A labor of love

These are cell phone pics, so sorry in advance for the poor quality. Our favor boxes are complete after my aunt slaved away over her Cricut for a couple excrutiating hours. I couldn't really find any large brown favor boxes so we instead bought jumbo sheets of cardstock and made our own with a scrapbooking Cricut machine then my wonderful aunt took on the time-consuming task of folding said boxes and gluing the corners so that they're sturdy. Add a little quote to the front and some ribbon on the top and voila! So what's going in the boxes? Well I knew I wanted to do edible favors for guests but didn't really have an idea as to what kind of favor to provide, then FI and I got to talking about the moment we knew we were head over heels in love with one another. My FI and I grew up together as friends so when he decided to ask me out I was initially surprised and put off since I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship. Well he was persistent and kept up for 3 months until I agreed to be his girlfriend. To be honest even when I told him I'd go out with him I really wasn't sure about us working out. I didn't ever imagine it would be serious and things got awkward for a bit when we were making the friends-to-relationship transition. So what changed and set in motion the events that led us to where we are today? He kissed me; and he kissed me good. It was pretty much the greatest first kiss in all of first kiss history and that's when I found out I was falling and he knew his hard work and patience had paid off. So together we decided on Hershey's kisses for favors to symbolize that very special moment in our relationship. Yes I'm aware that may seem cheesy, but really who doesn't love the straight-up chocolate goodness that is a Hershey's kiss? And they will fit perfect in our custom-made boxes :)

Easiest DIY project to date

What do you get when you add vellum, some pretty font, ribbon, and some wax? You get a gorgeous personalized unity candle for half the price of what those bridal stores are charging! This is such an easy DIY project that I found online one day but the results look so professional in my opinion. I'm super excited about our unity candle because we wanted pretty much everything at the wedding to be very personal and handmade where possible. The picture at the top is the inspiration I found from Google and the bottom pic is our actual candle set. I think they look beautiful!

Little accomplishments

I've felt a little bit of wedding burnout here lately and have been slacking on getting stuff done that needs to get done here in the next 26 days. Just thinking that I only have that much time to get all the stuff on my to-do list done makes me want to throw up. Seriously. But I got a few little things accomplished over the holiday weekend so I would have something to post here to make me feel a little better about my procrastinating self. Got our little hanging monogram finished that's going to be put on the front door of the venue, spruced up my pitiful looking table numbers, got the bubbles all finished and put into their basket which my mother and I made all pretty with some strategically placed ribbon, ordered part of our parent's gifts, and made an appointment to get my bustle done. Still have a whole sheet of college-ruled paper filled up with things that need to be addressed but at least I've made some progress. Here are some pics of the DIY stuff:

A productive weekend

This past weekend my mom and I got a bunch of wedding stuff accomplished as far as DIY projects. I'd really put them off for too long and it feels good to have some finished products to look at! We made the photo boards we'll be displaying our pictures in at the reception, our vases wrapped in vellum for the glowing table centerpieces, got the ribbons tied to the hundred-some-odd bubble tubes we bought, and got the ribbons glued to the vases and votives we'll be using for the remaining centerpieces. Still got quite a bit to do, but we're getting there! Here's some pics of our hard work:

DIY Invites

Invitations are the one detail of the wedding that I really wasn't very concerned about. I don't get excited about paper products like some other brides do, so I of course jumped on the opportunity to buy blank invitations at Wal-Mart for $12 and print the wording out on a home computer to save some money. I wasn't at all interested in pocketfolds, embossing, or invitations with inserts since all the info that guests need is on our wedding website. All I really wanted was a sheet of cardstock that told people where and when the wedding was. What I got is a pretty sheet of cardstock that tells people where and when the wedding is :) My mom has access to a heavy duty quality printer at work so she kindly offered to print the invitations for me. She's been a huge help throughout this whole process! I purchased the ribbon and little square rhinestones at Michael's to spruce the invites up a bit and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I'm even more pleased that they were so cheap!

Table numbers are done

So table numbers are done. Got the wooden numbers, brown paint, and brown glitter from A.C. Moore and FI helped me knock them out today. You can't really tell from the picture that they are glittery, but they are. I'm actually going to put a bit more on them to add some more sparkle since we have plenty left over and as they currently are they don't yet have the pizzazz I was going for. But I think the idea of 3D table numbers is pretty nifty and paired with the centerpieces and bright white linens the venue provides, these babies will really stand out and help the guests find their tables just fine!

DIY projects

I'm going to be undertaking quite a few DIY projects for the wedding for many reasons. Firstly, it's helping me save money. Second, I'll get to custom design everything in the colors and styles I want rather than having to frantically looking around to try to find something I like. And lastly, I think they add a nice personal touch to a wedding and FI and I are going to take pride in knowing we helped make our wedding look that damn good! Here's a few of the projects I have lined up that we're making rather than buying:

• Save-the-Dates
  
• Invitations
  
• Centerpieces
  
• Favor boxes
  
• Photo boards
  
• Tissue pomanders
  
• Unity candle set
  
• Program fans
  
• Framed seating chart
  
• Decorative votives
  
• Table numbers
• Etched memorial vases

I will, of course, post pictures of my various projects after I'm finished with them. This might take a while though seeing as how I'm a total procrastinator and I've been super busy lately. I'm going to try to recruit FI and get motivated here in the next week or so that way I can get a head start on these projects before the big day sneaks up on us!

Our for real save-the-dates

I know I posted a blog on here before where I had a picture of our concept for our save-the-date magnets. Well, things change frequently in the world of wedding planning and our save-the-date design is one of them. We went a totally different direction (although still DIY because I think projects made on your own add a nice personal touch) and utilized my mother's help as well as her plethora of scrapbooking supplies and gadgets. It's tri-fold made with brown and pink and orange glittery cardstock. We also used a bit of vellum for the wording in the middle. I think they turned out pretty darn good! My mom deserves praise for working so hard on them :) The bottom portion is actually a magnet and I'm hoping that our guests will realize that they can take them off and put them on the fridge!

STDs

No, we're not talking venereal diseases here. I'm talking about our save-the-dates! FI and I are getting married in a month when lots of people try to sneak in those last minute vacations before school starts, so we decided we needed to send out save-the-dates to ensure our guests know about our big day well in advance; especially since many are out of town. I've always loved the convenience of save-the-date magnets and I didn't think it was one of those tasks that would be too hard to do myself. I considered using vistaprint.com because I've heard they offer business cards for free, but my OCD got the best of me and I decided the STDs need to match our wedding colors. I bought some magnet sheets from Michael's and downloaded a free trial of Microsoft Office Publisher to get the business card template and then FI who is a bit more computer literate than me actually designed the two different options above that I love! One has little polk-a-dots and one is striped (both with our weddings colors of pink, orange and brown) and I really can't decide which one I like best because they're both cute in my opinion!