The wee ones

I apologize for all the posts lately! But I have to blog when I have time, so here it is!

Rant time:

Weddings are expensive. Not just for the bride and groom (or their parents, depending on the situation) but also for the wedding party! These close friends and family get asked to be a part of your day - which should be considered an honor - but they just end up paying a bunch of money depending on what you choose for them to wear and any other expectations. It just stinks! So as a bride I decided that as much as possible I would not make the people involved just buy whatever I told them to. I helped them out. I may have had to cut some other items out of my budget to do so, but every bride has to make choices and that was mine! Purely opinion! ;)

Rant over. 

With all that said, I didn't want to expect the parents of the little ones involved in my wedding to buy an expensive little outfit just because it was "in my vision" for what I wanted things to look like. So for the girls, (flower girls and candle lighters) I decided to make tutus! Plus, what little girl doesn't dream about wearing a tutu? Just me? Okay... fair. 

Before I got ready to spend some major time on these tutus I did my research. There are dozens of sites with instructions on how to make a tutu! I chose to make square knots with my tulle around my loop of elastic. I bought my massive amounts of tulle from Gifts International. They even have sparkle tulle!! Love! I bought about 100 yards of tulle for the four tutus I made because I wanted them fluffy and floor length!

I got the sequin tank tops on sale at Macy's. All the parents had to provide was a cream-colored cardigan, cream-colored tights, and sparkly shoes! Not too bad compared to the typical $50-$100 dresses bought at bridal shops! And they still look adorable!

Such beautiful candle lighters!

I wrapped some of the excess satin from my robe (see this post for more on the robes!) to some Easter baskets I found at Goodwill, then tied a bow with some satin ribbon around the edge for their baskets! Those things are EXPENSIVE! But mine only cost roughly $5 a piece! The bibles that the ring bearer is holding are family heirlooms! My mom tied some beautiful bows around them with lace ribbon and satin ribbon just to fancy them up a bit!

How stinkin' cute are they?

Unfortunately pictures didn't get taken up close of this little detail, but the flower girls threw heart-shaped book pages and sheet music instead of flower petals since fresh flower petals aren't allowed in the church.

Heels and Pearls (and other lovely wedding accessories)

Some of the most personal touches to any wedding is the accessories. You can break some "rules" very easily by doing something a little different with the little details of the wedding. Here are a few of the accessories from our wedding:

All of the groomsmen had a pin designating their respective Hogwarts house! The groom had one showing all four. Yay for Harry Potter nerds! :) And of course the bouts that were featured in this post: Flower Dilemma.

I made my garter by sewing together a piece of stretchy lace that fit my leg snuggly. Then sewed on a beaded applique from Shine Trim. I made one with a bigger applique for my keepsake garter and one with a smaller applique for the tossing garter!

I bought these beautiful blue velvet wedges as my something blue. But they needed a little bling! My theme was vintage glam so plain would just not do! I found these shoe clips on the Etsy store, ShoeClipsBiz! Perfect! Just because I have a minor glitter obsession I also Mod Podged some glitter on the bottom of my shoes!

I was very lucky that my cousin had a BEAUTIFUL floor-length, lace-trim veil that she let me borrow! Best something borrowed! I also borrowed a pair of my mom's pearl earrings. The necklace I wore was a gift from my grandmother. It makes my heart so happy to see those accessories every time I look at pictures from the wedding! So special.

Of course we used a Harry Potter book to show off our rings!

We gave each groomsmen a nerdy pair of socks...

...as well as their favorite Harry Potter book on a pair of cufflinks! 

And finally - the bow tie! Which I will talk more about in my DIY to the rescue post!

Something for your sweet tooth!

I have a bit of a sweet tooth and really, who doesn't? So as part of our reception, we wanted to make sure that sweet tooth was fed! :)

My father-in-law is amazingly handy. 

When I said that I would like to have a s'mores bar and that I wanted it to look like this picture from Grey Likes Weddings he just made it with one of my buddies!

And put his own spin on it by varying the stain by the layers of each shelf. How beautiful is that?

And even more beautiful when it is pilled up with goodies!!

Everything (except for the marshmallows) was individually wrapped so that there were less germs being spread. 

Another fun little part of our wedding sweets-wise was our party favors: homemade hot cocoa mix! And then we had a hot cocoa bar (right next to the s'mores bar, of course) where our guests could fix up their hot cocoa however they liked it!

Our party favors!

You can see part of our napkins in the picture, but here is a better picture of our bow tie napkins modeled by my adorable friends:

My husband's favorite accessory is a good bow tie so it was only fitting that our napkins be in the shape of one!

Centerpieces!

We had two venues that needed decorating: a dessert bar at the church immediately following the ceremony and a dinner and dance reception. Which just meant double the need for some centerpieces...

