My niece is getting married in about 10 days. It's a frugal affair, with each family attending being asked to bring a dish that serves 15 people. The cake is a wedding gift, the pictures taken by a relative, the brides gown was a steal at $150, it was $1000! So I feel safe in giving the bride a gift that will help her expand on her frugal ways. I made her 3 potholders and a dishcloth for the gift to open, but I thought that I'd like to create a book of laundry soap recipes, homemade cleaner recipes, a few empty spray bottles and items to begin making cleaners like; fels-naptha soap, washing soda, borax, vinegar ect.and wrap it up in a 5 gallon lidded bucket.

Does anyone have any ideas, or thoughts on this gift idea? Any great recipes they'd like to share? Any input would be most welcome.

Great idea Polly. I'll need to think about this one. I know that there are great minds at FV who know these things off the top of their heads!! Looking forward to seeing all that you come up with!!

i am amazed at how little my peers know about being frugal, especially with cleaning etc. I had to explain to my roomies how to use Borax, white vinegar and baking soda to clean with. I also can't seem to break their addiction to paper towels, throw away cleaning product etc.
In short, great idea. I may start doing to same thing for gifts...

I would love it if someone gave me a gift like this at my bridal shower/wedding coming up next month. It's a great idea, too bad I have nothing to offer in ways of ideas.

You could include a page of tips that doesn't really require a recipe.

***Such as saving old toothbrushes to scrub grout
***vinegar and water to mop floors
use the bottom of a milk gallon as a plunger ***holder that can be disposed of and replaced without cost
***calculate the cost of an average family's spending on napkins and suggest making some from clothing or linens that are otherwise going out
***calculate the cost of paper towels versus rags from the rag bag
*** old newspapers as the rag with vinegar work great for windows and mirrors
***suggest a reusable coffee filter for thier coffee maker

and so on...

I love frugal weddings....I went to one several years back where the bride and groom made thier dress/suit. The groom made the cake, which was gorgeous and yummy. The bride made center pieces for all the tables (which were borrowed picnic/outside tables from everyone they knew) from the flowers in her back yard (which is where the wedding was held), and food was pot luck. My favorite part though was the guest playing the wedding march on kazoos.

My son and his wife did a frugal wedding as well. They would have loved a gift such as that. . . .

BTW - I love the wedding march on kazoos!

I have no ideas to contribute, but I just wanted to say I love the gift idea and the frugal wedding. :)

How about a gift certificate for cloth diapers to be redeemed at such time as needed??? A copy of the Tightwad Gazette book?? Dollar Store gift card??

Well I think it wonderful and refreshing to hear about a wedding like this one. I know when I got married 19 years ago all my friends were getting married and spending $15,000 on weddings. My dh and I had no desire for that at all and married in a ceremony with our immediete family but still added up to about 80 people. My parents had very little money and I ordered my dress from the JCPenney catalog for 99.00 and it was so pretty. We got married in the morning and had catering for lunch at half the cost of dinner although it was the same food and cost less then 2000.00 . Back then it was scandalous to have a wedding that only cost that but it was so pretty . It was at Christmas time so I had to pay exactly nothing for decorations since everything was decorated for the holiday and the room in the banquet hall we rented piped in music for free and we didnt have to pay for a band or deejay which was fine since we didnt want to dance and it was so early in the day.

I have a cousin who has been saving for almoist three years now for a wedding . I said why does it have to be this 25,000.00 deal? She said well its a wedding, my only one hopefully, I want it to be perfect. To me that says its about the wedding not a marriage. I think thats sad. Also I notice all those friends who had this extravagant weddings are all divorced now.

As for ideas for the gift , I LOVE the idea you shared with us and also what you could do that is free is make her a collection or your recipes. I had an aunt who did that for me and it was one of my favorite gifts.

I might also throw in something like hm placemats with matching cloth napkins, a copy of "Your Money or Your Life", "The Richest Man in Babylon" and the "Tightwad Gazette" or whatever you were comfortable with. I don't know the recipes off the top of my head, but surely you could google them. Best wishes to the happy couple, and congrats on having such a smart family!

My nephew's ex-wife (he's not innocent either) was very focused on 'wedding' not 'marriage' and 'having a baby' not 'having a family'. Needless to say, divorced. Sad, sad, sad!

Niece in law got married a few years ago. Cost was $10,000 Grandparents and mother paid for probably 75% of it. They couldn't afford it.

Marriage lasted 6 months.

i'd make her a recipe type binder with all sorts of tips (from this board) , web sites )like this board) the tighwad gazettes... me i'd likely add a gc to a grocery store..and a list of the books i'd recommend..

i believe we'll see more of these in the future..

our wedding was $$$$$ which was due more to parents than dh and me....i would have LOVED a champagne breakfast, followed by a back yard bbq that evening....i can still imagine it...and renting a hall for breakfast is Nothing!!!!! as they still rent in for evening functions..

oh well

I had every intention of doing this as a wedding gift but I went to Wal-mart and they had boxes of 3 in 1 coffee maker, iron & a toaster on clearance for $10. Comes out to around $3.33 a piece so I picked her one up for her gift. However, I'm still going to do this for her down the road. I think this is extremely valuable to a frugal couple and I'm sure they'll use it. It will give me time to pick up the books through Amazon too.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I've never heard of a frugal wedding before. This is too cool!

DH and I figured we spent about $1500 for our wedding. My Mom and Dad paid for the food, which was about $1500. I tried to do everything on a budget, since we didn't have much money. 18-25 years ago, our friends were having extravaganzas for their weddings. I thought mine was just as nice and we had fun! No bills, either!

Yeah, It's really cool.

His Aunt is giving her the wedding cake as her wedding gift. His other Aunt is giving the flowers, our cousin is doing the photography as her wedding gift, Our Aunt is making all the wedding favors, I'm making the center pieces and with my Aunts and my boys help decorating the wedding hall. Wedding hall decorations are a collection of my lace tablecloths and a few other things, and a few of us pooled together and purchased some things to decorate.

For the pot luck part, the brides bringing tubs of pasta and sauce, I'm bringing hot dogs and saurkraut & SF jello, my oldest and his girl are bringing cabbage rolls, my one Aunt is bringing fried rice and my other Aunt is bringing chips and dip, my Mom is bringing lasanga. That's all that I know of so far.

The bride and groom bought sparkling juice for the toast. A few people, myself included are bringing glasses to toast the bride and groom. The punch will be a simple red kool-aid and a lemon lime soda. I've got to pull out my fancy punch bowl and ladle.

The whole affair is totally frugal and will be beautiful when we are done. You can put on a lovely affair if you're willing to accept that the wedding will not be like all those brides magazines and maybe you can't have the hall decorated in the wedding colors due to budget constraints or the hall is sporting streamers and ballons rather then a more refined decor, or doing without a DJ/band (I'm bringing our cd player and a collection of cds for music, their first dance as husband and wife will be just as meaningful) , or having a 5 course sit down dinner with wait staff. This bride and groom decided it was not worth starting their life together in debt, and they were willing to make these sacrifices, just like you and your husband. I think it shows great maturity on a young couples part not to fall into that expensive wedding trap. Good for you Crazy homemaker!

What you described is going to be sooooo coooool! You'll have to post pics, if you can.

I know you'll enjoy it.

And, Best Wishes to the bride and groom!

No new ideas but....What a fantastic idea! I think it is great.....and sooooo very sensible. Even less stress!

Have fun and CONGRATS to the bride and groom.

This thread has given me some great new ideas and an interesting view on things....I love it! :)

another thought would be to make a card and introduce her to this website int it.