February Fun - A Look At Wedding Details Part 4

DIY and Personal Touches

What bride doesn't have a few great ideas for DIY projects??  

As you see above, we had the idea to welcome everyone to Atlanta with a bottle of good old fashion Coca-Cola.  We turned these into our escort cards (telling people where to sit) and they doubled as a wedding favor.  You'll notice the name tags are cut in the shape of the state of Georgia... hand cut I might add (my advice to a new bride would be to choose a shape like a square - lol!).

I still think these were such a cool and fun idea - and Mike and I have 12 bottles left so we are sharing a Coke on the 19th of every month for our first year as a married couple :-)

Since the card box sat right across from the escort card table - we kept with the Coca Cola theme and found this old crate on Etsy for people to leave their cards in for us.  I made the burlap bow on the corner - I'm not a professional in that department yet but I think my couple of wedding bows came out pretty good (for an amateur like myself).

Here you can see the card box in the mirror

I carried the "Georgia" idea into our table numbers.  From my first planning days I knew I wanted to do something fun for our table numbers.  I even considered turning it into some sort of puzzle that everyone had to figure out in order to determine their table number - lucky for our guests I didn't have time for that!  We did pick fun and unique numbers that each had a story - and we printed them on cards again in the shape of the state of Georgia - here you see one of them on the table:

Our tables were numbered:

• 02 - The day in September when Mike proposed & Sarah said Yes!
• 19 - The day in October when Sarah & Mike were married!
• 21 - The day in December when Sarah & Mike shared their first kiss
• 13 - 2013... Best Year Ever!
• 45 - The address of the W Atlanta Downtown where Mike proposed
• 412 - The number of days that Sarah & Mike were engaged
• 447 - The number of weeks that Sarah & Mike have been a couple
• 07 - ...all we truly know about Old No. 7... ...is that it was important enough for Jack to put on his bottle
• 29 - the day in March when Mike & Sarah closed on their first house
• 137 - Mike & Sarah's address on Hedgewood Lane

It was so much fun to think of those table numbers and I think at least some of our guests enjoyed them - and if people didn't like it, too bad - it was OUR day!

Another area where I had some fun was with our programs.  I discovered that I had Adobe Photoshop on my Mac (who knew?!) so I started to play around with it - at the same time I was exploring on Pinterest and Etsy for different program ideas and ended up pulling together a few different ideas to tell a cute little story about our big day.  On one of our trips to PA earlier in the year, my mom had given us an extra basket that she had for us to use for our programs - so I took the burlap ribbon and wrapped it around the handle and added a bow on one side... then I fanned the programs as you can see in this picture here so that they filled it.

Funny thing - we had some last minute changes to our reader, so I did not actually print and cut the programs until the Thursday before the wedding - while Mike was out golfing with some of our guests... I suppose every bride has her last minute things as well, right?!

One last thing that I pulled together was our Unity Candle... as Mike and I were putting together our ceremony details and decided we wanted to light a Unity Candle, and after the fact I realized this was something we would need to find / buy / etc.  Another Pinterest inspiration led me to the idea of having a lantern for the candle - and then I picked out a fall colored (and scented) candle to fit in with our decor, and took the opportunity to add some burlap ribbon to the candle itself.  I don't own straight pins so I took wire cutters and cut off the sharp end of a safety pin and used that to fasten the ribbon on the candle - one pin right in the back, worked like a charm!

White columns provided the column and glass for the candle to sit on, and on the other side of the ceremony space was the beautiful display that Sarah and JoAnn put together - I think I mentioned before it was one of my favorite things so I just have to post the picture again here!

All of these little touches really made the day extra special for me... I really feel like I put myself into everything that became our wedding.  I know not every guest knew what I had put into this, but overall I think everything came together so beautifully I just couldn't be happier!

February Fun - A Look At Wedding Details Part 3

SUNFLOWERS!!

By far one of my favorite details was the flowers - especially my bouquet that was HUGE and full of beautiful colors!

I remember suggesting to Mike whatever colors I thought would look good - but he responded by suggesting yellow... so I asked if he would be on board for sunflowers which he totally was.  

We found an AMAZING florist (Bloomin' Bouquets) - after my initial e-mail to Sarah we set up a meeting and she set up a Pinterest board where we could start to share ideas.  I didn't really know what I wanted, I knew I liked a more rustic or casual look to the bouquets (as opposed to a tight posy look)... I knew I wanted my bouquet to be full of color and really stand out... and I knew that I wanted to use the "Eiffel Tower" vases that White Columns said we could use - so it may sound like I was on top of this but actually I could NOT vision this part coming together!  The good thing was that we had such a good meeting with Sarah and JoAnn that though I couldn't visualize it all coming together - I knew I didn't have to worry because these girls were so great!