These were our centerpieces for the dessert bar:

These were honestly my favorite due to the fact they didn't cost me anything! I was able to use flowers from one cousin's wedding and the mint julep vases from another cousin's wedding! It was great to have these as a little extra decoration without breaking the bank.

My husband is and English teacher so using books as centerpieces seemed perfect! The candles were from my cousin's wedding! My aunt did a wonderful job decorating these tables for the dessert bar!

 These were our centerpieces for the dance reception:

We had a variety of centerpieces for the dinner tables. The eiffel tower vases with cranberries and then put a bouquet of baby's breath at the top!

 

We got some square vases (you can buy in bulk from Dollar Tree!) and wrapped lace lace around them!

We used these cylindrical vases (also bought in bulk from Dollar Tree) and wrapped ribbon around them. They held floating candles on the dinner tables and held the sparklers for the send off!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

When you plan a wedding for December in the Midwest, you never know what the weather will send your way. It could be snowing, blizzard, raining, or in our case - a beautiful, sunny day in the 50's!

In trying to find something unique for people to chuck at us as we ran to our getaway vehicle (seriously weird tradition, but it was fun nonetheless!) I saw lots of ideas. Bubbles, (my cousin did this) sprinkles, (some of our friends did this, looks amazing in pictures) and the traditional rice (eh). None of those seemed to float my boat. And then I found this:

You can purchase these from Save-On-Crafts!

I immediately thought, "Even if it doesn't actually snow the day of our wedding, it can still look like it!" Perfect for the bi-polar weather of Kansas! Thankfully for us, it snowed a few days before the wedding so in the shady parts there was still snow, but it didn't create a driving hazard. Thank you Mother Nature! We chose to use some little tulle circles and ribbon to hold them and then spray painted some dollar store baskets to hold them in.

How movie-magical and perfect does this look? I have to say, it was better than I could have imagined it to turn out!

DIY to the rescue!

If you have ever planned a wedding, you will have noticed that things are EXPENSIVE. I happen to be the kind of person that is not a huge fan of spending a lot of money. Call me a cheapskate, tightwad, or a penny-pincher but nothing gives me more satisfaction than finding ways to not spend a ton of money on something I can do myself.

Etsy is one of my favorite sites. Most of my ideas and dreams for our wedding came from there. And understandably, the prices can get quite high on the products sold there. People for the most part hand make everything - I'm all for paying a little extra for some of that, but here is my problem: I seem to think, "They made it, maybe I can too!" Sometimes this works out for me, but sometimes it doesn't... Thankfully what I'm here to write about today was a successful one in my opinion!

Photo courtesy of May Silk's Esty shop

I'm sure if you have been on Pinterest you have seen those adorable robes for the bride and her wedding party. Super cute, so fun and personalized! Love! But I did NOT love the price tag. So I went searching.

Gifts Intl is a great site if you need a lot of fabric at a discounted price! I got ivory for myself and navy for the bridal party. For the robes we made, a typical robe pattern from Wally World is what we used. A few days of cutting, pinning, and sewing and my mom had them done! She is a boss!

I needed them to be personal, I didn't want to just give them robes... I found a wonderful shop on Etsy (JTsAppliques) that makes iron-on appliques. She was so helpful in making sure I got the correct fabric and even gave special instructions since I wanted to put these on satin instead of a cotton fabric. Wonderful!

Overall, I think they were a wonderful gift for my girls and looked GREAT in pictures!

I have to say the best part was that the leftover from making the robes got sent to my aunt (without my knowledge) and she surprised me with table clothes for the tables in the Narthex of the church!

Another thing I did to save a little cash and add a little more of a personal touch to the wedding was crochet ties for all of the men in the wedding party. I found the pattern for the bow ties on the blog, Delia Creates! So many fun projects there and this was no different! I just adjusted the sizing a bit so it would fit the grown men that were going to wear them!

Don't those boys look dapper?

Since the groom and groomsmen were wearing bow ties I wanted the ushers to have neckties, but for them to be crocheted as well. I found a pattern on Ravelry that was very simple even for beginner crocheters!

Between the five bow ties and four neckties I spent about $10. I could not have bought one regular bow tie or neck tie for that price! And crocheting was something my grandma taught me to do so it made them just that much more special to me, that I could use a skill she taught me!

Spoilers!

This is not a DIY post about the wedding, but instead just one of my favorite nerdy moments! We said traditional vows as a part of the ceremony, but then after doing a God's Knot ceremony we also read our own vows to each other while our friends sang, "Not Alone" from "A Very Potter Musical." I found River Song's journal and knew immediately that it was the perfect vessel for my vows! The best part is that before the ceremony had started Vance sent our coordinator to me with a letter from him and River Song's sonic screwdriver! We were on the same wavelength and didn't even know it! :) Here are some pictures of the God's Knot and the reading of our personal vows: