Wedding Crafts: Why Having A Creative Streak Can Help With A Shoestring Wedding
I have always been an avid craft enthusiast, making cards and trinkets since I was 13 years old. This love of crafts and all things handmade has come in handy several times over the last 12 years, particularly for weddings. Whether it has been my own wedding or that of friends, I have always managed to use my creative side in order to save some cash whilst not compromising on quality! I thought that for this post I would have a bit of a reminisce about the weddings I have been involved in and you never know, it may spark off some ideas for your big day!
My Wedding
I married my teenage sweetheart Simon nearly 5 years ago. We didn’t have a huge budget and so I wanted to make it stretch as far as possible. I had always been a card maker and so it made sense for me to make my invites myself. Simon and I had some photos taken with us holding up a banner that said ‘invitation’. We printed the photos out on to photo quality paper and these formed the base of the invite. We also printed the inside of the invite ourselves and one of my bridesmaids and I spent an evening sticking everything together.
We got married close to Easter and I had always enjoyed making Easter nest cakes. I decided to bake a bunch of these to use as unique wedding favors. I wrapped them up in tissue paper and secured it with ribbon. A tag was attached to each cake with a guests name on. These doubled up as place cards and were very inexpensive to make.
Connie’s Wedding
Connie married Steve almost exactly 1 year after Simon and I got married. Having 15 (!) bridesmaids she decided to opt for dried flowers. She spent time looking around all of the local charity shops for dried flower displays that could be taken apart and reused in bouquets. She managed to find quite a lot and one evening about a week or so before the big day several of us set about making 15 pomanders! Using the flowers, polystyrene balls, ribbon and a glue gun we managed to create these round bouquets at a fraction of the cost of fresh flowers.
Cathy’s Wedding
Cathy is a college friend who grew up in Belgium. Back in 2007, she married Paul, and me and a number of other friends were invited over for the wedding. Arriving a few days before, we helped to prepare and decorate the reception venue. I can’t pretend to take credit for these ideas as they most definitely came from Cathy and her mum but I was involved in implementing them. Instead of heavily floral centerpieces Cathy wanted to go for vases and candles. In the run up to the wedding she bought packs of candles and vases from shops whenever she was out and about. Each table had a colored napkin placed in the center and we arranged these knick-knacks on them. She purchased a small amount of flowers from the local market and we used them sparingly but to great effect.
Her mum and auntie had spent time baking cupcakes as an alternative to a wedding cake. We wrapped baking tins in purple wrapping paper, turned them upside down and covered them with organza. These made lovely cake stands and no one guessed that they were just bog standard baking tins underneath!
Marie’s Wedding
Marie and David got married in a local church and had their reception there too. Balloons were used to primarily decorate the hall but we didn’t want to pay for pricey balloon weights. We bought a bag of metal washers from a local hardware store and wrapped them in lilac ribbon to match her color scheme. The balloons were attached to the washers by curled plastic ribbon and looked great when finished.
Author Bio:
Vicky is from http://www.marriagedays.co.uk/my-wedding/wedding-venues/ where she regularly writes blog posts about wedding planning and tutorials on weddings crafts.
Image Licenses: Images author owned
Perfect Ideas For Beach Wedding Invitations
There is no perfect location for one of the most important events in your life than in a beach setting where your senses are lulled by the warm ocean breeze and your wedding party is serenaded by the seagulls sound within the area’s vicinity. Guests always find it a delight when invited to a beach wedding, and there’s no perfect opening to your celebration than sending out beach wedding invitations. There are so many ideas you can use for a beach wedding invitation and it doesn’t necessarily have to be ordered and purchased.
The best ideas for beach wedding invitations are those that are usually personally made by the bride and groom, with the help of some friends and family members. Since do-it-yourself weddings have been making a comeback, a DIY beach wedding invitation is the perfect starter for your party. Here are some of the perfectly enticing beach wedding invitations that you can make for your wedding:
- Message in a bottle invitations – A perfect example for a superb beach wedding invitation you can use takes only a little of your time and effort. All you need to do is just purchase small or medium-sized bottles with stoppers. Using a parchment paper or stationery, you can put in the details of your wedding. You don’t even have to use the traditional and formal wordings for the invitation, but you can choose to use your own words. Decorate a few sea-related trinkets to your paper, roll, and tie it with a ribbon. Insert a handful of white sand into the bottle, drop in some sea shells, and put in the rolled parchment. Once done, seal it with a stopper and personalize the bottles if you want.
