Wedding Wednesday: Guest Book

I am seriously so excited about these! A few books picked up at the thrift store, some card stock, and a bird cage from Tai Pan Trading and I've got my guest book finished. Finally! 

Wedding Wednesday: Reception Decor

I've been doing a few posts here and there about my wedding inspiration. Even though I've only got a few more weeks (45 days to be exact), I'm still nailing down a lot of this stuff (wedding planning is exhausting, bee tee dubs) and I wanted to create an easier/consistent way of doing that on my blog. 

Ladies & gentlemen, may I introduce you to 'Wedding Wednesday' 

Each Wednesday, I'll post something wedding related. It might be Q&A, something funny that happened that week, or in this weeks case: inspiration. 

Our reception site changed since I last talked about the wedding and we decided to save mucho $$$ and have the reception at one of the LDS cultural halls down in Provo. While I'm all for saving money, I do have to admit that I looked at that darn wooden basketball floor and hoops and said "Uhm. Well. How am I going to make this look cute?" At first I was really discouraged and wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it look cute. Oh how wrong I was. 

Thank you Google. (Speaking of Google & the interwebs...congress, can we please not censor the internet so panicking brides like me can be reassured that it's possible to make a basketball court cute? I'm sure we'd all appreciate it. Thanks). I'm still going for the vintage shabby chic vibe...without the barn though.


Anyway. 

Source: google.com via Jacky on Pinterest

My inspiration for the reception decoration came from this photo. I found it a few weeks back and loved the simplicity and understated elegance. Sure, there aren't fancy place settings and the floor is a basketball court but the decorations draw your attention away from the things that might hinder the over impact and after a while you forget you're in a cultural hall. 


What are your opinions on wedding receptions? Do you want to have a relaxed reception that is really casual or are you more of the formal black-tie affair type?  


Make sure you come back next wednesday for some more wedding fun. :)


(note: please don't think I'm bashing cultural hall receptions. I'm not. I'm only pointing out my own flawed thinking and misconceptions. I think LDS receptions in a laid back casual atmosphere that the cultural hall brings tend to be amazing and sweet and all sorts of fun.)

Wedding Inspiration: Invitations!

Now that my first batch of invitations are finally out (Our Michigan ones will be going out a little later, since that reception isn't until May), I wanted to share our invitations! While I didn't make these, they ARE indeed hand made by a very very very talented and dear friend of mine, Kylie McGeoch. She has her own custom card making business called Once Upon A Card and is really talented! 

Since she's in Canada and I'm in Utah, all of our communication was through texting and emailing but she is just wonderful about doing what I wanted but still making it look good. She got ideas from what our theme was and went to work. All in all, she HAND MADE 200 sets of invitations (the main brown card announcing the wedding, 2 sets of reception cards, and the RSVP cards.) All of them were, like I said, hand made, and just wonderful. 

I am so very happy with my invitations and so very happy we decided to have Kylie do them for us. 

If you wedding invitations or any other custom hand crafted cards, go to Kylie first for sure. You can email her at kylie.anne.7373(at)hotmail(dot)com. You can visit her blog here. 

Wedding Inspiration: Glitter Shoes

After not being able to find sufficiently glittery pink high heels, I resorted to making my own. After a little googling and a lot of reading of different blogs I felt confident in making these. They turned out AH-MAY-ZING! So I wanted to share! 

Materials: 

- Shoes (I bought mine at Target for $29.99. What a steal!!!) 

- Glitter (I bought 2 giant things of glitter thinking I might run out. Uhm yeah, I barely used 1/4 of one) 

- Mod podge (Don't listen to crazy Michael's employees who tell you to use something else. Go with the Mod Podge. Even if it does earn you nasty stares by said employee while checking out. Meh)

- Sponge brush (This one worked really well. I didn't bother with the other brushes I bought. They were only 99 cents anyway) 

- Newspaper or shoe box top to ensure you don't get mod podged glitter on your table (even though I did that and still ended up with glitter glops on my table. Oops.) 

Paper bowl or another disposable container (I used a little plastic container with a top. I was able to screw the top back on to make sure the glue didn't dry out between coats. You can also cover whatever you use with paper towel too.)

- Optional: sand paper or nail file and painters tape or masking tape

Instructions:

1. If you're using patent leather like mine, take a nail file or sand paper and quickly buff the entire shoe. It helps the glitter adhere to the surface of the shoe a little better.

2. If you're using 2 colors of glitter (I added a little bit of silver to mine) mix the two colors together until you've got the color you like. 

3. Add the Mod Podge and mix until the consistency is thin enough that you can paint with it and there's enough glitter to your liking. 

