Wedding Crafts and Trends

 My niece was married over the Memorial Day weekend and I thought I would share some of the crafting I did for the wedding as well as some she did and items she purchased. I would call it a boot and burlap wedding which is popular now. The girls wore cowboy boots with their dresses and burlap was used in a lot of the decorations. I guess you would call it a distressed look for weddings. I am sure if you asked my brother if it saved much money to "look distressed" he would assure you that it doesn't! LOL! Anyway, many of these ideas came from Pinterest and ETSY.

Jackson, my two and a half year old grandson was the "ring bearer", although there was no ring involved. He wore this sign around his neck, walking in with "Ian, here comes your girl" and walking out with the reverse side showing that says "...and they lived Happily ever after!" I created the sign from wood I purchased at Joann's, stained and painted.

 On the porch of the house where the wedding was held (built in 1870), Katelyn placed a quilt her deceased grandmother had made as well as Mr. and Mrs. burlap pillows she purchased. They could easily be made also, adding the writing with a Sharpie pen.

 For her favors, Katelyn had a candy buffet, another popular trend. She purchased a stamp (ETSY I believe) which I stamped on sticker paper, edge punched with an eyelet punch and placed on the clear cellophane candy bags. I enlarged the image on a copier and painted a wooden sign with the same saying and placed it on an easel. She and Ian chose some of their favorite candies for the jars, but I did do some color coordination for front and center as it photographs well. The colors of the other candies actually looked fine with the wallpaper that was behind the sideboard on which the candy was placed.

 Katelyn used large letters on the mantel of the fireplace, including this "W" I picked up for her at Michaels. She painted it to match the color of the wedding, seafoam green. She also had their first name initials and an ampersand on the opposite end of the mantel. A large ampersand was used between the chairs at their little reserved table.

 For going away, Katelyn made these shakers (not sure what she called them) in their favorite school colors. Ian drilled a little hole in the end of a dowel and Katelyn and my other neice placed the curling ribbon through the eyehole that was placed in the drilled hole.

 Labels were made with their monogram and date of the wedding. It was late May in north Florida, but turned out to be a nice pleasant day on the river, so the water wasn't as necessary as it would have been on a typical hot and humid day! I have also decorated water bottles with mailing tape in an appropriate design (like monkeys for Clayton's first birthday party)

 Here is the ampersand between the chairs.

 For the programs, Katelyn had a file created with all the information from the wedding. They then had them printed and created fans to be made available for the guests. Again, the fans were not needed for the weather, but the programs still looked pretty.

 I found this duck tape marked down after the holidays in an appropriate color and used it to secure the candles in one of the "chandeliers" she had to hang. Duck tape is just one of those good things to have when decorating for a wedding! I saw someone post a photo of one of the balloons we used on the road that had a piece of the duck tape I guess to close up a small puncture wound! Every redneck wedding needs a little duck tape!

 I noticed Katelyn's hanger below for her dress, another trend in weddings.

 Katelyn had seen a similar sign like the one below on ETSY, I think for around forty bucks, so I painted another piece of wood to make this decoration.

 Katelyn had a couple of old windows on which she placed photos of she and Ian. I hung the two (rather heavy) frames on each side of the wedding cake on actual windows. They did not fall down, so I was happy.
She also had a small wedding cake and then had several sheet cakes in different flavors for the guests, as well as banana pudding.

 I painted some directional signs to lead guests to the wedding site as well as this identifying sign below, another idea Katelyn had seen and liked.

 The two flower girls carried these two little pails, to which a black area had been spray painted. I added their names with a paint pen.

 Here are the other initials on the mantel and a shot of the two windows with the old windows. I used fishing line and wire to hang the heavy frames, but then added the burlap ribbon to look like that was holding them up.

 The wedding ceremony was on the St. John's River and I wired lace and burlap bows on the arbor. Katelyn had purchased a couple of these chandeliers from a bride that had been married at the same venue. We added candles in the seafoam green to bring in the color (secured with duct tape). It was so pretty with the sailboats drifting by on the water. The weather was perfect even if a little breezy!

 Instagram is another big trend, so I wrote on this chalk board with the hashtag to use so that all the photos guests posted would be accessible at one place. You can see more wedding photos there if you want to see them.

 For her guestbook, Katelyn had a printed book of photos the photographer had taken back in December.

 Here are a couple of ideas from the Bridal Luncheon. Katelyn's social club color in college was purple, so I am assuming that was why a different color was used. Her mother decorated the candles, combining lace, burlap and ribbon. The placecard was created using a wine cork and string pearls.

 For dessert, cupcakes were formed in the shape of a wedding dress.

