Back from our Honeymoon

We're officially back from our honeymoon. The week before the wedding was completely hectic. We went to bed late every day and woke up early and there still didn't seem to be enough time in a day to get everything done. We decided to do our own food, for 100 people. It took the help of several friends and family members to get all of the food prepped ahead of time (about 10 hours, all told). And the day of almost turned into a disaster if one of our guests and several of the groomsmen hadn't jumped in to help with the grilling. The food was fantastic though. All all of the little things that went wrong are just stories to tell our kids someday.

The honeymoon itself was absolutely fantastic. We went camping by Traverse City in Michigan for five nights and then spent three nights at a Bed and Breakfast in Traverse City itself. We also had the most amazing meal while we were there. Just this tiny hole in the wall place which seats 19 and has no alcohol license. But the food was a total experience in and of itself, so I totally didn't miss the alcohol at all.

I also chopped off my hair, as anticipated, and donated the 10+ inches to Locks of Love. I'm not sure if I like it yet (I actually think I want it shorter), but it's alright for now.

Also, I got the job I interviewed for right before leaving on vacation! I start on Oct. 1st and I'm so excited. It's like everything was worth it. Now I just have a lot of work to do to try and get everything in order to hand off to one or more of my colleagues. I don't feel right just handing someone a big mess (which it's not, but it sure feels like it sometimes).

Table Numbers

I was really proud of the way my table numbers came out.

Materials and Supplies:

4x5 canvas board (or anything else in the size you want the table numbers- cardboard would probably work)

Number templates to use as stencils

Paper of a neutral shade to be the base

Pictures

Exacto Knife and mat

Hot glue gun

Paper Cutter (helpful but not necessary)

Paper glue

Instructions:

1) Cut the neutral base paper to the size necessary to cover your base front and back. In my case, I had 20 numbers, so I cut 40 4x5 pieces. Hot glue the paper to both sides of your base.

2) Print out your number stencils and cut them out (I used Microsoft Publisher to set a size for the numbers, used one of the standard bubble fonts, and then printed out four to a page). Rough cut anything with double digits, because you'll want to use the spacing as a guide when cutting the numbers out of the pictures.

3) Cut the pictures you want to use to the right size, you need as many pictures as you have numbers (in my case I had 20 pictures, which I cut down to the 4x5 size).

4) Place the number stencil on top of the picture and use the exacto knife to cut out the number. Make sure you hold down the stencil firmly, so it does not move while you are cutting. Also be careful not to cut your fingers.

5) Use the original picture as a guide to center the number on the base, but only glue down the number you cut out.

6) Then turn the base over and glue down the original picture. If you have a center filler, like on a 6 or 8, use the original number stencil to figure out where to place them.

7) Rinse and repeat until you are done. For double digits, place the rough cut stencil on the picture and cut through both the stencil and the picture, making sure not to move the number while cutting.

Tablerunners

I had the more or less brilliant idea to buy 33 yards of 60" burlap fabric online as table runners. It's sustainable, it's cheap, and it fits our woodsy/green wedding theme. However, when it arrived, it looked like a roll of carpet, and not very good carpet at that. Now, I had bought 100 yards each of several different colors of ribbon. I didn't realize at the time quite how much ribbon that is, but now I was definitely glad I had it. My idea to dress up the burlap was this: first I cut the fabric in half so I had two 30" pieces instead of one 60" piece. All 33 yards of it... let's just say my back was not happy by the time I was done. 

Then I cut about 45 foot pieces. I ended up with 4 45 foot pieces and 2 shorter pieces of around 16-18 feet. Then I took the ribbon, and sewed it to one side, while simultaneously folding under the rough edge. Luckily this did not have to be perfect or even terribly precise, nor did I bother to double fold for a proper hem. On the other side, which had a factory weave edge, I didn't bother folding the edge under and just sewed the ribbon to it. All in all, it took me several hours and 132 yards of ribbon. I ended up using both of the shades of green ribbon I had to edge it. When I was finally done, it actually looked pretty decent. However, I had burlap fuzzies and fibers all over my living room floor.

Update Soon

I spent the long weekend making things for the wedding. I will post pictures once I get home tonight. The things I've been working on include:

-Fabric leaves for the boutonnieres: Idea found here.
-Burlap table runners
-Civil Ceremony scrapbook to display at the reception
-Table numbers: my own idea and it turned out splendidly
-Photo albums for both sets of parents
-Finished the remaining pomander balls.

DIY things left to do:
-Finish scrapbook and albums for parents
-Card box
-Paint wings of butterflies and sew to dress
-Finish fabric leaves

There are plenty of other things left to do, but I think that's it for actual DIY besides things we have to do the day before (the flowers for one).

