Remember: U.S. sites may very well be considerably cheaper sometimes (or simply stock items you can not find here, in Canada) but at the end of the day you are “importing” the stuff – same as if you drove across the border and bought somethign you need to declare when crossing back into Canada.

Sometimes it is worth the effort, sometimes it is not. As a general rule, your wedding package from the U.S. will

• Need to clear customs: not just to pay “import tax”, but also because it needs to be checked! Just because it says “wedding favours” in it, doesn’t mean that’s what’s inside, yes?
• Possibly be charged “brokerage fees”: Why? Because someone has to physically be there and clear your package. Usually some UPS staff, if that’s how it was shipped. So UPS will charge you for their time,dealing with Canadian customs.

There are exceptions to these rules. “Workarounds” woudl be a better word. For example

• If you’re paying for “express” service, most times the courrier company will actually include all this in their pricey express fee. So you still pay it, but you need not deal with it again, in Canada
• Some sites build some of those charges in the shopping cart, so you can pay it upfront, when you buy the items and so know how much it will be – no surprises!
• There are specialised services in the U.S. that will “fake” a U.S. address for you. In other words, you are actually shipping to their warehouse and they bulk ship to you. Of course this costs more too, but if you’re buying from many different vendors, it may make sense to consolidate the shipments.

In the end, it may make more sense to simply stick with Canadian wedding e-stores. Keep it simple! The selections is definitely comparable and the hassles are minimal. Either way, if you have found something and you’re wondering whether you should go ahead and order or not, read this first. It is a handy little guide, explaining a lot of these things and listing some interesting options. It also has a pretty comprehensive list of wedding stores, most of them Canadian.

Cheers!

Image: istockphoto

If you are looking for chair cover rentals, in Vancouver or elsewhere in Canada, ask the venue for a recommendation. They could have a vendor that their brides normally work with. However, don’t expect pretty chair covers to come cheap. The hall and other services usually rent chair covers for $4 and up per chair.

If chair covers aren’t an expense that you accounted for in your wedding budget, there are alternatives to renting chair covers. Here are a couple ideas:

Decorated Pillow Cases
Believe it or not, pillow case make good chair covers. If you can purchase them in bulk or from thift shops, you can decorate them with stencils or paints and then slip them over the chairs.

Chair Bows
Head to your local craft shop or dollar store and buy a bunch of tulle. You can make big tulle bows for under a $1 each and then tie them around the chair. If they are big enough, they will cover even the ugliest chair backs. Check out these directions for making your own chairback decorations.

Wedding DJ Toronto

Some DJs read the crowd very well and others have strengths that can range from Musical library to Lighting and setup as well as being able to sing and play other instruments as well. Depending on the tone of your wedding certain DJs can be more appropriate than others. For an older crowd, perhaps consider a DJ that can belt out a good Sinatra tune or if the audience is quite young you might need to have them focus on more contemporary music.

Wedding DJs in Toronto

Setting up the hall for the Dj is also very important. In some circumstances they will be off to the side and in others they will take centre stage so to speak. Make sure they are comfortable and able to see the entire audience. DJs often need to feel the atmosphere in the room to play their best, so audience interaction is very important.

DJ for your Toronto Wedding

If you are concerned about your wedding budget, with a little effort and knowhow, you can make the decorations and centerpieces yourself. Here are a few ideas for easy-to-make, beautiful weddding centerpieces.

Miniature Christmas Trees
Purchase artificial mini-Christmas trees and spray them with white snow, if you like. Add tinsel and ornaments that coordinate with your wedding colors. All silver or all white balls are particular nice for a winter wedding.

Image: sxc.hu

Snow Globes
Ideal for a winter wedding centerpiece, glass snow globes can by found at craft stores, hobby shops and boutiques. The smaller globes are relatively inexpensive and can be clustered in a group or used alone. Place fiber batting in the center of the table and sprinkle it with silver glitter. Then place the snow globe in the middle.

