Accessories!

I found the perfect necklace (in my opinion..) to wear with my dress. It's from Anthropologie. I came across it by googling "statement necklace" and ended up buying it on Ebay because it was sold out from Anthropologie..

It goes with my brooch theme and has bold enough colors without being too crazy.

A few weeks laaaater, I found these shoes that I really think match the necklace. I was looking for flats - not trying to wear heels that stick into the ground when I walk outside. I googled "yellow sandals" and came across these...ordered from amazon..and will most likely wear them as long as they're comfortable enough. Plus, I doubt many people will see my shoes anyway :)

More Coloring

Here are the actual print outs of 2 of the coloring sheets...

I'm happy with the way they turned out - they look more like actual coloring sheets than the originals.

Coloring Sheets

I've seen these made a few times and thought they were a cute idea. We'll have a lot of kids at our wedding, so I decided to make a few coloring sheets. Different programs will let you do them, but I ended up making mine from Crayola. I googled "free photo to coloring sheet" and a blog told me how I could sign up and use a free code. If anyone wants it, I can find the blog again. Anyway, you can make and print 5. Here are the ones I've made so far.. (I will crop the crayola info out before I print them).

To save them without printing, I had to save the print preview... Anyway, cute and simple and hopefully the kids will have fun with them!

Boutonnieres

Boutonnieres made out of paper flowers and brads? Yes, please! These brads were also great as fillers in my brooch bouquets. I originally wanted to make brooch boutonnieres..but this is easier and cheaper.

Paper flowers....

Brads...

Aaaand, together...

Not the most exciting thing in the world, but very easy, let me use up some supplies that I'll never use otherwise, and I'm sure the groomsmen will be very excited to wear them...

I will probably just group two or three together for each person and have some fake greenery on there, too.

Eeeee! Excitement

Ok, so I really loved the first dress I posted...but I just came across this other one and I love it 10 times more. AND my mom thinks it'll be much easier to make. I know there was a reason we hadn't started the other one :)

Yep, there it is. I love it. Although, may exclude the boots...and the bangs...

Gingham

So, I haven't done too much craft-wise recently, but we have gotten our engagement pictures taken and ordered/received our save the dates. Also, my fiance really wanted gingham neckties for the groomsmen, so I looked around on etsy.com and messaged one woman (http://www.etsy.com/shop/MeandMatilda) who seems to have what we need! The groomsmen will be wearing ties to match the bridesmaids' dresses which will be all different colors. (I picked the colors - they picked the dresses) So, we have yellow, orange, maroon and pink. Here are the fabric swatches for the ties we will be ordering (I found it impossible to find all these colors in gingham fabric at the fabric store).

we would be ordering fuchsia, yellow, orange and burgundy. yep yep. In other news, I have finished all 5 brooch bouquets! (pictures one day...) I have also collected quite a few mason jars and antique bottles to use in my centerpieces and I have collected/been given a few tins I want to use - although I'm not sure exactly where I will use them

Can't think of too much else - made a few more cake plates, broke one cake plate, and need to get working making some more decorations :D

:{D

Mustaches!

I figured a photobooth is no fun without props, so here are some mustaches I made that my coworkers and I had some fun with

Haha, I love these mustaches ...and my job! All the mustaches consist of black construction paper, some cardboard backing, and a chopstick handle... pretty simple!

Free Wedding Poster! Fixed Link

I came across this poster in a wedding magazine my new boss gave me.

It may be kind of hard to see on my blog, but the names and date can be personalized and the best part is that it's free! It takes the place of having people sign a guest book and this way you can have it framed at the wedding and hang it up at home! I could probably try and make my own similar to it with my wedding colors, but I like this one so much it's okay it doesn't match exactly. I may have to make a second one myself anyway - because this one looks like it will only hold about 70 signatures.

You can find the editable PDF with instructions to print here

Seating Chart

Just because I haven't posted in a while ... here is the beginning of my seating chart, which, so far, consists of a cork board, pins, and overpriced Martha Stewart gift tags.

So, the plan is to most likely put a small strip of patterned paper on the bottom of all of the tags - probably alternating with the wedding colors. I'll just put names on the chart alphabetically with the table number below the names - aaaand, that's about it. Unfortunately, it's one of those things I cant finish until right before the wedding.

Drink Dispensers

I can't find the original picture that inspired me to get drink dispensers for the wedding, but here is the look I'm going for ....

I will have a row, most likely on a higher ledge/shelf like this, with 4 or 5 drink dispensers filled with drinks that are my wedding colors. Right now I think the two on the ends will be maroon (sweet and unsweet tea) with the middle colors being yellow (lemonade), pink (some type of punch?) and orange (maybe some of that sherbert punch I like). These are the exact drink dispensers I bought...

Each $16.99 at TJMaxx Home Goods :D Anyway, I just thought this was a cute way to decorate and be functional. Also, if I can find enough small mason jars for a decent enough price, I will use them as glasses.

Bees, please.

In my search for drink dispensers for the wedding (which I have not posted anything about), I came across an awesome beehive shaped drink dispenser

---->

So now I think it'd be really cute to have a bee/honey themed dessert table. Not like hardcore everything has to have yellow and black stripes, but there are a few things I'd like to do. Of course, these would be awesome ....

