A little hospitality

On a bit of a shopping binge in the Target $1 section, I picked up a few things that I thought people might need throughout the course of the night so I could put together hospitality baskets for the restrooms at our venue: hand lotion, Shout wipes, hand sanitizer, kleenex, and of course, gum. I found a little basket (I have a ton of little baskets laying around the house right now and I'm making use of all of them!) and put it all together. I know I'm being super OCD at this point, but I thought it was kind of cute and would probably come in handy.

Problem Solved: Favors

Mmmmm, Dewar's chews. Dewar's was recently voted The Best Thing About Bakersfield, btw. I'm not making that up.

I went and bought 2 pounds of each of their five flavors (peanut butter, peppermint, almond, caramel and chocolate almond).


My good friend Archie helped me keep an eye on the candy while I sorted, bagged and tied.


I tied each bag up with a ribbon and placed them all in a basket for people to pick up on their way out. It was a fun project but took about three hours from start to finish. Definitely a good thing to do with a movie on.

I want to do a little sign to let people know we appreciated having them be a part of our special day - are there any good "we love you, take a favor" rhymes out there? I just can't resist my last opportunity to do something cute.

Let them eat cupcakes

I figure you can't have cupcakes without having cute little signs to indicate the flavors, right? So I found a great template courtesy of Martha Stewart and posted on the always fabulous Vintage Glam Weddings.


I found the template for these cute little cupcake flags on Vintage Glam, too. Super easy - cardstock + toothpicks + glue stick. Now that is my kind of craft project!

DIY: Guest Book

I always knew I wanted have a unique guest book. At first, I was thinking something like this:

[find it here]

I made FH a book on Blurb for Christmas. It was easy, fun, and he loved it. And I really adore the idea of having a guest book that becomes a bit more of a keepsake than the average sign-your-name-here-on-the-line type of book.

But then I had my bridal shower, and my brother's girlfriend got me the best present of all - she took something off my to do list! We now have a gorgeous silver picture frame with a nice, big, white mat, perfect for signatures, a la:

[find it here]

Centerpieces, take one

I put together a mock-up of my centerpieces last night:

Obviously, this isn't really how it would look, but just the basic elements I am wanting to use (candles, books, single flower, table "number" sign).

I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. What do you think?

For you, Future Hubs.

I'm back. Under duress, but I'm back. FH doesn't know what is going on with the wedding unless I post to the blog. Or, so he says.

So, on my last trip home, I finally got to see my bridesmaid dresses (or, one of them) next to my flower girl's dresses:

As I suspected, they look fantastic together! I keep on reading on other blogs about great deals on flower girl dresses - this usually seems to involve paying under one hundred dollars. Hmph. I got my flower girl dresses at Tarzhay for fifteen bucks and they are perfection!

Happy Friday: Slow down and enjoy life

Our dog Janie, basking in the simple pleasures of life. She enjoys getting out of the house.

Watching her ears flapping in the wind was amusing, but also made me think I need to take more time to appreciate the little things and not get too caught up in wedding shenanigans. So on that note, forget the little things that are bugging you, get out there and enjoy life and have a great weekend!

To DIY or not to DIY?

One of the downsides (really, the only downside) to being an avid wedding blog reader is that there are so many great potential DIY projects out there, it can get a little overwhelming. I mean, how am I supposed to narrow it down? What is realistic and what isn't for someone with my, um, limited crafting skills? I have to confess that I had never even heard of Gocco until a few months ago.

In my head, I want to be this person. Or this person. I see all of these beautiful ideas and I get excited and somehow, I think I can transform myself into the person who hand-fashions 1,000 paper cranes for my wedding day. (Does folding 120+ paper airplanes count?)

Don't get me wrong - I am in total awe of what these women do to make a meaningful wedding day for themselves. I just think it's better to realize my shortcomings now and plan accordingly.

Invitation Postage

My stamps have arrived! Yes, it's the little things that keep me excited around here.

You probably already know, but just a word of advice for all of you early summer brides out there: the cost of sending a first class envelope will go up two cents (from 0.42 to 0.44) on May 11. Learn more about it here.

Since May 11 is a good two weeks before my RSVP deadline and I can't bear the thought of using the "forever" stamp (c'mon Post Office, if you wanted us to use a stamp for forever, you should have made it more attractive!), I've decided to put two stamps (totaling 0.44) on my RSVP envelopes. That will cover anyone who decides to mail their RSVP back after May 11, while also still looking pretty.

These:

with

I think the flowers with the coffeepot (I actually thought it was a teapot when I was purchasing them, but whatever) is really going to look cute against the bright green of our envelopes.

And I'll be using these on our outer envelope (I didn't care for the standard wedding stamp that they have right now - a little too flowery for my taste):
The blurb on the USPS website says: "Entitled All Heart, the design focuses on a large, bright red heart that is transporting its owner to an unseen beloved who will be gifted with this heart full of love."

Awwwww. Who can resist that?