Canton Finds

If you are into vintage, antique, or rustic decor, Canton is the place to go. Since our wedding will have some vintage flair to it, we made the trip down to good ol' Canton to get a few items for the wedding. Our flowers will be in vintage mason jars and eclectic bottles, rather than traditional vases. Luckily, we hit the jackpot on the mason jar supply. We found a booth where they had more cool looking mason jars than we could possibly transport ourselves. At first, I thought it wasn't going to work out since upon finding them I saw that the jars range up to $32 a piece! We need about 60 jars, so there was no way we would pay that price. After flexing my ol' college Negotiation course skills, we ended up getting tons of jars! They range from mid-sized to large and clear to light blue. Since our wedding will be in the spring, the blue will offer a nice hint of color. Here are some Pinterest photos that inspired our plan for our reception flowers:

We also found a nifty antique window. I plan to add ribbon to it to hang pictures on at our wedding. Something similar to this one:



In the meantime, I am going to Christmas it up! I will post a picture as soon as my Christmas burlap arrives!


All of these pictures are from Pinterest and can be found on my Pinterest Wedding folder.

Our Engagement Photos

We got our beautiful engagement pictures back! Our photographer is Bryce Covey, who is very talented! He shoots film, which allows him to capture the emotion of the moment. The lighting in his pictures is amazing. I never get tired of looking at his work. He is also a hard worker and will do anything to get a great shot. His insight and energy makes him fun to work with, too. If you need a photographer, we highly recommend him. Here are just a few of our pictures.

 

 

Name Those Shoes

Can anyone please name these shoes? Seriously, I want to know what they are so I can wear them on my wedding day. :) 

Even a brand would be helpful...

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. :)

Stamp-ede!

Daniel and I got the cutest little stamp! It was made by Jen of Paper Sushi. They make the cutest personalized stamps. You can purchase address stamps, save the date stamps, and icon stamps here. Here a few of my favorites.












Jen is the sweetest person I have ever purchased anything from. She was such a pleasure, I found myself trying to figure out what else I could buy from her. Thankfully, I realized I need this cute little return address stamp. So much cuter than my handwriting!


Our wedding colors are taupe and champagne, so the tricky part will be finding taupe ink. I found the closest thing and tried it out, but it's not really taupe. More like burnt sienna- gross. I quickly returned it and am on the hunt for the perfect shade of taupe. This may take a while...

All pictures by paper sushi

Bunting Flags!

I previously posted that we were having our engagement pictures taken and I wanted something cute with our date on it. I wanted to make a bunting flag, but D said they remind him of the circus and we didn't want people to think we were having a circus themed wedding. He has a point.

Etsy

 

So I moved on to the idea of making a rustic window sign with a sweet saying on it and our date.

Then I realized finding an old window would be more work than I had time for. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't have much time to put something together, so I couldn't spend a lot of time searching for the items required to make my sign.

After showing D some bunting signs that were not bright, cheesy, and multi-colored, he agreed we should do the flags.

I already had the burlap I wanted to make them out of. I planned to just write the numbers on them with a sharpie. Then I decided it would show up better if I added a white background. I made the sign in one day and tied it on to a rope, to make it look a bit more nautical since we were taking our pictures at the lake. We were happy with the finished product. I will post a how-to tutorial and a picture soon.

Say Cheese!

We are taking our engagement pictures this weekend! We are so excited. We have been preparing all week by figuring out what to wear, shopping, and making sure our outfits coordinate. (We are kind of silly, we know). I kind of forgot about making any props or signs. Now it's probably too late. I'm sure the pictures will be great because a) we really like our photographer, and b) my fiance is quite a hunk. :)

Our photographer shoots film, so he is able to capture emotion in a timeless way. One aspect that distinguishes his work is that he uses film. This enables him to capture an amazing color range and classic look in his photos, like you can see here: http://www.oncewed.com/54303/wedding-blog/real-weddings/the-bride-at-dawn/.

He was also just chosen by the Wedding Chicks as a hand-picked vendor, which you can see here: weddingchicks.com/hand-picked-vendors/bryce-covey-photography/.

He is super talented and we are so excited that we get the opportunity to be a part of his work. He also has communicated with us throughout my 1,000 questions I tend to ask, despite his busy schedule. I hope our pictures turn out to be as beautiful as those you can see by clicking on the links.

Wedding Plans in Progress!

Ladies and Gentlemen: We now have a venue! Wooo hooo!!! That's right. After looking at countless venues, we finally decided to go with the one that would have been my number one choice all along. I am not the type of girl who has thought about my wedding day before. Not at all. Not until after I got engaged. But, I did think that it would be magical to get married at this place the first time I went there. Believe me, this is an unusual thought for me. Daniel just so happens to love the place too. Once I moved here, he couldn't wait to take me to see it. It's basically a huge garden. I am so excited, I can barely contain myself. The venue is a place that I want to be at at all times. Seriously, I never want to leave there. As much as I am excited about the venue, I am just as excited about the flowers. I think I might be in love with my florist's talent. She is absolutely amazing and crazy talented. Don't believe me? Here are a few pictures of her work.