Wedding Wednesday - DIY Bride

We are almost done finalizing our weekend getaway plans for our anniversary and are getting so excited!

Today I thought I would share more about our wedding planning process.  Pinterest was my favorite thing to browse until I actually started the planning. Then I realized I was seeing the same ideas over and over again and that it was doing more harm than good.  I decided pretty early what was important to me and then figured out the best way to make it happen.  I created, purchased and delivered tons of items to the venue. It was a lot of work by lots of people (huge thanks to my awesome parents & wonderful now-husband) but everything came together to be even more beautiful than I could have imagined.


Chapel Door Letters
Our wedding venue had beautiful wooden doors that I knew I wanted to accent with our initials. My plan was to buy wooden letters at a local craft store and decorate them with white flowers. Of course that was much too easy of a process. I didn't like the selection of letters that was available so instead I bought some really thick matboard to make my own.

I started by finding a script font I liked, which proved to be difficult as I would like the M but not the N and so on. I printed each letter on its own transparency sheet and then used my parent's overhead (thank goodness for their Children's Church days) to project the image on the matboard for me to trace.  From there I cut out the letters and started hot gluing the flowers. It took probably 20 bunches of flowers and a few hours to finish, but I loved how they turned out.

Seating Chart and Table Numbers
I knew I wanted our seating chart to be a big display. I found a large frame I liked and went from there.  I designed a header image and then designed 5x7 images for each table.  I printed and matted each item and glued on top of a matboard.

I used the same design for 4x6 table number signs which I had printed at our local photo center and displayed in frames on the tables.

School Pride Jars 
I wanted a way to celebrate both of our universities that was a better idea than my husband's recommendation of Pistol Pete wrestling a Bear for his groom cake. I decided to make it a competition and it proved to be one of my favorite parts of the evening.  I displayed this sign in front of school themed jars.

I actually forgot to paint the jars so my wonderful bridesmaids made them the day of the wedding (after the best man drove them over to the venue because I also forgot them at the hotel.)

Signs & Programs
InDesign and Photoshop were my favorite programs during this time.  I  designed our programs, wedding favor tags, signs that were displayed around the venue and even the strip on photos from the photo booth. By designing myself, I was able to avoid some significant costs and ensure a look I was pleased with.

The favor tags were probably the most tedious of the above. Nathanial and I spent the day before the rehearsal dinner cutting out the tags, punching holes and then individually tying each of them on.

Table Details
I was astonished at how much wedding rental vendors, florists and even the venue wanted to charge for table linens and charger plates.  Those were details I knew would make a huge difference on the tables and decided it made more sense to buy them in lieu of renting.

I was able to buy charger plates during a huge sale at Michaels.  They had to special order them because I needed so many.  There were a lot of boxes but I was able to save more than $800. The wedding coordinator at the venue said she had never had a client bring their own. I guess she never had a client with common sense either ;)

I also purchased my own pintuck table runners and mercury glass votives.  It was a fraction of the cost the wedding vendors wanted and was the perfect finishing touch for the tables.