Smile on a Stick!

I came across this picture on Offbeat Bride:

From Offbeat Bride

and I was conflicted. On one hand, this picture freaks me out. A lot. It's so creepy! On the other hand, how cool would these be as props for our photo booth?! 

Apparently they are called "smile on a stick" and you can buy them here for $5. But I think you could make them fairly easily yourself! A cut out picture of the bottom half of a face, stuck on a stick and voila! 

I think I'm going to look for some suitable faces, or I might ask my very talented sister in law if she could draw a few for me. 

Here's a few more examples:

Source

Santa on a Stick! Amazing! My grandad has a very distinctive, very ginger beard, so I'm tempted to have one a bit like the above, but with a ginger beard. I can imagine my family would have tons of fun with that! 

Source

Different colours, and even a frown!

Even a pumpkin one! 

A clown one, which would completely freak out my sister since she is terrified of clowns!

And a nice, romantic one!

I'm a little bit in love with these now that I've gotten over the creepiness, and I think it would be great to have a couple of different expressions or features.

Bridesmaid Gifts!

WARNING! IF YOU ARE ONE OF MY BRIDESMAIDS, STOP READING NOW! YOU WILL SPOIL THE SURPRISE! 

Remember a while ago, I posted about ordered some cosmetic bags from ArtsCow with their bargain discount code? Well they arrived today!

I have to say, I am so impressed! They all came individually packaged inside cloth bags, and the quality is fantastic! I am really pleased that the colours and designs I chose are exactly the same.

I ordered 6 cosmetic bags - 4 for the bridesmaids, 1 for me and 1 for Karl. I had the bridesmaids names put on one side, and a tag with "Bridesmaid Survival Kit" on the other side. 

The bags are a really nice size, big enough to fit everything in, but still compact. They also have a small zip pocket on the inside.

As part of the bridesmaids gifts, I'm going to collect lots of little cosmetics and things to make the survival kits. So far I've thought of:

• makeup removal wipes
• nail file
• lip gloss
• safety pins
• hair clips
• lint roller
• breath mints
• mini hairspray
• blotting paper
• party feet
• paracetamol

I also ordered a bag for me to use on the morning of the wedding, and one to make a Grooms Survival Kit.

In this one, I think I'll put:

• mini bottle of Jack Daniels
• breath mints
• safety pins
• spare socks
• deodorant
• mini  body spray
• lint roller
• spare buttonhole pins
• plasters
• tums
• paracetamol

I mad it black and very simple so that it looked more manly, and less like a makeup bag!

Anyway, I am very impressed with ArtsCow - I would definitely reccomend them for personalised gifts and such. And with the discount codes, you can get some decent bargains!

Mum's wedding dress!

My mum got her bag of wedding stuff down from the loft today and in it was, amongst other things, her dress and veil! I thought I'd share them, just for fun:

My mum's dress

My little sister, modelling mum's veil

 My parents got married in April, 1982 and I was pleasently surprised that my mum's dress wasn't as horribly 80's as I'd expected. You can't see much of the detail in their wedding photo, except that my mum looked gorgeous in it, lol. 

Personally, I think the dress is actually quite nice. I love the high neck and the collar detail. The sleeves are a little bit too much for my tatses, but if you altered them slightly, I think you would basically have this dress:

A Modern Trousseau-Carin gown (via Wedding Bee)

I feel a litle bit sad that the dress is just sitting in the loft, all lonely, but my mum doesn't want to get rid of it, or destroy it by cutting it up and turning it into something else. 

Maybe if one of my sisters is small enough to fit into it when they get married, it will get another chance at life?

Ring Book

I mentioned in a previous post that I loved this ring bearer book idea, and I was determined to use it somehow, even if we aren't having a ring bearer!

From Offbeat Bride

Anyway, I have decided to make a book like the one in the picture above, with a space cut out to keep the rings in, but I'm going to leave a few pages loose at the front of the book.

My idea is to stick some plain paper on the loose pages and write (or print) the readings for during our ceremony on them. I was also thinking about writing our wedding vows in there too. That way, the people who are doing the readings can read from the book, and it can be passed to us to recite our vows from, then to the best man to retrieve the rings and pass them over.

I like the idea of everyone reading from the same book, as I was planning on writing up the readings and mounting them on something for the girls to hold anyway. I also think it will be a lovely keepsake after the wedding - our vows, readings, and space for some little trinkets to be kept safe.

It also reminds me a little of a tradition I once heard, where the wedding rings are passed around the guests during the ceremony, and they are asked to warm them in their hands and bless them, or imbue them with love and luck, so that when the couple put their rings on, they are warm from the love of their family and friends (all together now... awwwwwww).  While I love the sentiment behind it, it's not something we thought would fit in our own wedding - but I like the idea of the girls holding our rings while they read something lovely to us, and us holding our rings while we make promises to eachother.

