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How to plan a Sam’s Club Member’s Mark wedding: 5 tips to save money on your big day
This content is sponsored by Sam’s Club.
Sam’s Club
According to wedding planning site The Knot, the average cost of a wedding was a whopping $35,000 in 2023. Even if you can afford to spend that much money on a one-day event, you don’t have to — with smart planning and a few clever wedding hacks, you can have a glitzy and glamorous dream-worthy wedding without spending a fortune.
One of our favorite wedding hacks is Sam’s Club. The warehouse store offers everything you need for a wedding, from fresh flowers to multi-tier cakes to stunning wedding rings. And it’s all available at eye-popping low prices.
We love that Sam’s Club has options for every wedding budget. You can go small, intimate and inexpensive (save that money for the honeymoon!), or plan something truly lavish with a ring reveal that will be talked about for years. Even if you have a ring, wedding planner, caterer and florist already, Sam’s Club is a great place to shop for engagement parties, family receptions, bachelor and bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners and all the other events surrounding your big day.
Read on for our top five tips to save money on your wedding by shopping at Sam’s Club. Not a Sam’s Club member yet? Great news: You can get a one-year Club membership for just $20 now through April 15 (conditions apply). That’s a savings of more than 60% off the regular $50 price. Or, you can save $40 on a Sam’s Club Plus membership. Tap the button below to sign up now and start shopping today.
5 ways to save money on your wedding at Sam’s Club
Planning a wedding doesn’t have to be expensive. Member’s Mark (available exclusively at Sam’s Club) offers great quality and value on a wide selection of essentials for your special day. Here’s how you can save on your wedding at Sam’s Club.
Get the perfect engagement ring at Sam’s Club
Sam’s Club
Did you know that Sam’s Club has a wide range of jewelry options, including gorgeous engagement rings and wedding bands? This 1.0 ct. total weight diamond engagement ring is made of 14k white gold, with a 0.40 large round center stone surrounded by 0.35 ct. total weight of diamonds. Find it in sizes from 5.5 to 10. (Some sizes are unavailable.)
“The pictures do not do this justice,” says one Sam’s Club reviewer. “I ordered this for my now fiancé and she can not stop staring at it. It looks a million times better in person than online. This ring shines like crazy in the sunlight.”
“It’s been five years and [I’m] still madly in love with this ring,” adds another.
Get beautiful flowers at Sam’s Club
Sam’s Club
No wedding is complete without flowers. The Member’s Mark White Wedding Collection, one of the many floral options at Sam’s Club, includes bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages and rose petals. White roses, white oriental lilies, white stock and white limonium are all hand-arranged in Florida and are ready to go, right out of the box.
“We were extremely satisfied with our purchase of wedding flowers for our daughter’s wedding,” says one Sam’s Club reviewer. “They were delivered as promised, packaged professionally and all the flowers in this collection were perfect!”
Or, if you’re feeling creative, you can specific flowers and greenery in bulk and use them to create your own custom arrangements. With Sam’s Club flowers, the only limit is your imagination.
Sam’s Club recommends ordering your flowers for delivery two days before your event.
Get a Member’s Mark custom wedding cake
Sam’s Club
Sam’s Club offers so many different options when it comes to wedding cakes. You can get a sheet cake in your choice of icing colors, or level up to a two- or three-tier Member’s Mark cake that’ll truly impress. Cookie cakes are available too, as are cupcakes.
Member’s Mark cakes are highly customizable. The wedding-themed options are available in silver or gold and can be personalized with text. Or, you can create your own custom cake with 20 icing options and colors and 15 types of sprinkles.
You can go big or small with a Member’s Mark cake. A large, three-tier Sam’s Club cake feeds up to 66.
Prices of Member’s Mark custom cakes vary based on design and size.
Feed the whole wedding party with Member’s Mark
Sam’s Club
Well-fed wedding guests are happy wedding guests. Fortunately, Member’s Mark offers all sorts of taste-tempting party trays, including fruit and cheese trays, vegetable trays, charcuterie tasting boards, wrap trays, sandwich trays and sushi trays.
For dessert, pick up a Member’s Mark cookie tray. And if you’re hosting a wedding brunch, be sure to check out Member’s Mark Belgian waffle party tray.
Check out all the Member’s Mark party tray options by tapping the link below. Prices vary.
Stock the bar with Sam’s Club and Member’s Mark
Sam’s Club
Sam’s Club offers beer, hard seltzer, wine, champagne, liquor and more from your favorite brands, perfect for stocking the bar at the wedding and all the parties and gatherings beforehand. You can get all the mixers you need, plus pre-mixed cocktails.
Want to save some money? Sam’s Club offers a wide range of spirits under its Member’s Mark brand. They all offer great value, without sacrificing taste and quality.
And don’t forget the little ones and teetotalers — you’ll want plenty of non-alcoholic beverage options on hand at your wedding. Sam’s Club offers sodas, juices, bottled water and more. Pick them up in-store, or have them delivered straight to your home.
Join Sam’s Club for $20 in April
Not a Sam’s Club member yet? Great news: Sam’s Club is offering a membership deal this April. New members can join at the Club level for just $20 for your first year. That’s a savings of 60% off the usual $50 yearly membership fee. (Note that you’ll need to be a new Sam’s Club member, and you’ll need to agree to auto-renew.)
