Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Saving Money On Discount Wedding Gowns

When women are trying to save money on wedding gowns, it doesn't hurt for them to go online and try to find discount wedding gowns that they like. The problem they run into is that even discount wedding gowns can be expensive, since the idea it isn't that all wedding gowns are going to cost $200 or less, but that those wedding gowns are less than what they cost when they were brand-new. Here are some things to look at in trying to figure out why even some discount wedding gowns cost so much.

1. The number one thing that determines the cost of almost every wedding gown is how much detail there is on wedding gown. That's because time is money, and it takes a long time to add all those embroidered touches, and to create fancy lace and lace netting fabrics. That's why wedding dresses from designers like Reem Acra retained their value much better than most other wedding dresses. That means a discounted wedding dress from Acra may only show a discount of $500 as opposed to a couple of thousand dollars.

2. Jewels and crystals will also bring the price of wedding gowns up. The thing about wedding dresses with these items on them is that it's rare that anyone will give them out to a discounter and leave the jewels are crystals on them. It's much more economical, if a bride is going to give her dress up, to remove those items and sell them independently then try to get what the just might be worth as a resale.

3. The type of fabric will determine the price much more than the amount of fabric on address. For instance, if the dresses made out of silk organza, it will cost a lot more than it just made out of satin that has bunches and bunches of material. The more exotic the material, the higher the price of the dress.

4. The final piece in determining the price on even discounted wedding gowns is who the designers are. A discounted Vera Wang dress might be 50% lower than it was brand-new, but that just could still come in between $1500 and $2500. Some dresses might be a little bit lower if they start out lower, but you're still going to pay more for one of her dresses that you might for designer whose name isn't as well known.

See More:
How to Choose a Wedding Dress
Wedding Hairstyles and Other Updos

Thursday, January 21, 2010

After Wedding Breakfast

Something new that many wedding couples are doing is to have a wedding breakfast the day after they get married. Most of the time it doesn't come close to being as elaborate as their reception was, but offers another opportunity to get together with friends and family in a more relaxed setting, and possibly spend a little bit more time with those people than they were able to spend on their wedding day.

There are a few reasons that make this something unique. One, it offers an opportunity for people who couldn't make it to your wedding or reception on that particular day another chance to at least participate in your wedding process. Two, usually the breakfast is a little bit more of an intimate affair, so you wouldn't be expected to invite as many people as you invited to your wedding, which is why you have more time to interact with them. Three, it's a great send off to those friends who traveled from far distances and had to pay to stay somewhere overnight, to say thank you again for coming to share themselves with you on your special day.

Just like reception halls, there are many places in most areas where you could book a breakfast for a lot of people. The thing about breakfast food is that it doesn't cost all that much to prepare, and for most people the meal choices are fairly standard. For instance, eggs don't cost all that much and you can buy multiple dozens of eggs and still end up paying less than $20. Depending on the brand of bread you purchase you can probably buy enough bread so that everyone can have at least a couple pieces of toast. Although the price of ham has gone up drastically, you can usually buy link sausages or sausage patties and get a very good deal. And even if you decide to get a little fancy and have something like pancakes, that doesn't cost a lot to put together either, although if you have a lot of people who want pancakes it could take a lot of time in preparing them and also making sure they stay warm enough so that they still taste pretty good.

Some wedding couples even decide to have their day after wedding breakfast in their homes, which can usually handle 30 to 40 people even if it's a tight fit in a small house. This might not work as well if you have a small apartment, but if you live in apartment complex most of them have a clubhouse of some sort that they may rent out for very little money and possibly even let you have it for free based on the reason you want.

See more:
The Wedding Breakfast (Pre-Wedding)
What is the Wedding Breakfast?
How to Write an After-Wedding Breakfast Invitation

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Bara Luxe Designs for the Average Shaped Woman

bara luxe average woman gowns

bara luxe white plus size wedding gown

bara luxe plus size wedding dresses
Bara Luxe is a wedding dress design company with a special flair and mission. Their purpose is to design wedding dresses for plus sized brides. Their popular collections are aimed at brides between the sizes of 16 to 28. They believe that this is a relatively untapped market. It's not that they don't have some designs that are made for lesser sizes, but instead of making designs for smaller women and then making larger sizes, they go the other direction, making larger sizes, then customizing a few of them for smaller bodies.

Bara Luxe dresses are luxurious, mostly made with silk organza or silk taffeta. Many of the dresses are overlain with silk or lace patterns, and they're made to accentuate the curves of a larger sized woman and to help add curves she might not already have. You don't often see mermaid style dresses made for plus sized women, but Bara Luxe pulls no punches based on size and what usually fits which type of bride. They even have strapless gowns for the more daring plus sized bride.

One of their most popular wedding dress designs is known as the Sarah, which comes in either ivory or gold, which gold being the more popular color. It's a strapless A-line dress that crosses the breasts and blends the bodice directly into the silhouette, which flairs slightly to the ground and barely touches the surface. It may be strapless, but it has a choker neckline that flares into a V-pattern around the back. This dress is made out of silk wool Mikado and silk organza, and it's absolutely stunning.

Another popular dress is the Masa, which is a simple spaghetti strapped white dress with a crystal beaded pattern going down the middle of the dress. There's no specifically designed bodice, so the top flows into the silhouette, almost like an A-line dress, and it has a graceful 3-foot court train.

Bara Luxe dresses are for any bride, but the fact that they gear themselves to the plus sized bride shows that they're ahead of the game in recognizing where the majority of brides are coming from. Theirs is a brand that will grow in stature over the next few years.

Video: Bara Luxe Fashion Show

See more:
About Bara Lux
Discount Plus Sized Wedding Dresses
A Plus Size Wedding Dress - Finding the Perfect One

Monday, January 4, 2010

Is It Cheaper To Have A Wedding Dress Made?

Many brides believe that one way to go to get a wedding dress cheaper is to pay someone to make one for them. Depending on what they want, the wedding dress could be less expensive than buying a designer dress and potentially around the same price as buying a discount wedding dress, but cheap wouldn’t be a way to describe these dresses.

The biggest issue with having a wedding dress made is the time it will take someone to actually make the dress. If you’re lucky, you might find someone willing to work on a dress for $25 an hour, but even that will run the price up fairly high if you pick a pattern that has a lot of intricate items on it. For instance, just stitching some seams on a satin dress won’t take too long. But add some beading and possibly a button up bodice and time starts to add up.

The next issue is what your dress will be made out of. You’re probably not picking silk organza, but even satin can be kind of expensive if you need a lot of it. Also, many independent designers hate working with satin because it’s a stiff material and wrinkles easy.

Having said that, if you’re not looking to go the traditional wedding dress route then it may be possible to go inexpensive. Some wedding dresses look more like dinner dresses anyway, and if you go that route, it gives you a lot more flexibility in what you might want to get and still not stress your pocketbook too much. Even here, though, you can’t get too intricate because that’s where wedding dress makers go crazy with all the details they have to work through.

So, if you’re looking for cheap, having a dress made won’t get there. If you’re looking for designer without the super expensive price, then you’ll save a lot of money.

See more:
Wedding Dress Costs
Why Do Wedding Dresses Cost So Much?
Wedding Dress Fabrics & Materials