Hello all,

I'm getting married at the end of May…we are working off an extremely small budget with a huuuuuuuge guest list (we invited 493 – gasp!).  I am in love with SMP and drool over all the beautiful DIY ideas but it's just not practical for me because with that many guests (and at least 50 tables) even inexpensive things quickly become too expensive — or time consuming.

So, I am looking for ideas of ways we can still add personal, memorable touches.  Our colors are chocolate brown and light green with ivory.  We can't bring in outside food to the reception hall, but I was thinking of just placing a few granny smith apples as centerpieces since they are green and cheaper than flowers.  We are donating to a charity in lieu of favors but I'd still like ideas of how to spice up namecards, table number cards, anything else we can add to the tables/room/anything.  Thank you!

I have two ideas from my own wedding you might want to try!

For your place cards you could buy small folded cards (try searching for wholesale or bulk cardstock online) and purchase a couple calligraphy pens for a team of your steadiest-handed friends to handwrite the names on. Punch a small hole or cut a small slit on one side and stick a decoritive item such as a feather or sprig of lavender through it (both are very cheap when bought in bulk).

For table numbers I nixed the expense of number holders/picture frames and decided to cut the numbers out of metallic paper (cardstock thickness, nothing flimsy) and attached earring hooks from the craft store to them and hung them from my centerpiece vases. Whether or not this would work for depends on your exact centerpiece design, but it's worth thinking about nonetheless