Eco-Vintage Weddings

Featured on the Gotham Bride Guide!

Big news, readers: our DIY wedding invitations were featured on the lovely Gotham Bride Guide!

Click here to read the full post; a big thank you to the folks over at Gotham Bride Guide for featuring us!

[Photo: Gotham Bride Guide]

Green Monday: Wildflower Wedding!

In an effort to be budget-friendly, my mother and I plan to grow a good-sized wildflower garden in our backyard this summer. We hope to put these wildflowers in mason jars and use these arrangements as part of our centerpieces.

While my mother and I don’t claim to be accomplished gardeners, we hope that with a lot of advice from a local greenhouse, we can honor our budget and the environment by growing our own flowers.

Do you have any green gardening tips?

[Photo: The Flower Expert]

Our Wedding: DIY Progress Update

Remember my never-ending list of DIY projects? With just over four months to go until our wedding day, I figured that it was time to streamline my DIY projects list, leaving only the projects that A) really contribute to my overall vision for our wedding (eco-friendly, vintage-inspired, nature-inspired, rustic motif, aviary motif) and B) are relatively easy to complete.

After editing our list (bye-bye paper pom-pom vines & bunting galore), here’s the projects that Jordan and I have since tackled:

- Save the Date cards. Designed, printed, compiled and mailed!
- Designed and printed Cootie Catcher favors featuring trivia about Jordan and I, each of which will be placed at each place setting at the reception.
- Ordered two custom stamps, one from a local stampmaker (a stamp for our wishing tree cards; woo for investing in our local economy and small business!) and one from an artist on Etsy (featuring our address).
- Wedding invitations. Designed once, hated it, designed again, LOVE IT! Now all we need to do is pick a time for the festivities to begin…
- Wedding RSVP cards = DONE! I can’t wait to show you all a sneak peek after they’re mailed in May!
- “In Memory” candles – PURCHASED! I happened to stumble upon candles made from palm oil (read: more eco-friendly than paraffin candles). These candles will be placed on a silver charger plate on the altar, and will be lit in memory of our families.
- Cake topper = PURCHASED! After drooling over many options on Etsy, I found the perfect cake topper at Hobby Lobby for the perfect price: $5.00 total!
- Negotiated a price for customized shoes from an Etsy seller; can’t wait to continue with this process!
- Designed thank-you notes to send from us as a married couple post-wedding! They’re very simple, but I just love the vintage touches we added. I’ll be showcasing these soon!
- Fabric for napkins = PURCHASED! I can’t wait to help my Mom with this project, and learn some sewing skills!

Up next: crafting my throw-away garter, finishing up little surprises for my girls, signage, bout’s for my guy’s buddies and other wedding helpers, and crafting photobooth tickets, our ceremony programs and rehearsal dinner invitations!

What projects are you crafting for your wedding?

Green Monday: Mason Jar Love

Happy Monday, readers! I was gifted the entire weekend off from my part-time job at Gymboree, and I got a few wedding-related crafts done! I can’t wait to share them with you soon.

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]

Green Friday: Cans & Vintage Labels

I have this not-so-secret love affair with projects listed on I-Do-It-Yourself. Luzel, the author of this smashing blog full of DIY goodness, is a seriously smart gem of a DIY’er, and she’s honed in on an ever-growing market: brides who DIY.

Whatever the reason you’re DIYing (out of concern for your wedding’s environmental footprint, for budgetary reasons, or for the fun of the projects), you have to check out I-Do-It-Yourself.

This project comes from a post on I-Do-It-Yourself offering free (yes, FREE!) vintage labels. As Luzel mentions in her post, she has a thing for vintage labels and tea tins (what lover of all things vintage doesn’t!), and she’s concepted an idea for vintage brides!

I seriously thought about incorporating tin cans covered in these vintage label beauties for J and my gift-opening brunch, but a wheelbarrow full of other projects have taken precedence. However, if YOU are still looking for reception centerpieces on the cheap, take a look at Luzel’s post over at iDIY!

