Table Number Cards and Escort Cards

The centerpieces aren't the only thing that is going to be adorning the tables. I want all the stationery to match, from invitations to thank you cards to table number cards. Hobby Lobby has lots of great card stock in plenty of shades of purple that will help me out here. I want to use dark purple, light purple, and either white or silver card stock for everything and luckily the 8.5' x 11' sheets of card stock are only .44 and they are usually on sale too. And of course, coupons in my weekly emails are also great! Here are some inspirations for table cards and escort cards: 

 I love the borders and jewels on these. I have become obsessed with the little jewels. I hope I don't go overboard with these.

Using these as my guidelines, I can definitely fashion out something comparable that will surely work for the wedding. Pictures to follow.

Do-It-Yourself Adventures

Like any other bride on a budget, I have decided to create a lot of do-it-yourself projects for the wedding. In order to save money and add creativity to the wedding, I hope these projects will be unique and showcase the creativity that I didn't know I even had. Here is a list of all the things I am going to make myself:

Ceremony                                                                                 

Card box                                                                                    

Program box                                                                        

Programs                                                                             

Escort cards                                                              

Bouquets                                                                                                 

Boutonnieres

Corsages                                          

Unity Candles                                   

Flower girl basket                             

Rose petals for flower girl basket 

Ring bearer pillow

Guest book and pen

Reception

Centerpieces

Table number cards

Favors 

Favor labels  

Stationery

Invitations

Reply cards

Announcements 

Thank you cards 

Return address labels 

Gifts 

Bridesmaids totes 

Flower girl totes

Tux Ideas



Obsessed with The Knot?....Nah...

Yeah, right. I promise I don't check The Knot more than five times a day.... Honestly, it really is a useful tool to help you plan. There are all kinds of pictures of real weddings in lots of color combinations. It helps you manage your guest list and your budget. The to do list is really helpful because you can check off things as soon as you do them and they move to a "Completed" category. It also helps you to do things you may not have thought about in the first place. 

By mid-February, my wedding to do list included working on the guest list, making final choices on bridesmaids and groomsmen, shopping for my wedding gown, setting up the flowers, and starting on our registry. Well, I didn't do all those things in that order. I had pinned down some of the guests that I absolutely knew had to attend, and had my bridal party figured out. A couple of trips to David's Bridal to look at wedding gowns merely hammered home that whole unemployment thing. I liked several dresses that were upwards of $400. (Of course I didn't like anything less than that price. I didn't do that on purpose; it was just my taste.) What I could really work on this month was our wedding registry. Cue my extreme excitement. 

There were so many places I wanted to register but I had to be realistic and narrow it down to a couple. I knew Bed, Bath, & Beyond would definitely be on the list. I was debating over JC Penney, Kohl's, and Macy's. Macy's won that battle. Of course, I checked out the registry tab on The Knot, and I was able to figure out my "registry style," whatever that means. I guess I like traditional and classic items, so I fell in love with Fiestaware right away. (Squeal!) 

Kevin and I had decided that when we had a place of our own, we would decorate our kitchen in greens and blues. Here are the Fiestaware colors that we registered for:

 Lemongrass

 Shamrock

 Peacock

Turquoise

Other items we registered for include:

 Monogrammed towels? Yes, thank you.

 Deep fried food runs in my family.

 I plan to do a lot of baking.

 Classic Corningware. Everyone needs this.

Kitchen Aid knife block  

And lots of other goodies for the living room, bathroom, bedroom, and KITCHEN! Now, we just need to get a place of our own that has enough space for all this stuff. Let's go see what's next on The Knot's wedding checklist.

Feeding the Masses...

We sat down with Jason again and began going over dining options around February. He offered many different varieties of meals, priced from $12.95 all the way to around $24.95 a head. Sticking to our teeny tiny budget, we went with the cheapest menu option (sorry guests!) which was called "Finger Foods." The way it will work is the staff is going to break it up to make it look like a cocktail hour before the big meal is brought out. First off will be cheese and crackers displays, as well as fresh fruit displays and veggies and ranch displays. Here is an example: 

These aren't the actual trays Grafton Peek will provide, but it's an example of the food that will served during the cocktail hour. After that, the staff will bring out the main course (if you will) that will include slices of ham, turkey and roast beef and buns to make sandwiches with. There will also be either pulled pork or chicken and tuna salad on croissants. Still need to figure that out. Perhaps something like the picture below...

We have also opted to have a cash bar because we can't afford a pre-paid tab. We are also paying for everyone to have unlimited soft drinks. Of course, water, tea, and coffee will also be available. Hope there's not a pouring fee for that!

Here are some links to the Grafton Peek menus:

Formal Menu 

Casual Menu 

Ballroom Bar 

Let's talk about Centerpieces

Once we had the table cloths, linen napkins, and china figured out, it was time to move onto the centerpieces. As people would be at the tables most of the night (except for dancing!), I knew I would have to make the centerpieces stand out. As my aunt and I had already decided not to bother with flowers for the centerpieces, I came up with plenty of alternatives. Here are some pictures that served as inspirations:

I love the tall vases with water and floating candles.

 Disregard the flowers, but I want to fill the bottoms of the vases with purple stones and set them on square mirrors. I also love the Hershey kisses on the mirrors.

I want to surround the cylindrical vases with votive candles, kind of like the ones above, 

but we'll have to see what we can play with.

Final idea: 8" square mirrors, one cylinder vase with purple stones in bottom, filled with water, and a floating candle on top. Also, four votive candles on each corner of the mirror and perhaps some Hershey kisses, but they may melt with all that flame around them. 

I started shopping around for the vases, candles, and stones. I found the vases at Dollar Tree and purchased eight of them. That's a pretty sweet deal right there. If I had purchased them at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, they would have been $4.00 a piece for sure.

Next, I shopped around for the purple stones. Again I looked at Dollar Tree to save the day, but they only had clear, blue, and green stones. Shoot! I had to go to Michaels to get the purple stones and I found the perfect mixture of purple, lilac, and clear stones in black netted bags for $6.99 a piece. We bough two of those bags to adorn the bottoms of the vases with. 

Disregard the "Purple Grapes!" 

Our purple stones include the above color, plus a nice metallic lilac, and clear.

I knew I didn't want plain round white floating candles to place in the vases, because if I could some purple, by God, I was gonna have it. Hobby Lobby helped me out here with purple rose shaped floating candles. (This also works because my chosen flower for the bouquets was roses!) They came in packs of 6 for $7.99. I signed up online to receive coupons every week from Michaels and Hobby Lobby so I used a 40% coupon when purchasing these. Every little bit helps!

I haven't been able to find the square mirrors yet, but my aunt gave me a great idea. She said to look at Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards to see if they might have them. I looked at JoAnn Fabrics, but they only have the round ones. I am still on the hunt! 

For the votive candles, I found some in packs of 12 for $7.99 each at Michaels. They came in the holder with an ivory candle. The white candles almost appeared pink, so we chose the ivory. Again, use your 40% coupon here to save a couple of bucks! 

At the end of the day, we spent around $50 for centerpieces that could have easily cost $250 if we had used flowers or had them professionally arranged. Gotta pat myself on the back for this one. I hope they look nice. Pictures later. 

And the winner is...

Grafton Peek Ballroom! 

We met with Jason, who was very nice and knew what he was talking about. I took my maid of honor, my mother, and Kevin along on three separate trips to the ballroom between December and January. We were able to put the deposit down on February 7 of this year and it was a great feeling! 

Grafton Peek not only hosts the ceremony and the reception; they also cater all the food, have DJ services, rent their own chair covers and sashes, table cloths and linen napkins, centerpieces, silverware and china, and have their own bar-tending services, and provide the cake too! This was amazing to hear because frankly, I didn't want to have to find separate vendors for everything. Jason is great and always answers my questions thoroughly and welcomes more. He is definitely willing to work with you and set up a plan that will cater to your budget. 

The first order of business was choosing the nitty gritty details like table cloths, chair covers, etc. We chose white table cloths with purple linen napkins, and white chair covers with purple chair sashes. At first, I was contemplating the idea of having purple table cloths, as shown in the third picture below, but Jason only offers white, ivory, or black tablecloths.  Plus, in the end, my mother convinced me that it would be "too busy" to have purple tablecloths. So, I offered the idea of purple table runners, but Jason doesn't offer those and they were about $15.00 each at Hobby Lobby. I didn't like that price so I did contemplate buying yards of purple fabric and cutting it myself to make table runners, but it just wasn't meant to be. No big deal, I will go with the white and accessorize as best I can with centerpieces and napkins.