Anyway, I went and bought a book today, from Cancer Research. I got Peter Kays autobiography for £1.50 - partly because it was the perfect size, and a hardback, and partly because I wanted to read it!

The book, minus the cover

I liked the fact that when I removed the cover, the book was nice and plain underneath. But even so, I'm going to find some nice fabric to cover the book in - I decided that paper might get a bit scruffy around the edges - and tie a ribbon around the middle.

But I'll wait til I've read the book!

Iris Inspiration

So we went shopping today, and bought this gorgeous bunch of Irises:

I love irises - I remember my mum growing them in our front garden when I was younger, and the colour of these is gorgeous, and happens to be the exact shade of purple I want for the wedding.

It made me realise that we could have iris heads as the flowers in our wheatgrass centrepieces - I don;t know why it didn't occur to me before now, since the original tutorial for the centrepieces I found involved irises!

from lindseyrose on WeddingBee

 Anyway, as far as I know, Irises are available all year round, so getting them for our wedding shouldn't be too difficult. The bunch we got from Tesco was £3 (well actuallly it was reduced to £1.95, but it should have been £3) and has maybe 8 usable heads. I wonder if it would be worth finding out how much a huge bunch from a florist would be, since we will need about 5 or so heads per centrepiece (possibly 3, I've not decided yet). It might work out cheaper to buy one big bunch, as opposed to lots of small bunches form the supermarket. 

The other option, of course, is to grow our own. I have no idea if irises are difficult to grow or maintain, but I might do some research. It would be lovely (and cheap!) to grow them ourselves, but it would add the extra stress of worrying about whether or not the flowers will turn out ok.

Either way, I definitely like irises for our centrepieces - and as an added bonus, the song I'm walking down the aisle to is also called Iris! Just a little detail that absolutely no-one else would ever notice, but it makes me smile!

P.S. I have decided that we need to have that ring bearer book in our wedding somewhere! I will update soon with an explanation of how I'm going to make a few changes and includ eit in the ceremony!

Instructables DIY Wedding Competition

If you are looking for some DIY inspiration for your wedding, check out Instructables DIY Wedding Competition - they asked people to submit creative DIY ways to personalise a wedding, and you can see all the tutorials and vote for your favourite.

The competition is now closed for entries, but there are 85 DIY ideas for you to lust over.

I particularly like these LED acorn lanterns

 

 and these lovely shell candles

But my favourite is this Tin Can LED Lantern:

Very cool looking - and they would be perfect to have on the outdoor deck at our recpetion since the venue won't allow open flames. I think it would be quite cute to have your initials or monogram as the pattern too. 

Check out the Instructables site for more brilliant DIY ideas!

Ring Bearer Book

We decided not to have a ring bearer, partly because if we gave a role to one child, we would have to give a role to the other 6 or children of a similar age. As much as we love them, there just isn't enough room in our wedding for all of them. So we decided it would be fairer, and cause less problems, if we stuck to just adult attendants - so no flower girl, no page boy and like I said, no ring bearer.

This was a decision that never really bothered me until I found this tutorial on Offbeat Bride - showing how to make a ring bearer book:

From Offbeat Bride

I absolutely adore this idea! I don't know if it's because I love reading, so the idea of having our rings stored inside a book really appeals to me, or because when I was younger I always wanted a secret hiding place, like a book with a hole hidden inside.

Who am I kidding? I still want that now!

Doesn't this make a really cool alternative to a pillow? And I think the rings would be safer inside the book than an a pillow!

The tutorial is really clear and the book looks so simple to make - plus I could probably do it for under £1! I would probably have to pick up a book from a charity shop, but I might have an old one lying around that would work. And depending on what design we wanted on the front, I'd probably have to buy a sheet of wrapping paper or something similar.

The only thing stopping me from making this right now, is that we are not having a ring bearer, therefor there is no one to carry it up the aisle, and so really no reason to have it at all.
I mean, we could give it to the best man to hold the rings in, but there isn't really any need - he is perfectly capable of keeping the rings in their box. Plus, the book would probably just be too awkward anyway, since it's not like the best man could just put it in his pocket!

But I love the idea so much! I think it would be so cute to leave a few pages free and have our wedding vows and the readings from the ceremony printed on them.

I am very tempted to just make one anyway, and even if it's not used for our wedding rings, I could just hide things inside it!

Giveaway for brides!

I love pre-wedding photos of dresses artfully hung up - and something that would add an extra special touch to photos like that is one of these personalised hangers!

