D.I.Y. ---> D.I.why not?

There will be a lot of tradition at our wedding. I will be walked down the aisle by my father, given away to a groom that has not seen me that day until that very moment, be married by a minister, kiss my husband and be wisked away for a photo shoot. We'll return for dinner, dancing and good times with those closest to us. No surprises there. But a few of the details along the way will reflect a non-traditional wedding. While we will not be married in a church, I think the beauty of the meadow where our vows will be exchanged couldn't show God's presence any clearer. Now, I don't want to give away every detail of the day, but I've recently been working on some homemade items to give our wedding a very personal touch. The first being the bridesmaid bouquets. To keep with the rustic vibe of the wedding, and my severe hesitation to spend a large chunk of our wedding budget on flowers that will quickly fade, I have decided on a non-traditional bridesmaid bouquet. I purchased silk flowers at Hobby Lobby, covered the stem with brown floral tape, and stuck them into what I would call a "twig ball". The stem of the flower will be held by the bridesmaids, and on top will be a flower surrounded by a wrapping of twigs. Since this is tough to imagine through words, here is a picture of the (maybe) finished project:



I'm so excited about how these turned out and think it's a great twist on the traditional bouquet of flowers. The next DIY piece was the flower girl basket. Traditional white flower girl baskets just didn't seem to fit the look I am going for. So I found an inexpensive, simple basket and added my own touches to create the perfect flower girl basket. I added fake twig pieces to create the handle and silk flowers for embellishment.



I love this finished flower girl basket. It is exactly what I had in mind. But a white silk ring bearer pillow just wouldn't fit with this. So, I decided to make that piece, too. I sewed (thanks to my mom for the sewing lesson) a burlap pillow, sewed a coordinating piece of fabric into a sort of "ribbon" and hot glued a center embellishment. Two strings of twine are also attached to later tie on rings. I will thank Andrew for his time spent with me and my mom in Hobby Lobby picking out fabrics for this pillow. There were so many choices and I wasn't quickly decisive. He also reigned us in anytime the parts for the pillow were beginning to look too "girly" for our ring bearer to feel good carrying this thing with many eyes on him. So instead of ribbon, we chose fabric, and instead of a flower in the middle we chose a wooden embellishment. I'm so happy we had his input because there could not be a cuter (is that word too "girly" for this?) ring bearer pillow than what this one turned out to be.

I also feel good being able to say I made it myself. This turned out even better than what I'd had in mind. For the reception, one of my favorite touches is our dinner plates. Traditional options include renting nice table settings or going with plastic. Instead, we decided to start collecting mismatched china plates from second hand stores/garage sales/antique shops, wherever we could get our hands on them at a good price. We put the word out to many friends and family members and I'm happy to say we've already been able to collect around 200 china plates. Amazing. So I will say a big thank you to any of you that are reading that contributed to The 2011 Search for China Plates. I'm so excited to see the tables in the barn (our reception space) lined with an eclectic collection of china plates.

As the big day draws nearer and nearer, I will leave you with one last photo. This is a picture of the flowers Andrew surprised me with on the three month anniversary of our engagement. He chose them because they were our wedding colors. The petals are a soft ivory with a light pink inside and slightly green tips. Simply beautiful.  

313 DAYS TO GO!!