Busy Bee

North Dakota Christmas To Do List:

• Celebrate Christmas and New Years with family and friends
• Meet with the reception venue for taste testing and consultation
• Meet with church wedding coordinator for consultation
• Meet with groom's dinner venue for taste testing (tentative)
• (Find) and meet with seamstress for initial gown fitting
• (Find) and meet with florist for consultation
• Attend Lee's friend's wedding and take notes

So much to do, and only one week to fit it all in!  Not to mention Lee will be taking his 2nd part of his dental boards during 2 days of that week.  Aaahhhh!

Finished Flowers

Awhile back, I mentioned I had been working on my wedding flowers.  I took a short break from making them, but I am happy to report I have finally finished all of the flowers!

I made 6 bridesmaid bouquets and a toss bouquet for the reception.  Here is a picture of all of the bouquets lined up above my cabinents:

I also made the boutonnieres and corsages.  I used turquoise ribbon to wrap the stems of the boutonnieres and corsages.  However, for parents and grandparents, I used white ribbon.  Overall, I kept them pretty simple.  You can see examples of both below.

Small Update

Here's what I have been up to lately:

• Working on our wedding website.  It's not done yet, but it's getting there!
• Booking blocks of rooms at 3 hotels for our guests
• Continuing to arrange flowers (more pics to come soon!)
• Taking just-for-fun cheap couples pictures at Walmart for my birthday.  They were just as hilarious as I thought (and hoped) they would be.   
• Watching the movie Bridesmaids for the first time
• Creating our Honeyfund registry
• Making plans to attend the Rose City Bridal Showcase in Portland on October 8 & 9.  I like bridal expos so much, I will probably go to the Portland Bridal Show in January too!
• Getting catering estimates from the Grand Forks Cold Stone Creamery to make my wedding ice cream dreams come true.  :)

Flowers Flowers Flowers!

I am SO excited about this post!  Almost more excited than I am for my birthday and the new season of Glee next week! 

Due to budget constraints, I had decided to do fake flowers for the bridesmaids, toss bouquet, boutonnieres, and corsages.  My bouquet and Lee's boutonniere will be made of real blooms and done by a florist.  Yesterday, Lee and I went to Michaels to browse the flower and wedding sections.  Lo and behold, flowers were 50% off.  We made some split-second decisions and decided to purchase the flowers we would need for the wedding.

We found an assortment of large roses for bouquets, small roses for corsages and boutonnieres, and small white cluster flowers.  We needed a few more large roses than they had in stock, but Michaels is nice and gave us a rain check.  When we returned home, I decided to take a stab at flower arranging. 

There are not many tutorials on the internet for arranging fake or silk flowers.  I looked at a few general bouquet arranging websites, and then I just decided to go for it!  Here is the end result.  I am so pleased.  :)

Here, Lee is modeling a bouquet.  We decided to wrap the stems in black ribbon to match the black tuxes with their black shirts underneath.  I wrapped white ribbon as an accent around the black.

 Another side view.

A view from the top of the bouquet.

Here's how the whole flower arranging process went: I started by de-leafing all of the flowers and cutting the cluster flowers into single branches.  Next, I grouped three roses around one section of small cluster flowers.  In the indentations made by the three roses on the sides of the bouquet, I placed another set of small cluster flowers.  I placed the leaves similarly.  

All of the flowers were secured to each other one at a time using floral tape.  I must note floral tape is the most difficult tape I have ever worked with.  As your hands warm it up, it gets gummy and makes your fingers incredibly sticky.  Not to mention, the tape does not stick to flower stems; it sticks only to itself.  

I covered the floral tape with 5/8" black satin ribbon.  I wrapped the ribbon around the stem so it overlapped and covered the floral tape completely.  I temporarily secured the black ribbon with a round pearl pins.  I then took 1/4" white satin ribbon and wrapped it around the black ribbon, securing the white ribbon with the round pearl pins where the ribbon crossed.  I made these crossings approximately 1" apart.  The placement of these pins also acted to further secure the black ribbon.

Tah Dah!  I have a bridesmaid bouquet.  Here's the best part: the cost for all of the bridesmaid bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages will be UNDER $50!  Plus, I get to have fun making all of them.  I love being artsy-crafty.  

