For many couples, wedding centerpieces created by a florist are way out of their price range. Even a simple arrangement could cost you your first-born child if you have many tables that need a centerpiece.

Luckily, a bit of creativity could save you a small fortune. Check out these twenty creative ideas for wedding centerpieces.

1. Fake flowers. Before you start cringing at the idea of fake flowers, go to a store and check out the fake flowers that are available. The quality has greatly improved in recent years. Using fake flowers will significantly reduce the cost.
2. Floating candles. These look elegant when lit up, providing a romantic atmosphere. Floating candles come in many different shapes and you should be able to find something that matches the theme of your wedding.
3. Small fruit or ice sculptures. Check with local culinary schools. There may be a budding young chef who would be happy to create beautiful sculptures for a modest price.
4. Small cakes. Instead of having one large wedding cake, buy several small ones in different flavors. You can even encourage guests to travel to other tables to sample the flavors. By doing this, you’ll save on both centerpiece and wedding cake costs.
5. Children’s crafts. If your family has a lot of children and children will be welcome at your wedding, have them do a craft to use as your centerpiece. They will be delighted to help out.
6. Mailbox with paper and pens. Ask your guests to write a short piece of advice for the newly married couple. They can put their letters in the mailbox.
7. Games. If your family is not the type to dance wildly into the night, a few travel-sized games may be enough to keep people entertained.
8. Photos of the couple. Have a lot of photos from your many adventures? Now’s the time to show them off. Put pictures of the two of you together on each of the tables.
9. Many candles. Using candles of varying heights can create a dramatic effect. Scented candles may be overbearing and interfere with the taste of the meal, so be sure to use unscented ones.
10. Fruit. A bowl of fresh fruit can be inexpensive and give a “homey” feel to your tables. Plus, guests can eat them later!
11. Lucky bamboo plants. These work best with an Asian themed wedding, but they can look elegant in other settings as well.
12. Baskets. Fill your baskets with whatever you like. Fake flowers, ornaments, or candy all make great choices.
13. Glass beads. A bowl filled with colorful glass beads is simple but stylish. These can be purchased in many craft stores and you can choose colors that match the theme of your wedding.
14. Cupcakes. These are another wedding cake alternative. There are many cupcake trees available that can spruce up your table.
15. Something related to your hobbies. If the two of you are avid bookworms, use a stack of your favorite books as a centerpiece. Wine lovers? How about a bottle of wine with a custom label? Choose something that matches your personality.
16. Photos of other weddings. If you have a lot of older married couples that will be attending your wedding, why not celebrate their love and commitment as well by showing pictures of their weddings?
17. Seasonal items. In spring and summer, you may be able to collect wildflowers. In autumn colorful leaves are plentiful. And in winter, you can dress the table with evergreen.
18. Polaroid cameras and scrapbooking supplies. If your guests are crafty, let them create a special message for you by taking their pictures and creating a scrapbook page.
19. Fortune cookies. A bowl of fortune cookies is fun for everyone…in bed. You can even have fortunes custom made for you wedding.
20. Fishbowls with fish. You can go a step further and put the kissing gourami in the fishbowls. These are fish whose lips are extra puckered for kissing. Just make sure the fish all have a home when the wedding’s over.

Your wedding centerpieces should reflect who you are as a couple. It doesn’t have to be an expensive floral arrangement! These ideas should help you get started in finding the right centerpiece for your wedding.

Say goodbye to the days of wedding favors that consist of tiny organza bags filled with pastel-colored candy-coated almonds.  And thank goodness for that.  These days, wedding favors are fun, whimsical, useful, and personal.  While that makes them better, obviously, it also makes choosing what they should be a bit more of a challenge.

Well, no worries.  Here are some ideas for memorable wedding favors that your guests will adore.

MINI PHOTOS – With many engagement/wedding photo packages, wallet size photos of the engagement shoot are included, which make this a natural gift to include as a wedding favor.  If you want the favors to be a little more extensive than that, you can always include personalized frames of miniature photo albums which can be purchased at craft stores or online.

WEDDING MUSIC CD – If your ceremony included a lot of music, a great idea can be to give your guests a CD of music that was featured in your wedding.  If possible, you can even have the people who performed it in your ceremony record it.  With labels that can be purchased at an office supply store, a color printer, and a little creativity, you can create a great favor that is full of both visual and audio appeal.

CANDLES OR SOAP– There are a lot of pre-made candle and soap favors that can be purchased from wedding specialty shops or online, but a great idea is to have them custom-made by a local craftsperson to match your wedding theme.  You can look in the yellow pages for someone that fits the bill, or even place an ad in the local classifieds or on craigslist.

PERSONALIZED CANDY BARS – One positive thing about the pastel-colored candy-coated almonds was that they were edible.  People always love a snack, that’s something you can count on.  So, to take that old idea and modernize it, why not have custom printed labels made up that commemorate your wedding day and give each of your guests a personalized candy bar?  Their hearts will love it and so will their taste buds.

