from cupcakes for clara

So, you have been planning a dream wedding for the past year or two and you have only 2 months to go! How exciting! Then you look at your budget and your finances and realize that you have gone way over your budget and you are now stuck with no money for the rest of the wedding items.

Don’t worry – take a deep breath and get your mind into fundraising mode. Even if you have only 2 months to make everything fall into place, there is no reason why you can’t raise a lot of money by being creative.

1. Taking a secondary job out at this point might seem frivolous and you have to also think about the rest and relaxation will need. Well, you probably shouldn’t tire yourself out by working at a restaurant, but there are some jobs that you can do which are relaxing and manageable at this point in the game.

You could sign up for some extra work on a movie set. Granted the hours are long and you will get tired, but the pay is good and you will have a fair amount of time to sit and go through wedding details. Plus, it is great fun!

2. Another idea for an odd weekend job is to be a private tutor. Lots of students look for someone to help them with extra math lessons, English, Geography and more. You can also offer private dance classes, singing lessons or anything else that you are good at and able to teach. If you love children, you can also offer services as a child minder or baby sitter. This is also a good paying job which only takes up a few hours of your time.

3. If you need to raise a lot of money, then you will need to get very creative. Get all your friends and family involved and make sure that everyone on your guest list is also involved. You can hold a raffle with a hamper of goodies as a prize. You can get someone to bake a cake to include in the prize as well as a bottle of wine, nuts, fancy soaps or anything else you like.

4. Use the power of the internet and start a social networking site about your wedding like on Facebook for example. You can get all your friends to donate money to your cause and you can up the ante, by doing various things that will get them to pay more.

5. Take a video yourself conquering a known fear if the price is right. Set a date that you will do your mini “Fear Factor” and allow the money to roll in. Once you have reached your target, you must take a video of you conquering your fear or you can get all your sponsors to come and watch you do it and cheer you on.

With only 2 months to plan, you will have to come up with some ingenious ways to make up that much needed cash for your wedding. Most of the time, friends and family, knowing that weddings are so costly, are only too happy to do what they can to help.

6. You must take into account any kind of talent that you have that will allow you to make money. For example, if you are a good singer, hold a concert at your home or a friend’s house, and get your guests to pay an entrance fee to the show. It will ensure that everyone has lots of fun and it will help you out at the same time.

7. Raising money for any event is no easy task, but lets take some inspiration from the good old days at school or at your local sports club, where fundraising was almost a way of life. You used to have events like dances, cake sales, and lots of other things. Well, for your wedding, why not organize a cake sale. Top it off with a lemonade stand and you will soon be getting lots of customers.

8. You can even get some friends and family involved in a yard sale. Everyone can pitch in with items that they don’t want anymore and were probably going to throw out anyway. Ask someone to do face painting for the kids, get a lemonade stand set up and have a really fun day selling your old items. Remember, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, so really go to town and have everything you can think of in the yard sale.

You can also take some initiative from television. Use your wedding as at theme for an event. Think of things you have done or seen in the past. It is really up to you to be as creative as possible and make fundraising for your wedding fun and interesting for you and for those people you are so relying on for funds.

9. Of course if you are really stuck you can always take out a loan from a parent or other family member, but a lot of people would rather do it themselves. Some people are also not able to do this and will have no choice but to find the money somehow. With 2 months to go, you will probably also be quite tired from all the planning and a bit stressed out, so it is a great idea for you to take some time out and chill, while fundraising at the same time.

10. If you feel comfortable enough with your maid of honor, she can also be a great help with your cash flow problems. As part of her duties a good maid of honor will also try to fund raise for you in any way possible. She can get all the bride’s maids together one weekend and organize to have a bikini clad carwash. People will come from all over your town to get their cars waxed and polished.

11. The best man can also chip in and organize a fun evening for a few guys. He can plan a friendly poker evening, with the winner having to donate all his winnings to the bride and groom. This will work for a variety of games.

12. Another idea is to have a groomsmen auction night. Each groom can be sold to the highest bidder and he will be his or her “slave for a day”. These maid of honor and best man ideas could be incorporated into the bride’s hen party and the groom’s stag evening.

When everyone gets involved there is no end to the amount of great ideas that can come up and some or all of them can be used to fund your wedding. This is of course to ensure you have the day of your dreams, but so that everyone else has a great time too. If each person contributes in some way to your special day, it will make the financial implications so much less overbearing.

13. You can also of course not only concentrate on your friends and family and the people on your guest list. There are certain things you can do, where anyone in your community will get involved. The car wash idea is one of them. Making cakes and items to sell is another, although you will have to think about how much time you have. A blitz sale of items can be done with something like a yard sale, and you can also get your community involved by offering services gardening, doing lawns and general maintenance over weekends.

Although some of these concepts seem like a lot of hard work, you can always get your close friends and family involved. With a major event already being planned, taking on smaller events, so to speak, can be a bit daunting. You must remember to take your budget into account with these fundraisers and only do what you can manage in the short space of time that you have.

14. If it is too complicated and you don’t have the space time to plan a singing show, rather leave that idea and just offer to do work around the garden and home for people. This will be easy enough to do in 2 months and will only require a few hours of your time over a Saturday or Sunday. This idea is good if you don’t need a huge amount of cash because you will essentially only have about 8 days to make money in.

15. For making larger amounts of money quickly, one of the best and easiest things is to plan a yard sale. All you have to do is tell everyone when it will be, stick some signs around your area and get everyone you know to bring stuff to sell. It is easy, requires hardly any planning and gets you a lot of money, while at the same time cleaning out your home and getting rid of the clutter.

You really have so many options when looking for ways to raise money in a short space of time. There are things that anyone can do and these will also not take a lot from your side in terms of effort or planning. You already have enough to plan with your wedding coming up after all! Whichever fundraising plans you decide to use, here’s wishing you the best of luck.