- Map invitations – One of the easiest beach wedding invitations that can also be fun for your guests is a map invitation. With the help of the Internet, try to search for a map maker. Since these applications are usually interactive, you won’t have to worry about not being too internet savvy. All you need to do is to mark the significant places and landmarks to your wedding location, add some cute pictures and the details of your wedding and you’re done.
- Flip-flop invitations – the perfect footwear that best represents a celebration in the beach is a flip-flop. Do a creative invitation with the use of flip-flop invitations. If you’re a little low in your budget, try to cut out some colorful papers into flip-flop shapes. If you’ve got a few tens of dollars to spare, buy flip-flops in different colors and decorate this with beads or knick-knacks from the sea. Attach your wedding invitation details into the strap of the flip-flop and you’re now ready to send out your invitations.
Always remember that the best beach wedding invitations are really not the expensive ones or that made by professionals. Most of the time, guests really appreciate the effort a bride and a groom put into their own personalized invitations. Start your party with a great invitation through DIY beach wedding invitations ideas.
About The Author
Amanda is a fashion designer by profession and a part time blogger. She loves to write on latest in fashion and accessories. Recently she reviewed wedding gowns from bridesire.com and found them very stylish and elegant.
Pinterest Helps Create A Winter Wonderland Wedding
The hottest new trend in wedding planning is using Pinterest. Professional wedding planners from across the country are using the online board to coordinate with their clients and vendors. The best use of the popular website is to establish a board that the wedding planner and bride having pinning privileges to during their initial meeting. The site works equally well for planners with brides that purchase pre-made decorations as well as the brides that are avid do-it-yourselfers. If the idea is pinned directly from the website that sells the item, the bride is only a few clicks away from purchasing making it very fast and easy to assemble all the decor needed for the big day. And some pins may have links to tutorials. For this article, a board for a “winter wonderland” wedding will be used as an example.
How To Use Pinterest Properly
When using Pinterest, it is important to manage the pins. The wedding board is there to help planners and brides effectively and easily convey their ideas. The result will be many great collaborations however there will also be a number of ideas that are rejected. The winter wonderland couple had 24 pins for different place card ideas that ranged from expensive snowflake themed holders to almost free do-it-yourself pine cones. The wedding planner was able to filter through the ideas to narrow down the selection. They converted some shiny Christmas ornaments, as the wedding was in December, into stylish place card holders that fit into the couples’ theme and color scheme. Removing those from the board or moving them to another board labeled “archived ideas” will eliminate having to scroll through dozens of pins before the wedding planner and bride finds the one they are looking for. The groom in the winter wonderland couple hand-made the centerpieces out of paper mache into a tree shape inspired by a pin on Manzanita branches draped with crystals.
Wedding Planning
The couple’s wedding planner was instrumental in bringing together a cohesive design from all the elements in the wedding. She recommended keeping most of the decorations white and silver. The tree centerpieces were hand-painted with three shades of brown for a realistic look. The table decor was all based on ideas from Pinterest. Acorns painted with chrome spray paint were scattered among snow-covered candles and yarn balls – all tutorials the bride used from Pinterest. The bride took a cue from another pin using rock candy on strings to adorn the tree. Another idea from the site was to paint the bride and grooms initials into their trees which gave the event a unique personal touch.
Coordinating Is Everything
The wedding planner also used Pinterest to help coordinate the vendors. Wedding Music Connecticut assisted the couple in choosing fantastic music to fit their theme. Once the DJ saw all the shiny chrome and found out the couple was a fan of big band music, he suggested songs by Frank Sinatra and other famous big band era musicians. The reception went off without a hitch and was a true winter wonderland.
Author Bio:
Derek enjoys blogging about technology and social media. When he is not blogging, he enjoys doing the social media for a company outside of New York City. The article above is for Wedding Music Connecticut.
Choosing Your Wedding Style
As a wedding guest, you know that you want to look and feel good throughout the day, and it’s also a safe bet that although the couple in question don’t want to be upstages, they also want their guests to look and feel good!
Luckily, fashion has never been so diverse and versatile. Many of the older fashions are back and dressing to suit your shape and age has never been easier. There’s also the new influx of technology which makes dressing and styling easier than ever so you can plan the perfect wedding guest outfit.
That might look like a spelling mistake but Pinterest is the hottest site on the web. In their own words, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.”
