kitchen, draft excluders etc. but I didn't hold up much hope that any of these would fit in to the remaining £1.01 of her budget. We looked at more crockery, trinkets etc. but nothing really grabbed her fancy. Until we found another little gem hiding behind glass vases.

A lovely vintage green glass bottle with a cork. She decided the cork will probably be binned and replaced with a wine stopper or a drizzle pouring top (which you can pick up for about £3 for a two pack online). As you may be able to see it was only £0.99. Which means Donna managed to buy 5 items (4 plates, 1 bottle) for £4.98 coming in at £0.02 under the budget!!

I was going to insert a picture of the receipts here but I seem to have lost them in pile of receipts in my handbag, I really need to sort my bag out. But I assure you she did stick to the budget!

Challenge Completed!

I have to say that this was great fun, and I recommend you try this with a friend. Along with racks of clothes, the glass, crockery, picture frames, toys etc I also noticed a lot of really cool vintage jewellery, some very pretty bangles & lots of scarfs (which would be good to make head bands with!)

There are so many things you can do with these items even if you don't use them for their original/intended purpose.

• For example we came across old LP's being sold for £0.99. You could either frame them as they come, or spray paint them gold or silver & then frame them.
• Tea sets, if you don't think you'd use them for tea no problem. You can put tea lights in them, or oasis & flowers. Use them in the house or for parties/weddings.
• Necklaces/bracelets - the charms or beads can be used to make your own unique jewellery or some of the larger beads can be used in bowls, instead of pot pourri or expensive glass beads, as a decoration.
• Picture Canvas' - these can be picked up for as little as £0.50. Even if you hate the design pick them up and transform them with left over wallpaper or decorative gift wrap.
• Picture frames - once again you can pick them up cheap & fill them with post cards for a vintage decoration.
• Large vases - I don't do flowers, but a big pillar candle in a large vase can be just as pretty in my opinion. 

Keep your eye out for a bargain & keep an open mind. If you or a friend has a party, a new house or are just looking for something new to decorate your home or bedroom then set yourself the £5 challenge and see what you can find in your local charity shop. 

We enjoyed this so much that we aim to do a few of these challenges and will both partake in the next £5 challenge when we have a good few hours to explore the charity shops in town. If anyone wants to set Donna & I a budget/shopping challenge please feel free to leave it in the comments below or email me at bloggingmamma86@gmail.com with your suggestions! 

I will leave you with a picture of the lovely Donna taking our shopping trip very seriously and As Always Thanks for Reading! xxx