I have one final interesting tidbit for all of you blog readers.  I have had nearly 4,500 hits on my blog since I started it late last November.  Cool!

Church Decorating

I am essentially getting married on a large stage.  Stages are cool, but I think it would be nice to dress it up a bit for a wedding.  Even though I am not very familiar with the stage dimensions and the items they have available to decorate, I thought I would try to come up with a rough sketch of my "dream" decorating for the stage. 

I know a few of the things the church has on hand.  For example, they have long white strips of cloth they drape from the ceiling to the floor.  I would definitely want these cloths up, even if we have other decorations in front of them.  In the picture, these white cloths would be behind all of the decorations I drew.

I know the church has a number of while pillars, but I am not sure how many.  I would assume they have at least 4, but I drew 6 large pillars in my picture.  I also drew some small pillars.  I know the church also has some small pillars, but again, no idea how many.  Small pillars could easily be substituted by small round stools covered in white cloth/tulle.

I know the church has the big black and white dividers that you see in the center of my picture.  Becca used these in her wedding.  I also stole the candelabra inspiration from her.  :)

This is kind of where the design gets tricky.  I think it could look really cool to have tulle or white cloth draped over the pillars.  I don't know if it would work out as perfectly as I made it look in my sketch, and it make take some playing around with.  Plus, there are multiple ways to drape the tulle around the pillars. 

I like the idea of putting white flowers on top of at least some of the pillars, and maybe this would just be appropriate for the short pillars.  In my picture, I drew flowers on top of all of the pillars.  I know the church has an abundance of fake flowers.

Finally, I think it would be cool to line the stage with candles (if it isn't too much of a fire hazard!).  For Becca's wedding, we used candles at the base of the stairs, which you can see in the picture below.  Also, I definitely want to incorporate an aisle runner going down the sanctuary and up the stairs. 

As far as the piano goes, I think I want it pushed off to one side as far as possible.  In this picture, again from Becca's wedding, you can see the piano on the stage, off to one side.  I like the lighted trees the church has, and I think they would be great for filling in "gaps" on the stage, such as behind the piano. 

When it comes to the placement of a unity candle, or sand, or whatever we end up doing, I think I want to use just a small table, placed somewhere on the stage.  This time, I am stealing inspiration from Lisa's wedding.  :) 

So there you have it!  Now I have stayed up way too late thinking about wedding things.  Not a surprise!  :)

Vintage Weddings

I never wanted a vintage wedding, but I am attracted to some of the vintage decorations and ideas people come up with.  For example, I think these assorted colorful glass bottles and their flowers are very cute.

Random Inspiration Pics

Sadly, it has been a long time since I have blogged.  In fact, it has been quite awhile since I have even thought about wedding planning.  I have been too busy! 

Here are some inspiration photos I have run across in the past few weeks.

I love black table cloths.  

I'd like to make little plaques for our chairs.  Not only cute for the chairs, but cute picture props as well.

I think a chalkboard is a good way to announce important information.  However, I really like the framed information as well. 

It's difficult for me to picture and plan what the front of the church will feel like.  Both of the pictures have white flower arrangements that I love, but I picked out these pictures as inspiration for different reasons.  I like the feeling of decadence the first picture offers with the different textures and many luscious details.  I like the symmetry and simpleness of the second picture.  Mostly, I am in love with the large white flower arrangements on pedestals!  I don't think either picture captures anything I could do with the venue, but I like the pictures anyway. 

Thinking about the ceremony a bit more, I actually envision hundreds of candles at the front of the church.  :)  Candlelight wedding services (just like Christmas Eve!) are also in vogue right now. 

I'd like to have some decorations in the aisle, whether it's tissue pomeanders, candles, or petals.

Finally, I have a feeling I will fully embrace some of these DIY projects, like this one, once I have graduated in June!
 

Bouquets

When it comes to flowers, I have been drawn to white, monochromatic bouquets.  Depending on the color scheme I end up choosing, I suppose this preference might change!  I do know I want to make my own bouquets, most likely with silk flowers.

Here are some examples of traditional white bouquets:

While looking at bouquets, I discovered a very fun trend right now.  I found modern bouquets made of feathers, beads, rhinestones, brooches/pins, and pearls!  Feast your eyes on these interesting, yet beautiful bouquets: