The Road Less Travelled

And no, the title isn’t a joke about how far out in the country our venue is. It’s about the less travelled road of buying your wedding necessities instead of renting them. After the two caterers fell thru, I knew the all-inclusive plan was out the window. And renting it all separately thru a rental company seemed like a big 'ol pain in the butt for various reasons.

1.They’re expensive.
2.All the rental companies wanted to add a delivery fee on top of a delivery fee because I decided to get married out in the sticks.
3.The fact that it cost at least 50 cents to rent a utensil….50 cents!?! Per utensil!??! That had to be a typo. That would be $100 just for our people to have forks. And we had to have forks to eat dinner. Add a knife, spoon, dessert fork, plate, and we’re talking $2-$3 per person just for the place settings!

No way were we going to pay that.

I'm a bargain shopper by nature. Mainly because my nature is cheap. When I saw the rental prices for things such as plates, forks, chair, and linens, I knew there had to be a better deal out there. I just had to find it. Enter my new best friends: Amazon, Craig, and EBay. The deals were right in front of me! I was buying bud vases (more on that later) on eBay, utensils on Amazon, and oodles of vintage china plates and mason jars via Craigslist! It was a cornucopia of affordable wedding necessities! To top it off, afterwards, I could resell it all! Winning!

I wasn’t able to buy everything online, no matter how hard I tried. So the rest required some leg work which involved frequenting many Goodwill locations as well as my personal favorite: Canton. It’s basically a huge flea market held in east Texas the weekend of the first Monday of the month, conveniently located only an hour’s drive from Dallas. I love going and have dragged various people along for the ride for the last few months.

I realize that this route requires a lot of extra work and time that most people don't want to commit to. However, I embraced it and used it as an excuse to go shopping. It's been fun and exciting and I'm so glad that I decided to “collect” all the necessities. Sometimes it's nerve racking as I'm counting down those last seconds of an eBay auction, and every once in a while I feel a little dumb when friends or family members look at me like I have two heads when I mention that we have 24 120” tablecloths in our spare bedroom, or the 200 sets of utensils, and did I mention the 200 vintage china plates? But that’s ok. I’m starting to get used to it actually. I’ll I have to remember is that I will have gotten what I wanted, for the price I wanted to pay by taking this road less travelled. And that makes it all worth it. (Picture of our 2nd bedroom. Our shed is also filled with more boxes!)

What do you think? Is all-inclusive worth it? As we get closer to the wedding date I might start to rethink my stance on it.