man’s wife, made a gorgeous dress for two of our bridesmaids at no cost, her love gift to us. My dad, being retired, was accustomed to taking photographs of everything that moved, or didn’t move, yep, I suppose that means everything. He offered to do the same at our wedding, which he did. I also asked my best man to take pics with my camera, which he did. Double the pics and throw out the ones you don’t like or want. For music, we ripped our cd’s onto an old laptop and I borrowed an USB FM transmitter from work that simply plugged into any USB port and then transmitted the music. We had 2 mini HIFI’s that we tuned to the channel and thus had hours of our favourite music playing without anyone having to intervene. There was no dancing, no “hours of boring speeches”, no hullabaloo and such…I was the only one to give a 5 minute speech with our thank you’s to all who helped make our special day blessed. For wedding favours, being handy, I made some myself. I have a friend who has a sheet metal workshop. He supplied me with stainless steel off-cuts, all cut to the correct size. I sanded the edges and rounded the corners of the little plates. I sent them for laser engraving with our initials and made them into napkin rings. Each guest received a white linen napkin (which we also had made) and stainless steel custom made napkin ring. The larger families scored entire sets. Every time they use them they will remember o ur special day. Finally, I had managed to find a little guest house near to the wedding venue that offered us a great deal for our overnight stay. They went out of their way to help make our stay special. So with a little innovation, some good friends and some close family members it is possible to turn a pumpkin and a couple of rats into a horse-drawn carriage fit for royalty.
Brides Essence - Issue 9 41