I thought I'd share with you some of my sneeky tips for saving a little bit of cash when hosting a dinner party. I'm currently planning my wedding and therefore every penny counts! It needs to be beautiful but also big and budget. I have many mouths to feed and water, and quite a few tables to decorate. I've had a few friends on the case too. My mother's growing the flowers for the reception and I've been collecting cheap and cheerful vases to display them from various hospice shops, but I've found.. if I do say so myself... an INGENIOUS money saver for vases. Now I'm doing this for a wedding but there's no reason you can't apply these tips for any social occasion.
UPCYCLE THOSE COFFEE JARS!
Everyone knows someone who's a coffee addict, perhaps you work in an office where it's constantly being restocked; my fiancée's family just happen to plough through the stuff. Therefore my darling mother-in-law-to-be has been setting aside the coffee jars...
Just add a bit of twine, glue and lace and voilà!
These are gorgeous, the perfect size for the flowers I'm going to be filling the tables with and the coffee jars themselves are a fantastic shape, very sort of art deco. I think I'll invite my friends around for coffee a bit more in the run up to my wedding, or take a greater interest in making coffee cakes! I'm going to need quite a lot of these babies.
WATER BOTTLES
I'm doing the old school hall hire for my wedding, we have a caterer sorting the food but my fiancée and I have decided to provide all the drinks ourselves. Obviously there will be plenty of wine, but guests always need water too! I had considered doing a mass buy of big plastic water bottles and putting them on the tables.. but I don't quite fancy the look of the plastic bottles with their labels sticking out all over the place... and I had considered Ikea bottles as they look nice, just top them up with tap water and put them out on the tables, perfect, great, oh wait... Two problems. One, I live in Jersey and the closest Ikea is in Southampton, and two, for the amount I need to buy... 60 or so... it would cost more than I am willing to spend... and then what do I do with all of those bottles afterwards?? Solution! Clear wine bottles! The restaurant I used to work at would soak off the labels from old bottles of Rose, clean them up and then use them for tap water.
So I got to work on it yesterday, the biggest challenge was knifing off the metal cuffs around the necks of the bottles, I did end up cutting my thumb quite a bit so if you do give this a go wear gloves if you can. I have 19 at the minute... so just encouraging my chums to drink up and save me their bottles!
Alternatively they make gorgeous candle holders.
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