BHLDN On A Budget!

Like many women, my heart swoons whenever I step inside Anthropologie. Sadly, I cannot afford to shop there regularly, especially on a grad student budget in the middle of a recession! However, I was thrilled to recently learn that the team behind Anthropologie decided to venture into another one of my passions, the wedding world, with their new store, BHLDN.

A great feature of the BHLDN website is that it offers more than just a shopping experience for brides. It includes free interactive experiences to help inspire you while planning your wedding, and provide another great way to procrastinate ;-) For example, I took a fun quiz called "What Kind of Bride Are You?" and discovered that I am a Romantic Nostalgic bride, which was a very accurate portrayal of my vintage Cape Cod wedding. The website also offers MoodBoards, aka inspiration boards, where you can view their products based on themes or color palettes, or even create your own board!

Disclaimer: I guarantee you will love everything BHLDN offers, but like it's sister store Anthropologie, products from here do not come cheap. Since one of my goals is to provide wedding inspiration for brides on a budget, I have scoured the site and chosen the best wedding attire and accessories for budget-minded brides.

Here are 2 boards featuring my favorite dresses, that are all an amazing steal at $1600 or less!

Finally, another great way to incorporate the romantic, unique, and vintage products BHLDN offers while not breaking the bank is to carefully choose more affordable accessories for your big day. Here are my top picks:

Images from center, then clockwise from top left: Choose a lovely silk hat/birdcage veil for a vintage vibe ($120); Love coasters provide a romantic touch ($14 for 10); Don polka dot gloves for a unique look ($40); Brighten up your fete with colorful straws ($6 a pack); Eat your cake with a pair of engraved love forks ($24 a pair); Serve treats on lovely pedestals ($68-$88); Statement earrings are great bridesmaid's gifts ($66); Accessorize your cocktail hour with love stirrers ($22 for 24); Use adorable mini teapots as escort card holders ($52 for 6); Glam a simple pair of shoes with colorful pom poms! ($25 per pair); Choose simple but sophisticated letterpress invites ($26 for 8); Chalkboard vases make unforgettable table numbers ($18); Faux flowers are a great way to save money without compromising on style ($32 for 5).

Going Against the Grain: DIY Table Names

As a bride on a budget, many elements of my wedding included DIY projects, and my table numbers were no exception.  I initially considered purchasing table numbers because I did not want to create too much work for myself and my groom the week of the wedding, but after scouring Etsy and finding some decent deals, I decided to create them myself.

One reason was that even though there were some reasonable prices from Etsy vendors, after calculating the cost of making them myself, I just couldn't justify spending the extra amount of cash to have them pre-made.

Another reason was that I did not want simple signs with a number on them.  Since were were having a Christmas wedding, and my family and I have always adored Christmas movies, I decided that I wanted each table to bear the name of a Christmas film.  Thus, I knew if I wanted custom table numbers, it would make much more sense to just do them myself.

My groom and I thus went to Paper Source to purchase the supplies for our project, and fortunately had help from a very experienced saleswoman, who helped us find exactly what we needed. We decided to make our table numbers double sided, so we purchased table tents, navy paper, and silver shimmer paper (see below).

My groom and I chose the movies and created a custom monogram for the top of the table names in Microsoft Word.  As you have to use a high quality printer that will not smudge, we went to my father's office and printed the table numbers in navy ink on the silver shimmer paper.  

The hardest part was cutting the navy and silver paper to fit the table tents, which were smaller than the standard 8.5" x 11" paper. Thankfully, my groom used his mad paper cutter skills (I highly recommend using a paper cutter and not scissors!) and made everything fit perfectly. 

Overall, making the table numbers was more tedious and time consuming than my groom and I had anticipated, but we were really excited with our creation.  Here are some images of the final products (you're also getting a sneak peak of my DIY centerpieces, which I will soon detail in another post):

This was where we sat the groom's family, since this is their favorite Christmas movie:

 My family was sat here, since this is my mother's favorite Christmas movie:

I couldn't resist throwing some humor into our table names!

 And last but not least, my personal favorite, the Bad Santa table:

Overall, our table names were a huge hit with our guests (fortunately our guests all had a sense of humor).  Our friends at the Bad Santa table jokingly asked what they did to deserve that label, and all of our other guests were jealous that we did not deem them worthy of sitting at the Bad Santa table!

In the end, I'm so glad we decided to go against tradition and created table names that reflected our personalities and interests.  I highly recommend doing the same for your wedding, as it is not only a great conversation starter for guests, but also makes your wedding more unique and personal, while saving money!