Recaps- Ceremony Part 1

Although it was a gorgeous day, waiting outside in the heat with my dad was not very pleasant. Sweating was not on my itinerary! But there we were....hot in the sun. I only stood outside, because if I had stood in the entryway, guests would have been able to see me.
We were using a small boom box for the music. That's what the church uses. I guess because it's a stone structure, the acoustics sound really great and they've never had a need for any type of sound system or P.A. We made a CD that consisted of only 3 songs, and simple directions on when to start and stop playing each song was told to my husband (by me) about 8 or 9 times so that it could be drilled into his head (he's a bit A.D.D.). The directions were also posted on the CD cover and on his son's itinerary with special instructions (he was to be in charge of this). I even asked my husband to please, PLEASE allow his son to read directions on CD and itinerary and not to try and explain them to him himself. You see, my honey is HORRIBLE at directions, and there's a 90% chance of him getting things completely wrong. Well.......things did go badly as far as music and queuing people on when to start processional. My honey (I love him to death) got everything wrong, even with engraving things into his brain. He didn't even allow his son to stop and start the music....he did it HIMSELF! ay,ay,ay! So basically, that is why we stood outside in the heat for so frickin' long. But when we finally got on with it, things went great. (Well, besides the sweat factor!)

In the above picture you will see my honey waiting to take pics of everyone as they walked up.
All the guests are patiently waiting (especially because of the music and queuing issues)........
First my mom and step father........followed by flower girl, flower girl's escort and ring bearer. Really in no particular order.....we're just lucky there was cooperation with them all going up the aisle! My flower girl (granddaughter) was completely against having any part of being the flower girl. She even threw a couple of petals....wow!
We were very proud of them. Of course, I didn't get to see until late that evening from the video my honey (and his daughter) made. You can see his daughter in the second set of pictures maneuvering the camera.

Part 2 will be "Here Come's the Bride". ME! =)

ReCaps- DIY Bouquet and Boutonniere

In this next collage you will find my DIY bouquet and DIY boutonniere.
The bouquet had a blend of silk dark purple flowers, brooch pieces, feathers, and various handmade flowers from different materials. I also made pom pom "dandelions" from yarn which you will later see incorporated into other decor. I made the handle wrap from a small lace cloth table runner I found at a generic dollar store. I cut it in half, then folded that in half, then wrapped it around the base. I then added a wide ribbon at the base of the flowers, and crisscrossed a thin decorative ribbon along the handle. I used a "silk bouquet foam top" handle.....it had fake stems built in. You just add silk flowers. To make it cost me about $20. This was not my throw away bouquet. The throw away was real flowers.....the ONLY real flowers that were in any part of our day. I'll have pics of that in a later post.
My "something borrowed" was the dragonfly pin at the top of the handle that I borrowed from my mom.
I made the picture charms (my first and only attempt at these thus far) which included, from top to bottom, my husband's mom (who passed away almost 2 years ago), my father's mom, and my mother's mom. I REALLY love the way these came out! I feel it's my best project ever. Maybe because it's such a sentimental thing.
You know, handmade "fake" flower bouquets are not for everyone. We all have our preferences, likes, dislikes and attitudes & such. When I first told my sister that I was making a bouquet from fake flowers (I already knew she had attitude against fake flowers) she scoffed. When she finally saw it on my wedding day, she said, "I take it all back". That made me smile. Not that I really cared what people thought. After all, it was MY wedding, and MY bouquet and I wanted things MY way. But like I said, I know that everyone has their own preferences, and I don't think anyone should be knocking other people just because they don't like the same thing they like. Individuality.........it's part of what makes life so fun! OK....so let's continue.
I made bouts for my Mr., my dad, and our ring bearer. They're all basically the same with the exception that the ring bearer's is smaller, and my Mr.'s has a little something extra in it.
My mom's corsage was on the last post I shared.
~~~~CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW TO ENLARGE~~~~


pictures taken by: Sweet As Pie Weddings

ReCaps! Finally.......Prep Before Ceremony

Hello all. I know it's been a very long time since I've actually blogged, and all I can say is I'm sorry. This here is my first recap of the wedding. I didn't really know where to start, and I will probably be all over the place with this, but for this first post I will be recapping the church set up (the day of) and getting ready for the ceremony. I really didn't feel the need to go into make up, hair, etc. because I did my own at home in a big rush! More about that later.
I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to blogging, so I've arranged the pics as collages.....I hope you don't mind. OK....so let's start. We were married on September 18, 2010. The weather was a very nice and comfortable 86 degrees.
We were married in a very old stone church that my dad's side of the family has attended for generations. In fact, my grandmother lived right next door to it.
The church has been there since 1888.
The Pastor was to meet us at the church to let us in to decorate at 2:30. But I think he didn't show up until about 2:55......right about the time I was scheduled to start getting ready. But ok......it's a good thing I had minimal decorations for the church. My 28 year old daughter met us there and was able to help out decorating. Thank goodness! And of course she brought her 4 year old daughter (my flower girl/granddaughter) and I of course brought my 13 year old daughter/granddaughter (I adopted her when she was 2). She was appointed as the Flower Girl's Escort. Such a prestigious title. ha! We just needed to ensure that the flower girl would make it down the aisle. You see, when I first asked my darling granddaughter to be my flower, she was animatedly against it. I told her she would be wearing a beautiful Cinderella dress, I showed her videos on YouTube of flower girls walking down the aisle, I begged and pleaded, tried guilt trips.....you name it! And still....NO! I don't want to be a flower girl! So I basically had decided that we would have to trick her. Long story short, she did wonderfully and had full knowledge of what she was going to do. YAY!
~~~MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON PICS TO SEE LARGER~~


