Mrs. Kiwi, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation in 06: 27, Bookkeeper
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, P.E. Teach/Coach @ private schools in LA
Engagement Date: March 31, 2006
Wedding Date: November 3, 2007
Venue: Radisson Hotel
About Me: I'm a bookkeeper who failed high school algebra. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, literally a street over from where I grew up with Mr. Kiwi, my honey of three years. We have a jumbo mini-dachshund (seriously, he's huuuuge), and we're planning an autumn themed wedding on a shoestring, paid for by ourselves. The wedding date is my late grandma's birthday, I needed her there somehow, and that seemed like the best way for us. I can't believe I'm a Bee! I couldn't be more proud!
I Like Cheap Stuff
May 11th, 2007 @ 11:02 am by Mrs. Kiwi
Lately I’ve been thinking of doing all the things that I thought I wouldn’t do, regarding our wedding. Take my recent obsession with personalized napkins. I thought and thought about it, until I went to a wedding and heard people complain, “What, the hotel’s napkins aren’t good enough?” So, with my tail between my legs, I let that expense go the wayside. Yes, I am easily influenced by criticism. 
Also, I’d rather spend the money on something else (even though For Your Party has the cutest ones ever).
Anyway, one thing I am considering is a camera for each table, possibly with a list of pictures for a scavenger hunt. In actuality, I kind of like the idea of just putting out a camera and a card saying, “Please help us make memories! Snap a pic of something special (and not your/a butt)!”
Over a year ago a friend told me about Cudge, and how cost-saving everything is. So I went looking and found a good deal on cameras, $3.44 per camera, 27 exposures with a flash. Unfortunately, the designs are a little “different”, but maybe I could wrap them?
This is the “Wedding Memories” camera:
And this one is a bit more plain, but has silver (which doesn’t match) hearts .
Man, I just love Cudge. I mean, seriously, 72 votive candles and holders for $35.44?! Can you say “bargain”?
8 Responses to “I Like Cheap Stuff”
I haev heard of knottie making labels for their disposable table cameras–which could cover up some of those elements you don’t care for. Sometimes the label is just their monogram, and I think other times it’s directions on how to effectively use a camera (”X” feet away, use flash)!
You know, the idea of cameras is cute, but from every wedding I’ve been to, I’ve heard back that they were a total waste of money. Either a large number of cameras disappeared (or were somehow destroyed), or the pictures that were taken were all completely useless: entire rolls of people’s feet, people being drunken idiots, flashes not working so it’s all dark. That out of several hundred pictures, you’ll MAYBE get a dozen good ones. Is that worth the expense of developing all those cameras? I don’t think so.
I would rather put that money towards the pro photographer, if I were you. JMHO.
My FSIL had cameras at her wedding last summer. They were so unused that we gathered them up and took them to their hotel to drop them off so that they could use them on their honeymoon. Even with that, we have enough left over to use at OUR wedding! I think, if you really are set on having them, that you might just get three or four to put on a table with a little sign that says “take a few pictures, then pass it on”
The people at your wedding who really like taking pictures will be the only serious picture takers - the rest of the people, especially any kids, will goof around with them - and even then those serious people will only take a few shots so that they can take pictures of everything with their own (better quality) cameras.
A spin on this idea is to get burnable CDs and let guests take those home to burn you copies of the pictures they took. You could put them in SASEs which I bet would still be cheaper than developing a bunch of random, fuzzy, goofy nonwedding pictures 
(If this was a perfect world where everyone took a camera and used it for wedding things, would you really need 15 shots of every event that happened, on top of what your very expensive pro photographer got?)
Yeah, I’m just going to demand everyone take lots of digital shots and send them to me. I like the CD idea too, but I’m betting those would mostly disappear afterwards also.
But that isn’t to say that I don’t LOVE cudge!!! I got the amber votive holders with ivory tealights and they were SO cheap and sooooooo cute!!! Love them!
Good news — you can probably trim this off your budget, too. After our wedding everyone sent us tons of digital photos from their own cameras — great quality shots (vs disposable cameras), and since it costs nothing (time or money) to email photos, there was no burden on anyone. The truly talented photographers in the family even sent us CDs of all their photos so they wouldn’t crash our email. We didn’t even have to ask for them to send the pictures, they just came! It was wonderful.
i agree with not getting wedding cameras….every bride i spoke to about wedding cameras had wished they didn’t spend that extra $$ on all those cameras.
instead one bride opted to hire a sibling of a friend with a nice digi cam and a photo printer, seated him next to the sign in table and took fun pics of her guests with a simple backdrop. he ended up making 2 copies of everything and kept one for the bride and groom and put the others up on a clothesline kind of deal setup so that their guests can take and share their pics. this way the bride and groom can see pics of all their guests.
If you do get cameras, do not get no-name brands like the ones you pictured. These are refurbished cases and have the problem of potentially letting light in which would ruin the photos. Always go with the Fuji or Kodak ones.
[…] I saw this blog entitled “I like cheap stuff”, of course, I couldn’t resist! As I myself….LOVE cheap stuff! :o) Now, I’m not a […]