Pinecones and Boughs
You can make an arrangement of pinecones, boughs, holly and/or berry sprigs in a wide shallow bowl. Another idea is to place candle in a hurricane lamp in the middle of the table and then surround it with a wreath to create your wedding centerpieces.

If you want to really get in the Christmas spirit, you can incorporate Santa, reindeer and sleigh figurines, along with candy canes to create your centerpieces. Also consider a winter wedding centerpiece made from a miniature Christmas village or nativity scene.

Image credit – marganz

With these DIY wedding centerpieces, even if you skimp on money, you don’t have to skimp on style.

Floral Centerpieces
Get clear glass vases from your local craft shop or even the dollar store. Buy loose stem flowers from the grocery store, or cheaper flowers (such as daisies and carnations) from your floral shop. Arrange two to three flowers in each vase with a simple ribbon tied around it.

Candle Centerpieces
Hurricane lamps are really cheap ($2-3 at the craft store). These glass containers are perfect for holding pillar candles. The look is simple and elegant. For something a little different, you can fill a shallow glass bowl halfway with colored marbles or aquarium rocks, add water and then float tea light candles on the top. Tea lights are extremely cheap when bought in bulk. For some drama, add a little food coloring to the water.

Functional Centerpieces
A fruit bowl is an extremely colorful and functional centerpiece. Choose a shallow, wide bowl and fill it with colored fruits from simple apples and oranges to more exotic pomegranates and mango. Your guests can snack from the bowl after their meal. To fill in the space between the fruits, add crunched tissue paper. To add some sparkle to the fruit, spray it with water and add a dusting of sugar.

Flour Fancies Wedding Cake

Order Early
Many cake designers and bakers charge extra if you order the cake within a month of your wedding date.

Shop for the Extras
Buy your own dividers, flowers, cake toppers and other cake accessories separately from other outlets rather than purchasing or renting them directly from the bakery.

Stick with Cream
Elaborate fillings can really drive up the cost of your wedding cake. Stick to the most basic cream filling instead of jellies, fruits and other extras.

Skip the Delivery
Some bakeries tack on $50 or more for delivery. Have someone in your wedding party or a close relative pick up the cake instead.

Many brides overlook the possible of getting silk flowers, but it’s definitely something to consider. Though you might want a fresh bouquet to carry down the asile, silk or other fake flowers are perfect for centerpieces and decorations.

Years ago, silk flowers could easily be spotted, but the quality has improved in recent years to the point must people won’t even be able to tell. Silk flowers can really save you some cash and can be used for years to come after your wedding day.

Some fresh flowers can run $5-10 per stem or more, while silk flowers are available for as little as a dollar a piece. Local flower shops that specialize in wedding flowers normally have silk alternatives as well.

Image: sxc.hu

Money - Image: sxc.hu

The bride may be a conservative spender and live debt-free, while the groom may spend on a whim and rack up a lot of credit bills. To help find a balance, you may consider consulting a financial planner or adviser before you walk down the aisle.

A financial planner can help you set up a monthly budget and work with you on your financial goals. Whether you are trying to get out of debt, make investments, save for college, or just trying to managing your monthly income, planning ahead is important. A financial planner can also help you decide whether you need (and want) a prenuptial agreement.

To find financial advice, head to your bank. They may have a planner on staff to assist their customers, or be able to refer you to someone else.

Much thought (and money) goes into planning your wedding day, but just as much should go into planning your financial future. With the help of a financial planner, you can create a budget that works for everyone and helps you achieve all your financial goals.

If you head to your local stationery shop to pick out your wedding invitations, you may be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless number of options to choose from – colors, papers, inserts, ribbons, shapes, sizes, styles. Of course, the designer and printer will probably want to pressure you into the best paper and the best ink with all the bells, whistles and extras that you can probably imagine. And with the rising cost of weddings these days, it simple just doesn’t make much sense for most people to spend a small fortune on their wedding invitations.

