Bouquets - CHECK!

I know I've received a great deal of judgement about the fact that I am using silk flowers for all of my wedding flowers, but now that my bouquet as well as those for all 9 of my bridesmaids are done and I know how little I paid for them, and how little I'll have to even think about them, I'm happy with my decision.

J and I were in an antique store one day looking for teapots and just shopping around when I came across some little silk bouquets in one of the booths.  They were really cute and the ribbon wrapped stems were SO well done.  I took the lady's card and called her.  We picked a day to meet up and before I left home, I had a moment of panic when I realized that I hadn't purchased enough silk bushes to make all the bridesmaid bouquets.  So, I took her the flowers that I have for my bouquet and told her what I was looking for on the bridesmaids'.  I knew that I'd have to pay a little more than expected since I'd have to pay for the flowers, so I was a little nervous about the cost, BUT in the end I was pleasantly surprised!!!

They aren't EXACTLY what I pictured, but every time I look at them, they grow on me more.  She added flowers and she actually used some yellow flowers in the bridesmaids', which freaked me out initially, but as I thought more about it, if there had to be a color other than purple, lime and white, I'm glad it's yellow instead of something that's TOTALLY different than the greens that I was going for.  There are a few things I'm still planning on changing about them, but overall, I'm pretty happy with them.

Bridesmaids

I'll probably take the bows off of everything.  I'll also probably cut some of the random sticking up things out of them just because I prefer a more round and clean bouquet.

Here's mine!!!

NOW... just wait until I tell you how much I paid for these... are you ready for this?  10 bouquets (9 bridesmaids and 1 bride), materials for ALL the bridesmaids' and part of the bridal, all of the pearls attached to the FABULOUSLY wrapped stems, AND labor...

LESS THAN $120!!!!!!


Yes... that's what I said.  I paid less than $12 per bouquet.  Find me a florist, who can do that.  I may have been able to come close to that if I would have purchased my own flowers, but my frustration and loss of sanity over trying to wrap the stems would have sent me over the edge.

SO, if you are considering a silk bouquet, don't let people's judgement deter you... silk flower look more and more real all the time and if you can  find someone good like the lady I used, it's so worth it!  SO, if you'd like her contact information, email me and I'd be happy to share (she's in the DFW area)!

Reception Lighting

One of the things that I've been trying to figure out is how to add color to our big white box of a reception hall.  We decided that we are going to use dark purple tablecloths, but our centerpieces are not tall and the ceilings in the reception room are, so I still feel like we need something to add some color to the walls and really bring our wedding colors into the room.

I don't have a huge lighting line in my budget... in fact, I don't have a lighting line in my budget.  I'm going to make it happen, but I'm going to have to get a lot of bang for my buck on this one.

The lighting decision is going to be made while I'm in Indiana for Christmas... so here's a glimpse into my research.

Let's start with what I'm NOT going to do... this is a good example.  There's no need to make the whole room one color... it's already white... not need to just turn it in to some other color.

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I'm also pretty sure something like this is not in the cards... there are too many lights involved.

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I think we are headed more along the lines of these...

minus the stars and monogram

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Plus purple table cloths

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This one is AWESOME!












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As is this one...

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So I think that I know the look I'm going for.  I can't afford to put lights all around the room, and really, I don't think I'd want to because basically an entire wall of our room is taken up by a bar, so that would leave 3 walls with lights and I'm too symmetrical a person to be able to deal with that.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with lights behind the head table and a few behind the buffet lines to add a little bit of color on either side of the room.  I just don't know where to put them, how many I'll need, or what color(s) I should to with, but I guess that's why I'm paying a party rental company... so that they can help me with things like that.  

What do you think?!?!?

Welcome Knotties... Part 3!!!

Do It Yourself!!!


Part of our major focus has been our budget.  We are trying to save as much money as we can by doing things ourselves, which also lets us personalize things more than the standard decorations that our banquette hall offers. You'll see a LONG list on the left sidebar of stuff that we are doing ourselves.  Here's a quick summary of our long list...

Bouquetes - this is something that I'm not really doing by myself.  I'm kind of a freak about flowers... I love them, but I don't love how they wilt and how you just can't be sure that you're going to get the exact color that you're looking for.  Since I'm so far away, I've decided that I'm going to use silk flowers instead of real because 1. I can't afford a florist on my budget... there are too many other things that I want to spend our money on, and 2. The silk flowers don't cause NEARLY as much stress.  So, I found a great lady who creates beautiful silk bouquetes at an antique shop nearby.  I bought the flowers for my bouquete and she's getting the ones for the bridesmaids.  I'm sure they will be beautiful.

Boutineers - our boutineers are going to be herbs.  We are going to make these the day or two before the wedding.  They should be pretty easy... just some herbs and some ribbon and a pin and they'll be done!

Invitations - We have a few different invitations to create... rehearsal dinner, bridal brunch, and obviously the wedding invitation.  We started out with a Target invitation kit, and although they were really cool, they were brown and I could not find out a way to incorporate our colors into it the way I wanted to.  So we switched to an invitation that's ALL do it yourself.  We bought the purple petal fold envelopes, we bought and cut lime green and the ivory cardstock and eventually we will be printing the invites and put them together.  They are going to be AMAZING when they're done!!!

Card Box - the card box is a bird cage that my mom's had for years.  We are going to spray paint it, put some ribbon on it and TAH DAH, it will be a card box!

