Last week I had the following conversation with Joe, my husband-to-be:Joe: What’s left to do for the wedding?

Me: So much, I need an aisle runner for one thing.

Joe: What do we need him for?

Me: Him who?

Joe: A runner, why do we need him?

Me: You have no idea what a runner is do you?

Joe: Yeah like the kids you have that like go and run down the aisle in front of you and like throw down flowers or whatever.

Me: Geez, no, it’s the material that you walk on down the aisle.

Joe: Oh well, can’t you get that at your dress shop?

Me: No, why would the dress shop have it, they sell dresses.

Joe: And you have to buy your own runner from somewhere else? Doesn’t it attach to the dress?!

Me: That would be a train.

Needless to say, he was not going to be any help in aisle runner department, so I turned to a pro, Terrica Wedding Diva, for her opinion about where I should start my aisle runner search. She recommended a number of websites (http://www.originalaislerunner.com/, http://www.fairytalerunners.com/, http://www.signatureweddingaislerunners.com/) all of which I pored over while I should have been accomplishing something at my day job. The runners at these sites are definitely of a very high quality. Most of them even come with the option of sticky bottoms for ease when laying down your runner so you/your wedding ushers aren’t forced to do battle with double sided tape on the day of. Of course, the overall fabulousness of the runners on these sites comes with a price. One that I decided I could not afford.

So I started looking into cheaper runners, and found various options ranging from runners that were basically made from notebook paper to some combination of a fabric and paper material. Much more affordable, but are they worth it?…I took to the streets to find out…okay that’s not true at all but I’ve always wanted to say that. Actually, I took to searching various bridal chat sites and reading, with great fear, about the many horror stories that all more or less began with some variation of “I wanted to save money on an aisle runner…” and more or less ended with some variation of trips, falls, minor injuries, embarrassments or general disappointment in their aisle runner decisions.

After replaying a scenario in my mind where the heel of my shoe pokes a hole through the butcher paper I’ve purchased in lieu of a decent runner, and I trip and fall before all of my guests, I decided to forego the idea altogether. I’m sure there’s some old cliché that would be appropriate here about not using some poor substitute when you should have used the real thing, or something to that effect, but I can’t recall it at the moment. Oh the rambling…

…the point is I decided that if I couldn’t go big, I’d go alternative, and chose to have flower petals lining the aisle instead. To cut costs even further I realized that there are really great flower selections at Cosco and Sam’s Club, so I plan to hit up both those places a day or two before the wedding and stock up on roses for the aisle and probably as table decorations as well. Two birds, one stone, and STILL so much left to do….and I always wondered why people needed planners?!