Wedding Day Recap: The Ceremony

A while back I wrote about our ceremony and how we wanted to keep it simple.  We both wanted to get married in the Catholic Church where my parents were married and where I was baptized.  There were a few things that prevented us from getting married there.  In the end, or ceremony and reception being in the same place was a great thing and I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the day.

So J and I both hugged my parents, we stood there and held hands, and I felt so calm and happy.  I don’t know if it’s that my emotions were finally in check or that I was COMPLETELY distracted by the fact that the sun was blazing down on my face.

Cool picture... HOT SUN!!!

If there would have been a way for me to telepathically communicate with our reverend that I wanted her to make it quick, I would have.  Unfortunately, I don’t especially love most of our ceremony pictures, not because of our photographers (who are awesome), but because I’m squinting in a lot of them and my veil is in all different sorts of directions.

We got to the vows and there were no tears, only excitement and happiness.  The two readings that we put in the ceremony were TORTURE… it’s a good thing I knew what she was saying because I certainly wasn’t listening… I was too busy sweating.

And then it was here… the moment I’d been waiting for… THE KISS!!!

HOORAY… WE’RE OFFICIALLY MARRIED.  Like I said, it was 19 months in the making… well, it was actually it was a little over 3 years in the making.  It had been a little over 3 years since I met him, since I spent hours on the phone with him, since I fell in love with him and since I knew that one day we’d be here.  

What an amazing feeling…

Up Next: Wedding Day Recap: Before the Party Starts

Wedding Day Recap: It’s almost time!!!

Once we were done with the wedding party pictures it was time for the guys to go greet guests. 

Side note… it was a really hot day and we had guests arriving early so instead of them having to sit outside for an hour, my badass DJ whisked them away to the banquet hall, check that… air conditioned banquet hall… across the courtyard from ours.  BEST DJ EVER!

Ok, so back on track.  The guys grabbed some snacks and drinks and went out in pairs to hand our programs and greet people as they came in.  I did fail to let them know to tell the guests that only the first row was reserved, so our pictures look kind of weird because people are sitting at least 3 rows back, but oh well… I didn’t even notice until I saw pictures.

While the guys were greeting, I did one last makeup check, sprayed on some more hair spray and got ready to go.  Before we left, we decided that we (the girls) needed to make a toast and drink the champagne that was in the room for us.  I popped it, we poured it, and everyone got in a circle.

Amanda, J’s sister, was the first to say something… “to my new sister”… and I couldn’t hold back the tears.  My mom made a toast too, and sadly enough I cannot remember what she said, but this awesome five minutes made some of my favorite pictures of the day.

After the outdoor pictures we sweated through, we decided that we’d enter through the reception hall door instead of standing outside in the sun, so once we were done drinking our champagne we went and got ready to make our entrances.

And then it was time.  The guys walked in and then it was time for the girls.  One by one they went in and the line into the ceremony was getting smaller and smaller.  My MOH gave me a huge hug and told me she loved me… I sent the kiddos on the way… and then it was my turn.  With my arm in my dad’s, I took a deep breath…

It was no use… I walked out the door and the tears started.  I put my head down and said, “damnit” and my dad told me to quit it or he would cry (again) and then I laughed.  It didn’t stop the tears from falling, but it cleared my head until I made it down the aisle and dried my eyes.

When I got to the end of the aisle, my mom stood up and stood on my left…

Instead of my dad speaking for both of them, they were both there beside me, just as they always have been.  And when the reverend said, “who gives this woman”, my mom and dad said “we do”.

(all photos by Catie's Captures)

Next Up: Wedding Day Recap: The Ceremony (back on Monday!!)

The Ceremony - First Draft

I don't have shower pictures yet, but they are coming soon, along with a recap... I promise.

SO, I guess it's been a couple of weeks now since we received our first draft of our wedding ceremony from our wedding officiant.  Overall, she did a good job.  We mostly liked the way it flowed and the components that she included in it.  EXCEPT for the part where she told "our story" two different times in the ceremony.

The main issue was that it was weird... almost too formal, but also too personal.  I wanted a fairly traditional ceremony.  We're obviously not having a church wedding, but I don't want to stray too far from what a church wedding would have been.

While J was gone, I looked for some other options of what we could include in the ceremony.  I found a couple more Bible verses that could be included.  I also found some other readings that would fit in various aspects of the wedding.  I put them all in a word document and he read them and liked one of them.

