…and I’m feeling fine!

That’s right, readers – dare I say that my obsessive need to work ahead has paid off…here are the projects we have left:

- Cut squares of fabric for the tables. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Sew a lining into the flower girl dresses. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend.

- Gather (and print, if necessary) a few pictures of Jordan and I for a photo feature. When we’ll get it done:  by Friday.

- Wrangle and frame few more wedding pictures of our relatives. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Practice making our DIY tiered surprise wedding cake. When we’ll get it done:  this weekend, hopefully.

- Print and mail gift-opening invites. When we’ll get it done:  this needs to happen ASAP!

- Fold napkins. When we’ll get it done:  first round tomorrow, second and final round hopefully next week.

- Reception playlist. When we’ll get it done:  probably next weekend; it’s about 70% done right now.

- Silhouettes (of Jordan and I) for frames. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend; we just need to format and print.

- Finalize pew decor. When we’ll get it done:  tonight.

- Purchase gifts for our parents and our ceremony helpers. When we’ll get it done:  next Friday (payday!).

- Tie baker’s twine on the programs. When we’ll get it done:  Probably the week of the wedding…eek.

- Take photos of decor, pack up decor items in boxes according to tables. When we’ll get it done:  next weekend. BIG project, but I hope to have lots of help.

- Get our marriage license. When we’ll get this done:  the Wednesday of the wedding week.

I have my hair trial and my final make-up trial on Thursday and my final gown fitting on Saturday. We also are having our premarital counseling session with my uncle, our officiant, on Saturday. We also turn in our guaranteed guest count to the Pavilion on Saturday. My wedding week beauty treatments are all scheduled, with the exception of a manicure appointment…truthfully, I may just paint my own nails!

Things are coming together really nicely – I hope that I’m not forgetting anything!?

[Photo: www.free-flow-coaching.com]

Here’s what we’ve been doing:

- Last week, I spent the evening building our photo booth with the great help of my future father-in-law. The photo booth turned out wonderfully; I can’t wait to see how it looks in our wedding photos! I hope to provide a full tutorial for you all at some point, so stay tuned…

- Made a list of must-have photos for our photographers, and met with our lovely photogs to discuss our wedding day. I’m SO excited that we’ve chosen such wonderful and supportive photographers; they will be so great to have with us on our wedding day, and I know that Kara will help to keep me relaxed.

- Started tanning! While I’m definitely not a fan of how bad tanning beds are for my skin, I do need to build up a base tan of sorts before heading off to Jamaica. So, I’ve stared tanning a few times per week!

- Started the napkins process! With the great help of my bridesmaid Serena and her mother, we’re making headway with the DIY napkins project! We’re about halfway through the project, and I plan to bring the last batch of fabric over to Serena’s home this week for cutting.

- Mailed our rehearsal dinner invitations. They turned out wonderfully, and we’re so excited for our Italian-themed rehearsal dinner!

- Ordered 3 one-half sheet cakes for our wedding reception. We ordered 1/2 sheet of red velvet (my favorite!), one half sheet of strawberry (Jordan’s favorite) and one half sheet of vanilla cake from a local bakery. I’m glad to have that completed!

- Set up a final meeting with our on-site reception coordinator and our florist to cover last-minute details. Both of these appointments are next week, and I’m excited to finalize all of the details!

- Set up a meeting to visit the chapel where our ceremony will take place. I’m visiting my alma mater, Augustana College, this week to set up decorations around the chapel to see what they look like. I’m excited to see how/if the pew bows will attach to the pews…frankly, that’s all I’m concerned about. I know that everything else will look great!

- Finalized gifts for the groomsmen and ushers; everything should be done next week, so I can wrap the gifts!

- Secured a classic car to transport Jordan and I from the ceremony to the reception!

- Got the guys measured for tuxes! Only a few of our guys have yet to do this, and they’re under strict instructions to do so ASAP.

- Finalized our wedding ceremony script. Yes!

- Trying to wrangle wedding pictures of our relatives; I only need a few more pictures, and we’ll be set!

I think that’s it!

Here’s what we have left:

- Our reception playlist. We’ve started working on it, but Jordan’s school quarter ends this Friday, so Jordan will have a lot more time to devote to finalizing our playlist starting next week. This is his pet project, and I’m excited to help with this process as much as I can.

- Getting a few more props for the photo booth, as well as finding/purchasing baskets for the day’s needs, a few picture frames, and a few props for our wedding photos on the wedding day.

- Figuring out what camera to use for the photo booth.

- Print the wedding programs. We’re waiting for the final OK from our officiant, and as soon as we have that, we’re good to go!

- Cutting table squares and a table runner for the reception; we are purchasing the fabric today, so it won’t be too long before this project is off our list.

- Sew a lining into our flower girl dresses. Again, the fabric for this has been purchased, so hopefully we can finalize this project soon.

- Purchase a gift for my personal attendant and our parents, as well as gifts for our hosts & hostesses and our ceremony reader.

- Gift-opening preparation and invitations.

- Bring my engagement ring and wedding band into the jeweler to be soldered and plated.

- Premarital counseling session with my uncle, our officiant, to discuss our personality inventory.

- Discuss our DIY tiered wedding cake with my mother, and maybe practice making a cake.

- Final wedding gown fitting; I’m so excited for this part!

- Final hair and make-up trial, as well as week-of beauty treatments; again, SO excited!

- Wrap gifts and box up ceremony/reception decor.

- Marriage license.

- Meet with our travel agent to finalize details for our honeymoon, and pack for our honeymoon.

- GET MARRIED!

Surprisingly, my stress level is rather low; while I know that there’s still more things to do, I feel remarkably calm heading into the final month before the wedding.

How are you handling wedding stress?

Throughout our engagement, I have noticed that Sara has had the final say on green lighting projects for the wedding. I trust her decision making as she really has put together a wonderful package that her and I can both be proud of. I have made a few suggestions along the way, and some have passed the test, while others were quickly dismissed. This is okay, I completely understand, and couldn’t be happier with the upcoming event.

However, that’s not the point of this guest post. This post is just for fun; it’s me pretending that if I were to plan a few big things for the wedding, regardless of practicality, cost, or anything else, here’s what I’d do.  Who knows – maybe if an idea gets enough support, I can get a green light!

In order:

Number 5 — Rainbow Tuxes

This is a slightly goofy option, but I really enjoy personality, and while its far from traditional, I think people have more fun when they get a little more abstract. How much more fun and a greater memory for all would it be if everyone was wearing some different brightly colored tux? I think it would be outrageously fun!

[Sara's note: It's rather interesting that he thinks this, considering I literally BEGGED him to let my girls wear dresses the color of the rainbow, and he quickly turned me down. Hmmm...]

Number 4 — Jon Miller and Joe Morgan doing Play-By-Play and Color Announcing

Perhaps this is slightly far fetched, but I’d be excited for impersonators to go over any type of video we record for the wedding and give a play-by-play and color analysis, as if they were on Sunday Night Baseball. I generally hate announcers, but I enjoy Jon Miller, and I enjoy to make fun of Joe Morgan, so I think it would be just smashing and potentially really humorous if we find someone who can nail the Morgan role.

Number 3 — Absolutely no country music played at any time.

I really detest country music. I could say about 1400 bad things about it that I’ll likely get no response to, but I just can’t stand it. A country song will suck the fun right out of me and will just murder my attention span. There’s not a single country song in my music library, and despite being forced to sit through it in my 24 years of life, I have yet to enjoy a single one. I honestly prefer boy bands over country music, as with them at least the music is catchy and danceable. Country music offers nothing, but (age old cliche from country music haters) my dog died, my wife left me, and my friends don’t know me, wah wah wah, suck.

Number 2 — Rethinking the gift-opening event.

I am not a huge fan of gift-openings, either. I love to give and get gifts, but to me, gift-giving is so much better at random periods of time than at designated events or days. There’s nothing wrong with holidays, anniversaries, or gift-opening events, but I just don’t really enjoy focusing my attention or being the focus of attention during this time. I suggest we just wrap the entire gift-opening party around a large kickball game (or a similar event) that everyone participates in, and in between innings, we open a gift or two. That way, there’s ample time for breaks, thank you’s, and everything else, while there’s always that game to look forward to and keep everyone occupied. What an awesome idea!

Number 1 – “99 Red Balloons” … literally and musically

This is by far my most favorite idea. I have even suggested this one several times and been turned down very politely every time. However, I push on as I really believe this is a great idea to get the party started. Here’s the plan: We have our first dance as a couple, which gets everyone all excited, emotional, and amped. Then after the song ends, the song “99 Red Balloons” comes on (either original or Goldfinger cover) which starts off slow, serving as a great transition that builds up into the chorus. When the chorus starting playing, my plan is to have 99 red balloons (that were earlier filled and set up to fall on the dance floor) come down and “rain” on everybody. This would do many things, including:

1. Create a unique dancing environment that you don’t see often.

2. Inspire those who are still sitting down to get up and join the dance party.

3. Make for some really cool photo shots.

4. Get the dancing start off right, as so many people need a reason to get out of their chair.

It’s an insanely good idea, and I know that someone would have to clean the balloons up almost right away, and/or popping them becomes an unnecessary fun game for many. But that’s one side effect that I’m willing to live with to get everything rocking.

[Sara's note: I love, love, LOVE this idea, but it's just way to dang expensive to even think about doing.]

Honorable mentions:

Giant sports ticker. Instead of having a slide show rolling through pictures for hours, we can mix in a sports and news ticker that mostly updates fantasy baseball and Seattle Mariners scores. This one didn’t make the cut as the Mariners so far aren’t worth watching…

Life-size giraffe-shaped cake. While it’s not a feasible idea, even a 1/8th scale version would be pretty sweet.

Wedding mascot. Mascots are fun, get people going, and are typically good performers. But, Sara’s terrified of mascots, so that one’s out.

I won’t have any less fun at our wedding if none of my ideas come to fruition, but it was fun to think about setting these things up and remembering them for years and years. Positive and negative comments are welcome!

After much talk about how wonderful it would be to grow our own flowers for the wedding, my Mom and I decided to forgo this project for a few reasons.

1. The unpredictable South Dakota weather. We had no clue if the flowers would even grow, and since summer weather in our lovely state is about as predictable as where weeds will grow, we didn’t want to make the attempt and have it not pay off in the end.

2. Added stress (and expense!). While growing our own flowers for the wedding sounds like a wonderful idea, the practical application of it all (from growing the flowers to putting them together into mason jars to transporting them to the reception venue) was rather daunting.

What DIY projects are you dropkicking to the curb?

[Image via www.howstuffworks.com]

The tasks?

1. Signage. Kristen has LOVELY handwriting (which we also utilized for our save the dates!), so we recruited her again to make place cards for the head table and “reserved” signs for the reception. They turned out great!

2. Ceremony decor. As I mentioned earlier this week, we decided to make tissue paper pomander balls, which we started (as in, I made a template and Serena trimmed all of the tissue paper to the same size). Hopefully I’ll finish them this week! We also placed sand and candles inside mason jars and tied the jars with ribbon to place on the floor of the aisle.

3. Covering these *ugly* plastic canisters of wet wipes with *lovely* scrapbook paper. We needed wet wipes for our guests for guestbook-signing purposes, but I hated the plastic canisters that they came in. So, Serena measured out the appropriate amount of lovely grey damask paper and adorned the canisters with ribbon. Problem solved!

4. The wishing tree. After one casualty (a ceramic pot shattered to its death), we rocked out the wishing tree!

5. Begin folding our cootie catcher favors. Check! Also hope to finish these this week (I will probably make a large dent on this project while watching my weekly TV shows!).

I hope to have another Super Fun Craft Day this summer!

How are you getting all of your DIY projects done on time/with time to spare?

This past weekend, I finally made some concrete decisions about the decor for our ceremony. We’re having our wedding ceremony in a small chapel on the college campus of my alma mater, Augustana. The chapel is BEAUTIFUL (think liturgical art and an ENORMOUS organ), so we didn’t want to overwhelm the space with decor.

The verdict: we’re keeping it simple.

The components of our decor:

1. Pew decorations: yes, I’ve been bitten by the tissue paper pomander bug … we’re using these (rather voluminous) lovelies to adorn every other pew. View instructions here!

2. In place of an aisle runner (which our venue doesn’t allow), I have 12 mason jars that my bridesmaids filled with sand and placed a small votive candle inside. We tied the top of the jar with pretty yellow ribbon, and these will be placed on the floor of the chapel beside a pew (where there’s NOT a pomander ball), so as to create balance.

3. As I mentioned before, we’ve chosen to honor our grandparents by placing seven candles on the altar. These ivory candles will be placed atop a silver charger plate, and lovely little yellow mulberries will be intertwined between the candles.

One last thought: I’m still debating on whether or not we need to place something atop the piano (a birdhouse placed on a doily, perhaps?), but we have everything else figured out!

How are you decorating your ceremony space?

[Photo via Elizabeth Ann Designs]

I jumped on the bunting bandwagon and crafted up my own bunting to dress up our wedding cake table.

I probably should have taken pictures along the way to dress up this post, but alas, I have only a picture of the finished product (above).

Steps:

1. Gather/purchase fabric. I purchased 2 yards of yellow gingham fabric and 2 yards of charcoal grey polka-dot fabric from Hancock Fabrics in Sioux Falls.