So in the above pic, you can see her sitting on the bench and waiting to get changed into her dress. But first, setting up. You can see my 13 year old putting the signs on the pew bows. I really didn't spend much time or effort on the pew bows. I just bought the Dollar Tree bows, and added lavender tulle to them. The signs were very simple.....card stock and ribbon. My Mr. ran the simple runner that I had gotten from LinenTablecloth.com down the aisle.
While they did that, I was decorating the entryway.

I put out the layered programs that I made, the bubbles I had decorated, the Tears of Joy tissues I made, the guest book I had made at Photoworks.com. They had a coupon last year for a free book, so I jumped on it! I also put out pictures of our grandparents and parents on their wedding days. I especially love the one that has my grandmother and grandfather exiting this very church on their wedding day back in 1927. After decorating, we headed to a small church reception area to get dressed. It was just a few steps away. When we walked in, we noticed that it was set up for some sort of reception. I wasn't told about this. All of the areas I was planning to have photo ops in were completely changed. There had been a perfect corner in which to take pictures, but now that was gone. Oh well.....

So Alayla quickly got dresses in a corner....hiding from everyone. She's so cute, and she actually really seemed ready for her part! So now it was my turn. My daughter and Mom helped me with a few things.
Ah....I feel like a princess! Good thing I brought a small mirror......hey, ya gotta make do with whatcha gots! lol
I made my necklace, by the way. It was during crunch time, so nothing fancy. Seeing as I had never made any jewelry before, I thought it came out pretty good. I had planned to do a much nicer one, but I'm lucky I made one at all. I really don't even know why I was so determined to make my own.....darned blog world!
I made my shoe clips, but somewhere, somehow between the ceremony and reception I lost one. grrrrrrr........you can see that I had lost one in the Mr & Mrs Shoe Shot (coming later). Grrrrr.....
Well anyway, I added little blue beads to my garter for my something blue. My 13 year old (Sunshine) helped put my shoes on while Alayla sat patiently with "Baby", her giraffe that she never leaves home without. After I was ready, we had time for some pics. My sister and nieces joined us.
You can see the corsage that I made for my mom. I used a lot of the same elements for the corsage, boutonnieres, and my bouquet. Yup, I made my own bouquet too! I think my next post will be closeups of my bouquet, so it won't be as looooooooooooong as this post.
Sorry about that, but you seemed bored. hehe

pictures taken by: Sweet As Pie Weddings

Yes, I did end up hiring a photographer after all. I got a great deal.....all pics shot, unedited, all on dvd. So, in other words......I had to do any enhancing, color adjusting, etc. that needed to be done on the pics (which I love to do anyways!).

WOO-HOO! The winner...................

...............of the die cut business cards from Uprinting is Shanna (Miss Arkansas Bride) who said, "I would probably use them for photo sharing cards at our wedding.".
Congrats to you Shanna! You should be hearing from Uprinting soon.

I Want One!

SILHOUETTE Machine Guest Giveaway!

My DIY Pinwheels To Top The Kid's Pencils

I wanted to add some more fun to the activity booklets I had made for the kids attending our reception, and decided to put pinwheels on top of the pencils I had bought for them. I think the pictures say it all as far as my process went.


