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Taken by Kat

Goal #1: At the end of the day, be married to the person you love most in the world.
ACHIEVED

Things did not all go as planned, which if anyone will recall, was planned. And everyone loved it anyway which was so much more important to me.

Our officiant was quirky, sweet, hilarious, and genuine. She would make some tiny mistake and it just made me smile at her charmingness.

We ordered two small tents and got one huge one instead. It was great and really turned out better than the two tents probably would have.

The friend who was supposed to video our wedding got suck and had to cancel at the last minute (eek!) And our friends proved they are damned heroes and bought a video camera. Heroes.

My family was perfect. His family was perfect. Love everywhere. It was stupid hot, but there was so much love. Perfect.

I forgot the jewelry for my bridesmaids, my mother-in-law had an extra set and we just made it work. I forgot the cake serving set and Christi had summer stiff at the house that worked in its place. I forgot the pen for the guest book, the McCradys bought us one.

The totally cute escort board I made and we both worked really hard on? MELTED! more than once. Hot glue + hot sun = hot mess. I admit a little sadness that no one got to see how very cute it looked, but some of the cute got seen. The actual table cards were still super cute. My table labels got shorter and shorter as their susceptibility to wind became more dire. They were a great conversation starter for folks.

The sparklers were supposed to go at everyone’s seat, they didn’t. I didn’t even see where they were. Plus the party ended before we got to play with them. Oops. But yay sparklers!

I forgot to pack lipstick and BOOM! bridesmaids had a bevy of lipsticks in front of me. I feel in love with the one Kym offered me. I made sure to note the name of the color (Clinique Honeynut) to pick it up later and she told me to keep it. Trey has good sisters. Srsly.

My hair was awesome and my makeup stayed perfect. I got married!

So, yes, some stuff went wrong but still managed to be awesome.

Things that were perfect:

• Husband said yes
• Mimosas
• Bridesmaids’ hair
• My hair
• Dancing with my dad
• Food
• Makeup
• No sunburn
• Rain stayed away just long enough
• Centerpieces
• Tiki bar
• Ambience
• Ceremony site
• All the love of friends and family
• Everything? Yeah. Everything.

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I came. I saw. I crafted. . . I also totally just made that up. People who know Latin can and will correct me, later, I know it. For now, that’s what I’m going with.

I like to think I am somewhat skilled. I have relearned how to crochet and knit using the Internets. I know my way around Photoshop, Eclipse, PHP, HTML, and CSS enough to be not only dangerous but also useful. So, why not make my own bouquets, boutonnieres, and hair fascinator for the wedding? And that’s precisely what I did.

Yesterday, my goal was to get the boutonnieres done and wrap the handle of the last bridesmaid bouquet. Little did I realize that I’d get those done, but with time to spare to work on the moms corsages (two moms, two grandmothers, and two step-moms get to wear pretty flowers!) and follow the wild hair I got to make the feather fascinator!

Boutonnieres

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I made three different looking boutonnieres. The one on the left of the picture is HTB’s bout. It’s very difficult to tell that it is very different, but I know it is and that’s what makes me happy. The one in the middle will be for the groomsmen, and the one on the right will be for the dads. And now that I’m thinking about it, I’m really glad I made one too many of those because I realized I had miscounted the number of dads!

Materials:

- Peacock eye feathers
- Peacock iridescent plumage
- Peacock iridescent quills
- White goose feathers
- Assorted brown guinea feathers
- 30 gauge silver wire
- clear glass crystal beads
- floral tape
- brown ribbon
- hot glue

I went to both Michaels and JoAnns on my feather hunt. I was looking for some things that were pretty darn specific and neither shop really had exactly what I was looking for in embellishments for the bouts. They did have decent peacock feathers for a really good price, so that was excellent. The dads bouts are basically a hat embellishment that I took apart, reshaped and reassembled for my own purposes.  Plumes n Feathers.com is where I found the absolutely wonderful extra peacock feathers. No photo can ever really do them justice, but the plumage behind the eye feather on my fascinator gives an idea of how gorgeous they look. I took the cue from The DIY Bride Crafty Countdown to make them. They are a great idea and kudos to whoever thought them up.