We went through the whole ceremony last night and I think we have figured out what we want to do.  We are including the Lord's Prayer in the ceremony and the first draft had it toward the end of the ceremony and we thought it would fit better toward the beginning.  We took out the two "Our Story" sections out... we just didn't like that in the ceremony... the people at the ceremony should already know the story.

Other than that, there were some minor changes, but nothing crazy.  We are going to send our new ideas back to her and see if she thinks the movement of sections and the additions will sound ok, and then we should be able to cross that off our list!

HOORAY!!!

Notes from an Expert - 1st Edition

One of my friends at work just got married, and by "just", I mean that she has not even been married for a month yet!

She and I have both been so busy at work since she got back from her honeymoon that we haven't even gotten to hear about her trip.  We finally had a few minutes to talk today and she gave me a few of what I'm calling "words of wisdom".  She would absolutely die if she knew I was calling them her words of wisdom... but she just went through all the craziness of a wedding week... I have to take notes!!!

So here are the two things she talked about today...
- Ceremony Music
- Rehearsal Dinner/Guest Issues

She and her (now) husband used non-traditional music for the ceremony.  They used songs that meant things to them and that fit their Mexico destination.  She said that SOOOO many people made comments about how great the music was and how they loved how personal it was!

I talked a LONG time ago about ceremony music and we have finally put all of our Vitamin String Quartet music in order for the ceremony.  The songs are recognizable (either great classics that everyone knows or songs that are slightly more contemporary), but still a little bit more "formal" for lack of a better word.  I'm still really excited about these songs so that's a good sign.

She was also telling me about the only "tragedy" of the weekend.  They had their rehearsal dinner on Friday and had a few guests who were expecting to be invited, who were not a part of the bridal party.  She said that it was kind of an awkward situation... not that it ruined anything for her, but she said that she may have people who are still mad at her about not being invited.  I told her they'd get over it  :-D

That's definitely a good thing to think about...

I have a blog buddy who is getting married on the same day as J and I and she and I have been emailing about wedding stuff.  I know that she has also had some "guest list" issues that she's had to deal with.  I'm so glad that I haven't had to deal with this.  Although, our way of avoiding guest list issues is just to invite everyone, so I don't know if that really counts.

I've taken note of the things that she was telling me today and I can't wait to have more time to sit down and hear all about everything that she did all weekend... weddings are so fun, no matter whose they are!!!

Happy Monday everyone...

The Ceremony

This should be the most important part of the wedding... and yet... I just can't get myself to commit to it.  Not that I'm not ready to commit to the marriage... that sounded all wrong.  I just mean that I had an idea of what my wedding would be like and it's not going to be.

When I was young, I remember Christmas Eve mass at St. Mary's.  It was a children's mass and the priest really brought the story to life.  When I got older, the church had a new meaning to me... but not until it was gone.  In 1993, the church that my parents were married in and the church where I was baptized, was stuck by lightning and burned down.  I was 10 at the time, but I remember watching it on the news.  The church was rebuilt, and although it is still a beautiful church, it does not have the same character and beauty as the old one.

I'm not sure when it was that the sentiment of St. Mary's hit me... but at some point in my life, I decided that I wanted to get married at St. Mary's.  Well, as we started the wedding planning, we talked to the church and it was going to run us about $1,000 to get married at the church.  There were also a lot of rules that came along with the church regarding the ceremony and those involved.

SO, back to the point... we are now doing a non-denominational ceremony in the courtyard outside our banquet hall.  The lady performing the ceremony is very nice and I'm sure that J and I can make our ceremony very personal and basically make it whatever we'd like it to be... but not really.  It's not going to be the same as what I thought.  So, the point of all of this... I'm having a hard time getting myself excited about working on our ceremony... the wording, the format, the specific verses/prayers/readings, etc.

We do have some exercises to do that our reverend sent to us so hopefully that will get me more excited about working on the ceremony stuff.  More to come...

Fort Wayne Planning - Recap

Sorry for the delay in getting this written... I've been spending time with my family instead of my computer (pretty good trade, if you ask me).

So, on Tuesday, we went and got my dress fitted, met with a potential wedding officiant and went to our ceremony/reception venue to make some final decisions and meet with the party rental place about lighting.  So here is a recap about the day...