 

If you want to win a hanger like this, from the Etsy seller, Lila Frances, then you can, just by following the amazing Bridal Gown Blog!

Make sure you stay long enough to check out the fantastic wedding porn on the blog too!

Twilight Dancing

I've just checked our venue's website and it has all been revamped. They now have a seperate Weddings & Events site and I found this picture of our ceremony site:

from www.pryorshayes.com

How gorgeous does that look?? It makes my tummy do flips!

When we first saw the veune, they mentioned that we could possibly have our first dance in the gazebo, under the fairy lights. I think they said that it would be hooked up with speakers so the music we had playing inside could also be played in the gazebo. I love that idea - it makes me think of the dance scene in Twilight, lol.

Twilight scene

But I'm not sure how the logisitcs of that would work. Mainly because we want everyone to join us on the dance floor after our frist dance, so if we did it outside, we'd then have to walk back inside with everyone in order to all dance together. It wouldn't be impossible, but it would a bit of a pain and it might spoil the atmosphere a little.

It will probably be easier to have our first dance inside, but I will definitely make Karl dance with me under the gazebo at some point. And I promise to only pretend he is Edward for a minute!

If we can, I will definitely have the music playing in the gazebo, so that our guests can go out into the garden for some fresh air, but their will still be a great atmosphere. And so that everyone else can have their Twilight moment too!

Wedding Signage

Recently I've been thinking that it might be nice to have a sign outside our venue, showing guests which way to go. Not that it's difficult or anything, but I want to be sure that they know that they don't have to walk around to the front, and through the reception room in order to get to the ceremony garden. Plus, I found some really cute signage inspiration:

Our "motto" , so to speak, for the wedding is "Eat, drink and be married" so I love the sign above, but I think I might prefer a nice, simple "Wedding this way" or "Karl and Kayleighs wedding this way" with an arrow.

I do love the look of the wooden, hand painted signs though. I think we could make one of these really easily and for  next to nothing - I bet we could find an old piece of wood in the shed somewhere! I wouldn't make it look vintage and worn, like moast of these examples though. And I would try to use the same fonts that we are using on the invtations, rather than the fancier, swirly script in the above photos.

I think this would be areally nice first impression to give the guests when they arrive for the ceremony.

Invitation Mock Up

My invitation blanks and stamp arrived from ebay recently, so I had a quick go at making an invitation mock-up.

Now, keep in mind that this was a 2 minute job, with just a pair of scissors instead of a craft knife! Also, the piece of ribbon I used was not long enough to tie a big bow, like the actual invitations will have, but I didn't want to waste some more ribbon. AND the printer was having some sort of issue will yellow ink, so the insert is blue, but it will atually be green. Listing all that, I probably should have waited and done a proper mock up, but I was very excited and wanted to see what they looked like.

These pictures are just to give you a general idea of what the invitations will look like.

Front, closed

Front, open

Inside

Back

 

 

 

As you can see, we are trying to keep them nice and simple, partly because we don't want to spend hours sticking little fiddly bits on!

The card blanks were a little bit smaller than I meant to order (they onyl fit one flower per side instead of the 2 I planned on) but now that they are here, I actually prefer them smaller. It fits all the information in, at a good size so I don't see the need to have them bigger.

I am 90% sure that we will be using that insert (in green), but I do tend to change my mind quite regularly!

Flower Power, part 2

My second order of flowers from Excelsior Wholesale arrived today. Remember how I had a few problems ordering the first time, and the lovely man had to ring me to get it done? Well because of that, they didn't realise that this was my second order and so there was some more confusion.

Just to explain - they have a minimum order of £75 for first orders, and £15 for all subsequent orders. My second order was just a tiny bit over £15 and I received an email explaining that my order wouldn't be processed because it was under £75.

Anyway, I emailed them back to explain that it was infact my second order and the lovely man who called me the first time, Rich, got back to me straight away and processed my order.

But back to the point - the order arrived today - some more ribbon for my invitations, some more white roses my bouquet, and some extra white, green and purple flowers to make a throwing bouquet.

Throwing Bouquet

My bouquet (left) and Throwing bouquet (right)

I am really happy that I chose to add some more white roses to my bouquet - I think it looks better now, and fuller too. The throwing bouquet is just a small, really simple version of my bouquet. It's pretty obvious that it's not my original bouquet (it's about half the size!) but then I wasn't planning on pretending that it was. Whoever catches the bouquet will get to keep it, if they want to. Obviously they don't have to, I will gladly take it home with me if no one else wants it!


I also had a little play around with the button holes, adding a large leaf behind the flower and a pearl pin to the centre of the flower head.

I like the look of the leaf beind the flower, but I don't really mind if it's there or not. I suppose I will let Karl decide, since he has to wear it!

You can see in the pictures that I had a go at wrapping the ribbon around the bouquet too - It looks a bit messy and I'm not really sure of the best way to do it, so I'm going to watch some Youtube video tutorials then have another go.

Oh - and the best thing about using Excelsior Wholesale, other than the really friendly staff, fantastic customer service and really good quality products? There was a little bag of Haribo in the envelope with the invoice! The kind with the little jellybabies (my favourite - not sure how they knew that...?) - how nice is that?

I'm unsure whether Haribo are standard when ordering from there, or if it was a little gesture to make up for the small problems I had ordering.

Maybe it was a mistake, and someone from the warehouse is currently searching everwhere for their Haribo?! In that case, I will deny all knowledge as I have already eaten them!

To toss or not to toss...?

I'm talking about bouquets, obviously! Get your minds out of the gutter!

Anyway - tossing the bouquet. Is this outdated and sexist, or fun and traditional? Personally, I think it's quite fun, and no-one is going to take it too seriously and actually think that they will be the next to get married just because they caught the bouquet, right?
But a lot of people nowadays seem to be skipping the bouquet toss for various reasons. From what I can tell, one of the main reason why people choose not to throw the bouquet is because they don't want to embarrass their single friends my making them partake. I suppose being forced to take part in a ritual just because your not married is a bit horrible, so I would probably choose to invite all women  to take part, including the married and engaged ones. And if people don't want to, then it's not really a big deal.

A friend of mine went to a wedding, and caught the bouquet - she was embarrassed because she had jumped for it, like she'd seen people do in films, and everyone else had just stood still. Well, if I'm throwing my bouquet, I want people to jump for it! I want Olympic worthy gymnastic displays and cat fights over it! Really, I just think that it would make some really funny photos - like these:

 

Looking at these pictures makes me really want to do a bouquet toss! I think it looks like so much fun! Also, I think it's quite nice that one of your guests gets to take home the bouquet. But then, of course, there is the possibility that it will end up like this:

These are brilliant photos and will no doubt end up as hilarious wedding memories, but I don't really want my bouquet ripped to shreds! I want to keep it, and since it is artificial, I will be able to keep it forever.

So I decided that I will need a 'throwing boquet'.  A mini version of my bouquet, that's sole purpose is to be thrown. And then the ladies can fight over it as much as they like!

So I ordered a couple more flowers from Excelsior Wholesale, since I needed to order more ribbon anyway and I decided that I wanted a few more white roses in my bouquet. I bought a few white, green and purple, to make up a smaller, simpler version of my own bouquet to throw. That way, the catcher gets to keep the bouquet (or rip it to pieces) and I get to keep my own too!

Birdcage Post Box

Until I started planning our wedding, I had never heard of wedding postboxes or card boxes. To be honest, I'd never really thought about where the cards would end up - surely they would just be with the gifts somewhere?

However, the wonderful world of internet weddings introduced me to the idea of having a postbox to keep any envelopes safe and in one place. It makes sense I suppose, but I'm not sure we really need one. I think it might be another one of those projects that is completely unecessary.

Check out some of these gorgeous card boxes:

do-it-yourself-weddings.com

weddingbee.com

Gorgeous, but they look like quite alot of effort for something I'm not sure we really need. I really like these though:

Mini versiona of classic british post boxes! How cute are they? But at £60 to hire, I definitely don't need one.

Another cute trend seems to be using vintage birdcages to hold the cards:

This works quite well if you're having a vintage theme and is much less effort than making a beautifully decorated one yourself.

Now, it just so happens that we have an old metal birdcage in our garden. My brother is a landscape gardener and one of his customers was getting rid of the birdacge, so he brought it home. It has been sat in our garden in the wind and rain for months, so it's in pretty bad condition at the moment.

bottom of the cage

You can see in this picture that it's covered in generally nastiness and in need of a good clean. So clean it I did! I used white wine vinegar (because I read somewhere that it's really good for cleaning rusty metal) and an old toothbrush, and it come up quite well!

It's still a little bit discoloured in places where the metal is particularly weather beaten, so I decided to paint it white. I found some old tins of white paint in the shed, one of which was for wood and metal. A tip for anyone painting a cage - do the inside first! I did the outside, and then it was a right pain trying to get to the inside bits.

 

I think it looks pretty good! It might need another coat, just to make sure all the black is covered, but I'm pleased with the end result.

The door on the front of the cage will probably be too small for cards so I was thinking that we could leave the top bit open enough for cards to be posted through. I might accessorise it with some purple and green ribbon, I've not quite decided yet.

I really like it, and I love the fact that it was free and didn't take much effort at all. And if we decide that we don't need it for cards after all, it will look lovely just as decoration!