Lets Get Married - Homemade Burlap Roses

 I am not entirely sure why I thought making flowers for our wedding would be easy or would be a good idea.  But I did it anyway - I ended up having to make almost 50 of these burlap roses and they took way too long.   I love how they turned out anyway, and even though  they were used for like 1 hour each day it probably wasn't my best decision, but they were pretty and they will last forever so everyone can save them.  Oh and did I mention they use about $6 worth of burlap, $6 worth of ribbon and $6 for the cones, leaves and baby's breath $6 so for $24 I had all the wedding flowers.  So they saved us money.  
The flowers are made by cutting petals, coating them in glue, and rolling and forming them into roses one by one,  They are sewn together so they would hold, and I inserted a floral wires that is the stem and I already had the wire in my craft stash.  Some 48 flowers later I had enough flowers.  I finished them off by arranging them in a floral cone added ribbon and a few leaves.  The boutineers were very simple one rose a leaf, and a little baby's breath - they were pinned on with a straight pin very simple.  (Just a few more wedding posts.)

Let's Get Married - The Ceremony

Back to wedding posts (only a handful more of these I promise). With our wedding ceremony we wanted things to be pretty traditional kind of like the church - we wanted it nice simple, quick but not too quick, traditional vows, prayers and order and no unity ceremonies or communion. I wanted my brother to walk my down the aisle.  Lo did a nice reading from Genesis 2 for us, and it fell right in with what Pastor Aaron added himself.  As for the music - The bridal party walked into some In Sync song picked by Kathleen, and Dustin for Final Countdown, proceeded by me and JJ to instrumental Billy Jean (yes that's right - it was hard to decide so I went with my favorite song). The whole thing went very smoothly (Thanks Kim and Jill and JJ for keeping the baby happy) although just prior to Dustin entering the chapel he asked Schreve to smack him and naturally Schreve busted his lip - poor Schreve felt horrible but I think it makes a great story.  It was perfect and I also love that you can see my sparkly shoes during it!

(Photos provided by my boss, michele and logan - thanks guys!)

Let's Get Married - Wedding Mad Libs, Crosswords, and Word Jumbles

Since there was a small break between the wedding and the reception while we got pictures taken in the chapel. I thought it would be fun to have some puzzles for people on the tables. This would give people something to do while waiting.  They were a huge hit and several people told me that they were a little HARD - but whatever it's not a challenge.  I created both the crossword and the word jumble with a free tool online (sorry I can't find the right link but I'm pretty sure I google crossword creater)  with them created I just copied it into Visio to manipulate the text to match out "wedding fonts".  I created the Wedding Mad Lib by taking our story and removing words adding the appropriate lable below a line and shortening it up a bit.  Some people left us their mad libs and they were quite hilarious.  Anyhow again I would have probably made less than 1/person of these and done like 3-4 of these per table if I did it again but I love these and I have some extras set aside maybe some day our kids can do them.   Thanks to my momo for sharpening all those pencils for this project too.

Let's Get Married - A Shutterfly Guestbook

I had been thinking about the guest book when I got a coupon email from Shutterfly with a free photobook. They had a template and everything so I customized it and added our photos and we had a Guestbook. It's 20 pages most have a whole page of photos on at least one spread but there was plenty of signing space. I totally love it! The pages were signed with acid free pens so they are archival safe. It's fun on the coffee table now after the wedding.

Let's Get Married - Wedding Programs

I created the programs for our  wedding as well. I created covers using green office paper that I had from a prior project, Washi Tape, Wrapping Paper Scraps and our wedding stamp we used on the invite.  I designed the content in Visio taking language found on the net and changing it to fit us.  I printed the insides on 8.5x11 paper 2 per sheet, trimmed it up stitched covers on and then viola! - I had wedding programs.  These were relatively simple in design to put together but in reality they took far too much time, especially trimming the pages next time I make programs I will make the covers from larger sized paper to avoid the excess trimming.   
They weren't perfect - and I wished I had actually made about 50 or so less of these we had 185 RSVPed guests and I made 148 programs well 100 would have been more than enough - and I was worried we would run out - I told our greeters to be stingy because we didn't have enough - HA!   Lessons learned either way I like how they turned out and that they matched other wedding items, and were relatively inexpensive with probably $10 in copier paper and $6 in washi tape, and another $4 in adhesive.    

Let's Get Married - Cutout Wedding Couple

I love ridiculous photo ops - obviously so this was the perfect opportunity for something extra fun so Kathleen and I used a piece of plywood and some paint and we created cutout katie and dustin - wedding style.  It was super simple 
1. Primed the board. 
2. Put on a layer of background paint.
3. We did a sketch on the board. 
4. Painted in layers.
5. touched everything up. 
6. Stood it up. 

This project never really got finished the stand wasn't ever built but we took it to the reception anyway. 

It turned out cute anyhow.  But it was a big hit at the wedding too. I wish I had everyone's photos with their faces in it but I only have these few.   We plan to save the board and keep it in our guest room.  We also think it will be fun for a playroom later on.

Let's Get Married - Sweet Action Reception Table Decor

The reception room was really a gym/fellowship meeting hall complete with a stage.  Kim Shrum came to the rescue big time with her mad party planning skillz, she totally transformed the fellowship gym at the church into an adorable reception room.  I cannot tell you how amazing she is.  Seriously she's awesome!  And I cannot thank her enough. 
I wanted the centerpieces to be fun and be reasonably inexpensive because it's not usually something that you save.  So I found some ideas on pinterest, rounded up some mason jars, had my brother Jones drink several cases of pelligrino water, and the girls and I did little crafting and literally for like $25 we tossed together the centerpieces.  They are tissue paper flowers, borrowed battery candles, and handmade pennant flags that say various things, in jars, and bottles - Kim added the napkins to punch them up.  The bridal party table had a few left over bridal shower decorations + Paper straws + some bunting I made from recycled curtains and table cloths.  It all came together fantastically - thanks especially to Josh, Thea, Kim, JJ, Joe, Jono, Kathleen, Momo, Alicia, and whoever else I'm forgetting that did amazing job setting up. It was totally us and exactly what we wanted.

Paper Straws on the drink table - Thanks Kellie for sending us these - I love straws.

Handmade pennants - we made these from leftover invitatin cardstock, stamps, stapled onto bamboo skewers. 

Doesn't this look fun!  Thanks Aunt Thea and Kim for tying all those bows - it looks amazing.

For favors I didn't want something that people would just throw out or be giving out candy or chocolate and since Dustin and I played frisbee the first time we hung out I thought it would be fun to find frisbees.  I found a company online that makes custom frisbees and I put together a simple design. We also included Wedding Mad Libs, Crosswords, and Word Jumbles for the guests to entertain themselves - several people left us their mad libs and they are hilarious.

The bridal party table - my brother JJ did the setup on this and it looked so great.

All photos from Jodie Minniear.  Seriously I have AMAZING friends.