PERSONALIZED MUGS – Mugs are something that people use every day, whether to drink coffee or tea from, or to hold trinkets or pens.  You can have personalized mugs created at a printing shop or ordered online, which have your photos or a message and the details of your wedding printed on the mug.  The great thing about this, is that you can also choose to fill the mug with anything you want if you want to take the idea a little farther.

BOOKS OF POETRY AND QUOTES – Collect some of your favorite romantic poetry and quotes and have it bound into a lovely small volume.  Printing shops can do this for you, and even copy shops such as Kinko’s should be able to help you out.  Your guests will appreciate the personalization – you chose all of the quotations, so it’s coming straight from your heart.

Remember, don’t be limited by what you’ve seen other people do in the past.  Your wedding day is a special celebration of love between you, your spouse, and all the people that you love the most –and your favors should express that unique relationship.

With the rampant spending that’s going on with your wedding planning, do you really need to spend a lot of money on your wedding favors? Even a favor idea that seems cheap when it’s just for one person quickly becomes quite expensive when you multiply it by the number of guests that will attend.

The necessity of wedding favors is one of the most overrated parts of wedding planning.  The fact is, there is nothing wrong with using cheap wedding favors.  Why?

Nobody really cares. Wedding favors are not the detail that makes or breaks a good wedding. People are more likely to remember how beautiful the bride looked or how delicious the food was. Saving money on wedding favors allows you to have more money to spend on the things that really matter to your guests.

They don’t want to take it with them. You may have many guests that are traveling from out of town. These guests do not want to take a bulky wedding favor back home with them. It’s best not to waste your money.

Homemade is better. One way you can save money on wedding favors is by giving your guests something that is homemade. When you give people something that you’ve made yourself, they will appreciate it more because of the time and effort that you put into it.

They don’t have to know. There are many cheap wedding favors that don’t look cheap at all. Look online for some great deals. With a little bit of effort and a little bit of luck, you’ll be able to find a wedding favor that looks much more expensive than it really is. Your guests don’t need to know how much you paid for your favors.

You’ll have more money for food and drink. When you save money on one thing, you can use that money to get something better. Food and drink are usually one of the most memorable parts of a wedding. If you save some money on wedding favors, then you can spend more on these things.

Call me a tight-fisted miser, but I firmly believe that you should use cheap wedding favors.  When planning for my 500-guest wedding, many of the guests really didn’t bother to take the favors home.  When I asked my guests what they remembered most about my wedding, the majority of them remembered the food.  Next was the entertainment.  And lastly, it was the decor.  Many of the guests didn’t even remember what my wedding favor was! This is definately one area of the wedding where it can cost the most.  Therefore, going cheap on your wedding favors can mean big savings.

One of the trickiest parts of planning your wedding can actually be buying your bridesmaid’s gifts.  You need to find something that’s unique and useful, while still being pretty and meaningful.  Not that hard so far, right?  It also needs to be something that no one will have any kind of allergy to, or moral objection to, or anything else negative.  OK.  Harder, but still do-able.  Right? 

Well, now it also has to be something that seems like you spent a lot on it, but in actuality is not expensive at all, because you need to buy anywhere from five to ten of them!  OK, now you need help.  Well, don’t worry, because here are some ideas that will help you come up with the perfect Bridesmaid’s gifts that will fit all of those criteria, and that your girls will absolutely love.

JEWELRY – A piece of jewelry or a lovely hair clip is always a sweet option, particularly if it’s something that’s meant for them to all wear on the wedding day.  For one thing, you don’t run into the question of whether any of the ladies are allergic to it, as you would with bath products or perfume, so it’s a great gift on that count.  Also, while high-end jewelry can be quite pricey, you should be able to find costume jewelry that is very affordable if that’s what you are looking for.

A MIX CD – Fill a mix CD with songs that have been special to you as a group, or songs that fit the theme of the wedding.  If neither one of those options fits, you can always make a mix CD of songs about the power of being female, such as “Don’t Need You to Tell Me I’m Pretty” by Samantha Mumba and “32 Flavors” by Ani DiFranco.

PERSONALIZED PHOTO ALBUMS – Small photo albums with room for approximately a dozen photos can be purchased inexpensively online or at drugstores or craft stores.  You can choose the appropriate amount of photos and have copies made of them or have them color photocopied.  If you have them in digital format, you can have them printed out.  Also, you can use some of the photo slots for drawings, quotes, if you like.

CREATE PERSONALIZED GIFT PACKAGES – At craft stores or at places like Oriental Trader, you can inexpensively purchase items such as woven satin heart boxes, plain wooden boxes you can decorate, or small tin pails.  In these, you can assemble small trinkets that fit the theme of the gift packages that you put together for your bridal party.  It will be highly personal and they will love it!

CUSTOMIZED PICTURE FRAMES – Make customized picture frames, or have them made, with scraps of the fabric that the bridesmaids’ dresses are made out of.  In the frame, put a picture that you have taken of all of you together – bride and bridesmaids.  This will be a gift they will treasure forever.

As I hope you can see from these ideas, the sky is the limit when it comes to creativity!  The primary determining factor in choosing the perfect gift is your personality and tastes and that of your bridesmaids.  Make it personal, make it memorable – and that will make it special.