Thank You Company

Well instead of splurging all that cash on hand-crafted invitations from a shop, DIY wedding invitations may be the right option for you. If you are bit crafty (and I don’t me sly), you can create elegant wedding invitations on a budget with do-it-yourself options. Though it does take a little bit of extra effort, it can save you a bundle.

A friend of mine, Crystal, is getting married in April. I received her wedding invitation a few weeks back. It was beautiful, original and she created it from a D-I-Y invitation kit. The paper was gorgeous and I wouldn’t have guessed that she did it herself, unless she told me.

With these D-I-Y kits, you get a template or set of templates of wedding invitations. And then you can print out your own invitations on card stock or a multitude of other papers. You choose the set up, design, paper, style and everything else.

Consider that with do-it-yourself invitations, you will have to fold your invitations yourself – which might be a hassle, depending on how adept you are at folding. However, many invitations are just printed on one face of a flat card, rather than a tradtional folded style so that may be the way to go if you are doing it yourself.

If you want to add ribbons, bells and other additions to your D-I-Y invitations, it’s easy to do so. Just invite your bridesmaids over one night for cocktails and they can help your put together and assemble your invitations. Of course, drink most of the cocktails AFTER you have assembled all the invitations – not before. You want to get things done right.

If you are having an eco-friendly green wedding, you can print your do-it-yourself wedding invitations on recycled or plantable papers. Head to you local print shop and see if you can buy recycled card stock in bulk. Tell them it’s for your wedding … they might be in a good mood and give you a soon-to-be wed discount. You can buy wholesale plantable paper from Botanical Paperworks. The paper is embedded with wildflower seeds. After the wedding, you guests plant your invitations and wildflowers will grow right out of them. It’s a cool idea that is catching on.

You can find DIY wedding invitations &  kits online at a variety of different national companies, or look for them at local print shops and wedding stores.

I can’t stress the importance of double-checking the wording on your invitations before you go ahead and print hundreds of them. Last year, a friend of mine had bought some very beautiful, delicate wedding invitations from a high-end shop. She drew up the wording and design with the sales guy and they told her that they’d fax her the proof for approval before they started printing.

About three months before her wedding, they fax her the proof and sent her a .pdf to her email. She’s busy at work – looks over it briefly, adds her signature for approval and faxes it back. A couple weeks later, the invitations arrive in boxes to her home. She opens them up and finds that her soon-to-be husband’s middle name is misspelled.

She storms down to the shop, assuming it’s their fault, of course. They show her the proof. Sure enough, she had signed off with the error right on it. The bride-to-be begs, pleads and cries on the ground, trying to get them to re-print the invitations for free. No dice. It’s two months before her wedding and they have to re-print everything – at her cost. Needless to say her fiance wasn’t happy at all. It was such a small mistake but it cost them an extra thousand dollars.

Anyway, the moral of my little (or not so little) story is that whether you are printing D-I-Y invitations or having a well-known shop do them, double check, triple check and then check again before printing them all. Ink, paper, time … it all adds up and you don’t want to end up doing it all over.

While the benefits are using do-it-yourself wedding invitations are many. You need to weigh your options and decide if it’s right for you. If you are really short on time, or aren’t crafty at all, then it might be worth the expense to spring for traditional invitations. If you have the time to set them up and put them together (which isn’t hard at all), then it might be worth saving a little extra money and putting it toward something fun — like the honeymoon.

Reduce Your Guest List
Let’s face it, your cousin’s boyfriend’s sister’s friend doesn’t need to be invited to your wedding. The easiest way to cut costs is to lower your head count. Even shaving off 10% from your guest list will help.

Get Married on a Weeknight
Reception venues and other wedding vendors are oftentimes double the price on the weekends compared to weekdays. Having your wedding on a weeknight can save you considerable cash.

Serve Cupcakes Instead of Cake
The big fancy wedding cakes that you see are primarily just for show. Most wedding guests won’t eat more than a bite or two of that expensive cake. So instead, serve cupcakes or cupcake-wedding-cakes. You can make them yourself and frost them to match your wedding colors.

Photo credit: istockphoto