The Shoes

After searching and searching and more searching.... I finally found my wedding shoes. (I think).

I'm indecisive, but if you know me at all then that's definitely not a surprise. On with the shoe search story...

First I found a pair of awesomely cute pale pink Franco Sarto shoes at Goodwill. The best part was that they were only $8!  They were just missing the "Wow!" factor. So I DIYed them and made them pink and glittery. (I'll have to do a tutorial on that in the future, I suppose).

Anyway... then, based on a number of factors, I decide they weren't the shoe. I thought maybe I wanted a fuschia shoe. Then I thought maybe a brown shoe, or an ivory shoe, or a gold shoe. I couldn't decide. I just knew that A) I wanted something I'd be proud to have pictures taken of on the day of my wedding. and B) I wanted to really LOVE them and be excited about them. What can I say.... I loves me some shoes.

So, I went on the hunt. Do you know how hard it is to find a size 10 (or even a size 9 or 9 1/2 for that matter)   fuchsia, peep-toe, slingback shoe with less than a 4 inch heel for under $50???? Well... now that I've said all the requirements out loud in type it does sound a bit demanding.  It was definitely a needle/haystack type of situation.

One day a few weeks ago I was out shopping, like I normally do on Saturdays while the fiance is working (I have an addiction to shopping. Seriously... I need to be cut off), and I meandered into Marshall's. I didn't go there for any particular reason. Browsing and window shopping is my favorite hobby after all. As usual I scanned the shoe wall and something sparkly caught my eye. They were peep-toes! They were slingbacks! They were less than 4 inches tall! They were not fuchsia (darnit, I was on a roll). But they were even my size!

The best part is that they are Nine West shoes and on clearance for a glorious $15! Freaking Score!

I snatched them up even though I wasn't 100% convinced in that moment that they were the shoe, but I did know that if I let them slip away I'd regret it.  Now, I love them even more as the days go on (man, I sound way TOO into shoes. lol).

So.... without further adieu, here they are:

The picture doesn't do them justice, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.   :-)

Bridal Shower Invitations

I can't believe that we are finally close enough to be talking about my bridal shower. Eek! A long time ago my sister and I decided the theme would be a mad hatter tea party. It goes with the over all theme of the wedding itself, it's fun, and it's cute and girly.

Also a long time ago.... I saw these packs of invitations on clearance at Michael's for only $2.99 per pack!!! Score!

My shower guest lists includes approximately 15 people, so I bought 2 packs of 12 for $6. Then I searched the net for various samples of wording and clip art. I also enslisted the help of bridesmaid Anna, since she's a total word genius, to whip up the part about wearing a hat/headband/whatever. And here is the final product (edited obviously)...

In case you can't read it, it says:
Don't be late for this very important date!
You're invited to a very merry bridal shower in honor of Samantha _______!
On October 1st she'll be our Queen of Hearts.
At two o'clock the party will start.
Be like the Mad Hatter - wear something up top
With feathers or bows or colors that pop.
Please RSVP so your presence is planned.
We hope you can join us in our Wonderland.

I love them and can't wait for my bridal shower! It's going to be SO much fun!!!

Semi-DIY: Flower girl dresses and headbands

We are having two flower girls. They are both pretty young, so I don't really expect them to behave like older flower girls would, but they are both just so darn cute that at the very least I'd like to have them in pictures wearing their cute outfits.

I scoured the internet looking for the perfect flower girl dress on a budget. I really didn't want my friends (or myself) to have to pay more than $30 for the flower girl dresses.

I happened upon the girl's department in JCPenney yesterday and saw that all of their "special occasion" dresses were on sale. SCORE! There were several that I loved, but then you factor in the prices and the sizes available, and the choices were definitely narrowed down for me. However, I didn't want to be impulsive. I knew that I had recently been sent at least one coupon from JCPenney in the mail. So I didn't buy them then. I came home only to discover that I actually had 2 $10 off coupons! Yay!

So, today while I was off work, I went back to JCPenney. The choices I liked were still there, and I had my coupons in hand. One dress was the front runner, but it was also more expensive, and there were still things I'd want to change about it. In the end, I decided since I wanted to make changes anyway...  might as well go with the cheaper dress.  I enlisted my MOH (my sister) to come with me so that we could use one coupon on each dress.

I ended up getting the dresses for $11.99 each! They were originally priced at $54.99 so this was absolutely a bargain! I got two flower girls dresses for under $25! The one I bought looked like this:

They are ivory (which I love) and they have a lace-looking embroidery on the skirt (which I also love). However, I'm not loving the flowers on the front AT ALL. I mean, if I had to... yeah, I could deal with them. But I'd rather not. So, they looked fairly simple to remove. I figured at $11.99 a dress, even if I messed them up it wouldn't be that upsetting.  So, I removed the flowers on the front, and also the sash/bow that started on the sides and tied in the back.  Then I added a brown ribbon to correspond with our wedding colors (the hot glue gun is my BFF) and I ended up with this:

I love it!!! It is a completely unique look? No. But where else could I have gotten a dress this cute for only $12?!?! I've also already made headbands for the flower girls to wear. I love the headbands too! They are my favorite part and I can't wait to see Olivia and Brianne wear them. I'll have to do a tutorial for this one soon.

Crunch Time!

Well, I haven't posted in quite a while.... almost 4 months, actually. In reality I haven't really had much to post about because I've been a slacker bride. However, now that we are officially past the "100 days" mark, it's time to get serious. As of today we have 94 days until the wedding... and I'm SOOO far behind! Eeek!

I mean... seriously, where did all the time go?!?! We have had a long engagement (almost 23 months) so at times it seemed like we'd never get to this point. But now, here we are... a mere 94 days away. It feels unreal. I remember reading other wedding blogs and feeling so jealous that they were getting so close to their weddings. For the most part, everything is planned and picked. It's just the execution that I have to work on now. I think I may have taken on way too many DIY projects. I have eliminated a few that I decided that I could live without, but the others are important to me and I need to get them done. I realize that not many guests are going to really care about our ceremony programs or the pew decorations, etc. But those things are important to me. I want to set a tone for our wedding. I want to have no regrets when it's over. So while a lot of the projects are intended for other people to see, they really are for me too. It's my day and I want it to be fabulous and have lots of special details.

I've enlisted the help of my MOH (my little sister) and two bridesmaids to help me with the rest of the projects. We are having our second DIY "party" this weekend and then another DIY "party" in September. Hopefully we'll be able to get everything finished and I'll have lots of pictures.

I do have a few DIY projects to post that have been finished over the past few months... so hopefully I'll get a chance to post those soon!

The Honeymoon!!!!

Today we officially booked our honeymoon!!! I'm SO excited! When we first got engaged I really wasn't sure if we'd be in the right financial state to actually go on a nice honeymoon. However, then my mom and future step-father decided that they would pay for our honeymoon as a wedding present! (Thanks mom!)

Anyway, we search and researched and evaluated and decided that the best bang for our buck would be the Mayan Riviera. It's got everything we were looking for (ocean front room, all inclusive, jacuzzi in my room, etc) and I. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

We will be leaving the day after the wedding and spending 5 days at the Now Jade Resort and Spa.

In less than 7 months I'll be relaxing here!

Source for both pictures

I can't wait to relax and unwind with my new husband.   :-)

The chair cover situation

Chair covers are not a necessity by any means. However, the chairs at our reception site aren't the most eye-pleasing things to go look at and I really think it'd just help pull things together if I had chair covers. Also, the white tablecloths included in our reception price aren't floor length, so I feel like chair covers help give the illusion of longer table cloths and cover the gap between the table cloth and the floor.

Anyway.... I contemplated trying to make them myself, but then realized that between the price of fabric and my very novice sewing skills that it just wouldn't be worth it.

Then I talked to our reception place yesterday about renting them. The problems with this were 1) It's $2.50 per chair cover w/ sash. 2) They don't even have any of my colors in sashes yet. They said they might be ordering a pale pink sash later this year, but there was no guarantee. 3) I hate paying almost $300 only to have nothing to show for it in the end.

Then I scoured the wedding sites to see if I could buy used ones. Typically they were all sold before I could get to them. Apparently I'm not quick enough on the WeddingBee classifieds. lol. It's also a little scary to buy from someone you don't know and have never heard of, not to mention that most of the sellers on there are asking a price close to what I can buy my own for.

So... in the end I decided to buy new chair covers (hopefully I can sell them to another bride after our wedding and recoup some of the cost) from linentablecloth.com.  They are having a sale right now where their white polyester banquet chair covers are $1.97 each, plus I had a 10% off coupon code for January (they give them out on their Twitter account), AND they have free shipping right now if your order is over $50.

So.... I bought 110 brand new chair covers for $195. That comes out to about $1.77 per chair cover!

This does not include a sash. I have not purchased sashes yet, though I will probably also buy the sashes from the same site. I am waiting because they have a rewards point program and for every 1000 points you accrue you can get $10 off an order. Rewards points can be accrued by registering on their site, signing up for the e-mail newsletter, reviewing a product, and for every dollar you spend there. Hopefully I'll accrue enough to get $10 off my sash order at a later date. I have been searching other places to see if I can find any cheaper, but no luck yet.

Once I receive the chair covers I'll let you know what I think about them.


*I have absolutely no affiliation with www.linentablecloth.com. They did not pay me or give me any sort of additional discount for this post. I simply liked their site and made my purchase.*

DIY: Groomsmen gifts- Etched glass mugs

I love the look of the personalized large beer mugs for groomsmen gifts, but I don't love the $40+ price tag. So, I decided to DIY this one too. I chose to do just the first letter of each guy's last name.

Supplies:

- Contact paper ($1 at The Dollar Tree)

- Printed letter in preferred font (Free. Done from my computer and printed at home on regular paper.)

- Small paint brush (Free. Already had on hand)

- Exacto knife (Free. Already had on hand)

- Glass etching cream (Free. Given to me by one of my BFF's who used it for her wedding last year and had some left over.

- Glass mug ($1 each at The Dollar Tree. Seriously... these are heavy, about 7 inches tall, and look like nice quality too!)

1- Tape your printed letter to a piece of contact paper (The side that you'll be looking at after you stick it to the mug.)

2- Cut carefully around the letter (also cutting through the contact paper since it's taped underneath) with the knife, leaving a stencil made of contact paper when finished.

3- Stick your contact paper stencil on the mug. Be sure to center and smooth out and make sure all edges are stuck securely to the glass so that cream doesn't ooze under any parts of the stencil.

4- Paint over open part of stencil with glass etching cream (read directions on your brand for instruction on how long to leave it on. Also... be careful not to get too much on yourself as this can burn your skin. So maybe wear some gloves, ok?)

5- Wash cream off (I left mine on for about 2-3 minutes each time) with warm water until all is removed from the glass.

6- Peel off stencil and admire your handy work.

Ta-Da! I love them! No, they aren't perfect, but they are still great! (trying so hard to not be such a control-freak/perfectionist when it comes to all things wedding related). So, there you have it.... 4 personalized etched glass large beer mugs for a total of $5! That's a TOTAL budget bride victory!!!

DIY: Bridesmaid Bouquets

These were basically pre-made bouquets from Michael's. I believe they were originally $7.99, but I used a coupon for each one making them only $3.99 each. (I typically wouldn't have gone with a pre-made bouquet but I love the color of these roses.) And since you can only use one coupon per transaction, I also enlisted my sister (the MOH) and the fiance to each purchase one with one of my coupons so we could condense our trips to Michael's.   :-)

Ok, so then I just wrapped each bouquet in standard brown satin ribbon. They still looked like they were missing something. So I put a single strip of lace, left over from my DIY lace hair flower, around the middle and then inserted 3 diamond type pins in the stems. During the process I arranged the flowers like I wanted them, but then some of the stems were a little too long so I had to trim the ends (see tip below).

I absolutely looooooove them. I can't explain it. They are just the epitome of everything I want in my wedding... they've got the pink, the brown, the lace, the romantic/rustic feel to them.  I. LOVE. THEM.

TIP: Don't cut your finger with scissors during the process like I did. It was quite a deep cut, and was bleeding everywhere and definitely impeded my DIY attempts today. However, now my bridesmaids can know that I put LITERALLY my blood, sweat, and tears into their bouquets. I'm sure they'll love that thought....

These are also going to be sitting on the head tables as decoration at the reception. I will be putting glass jars (recycled from things we use at home so these were free) at several spots along the table for each girl to sit their bouquet in.

DIY: Lace hair flower

Hello again! Long time, no blog!

Threw this random DIY project together as I was recently thinking about how heavy my veil is, which means I may not wear it the entire reception. So, I thought of creating a hair flower.

Supplies:
- 1 sheet of felt (30 cents at Michael's)
- Scissors
- Glue gun and glue stick
- A couple feet of lace (found whole spool on sale at Joann Fabrics for $2.50. Forgot to measure exactly how much I used, but I'm guessing it's around 2 feet or so)
- Decorative button to use as center of flower. (Got mine on sale at Joann Fabrics for $2)
- Hair clip or pin to glue on back.

-Cut out 2 inch circle from sheet of felt.
- I cut my lace off of the seam but I imagine you could probably use it as is, but I liked the look of the flat lace.
- Using hot glue gun start gluing one long section of lace around the felt circle so that there is about 1/2 inch of lace hanging off the outside of the circle.
- Once you have completed one rotation around the felt circle, cut the lace where the edges meet.

Here's what it looked like at this point:

- Start gluing another section of lace onto the flower (cut lace length-wise to make thinner if you so desire. This should be based on how big your felt circle is and how wide your lace is) to make a smaller circle inside (and on top of) the this one.
- Glue a final even smaller circle of lace inside the second one. (hard to explain, but the final picture should hopefully explain it better than I can.)
- Hot glue your decorative button of choice into the middle of the flower covering the visible edge of the smallest lace circle that you just created.
- Finally, hot glue your hair clip or pin of choice onto the back.

You could glue a hair clip on the back like I did but there are also a lot of other possibilities. It could be attached to a headband, could be a broach with a safety pin on the back, or glue a long length of ribbon on the back and it could be a sash of some kind.

365 days and counting!!!

I've been a deadbeat bride (and a deadbeat blogger) lately in terms of DIY projects (and postings).

However, I would just like to make sure it's known that today marks exactly 1 year until our wedding day!

I can't wait to marry him!  <3