As an added bonus, use recycled cans for this project! Or, to establish and encourage community between your family and your new in-laws, ask a few members of your soon-to-be spouse’s family to help you collect cans, and have them all over for a rousing DIY party! (Just be sure to provide snacks and libations!)

[Image and project from Luzel of iDIY, www.i-do-it-yourself.com]

Our Wedding: DIY Progress

Good morning, readers! I thought I’d give you all a taste of what DIY wedding projects I’ve been working on these past few weeks.

1. Task Numero Uno for the past few weeks was to finish our Save the Date cards. I showed you the finalized product in an earlier post, and we just got proofs back from my father’s company last week. After a few more tweeks, we’ll be ready to print!
2. I’ve also collected about 10 letter ‘G’s’ for our centerpieces at our reception. While I had hoped to have these letters crackle painted by now, I have been rather busy with work. Hopefully we’ll get these letters painted yet this month! I also need to get 3-4 more letters; I’ve bought out Hobby Lobby’s stock each time I’m there, so hopefully next time they’ll have enough!
3. On another trip to Hobby Lobby, I purchased two notepads full of decorative paper. I plan to use this paper for my bachelorette party invitations as well as to adorn the inside flap of the envelopes we’ll be sending our Save the Date cards and our wedding invitations in. I also went to Michael’s Crafts and found little white doilies to adorn the inside flap of envelopes, too. So many choices!
4. I also purchased four ivory flower pins that my mother and I are going to attempt to dye grey – these are for my bridesmaids to wear in their hair on our big day! We plan to purchase the dye soon, along with some test fabric.
5. For our engagement shoot, we brought along hearts on sticks and mustaches on sticks, two DIY projects that were super easy and (I hope) turned out cute in our pictures! I’ll have a DIY project for you tomorrow, where I show you how to make them.
6. I also purchased little bookmark-sized papers for our wishing tree, which will be at our reception space. I plan to dye these papers in tea, round the corners of them with my super awesome corner rounder punch, and use a hole punch to poke holes in them and tie a string of twine through them. I hope to put a stamp of some sort on the paper, too, but I have yet to find one I like that’s small enough.

That’s where I am so far in my DIY project list; here are my goals for December/January:

1. Print the Save the Dates, adorn them with vellum paper and buttons and GET THEM OUT THE DOOR!
2. Get started on designing our wedding invitations (I have the entire design concepted and the font chosen – all that I have to do is get J started on them!)
3. Purchase fabric to make napkins for the wedding (my Mom is researching what type/weight of fabric is customary for cloth napkins); begin to sew napkins
4. Order miniature flags (plain canvas) and stamps/iron-on templates for send-off flags
5. Begin concepting wedding program ideas (I’m thinking of making fan programs)

Have a great Tuesday!

Project Wednesday: My DIY List!

Happy Wednesday, readers! I apologize for the later post today; the morning really got away from me.

For our first Project Wednesday post, I wanted to show you all a list I’ve been compiling since J and I first got engaged (and, if I’m being honest with myself, maybe even a little before that).

I’ve always known since I was a little girl that while I want to feel like a princess on my wedding day, I didn’t want my wedding to look like everyone else’s. As a creative person, I love to write and invent lives and histories for made-up (and sometimes real) characters, and I knew that I could expand this creative energy into planning a wedding.

So, my wedding planning strategy involved the following:  find blog, read blog, email myself links. Eventually I converted this (LONG) threaded email into a DIY project list of sorts, and I’d like to give you all a taste of what I plan to craft for our wedding.

My future sister-in-law and lovely bridesmaid Larissa and I went shopping at Hobby Lobby last night (also with us was my adorable niece, Harper – such a doll!), and here are a few of our finds:

