(One of) My Best Friend's Wedding

Remember that movie? Gotta love Julia.


                               Kit & Kaboodle

When writing this post, I couldn't help but think of that title. In October, I had the honor of being a bridesmaid of one of my college roommate's wedding. The wedding was adorable. The bride made, planned, and designed all the decorations herself (with a little help from her parents). She is basically Martha Stewart, but younger and without all the legal problems. ;)

Here are a few pictures that show off her creativity and craftiness.






She made all the bunting flags, chalkboard signs, and put together all the decorations. She also made these Kraft paper and burlap programs, complete with their wedding logo.

She made these burlap wreaths featuring cotton and Anthropologie letters.




Instead of petals, her flower girl sprinkled these paper hearts down the aisle.






She used an old mattress frame as a picture holder. (Aren't they such a cute couple?!)






Her wedding sign in table- all in chalkboards, ribbon, cotton, and wood.



Their legacy table





The wedding was in October. Cute little pumpkins lined the walkway to the chapel. The bride made those cute burlap flags.









She designed their invitation suite





and put fun stamps on every envelope.





Cotton and burlap lined the aisles. Aren't these so cute and simple?





She also made these wedding streamers to wave after they said "I Do."







She made these centerpieces with tea lights, branches, glass jars, and galvanized hearts.











Her dad made those crates to give the centerpieces height. :)

She also made this chalkboard tray for their champagne toast.





She is very talented with chalk.















Monogrammed burlap signs for their chairs.





Fun sunglasses, maracas, and tambourines were provided for guests and kids at the reception as well as glow sticks :)









and you gotta have a photo booth!





They made toffee for the wedding guests and sealed it with stickers with their wedding logo






as well as koozies




Cookies made by the Mother of the Bride




Cake table










Textured cakes decorated with cotton for her and a Texas map for him




These are the cookies she sent all the BM's. They were delicious. :)




She also made each of us these shirts. She tie-dyed and screen printed them herself. You can see more about this here.




Didn't she do an amazing job?!?! (Great job, Dell!)

If you love her stuff, you are in luck! She now sells just some of her creative work. Check it out here!

Bridesmaids Packages

I wanted to come up with a fun way to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids. I had initially planned on sending each girl a sugar cookie decorated with icing like a bridesmaids dress with a cute little card that says "will you be my bridesmaid?" Well, after receiving a bridesmaids package very similar to this, I knew I had to do something different. I got this idea from Pinterest to do a chain of paper dolls. Here are the bridesmaids invitations that can be found on Pinterest.

OnceWed.com via Pinterest

I wanted to put a little more work into the details and make each girl unique- just like they are in real life! Our wedding colors are taupe and champagne, which already made more work for me. These colors are not easy to find! Since my plan for my bridesmaids' dresses is for each girl to wear a different dress, I wanted to make each dress a little different too. My mom and aunt helped with the design of the dresses and the paper used for the dresses. The most challenging part was the hair. I gave each girl the hair style I think of them as having (either their most recent or how it was when I saw them last). I felt like I needed a hair cutting license to do this! It took several attempts before getting a usable pattern of each girl's hair. Here are the dolls before any hair:

...and before any faces:

 I wanted each "doll" to look like each of the girls and would have their names written on them. This way, the girls would know who the other bridesmaids were. (When I am asked to be a bridesmaid, I always wonder who the other girls are- not that it matters, just curiosity. I feel bonded to the other bridesmaids, like a small sorority). :)

Here are some close ups:

Once I finished the "dolls," I made a handwritten card for each girl. I used a dark taupe for the card to provide contrast to the "dolls."

To strap the two pieces together using a piece of twine-like ribbon. I absolutely love this ribbon and want to use it on our wedding invitations. I really wanted to keep the whole look simple, although that kind of went out the window when I decided to make each girl different.

I didn't completely give up on the cookie idea, so I decided to make homemade cookies with no icing. I thought I found the perfect solution when I found these cookie cutters at Williams-Sonoma. Had I known how much work I was going to put into these cookies, I would not have bought this stupid thing. This product is terrible. I ended up spending two straight days baking, just trying to get these cookies to be readable. If you use any recipe other than the one provided in the box, these do not work. If you use the recipe and instructions provided in the box...these still do not work. You pretty much have to be a professional baker or have several days to waste to figure out how to get these cookies to still have a legible message after they are baked. Since I am no professional, it took me two days and reading all the product reviews for advice. Only one review was helpful.

I found food storage bags at Paper Source and made tags for them, punched holes, and used the same ribbon from the cards.

To make a "tea and cookies" feel to the packages (or coffee for Kara and Anjelica), I bought initial mugs from Anthropologie.

via

I found cute little bins at Michael's- my go-to place- to complete the gifts.

Thankfully, I received great feedback on the packages. Everyone seemed to appreciate them, which made it all worth it. :)