A Unique Idea???

I know, I know...technically I'm not a bride anymore. I'm a wife. But just like all good addictions, checking out wedding photographers isn't something that I've been able to completely tear myself away from yet. I unsubscribed to weddingbee LONG ago...but I still stalk a few photographers...one of them being my own fabulous photographer, Christina Carroll.

Imagine my surprise when I came across something sort of unique today on my stroll. Maybe you've seen something like this before, but I haven't. I don't know if the bride did this project DIY or if someone else did it, but I think that it really makes a statement.

It's a wreath hanging suspended over the dance floor (like a chandelier?) and hanging from it instead of lights are small tea light candles. They're hanging with plain twine, giving it a cozy-homey feel to it and making me think that this was made. Here's a picture of what I'm talking about, and since it's a collage picture you can see that the wreath totally fits in with the theme of the rest of the wedding decorations and there's a close up of the tea lights:

Here's another picture where you can see it in the background:Isn't that GORGEOUS?!?! You can find more of these awesome pictures here at Christina's blog - check out the rest of the wedding, I got sidetracked with the wreath/chandelier and couldn't focus on anything else...LOL!

Setting up the Venue...

I woke up a little earlier than I had intended to on Friday morning. I was anxious to make sure that everything would get done in the four hour window that we had to work with at the venue and I was kinda hungry. Not wanting to wake up and rush MOH or Maid Britney, I tried to sneak off to the breakfast room at our hotel quietly. I didn’t manage to do it, but it’s the thought that counts, right? I left them to get ready and I headed off for the lobby, following my nose...

I found not only a waffle machine with make-your-own waffle batter, but I found my Mom and our BM all enjoying breakfast, coffee or a newspaper – take your pick. We all fixed our plates, started chattering away and settled down to eat. I was kind of worried about eating, not really sure why, but I was. Turns out that I didn’t have a thing to worry about, I polished off my plate with ease...

Once we were done eating, my Mom and I headed to the room to find the other girls and get to work. We had scheduled to be at the venue at noon for set-up and we needed to make sure that the flowers got arranged, the rose petals got packed into their packets and lots of other little tasks needed to be done before noon rolled around.

For all the madness that I thought that it might be, things really went smoothly. Maid Britney and my Mom got down to business mixing the rose petals and stuffing the petal bags...they set up an assembly line and got the process done really fast. While they did that, MOH and I started working on the artificial flowers and Mason jar arrangements. I had some fresh flowers to mix in with the artificial ones, and each table needed three Mason jars of various sizes put all together. Luckily, I had worked ahead of time and prepped the Mason jars by putting floral foam and moss all in there ahead of time.

At least I thought I was being smart. It turned out that we had to take some of my prep work apart and start over, but I couldn’t have known that before we got down to business anyway, right? So I didn’t let it bother me. We worked and worked, snipping off buds and leaves and stems...placing the flowers in the jars and working up combinations so that each one was kind of unique all on it’s own. At some point, my stepdad came in to be the muscles of this operation and we put him to work cutting the long stems off of the artificial stems. He thought he was getting an easy job, but truthfully some of those were pretty hard to snip! We were happy to have the helping hand, and it made our work get done that much faster.

Before I knew it, the petal bags were all done, and Mom and Maid Britney started helping us with the remaining flowers. Then, almost as soon as we started, we were done. I looked up in a panic at the clock to see how late we were running...imagine my surprise when the clock showed only 10 o’clock! Yes! We were AHEAD of schedule...and ready to go. We loaded up the boxes and supplies that we would need to take with us from the hotel to the venue and started getting ready to go. Before we left, Maid Britney gave me her lingerie shower gift (which had gotten packed in her suitcase since when she packed the girls hadn’t decided on the final schedule for the day yet) and we had a few minutes for me to “model” my new wares...

Once the cheese-fest was over, we loaded up the cars and caravanned over to my house. Once there, we made short work of the remaining items that needed to be loaded and taken to the venue and got the boys up and about and moving along with their list of things to do as well.