This is a limited-time offer; it’s not clear when it will end. So tap the button below to sign up for Sam’s Club now at the discounted $25 rate.
Why you should upgrade to Sam’s Club Plus
There are a lot of perks to a Sam’s Club membership, but there are even more when you upgrade to Sam’s Club Plus. You’ll get free shipping for online orders, free curbside pickup, 2% back on qualifying purchases (up to $500 back per year), free select generic prescriptions and 20% off eyeglasses. Sam’s Club Plus members can also shop sales before other Sam’s Club members. Terms apply. (See the Sam’s Club site for more details.)
The warehouse retailer also has a deal for customers who want to become Sam’s Club Plus members. Right now, you can get $40 off a Sam’s Club Plus membership. That brings the annual price down to $70.
Again, note that you’ll need to be a new member and agree to auto-renew to score this deal.
Severe thunderstorms blew out windows in high-rise buildings, downed trees and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Houston area Thursday as Southeast Texas got pummeled for the second time this month.
Flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for multiple counties, with damaging winds and even tornadoes possible into the evening, said Houston’s National Weather Service office.
“Take shelter now if you’re in the path of this storm. Head to the lowest floor!” the NWS office warned on social media.
Streets were flooded and trees were down across the region. CBS affiliate KHOU-TV showed images of shattered windows on an office building in downtown Houston, with glass littering the street below. Video posted to social media showed a downtown street covered in debris.
Video also appeared to show water being blown into Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros, despite the stadium’s roof being closed.
Flights were grounded at Houston’s two major airports because of the weather. Sustained winds topping 60 mph were recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
In total, just over one million customers were without power in Texas as of Thursday evening, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
Of that, more than 842,000 customers were without electricity in and around Harris County, which contains Houston. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people.
“Please avoid the roadways if possible, but if you’re out, please use caution and be on the lookout for debris,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez wrote on social media. Gonzalez shared an image of vehicles attempting to traverse around a massive tree that had come crashing down into an intersection.
The Houston Independent School District announced all schools would be closed Friday.
Heavy storms slammed the region during the first week of May, leading to numerous high-water rescues, including some from the rooftops of flooded homes.
The Biden administration on Thursday announced an effort to shorten the time it takes for U.S. immigration judges to decide the asylum cases of certain migrants who enter the country illegally along the border with Mexico.
Migrant adults released by federal border officials after crossing into the U.S. unlawfully will be eligible to be placed in the program, under a joint initiative between the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts.
The effort’s objective, senior U.S. officials said, is to speed up the process of granting asylum to migrants with legitimate cases, and rejecting weak cases. Federal officials under Republican and Democratic administrations have said the current years-long timeframe to decide asylum cases serves as a “pull factor” that attracts migration by economic migrants, who don’t qualify for humanitarian protection, but who often use the asylum system to work in the U.S.
Over the past years, the backlog of cases received by the immigration courts has ballooned, leading to wait times that often surpass four years. Fewer than 800 immigration judges are overseeing more than 3.5 million unresolved cases.
Single migrant adults who plan to live in five major U.S. cities — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City — could be selected for the new process, which will instruct immigration judges to issue decisions within 180 days, instead of years.
Since the Obama administration, the U.S. has set up several similar programs, colloquially known as “rocket dockets.” While officials have portrayed them as ways to discourage illegal immigration, advocates have said the rocket dockets trample on migrants’ due process by making it more difficult for them to secure lawyers in time for their hearings.
The scope of Thursday’s announcement was not immediately clear, as U.S. officials declined to provide an estimate of the number of migrants who would be placed in the fast-track proceedings. Ten judges have been assigned to the program, one of the officials said during a call with reporters.
The latest rocket docket is the most recent step taken by the Biden administration to curtail unlawful border crossings, which spiked last year to record levels. Last week, the Biden administration published a proposed rule that would allow immigration officials to more quickly reject and deport asylum-seeking migrants who are deemed to endanger public safety or national security.
Last year, the administration implemented a regulation that presumes migrants are ineligible for U.S. asylum if they enter the country illegally after failing to request refuge in another country. It paired that policy with a vast expansion of avenues for some would-be migrants to enter the U.S. legally.
President Biden, who has increasingly embraced more restrictive border policies, has also been considering a more sweeping measure that would further restrict asylum for those entering the U.S. illegally. The move, which would rely on a presidential authority known as 212(f), would almost certainly face legal challenges.
Administration officials have argued they are exploring unilateral immigration actions due to the collapse of a border security agreement that the White House forged with a bipartisan group of senators earlier this year. While the deal would have severely restricted asylum and increased deportations without legalizing unauthorized immigrants, most Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, rejected it outright.
“This administrative step is no substitute for the sweeping and much-needed changes that the bipartisan Senate bill would deliver, but in the absence of congressional action we will do what we can to most effectively enforce the law and discourage irregular migration,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Thursday.
The Biden administration has faced unprecedented levels of migration along the southern border, including over two million migrant apprehensions in each of the past two years.
HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, however, migrant crossings have plunged, bucking historical patterns that have seen migration soar in the spring. Last month, Border Patrol recorded nearly 129,000 migrant apprehensions, down from 137,000 in March, according to government data. U.S. officials have credited increased deportations and an immigration crackdown by Mexico for the surprising drop.
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