I used some pretty thick double sided card stock. But I think thinner paper will work just as well.
Make sure your hole on your hole punch is smaller than the head on your pin. (see #7)
The (4) hole punches will go on the straight cut edge. Of course, you can also always skip the zigzagged side and just keep all lines straight. I just did the zigzag for an added pizazz.


I actually ended up gluing the four pieces together.....putting a dab of glue stick around each hole as I folded each down..........then held in place for a few moments......


I know the pencil doesn't exactly match up with the paper that well (pencil is actually dark purple, but looks brown in pics) but that's ok. It just makes it all that more fun! =)
I also need to concoct a way to make 2 of these pinwheel pencils without actual pins for our two smaller kids. All the rest of the kids are over 10. I'm working on it!
And here it is with the activity booklet and the pillow box I made for the crayons. The pillow box actually just started off as an experiment. I was originally going to just tie some crayons together with ribbon, but then thought that I wanted to put them in some sort of container instead. I tried a few different things, then when I began the pillow box, there was no stopping me. I made them all without a single pic being taken. =(
But I'll make one more for tutorial sake.....soon.
I love the way all the papers match.
I'm still trying to think of some more ideas for the kids. Any thoughts?

My DIY Kid's Booklet

I decided to make just a small kid's booklet for the children that will be at my reception. If all that were invited come, there will be a total of twelve. I started by scouring the internet for templates of coloring and activity pages (wedding related). So I Googled "kids wedding activity book" under images. So I copy and pasted 4 coloring pages and 3 activity pages. On my own, I also created a word scramble with the theme of things you might find at our sweets table, along with another 2 pages of "how many four letter words and higher can you make from the words "PETER AND BELINDA". I put 2 pages per sheet to be printed out, then used my handy dandy cutter to trim them down to the size I needed. (4 x 8)
The picture above is a bit blurry.....but you get the idea.
I then stapled the 10 pages together.
Next, I got the photo cards from SeeHere.com I had made last year......there was a freebie special going on at the time, and I was thinking ahead. lol This is to be our cover for the booklets.
In fact....if you're interested in getting 25 free photo cards from them, they are running a special right now, and all you have to do is pay for shipping. You get (25) 4" x 8" cards in whatever design you choose, to be used for whatever you would like. Just enter this coupon code at checkout: cards-36. This special ends on 7/17/10.
So anyways.....I hot glue gunned the cover to the stack of papers by putting a thin line along the top..........
.......and there you have it! A little time consuming, but it basically cost me nothing but time. (Last year they even paid for shipping on photo cards!) =p

On another subject...........
I sent my invites out in 2 batches......one batch on Thursday and one batch on Friday. Unfortunately, I didn't take pics of my assembly process as I was in SUCH a big hurry to get them out. As I may have mentioned in another post, I've been so busy with Etsy, that time just flew right by me. I wanted to get them out really early so that when the response deadline came up, I could call the people I hadn't heard from to get the count. Then, send out more invites for any open spaces I might have. You see, because of budget AND reception space we had to cut our guest list WAY down low, so I figured whoever couldn't make it on our first wave of invites, maybe people from a second wave could. Make sense? Well anyways....I'll try and take pictures and share from my second wave. How's that?
Did you or do you plan to do anything similar?

For My Mom.....From Etsy

Isn't this such an awesome idea? I found the sweetest angel on Etsy who made this for me. Carrie from SweetAngelLove at Etsy did a FANTASTIC job on this photo collage for my mom for Mother's day. And because my mom has so many grandchildren, she even made me a larger print than her listing was for ( her listing was for an 8 x 10) to accommodate and only charged a few extra dollars (she made me a 16 x 20). She is so wonderful that I just had to mention her on this wedding blog of mine, even though this isn't wedding related. But..........it actually could be wedding related, as she also has a listing for custom wedding photos. You should go take a look! You could get something wedding related......and I'm not sure, but it might be too late for Mother's Day, but you could always give Mom or Grandma an awesome gift for their birthdays!
Well, just thought I'd share this awesome find with you. (5 of those kids are MY grandkids, and my 2 daughters!).
Thanks again Carrie! You're the best!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My wish is for all of my friends out there in the blog world to have a very beautiful day with their significant others.
'Tis a day of L-O-V-E. Enjoy!

Need Table Linens?