When we got to the venue, MOH, Maid Britney and I all grabbed some boxes and walked into the hall. It was as I remembered it - totally rustic and gorgeous! I got a little shiver of excitement going down my spine in anticipation of the upcoming days ahead. The girls were a little dismayed to find that we had to set up all tables and chairs...the venue was literally a blank slate...but once we got the truck and car unloaded and got down to work, we had all the tables pulled out, set up and started to place in their right positions by the time that the first of the guys showed up. B’s dad came to bring me some smaller folding tables that they had for the cake table, gift table, etc. and my Mom and stepdad arrived with their carload as well.

Before I knew it, we were spreading tablecloths, placing chairs, setting up centerpieces...and really decorating. It was all coming together and it looked so good. We had LOTS of helping hands, for which I am grateful, and when the guys got there with their crew about an hour and a half later, we had even more hands. I was really kind of worried about handling all of this on our own (no DOC or wedding coordinator fit into our budget) but it really went smoothly. It just goes to show what having a great group of friends and family wanting to help make your special day go smoothly can do for you.

Now, I won’t lie. It was VERY difficult for me to be the only person that really knew what was going on. Bless his heart, B tried to help direct people, but he really didn’t know exactly how I pictured things in my head and was pretty much just tackling the tasks that had been “assigned” to him. So every single person that was there to help us set up needed direction on what to do, where to put things, how things were supposed to look...and they all needed it from me. At times it was overwhelming. I got a bit frazzled the closer to 4 o’clock we got as I was trying to finish up everything, with someone calling out my name, needing my attention every two minutes. I really, really, really wanted it all done that day so that no one had much to do the next morning. Especially since I would be tied up and not available to direct!

I also didn’t feel good. Like I mentioned before, Aunt Flo was there with me in full force and I was popping Midol left and right. I don’t always have bad cramps, but don’t you know, this month was one of the months that I was going to be in pain...and I was. Which probably didn’t help my short fuse. I tried REALLY hard not to be all Bridezilla and not to bite anyone’s head off, but I’m sure that I was still short a time or two. Or forty. J I meant to do better, that’s what counts, right?

All in all, I had several creative people there with me helping that could take a little bit of direction and run with it. When they were done, I was consulted, made my suggestions for improvement, and they went back to work...in the end, having those hard workers there by my side putting it all together along with me made it all happen. When we left, the hall looked SO nice...and the ceremony site was almost done too...and all the extra stuff had been stored away out of sight...and all the trash and mess that we made had been picked up. It was truly amazing to see.

Oh you want to see what we saw? Allright, twist my arm...

An overall view...the guest tables

Our head tables...

Some close ups of our centerpieces...

The Cake Table

The Bar Area

The Sign In Table...Along with Kid's Activity Books

The Seating Chart Area

Not to mention that we did it all and only stayed over our limit by about twenty minutes. Not bad, if you ask me! Once we left the venue, we all went in twenty different directions...my Mom and stepdad went to pick up J from school and then to get the plates that we rented. B’s parents went to pick up T from his school. They were each responsible for getting the child that they were in charge of cleaned up and ready for rehearsal on time. The girls and I left to go back to the hotel to get ready and the boys had left to do the same at our house a little earlier. And B left to meet his brother at the other rental place where we rented the ceremony chairs to pick them up and get them back to the venue.

We had rehearsal scheduled to start at 6pm...and about an hour and a half to get cleaned up and ready before it started.

Need to catch up? See how I got here...

Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelorette/Bachelor Party

Table Signs

I think that I’ve said this a lot in recent posts...but I’m going to risk sounding like a broken record and say it one more time: making the table signs was a fast, and easy project!


Seriously, it was! And they turned out great. Just another example that as a bride you don’t have to make things harder than they have to be...you don’t need expensive things for the final outcome to turn out beautifully. And if you stay tuned through the whole post...there MIGHT be another sneak peek photo at the end...I’m just saying!

So we left off here where we had our table names. Do you want to take a guess at how I made the signs? If you guessed using text boxes in a Word document, you’d be right! I designed and printed them out on my home computer, simply using the same font that was on our other paper products and the same Stardream paper that was used for all other projects as well. What was new this time? The dowel rods.