 Monogramed tote bags and personalized Tervis cups were given to the attendants as gifts.

 Katelyn had painted wine bottles in the wedding colors to use for flowers in the centerpieces. They turned out very pretty. Canning jars were also used and one was used for each bouquet so the girls flowers could be used on the tables after the ceremony.

 Here are closer looks at the fan program and the stamped candy bags. I placed the wire tie in the bag so that they were easily accessible once the bags were filled.

 Birdcages were used as decorations and for cards from guests. Katelyn had also purchased these canning jars that had been attached to what appeared to be candle holders, thus creating stemware for their iced tea!

 Here are the shakers in action. I am sure she had a different name for them, but they do make a nice photo, whatever they are called!

I thought you might enjoy seeing some of these crafted items and ideas for weddings. Weddings certainly have changed in the almost forty years I have been married. Now there are so many ideas available and items available for purchase over the internet.
Of course, one thing has not changed.....they are still a lot of work! In the long run, they are worth all the fretting and prep work!

Wedding favors

Just looking at these photos makes me "tired" :-) I told you about the invitations I was doing for my adopted daughter, Becka....well here was a wedding where we adopted both bride and groom and in additon to all the items above, I did the flowers, photography, altered the wedding dress, made a slide show of them growing up, some of the invitations, decorated the fellowship hall like it had NEVER been decorated before....I am sure there was even more, but my mind has chosen to block it out.
Anyway, you can see how I used stamping on the programs, the favors, even the guest book. The napkin and cutlery holders were envelopes, printed in the printer, halfed and then punched to show the white napkin through the snowflake. This was a January wedding with a snowflake theme.
My daughter came and spent the week to help....never could have done it without her! She and I were up dipping strawberries at 3:00 in the morning. Of course, I was doing that the day of her wedding too. I will have to share some photos from her wedding.
While this was a winter wedding, summer usually is the wedding season, so I thought you might get some ideas on some favors you can make with your stamping and papercrafting supplies.

Wedding Details

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There are a lot of details that go into planning a wedding and several paper crafting and crafting projects that can be done by hand. I like to do a little photo session ahead of time of some of the details and small things that are chosen and made for the wedding. The wedding day is much too crazy to try to fit all that in. Here you can see the invitation. My sister took photos of the couple out at the beach, printed the photo on white linen and then printed the invite on vellum. A ribbon was then used to attach the vellum to the linen. On the program we made, the bride made up a word search using words from their lives and their weddings, giving the guests something to do as they waited. 

 

I printed up labels with the names for the candies and stamped on them with Brilliance ink so they would have some sheen to them. A little glitter was added to the heart on the stamped image and the candies were very attractive.

 

One thing I like to look for when doing photos is mirrors. This fun shot was taken in my cousin's billiards room....not the most expected setting for a bride, but a fun shot indeed.

 

My sister wanted to have Key Lime Pie for the groom's cake, but wanted it to look like a cake rather than making individual pies. She baked this half sheet cake key lime pie and then the morning of the wedding, I decorated it using Wilton tips and frosting. Buying the ready made frosting where you can screw on the tips made for a much easier process. The only thing I put in a pastry bag was the white frosting for the piping around the "cake". Hopefully the newly weds are getting sunshine in the Bahamas and not rain like we had the week of the wedding. M & Ms were used for the coconuts. Just thought I would share a few details of the wedding.

A Beautiful Autumn Wedding!

Several posts back I shared a wedding invitation I did for a friend and also several choices of programs. We ended up going with a different program as she insisted she needed 250 to 300 of them, and the one she chose was too complex for me to have time to get that many done. Above you see the simplified version, but I think it is still pretty.
I love photographing children and this ring bearer and I had a contest going of him trying to avoid me catching him in a photo. I got some really cute shots of him. The flower girl was so pretty.
One of my favorite places and times to get photos at a wedding is in the foyer before they go down the aisle. For some reason, the official photographer was not back there, so I had full reign! I love the natural light streaming in and the emotions you can catch. I was just taking "candid" shots for the bride.


I do a lot of weddings and it takes a lot to impress me, but the decorations at this wedding were gorgeous! I love autumn so I really loved the whole theme. They had pumpkins, mums and gourds everywhere!
The front of the wedding invitation I made had a "D"monogram....they carried that over to the carved "punch bowl"....how clever is that?




The wedding was done is such pretty colors, that I didn't change too many of the photos over to b & w, but I like this done without color.

Well, Becca and Justin are now married and on their way to Mexico. I hope they have as much fun as Becca and I did in Paris together! We laughed and ate crepes and had a wonderful time. I will be heading back to Atlanta on Tuesday (then back to the cabin on Thursday!!!).