Satin or organza: that IS the question!

If our tables were long instead of round, I would totally love this idea, but I can work around it. These chair sashes are purple organza and I'm not sure if I want to go with the organza or satin. It will depend on the darkness of the purple on the material. Unfortunately, Jason said that since he rents the chair sashes and linen napkins from separate companies, the two colors will not always match up perfectly. I do want them to match as best as we can manage, so depending on the shade of purple that's available for the linen napkins, that will influence my decision on the fabric for the chair sashes.

I love the purple goblets on this table!

He also offered plastic silverware or real china and goblets for a very modest price per person. At first, we were going to go with the plastic, but then I decided that I wanted everyone to have a nice water goblet and real silverware that wouldn't get thrown away at the end of the night. This decision may change again because the menu we chose isn't really fork and knife appropriate. Still up for debate. 

See the next post for menu options and table decorations!

With a Little Help From My Friends

And by my friends, I do mean The Beatles. As I have been working on all my DIY projects, I have listened to my favorite Beatles album Abbey Road about seven times all the way through. I've also listened to all my dad's moldy LPs, including Let It Be, and St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The music has been a welcome addition to the organized chaos of wedding planning. 

Today I finished working on all the table number cards and began working on the unity candle set. In July, Kevin and I went to Wal-mart and purchased identical candle holders; two for candle sticks, and one for the pillar candle. The smaller ones were $2.50 each and the one for the pillar candle was $5.00. Not too bad, seeing that unity candle sets are close to $60.00 everywhere else I've looked. That crazy expensive price includes the candles and the holders, which you have to buy separately.

 

We got the candle sticks and pillar candles at Michaels for about $4.00 total. When we got home, I tested everything and it all worked together perfectly. At the date of purchase, I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to decorate the candle holders or the candles themselves. I looked online and found some designs that I thought would be easy enough to tackle. 

Rhinestones and ribbon seemed to be a winning combination. So I found some lilac colored adhesive rhinestones at Michaels for $3.99 and bought two packs. Instead of taking the time to measure and mark where I wanted all the rhinestones to go, I just eyeballed it and starting making a vertical pattern, with three and then two. I'll put a picture of the finished product later. Here are some pictures of unity candles that inspired me to come up with a design for my own. 

The third one totally stole my candle holders! I swear, I had the candle holders before I ever saw this picture. Hopefully, I can make something unique and pretty that will sparkle and shine. I'll have more about the actual unity candle ceremony in upcoming posts.

Which Beatles album should I listen to next?

I Love Checking Things Off My To-Do Lists

I had begun creating a wedding binder and had organized it into categories like "Flowers," "Stationery," "Music," etc. I was printing out monthly to-do lists, courtesy of The Knot, but I realized that I was using up way too much paper, so I just maintained the list directly on the website. With over 12 months still to go, the first things I really needed to set my mind to were deciding on a budget, looking for a venue, and looking for a caterer. 

Kevin and I began looking online for wedding venues, and we came across several. By this time, it was beginning to transition into winter time, and we diligently drove out and visited venues in the snow and ice. We met with the coordinators and set up a proposed plan and invoice for each place we visited. We then compared prices and chose the one we thought was the best fit for us. Here are pictures of some of the venues we looked at:

The Atrium 

We met with Louie, who turned out to be my old elementary school bus driver (what are the odds?!) and he took us on a tour of the facility. Wow, see that fountain in the second picture? Don't be fooled. It was a joke. That area was the front foyer with a concrete floor painted white, with cracks that had been caulked over and re-painted. There were white painted metal chairs as well, that were beginning to rust. The whole foyer smelled musty as soon as we walked in. This prompted me to give Kevin a look that he promptly returned. 

We entered the actual banquet room to find that it had dividers that could be used depending on the size of your party. The dividers were made out of this pink carpet like material and made the space look unequally divided. We told him the size of our party, and he showed us the space we would have allotted for us. (I gave Kevin another sly look. He can totally read what I mean just by the funny looks I give him.) After the tour, we sat down to come up with the proposed invoice. He wanted WAY TOO much for cracked concrete floors and pink carpeted dividers and walls. We thanked him and said "We'll let you know."

The Columns Ballroom

This was a nice place, but the thing I didn't like about it was the stairs you have to go up for the ceremony to take place. I have back pain and feet pain pretty often so I knew right away that that would be a factor (not to mention the fact that I'd be in a long dress in heels!). It was pretty and had plenty of space and decorations. In the end, it was going to be a little too expensive, mainly because of the meal choices. We knew we would need to provide meals for our guests because it would be dinner time on a Friday night, and if I were a guest at a Friday evening wedding, I'd want to eat too. The stairs also proved to be more than I was confident enough to handle so we nixed it, but kept it in mind as a last resort. It was MUCH BETTER than the Atrium, duh... 

Grafton Peek Ballroom

Hobby Lobby Rocks My World

After jotting down some ideas for the wedding, and going through dozens and dozens of pictures, I took an impromptu trip to Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and JoAnn Fabrics, which are all in close range of each other and my house. I was smart, and took a list with me so that I could write down prices for the items I wanted to buy. Another bride was doing the exact same thing and I saw her at Michaels and Hobby Lobby and she said "See, she knows how to do it. She's got a notebook and everything!" On top of that, the notebook was purple, and the pen I was writing with was purple. I think I may have even been wearing a purple shirt...

Right away I started scribbling down prices for silk flowers, aisle runners, unity candle sets, flower girl baskets, ring bearer pillows, etc. Hobby Lobby seemed to have more selection and better prices so I have purchased a lot of my wedding items there. Some goodies I've bought include:

 

these flowering bushes were regularly priced at $7.99 a piece, but they always have them on sale for 50% off so I took advantage of that. After buying one flowering bush of each of these, I looked online at many purple bouquets. I knew right away that I wanted to make my own flowers, or have someone make them for me because I knew we just wouldn't have the money to buy real flowers or even shell out for professionally arranged bouquets. I was able to find a website that had EXACTLY what I had in mind. Here are the pictures of what I wanted, from The Bride's Bouquet:

I want the bride's bouquet to look something like this, but with both shades of purple and white with the baby's breath and greenery, which can definitely be accomplished with the flowers I bought.

I want the boutonnieres to look something like this, but with bridal spray, and minimal greenery. This means I need to find bridal spray for real cheap. (Hobby Lobby to the rescue!) I found sprigs of bridal spray for $1.99 there.

I want the corsages to look like this but with two colors each and the greenery. I decided I wanted the women to wear the corsages on their chests rather than their arms because that was too Prom-like and my mother definitely agreed with me. 

So, I took the flowers over to my aunt's house, who has taken flower arranging classes, and she came up with ideas right away. I swore she picked my brain right then and there. I decided I wanted the bouquets to be circular, kind of dome shaped, with nothing really hanging down, to my mom's dismay. Basically, we couldn't figure out a way to make flowers hang without it looking goofy so we nixed the idea. 

The set up for flowers will be like this:

Bride Bouquet - Dark purple, light purple, white, and greenery 

Toss Bouquet - Smaller version of dark purple, light purple, white, and greenery 

Maid of Honor Bouquet - Dark purple, white, greenery 

Bridesmaids Bouquets - Light purple, white, greenery 

Groom's Boutonniere - White, bridal spray, greenery 

Groomsmen Boutonnieres - Dark purple, bridal spray, greenery

Fathers Boutonnieres  - Silver, greenery 

Grandfathers Boutonnieres - Light purple, greenery 

Mothers Corsages - Dark purple and silver, greenery 

Grandmothers Corsages - Light purple and silver, greenery

Because we aren't using real flowers, my aunt and I decided that we wouldn't use flowers in the centerpieces because we didn't want people to really notice that fake flowers were on the tables, so we are coming up with something different that won't include flowers. I'm not sure yet if I want any garland or anything like that to adorn decorating tables. I'll figure that out.

Also, I went to Dollar Tree and found bags of 300 white rose petals (of course for a dollar each) and bought two bags of those. I am going to dye them purple. I hope that goes well too. Pictures will be added accordingly.