1. 5 large letters (’G'  for Gillis, my future last name!) to adorn the tables as part of our centerpieces. Larissa had the wonderful idea to paint these wooden letters using grey crackle paint – I can’t wait to tackle this project! We’ll need about 12-13 letters in total, and I can’t wait to keep collecting them!
2. Colored foam. I purchased one sheet of red and one sheet of black to use for props for our photobooth (and our engagement photos, I think!). I am excited!
3. Fancy paper books. I purchased two books full of fancy paper from Hobby Lobby for 50% off! I plan to use these papers to dress up the inside flaps of our envelopes and to make invitations for my bachelorette party and/or other stationery.
4. Twine. I LOVE TWINE, and I can’t wait to figure out where we can put it to use!
5. A corner rounder punch – basically, it’s a hole punch that doesn’t punch holes, but instead rounds the corners of stationery. Hello useful!
6. Little cards for our wishing tree. For Larissa’s baby shower, I had her guests write down wishes for Mommy and Baby, and the end result (unbelievably warm and heartfelt notes) encouraged me to do a little research. Many blogs have mentioned couples having “wishing trees” near the guestbook area, and I just love the image of lots of hand-written well wishes hanging from twine on our wishing tree.

I’m SO excited to get started on these projects; now I need to finish gathering materials and get a move on!

What DIY projects did you tackle for your wedding?
I’d love to hear from you!

Still in Love with Yellow…

Happy Friday, everyone!

After Wedding Chicks posted this wedding yesterday, I knew that my love affair with yellow wasn’t over:

Just look at this lovely bride with her maids all dressed in sunshine yellow; how beautiful do they all look! I also just LOVE the accents of grey – the wedding is all about class and casual elegance, and it definitely shows.

I’m really, really struggling with selecting a color choice; just a week or so ago, J and I decided on ivory, navy and green with metallic accents, and now I’m changing my mind?!

Look at the chic yellow and grey invitations that Wedding Chicks used to accompany the wedding:

I just love the way that the yellows and the greys interact. My favorite invitation is not an invitation at all, but the menu in the bottom right-hand corner. I love the graphic at the top (I’m a big fan of vintage-inspired bird graphics), and the slate grey background is so sleek and sophisticated. J and I plan to collaborate with J’s dad to make our invitations, while my father will take on the printing of them. I am very much looking forward to this part of the planning!

Here’s a few more thoughts, readers:  if J and I did go with this color scheme, the gentlemen could don grey tuxes with yellow ties, and the ladies could either wear slate grey or sunshine yellow dresses. As a nod to my ladies, I would most likely put them in grey, so they would be sure to wear the dress again…but I would love for them to wear yellow high heels and carry yellow flowers! We could also incorporate grey table linens at the reception with vintage patterned napkins in yellow hues sitting atop the tables  (making napkins for our guests is a DIY project I’m so excited about!). We could use yellow flowers throughout the space (roses, mums, daisies, etc.), and still use ivory, metallic gold and silver as accent colors.

The main question here is this:  how will a yellow and grey color scheme coordinate with the terracotta walls of our preferred reception venue, Vintage?

What do you think about this color palette, readers?
I’d love to hear from you!

[All photos found via Wedding Chicks; Bridesmaid photo via Barebone Photography]

Invitation Inspiration!

Good Friday morning to everyone!

I apologize for not posting yesterday; one of my very good friends from high school was in town, and we spent the evening chatting about boys, playing games and reminiscing about our days at Brandon Valley High School. It was a blast!

Today’s post is a lot of fun – I’m beginning to hone in on what I envision for our wedding invitations! As you all are aware, I’m in love with all things vintage-inspired, and I desperately want to incorporate this love of old things and of tradition into my wedding while still keeping some elements new. I am starting to realize that J and my wedding will be a blend of “Something Old” with “Something New,” and I love that!

As of now, J and I are planning on a mid-July 2010 wedding, so instead of the deep browns and crimson reds and olive greens that I was imagining for a fall wedding, I’m now thinking bright and bold colors! Lately, I’m loving the idea of bright, fuschia pink flowers and cobalt blue dresses, ties, and linens. How fun does that sound!

If we indeed go that route, I found this WONDERFUL and (get this: FREE) invitation suite on IDIY awhile back, and I just love the simplicity of it! All we would need to do is change the wording to fit our needs, add our own personal touches to make it our own, and print away! These invites have an old-world feel to them that I love!

However, I’m also So. In. Love. with the invitation below, and I think I can tap the graphic design skills of a few friends and family members to get something like this done. It’s a new twist on a wedding invitation; get ready to scroll, people!

Hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend!

[Photo credits: IDIY]