4. This part is optional and is where the tape comes in. If you're patient and a little OCD, you can tape the soles and heels of the shoes to make sure the glitter doesn't get anywhere you want. I started to do this, got half way around the shoe and got impatient. There are a few spots of errant glitter, but it doesn't look awful. 

5. Take the sponge brush and start painting!!! Make sure you do this in thin coats. You're going to build the glitter layer by layer. I didn't do this and I have a few bumps on the toe of my shoe. It's not that noticeable, but it annoyed me. 

The glitter will appear patchy at first like above. Thats totally okay. It'll turn out perfectly. 

6. Let the first coat dry completely (about 15-20 minutes) and then do another coat. Remember to do thin layers. This is what they looked like after two layers:

7. Keep painting layers and letting them dry between coats until you get the desired amount of glitter. I did a total of 4 coats. 

8. Let it dry over night (or for a few hours. Just so they're totally dry.)

9. Do another coat of JUST Mod Podge to make sure the glitter won't fall of every time you walk. Although, leaving a trail of glitter wherever you go sounds kind of appealing. ;) 

The final product: 

They're TO DIE FOR. I can't wait to wear them when we get married! And all in all cost me about $45. Not too shabby. 

Favors & Centerpieces!

I mentioned a few times that I've found my favors and centerpieces! Well...I mean...in all honesty it was my mom who found them, drove all around Utah with me to find what we needed, and came up with the ideas. I just agreed. 

These are the favors! We're going to have the mini mason jars for one reception and then the other little jars for the other. (I haven't decided which quite yet) And the ribbon is going to get wrapped around it. The little flowers are going to get hot glued onto the tops of the little jars and on the side near the little clasp on the mason jars (I think. They might go on the top but I think they're going to end up on the side) 

 The pitches below are going to the centerpieces. I'm going to buy flowers in bulk myself the day of and then arrange them myself (for both receptions. We'll be shipping these to Michigan. Double duty! Score!) Some of them will have the green ribbon wrapped around the top and some will have the pink (both are 2 of our 3 colors). The daisy lace ribbon will get added to all of them with the pink or green ribbon for an extra cute little shabby chic vintage touch. 

I can't wait to start working on these! :)

I'm a DIY Bride

'Tis true.

And I am totally okay with that. I've always been what I deem a wanna-be creative person. I have all these ideas bouncing around up there in my little noggin but due to sheer laziness, being intimidated, lack of funds, or a combination of all four, I rarely really craft like all the amazing blogs I follow on here (confession time real quick: I secretly want to 'bloggy famous'. I know. It's embarrassing, right? But, what can I say? I just really want to have one of those cute blogs that has bunches of tutorials and readers and know that someone likes what I write and create...Ok...back to non-embarrassing items.) 

Now that we have THAT awkward confession out of the way...let's move back to the task at hand. So, I have this awesome opportunity to be a DIY bride, right? I get to have a hand in everything that goes into my wedding. I've always been a the-knot.com stalker (okay. confession #2. I've been stalking that website for years. Okay. Stop laughing now.) but I've never really had a solid idea of exactly what I want. But now that I have a budget, a date, and that one important thing...a groom ;) I can finally dream!

We're going to be having a romantic, rustic vintagey themed wedding (I hate that word. Theme. Blech. It conjures up visions of hot pink zebra print or butterflies everywhere or crystals dripping from everything because it's a crystal themed wedding. Alright, I'm stopping before I loose anyone else who had a themed wedding) 

So, we're going with a rustic feel to the reception. And to accomplish that we're (hopefully) going here: 

(source) 

I say hopefully because they don't set their prices until Mid-November for the next year. Meaning, they don't actually start booking dates until they set their prices. Stressful, hey? But, I'm confident it'll work out. ;) 

The inside will be filled with twinkling lights 

(pinterest)

Said lights will be bought right after Christmas to save $$$. We all know that the day after Christmas, those suckers go on sale. The word 'Sale', by the way, is a DIY-Bride's favorite word. 

I'm also making my own centerpieces and will be arranging the flowers myself after buying them from a wholesale shop that's down the street from my house. This week (after I recovered from being on my death bead) my mom and I drove all over Utah to pick up these puppies: 

(actually, they're the white ones to the left, but you get the idea) 

And some cute ribbon to match our colors (honeydew green, tulip pink, and chocolate brown) to tie around them to add a pop of color.

I've got a few other ideas bouncing around in my head (thanks a lot to pinterest really) that I'm going to be working on in the next few months. I'm really excited to continue planning and to see this turn out to be a wonderful day. But, in all honesty, as long as I get married in the Temple to my best friend, the rest is just icing on the cake. Because let's face it...my future hubs is all kinds of adorbs isn't he?