2. Find/draw a triangle shape and print on cardstock. This will be your pattern for the triangles. (I’m a fan of larger triangles, but I’ve seen many a cute bunting with little triangles or squares.)

3. Take a pen/pencil and trace along the outside of the triangle on the BACK side of the fabric.

4. Take (sharpened!) pinking shears and cut alongside the outside of your tracing marks. (I made about 30 triangles.)

5. After all of your triangles are cut, fold over the top of the triangle approximately 1 inch, and use a hot iron (with steam!) to make a crease in the triangle, similar to when you’re hemming pants. The purpose is to create a fold where the string can fit in.

6. When all of your triangles are ironed, grab your string, a pair of scissors and a ruler. (I used twine, but you could use ribbon, ric rac, or any other type of string, depending upon your project!) Determine the spacing between each flag (I had approximately 2 inches between triangles).

7. Plug in your hot glue gun, and once it’s warm, insert the string into the fold of the triangle (created with the iron) and place a line of hot glue in the fold as well. Press lightly to secure. Continue on until you’ve used all of your triangles.

8. Take a look at all of your triangles, and trim as necessary.

And you’re done!

While there are various tutorials online that offer ways to make your own bunting, I definitely prefer the no-sew type.

Enjoy!

[Photo by me]

However, when we stumbled upon Etsy seller Lovliday and her large tree guestbook, we knew that we finally found our guestbook!

Take a look:

To us, the tree fits so well within our theme of nature-inspired beauty! The concept behind the guestbook is this: we make stamp pads available for our guests, and they press their thumb into the ink and then place it firmly upon the 18×24 canvas print of the tree. Guests then simply sign their name underneath their thumbprint, and they’ve officially signed our guestbook!

We had Jessie over at Lovliday customize the coloring of the tree file for us according to our wedding colors, and it turned out wonderfully! Plus, she offered this custom colorization service at no extra charge.

This tree guestbook is also perfect for the DIY bride on a budget; Jessie offers her unique guestbook both in printed form and as a PDF file, so for a meager charge, you can send the file to your local printer to be printed on 18×24 canvas!

We plan to frame our guestbook after the wedding and hang it on our wall as a constant reminder of our wedding day and all of the people that took part in our special day. Big thanks to Lovliday for providing such a unique and beautiful guestbook!

A few weeks ago on Twitter, I stumbled upon a post from Intimate Weddings that literally made me stop in my tracks. Besides boasting a comprehensive venue search for intimate weddings on her site, Christina of Intimate Weddings has also collected tutorials and inspiration for some of the best DIY projects out there, making Intimate Weddings a literal hub of DIY goodness.

Because J and I plan to incorporate mason jars into our wedding decor, Christina’s post on these multi-purpose lovelies caught my eye recently. Before seeing this post, J and I figured that we would utilize mason jars as vases to hold flowers on on our reception tables. But after seeing this picture (at left), I now am on the hunt for more mason jars to achieve this affect!

I’ve always wanted to be married by candlelight, and this picture literally is just oozing with romance. Can you imagine collections of these mason jars lining the aisle?! How amazing.

The best part about mason jars is that they can be reused post-wedding for canning, storing foods like salsa, or utilized for gifts, such as hot chocolate mix, hard ingredients for cookie dough and more. Plus,mason jars are an easy, always available vase for your favorite garden flowers! Therefore, making an investment in mason jars is an eco-friendly, budget-friendly decor idea.

[Photo credit: Intimate Weddings]

Not a fan of wastefulness, but still want to offer your guests favors? Look no further than Dream Green Weddings‘ marketplace of eco-friendly wedding favors.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Organic Shea Butter Soap Wedding Favors

These favors, in the shape of X’s and O’s (how cute!) are made with pure, natural ingredients. Plus, the little soaps come with a tiny little gift box, adorned with a ribbon and a personalized label. And at just $3.25 a box, they’re affordable, too!

Birdseed Heart Organic Wedding Favors in Organza Bag

Inspired by the beauty of nature, give your guests little hearts adorned with birdseed made with natural ingredients. These little beauties will be handmade just for your wedding, and allow you to get creative: hang them from trees at your venue!

Live Bamboo Eco-Wedding Favor in a Bubble Vase

Nothing is more eco-friendly than giving your guests a living plant! These bamboo shoots are shipped directly from a California nursery. Symbolizing love, luck and happiness, bamboo is also a sustainable natural resource that takes little energy to harvest.

Have a great Monday!