Thursday, February 13, 2014

Wedding Week Day 4: Small Touches


Happy Thursday and fourth day of Wedding Week! Hope you have learned some helpful tips thus far, at least gotten some motivation to get your wedding things rolling. Today, I want to talk about the little touches you can add to your wedding. My friends, mom and my Aunt Mary were amazing help with the little touches. There are simple things you can add to your wedding that add a touch of character. Here are the favorite little things we added to our wedding...

1. Dancing Shoes! Thank you Molly for having extra flip flops from your wedding because they were much enjoyed at ours! When you want your guests to spend the whole night dancing, it is nice for you to have some dancing shoes handy - don't want them bailing because their six inch heels are killing them.

Buckets from Hobby Lobby, Basket from Target and floral box from World Market.

2. Glow Sticks! If you can notice in the picture above there are buckets of glow sticks - instant hit with the kids...Dustin's cousins basically made an outfit out of them. It was fun on the dance floor and it gave them all something to do. My friend Ashley's baby was raving with glow sticks into the night.

3. Party Hats! One of my favorite favors from the weekend, was the rehearsal dinner hats. My fabulous aunt had hats made for the weekend and we passed them out at the rehearsal dinner. So fun! They say "Oh Happy Day!" and are great because people can use them after the fact:

We had a girl hate and a boy hat!

Meg and I at the rehearsal dinner rockin' the hat!
4. Drink koozies! Keep your beer cold and add some sass to the bottle. My aunt ordered them for us and they turned out very fun. Baby Lizzie even rocked one on her bottle for the night!


5. Family touches! My grandma and I are extremely close, so I wanted to have touches of her in our wedding. Touches like that are meaningful and beautiful, plus they make that person feel like they are an important part of your special day. She let me use her hanky to wrap my bouquet, her cake topper and her purse. Dustin was very close to his grandma, so we used the ring pillow his grandma made for his mother's wedding - love a classic pillow! I also wore the garter my great aunt passed down to me when I was little.

Flowers by Lori Park Floral Studios
Wedding Cake from Publix Grocery Store
Logan was a pro carrying the satin pillow and no, we did not tie the rings to it :)

6. Map with favorite places and wedding stops! My friend Kathy is amazing and whipped up some very fun maps for us to put in the welcome bags. They are easy to read and give guests ideas about where they need to go. She drew them out for me and then I scanned and printed them:

Created by the fabulous Kathy Sweeney
7. Timelines! Everyone needs a timeline for the day of so they aren't running around with their head cut off. To make things simple, I made role specific timelines that included pictures. They turned out really cute and I added them with the map to the welcome envelopes that went into the guest's bag.

I made the timelines role specific so they each knew where to go. I gave each one a unique style as well. The envelopes themselves were a great place to put our welcome message!

Important to have an Instagram # if you want all your pictures to end up in one place - very handy!
8. A touch of home! We both went to the University of Kansas and our first date was a KU basketball game. Needless to say, we are both huge KU fans! We decided for the rehearsal dinner that we would ship in our favorite Jayhawk cookies from the Wichita favorite, Connie's Cookies.



The little touches may not be noticed by everyone, but they will be noticed by some, especially the couple getting hitched. I love that we made our wedding fit our style and that our families were brought in with special touches.

Lots of Love,

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Wedding Week Day 3: Invitations!


Wedding stationary is a big to do with weddings and everyone has their own style, whether it's simplistic, romantic, modern or rustic. You can get creative and make your own or you can find somewhere that makes exactly what you are wanting! I went with the creative route and made my own save the date cards and invitations - with help from my fabulous relatives to put them together! I hand painted them and then scanned them on to my computer for printing. My aunt helped me find the paper I needed and then I fought the printer (ugh!) to get them printed. The hardest part was lining up the margins - make sure you have lots of extra paper! You can always take your creations to a printer to be done - what I should have done, but I became determined. In the end it all worked out...

Save the Date cards:
My aunt helped my line the envelopes with gorgeous paper to add a special touch!

I love this font I downloaded for free!
Wedding Invitations:

We found the amazing pearlized scallop envelope folders at Archiver's. I love how I could tuck everything in.

I kept things simple on the reception card (simple text on pearl paper) and for the bridal brunch card, which went into the bridal party's invitations. My mother made sure I had pretty stamps for the RSVP cards and for the invitations.

I then sealed the envelopes and and hand wrote the addresses - yes it took a long time, but saves a lot of money!
My invitations matched our wedding style and I loved the romantic feel to them. My inspiration was Rifle Paper Co., but wanted to make them my own by painting them myself - plus that saved me a lot of money. When you add your own character to your invitations, they have a little personality to them.

Some of my favorite invitations out there in the world:
$$$ -
Rifle Paper Co. has incredible designs that just make me happy - obviously it was my inspiration!

Ladyfingers Letterpress has gorgeous designs that are drop dead amazing.
$$ -

I love this Etsy designer - First Snow Fall

Wedding Chicks has pretty and romantic invitations.
$ -

Etsy has great printable options that make invitations affordable! Love how simple and fun this one is.

Paper Source has fun options and that store is just fun to go into!

Free! -

Wedding Chicks has amazing FREE printable invitation options for the girl on a budget - or heck even if you just love the styles! They aren't completely free because you will have to get them printed, but a free design saves a lot of dough!
One of the favorite things I purchased for putting together our invitations, was the address embosser. Yes your hand does start to cramp from pressing down, but it was a fun alternative to the address stamps and you avoid hand writing the return address!

We purchased ours from Neiman Marcus and used our first names and new address, that way we could use it after the wedding. It could also be a good gift for your parents if you want to use their address.
There are so many gorgeous and fun wedding invitation options out there, so have fun with them and pick something that goes with your taste and style! Don't settle - there is something out there in your price range or you can always pull a M.E. and get creative!

Lots of Love,