Wedding Wednesday

Happy Day Before Thanksgiving!!!  I hope that everyone is able to spend the holiday with family and friends!

Since Thanksgiving is closely followed by the beginning of "Christmas Season", I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight some great winter wedding decor...

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Another inexpensive idea for centerpieces, or you could use them to line a walkway to a church or reception.  A vase, some salt, some cranberries and a candle.  Very simple, but also very elegant!  If I can find some good fake cranberries (I'm not sure how long real ones would last???), this may make an appearance on my dining room table this holiday season!

You can check out all of my Wedding Wednesday pins on my Wedding Wednesday Pinterest Board!

Happy Hump Day!!!

Wedding Wednesday

For brides on a budget... here is a a simple and yet totally awesome centerpiece idea that I love!

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Seriously... start at the dollar store... find cylinder vases, a big bag of rubber bands and some tea lights.  Then you just need a few cans of spray paint.  put the rubber bands on in a random pattern, spray and VOILA!

You could do different shapes/sizes/heights and 3 at a table would be the perfect simple centerpiece!  I think these would be really cute as a winter decoration, too!

You can find all my Wedding Wednesday ideas on my Wedding Wednesday Pinterest Board!

Happy Hump Day!

Table Numbers

The only decision we have not made yet is how to mark out tables.  I've been doing some research on table number options and have found some really great ones that J and I can choose from!

 

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These are so cute and you may not be able to see this very well, but at the bottom of the card the names of the people at the table are listed.  With so many people needing to get in the building and find their tables, it may be best to have the escort cards AND the table numbers with names on them to make seating easier for everyone.

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These are really cute and it would be fun to have our pictures on our table numbers.  We would have to make a few adjustments to it... changing the font to the ones we've used on everything, change the colors, and I'd probably use actual numbers rather than spelling the word out just because there will be so many tables and a large number would be easier for everyone to see.

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I really love the simplicity of these.  There' not much more to say about them... they are just wonderfully simple.

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This idea came from The DIY Bride blog.  She took photos, cut letters out of them and matted them on card stock.  They are so cute and creative and what a great way to share engagement or favorite photos with everyone!






We'll have to figure out what we want to do and get going on it.  I want to have things ready so that we can just print and put together once we get closer to the wedding.  I will also have to figure out how to incorporate these in to the centerpieces.  Only a few more decision to make!!!

Indiana To Do List

I am so excited to go to Indiana tomorrow.  I have been looking forward to Christmas since Thanksgiving, for MULTIPLE reasons...

1. It's Christmas... nuf said
2. Snow
3. Some time away from work
4. HOPEFULLY a finish to the wedding "planning" and maybe even some DIY projects done

So we leave on Friday evening, and we were lucky enough to get two of our three flights as direct.  We will start by going Texas to Indiana on Friday and then on the 29th, we'll go to South Dakota to J's sister's house, where i get to meet my almost-niece.  Then it's back to Texas on the 1st, but it will be 2 weeks of no work and all family!

SO, let's talk about number 4 on my list of reasons for excitement.  I have booked us pretty solid on Dec 21 with "wedding" meetings.  My mom and I are starting with a trip to the tailor to get my dress altered, and by altered, I need to have a hook and eye put on the bottom of the back opening so that it doesn't gap.  That's all I am willing to do to my dress, and no one will talk me in to more.  OH, and she's hopefully going to bustle it, too (rats... I just figured out that means I have to have my shoes with me... so much for only having to pack 1 pair).

After that, J and I have a meeting with a lady who may be the person who is going to officiate the ceremony.  Yes, we still don't technically have someone to marry us.  If we don't like this lady, we are going with my mom's friend's daughter, and that's that... no more searching.

Last meeting on that day will be at our venue.  We have a few things to do there... 1. meet with a party rental company to talk about reception lighting.  2. pick a purple table cloth.  3. Take some more pictures of the venue so I can a. post them, and b. have fun playing with them while I try and figure out exactly where everything should go.

ALSO, we have to go to the place where I've already put down a deposit for the guys' suits so J can see what they look like and approve them and I'm hoping they have SOMETHING that is not a computer screen to show us so I can see what the color of the green for the groomsmen really looks like.