Dress Fitting - although my cousin did document this occasion in pictures, I obviously can't put them on the blog.  The tailor is a really nice lady, but the dress shop (who is now closed) is not my friend.  They ordered me a size 12 in the dress.  I definitely could have fit in to a 10 and still had room.  This pisses me off because now I have to get it altered, including the lace, which is NOT what I wanted to have to do.  If you buy a lace dress, make sure you ask them what size they are ordering for you because it's one thing to have to take in satin, but lace is so much more difficult.  Hopefully my tailor is as good as she seems!!

Officiant - the lady that we met with is very nice.  She is also very organized, which I have an extreme appreciation for, especially since we are doing this from 1,000 miles away.  We talked to her and liked her and I don't really know what I'm looking for, but I wasn't immediately sold on her.  I didn't have that feeling with my dress, either, so maybe I'm just not that kind of bride.

We don't have someone here who either of us grew up with.  The priest that married my mom and dad and baptized me passed away quite a few years ago, and there isn't really anyone else who knows both of us and would be good at officiating the ceremony so I think that the nice officiant who is very organized, has good ideas and is in our budget is going to be as good as anyone else we will find.  CHECK.

Reception Venue - I need to start this section by talking about how fantastic Callie is at Ceruti's.  She is our event coordinator and she is so helpful, she keeps in mind that we are on a tight budget and she has been fantastic to work with.  I would recommend contacting her if you are thinking about booking a Ceruti's venue.

Being in the room makes things SO much easier to visualize and decide.  We picked out our table cloths in about 3 seconds.  We decided that we are going to do a two tiered head table so that we can center it and put pipe and drape behind it that we can up light.

Those are really the only decisions that we had to make there, but it was nice that J got to see the place again... it's been a while since he was there.

Lighting - the biggest "issue" I/we had with the reception venue was the lack of color.  Obviously, it's nice to be able to incorporate your own color into a blank slate, rather than having to deal with an already existent colored decor.  We decided that we wanted to add some color through lighting on the walls so in October, my mom and I went to a party rental company and this week, they came out to Ceruti's and met with us to make a final decision on how many and what color.

She brought colors that were exactly what we want... a dark purple and a lime green and they are going to be great!  We are putting lights on three of the four walls.  Initially we were going to only light two of the walls, but the one we weren't going to light is the one you see when you walk in, so we added three lights for that wall and we are all set!  The lights are going to cost about half as much as I thought they were, so that was a bonus as well!!!

Flower Girl - I also so my flower girl today and talked to her about a dress.  I decided I really want her to have lace on her dress in some form or fashion.  I found a few options, but I think I'm going to ask Jason's mom again if she could make a dress with specific measurements and then she could have it altered here.  OR, I may check and see if the lady who is altering my dress could make a flower girl dress with some of the lace from my dress that she has to take off.  Hopefully I'll figure out what direction to take on this in the next week or so.  I'm kind of apprehensive about buying a dress online, so that would be my last choice, but here are the dresses I found online and liked.

via

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There's also been a lot of projects going on around the house, but there's more to come on that later!!

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)!

HOW TO - Pomanders

As I've talked about before, we decided that pomanders would be our best option to add some color to the mainly white/grey/tan outdoor courtyard where we are having our ceremony.  It was a hard decision on what we would use to make the pomanders (fabric, tissue, silk flowers) and the final decision came down to fabric and tissue.  We decided that on a hot and humid summer day in Indiana, the tissue wouldn't hold up as well, so fabric it is!

I originally found these here and fell in love with them.  They suggest paper lanterns as your base, but I used Smoothfoam (which is an alternative to styrofoam) that I found on the Plasteel Corp website and it worked great!!

So we found some Kona Cotton fabric that we liked and bought half a yard as an experiment.  We originally cut them in to 2.5" circles (diameter) and followed the directions on the website.  It took pretty much the entire half yard to cover one of the 3" ball that we are using.  Here's my version of the DIY...

1. Fold the circle in half and put a dot of hot glue in the center of the half circle

2. Fold the circle in half again so that you make your own little flowers that look like this

3. Begin covering your base

4. Cover the entire ball with fabric and then add a ribbon (if you'd like) by tying it to some floral wire, putting a dot of hot glue on the tip of the wire and pushing it in the ball

You'll notice on this (my first attempt) that you can see some white spots, so here are some SPECIAL tips that will hopefully make the process easier for you...

