Cutting Down the Costs of Your Wedding – Part 1

The fact that you are reading this article is proof enough that you are interested in an urban wedding that reveals your African heritage. Not a bad idea at all. But one of the problems with a themed wedding is finding a balance between one’s heritage and wallet size. After all, if the heritage outweighs the wallet size… well, you don’t need me to tell you how that will go.

• As a result, we (most of us, anyway) have to find a budget-friendly way to include our heritage in our wedding. And that is what we will be focusing on today. Here are some methods you can try:

Ever heard of DIY weddings?

Yes, if you try this method out, you won’t be one of the first; quite a
number have tried this option, and you would be surprised at how well it all turned out.
It is not necessary for you to do it all by yourself; you can pick certain things to have done by a professional. Take a look at these and see if you can do some by yourself:

• The printed materials. We are talking about the cards, table numbers, gift bags and card set, wedding favors, etc. It is not as hard as you think, though it is time consuming. So pick a design you want, and try it out in advance (you do not want to find out how bad you are at it a few days to the wedding, do you? Besides, you will be giving yourself more time to practice).
• The cuisine: This is something else you should try in advance if you are interested in doing it this way. Look for cooking classes for the African dishes you would like at your wedding. It could be a fun experience for the two of you.
• The traditional dance: This one can be a bit hard to achieve, but if you are confident in how quickly you can learn the traditional dance of your choice, and can find affordable dance classes, the do it! You could do this instead of hiring dancers.

Pocket-friendly décor:

• This could save you a lot of money if done the right way. First of all, not everything at the reception has to be of African inspiration. Adding an African touch is enough. Use plants like palms and ferns to give it a tropical or coastal look.
• For the table-cloths and table mats, since getting the proper African crafts could be costly, get cloth in African print or animal print that you can drape over plain colored cloth. If you can get cloth native to you culture, then good (Ghanaians use Kente cloth, the Baganda use bark cloth, and the list goes on). That way, even though the plain cloth will be more than the printed one, you will still have the African look you were going for.

These are only a few of the suggestions – there will be another article (part 2) giving more tips. But even with these few, a person can end up saving quite a bit of money. Have a conversation with your fiancé about this and find ways to save money, if that is what you want. But it is not wrong to splurge; it is, after all, your day.

For more African Wedding insights visit – http://rwandawedding.org/