I really love how all of the flowers came together for our wedding - I would print pictures of just these and hang them all over the house if that wouldn't be weird (although this gives me an interesting idea... hmmmm).  Here are some of the highlights (ok maybe it's a shot of just about everything Bloomin' Bouquets created for us) :-)

Our flower girls each carried a single large sunflower and we had one for Alyssa too!

The one on the left just above was something they made for the ceremony without any guidance - 

it was just stunning!

February Fun - A Look At Wedding Details Part 2

Is a wedding dress just a dress??

I think I was the most overwhelmed when thinking about buying a wedding dress.  There are a ton of shows on TV and these women want to spend $1000, $2000, $5000 and more on a dress they'll only wear ONCE!  I just could not comprehend that, and I let it really stress me out.

My friend Miriam had what turned out to be a great idea - let's go to a consignment shop to try dresses on since it might all be a little bit easier to manage in that type of setting... and it was!  We went to a shop in Woodstock where she knew the owner - they had a great selection, some dresses that I really liked but what it came down to is that we would have to make the top dress bigger to actually fit me and that just didn't seem right, there are so many dresses out there and I wasn't THAT sold on this particular dress.

At this point I was fully on board for consignment shopping - especially when I realized that a lot of the dresses were brand new, but hadn't been sold at whatever boutique they were at so the boutique owners were consigning them at these shops.  I tried on several dresses at this second shop in Roswell called "I Do and I'm Done", but none were THE dress... then before I changed back into my jeans I walked past this dress that looked funny / super fluffy in the plastic bag.  It was a new dress they had just gotten in and the girl at the shop hadn't seen it on anyone yet so "for fun" I put it on, figuring this would be a good laugh to end the day with - but WOW... that dress was AWESOME!!  Aside from being a size 20 it was perfect... and the idea of taking a dress in felt much more natural to me than making a dress bigger.  In the end I was SO HAPPY with this dress and I managed to spend under $1000 on it which was an added bonus. :-)

I really wish I could wear this dress every day!!!

February Fun - A Look At Wedding Details Part 1

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue

I thought it would be fun to take the month of February and blog a bit about the details of our wedding. SO MUCH went into planning one day and I had so much FUN coming up with all of these ideas to pull together the look and I figure here is my chance to show it all off!

To start this series off I wanted to open with the old tradition "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue".  

Old:  Pearl Necklace that my Grandmom Cogill gave me for my 1st Holy Communion.  The pearls were her mother's, my great grandmother's, and she had them restrung to give them to me.  The necklace came with a note (that I still have) where she wrote about me wearing this on my wedding day... so this were my obvious choice for "Something Old"

New:  I had several "new" things, my dress was new, the pearl pins that I wore in my hair, the bracelet that Mike gave me as a wedding gift, and (pictured above) the birdcage style veil that I chose to go with my dress.  I was so hesitant about what to do for a veil, and I got the idea in my head to try this type of look and I'm SO glad that I did!

Borrowed:  Pearl earrings from my sister, Kristina.  I remember telling mom and Kristina that I wanted to wear my pearl necklace but had no other jewelry yet, Kristina said she had earrings that might match.. so back in October 2012 she lent me those earrings.  I put them on with the necklace and it was a beautiful compliment so I hung on to them for a year and wore them on my wedding day.

Blue:  My shoes!  When I found my dress I said to my friend "I think I have shoes that will work for this" - adorable blue shoes that I had bought for a gala a year or so ago.  I had worn them maybe 3 times and I knew they were great for standing / dancing in - and they were blue so they were an obvious choice.  

Honorable Mentions - Something Old...

My mom and my godmother, Aunt Kathy, got together and made the garter that I wore from my Grandmom Hulton's wedding gown.  It was beautiful and finished with the S-A-R-A-H letters that were on my baby bracelet that I had as an infant.

Honorable Mentions - Something Borrowed...

When Matt and Dana got married, she had this adorable sign for one of her ring bearers to carry (pictured above) that reads "Here Comes the Bride" and when you flip it over it reads "Just Married" - Dana was kind enough to let us borrow the sign for our ceremony too!

The lovely Erin Farthing offered us her Kate Spade cake cutting set that she and Mark used at their wedding reception.  It was a beautiful set that Mike and I managed to figure out how to use without making too much of a mess!

I also used the gold Kate Spade purse that Kyle had given me as a gift for being one of her Maid of Honor in her wedding, and I carried a handkerchief that Tara had given me as a gift for being one of her bridesmaids.  

I really enjoyed incorporating all of these "borrowed" items from the great celebrations that I had been a part of... I just wished that I had something from Maureen's wedding that I could have included too. 

Such an amazing day with such amazing memories!