Centerpieces - our centerpieces are teapots because that's how J proposed.  They are all different and we bought each of them for less than $5 and we are putting hydrangeas in them.  We only have a few more teapots until we get to the 40 we need and then we just have to put them all together.

Escort Card Display - We have 2 easels, 4 foam boards, 2 rolls of wrapping paper and lots of rolls of ribbon to make this... hopefully we will have this done in December!

Favors - we are making our own teabags... which are really teabags inside a big teabag.  We have to print the little tags for the ends of the string, buy and cut the string and put them together, but they should be very easy to make!

Groom's Cake - J and I both LOVE Rice Krispies and when I saw a picture of a grooms' cake made of them on The Knot, I knew that I wanted to do it!  We have our pans and we may test (at least the first couple of layers) the cake at Christmas time.  This is going to be a really cool!!!

Guest Book - This is probably one of the crazier things that we are doing.  Both J and I have quilts that we just love.  His mom is a big quilter and so is my Grandma.  I have always loved quilts and once I saw a quilt that a friend from high school did for her baby shower, I was hooked.  So, instead of the traditional guestbook, we will have a queen sized quilt for all of our guests to sign!!!

Monogram - this is the first project that we completed!  We did this ourselves and printed it and put it inside the front of our wedding binder.  Then, I found a place where you could make your own stickers and NOW, we have 1,000 stickers with our monogram on them!  I don't know if we'll use it anywhere else, but I think we will have plenty of chances to use our 1,000 stickers.

Out of Towner Packets - I contact the Ft Wayne Visitors Bureau and they were really nice and told me that they would be happy to give me any information and brochures about the city that I'd like, as well as a list of restaurants in the area of our hotel and a bunch of coupons to give to our guests.  These should be a really easy project that will hopefully make our guests feel welcome in Ft Wayne!

Photo Share Cards - J and I both have families full of shutterbugs, so we are hoping that we can get people to share their pictures with us and with the other guests.  We have created a Snapfish group page and we are going to try to either put the info inside the escort cards, or make business cards with the information.

Pomanders - these are going to be a HUGE HUGE HUGE project.  We are planning to make 40 pomanders, 20 green and 20 purple, that we are going to hang on the aisle chairs at the ceremony to add some color to the space.  We are currently cutting a BILLION circles out of fabric and eventually we will get around to putting them on the styrofoam balls.  Part of me is COMPLETELY overwhelmed by this and the other part of me is SO excited because they are going to be amazing!!!

Programs - these are going to be simple.  We are printing them on pretty, light purple paper and folding them in half and handing them out!  They are already designed and once we finalize all of our details, they will be ready to print.

Ring Bearer Pillow - This project was my first adventure in sewing machines.  J's mom taught me how to use a sewing machine last summer (and now I really want one) and I made the inside of our ring bearer pillow.  J's mom covered it with satin and is putting some purple and green ribbon on it, and it's going to look great!

Save the Dates - we didn't do these completely by ourselves.  A friend of mine from work who's also getting married found a website for these and I loved them!  SO we picked our layout and our colors and had them printed.  They are awesome and they gave us extras and envelopes and we just labeled, stamped and sent them out!

Table Numbers - we have not decided how these are going to be done, but they are going to be incorporated into the centerpieces.  More to come later...

Veil - again, I didn't really do this myself, but it is homemade.  One of the student workers in my department is a fantastic seamstress and she made it for me.  It's exactly what I wanted and the less than $30 I spent on the whole thing sure beats what I would have paid at a bridal store!!!

So, that's my complete list... it's a long one and I have a long way to go in less than 8 months, so I guess it's about time I get to work... wish me luck and you can keep up with my progress on the left sidebar where I'll post the finished products!

WHOA...

We are less than a week away from the commencement of step one in the wedding planning process… well, step one and two… and frankly, I am TERRIFIED!!!

It seems like something that’s silly to be scared of, but I don’t like spending money. I don’t have any problem spending money at work, and I’m pretty confident that I would be happy to spend someone else’s money, but I really hate spending my own and this is going to be the largest purchase I’ve made in my entire life. I’ve never bought a car… my dad bought a car that I just recently paid off (hooray), but at $200 a month it wasn’t that scary because I didn’t write a big huge check that made me hyperventilate as I wrote more and more zeros. That’s what I’m about to embark on, and just the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
I know that I have to spend money on this wedding, but our budget is basically getting blown out of the water and I hate the idea of spending so much money on a party. At the same time, I want everyone who comes to have fun and enjoy themselves and I don’t want to cut too many corners on things because there will be people coming from a long way away to celebrate with us. They are people who are very important to us and they deserve more than a half-assed party.

I like having nice things and I want my wedding to be nice. J and I are both facility people… we notice when something looks dirty and when something looks cheap… that’s not what we want. We can’t afford a fancy hotel for our reception, but we want something classy, with character.

I absolutely, positively REFUSE to put any of our wedding costs on a credit card unless I can pay it off immediately. My wedding will not put me in to debt… I’ve never paid interest on a credit card and I’m certainly not going to start now!

Next week is going to be overwhelming for me, and I’m so excited to be able to put a picture in my head of what my wedding will look like… the tables, the flowers, the dance floor, the lighting… but I feel like it will also be the beginning of a lot of deep breaths and a lot of needed reassurance. J tells me that if there is something we want to do for our wedding, we are going to do it… I’m probably going to need to hear that a lot over the next 15 months.