DIY Check: Wreaths!

I've been trying to get some things done before school starts back in a few days. Yesterday, I made silk peony wreaths that will go on the church doors. I hit the jackpot at AC Moore and found 32 stems on sale for $0.50 each --> AMAZING (they had been $3 each). I bought 18" grapevine wreaths and some green wire to attach the flowers with. I'm really excited about how well they came out! I may get some wooden letters for our first names and put them in the middle, but I'm not sure yet. I had to hang them with a ribbon on my wall to take a picture, but I'll figure out a pretty way to hang them with a bow or ribbon for the church doors. Here's what they look like:

OOT Bags/Baskets

We're going to do OOT bags or baskets for our guests. We will have the hotels place one in each guest room in our room blocks to welcome everyone to Raleigh. So, I've been trying to come up with things to include in the baskets and this is what I have so far:

- Welcome letter from bride and groom

- NC Map

- Raleigh Visitor's Guide

- snacks and drinks, including NC items

- soap or toiletries

- customized map and directions to ceremony and reception

- cards, cheap games, etc.

A few months ago, I had found this super cute DIY idea, of individually wrapping soaps with a note from the bride and groom for the OOT bags. You can find instructions, here. Well, I decided to do mine slightly differently, and will include them in the OOT baskets. Here are the materials that I use: soap, ribbon and wrapping paper. Then, I'll add a tag with our monogram or a little note saying "soap from the bride and groom" or "welcome" etc.

Invitation Design

Here are some pictures I made of a mock up of our invitation set that we will be ordering soon. The wording may be changed some and we might tweak the font, but this is pretty much it! I'm really loving the silver and charcoal colored inks! I'm also hoping to bring in some pink with a light pink bow wrapped around the set! :)

Booking Our Honeymoon!

Tomorrow, we're finally going to put a deposit down on our honeymoon!!!!!!

I might be one of the most indecisive people in the world, so trying to figure out where in the entire world we wanted to go for our honeymoon was intimidating. Well, we've decided on PARIS! We're paying the deposit for our 7-night apartment rental tomorrow! The apartment is through www.ParisPerfect.com, which I found a couple of weeks ago. Well, most of their apartments were booked :( for our week, but fortunately, we were able to find one that is going to work out "perfectly!"

It's the Syrah apartment in Paris' 7e arrondissement. It's only a couple of blocks away from the Eiffel Tower and is on the famous Rue Cler. (Rick Steves' Europe: Rue Cler: The Art of Parisian Living) We love cooking and this little apartment has a kitchen to prepare meals with ingredients from the fresh market below. There's also a cute balcony to sit and relax or eat a meal. The living room is so parisian and full of light. I could ramble on forever about how amazing everything looks, but I'll let you see for yourselves! This is the actual apartment that we'll be staying at:

Invitations!! :)

Tonight we came very, very close to finalizing the invitations for the wedding. I'm SUPER EXCITED about these. I had considered doing DIY, but I've got a lot going on in the next couple of months and didn't know how much time I'd have for DIYing invitations. Well, we found some beautiful invitations that we really like. They're awesome, here are the details:

Crane & Co. Letterpress

2 ink color flourish design

Double envelopes w/return address and envelope liner

Reception card

Response card and envelope with address

Eeeeek! They are going to be gorgeous and sooo luxurious!

We're getting them from Swoozies in Cameron Village.

We're going to order them in the next week or so, we're just waiting to hear back from them to make sure our color changes/combinations can be done.

This is what they look like. We'll be changing the light brown motif to silver and the text to a darker gray/charcoal color. The envelope liner will also be silver. This shows the paper in ecru and we are hoping to change it to an off white, but we're not sure if it's possible yet. Oh and we've discussed adding a pink ribbon to tie it all up, but so far it's mainly silver/gray. It's pretty traditional, but I think it will really be pretty!

Bridesmaids' Dresses Update

So, this morning I got an email that 2 of my girls' bridesmaids dresses came in... That's only 11 days after they ordered them!! Haha, the estimated arrival date had been FEBRUARY 10th! Whatttt? The consultant at the store said they will come in really fast if they had them in stock at their warehouse. So that's great! I picked up 2 today and 2 more are on their way to the store. Wow! I can't wait to see all of them!