ALSO ALSO, my flower girl will be making an appearance at the holiday festivities and I'm sooooo excited to get to spend some time with her, looking at flower girl dresses.  I can't wait to hear what her favorite styles are!!!

No, it's not nearly as much as we've fit into wedding planning days in the past, but it will still be a very full day.  The other wedding related tasks have to do with our DIY projects.  We have a birdcage/card box to spray paint, we have a flower girl basket to spray paint and accessorize, we have some teapots to spray paint (the shapes work, but the colors just don't), we have some flowers to put together so that we can just toss them in the teapots, we have favors to put together (this one is not essential), and we have 40 pomanders to make (this one is essential).  I'll feel SOOOO much better about my DIY projects and my long distance planning if I can get a good amount of this stuff done in the 10 days we are in Indiana.  I think right now, we technically have 3 days with NOTHING scheduled, so hopefully we can put some of those to good use!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GO!!!!

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!

A DIY Update

I was contacted by Gottlieb and Sons about writing a post that could be featured on their new Facebook page.  They are a jewelry company who prides themselves on customized pieces for brides.  They were interested in my blog because of the DIY projects and the element of personalization they add to a wedding.

So, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity for me to highlight some of the DIY projects that I have planned, completed and in the works!  There's a full list of projects to the left where finished projects will be linked as they are completed, and if it looks overwhelming... it kind of is.

Semi-DIY
There are some things on my DIY list that would probably be better described as "homemade" because I'm not making them myself.  These include:
The Guest Book
The Veil
and The Ring Bearer Pillow (Pictures to come Later)

My Favorite DIYs

The Centerpieces

We've been to every thrift store and Goodwill in town and we have 35 of the 40 teapots that we need for our centerpieces.  We chose this for centerpieces because this is how J proposed to me.  I have collected teapots for the past 3 years, since I finished grad school and got my first real job.  So, on December 29, 2009 I received a cute little tea set with a ring tied in the lid and the words "Will You Marry Me" around the rim.

So, now we have searched high and low for teapots under $5, which we have been very successful finding!  I think we are averaging about $3 a teapot right now and we are using different shapes, sizes and colors!  Here are a couple of examples that my mom made up

The Favors

We chose a favor to follow three themes... DIY, tea and budget friendly!  I found this idea in my Martha Stewart Wedding magazine and LOVED it.  It's creative and they will cost less than $1 each to make!

Martha's are a little cuter than my first attempt, but I think once I get the hang of it, they will be fine.  I am really excited that we get to include our monogram stickers on the back of the teabag tag!

The Invitations

I knew that we wanted our invitations to be DIY because there are SO many options on invitation kits at Target and Michael's and stores like that.  We started with Target invitations that looked like this

We got them really early because we were afraid they would go away, and then decided that we did not need the RSVP card (we are requesting it by email/phone) so it made the pocket that we liked so much, obsolete.  I was also having a hard time incorporating our colors in to the invitation design and overall, I was settling for them.  SO, we took all of them back and started over.

We found some AWESOME petal fold envelopes and some really pretty ivory card stock that has a pearl sheen to it.  We are going to print on the ivory, mount it on lime green, and we will have all of our colors incorporated in a simple but pretty invitation!

The Pomanders

I have been tossing this idea around for a while.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to make pomanders because I didn't know where I'd use them or what I wanted to make them out of.  When I went back to Indiana a couple of weeks ago, I looked at the ceremony courtyard again and was reminded about how much white there is there.  I need a pop of color in the form of something that was easy to put in the space.  So I decided that pomanders were the way to go.  

I decided that tissue paper, while fairly easy, would probably not store or travel well and I was concerned about how they would stand up to the humid Indiana summer.  I also considered silk flowers, but let's be serious... that's expensive... I would need a lot of silk flowers to cover the styrofoam ball and we're trying to keep our decorating budget low.

So I found a "how to" for fabric pomanders here and thought that they could be a great, inexpensive option.  So, we went and got half a yard of fabric, which was just the right amount to make one pomander, and we tried it out.  The first attempt was not so good, but I quickly learned how to make the "flower" look out of the fabric and I think these are going to AMAZING!

I haven't added the string yet, but you get the idea.  I'm really excited about these and I'll have more updates once I finish it completed.  All I have to say about these pomanders is THANK GOODNESS I have 8 months to finish them... it takes a good amount of time to cut out all those circles!!!

I hope you've enjoyed by DIY update, and that 

you'll keep up with my DIY list on the left sidebar as the next 8 months goes by... eventually there will be completed pictures of everything!

I would love to know what DIY projects you are doing or you did for your wedding... you can never have too many ideas!

This Week's Trip

I'm on my way to Indiana today.  I get there this evening and have a full, but not full weekend.  I haven't really decided how busy we will be while I'm home.

Friday is going to be BUSY!

10:00 am - Hair Appointment
11:00 am - Meet with Catie (photographer) for bridal portraits
12:30 pm - Lunch with mom and Catie
2:00 pm - Visit Ceruti's to find a "First Look" location and to remind myself what it looks like

I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but it will be an exhausting day!

While I'm there, I also plan to get my card box painted and done, and I hope to get at least some of the teapots painted.  I have a few metal teapots that I have been planning to paint in either purple or green to make them work with the color pallet.  I think I also want to add some accents of either lime or purple to some of the teapots that don't have either color in them, so I may try to do that while I'm home, too.  We have decided that we WILL be making pomanders to use as ceremony decorations, so I may take a couple of the Styrofoam alternative balls home with me and see how the pomander making goes.

I know my mom and I are getting massages on Saturday and we are going out for her Birthday (the big 6-0) that evening.  I think I'm probably also going to take her shopping for a fun Birthday outfit because I'm planning to wear a new dress that I haven't had a chance to wear yet.

I'm so excited to take a few days off and go home this weekend.  I haven't been there since July and I can't wait to see the orange and red leaves and have the chance to wear some sweaters!!!  It's been near 90 here again for the past week, so all I have to say for my weekend is... HOORAY FOR FALL!

SUCCESS!!! Major update...

A few weeks ago, I posted about my "vacation" that was going to be a lot of running around and getting stuff accomplished... so here's a progress report.

• Look for a DJ
• DONE!  We had two really great options and the decision is still pending
• Look for a place to have a rehearsal dinner
• We actually have a pretty big list of places to do more research on... this is not too pressing
• Find a hotel or two
• We are definitely going with 1 hotel because we were told that they are not busy on the 4th of July weekend so one hotel should be able to accommodate
• We are pretty sure we found one... more info to come, once things are finalized.
• Look for a Mother of the Bride dress
• Not only did we find a dress, we found that same dress online for half the price!!!
• My mom wants a second opinion (hopefully my aunt can reassure her) but that should be done soon-ish
• Get the approval for invitation wording, program wording, etc. from the parents
• Other than a couple of misspellings, they were approved.
• After going to J's cousin's wedding, we fell in love with the paper she used for their programs so we may be going with text only, because a pic probably won't look right on the pearly cardstock that we want to use.
• Look for fabric to go under the centerpieces
• Kind of done... J's aunt said we could have their table runners (purple) so we are going to use what she has and then order the other half in lime green and go half and half on the 2 colors.
• She said she would let us know where she got them so we could get the same brand/kind
• Take engagement pictures
• Done... look here for a recap
• It was so fun and I'm excited about bridal portraits in the fall

We also figured out that we have 30 teapots.  This is HUGE... we only need 10 more to reach our goal.  Thankfully my mom and dad have multiple garages where things like that can be stored  :-D

ALSO, I found a blue flower brooch that was my grandmother's, and instead of wearing her pearls (that would have to be restrung) for my something old and borrowed, I'm now going to use the brooch for my something old and something blue and my mom's pearls for something borrowed.

AND, we ordered and received the brooches (for the corsages) while we were at my parents' house.  They are fantastic and they are going to look great!

Last piece of important info... my dress is scheduled to arrive at the first of October, which means that bridal portraits amongst red and orange leaves will become a reality.  EVEN BETTER, the lady at the store told me that even thought I'm going to take my dress for pictures, I can bring it back to the store once I'm done and they will keep it until I need it again.  How great is that!?!?!

