Southern Weddings

My college room mate is getting married in August on a lawn next to a Victorian hotel. She is buying vintage hats and placing them on hat racks outside so all the guests can wear a hat and keep the sun out of their eyes during the ceremony. I love this idea and can’t wait to photograph the wedding.

I am making patchwork tablerunners for my backyard picnic style wedding!

I am amazed by the women of weddingbee and their DIY skills. It’s hard to pick just one project, but I did love Miss Cupcakes invitations: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/08/13/inside-the-cupcake-invitations/#more-62234

My upcoming wedding is going to be my big DIY project!!!!! I am handling all the decorations myself, and I plan on creating a lot of things like embellished mason jars for flower vases. Furthermore, I am going to arrange a bunch of flowers from a local flower farm for my bridesmaid’s (and my) bouquet as well as table arrangments, with the help of a family friend. I have to say I have gained A TON of inspiration from this site, so I check back every day! Thanks y’all!

I had everyone that attended my sister’s bridal showers take a home a square piece of fabric to create a quilt square for her. They returned them at the wedding and I created a wedding quilt for her, it turned out so neat and she was tickled by all the neat things people did on their square.

I am DIYing my bracelet for my wedding. I have a brooch from my great grandmother, a necklace from my grandma and one from my mom. I am taking them apart and putting them back together for a bracelet that will bring all of these women together into one piece.

For my wedding, I made personalized water bottle labels…They were so easy to make and guests loved it!

I’m baking cookies for my OOT baskets. Everyone loves homemade cookies!

My husband and I both love to read, so our tables were named after books and authors. Our ‘place cards’ were bookmarks we made ourselves out of thick card stock and ribbons. They were so elegant looking!

I absolutely love the idea of these Love Story Books. The bride made a book with his version of their love story and her version. I think it’s a great way for guests to learn more about the bride & groom’s stories and it’s also a wonderful way to put those engagement photos to good use! http://www.stylemepretty.com/2008/10/27/diy-week-project-2/

For our wedding I am making monogram letters to hang on the church’s front door. Simple yet elegant!

The DIY moment i am most proud of was something that I came up with at the last minute and without spending any money! I used this for a bridal show I was doing, but it can be used for a centerpiece, a wishing tree, or other decor. I was up north at my parent’s house and we were hiking around the lake. As I was admiring the view, i began to notice that there was Manzanita trees EVERYWHERE! As I was walking, I found a broken off portion of the tree lying on the ground. I picked it up and carried it with me the rest of the hike. When I got home, I had my husband screw the branch/tree to the bottom of a piece of scrap wood from our garage. I dug through our garden stuff and found some moss. I used my glue gun to attach the moss to the bottom of the tree to cover the wood. Viola! An instant decor gem! When I got to the bridal show I used clothes pins to attach my business cards to all the little branches. So fun!

Although I am the designer and owner of a website marketed to brides (we specialize in wedding flip-flops), I did create plenty of DIY’s for my own wedding back in 2003. Here are a few ideas: 1) If you’re wedding guest list is is small, like mine, around sixty people, you can save money and make your table special. Rent simple white cotton/linen (or blend) table cloths, which typically are the least expensive. Visit a local fabric store and pick out some shear fabric (I found a champagne color for $2.00/yd. at 60" inches wide. I cut simple squares large enough for each round table size, fringed the edges (shear is easy to fringe, and no bother sewing) approximately 1/2", and used them as overlays. Beautiful!2) French tulips are expensive. but if you live in NYC, on 28th street, they are far less costly then what a florist would charge. I piurchsed simple glass vases with a slight lavendar tint in the glass from "Fishes Eddy", for only $1.50 each. You can probably find similiar deals at target, or K-mart. They were tall, and could hold a dozen stems or less. I kept my arrangemtent exclusive to the tulips however for even more savings, fill in with a few greens. My total flower cost was approximately $162.00.I love contests! I hope I win too!

I’m DIY’ing a ton of my October, 2009 wedding (along with my wonderful Fiance’) to save a ton of cash. I’ve made the wreaths for the Church doors, the pews. I’ve made table decor for the reception hall and we’re ordering cow bells (I’m from a small southern farm town where my grand-daddy raised black angus) for folks to pick-up and ring as we leave rather than the traditional rice, bird-seed or sparklers. They can keep the cow-bell as a favor from the wedding and it will contain a message tied with a huge satin ribbon from a lovely hang-tag pertaining to the Irish tradition of ringing a cow-bell for the bride and groom (not to mention it ties in with our countryfied DIY wedding). http://www.bell-outlet.com/cowbells.htm

my entire wedding is DIY but my new favorite DIY love are the "wedding wands" featured in southern wedding magazine! i wanted to do sparklers but couldn’t and i am SO excited about this idea!

