The Actual Wedding Reception Tables & Card Holder

You can see my previous post about my plans for our wedding reception tables. I had seen a Martha Stewart picture and knew that is what I wanted. I did not use as much ribbon as Martha did. I thought that I was going to be saving a lot of money this way. However, Ribbon is not inexpensive and in the 18 months we were planning the wedding not once did they go on sale. 

So I was that crazy lady, every week I would go to Joanns with my single 40% off coupon and get a single roll of ribbon. I ended up buying about 20 extra rolls the week of the wedding and then I just brought back the ribbon that was unopened afterwards. So I have a ton of ribbon and need ideas of what I should do with it. Seriously suggestions are so very welcome. 

These shots were mock up shots that I provided the Tea House. Although I was not able to have a wedding planner we were fortunate enough to have a  venue that set everything up to our specifications. So for both of our sanity I gave them very specific instructions. 

The favors were placed at each place setting all handmade by my mother in law Mary. I will post more about them later. 

This was the head table.

As the bridesmaids are modeling the table marker. I found five scrabble games at thrift stores to make the labels. They were all named after cities that we have gone to together. I have a project planned for after to utilize those tiles. 

Mason jars were kind of an after thought. One of the best surprises was how severely I under estimated the amount of flowers that we ordered. I mean severely... Like ran out of vases and pitchers and sinks so Christy and I were putting flowers in the bathtub. So we called Kristy and she went and got mason jars. I have seen tons of people use mason jars at weddings but never with the top on. We took the jar top off and kept the screw top on. I think they look more finished. The candles were from Khols I used the $10 coupons they sent me on them every time they had them in stock. I am now using them for decoration in our bedroom. 

Our wedding book and leaf your fingerprint tree. Thanks Nate!

This is also now in our bedroom. 

One set of my god parents leaving their prints on our wedding.

This was our card holder I posted about the idea of what we were going to do, and the progress report of how Leonard my fantastic father in law was doing in making it. 

You can see the the leaves that were meticulousness made by Melissa. Here is one of the projects we have made since then. There were hundreds so there will still be many more to come. 

Escort Card Holder & Entry Table ~ Wedding Wednesday

I wanted the table on the way in to have more than just the guest table. Nat got us a finger print tree that he had custom made for us, it was an aspen grove instead. Mikey and I found this:

I asked Mary my mother in law if she could pick up some navy milk paint. It happened to be on clearance so she got it for $1.

I sanded it down so the paint would stick.

Then I painted.

Here it was all assembled at the reception.

Signing the guest book, and leafing your fingerprint. 

Afterwords I gave this to my friend Shantel she uses the escort card holder as a potty training chart. She keeps prizes in the cubbies. 

Gifts for the Guys ~ Wedding Wednesdays

I wanted something special for the guys for the wedding. The girls got earrings to wear at the wedding and we got the guys custom cuff links made. I love Esty I found Jay and his shop Wooden Treasures you should check it out I must say that there was not a single thing that we did not love while dealing with Jay. He was wonderful. When I had looked originally he had all gold backs on his cuff links we are not a fan of gold so he did silver for us. He also gave Mike a matching tie tack with our order. Here is a picture that he sent us to show his progress and the wood grain of the piece of wood he selected for us. We had specified olive wood. 

I had found the accessory holders last year on clearance and bought as many as they had I would have liked to have one more. Mikey did not get one. :( I realized I never took a picture with the cuff links in them.

Picture of Greg and Mikey dancing (while I danced with my mom) I shows his cuff link. 

Earrings From Buttons ~ Wedding Wednesday

"Even stylistic elements need friends" ~ Tiffany Miller 

I replaced some of the buttons on my wedding dress because some of them were missing when I bought it, it was a sample. I found these buttons that perfectly matched my wedding earrings that could not have been more perfect and also relate to this post. As they were clips and I converted them to pierced earrings as well as the ones that my mom wore.

I could not find wire cutters when I was working on this so I used to nail clippers. They were new so I do not want any judgement. I also used epoxy and nickel free earring posts as Kristy and Melissa have nickel allergies. 

I used the clippers but you could use a wire cutter as well to take off the back of the buttons.

I used epoxy to connect the earring backs to the fronts.

When I was deconstructing a broken broach of my mothers I broke the clippers. 

The guys cuff links came in these silver boxes but I had put them in another man accessories thing. I can show you that next week. So I just got felt from the craft store and cut it with pinking shears and put them in the box for my girls.

Here is Miss. Kristy modeling her earrings.

And mom wearing hers.

And these were mine.

Linked to:

The Dress ~ Wedding Wednesday

I love this dress! Other people love it too. Paula Abdul wore one to the AMA awards dyed black.

So I was able to get my wedding dress for and AMAZING price it is the Enzoni Dakota. Even after all of the changes I made and the alterations we ended up spending a tenth of what this dress retails for. The story of fining my dress started with my mom. We rented a Martha Stewart DVD from the library and it said that you should try on one of every style the idea that you have in your mind of what you want may not be what looks right on your body. I tried on a mermaid dress as a joke, and learned that Martha was right, I would be getting a mermaid dress. I ended up going to a dress store with my friend Leslie that was changing their style and closing out their inventory. It was the third dress I tried on and I loved it. Leslie cried and I got it that day. I called my mom and drove down to show her after and she loved it too.

