Respond cards are used for gathering an accurate guest count for your wedding, which is needed for both the caterer and the reception site. It pays to be diligent with respond cards. Having an accurate guest count saves money on food and rental equipment such as chairs and tables.
Respond cards are a part of the wedding invitation ensemble. After you find the invitation of your choice, you will be able to add the respond cards to your order. They will be printed with a “respond by” date, “number attending” and choice of entrée, if you are offering one. Guests return the cards to you by the date indicated on the card, usually two weeks before the wedding. Respond cards always include envelopes unless you have chosen a separate ‘n send invitation, seal ‘n send invitation, or respond postcards. The envelopes are printed with the return address of the person compiling the guest count. This person may be the bride or groom, or it may be someone helping plan the wedding such as a mother, sister or friend. Also, remember to put a stamp on each respond envelope as a courtesy to your guests.
Wedding invitations (with respond cards) are usually sent 6–8 weeks before the wedding. Keep track of respond cards from the time the invitations are sent to about two weeks before the wedding. If guests have not replied by two weeks before the wedding, it is recommended to call guests to confirm whether they are attending.
It is also recommended to finalize arrangements with a caterer about 2 months before the wedding. Once the guest count is gathered through tallying respond cards and confirmations through calling, the final guest count will go to the caterer and reception site at least one week before the wedding.
Wedding Invitation Ensemble
A Quick Guide to the Wedding Invitation Ensemble
Instead of favors my fiance and I are donating to the Philadelphia SPCA since we are both animal lovers and giving our guests bone and paw shaped cookies!
By growing your own flowers that you wanna use and making the arrangements yourself…Or going with artificial flowers
Saving on my flowers im making my own and buying my own ribbion and vases my first wedding im 42 and waited my life for this but God help me thing are high im getting my invites for you and response postcards
Now a days with how expensive flowers, it is better to go with fake flowers. My wedding is September 5th, 2010 and we are in an extremly tight budget and ive come to realize that fake flowers for the boques and mens buttoniare are the only way that i can say money. at the same time I planning to make my center pices with flowers dunked in water so that they can stand out and i dont have to purchas as many so that way i can say money on my budget. even though real flowers are amazing it is hard to go cheap with them because all florist charge an arm an a leg.
My fiance and I chose to use black lanterns (from IKEA – Borrby http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=lanterns) and scented rose petals in our wedding colors (from Michaels craft store) on a round piece of mirrored glass on each of the table at our reception. They were inexpensive to purchase, look great and are unique, and after the fact those lanterns may come in handy at another event.
Below is where I got my flowers – I searched and searched and found this wonderful lady named Iran and she had some awesome roses and set-ups and deals and arrangements – you name it – she had it.
Bridal Bouquets and Wedding Flowers This package is designed for the bride on budget, Its flexible, can tie in with your colour scheme and its a great price!
Brides Bouquet round (30 roses)
1 Grooms Boutonniere (single rose)
3 Brides maids Bouquets (12 roses each)
2 Mothers corsages (3 roses each)
2 Fathers Boutonnieres (single rose)
2 Grandmother corsages (2 roses each)
2 Grandfather boutonnieres (single rose)
1 Toss Bouquet
1 Maid of Honor corsage (3 roses)
1 Best Man boutonnieres (single rose)
And your choice of:
(8 ) single rose and ribbon pews or
Cake topper or
small main table centerpiece
$285.00
**************this price is for fresh roses***************************
I’m planning to save on my Wedding flowers by adding some naturally grown farm stand and garden flowers to the ones I will special order for our decor! I also will add some pretty green herbs that smell nice! Perfect for an end-of-summer Beach Wedding!
For our wedding coming up this Sept. 2010. We ended up using real touch silk flowers from local craft stores and online flower vendors.
Doing this helped save us money, time and stress!
We were able to make 6 Bouquets, 10 floral centerpieces, 10 aisle flower arrangements to hang from shepards hooks for the outdoor ceremony, 4 floral arrangements for the bar and bathrooms, and 20 bouts and corsages for the wedding party, parents, officiant, readers, and ushers. We also made a flower head covered kissing ball and our ring bearer “pillow” out of stephantois flower heads, we took a block of floral foam, wrapped the sides and bottom in satin ribbon, then hot glued the flower heads on top, around the side and outside edge on top we pinned the flower heads on with pearl head pins. Took a cream ribbon tied around the square so the ring bearer has a handle and the rings have a place to be tied to on top.
Our ring bearer pillow was one of the easist and cheapest projects we have done! And has had the biggest reaction among our family and friends(they love to check our wedding planning website). We used a floral block that was $1, used left over ribbon and corsage pins, and 5 stems of stephantois flowers that had around 15 heads on each one. Each stem cost a $1.
So for around $6 we made our own unique ring bearer pillow.
We are also taking the left over stephanotis flower heads, and pearl head pins and using them to decorate our 5 tier cupcake tree that we are having instead of a traditional wedding cake. We will use the flowers and pins on the outside edges to dress them up some.
We were able to make everything ourselves and searching on different websites and craft store adds, we made everything for under $150.00.
I am very picky about everything for my wedding, and was able to get all the flower types that I like.
I used cream and blue hydrangeas, deep red roses, light pink roses, white gerber daisies, deep red fancy carnations, cream fancy carnations, and lots of stephanotis.
I used pearl corsage and bouquet pins to add some more elegance to my arrangements, bouquets and corsages and bouts.
