Hi ladies,
So yes, I’ve been a bad little blogger lately. I feel like I can’t keep up with my blogging schedule but I have plenty of loveliness to share!!
I am just 31 days away from our departure date and although I have about 90% of everything done, between finalizing a few DIY projects, my full time job, trying to work out in the evenings, blogging, returning emails from every end of my life, to getting ready for a few trips over the next month for bridal showers, bachelorette, and final fittings, yes I am starting to feel slightly overwhelmed.
It’s probably all in my head since when I look at my “things to do” it is fairly short. I’m still feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Trying to manage my few hours in the evening after I come home from work is increasingly getting more difficult. The house- a disaster, the laundry isn’t getting done, our refrigerator is completely empty. I just can’t keep up!!! {BIG SIGH}
Besides all of the above, I am getting excited about this upcoming weekend since it is my bridal shower and girls night out weekend (don’t know why I feel silly calling it a “bachelorette” party weekend at my age- haha! Anyone else feel this way?) Anywho- my cousin (also my MOH) is flying in from California and more family & friends will join me for this fabulous weekend and I can’t wait to see everyone. My sister made the most creative invites for a tea themed bridal shower (pics coming soon) so I can’t wait to see the theme come alive!
So I’m kind of all over the place in this post but just before we kick off the week of what I’ll try to make my regularly scheduled blogging program, here are a few things I crossed off my checklist this weekend:
First our chair signs:
Everyone knows us by M&M or “M8M” so instead of doing the traditional Mr. & Mrs. chair signs, I decided to keep them simple and do the M’s only. I bought the small (4-5 inch) round wooden plaques at Micheal’s and painted them a dark teal color. I then painted small white paper doilies a cream color since I wanted them to match our ivory linens. Once they dried, I painted our “M’s” in grey after penciling them in first. I then decoupaged the paper doilies onto the round plaques and let them dry. I repeated a coat of Mod Podge glue 2 more times just so they would be sealed. I forgot to take another picture but I added grey ribbon to the back of them as I plan to tie them onto pieces of fabric that will hang from the back of our chairs.
Next our fabric flowers:
I finally finished ALL of our fabric flowers for our place settings! Well, moms might have a few she’s still working on at her house but all the “flowers” I brought to Florida to sew are all done! I’m soooo excited to have this little project out of the way. In all we’ll probably have about 55 small and large flowers. My mom thought it might be kind of cool to make a few of these into brooches for the moms to wear in place of the traditional corsage which I think is a fantabulous idea!
Anywho just wanted to give you a little peek into what I’ve been working on these days. I soooo want to show you my invitations but again I’m just a little behind so that might come in another few days or week. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of updates and pics for you after this coming weekend too!
So bear with me folks. Never knew maintaining a blog and life would get tough in the final month before the wedding. Must have thought I was super woman or something. Ha!
Have a great week everyone!
Recognize Steph from Bubblerock Studios? By now most of you know Steph and her hubby Robin are filming our wedding in Cabo and we couldn’t be more excited about it! I sent them a wedding invitation and since they live in New Zealand, it took almost 2 weeks to get it. Well one fun element we included as part of the RSVP was allowing our guests to request a song or two to be added to the playlist. If Steph & Robin had to mail their little RSVP card back to us, it would have taken forever so I told Steph to just hold onto it. I was going to tell them they could email me their song request so we could add it to the mix. Well to my surprise yesterday morning I woke up to this posted on Bubblerock’s blog: “Our RSVP“. I’ve seen Save-the-Date or wedding invitation videos, but I think this has got to be the first RSVP video ever!! But if there happens to be another one floating out there somewhere, this has to be hands down the BEST!
Thanks Steph & Robin for your RSVP! =)
A catamaran wedding? Umm, yes please! I couldn’t wait to show you this beautiful intimate wedding sent to me from Candice Cossel from Serendipity Studios! I’ve been dying to feature a wedding from Serendipity Studios for a while now (I’m a huge fan) so was thrilled when Candice sent this beauty over to me! This wedding shows that events of all sizes, destinations, and venues can have the most awesome details! How cool would it be to sail away, go fishing, and get married with your closest friends and family and party on until the sun goes down? Um- very cool. I’m in LOVE with the bride’s bouquet, the cake and cupcake display, all the sweet signage and nautical and rope elements intertwined!
More from our Oceanside Bride, Lindsey: Caleb and I met at work. We have been together for about 4 years. We have already started our family, no kid but we have a 3 year old bull mastiff named LIzzy who is our world! We spend a lot of time outdoors gardening, exercising and fishing in the Gulf of Mexico every chance we get.
How and why did you choose your destination/location? We wanted to have a small and intimate wedding ceremony, however we wanted our family and close friends to have fun and break away from reality with us and be able to share our favorite past time with us – fishing in the sun! Caleb has always wanted to go Tarpin fishing, so the Florida Keys was best spot for this type of fishing. We thought about our most peaceful moments – most of which are on the water at sunrise or sunset, so we thought “Why not get married this way as well?”
What unique elements or DIY projects did you incorporate into your big day to help make it extra special? I am blessed to have a very creative and artistic mother and mother-in-law. My mother created the “hard décor,” the vintage nautical “Mr/Mrs/Just Married” signs, along with a customized cake stand that replicates a white-wash fishing pier. My mother-in-law has her own wedding décor business “K&A Artistic Events” in which she crafts silk floral arrangements. All my flowers were silk, however they looked amazing and stayed fresh and photo ready in the Florida heat. We customized my bouquet with a navy ribbon and nautical grommets – all very simple touches but really added a simple but very unique touch of personalization to our special day.
I had a wonderful photographer (Candice Cossel with Serendipity Studios) who came down to the keys to do a unique boudoir photography session a couple days before my wedding. I was very nervous and apprehensive about that photo session (yes, I am uncomfortable in-front-of the camera) but I am so happy that I was able to capture myself in that moment and share such a sexy gift with my husband. Every bride-to-be (or female in general) should have boudoir photographs taken – every female is sexy in their own way and should be proud of their photos!
What challenges (if any) did you face while planning your wedding? The wedding was actually pretty simple to plan. We wanted to make sure that there was enough activities for each person to keep the fun and excitement of the wedding going strong day-to-day so we planned an organized deep-sea fishing tournament on day one, swim with the dolphins on day two, and day three was left open for each family to do whatever was left on their activity list. For example, a couple of the men did the guided Tarpin fishing; while others did parasailing, jet skiing, or just relax with a spa day. The activities worked out wonderfully for each person and family.
Please tell us about your favorite wedding moment! My favorite moment was when we were pulling away from the dock on the wedding boat with all of our family and friends at sunset. All of our family and friends were very excited and the energy was amazing, however this was a very reflective and emotional moment for the two of us.
What is your best advice for other couples planning a wedding right now? My advice is to make decisions for your big day as a couple. This is your special day and you can be as creative or laid back as you choose, do not feel pressured into changing your plans or wishes based on the size of your wedding. We wanted to go fishing and get married on the water – and our families were more than supportive and excited about our unique wedding wishes. Make sure that at the end of the day you enjoy the moment because you will remember it for the rest of your life!
Makes me want to take a sunset cruise! Big thanks to Lindsey & Caleb for sharing your fab planning details and another big thanks to Candice for allowing me to share your amazing talents with other Oceanside Brides. =)
Bride and Groom: Lindsey & Caleb
Date: April 29, 2011
Wedding Location: Duck Key, Florida, United States
Reception Venue: Hawk’s Cay Resort
Creative Team Behind the Scenes:
So as we creep closer to the big day (38 days until we board our plane to Cabo and 42 days until the actual wedding day- but who’s counting?), sadly my DIY projects are winding down. I’m a little bummed because it’s been so much fun, but since I’ve given myself time to complete them, I’m still calm, cool, and collected and not overly stressesed! Soooo…guess I’ll take that as a good thing.
I’ve targeted 1 month before the wedding as my “soft” deadline, so by July 1st I want to have everything done. But, since I’m not printing all the table signage or making copies of our CD favors until after July 1st, guess I’m already going to miss my target deadline. Ha!
This weekend’s DIY project was to tea stain doilies. I’m using large doilies as part of my centerpiece and we surprisingly found the last 3 we’ve been looking for at Jo-Ann’s! I never even thought to look for them there, but while shopping for a few other things my sister stumbled upon them. Woohoo!
The only problem with them- they were stark white. I’m using ivory linens since it is one of my wedding colors, so the white wasn’t going to do. My mom suggested tea staining them to give them a tint of cream or ivory, so the tea staining commenced this weekend!
Here are a few of the white doilies before. In these pictures they actually already look slightly creamy, but that’s just my stupid phone taking not-so great pics. The batteries died in my regular camera so was forced to use my camera phone.
So for these, I just boiled water and let five tea bags steep for about 20 mintues. Then I used a second larger pot (because I didn’t have a large enough bowl) and threw my doilies in and poured the hot tea over the doilies. If you’re going to attempt this- make sure the tea covers the doilies entirely to get the best coverage.
I periodically checked on my doilies until I achieved the tint of color I was going for. Remember doilies will look slightly darker in color when wet and will tone down a little once rinsed and dried. I soaked these for about an hour and a half. For a darkers stain you can soak for 3-5 hours. But after only an hour and a half, I still think I stained mine a little too long. I’m praying these match the other two I have at my moms house. If not, I’ll be staining three more (if we can find them)!
Once you remove them from soaking, you can rinse them with a little water and vinegar to seal in the color. I skipped this step though. I hung them in the bathtub to let them dry over night. Just hang them somewhere you won’t mind a little tea drips to fall (I just put a towel on the floor).
And ta-da! Tea stained doilies…
So again, BEFORE:
And AFTER…
What do you think? Have you done this before? Any other tips or tricks you’d like to share?
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