Car - didn't even consider it!

Oops, it's around 7 weeks till our big day, and it suddenly dawned on us, how are we getting to the hall?

I had initially sought out quotes from a variety of car places, Limos, old style cars, horse drawn carriage, but across the board I couldn't justify the cost, especially as we are having the ceremony at the same place as our reception, therefore the car will just be dropping us off.

We have a few friends with nice cars, but if we asked if we could borrow it for the day, guaranteed they would have guessed the reason. We could have used either of our cars at a stretch, but a station wagon and a hatchback aren't really what you'd consider wedding cars!  Altho if push came to shove, we'd use one of them.

So that's where the thinking cap was put on.

My parents (and all the rest of my extended family) are flying up from Victoria, we are picking up most of them from the airport, however my parents are going to hire a car so it's an extra car to ferry people around.

So I spoke to my sister (also known as Brides Slave), and asked if she could work it with our parents so that it was her job to book the car for them, luckily it's not that much of a stretch as my sister travels alot with work, and saying she could organise a discount through work was 100% believable.

After a few calls to sister, and discussions between Mr Mel and myself, we settled on a Ford XR6, either in Black or White. I'm no car nut and neither is Mr Mel, but we thought they looked smart, and not too over the top.

My sister just emailed to say that she had booked the XR6 and had requested black or white, yay!

So Mr Mel and I will be arriving together (Mr Mel driving, see entrance blog earlier), in either one of these fellas

Black Ford Falcon XR6 (photo source)

White Ford Falcon XR6 (photo source)

And the huge bonus is it's only costing us $50 (plus $5 for ribbon), as the car they'd chosen was only $50 cheaper for the 4 days, than this option, when you add my sisters work's discount into the bargain!  Compared to the $500 - $800+ we were quoted it's a huge saving. Woohoo, our budget is very happy about it!

Decorations - Ebay haul so far!

To try and cut some corners in our budget, I am scouring Ebay for decorations, which we can use in the Hall. I had sourced quotes from all of the local decorators, 6 in total, and the quotes, bar 1, were scary.

My theory is instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire items, I can buy them cheaper, use them on the day/night, then sell them afterwards.

So far my haul is:

100 x Rice Paper Lanterns (white) - $126 ($150 to hire)
150m x Fairy Lights (warm white) - $283 ($300 to hire)
2 x Candelabras - $40 ($50 to hire)
1 x Bird Cage Wishing Well/Card Holder - $66 ($40 to hire)
100 x Willow Green Organza Chair Sashes - $139.99 ($2.00 each to hire)

So on these 5 items alone the costs compare as:

Ebay - $654.99
Decorator (average quote over 6 quotes) - $740

Plus I can resell mine after the day, say if I sell them for 1/2 price of what I paid for them, that makes the cost $327.49!  Savings yay

Birdcage Wishing Well/Card Holder

Fairy Lights

Willow Green Organza Chair Sash

I've also bought:

1 x Bridal Cake Knife & Server set - $25
50 x personalised wine charms for gifts - $75

1 x Guestbook - $25

4 x White Bali flags - $25

All were much lower prices that I found through other online stores or 'real stores'.

Cake Knife & Server

Guestbook

Bali Flags - to use on either side of the gate to the Hall

I'll be back with more savings :)