Beaded Jewelry

I made jewelry for both myself and my four bridesmaids. I won't post the stuff I made for my bridesmaids quite yet, because I want it to be a surprise. But this is the necklace and earrings I made for myself. It's purple and silver glass beads strung on jewelry wire. The big stones are amethyst. I finished all five necklaces and pairs of earrings in one night and ended up with too little sleep and blisters on my right hand. But I was pretty proud of myself. This was my first attempt at making beaded jewelry and my learning curve was pretty steep. I'm very happy with the results. I may post the other pictures after the wedding in September.

No, it's not just about the bride

I don't think I've blogged much about my upcoming wedding reception. For those of you who don't know (practically everyone), I got married at a little civil ceremony last year, which is why I refer to my husband on occasion, but we are having a big reception for friends and family this September. Currently we're less than three months out and it feels like I haven't accomplished anything some days. Luckily that's not entirely true.

My theory going into this experience was that if you're not having fun planning and just getting stressed out by the experience, losing sight of the actual reason you're having this "party" (celebrating a union with the love of your life in the presence of friends and family... no, it's not just about the bride), then what's the point. I've tried to live up to this ideal, while planning a wedding on a very tight budget. My plan: get as much help as possible from other people and then let them run with it. This works incredibly well for relieving stress, since it means you're not worrying about every last detail.

One friend, who is an amazing amateur baker/cake decorator, is making our cake. Free of charge, it's her wedding present to us. Another friend, who takes amazing pictures and has several weddings to her name, will be our official photographer. Again, it's her wedding present to us. My mother and mother-in-law are growing all of the flowers for the wedding (I told them colors and that the flowers needed to be hardy enough to withstand the kind of punishment meted out to wedding flowers, and they're doing the rest).

I told my bridesmaids what color dress and shoes I wanted them to wear (red dress, black shoes) and told them to get whatever they wanted. This led to quite a bit of debate on whether or not I was sure I didn't want to specify hem lengths of sleeves v. no-sleeves (and no, I didn't, thank you very much). I turned the honeymoon planning over to my DH (it's done, we figured everything out in one day of serious planning). My dad rented the venue (I think he got tired of waiting for me to make a decision on which one I wanted), and I'm pleased as a peach with his choice.

Considering all this, I often feel like I'm not doing anything at all. But that's not true either, I'm just not stressing out about it. I created and sent out the invitations, made hotel reservations for out-of-town guests, put a deposit down on all the rentals, figured out and made the cards for the "guest book" (I am going to be glueing the cards into my wedding scrapbook), almost finished the ceremony decorations, made jewelry for the bridesmaids and myself, ordered supplies for the scrapbook of the civil ceremony I want to display and for the table runners and placemats I want to make myself, etc. The only downer seemed to come the other day, when I got in email in response to a craigslist ad I had posted asking for culinary arts/hospitality students to help out at the event. I won't repeat here what it said, but it definitely left me feeling down in the dumps.

Not stressing out about this hard-core, is making this whole experience so much better. I'm looking forward to throwing a great party and saying my vows to my beloved in front of family and friends. But all the legal stuff is already dispensed with, so there's no reason to stress out anyway.

Did you stress out about your wedding and was it worth it?

Wedding Pomander Balls

I finally bought the supplies I needed for the pomander balls I wanted to make for the ceremony. *Disclaimer: this is not my original idea. I found the original idea here.

Supplies:

Styrofoam Ball

Ribbon

Paper

Pins

Wire

Tools:

Wire Cutters

Hot Glue Gun

Paper Punch

Instructions:

1) Cut 2 inch piece of wire and twist it to there is a loop at the top. Stick the wire into the styrofoam ball and glue it down with a drop of hot glue.

2) Glue one long piece of ribbon around the hemisphere of the ball starting and ending at the wire.

3) Repeat this process until the whole ball is covered in ribbon. I found it easier to do two long pieces at right angles and then fill in the space in between with smaller pieces of ribbon.

4) Once the ball is covered in ribbon, cut a longer piece of ribbon to the desired length, and thread the ribbon through the wire loop at the top.

5) Punch out flower patterns out of the paper, fold the petals up, and place them on the ball with the pins. (I used pearl-headed corsage pins and a mixture of punched flowers and ready-made paper flowers from a jar obtained at the craft store).

6) Cover the ball in as many or as few flowers as you would like. The benefits of covering it in ribbon first is that you don't need to get a dense coverage.

In the last picture you can see my finished ones hanging, as well as the one and a half I haven't completed yet, because I ran out of pins. Putting the flowers on is the fun part though and I'm already done with the tedious parts (punching out the flowers and putting the ribbon on).

Wedding Cords

I finally ordered the supplies for our wedding cords. I've always liked the symbolism of pagan handfastings, but DH's family is a bit on the religious conservative end, so I didn't want to shock them with an outright pagan ceremony. Therefore, I am using the cords to symbolize the love and support our family and friends have for us, and have designated six people to come and symbolicly tie us together. I decided on colors for the cords, beads and charms. I will post a better description once I am done with them and have pictures of the end results. Right now I've braided 4 out of 6 of the cords. Next step is to complete the last two and then add the embellishments.