One Month Away!!!

After my two meltdowns this morning, I'm finally feel a little better! My sister gave me a pep talk earlier today and then she an mom surprised me with showing up with my wedding dress! My Mom picked it up from the tailors and tomorrow I will take it too the cleaners to get steamed. Their visit was short since they were running errands for the bridal shower on Sunday but, it was a good visit. I've been really stressing out a lot lately since we have a month to basically to pay for this whole wedding and I don't know how we're going to do it but, I guess we will. I did an email blast with a "$99 Photo Session" special, hoping to get additional photography business but, so far I have one appointment for it so far (thanks Julie). I hate that Drew and I have to stress about all of this when we should be enjoying every moment, instead we're more looking forward to May 16th when we can put all of this behind us! It really doesn't help the situation when you have money issues! Lucky for us, our vendors really like us, and they have bent over backwards for us, and it's truly appreciated it! I got my taxes done and that will bring in a little extra cash and it feels good to have them done!

Now, that my rant is done I can go on with my evening with Drew! He should be getting home from a long day of work. I don't know how he does it. He never stops working... weather it's at the office, on the phone, researching on the computer, he never stops. I love that he cares so much about the two of us and our future family! May 16th all bets are off and it is time to get pregnant! ;)

I just finished making the place cards that my nieces didn't get to finish and the a few of the table numbers. I swear those table numbers turned into much more of a project than I originally thought they were going to be but they look great. I hope to finish them tomorrow. I'm going to listen to my sister and Drew, and try and enjoy this last month of planning and get really excited about the wedding and our future!

"Cross Your Fingers!"

Headbands and Pillow!

Today I made all three flower girl headbands using a plastic headband, purple & silver sparkly ribbon, and three silk flowers. I got better and faster with each one and I think I might start making items like this and try selling them on Etsy.com since I've seen a lot on the site that look just as good as mine and they sell. The ring bear pillow I used the leftover large petals from my hair flowers and two rose petals as well as a pale purple checkered ribbon, silver wired ribbon, and a green satin ribbon. To make all four items it took me about an hour. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I hope the kids like them.

The Inspiration

This is a DIY wedding!

Today I placed my orders for most of the items I will need to make our centerpieces, my veil, ribbon candles, and other decorations. I was able to find online coupons for all but one site. The only thing left to order is the fresh real flowers (2 wks before the wedding) and more ribbon. The websites I ordered from are:

www.afloral.com www.candles4less.com www.bloomsandbranches.com

and www.save-on-crafts.com

Here are a few pictures of the silk flowers I received he next day from Afloral.com and I am only returning three items. Talk about a fast turn around!

Programs

I made our programs over the past couple of days and I'm really happy with how they turned out! I got the idea form someones post on www.weddingbee.com and made it my own. It was tricky working with the eyelets since this was my first time using them. You always have to go through a few rough drafts before you get the perfect one! Luckily, I only went through a few. I bought all my crafts items form "Michael's", "Jo-Anna's Fabric", and "Office Depot".

List of Items

12 x 12 Purple Shimmer Paper

8.5 x 11.5 Silver Shimmer Paper

8.5 x 11.5 Ivory Card stock Paper

1/4 Silver Eyelets

Eyelet Setter

Skinny Wired Silver Ribbon

Round Corner Puncher

Scissors

Double-Sided Tape

I made my templates in a Word document and printed everything at the BEST quality.

Flower Girl Baskets

Yesterday and today my Mom and I ran out to "Micheal's" and priced out items that we would need to make the centerpieces and bought a few items for the wedding. I had a really good time with my Mom and I'm glad that she is finally really into all the wedding planing. She throw out a few ideas that her and Dad want to do for the Bridal shower. Yesterday we went to "Victoria Secret" and I didn't like anything I tried on! I need to find what I'm going to wear under my dress! I was glad Mom was with me because it would have been really depressing if I was by myself. I also bought a few gifts for the girls in the wedding! Today we bought the items for me to make the flower girl baskets and I LOVE how they turned out. I think each basket cost about $5.00 to make since, I buy everything on sale or I use coupons!

How to Make a Flower Girl Basket

What you need is a hot glue gun, scissors, lots of ribbon, a basket, a few flowers, and roses petals. It took me maybe an hour to make all three baskets.