I'm sure I've told you all before that my venue doesn't supply linens, and that I was supplying my own (ummm...or maybe I didn't). Well, they aren't and I AM. I already bought my round tablecloths and linen napkins quite awhile ago. And then there's that special I jumped on a couple of months ago from LinenTablecloth.com. In fact....all but my napkins are from LinenTablecloth.com. My round tablecloths I bought through their ebay site. And I just recently received $50 worth of merchandise from them so that I may review their products and blog my opinion on them. So here I am!
Now, what I got with the $50 was (1) 14 foot polyester white table skirt, (4) of their new white satin universal chair covers, and (1) each of 14" x 108" silver satin and lavender satin table runners.
So let's start. The picture above is 2 different chairs. One is a wooden folding chair, and the other is a rounded top dining room table chair. The following picture is the side view of the folding chair with the satin universal chair cover.

Then a picture of it from the back.
Next is the side view of the larger chair..........

....and from the back. So as you can see, they truly are universal. I love the satiny material! I only bought 4 for the head table.
These are some sashes I bought from linentablecloth.com....before the $50 was offered to me. Above it is tied in a bow.......
......and here in a simple knot. I can't wait to decorate the real thing!!!! 7 months-6 days and counting!
These are the table runners......same color on the lavender sash as on this table runner. I also received this silver one, but it seems to look kinda white in the pic.
Here it's draped across my coffee table, but tons of material hanging off the sides, of course! It will look much better when it's steamed and wrinkle free ( they also sell a portable steamer at linentablecloth.com which I am planning to purchase). =)
Here's a close up of this very pretty material. Feel free to click on the pic for a closer look.
And last but not least, here is my humongous white polyester table skirt. It is constructed so well! And the pleating is awesome! I don't know if you've ever seen pics of people's wedding tables where the pleats around their skirt are kinda pleh......well, the pleats on these babies are sharp and defined....and pretty stiff. So I know it's gonna look great at our table....no "pleh" here!
So.....am I happy with linentablecloth.com's products? Well, duh! I wouldn't keep going back for more if I wasn't! And not only the quality...but the price!!!! I have SCOURED the internet to find something less expensive, but my searching always leads me back to linentablecloth.com. Always! They are constantly having special deals, daily twitter contests, and are currently adding more to their inventory and doing their best to make their site the best that it can be....for who? For me and you, of course! Us future Mrs's. (lol) So if you're looking for great, affordable linens.....even rather than renting.....I highly recommend linentablecloth.com. If not for them, I'd be having "like-linen" tablecloths......thank you Linen Tablecloth!

Oh, and reading this back....I realize I sound like a fricken' commercial, but I swear......I'm not getting paid to say these things. I had their permission to write my true opinion on their products.....good or bad. And this IS the most inexpensive place I've found for linens. I love 'em!

I'm Sorry.....

I've been so very busy with jury duty, but will get a break from it with the weekend and holidays coming up. I promise to post the winner of the Poster Giveaway tomorrow....PROMISE! I'm so behind on everything....you should see my house! I haven't been able to make things for my Etsy shoppe either, as I had planned......=(. Oh well, you know how it is when duty calls!

Another Alternative To The Wedding Cake.....

(source)
It's a "shooter" cake. Now THAT'S different! Nothing I would consider, but pretty cool if you ask me.
Speaking of, we had our cake tasting this weekend. Out of the 4 different flavors we tried (rasberry, lemon mousse, coconut mousse, cream cheese mousse)....all were white cake with buttercream......we chose the cream cheese mousse filling. It was heavenly. Because it was a mousse, it didn't have a bite to it. Just smooth and mellow. So yay! One task down. We've still lots of time before we put our order in, but at least we know what we want.
Since we'll be having a small 2 tier (for show and for cutting) and the sheet cake for the guests, we will probably make the 2 tiered with 2 different flavors. The coconut and the lemon.....also very mellow and yummy. =)
What are your favorite flavors, and do you have any flavors that you just can't stand?

Just Got My Winnings! Earrings!

And they came wrapped in a box with a pretty pink bow...all the way from Canada! I won these on a giveaway that Chic 'n Cheap Living hosted.



Aren't they puuurty? These were made with tender loving care by Kim from A Little Bit Of Pretty (etsy shop). And she has FREE wordlwide shipping! So go check out her shop....you're sure to find something you'll fall in love with.

And I got a greeting card with it to boot! She's a sweetheart.
How cute is the card? Right?
Well, just thought I'd share.
Thanks Chic 'n Cheap Living and A Little Bit Of Pretty.

Latte or Cappuccino Decor!

Aren't these so incredibly cool?
What a great idea for a sweet message.



I found these on CoffeeStencil's shop on Etsy.
Hey, I can do this! Oh no....there I go again....but I can.....I CAN do this. OK...I won't.
But it's a cute idea, yes? =)