* Write your own ceremony. The entire reason for having a wedding, really, is ceremony. The most important aspect of a wedding is not decorations, but vows and intentions that are stated in ceremony and that you give to each other. Research time-honored patterns to wedding ceremonies and follow this pattern in your own personal way.

* Invite meaningful guests. When you have a small number of guests, you can spend more time with them and really experience their presence. Minimum is just two of you, minister, and a witness. Invite family and friends with whom you have real relationships. Eliminate those that might be invited out of social obligation.

* Have your wedding at home, either indoors or in your garden, or in a park. Rather than spending a lot of money on floral arrangements, we put that money into tidying up our back yard and planting perennial flowers that we are still enjoying today.

Looking back on our wedding day, we are very pleased with our simple, small wedding. We were able to relax and enjoy day and experience love and support of our best friends. Best of all, we still had energy left for honeymoon...

For many more details on planning your simple, small, green wedding (including choosing flowers, rings, clothing and reciption, and photos of Debra's wedding), visit http://www.debraslist.com/wedding, and click on "You are invited to... My Simple, Small, Green Wedding". Debra is also available as a consultant to help you plan your wedding.

Be aware of theme throughout your chosen design. If you have bows on all pieces take into consideration number of sets you need. For example: one of my very first clients wanted gold organza bows on invitation, reply card, place cards and thank you cards. I produced a sample set for her which she loved. She ordered 100 sets. That meant 100 invitations, 100 reply cards, 200 place cards and 100 thank you cards. That meant 500 bows and 200 of those were tiny ones for place cards! If you want bows that’s fine, but just be aware of amount of work it can involve. Maybe just have them on invitation and/or place cards. You can always enlist help of your girlfriends and make a night of it.

If you choose to have a folded card, buy it folded where possible. It costs a little extra but cuts down on work you need to do yourself. Scoring card, while not difficult is quite fiddly. You only get one go at scoring card – if it’s wrong then it’s wasted. This can be frustrating and expensive.

Place cards can be purchased individually, in pairs or threes. Don’t buy them individually cut if you are going to print directly onto card as they may not feed well through printer. Our software comes with placecard templates for all sizes which can be guillotined afterwards. Some placecards come with perforations for easy separation.

Making your own stationery can be fun and you will definitely save a bundle if you plan your design thoroughly BEFORE you purchase any materials. Most stationery outlets will have paper and card available by single sheet so purchase a few of ones you like and test them in your printer first.

The key to a smooth process is testing and planning before you decide on anything definitely. Having a set of stationery finished completely and making sure you are happy with look and level of difficulty involved will ensure you enjoy experience.