Reality Check

I have realized a few weeks ago that this wedding got way over budget. We have been counting on a business deal that was suppose be finalized in January and than February to pay for our wedding and to leave us with a nice cushion but, things changed when Drew went to Vegas a few weeks ago. Our new partner is still coming on but, not paying to get into the business like he was before... great just great! So, now I'm taking on even more DIY projects! I looked into what it would cost to make our centerpieces and it should cost about $500-$600 (not including flowers) compared to $1,400! I made the Invitations and everyone should be receiving them soon if they haven't already. I've made the Menus, Programs, and Seating Chart I just have to print them and assemble them. I'm also going to make the name cards, my hair piece, the flower girl baskets, and the ring bears pillow. This wedding is honestly getting done in two months! OMG there is only 68 days to go!!!!!

I really hope we can pull this off!

They are in the Mail!!!

So, it's official our wedding invitations have been hand delivered to the Post Office! Now, I stood in a long line to hand the invitations over to the postal worker like all the website and blogs tell you to do and after the lady checked the postage she told me to go drop them in the box myself. I couldn't believe it! I already new my postage was right so because of her laziness I waisted 30 minutes of my life standing in a line I didn't need too. At least they our out now and I can breath a little better now and move on to the next DIY project.

Today's Project

Today I took a decorative letter "T" that we had hanging in our last apartment and I covered it in moss. I added a small green rose on the bottom corner. This project took a lot longer than I thought it was going too! After doing the "T" I decided I'll keep the "A" silver. I'm going to use them on one of the fireplace mantels.

The only supplies needed for this project is: Moss, scissors, and a hot glue gun.

The invitations are in the mail!

Today is the day we finally mail out the wedding invitations! I'm still waiting for about 8 addresses from Drew's list but, I can't let the rest wait any longer! Using the wax has actually been the hardest part of the process. There is a trick to melting the wax as not to burn it, otherwise you get a silver and black mix instead of just silver. It takes about 5 minutes to do each invitations so, it's much more time consuming than I thought. I am very proud of these invitations and I'm glad I took on the task. At times I didn't think I could transfer or convey what was in my head to paper, but it all worked out in the end. I would recommend making your invitations whether it's for a wedding, baby shower, birthday, or an anniversary party. I know this will not be the last time I make them. It might take a lot of time but the end product is more special with the blood, sweat and tears included. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

This video is for other Brides that might come across my blog. I found a lot of inspiration from blogs I would find and, from this site http://www.weddingbee.com so, I hope this helps. :)

A rough draft our invitations.

My custom made one of a kind wedding invitations!

So, I worked on our wedding invitations today. The following is a picture of the invitation design process. I think I may have bit off more than I can chew with this task but, I'm going to have fun completing it. I really hope they turn out the same way I envision them! Soon, I'm going to have the girls over so I can complete this project a bit quicker!! The flowers are going to be used on the place cards I think. I glued three different colors and sized rhinestones on about 300 little flowers! Drew made the "K" and "D' (awwww).

What do you think?

1/16/10

Today Andrea, Leah, and my Mom came over to decorate the invitations. I made them a french toast and sausage breakfast and Leah brought the coffee. I printed off about 80 invitations last night figuring that is more than enough for us. I'm really happy with the wording Drew and I chose and I managed to get the ink color pretty closet to the floral purple color that was on the invitations already. I used the font "Garamond" for the main wording and "Edwardian Script ITC" for our names. We glued tiny clear micro beads using silver glitter glue to different parts of the purple floral designs. My cats were dying to help and very curious about what we were doing. I have to say they turned out really nice and I really enjoyed the girl talk! Andrea stayed after Mom and Leah left and we made the templates for the envelope liners.

Thanks girls!

1/24/10

My sister Angie came over and I made her breakfast as well! Today we made all the envelope liners for both the invitations and response cards. We used a giant 18 x 18 "Martha Stewart" scrapbook page paper. When I bought them I realized it was a discontinued line so I bought all they had and it should be more than enough. We were able to get four sets on each template per sheet so I have plenty of leftovers to use for the programs maybe. We took turns tracing, cutting, and gluing them. Angie wasn't too happy about this task but, she did a great job. Too bad we ran out of glue so I will have to finish gluing the leftovers another day. She stayed over for about half the day and, it was really nice just hanging out with her. I don't remember the last time it was just her an I and for that long of a time period. I really appreciate her coming over and staying that long especially when she has seven kids to take care of at home.

Video Teaser