1. Spray paint the ball (and let it dry) before you start to cover it.  That way, if you have some bald spots, they won't show up like this...
2. Don't put the first dot of hot glue too close to the straight edge of the half circle... putting the glue more in the middle makes it MUCH easier to attach the petal to the ball
3. Don't worry about exact sizes.  If you want your pomanders larger, use a larger base.  If you do this, you can also use larger fabric circles.  We ended up using 3" circles in the end, instead of 2.5"
4. INVEST!!!  We purchased a rotary cutter, a cutting board and a circle stencil because we can cut circles about 10x faster than the scissors that we started out with!  Here's a picture of my new favorite toy...

I really hope this "how to" is useful... they are so cute and I think once you get rolling on them, they will be fairly quick to make... the first one took me about an hour, but I'm sure that after I do a few more, I'll have that cut easily in half!  Let me know what you think!!!

Ring Bearer Pillow - CHECK!!!

As promised on Tuesday, here is an update on my fantastic, DIY ring bearer pillow!!

You may remember my excitement that my first sewing machine lesson resulted in the insides of our ring bearer pillow.  Well, since it was my first lesson, I was not trusted (by myself) to make the rest of the pillow.  My FMIL has been working on both our guest book and the ring bearer pillow and I was SOOO excited to get a picture from her of the pillow!!! 

Isn't it cute!?!?!  I'm going to have to see it in person to make sure it's what I want, but I'm pretty sure it is!  It's not completely done... she has not fully attached everything... but as soon as I see it at Christmas time, I'm going to count it as complete!  One more thing checked off the list... WOOO HOOOO!

I'm not exactly sure how much it ended up costing, but I've done my research and something like this runs between $25 and $50 online... so I'm pretty sure I made out pretty well on this one, especially since it is the exact colors and look that i wanted!!

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!

Pomanders

I'm really torn about how to decorate for the ceremony... we are going to have an arch, but I can't decide if I want the white arch that we can rent from the ceremony/reception venue, or if I want to borrow the beautiful dark metal arch that my mom's friend offered (used in her daughter's wedding in June).  I don't know which will look better with my ivory dress, in the light colored courtyard (white stucco walls and white cement floor),

There are also going to be white chairs... yes, I know weddings are white, but come on... how can we incorporate some COLOR!?!?!??!

As I read the blogs I follow, I find really cute things that people are doing and then I do some more research and find other ideas that piggy back off the first idea and then I can't decide...

Today's tough decision... POMANDERS... to use, or not to use.  Here are some examples...

Tissue Paper

The DIY Bride

Silk Flowers

via

Fabric

via

Fresh Flowers

via

Silk Flowers

via

They seem easy enough... no matter what you make them out of.  The part I'm having a hard time deciding is how much time I really want to put into these.  I really like the size of the ones in the last picture... smaller versus larger.  I just don't know, at this point, how much time I want to put in to them... do I want to make the flower (tissue paper or fabric) or do I just want to put the things together (silk flowers) and hope they fill in enough.  Either way... add them to the list.

The Guestbook and Ring Bearer Pillow

Just a quick update...

We went fabric shopping today.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a combination of patterns and colors to put together in a quilt?  IT IS TOUGH!!!  But we were victorious, and the fabric is currently being washed and will be cut into squares and put into a pattern before we leave Minnesota.

We also bought the satin for the ring bearer pillow and we even made its guts.  Let's be more specific... I, ME, MOI, yes... I made the guts.  It was my first experience with a sewing machine and I LOVED IT!  I need to get myself one so that I can go take some classes and REALLY learn to use it!  I am so proud of myself that the next thing on my list (after this post) is to call my mom and brag some more!

I'll post some pictures eventually, but I can go ahead and cross those two things off my list because as far as I'm concerned, if I'm not the one that has to finish making them, they are done!

OH, and we found 2 more teapots, bring our grand total to somewhere around 25... so we are almost 1/3 of the way done!!!

OH OH OH... I also talked to my photographer (Catie's Captures) and we have pretty much determined the places we are going to go for our shoot on Tuesday.  We are going to the tea house that has become a summer tradition, we are going to another cool place called The Orchard, and we still headed up to the lake to finish the day.  I can't wait...