Wedding Decorations: 5 Ways to Save

©Nicola Ray; all rights reserved

An area where the cost is often overlooked is wedding decorations. If you're lucky enough to have your venue provide the flowers and decor then you're onto a winner. For those who aren't, dressing up the venue can be a costly business.

Here are my favourite five ways to save on your wedding decorations:

1. Streamers, bunting and balloons
A great way to decorate your venue is with streamers and balloons. Balloons especially make great corner decoration or table decoration. You can easily match the balloons to your colour or theme and they're a lot cheaper then flower arrangements. You just need to find some helpers with lots of puff to blow to them up!

Streamers too add a nice effect to tables and walls. Use them decoratively or to add a splash of colour to your venue.

A simple tip is to use flowers that give you lots of bang for your buck. Choose stems that have lots of flowers. Lilies or gladioli are both great as they both give a dramatic feel from just a few stems.

3. Use a projector
If you've got a blank wall, a great way to make it more beautiful is to project images on to it. Whether you show pictures of you and your fiance as children or more recent ones of your lives together, your guests will be impressed.

4. Use favours as your table centrepieces
Why not consider using something you already have as a table centrepiece? Favours often come in pretty coloured boxes and can easily be stacked. By placing them in the centre of your table, instead on each place setting you take away your need for a table centrepiece.

If they're boxes, pile them up or place them on a cake stand to add a bit of height to your table. If they're not so easy to stack, then place them in a basket.

5. Find some little helpers
Ask family and friends to help out with wedding decorations. If you can divide the decor between several people then it will make it much easier for you and your wallet.

The last wedding I was at, the best man made it clear exactly who had done what. Several aunts had done the flowers, another made the ribbons for the napkins and others had assembled the favours. So spread the work and you'll save a fortune.

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