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!
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