Yep, you read that right. We used dowel rods for our table sign holders. That was B’s genius idea that he came up with one day while trolling through Hobby Lobby looking for inspiration on how to display our table names. I mean, we’d worked long and hard to pick them all out...we wanted to be sure that they were displayed properly! It was B that suggested the dowel rods, me that suggested painting them black to match better, and both of us that realized that we needed no base to anchor them to – they could simply be inserted into our Mason jars of flowers that made up our centerpieces.

I printed all of the signs out one night – two signs of each for front and back – and cut them all down to size the next evening. During the day while I was at work, B took my extra spray paint leftover from this project and spray painted them all black. Then I came home and “nicely” asked him to put another coat on them. I say “nicely” because at this point we were 5 days out from the wedding and there were lots of “nice” requests being made at once! LOL. I tried to be nice, I really did! B had to make a quick trip to the store for more paint – they were only lightly painted due to a lack of spray paint. Once I came home the next day, they were all finished and beautiful.

Here are the materials that we used on this project:
Printed and trimmed down signs
¼” dowel rods, cut in half and painted
Double-sided tape (a bride’s best friend!)
Glue Lines – just like Glue Dots, but in lines (they were left overs from our Save the Dates)

So our only purchase ended up being the dowel rods. Sweet!

I put double-sided tape on one back of one sign. Then carefully placed the matching other side right on top.
(At this point, if it was off a little, I did NOT go back and trim them! I did trim one that was WAY off...)

Next, I carefully applied two Glue Lines to the end of a dowel rod. It didn’t matter which end, as neither would be shown. This was a little tricky. The Glue Lines didn’t want to peel off of their protective sheet and stay on the dowel rods...and they’re SUPER sticky if you start using your fingers. Just a word of warning.

Once they were in place, B held the sign front and back slightly apart and guided me into the center of each sign. After gently placing the rod in between the sheets, I gave each sign a little extra pat on the outside to ensure that the Glue Lines caught the paper.

In the end, this is what we were left with... And, since I promised earlier...this is how they looked in each centerpiece.Aren’t the gorgeous?!?! Luckily for me, the font was big enough (or our venue small enough) that I ended up not printing out a “map” where the escort cards were set up. Once we had all the tables in place, I realized that it would be possible to see each table name – the hall just wasn’t that big. And with only 12 tables to look through, it just wasn’t worth the effort it would have taken me to make the “map.” In the end, with the bridal party tables pulled out and placed on the stage, there were only 12 tables to set up for guest seating...which made assigned seating just a little bit easier for us.

So how do you like that? A project that cost less than $3...with a big punch. We loved them.

Enhancing My Vocabulary

I turn to my wonderful readers again for more help. I still haven’t decided about assigned seating or not. I know...within the next week I’ll have to make up my mind, but I’m looking at a few nights without kids, and if I’m going to do this project, I need to get cracking. Then it’s done if I decide to use them, and if not...oh well.

I’m talking about the table names. We don’t really have a theme for our wedding, so I can’t do something cute like this wedding with the board game table names...

source

or this wedding with the animal table names...

source

I know how I would present the table names – using the large mason jars and hanging a sign around the largest Mason jar using the same paper elements found throughout and the twine that will hold the drink names onto the glasses. Now I just need to figure out what to use.

What have I thought about doing? Well, it’s simple. Either using plain old numbers...1, 2, 3 and so on.

OR I could use table names like Love. Hope. Dreams. Life. You know? So I’ve been tossing this idea around, and I like it. But I need more single words that you’d find at a wedding. I’ll share mine, and then you can help me think of some others, ok?

Here’s my list:
Love
Kiss
Life
Laugh
Hope
Dream
Wish
Imagine
Joy
Pray

You know, hopeful words. Words that inspire, or just give you a good feeling in your chest. I need at least 16 words...and I’m a little short. So do you have any suggestions for me?

A Home Run Idea?!?!

After all of the re-caps from last week’s shopping trip, I feel like I’ve just been a brainstorming machine over here lately! That’s not actually true, some things have been “stewing” on my “cooktop” but have needed to think about them a little more.

So now, after making some decisions regarding the bridal party attire – WooHoo to us! – I can move forward with some other things that I’ve been thinking of. One of the main topics of focus for me right now is those darn centerpieces. And now that I have these fabulous shoes decking out the entire girl-side of the wedding party, I have my hot pink thrown back into my color mix. Which makes bringing those Stargazer Lilies that Mr. CC loves so much back into the mix a LOT easier.