Bouquets

My inspiration for bouquets came from lots of places. But mostly, Martha Stewart.com. No really! I think one of the best pieces of advice I took from looking at bouquet inspirations was not to make the bouquet huge. If it is little and easy to carry, you won’t be looking for the first opportunity to put it down right away. I used silk flowers for my bouquets. It is important to note faux is only cheaper if you are actually paying attention to cost of materials. I got all my flowers on sale, thankfully.

Inspiration links:
- Tiny Flowers Bouquet
- Butterfly Bouquet
- Sparkly Crystal Bouquet

Results:

Bride’s Bouquet	Bridesmaid’s Bouquet
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I admit that my bouquet came out a tiny bit larger than I’d really intended, but I really like the ostrich plumes and the asymmetrical nature of the bouquet. I can only name two of the flowers I used, so I’ll not embarrass myself by not naming any of them. Suffice to say I think the bouquets are lovely.

Corsages

The moms corsages are very simple and were crazy easy to make. Just some fabric white tulips, floral tape, and some brown ribbon were all they needed.

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Also? Holy crap it’s less than a month away!!!!!!!!

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I’m getting married in June.  I am Captain Procrastination as well as Captain I-can-do-it-all-myself. These two things? They are not a good combination. These are important details, remember them for later. Needless to say, my invitations are not yet in the mail. Nor are they printed. They are, however, designed, finally.

I am one of those people who knows enough about Adobe’s products to be dangerous. I could have gone to one of the multiple very cool, funky, interesting wedding invitation sites and ordered some very, very cool wedding invitations. I also know enough about printing and the wedding stationery business to be just as dangerous. First, I know the difference between engraved invitations, thermographed invitations, and letterpress invitations. I also know they are are all RIDICULOUSLY expensive! Gorgeous! But ridiculously expensive all the same. I’m working on wedding number two, here, so a) I get to pay for everything myself and b) I’m not spending a ton of money on formal/traditional wedding invitations.

So, my basic plan is this: Design my invitations; send the paper and design off with the fiancé to work where they will be professionally printed and die-cut at an incredible discount; assemble, address, and mail off the invitations; profit.  Naturally, my first steps would be to rough out an invitation idea and find myself some paper.

I got a serious case of designer’s block faced with the blank white canvas of the invitation design. Lots of excuses were dreamed up. “I can’t work on this right now, I just moved into my new house!  I have to unpack!” “I’m just so busy with work.” “I’ll get to it after I relax with a little bit of World of Warcraft.” “It can wait till tomorrow, right? Right. Totally. No big deal.” “It’s my birthday, I can’t do this on my birthday!”

The time finally came to buckle down and just get it done. I gave up illusions of something original, funky, and swirly because I’m just not that good at manipulating my tools to get those kinds of designs. I’ve never been an illustrator. I’m a great tracer, but that seemed like the wrong tactic to take on this. Not that I’m against tracing things. Sometimes, you have to trace one shape or object to get the look for your finished project. I had settled on something very simple involving some visual interest surrounding an accented bit of type, an ampersand.

Somewhere, I got it into my head that I wanted Stonehenge on my wedding invitations. It was where we got engaged, it had an influence on us picking the site for our wedding ceremony (we found an outdoor, fixed sculpture in Solomons, Maryland called The Council Ring that consists of a bunch of standing stones, specifically for gatherings) and has just kind of been our “thing”. And then I found this:

Look at that bit of line drawing. Isn’t that just wonderful!? I think so. Of course I found it on the internet. Which meant it had absolutely NO business being used in a print piece as-is. Remember how I said I was Captain Procrastination? You know what’s more fun than anything else for someone procrastinating? A distraction! Especially when that distraction is justified as useful for the desired end goal now taking a back seat to the distraction. I couldn’t work on the invitations with my schmancy ampersand! I needed to make this perfect Stonehenge graphic print-worthy! If I failed? Eh, I would still have my ampersand idea.

Again, I totally know just enough about stuff to be dangerous. I know how to take something completely un-printable and make it printable. And make it printable, I did. Not only did I get to procrastinate more on a really fun project, but it worked out in the end!

So, I finally had my invitation design, replete with colors, interesting fonts, and STONEHENGE! All ready to get sent to the printer for a quote and also some advice on their overall printing capabilities. This led to the need to find paper. Which turned into a whole other kind of saga. There will be much talk about the paper, because that story leads down other paths of fun wedding preparations that just plain make me happy!