The pictures are kind of grainy/blurry but, here's what they look like... I LOVE the pink even more than I thought I would. I think we definitely made the right choice going with this dress and the Candy Pink! :)

Paris Perfect... :)

Tonight, while researching destinations for our honeymoon, I looked into renting an apartment in Paris for our stay. I've been looking at hotels for a while... there are just so many to choose from! Staying in an apartment would be a comfortable way to stay and would be even more Parisian ;) I'm not sure if this is exactly what we're going to do, but I found this lovely company and their website and I'm really excited! www.parisperfect.com

They have a collection of about 30 apartments in Paris with fabulous views and furnishings. There are lots of reviews in the guestbook, pictures and apartment floorplans. Here are some pictures from some of their apartments and the views... :)

Bridesmaid Dress Update!!!

YAYYYY! The ordering process has begun!! I'm so excited that we finally got the girls' dresses figured out. So far, everyone has really liked the dress. I'm really excited about them. They are due to come in around early February. So it looks like we will be fine if anything needs to be altered.

Also, they got a really great deal on the dresses because apparently David's Bridal is going to discontinue the dress in the coming months. I'm so glad that we grabbed it before it's gone!

As of today, 3/7 bridesmaids have ordered their dresses! YAY!

UPDATE: 4/7 at the end of the day on 11/19!!

UPDATE 2: ALL DRESSES HAVE BEEN ORDERED as of 11/27/2009!! :)

Wedding Party Newsletter!

I made a newsletter for my wedding party and mailed it out to everyone this weekend. This what it looked like. So far everyone has loved it. I'll use these to keep everyone updated on the planning progress.

Ordering my Veil!

We're ordering my veil tomorrow from Pearl's Place in LA!

I'm super excited, it's going to look amazing with my dress.

yay!

Table Numbers

I picked up the table numbers from Megan today! I'm super excited about this project and got a lot done today! So, I started with her table numbers which looked like this:

Then, I had to totally deconstruct them.... and basically ripped all of the numbers off and took apart the frames. Sorry Megan for undoing all of your hard work, lol! Then I cleaned up all of the numbers and painted the frames with silver metallic acrylic paint.

I cut rectangles out of scrapbook paper in the appropriate sizes for the backings. I placed the paper in the frames and tightened the back of the frames. I painted the numbers with a light pink acrylic paint. Then, I arranged the numbers in the frames how I wanted them and voila! I only did 15 today. I don't know if I'll need more, but I have all of the supplies to make additional ones if we need them, which we probably will.

Update! I glued the numbers and added another coat of paint...

What do you think?

Curent DIY Obsession= Table Numbers

As the title shows, my current DIY obsession is table numbers for the reception. A couple months ago, I fell in love, like literally in love, with the shabby chic wedding numbers in frames from a weddings blog I was reading. <3

Well today, I was looking at a fellow NC Knottie's pictures and saw that she had DIYed these! I contacted her and guess what I'm gonna buy them from her! Woohoo! I'm so excited. I can't wait to redo these for my wedding.

Here's what hers look like:

I'm thinking I will paint the frames a silvery color and then get some scrapbook paper and paint to do the background and numbers. Yay!

E-pics!

You may remember that we took engagement pictures back in July in downtown Cary, NC with Katie Hamister. We were really happy with what she captured.

However, we have always wanted to get pictures taken in Chapel Hill, where my fiance just graduated from college this past May. Since we're getting married at The State Club (on NCSU's campus), I felt it was only fair if we tried to include the rival/FI's school, UNC, somehow!

This past Sunday we had more engagement pictures taken by Miranda of In the Grain Photography. She was great to work with! Check out her website at www.inthegrainphotography.com

Here are some teasers that I grabbed from her website:

Card Box!

This weekend I finally completed our card box! I made it using ivory silk shatung and pink and silver ribbons. I bought the round card box from Michaels.

What do you think??