Vacation-ish

Less than a week until I get to go on vacation, and I can't wait!  I hesitate to call it this because I will be immersed in wedding planning as I was the last time I was on vacation.  The things on the "to do" list for this trip are:

1. Look for a DJ
2. Look for a place to have a rehearsal dinner
3. Find a hotel or two
4. Look for a Mother of the Bride dress
5. Get the approval for invitation wording, program wording, etc. from the parents
6. Look for fabric to go under the centerpieces
7. Take engagement pictures

We are also going to J's cousin's wedding, which I'm really excited about for multiple reasons... I have not really gotten to spend much time with his extended family, and I'm always excited to get new ideas from other weddings.  It should be a lot of fun!!!

The Centerpieces - Update

Last time I talked about centerpieces they had changed from the original idea of flowers in Ball jars to flowers in teapots. We have been searching for and buying teapots for $5 and less and we are halfway to our goal of 40 so far.

My mom is creative and always does a great job putting things like this together, so although this is not necessarily the final look, here are a few ideas of what they will look like (created by my mom!!).

The Centerpieces Have Changed Again...

I liked our original idea of Ball jars… it had meaning to me because I went to grad school at Ball State, but to J they didn’t mean more than a nice centerpiece that we could make ourselves.


So now, we are looking at using teapots for our centerpieces. J used a teapot to propose to me and I collect them and there is a lot more about them that is meaningful to both of us.

The first thing that both of our mothers said when we told them about our idea was, “that’s going to be a lot more expensive”. WHO CARES?!?! You only live once, right? So now we are in search of $5 (and under) teapots that have either the wedding colors or a pastel pallet.

So if anyone can find us some cheap teapots that are about 9 inches high and fit our color scheme, send them my way and I’ll pay you back!

The Dress...

I’ve watched shows like “Say Yes to the Dress” and there seems to be an overwhelming theme that you see amongst the girls that find their perfect dress at Kleinfeld’s. They find the dress and they cry, along with everyone who is there with them. They can’t help but be overtaken with emotion when they find the perfect dress that they just have to have.
I’m a pretty emotional person, so I thought maybe I was going to find the dress that brought me to tears… WRONG! I don’t know what it was… maybe there wasn’t anything that I was going to try on and immediately fall in love with… maybe it was because I was too concerned with my budget.

I know that the first two times I went and tried on dresses, I wasn’t letting myself love any of them because I knew I wanted to go shop with my mom before I made a decision.
There were 4 of us that went shopping and J’s mom joined us later. Me, my cousin/bridesmaid, my mom and my Fairy Godmother, who is actually my Godmother, but who’s also so much more  :-D

The first place we went is a little boutique in Ft. Wayne called The Wedding Place. It’s a really cute store and the ladies that work there are so knowledgeable and helpful! I tried on 6 or 7 dresses there and when I came out in the dress, everyone loved it… and I thought it was pretty good.

I’m really glad we went there first, though because it gave me the opportunity to compare the dress to all the other dresses for the day. There were plenty of pretty dresses, but nothing that I liked better, nothing that I thought looked better on me and nothing that I felt more comfortable in.

We were in another dress shop and I was in a dress that I’d tried on before when I figured out that I’d made my decision and that I wanted the other dress. We looked at our watches and The Wedding Place closed in 10 minutes so someone called The Wedding Place and asked while someone else helped me out of the dress and hung it up and another person ran to tell our salesperson thank you and that we wouldn’t need to see any other dresses. It was insanity, but we got out of there in about 2 minutes and made it to The Wedding Place in time to order the dress and write down some vest and tie colors for the guys that seemed like they would look good.

For those of you who haven't seen the dress yet, you'll just have to wait... SORRY!  I can't wait to try the dress on again in 6 months when it gets here.  But even more than that, I'm really looking forward to seeing J's face the first time he sees me in the dress.
I’ve never spent that much money on one thing before, not all at one time, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be saying that a lot over the next 15 months. Since I paid for it, I haven’t thought about it again… I haven’t worried about whether or not it was the right thing to do… I have felt comfortable with the decision I made and that means so much more to me than any emotional breakdown about a dress could.