Decorations on a budget

Not all the time you have the time, the money, the energy to do things as you imagined. This is my story, how I made everything work out with what I had in hand at the moment. Note: this article is pretty long, so grab a coffee and make yourself comfortable.

When our friend Cosmin came back from Romania with his brand new wife, Dana, our church wanted to throw a warm party to celebrate their new life together and introduce Dana in our community. We rented a ballroom at one of the local restaurants, and I volunteered to decorate it. Everything happened on such a short notice, I didn’t even have time to go see the place. So, with that in mind, I decided to go simple, warm and use as many things I had around the house. It was the beginning of October, so I went to dollar store and bought 20 scented candles (the ones that come in a jar). That was all the money I spent!!! (I was so proud of me!!!) 

I gathered everything else that I had around the house and could’ve been used for fall theme décor: brown packaging paper for candles (you’ll see in the pictures below how they looked after the makeover), olive satin ribbon, brown basket, a white luminary, tea battery candles, brown jute and a piece of ivory card stock (leftovers from Cosmin & Dana’s wedding invitations), leaf stamps, chocolate brown ink, two old vases turned into candles supports, and another vase with some cones and white Christmas lights in it.

So we (my hubby and I) get to the restaurant 30 minutes before everybody arrives. Eddie starts working on the sound system, I start decorating. There were 2 very long tables, one round table for Cosmin and Dana and another table right at the entrance. I placed the scented candles along those two long tables. (Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to take a picture before everyone arrived).

On the round table, I placed the white luminary with a tea battery candle in it, the old vases turned into candles supports, and some candles. It looked kind of empty, but I was lucky someone brought some flowers and they fit perfectly! 

I used the table at the entrance as “welcome table” and the “cards & gifts table”. I knew before there will be people who will give cards, so I used the ivory card stock to make a CARDS sign. I hanged it on the brown basket with the brown jute. Also, I scattered the left battery candles and one of the scented candle.

Then, I took a deep breath!!.. Phew!!! I was done! It was cute! (even though the lighting was terrible). We made new friends, had fun and most important thing, we celebrated them. their love. and new beginning.

What do you do to stay on the budget when decorating?

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