There were only three things that were wrong with this dress:

• It was a little dirty on the bottom.
• It was missing a few buttons on the back, which were actual buttons which I love.
• There was a small tear on one of the under layers. 

Problem solutions they included the dry cleaning in with the alterations of my dress. First with the buttons I tried to order through Enzoni but that proved to be difficult so I went to Joanns and got some that that I got some bling buttons and every fifth button became a crystal button. I also used these buttons to make earrings for all of the bridesmaids and moms for the wedding. 

The tear on one of the under layers was solved with my something old where I harvested all the lace off my mom's wedding dress and sewed it on my under layers, one completely by hand following the designs. Over 100 hours of my life. So the next layer was by machine with the help of Mary and Barb. Thanks ladies!

I also had my alterations lady make my neckline dip to make it a little different. 

Besides the price I have to say that one of the best things about having a sample dress is that I watch say yes to the dress and every time someone buys a lace dress, when the new one comes in they are unhappy with how stiff the lace is and it is not like you have time to break it in, mine was so soft and comfortable. Also in Monster in Law fashion the dress was too big for me, so it was altered to fit my body. I could not have been happier with my dress. 

I know I have been gone for a while...

I was getting married. I have actually been very busy doing a ton of projects but I have not been posting. I did not want to post all the wedding crafts as I wanted it to be a surprise for the people that were coming. It was a four day event and it was wonderful. I have always wanted a multi-day wedding after seeing My Best Friend's wedding, minus someone trying to steal my husband. After the whole event, which I will be posting about in stages and our mini honeymoon we came home to this:

Our welcome mat scattered with our aspen leafs.

"Our wedding sign" (thanks Diane) and flowers outside.

One of our favors on our wreath hook and Just married sign on the door, they were also on every window and mirror in the condo.

Our aspen grove fingerprint tree.

Presents all ready to be opened and some leftovers of the bridal shower.

Bouquets drying and wedding decor everywhere. 

Our cabin cardholder, birch candles and table markers.

Breakfast at Tiffany's eye mask laid out for sleep.

My Perfect Wedding Location

There are always quiz's in magazines, something that I usually do not partake in. However I did take one from a Brides magazine and it was spot on:

State Park Amphitheater you say? Have you met my ceremony venue?

Wedding Wednesday - Tiffany & Co. Advertisements

I love this advertisement from Tiffany & Company for two reasons it reminds me of our own snowy proposal, and my ring is from Tiffany's. Every time I see this ad it reminds me of that day.

Wedding Wednesday

I have seen other blogs that every Wednesday they talk about weddings. I think that I will try to do that in the future and every Wednesday give you some progress on the wedding. This weekend Mary and I spend some quality time working on wedding things and tying up some projects. We had already done hours of work on the thank you notes that we finished this weekend. You can see the process that we followed from the link but just for some eye candy:

Then when Christy was in visiting from Florida, Melissa was staying for the visit and Sandy was up before a party we started working on the outermost part of the invitation cards. My friend Aaron at work had designed  the aspen tree scene to my specifications and then Melissa had pain-stakenly ripped, embossed and cut out leafs for the invites, see all of her handy work here. This is what we assembled and Mary and I finished them this weekend:

There are about one hundred and forty of these. Since there are not that many invites that are going out (think couples and families) I plan on creating the programs in the rest of them as everything I read tells me that you should only make enough programs for forty percent of your guests. 

Now that we have the engagement pictures done we can start thinking about the save the dates I want them to be sent off in a month or so. I had purchased some maybe two years ago when I was planning on having a Tiffany blue wedding. That is no longer the color scheme. I will be able to convert them not only to go with the color scheme of the wedding but to fit in the left over invite envelopes. This is what the sample looks like:

There is a Tiffany blue boarder all the way around which I cut off this weekend so that they are just white. I may be adding some green, blue or wood grain to them before they go out. 

Progress report - Card holder

We went up to Mary and Leonard's over the weekend and we had a fantastic time. Mary and I worked on the the Thank you notes and Leonard and Mikey finished the table, and sanded, and stained the leaves for the table. Now just a few coats of poly and they will be done. We were however able to take the table home with us. Then we took apart the table that I had had for the last two years and took it apart and loaded it in to the car. Funny story on that table when I first moved to Denver I was talking to a girl named Annika at work telling her how I needed to go shopping for a table that weekend. She told me she was moving that weekend and that she did not need her table anymore. I helped her move, she gave me her table. Then when I got the table that we have now I was mentioning it and she asked what I was going to be doing with the one she had given me? It turns out that she was moving again and that she could use one so I brought it back to her. It is funny how things make it full circle. You may or may not remember the post that I did on the card box for the wedding, well when we went up this weekend Leonard showed me his progress so far:

It is safe to say that I am elated! Remember what it is based on?

The deck will not be on there as it would possibly make the cards get stuck and that weekend there was two feet of snow and no chairs out there. We stood out there maybe for three minutes before we went back inside.