I hand wrapped all of the bouquets with satin and sheer ribbon to match our wedding colors and used corsage pearl head pins to give more decorations.
Everything that we bought was on sale, clearance or we had a coupon code or coupon for.
We didnt settle, just did our research and took our time gathering the things we liked at the best prices possible.
We have had all of these projects done since Mid March and packaged carefully in a spare room ready to be used on our wedding day!
Making your own arrangements, bouquets and flower projects are a lot easier than you may think. You basically only need floral tape and wire cutters and you can make anything you like!
Good Luck to all the Brides to be!!
Since my wedding will be outdoors in July at my brother’s home in the country, I plan to create a beautiful floral setting using fresh flowers purchased that morning at the local farmer’s market. Several stands have huge 5-gallon containers from which to pick assorted varieties of flowers and colors, and I will arrange them in various sizes in the vases I will purchase from the Dollar store. These flowers can be purchased in bouquests for as little as $5 to $8 a bunch and this will allow me to be creative and unique in displaying them. In addition, I will have formal bouquets, etc. ordered from a local floral company to be used for the ceremony and formal portraits afterwards. I compared companies online and was able to compare prices and their professional reputation. I feel good supporting the local vendors at the market as well as giving some of my business to a company that provides this service professionally, and this way I have the “best of both worlds” for my wedding.
Have connections. Ask around. My co-worker’s wife has her own floral business.
My wedding is June 19, 2010. I wasn’t real sure on what I was going to for flowers at the time we had asked our friend who lives in the same town as us to have his band come and play at the wedding. His wife had emailed me and said hey if you would like I can do your flowers for you and all you have to do is pay for the flowers, WOW what a great neighbor. I knew she did some flowers, but I didn’t know forsure how much she got into it, well I have seen her work and it is absolutely beautiful. I have been undecided if I was going to go with real or silk flowers. If real I wanted to go with what I have here at home, my roses, but of course living in central new york, one never knows what kind of growing season you wiill have until they come up. So I thin well I will wait. Then I talk to the girl who plans on doing them for me and she tells me that her 4 year old boy will be going in for surgery on his head, the forehead part ( because it is not gorwing, he had this done at 1 yr old) now again and also he had a cyst on the back of his brain and it will be done at the end of this month or beginning of June.
So I have decided to go with the silk so that way we can do it now and this way she can have all her time with her son when they are home and her not worring of trying to get my flowers done. I did offer to find someone else but she won’t hear of it. God bless them all, such ownderful neighbors, I love living in a small country town.
My wedding is next summer and I have been saving money by buying supplies off of ebay. I bought my dress and some other clothing and accessories from there. I bought fake flowers at the Dollar Tree and used bouquet holders and ribbons I bought from ebay to make my own bouquets. My best friend took a cake decorating class last summer and is going to make our cake. Her boyfriend might play at our wedding if we have it here in this state. There are many ways to save on your wedding, while still having a beautiful one. You just have to look around and use all the resources that you find.
For my friends wedding we are going to be having silk flowers and real flowers. The real flowers are going to be used for the wedding party and family members and the silk flowers are going to be used for the decorations to cut back on the cost of flowers.
Okay brides…been here and done this before! While I could have been happy hopping a plane to Vegas and getting married by an Elvis wanna be my fiance would not have it. He has never been married before and is apparently related to everyone in our state; that of course must be invited! Needless to say, we are throwing this bonanza ourselves and by nature I am the queen of penny pinching. As far as flowers are concerned, there are several ways to pinch and penny and still have a lovely setting. Some of these ideas come from friends, some from me, and who knows where I got the rest!
If you have time to do research and net searching the ideas are unlimited. If you are a bride who can budget a little more for flowers and insist on fresh only, research the flowers that are seasonal for the time of your wedding. This might mean some color changes, however. Also, don’t think that every crevice and cranny has to be decorated with flowers–greenery goes a long way. 86 the huge bouquets and go with single flowers in vases spread throughout your venue. Alot of nurseries will rent ferns and plants for reasnoable amounts. Accent more with candles if possible. Brides get overwhelmed and want some of everything they like, especially in flowers. Trust me, less is more. I have been to weddings where there were so many flowers that it was quite distracting and left you wondering if there was a funeral immediately following. Dont go crazy with greenery either. The rain forest look makes people feel like Tarzan is going to swing in at any moment.
Mixing fresh and silk is a good idea also. Be careful with silk though, it can be costly also. In this case, I would use silk for all corsages, boutineres, and bridal bouquets. It is nice to have that momento of your day to keep. You can use fresh spread in your table arrangements and then use the fresh flowers as compliments. Another words, buy silk in what is more expensive cut of flower (roses, lilies, etc.), and fresh for the less expensive cuts (daises, carnations, wild flowers). Remember the candles!! Also, at reception you can place loose cut flowers about.
Went to a wedding with only silk flowers but you would have never known. Why? How? The altar arrangements and window vases had water added thus giving the illusion of fresh flowers. It was amazing. I was very impressed.
Okay, last bit of advice…take your floral arrangements out of the ceremony spot and set up at the reception. You have two altar arrangements? Goes great on head table, buffet table, etc. Last but definitely not least–DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF!!! You should enjoy the day. Trust me, if its not in the budget or its not there the guests won’t miss it!! And if they just so happen to, just tell them to write you a big ol” check and you’ll make sure someone rushes right out and picks it right up!
Happy weddings to you all…
Im saving on my flowers by having the floral manager at our local Kroger floral department do them….they charge WAY less than a florist and i can get any flowers i want