Wedding Invitation Seals Made of Salt Dough January 16, 2008

          

We like the idea of having a seal on the wedding invites but rather than buy the wax seals, I decided to experiment with salt dough instead, which is an extremely inexpensive alternative, given that it’s basically just salt, flour and water.

I simply took a stamp (we found one a couple years ago with our initials – ‘A’ for ‘Ascalon’ and ‘M’ for ‘Marshall’-when we were down at the Hollywood Toy and Costume Store and had to buy it), pressed it into a piece of salt dough that I had rolled out into a thin sheet, let it air-dry, and painted it with black and metallic gold acrylic. I waited for it to dry before painting on a layer of varnish.

 For the salt dough recipe and more cheap chic tips, go to www.thecheapchiccouple.com

Have A Gifted Friend Make Your Wedding Cake

If you’re on a tight wedding budget, consider having a gifted friend or family member bake your wedding cake.

Perhaps it’s because we’re big fans of Ace Of Cakes on The Food Network, but it’s no surprise that when it came to our wedding cake, we wanted it fun and quirky, so we decided on a madhatter cake.

When we were doing our cake sampling, a lot of the bids we were getting for a madhatter cake to feed 80 guests was in the high $600 range. While we have a reverence for the artistry that goes into making a wedding cake, and respect for the fact that these bakeries do have a sizable overhead, that price range would throw our $7,000 Cheap Chic Wedding Challenge budget out of whack.

We were pretty lucky that over the Christmas holidays, I bumped into an old friend, Debbie Cordova. Years ago, she had baked a beautifully simple yet elegant wedding cake for someone at work, and it had been absolutely delicious. We had even commented on the fact that she should have her own bakery instead of doing property management.

Debbie still hasn’t opened her own bakery liked we urged her to do way back then, but from the pictures she sent me, it looks like she’s kept honing her craft all this time. We can’t wait to try her cake samples, and have her do our wedding cake because we know it’s going to be fantastic.

If you’re not lucky enough to have a Debbie of your own, here are a few more tips to consider:

• I’ve heard that Albertsons actually makes a pretty decent wedding cake (although you’re probably going to be limited to what designs they have available, design-wise).
• You may also want to consider getting a small cake just for the cake-cutting, and get sheet cake (in the same flavor as your smaller cake, of course) to serve guests.

For more Cheap Chic ideas, go to www.thecheapchiccouple.com