In addition to your own pinning, you can look at other people’s pin boards for inspiration for your own board or simply out of interest.
Use of Pinterest is by invite only and they have a list of rules and etiquette. They’re also pretty hot on suspending use for breaking their rules, so you know that you won’t be spammed or abused – you can just have fashionable fun in the safety and comfort of your own home.
When it comes to wedding dressing, Pinterest can be a godsend. Imagine being able to take the inspiration of your favourite styles, celebrities and designers and put them all together in one location?
Who uses Pinterest
One of the best features is that individual designers have their own Pinterest boards and these are designers that you might not find in the shops – so you can find a completely unique wedding guest outfit which you can guarantee nobody else will be wearing.
Furthermore, many designers use Pinterest as a way of showing their fans what they like and what they class as inspiration. Among notable pinners are fashion editor Nina Garcia and designer Michael Kors.
On the Go
The great thing about the web is that it’s available on the go – the majority of mobile phones have internet service so as you go about your shopping, you can use the pieces you put together on Pinterest as your inspiration
Whether you picked out a retro style, a rockabilly look or a touch of eighties glam, bringing your Pinterest with you is a great way of finding the perfect style for the perfect look.
Accessorising
What’s more, as well as your actual outfit, you might find examples of shoes, bags and accessories which could completely transform or make over any outfit you choose.
The right or wrong accessories could completely transform a dress from drab to fab, but it can often be the case that you can’t try on the entire ensemble until you’ve brought it.
The beauty of Pinterest is that it allows you to place outfit, shoes, accessories, bag and jewellery all in the same board to get a better idea of how the entire look will appear on the big day.
Alyson Goddard is a freelance writer and fashion blogger with an interest in technology and social media.
Do-It-Yourself Wedding Invitations
It used to be that Do It Yourself meant sitting at a kitchen table making something by hand. That’s still considered Do It Yourself when it comes to crafting, but today’s DIYers know that you can use the computer to help you make things look professional. Your wedding invitations are one thing you can create yourself online (or with DIY wedding invitation kits) and save yourself a great deal of money.
All you need to do is find a good online printer. Printers these days are competing for your business. Since there are so many printers out there, consumers have a choice of where they want to spend their dollars.
Look for an online printer who specializes in invitations. Expect that they will do more than just invitations, as a good printer should. They should also have many samples of invitations available for you to look through online. There should be many categories from formal to fun from which you can choose to design your own DIY wedding invitations.
Look for a printer who has been in business online for some time. The longer they’ve been online, the better the chances are that they’ve worked out all the kinks of printing and delivering the goods to online customers. You can find this information out by checking a site’s FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) area on their site. Usually, this information is down by the bottom of the page. Don’t expect the information to be staring you in the face. You may have to dig a little, but at least find out how many years they’ve been in business and what their return or satisfaction guarantee is.
Now comes the fun part. You can choose from any template you like for your wedding invitations. You may see a fun and casual one you and your fiancé really like, but if it doesn’t go with your wedding’s overall feel, you might want to pick something more classic. The more formal the wedding, the more formal the invitation should be. This is the first impression your guests will have of your wedding, so make sure it matches with your level of formality.
Once you’ve chosen a layout design, you’ll be able to insert your wording. This is where you want to be especially careful to spell everything correctly. That includes your fiancé’s last name as well as the location of your reception. Be sure that the day of the week matches the date. It’s a common mistake to inadvertently write “Saturday, October 18th” when it’s really “Saturday, October 17th.” Be sure you have both the date and the day right. Check a calendar.
Once you have typed in your wording, you’ll have a chance to proof your invitation. Again, check it with an eagle’s eye. You may want to print it out so that you can look at it on paper. Anything you have there will appear on the invitation, so if there’s an extra apostrophe or one missing, correct it now. You’ll be held responsible for approval of the proof, so be sure it’s perfect.
A good printer will also offer you additional items that already have your wording, style, and font in place. You may be asked if you want to order Thank You cards, table number cards, wedding programs or other printed materials at the same time. It’s a good idea to go ahead and click yes because you’ll be sure to get the same font, paper weight and ink color if you order them all in the same batch. It will also save you a lot of trouble of having to have the additional cards printed at a later date and you will save on shipping as well.
Leave yourself enough time. Don’t order your invitations at the last minute and then be forced to pay rush shipping. You can design your entire invitation package online in just a few minutes, but you have to allow the printer time to print your job and mail it to you.
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