We are wedding-ed out!

October has been a very hectic month so far. I know that it's been forever since I posted, so I apologize for my temporary leave of absence.

Joey and I had 2 weddings right off the bat this month, one of which we were actually involved in. For pretty much the entire end of September and beginning of October, my entire free time was devoted to helping my lovely cousin Lisa get the finishing touches done for her wedding.

I designed, printed and assembled her program, timeline and reception place cards.... with her and Kirstie's help of course!! I could not have have gotten them all finished in time without these amazing ladies.

It was so much fun browsing Pinterest and taking ideas from here and there, along with visions I already had in my head and turning them into finished products! The program took the longest to make. The hardest parts were definitely getting everything aligned, picking the right shade of lavender and getting everyone's names spelled correctly! I think they turned out pretty awesome though.

I also found a wedding timeline on Pinterest and decided to make my own version. It's pretty similar to the one I found, I have to admit, but it still gave me the satisfaction of doing it myself. It was a big hit with everyone and it really seemed to limit the annoying questions of "Where do we go next?" and "How long of a wait til the reception?", which some people really think are appropriate questions to bother the Bride and Groom with. I am a firm believer that every wedding should implement these cards.

The reception place cards were due to the fact that the reception was a sit-down dinner and not a buffet. The colored backing helped the staff identify who ordered salmon (lavender) and who ordered chicken (black). It really helped and was a clever idea since it wasn't overly obvious!

The following pictures are a couple snapshots from the night before the wedding and during. I didn't get many pictures because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off all day. Seriously......... I didn't sit down once all day, except for the actual wedding itself and dinner. But I loved every second of it!

 

Kirstie wearing all of our wedding rings... luckily she is a great friend and didn't run off with thousands of dollars on her hand.

Brandon playing the crap out of that cello.

My wedding day GPOY when I had a second to myself in the hotel bathroom. Sigh.

My lovely husband and I at the reception. We were both sweaty and tired by this point.

The next weekend was Casey and Amanda's wedding! We spent the entire day in downtown St. Louis with our friends Dustin and Brandon. It was such an awesome day.... I just totally forgot to take pictures. Ummmm, whoops!

We spent the time between the wedding and the reception at this pretty sweet bar/restaurant/hipster hangout called Plush. We ate weird food, I had a cider beer, and about 3 coffees. Guys, the napkins were tye-dye and cloth. TOTAL HIPSTER HANGOUT.

The upstairs of Plush was a huge open loft area with ping pong tables, a pool table and tons of mismatched seating areas and a bean bag pit. It had huge open windows and exposed brick walls.

I just love this guy.

The centerpieces! I love me a good mason jar craft. These battery operated lights were an awesome touch, as there was only dim lighting at the reception. Made a very romantic atmosphere!

Us and the groom. YAY WEDDINGS!!!

So yes, it's safe to say that Joey and I are officially wedding-ed out for 2012. We are going to rest and prepare for the Wedding season 2013... we're looking at you Roadie/Carrie and Brian/Kirstie!!!! We can't wait...... but are SUPER relieved you aren't getting married this year. ;)

DIY Doily Wedding Dresses

About 2 weeks ago, I promised you a tutorial on how to make the doily wedding dresses that I made for my cousin's shower invitations. Well, hey! Better late than never! ;)

Let's get one thing straight first. These were not a brain child of mine, no sir. I wish I had come up with them. Pinterest introduced me to these fancy frocks by way of a blog called Paper, Paws, etc.

Here is my step-by-step tutorial to make your own paper princess ball gowns!

Supplied needed:

- 4" paper doilies, I found them in the cake section of my craft store (you need approx 2 doilies for each dress, so plan ahead)

- Gluesticks

- Scissors

- White cardstock

- Ribbon, in your choice of color

- Heart punch (any craft store should sell one big enough)

- Brads, or any decorative embellishment that can be adhered without falling off easily

   

First off, you need to determine which is the the pretty side of the doily and which is the rough. I think it's pretty easy to tell when it's in front of you, but I included a picture above for reference just in case.

Since you want the pretty side to be more dominant, turn it face down. Rough side up, if you will.

Then, fold the doily just to the white circle at the bottom. Don't fold the doily in half completely, because you're wanting to create 2 layers of the dress. You'll see just about an inch of rough lace when you look at your folded doily.

Crease so that you have a firm edge.

Then, take the top right corner of the doily and bring it down towards the left, lining it up where the white circle and the lace meet. A 90 degree angle, as long as you don't check my measurements for correctness. Or my grammar. ;)

Glue that corner so that it doesn't come apart. You don't need a lot of glue, and make sure it dries clear since you're going to be gluing on the lace part.

When you're done, you should have a triangle point at the top, and 3 layers of the dress. The rough part at the bottom of the dress, then a folded part in the middle, and the piece you just folded over and glued down.

Now to make the top of the dress! 

Take a doily and fold it in half. Put it on top of a piece of white cardstock and position it in the heart stamp so that you like what you see. I felt that you needed to see some white so that the sweetheart neckline was lace only. It's totally up to you.

This will actually make 2 doily hearts, so you'll need to make more white cardstock hearts to keep up. I tried folding the cardstock in half as well, and it was too thick for my punch to go through the stack. Experiment!

Glue the doily to the white cardstock. Aww, so pretty!

Snip off the sides of the heart at an angle... I actually cut too much off of this one (in my personal opinion... also too straight), so the finished product I'm showing you is much cuter than this one would have been. Oops!

Also take the tip of the skirt and fold it backwards, and glue down.


Glue the top of the dress to the bottom piece, and wrap your ribbon around the two pieces. Glue the ribbon to the back to attach it, but DO NOT glue the ribbon on the front of the dress.

Keep it loose, goose!

See? You needed to keep it unglued in front because the next step is to put another piece of ribbon through the sash. I liked how it looked when it was at uneven lengths, but do what ever makes you happy.

Then push the brad through the whole dang mess to secure the ribbon, or glue any embellishment you want to put there. If you don't want anything to embellish the sash, you could just glue the ribbon down, to make sure it doesn't fall out.

I hope you have fun with these.... you should definitely send me a picture of your finished pieces if you decide to make them! I'd love to see them

Or, I am totally for hire. Call me, maybe! ;)

Wedding Season 2012 - Angie & Nick

Last Saturday was my lovely cousin Angie's wedding, to a wonderful guy. Her and Nick will be happy forever and the wedding was absolute proof of that.

Joey was super honored to be an usher, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly all day long.

It was indeed a long day, but one filled with family, love and lots and lots of dancing!

 

 

2 weddings down..... 3 more to go!

Wedding Season 2012 is in full blast. :)

Wedding Season 2012 - Alex & Greg

This year for us is chock full of weddings. I am so happy for all of my friends that are tying the knot... welcome to the club! :)

Yesterday was our friend's Alex and Greg's wedding. It was a beautiful day filled with love, happiness and laughter. She looked radiant in her dress and the pops of red were stunning. I was so happy to be a part of their day, especially surrounded by our friends! 

Weddings are honestly so much fun to me now that I've gotten married and know just how much intensive labor goes into the process. Seeing Alex shine on her day makes me just that much happier for her.

I cannot even express how excited I am for the rest of this year!