I hope to have alot of DIY projects at my wedding; but the one i am most looking forward to is my joint favor/place cards. I plan to make up seed packets that have a mix of local wildflower seeds in them. We are planning to use the Gocco press to print a design on each seed packet, and will write each guest’s name on the front. I envision these at each place setting, tucked into folded napkins Thanks!

I’m making my own thank you cards!

I’m a sentimental person, so I’ve been saving the ticket stubs from every movie date we’ve been on. They’ve been sitting in a box with cards and clippings, and I thought that one day I would eventually scrapbook them… Now that we are planning our wedding, I’ve thought of a whole different use for these old pieces of paper. We plan to give every table the name of a movie that we’ve seen together, with the stub (copied and matted) serving as the table marker! The head table will be the name of the first movie we ever saw together, on our very first date.

My favorite DIY moment was at my brother’s weddings I made paper cones out of restaurant menus where the couple met. We used the cones to hold the pom poms in the pews that the guests tossed at the bride and groom as they exited the church. They were really cute and an easy way to personalize the church pews.

I went to one wedding where the bride and groom made a personalized Dr.Seuss book to recite their vows! It was truly one of the most adorable things I have ever seen. Here’s a photo of it!http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk223/sharonnicolephotography/LJ-10-1.jpgNever seen anything like it, and I thought it was really creative!

I love the "will you be my Bridesmaid?" cards that Ashley(Kohler44) made over on Project Wedding. I loved them so much she inspired me to make a similar card for my girls!Her Cards::http://www.projectwedding.com/biography/list/kohler44/moh-bm-invitationsMy Cards::http://mydreamring.blogspot.com/2009/01/eeek-i-did-them.html

How fun! My bridesmaids and I are making the wedding favors. We are going to do the "meant to be" honey jars. I’ve sourced the jars and found bulk local honey to fill them with. One of my bridesmaids, Elizabeth is designing the label’s that we will print ourselves. We are using french blue tulle for the top of the jars and tying the tulle off with some rustic looking ribbon. I can’t wait to see the finished product :)

I am currently planning my farm/garden wedding for next June. (My fiance’s parents live on a goat farm) We really want it to feel fun and casual yet absolutely beautiful.My favorite DIY project I found a couple months ago on Once Wed… Rock Candy Chandeliers. They look so classic from far away, but imagine how excited the children will be when they get to eat the ceremony decor! (after they wash them off of course)And keeping with the goat farm theme, I also found a homemade goat’s milk soap recipe, which we will be packaging ourselves and giving as our wedding favors.

I am planning a nautical chic wedding and I love Martha Stewart’s sailboat place cards. They are made out of pieces of scrapbook paper which are then filled with life saver mints. They double as a place card and a wedding favor if on a tight budget, and they add just a touch of creativity to the reception tables.

My college roommate had a very DIY wedding. Her renaissance man husband did water color prints they used for the STD, invite and program. It was beautiful.

I am made candle holders out of mason jars for my wedding. I wanted to bring a little bit of southern to the tables. I gathered 3 buckets full of old mason jars from my fiance’s grandmother that she had stock piled from her fruit canning days. I dipped the tops of the jars in white glitter and added a simple navy blue ribbon tied in a bow under the lip of the jar. My mother, soon to be mother inlaw and myself sat down together and had a diy wedding project day.

I DIY’ed all of the flowers for my wedding, and had such a fantastic time doing it too! But, by far, my favorite thing that I made was my very own bouquet. I had a concept in mind, and it was just so much better than I ever anticipated.

as a wedding photographer, I see a lot of do-it-yourself items. My favorite still remains the wedding programs. I love how personalized they can be. And I have seen a lot of elegant programs!

My absolute favorite DIY wedding project are these homemade tissue paper pomanders, featured on Vintage Glam Weddings (http://vintageglamblog.com/2008/09/02/diy-tuesdays-tissue-paper-pomander/), as well as Martha Stewart. I just think they would be darling to hang in the trees at an outdoor garden wedding.

It’s so hard to pick just one! However, one of my favorites is the grab bag favor from Deanna and Jesse’s wedding: http://jessedeanna.blogspot.com/2008/07/detail-post-2-favors.htmlSince our reception is going to be adults only, we’re having a special kid party at the same time, and these bags are the inspiration for the grab bags the kids will get to take home!

I think making invitations the DIY way is the best cheapest to go. I have made many invitations for friends and their special occasions. All you need to get is vellum, embossing powder, a heating gun and some artistic ideas and presto…you’ve got a one of a kind, personalized wedding invitation. It’s fun, stress relieving and is a money saver, the only draw back is it is time consuming. Thanks for all the great ideas Colin, I hope to get more ideas from your book.-Jorgina