I know that I posted here about an idea to use a plant seated into the vase with little flowers inserted into the plant. This would bring the cost down on my floral budget, while also allowing me to DIY a lot of the project. But finding what I had pictured in my mind turned out to be harder than I thought. I think that was partly because I wasn’t totally sold on the idea.

Back to square one. Where should you start looking when you’re fresh out of ideas? Well, an obvious choice would be the internet. But I took the road less traveled and pulled out my bridal book. What’s that? Oh, my BRIDAL book, that large three-ring binder that I’ve been lugging around with me, storing snippets of information in each time I see something that I like. Yeah, that book. You mean to tell me that it can be used for things other than just storage? No way.

Apparently so. I took a break from a massive job-role mapping project that I was working on at work the other day, and pulled out my trusty bridal book and started perusing the pictures again. A lot of the pictures that I tore out will not work for my venue, but I kept them to use as inspiration. Because if I decided to go the route of using an actual florist, then I would need some inspiration pictures to provide to him/her so that he/she could get the overall “feel” that I was going for. I thought that it might do me some good to flip back through the pictures looking for fresh ideas and inspiration.

And since I’m posting about it, you’ve got to know that I found something. Actually, I found three somethings. I found three separate pictures that I’m going to try to combine into one finished centerpiece idea. I was going to pull in the pictures here, but as they were all three out of magazines that I collected god only knows when...you get that it was impossible to find them. Although I did look for them online, but no luck.

And here is my centerpiece (donated by the lovely Maid Britney!):
What I am envisioning happening here is this: the centerpiece is filled with water and maybe some green rocks/filler stuff on the bottom to pull in some color (maybe a light lime green, Mama CC?) with one single Stargazer lily floating on top. The candles are all lit and reflecting off the water beautifully. Around the bottom of the centerpiece, I’ve arranged a bed of moss and lovingly inserted a mixture of fresh and artificial flowers into the moss in shades of cream, lavender and light pink…all nestled on top of those GLORIOUS eggplant tablecloths.

To put it simply…I LOVE IT!

It’s perfect. Simple. Elegant. Goes with the theme and overall feel of our wedding. And would be simple enough for me to do on my own, which is important to this cost-conscious bride! And of course, I have the help of my talented Maids and Mama CC and FMIL CC that would also love to help out. Hint, hint ladies!

It incorporates all of my colors, and MOST importantly the ONE SINGLE thing that Mr. CC has requested of me – the Stargazer lily. I was worried about how the hot pink would look against the eggplant, but since it’s off of the table and floating in the vase, I think that it’s perfect. And seriously, after seeing the great shoes that we’re all sporting, how could I still be worried about the combination of eggplant and hot pink?!?!

Can you picture it all too? It’s a little hard, I know. But try.

It was hard for me to picture too, so i did a mock-up at home with some lilies that I bought at HEB. I mean, I didn't even know if lilies actually float!

From here, you can see the bottom of the vases needs something
Here's a close-up on the flower...although the lily doesn't float, the petals hold it up...even when water gets in the center of the flower.

This is a view that you would walk up to it on a table and see...looking down...it's stunning!

What do you think?

It might be a little bit of work to make the ring around the bottom that I'm envisioning, but well worth it, I think. And can anyone tell me where I can buy moss? I would love to have real moss, along with real roses and of course real lilies. The rest of the flowers would be artificial, to get the colors that I want during the time period that I want them.

I found some artificial moss at http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ but I can’t help thinking that real moss would be THAT much prettier…any ideas on where I can get that? And on a budget?

Loving These Much?

Look what I found when I was “browsing” for some good silk flowers…

Isn’t that GORGEOUS?!?!?

It combines all of my colors, and I love the whimsical look of the whole bouquet. What’s even better? It’s all silk, which means that it’s something that I could keep forever, if I wanted to. Plus, as a personal side note and nod to myself and MOH, these people in the floral business KNOW what color eggplant is! Unlike those fools that seem to abound in the linen business…

This bouquet is already made up and ready to order, with a kickin’ price tag! I think that I’m going to order one JUST so that I can see it in person. How awesome would it be if this was as gorgeous in person as it is online? I would literally die…in contentment!

And if that wasn’t enough, look what other options they had in their pre-made bouquets section:
Not “quite” right on the purples, but still beautiful!

LOVE this one. It brings in some other colors, that I wasn’t really thinking of using, but gorgeous!

And then low and behold, this online store might have become my new best friend. I found something that I didn’t even know existed. Lavendar. Lilies.

Check it out…

Aren’t they gorgeous?!?! Mr. CC has made ONE tiny request on the flowers – to include his personal favorite flower, which is the lily. He actually like the Stargazer lily the best, and I’m working hard to fit it into our black, cream and eggplant color scheme here, but I wonder if these beauties would do? They fit in a little nicer…

So if I place the order for any (or ALL!) of those bouquets just to check them out, I think that I’ll also order some of these lilies. They’re on close-out, being discontinued, and I could probably return them if I don’t end up liking them. But if I did like them…WOW!

Have you ever been searching for something else and stumbled upon what could be a little goldmine for your wedding? I’m loving them!

(All images courtesy of http://www.afloral.com/)

Non-Floral Flowers???

The other day when I was out shopping with my MOH, we tried to brainstorm some “off the wall” ideas regarding the new centerpiece holders that I had. I was really trying to avoid fresh flowers completely for two main reasons:
1. They tend to be expensive
2. They don’t last – it’s a waste of large amounts of money to be thrown away the next day - I can’t hold onto the centerpieces, so the flowers would be thrown away immediately
With this motivation, I was really searching hard for some inspiration.

As luck would have it, MOH stepped right in and helped me out. We had stopped by a local nursery in San Antonio the pick up some seeds for MOH’s sister. While there, MOH came up with the suggestion to put a potted plant into the centerpiece instead of fresh flowers.

What was that? A potted plant? This was something that I hadn’t thought of…

Hmmm….what kind of potted plant? Well, something with a little bit of height to it, but also something that would be sort of “wispy” to provide some droopy branches for a romantic feel. This sounds REALLY far-fetched to me, so don’t feel lost!

We looked through their selection while at the nursery and came up with a favorite first choice. The maidenhair fern. It’s small, delicate and very green. The leaves are even almost heart-shaped, which the romantic in me goes ga-ga over! And since it’s a fern, I shouldn’t (strongly stress the SHOULDN’T) be able to kill the plant. My green thumb tends to lean more towards the black side of green. What’s that? You didn’t know green had a black side? In my world it does!

Anyway, we tossed the idea back and forth. I didn’t like the idea of just a potted plant alone in the centerpiece, so MOH said to mix the potted plant with a few stems of fresh flowers to add color and flowers, but without everything being completely floral. Hmmm…an interesting concept.

While at the nursery we played around with some flowers mixed into the fern, but couldn’t hit it just right. In the end, I decided that I really did like the fern (even if it didn’t work for what we were thinking), so I bought it to take home and try it out. If it looked horrible, then no harm no foul, I get a cute plant out of the deal.

Throughout this whole process, keep in mind that MOH hasn’t actually seen the centerpieces. She was totally working on my description of them. I don’t know whether to congratulate her for her visionary skills, or to pat my own back for my excellent descriptions…

Either way, this is what we ended up with.

I’m not thrilled with it like this. I decide that the problem is that the plant sits too low in the centerpiece. Since I bought the smallest one they have, I know in my head that a larger fern might do better.

I tried to work with it, to see if I could copy MOH’s visionary skills, but alas, I can’t get over how awkward it looks.
Ignore the paper ball squashed into the bottom of the vase, I was trying to lift the plant. The problem? The plant couldn't sit flat on the paper ball, and it kept falling off to one side...

I even tried to add a flower into it to see what I think…it’s just not quite right.

Maybe that flower's too big?

I think that I have to stop by another nursery and get the 6” plant and see if I like it better. It should be taller, fuller, and not sit so low in the holder.

Now to find a local nursery…man, the places you go when you’re planning a wedding!

Have you had any off-the-wall ideas for your centerpieces? Does anyone else agree with me that maybe fresh flowers aren’t the way for you to go either?