... super cute cake pops from bakerella.com . Also, my friend suggested I could do some type of honey bun and I've also seen cute cakes made from a beehive cake pan. Then there's always honey!

in mason jars, nonetheless (which I am using for centerpieces and probably glasses - which I guess I have also not posted about). So yeah, just kind of thinking out loud for now - but if anyone out there has a cute bee or honey idea for me, let me know!!

More Billy Balls!

Ok, so I am probably far too excited about this, but remember those "billy balls" I love? Yes, these ones...

well I've found a way to make some that look real for my wedding centerpieces!

Perfect!

Photobooth!

Hooray, I finally booked the photobooth for our wedding. Unlimited pictures for four hours, so the guests can take as many as they want. The company will come to the venue, set it up, stay to make sure there are no problems, and then take it down. I will also get a DVD of every picture taken, so that's cool. The company is "Red Eye" photobooth.

( http://www.redeyeboothsvirginia.com/ )

Very excited. Not to mention I will have a box of props next to the booth with awesome hats, glasses, mustaches etc.

Table Numbers

Since I bought fabric for my pennant banners and a bunch of small frames for my original seating chart idea (which I have since changed), I figured I could use the extra fabric and the frames for my table numbers instead.

all I did was glue the fabric triangles onto a piece of white cardstock and I used sticker numbers

Then I glued a piece of thin ribbon across the tops of the fabric and reframed the paper. Hooray for cute, tiny pennant banners that have the exact same fabric as the big ones!

Also, hooray for not wasting like 20 frames. Cute enough, especially when they will tie in with all of the other decorations.

Pennant Banner

While I always thought my wedding would have paper lanterns wherever I could fit them, I think I have decided to instead make pennant banners to hang. The greenhouse already has white Christmas lights strung up on the beams, and I think the paper lanterns would be too much. The pennant banners, though, would be able to hang with the lights and look nice. Also, I want to have the banners on my dessert and dinner tables. I bought cute fabric at Joann today to try and make them..

Hopefully it will end up looking something like this...

With my colors, of course.. I'll post a tutorial when I actually make one.

$4 Cake Stands!

I want to have a small wedding cake but a big dessert table. Sooo, I am trying to make different kinds of cake stands, etc. They're extremely easy to make - and only cost as much as a plate and a candle stick holder from the thrift store!

I got some plates for $1.29 each

and some candle holders ranging between $2 and $3

and all I had to do was glue them together with tacky glue!

Simple enough...

More Brooch Bouquets! For the Bridesmaids This Time

So here is my progress on three of the four brooch bouquets. I am almost finished with the pink and red ones, and about halfway finished with the yellow. I haven't started the orange bouquet yet because, well, there are very few orange brooches/earrings etc. out there! Luckily I still have a long time to collect.







These are only the top halves, obviously. When they're all filled up I will add stems and ribbon and fabric and all that good stuff to cover up the edges of the styrofoam. I love the idea of brooch bouquets because they last forever!

Room Dividers

So it may sound like a bit of a weird idea, but since the ceremony is in a wide open field and there is another wide open field across from it where people will park, I kind of want to separate the space. I want to get/make two room dividers like this....



and put one on each side of the end of the aisle. That way I can have the people handing out programs stand by them, and people will have somewhat of a doorway to walk through to get to their seats. Also, it might give me a bit of something to hide behind before I walk down the aisle. Plus I think they'd be perfect for a farm wedding, looking antique-ish. We'll see how it all comes together...

Dresses and Billy Buttons

Here are some pictures of the dress I really love. I'm hoping to employ my mom to make one as similar as possible. Hopefully we'll be able to find a pattern and good fabric at the fabric store.









I love it! It's casual but still really elegant looking (I think). I like what the groom is wearing, too. We might do something similar for Bic (minus the vest?). On a separate note, I've discovered "billy buttons" or "billy balls" (craspedia is the real name)





and I really want to use them in corsages or centerpieces.

The Hunt Club

Ok, so I lied. Here is one picture of the greenhouse area



and here is the field next to it



So, yeah, let's hope for no hurricanes!

Date and Venue!

So, we have set a date (May 7th, 2011) and picked a venue!! I don't want to post pics of the venue because then nothing will be a surprise, but we picked The Hunt Club Farm in Virginia Beach. The ceremony will be in a field and the reception will be in a greenhouse area about fifty feet from the ceremony. I am very exciteddd. Now is the time I get to add up the costs of everything I will be using/renting/buying and realize how much a wedding really costs.

Personalized Monograms

"The Wedding Chicks" blog has a lot of really great "custom goodies"

(http://www.weddingchicks.com/freebies/custom-goodies).

I found these cool monogram templates where you can pick both the letter and the colors. I got four made (they email them to you immediately after you make them) and I plan to get them printed, string them, and use them in my save the date cards. The plan for now is to have the cards say "Please save the date for Mr. and Mrs." and then a picture of us where we'll be holding up the letters (on some type of string) to say Buck. Hopefully it will turn out as cute as I think it sounds...