1. and 2. The Wedding, 3. Me in New Orleans, 4.  New Orleans, 5.  Jason McCain and Neal Clark at The John in New Orleans, 6. Jason McCain and Me at The John in New Orleans, 7. Kirby Doss and his banjo, 8.  Dawn Grimes, 9.  A cop on a horse trying to enter the oldest bar in New Orleans, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop,   10. Jason McCain doing what he does

Here are a couple of our DIY Bridal Brunch Projects:

1.  Candy Bar Wrappers

These little candy bars are Hershey’s Nuggets in milk chocolate.   I used  Martha Stewart’s Miniature Love Candy Bar template for the K and the hearts.  For the yellow ones,  I used some pretty wallpaper samples I had lying around.  Since the template was meant for a different mini candy bar, I had to cut these down to fit the nuggets.  Once they were all cut, Nikki and I used double sided tape to attach them to the bars.  These took a little while to make but I loved the result.

2.  Doily Table Runner

You may remember this beautiful idea from the crafty and talented Ashley Ann from Under the Sycamore which I included on my Bridal Brunch Inspiration Board.  I raided my favorite local antique store Boardtown Trading Post for doilies of all sizes and shapes.  Once I had all of my doilies, I followed Ashley Ann’s tutorial.   We used the doily table runner to decorate the Mimosa table.  I love this so much that I am now using it in my living room!

3.  Tissue Paper Ball Decorations

For these decorations we used tissue paper balls leftover from my wedding and Martha Stewart’s Paper Hanging Globe Decoration tutorial.  These tissue paper balls made the room look so much more like a party.

4.  Tootsie Roll Candy Bags

The bride loves tootsie rolls, so we decided to make these cute little candy bags.  I bought the tootsie rolls, plastic favor bags and raffia at Wal-Mart.  I used these super cute free Garden Stripe labels from J.Bartyn.  The font is Lauren Script which is free on Dafont.  It is the same font I used on the Bridal Brunch Invitations.

5.  Mums

I went to Lowe’s with my fingers crossed hoping to find pretty flowers for the brunch that were priced within our budget.   As it happens Mums were in full bloom!  I found the only two bunches of orange and yellow mums Lowe’s had left, which both had an ugly side to them.  I showed the cashier and he smiled and only charged me $3 total for both bunches.  Since I knew I would be putting them in vases,  the ugly side didn’t even matter.  I tied a piece of raffia around each vase and they were done!  Oh and for the vases we used a combination of small vases and tiny jars from thrift stores.

I can’t wait for Katie’s wedding!  It is going to be so much fun!

First Row:   Pinwheels, Mustache Couple,   Doily Chandelier

Second Row:  Mums, Doily Table Runner, Invitation

Third Row:  Apples,  Car Decorations, Pumpkins

We  designed and printed these at my house, cut the cardstock and cardboard with my new paper cutter and sewed them together.  Once that was done,  all we had to do was punch the holes and tie on the ribbon.  It sounds easy but actually took quite a bit of time and patience.   For the font we used Lauren Script which is free on Dafont.  I was pretty proud of us.

The Mississippi Stamp and the Love Stamps were my favorite and the hardest to find.

The envelopes we used for our wedding invitations were 100% recycled paper from Action Envelope.   We used vintage stamps that I purchased on Ebay, for the invitations we sent to the wedding party, close friends and family.

I love the vintage stamps. Ben and I had so much fun picking out which stamps to put on each envelopes.

For all of the other guests, we used the new love stamps which were perfect.

These stamps make me happy.

Since hiring a calligrapher didn’t really fit into our budget and I had no intention of writing addresses on all of our invitations since my husband invited half of  Starkville, we decided on using wrap labels to address the envelopes.  I got the idea from Martha Stewart and she has a free template.   I used a bone folder to fold the address labels.  These were designed by Kirby Doss.

Return Address

A closer look

Sending and receiving pretty mail correspondence is real high on my list of things that make me happy.

I knew that I didn’t want my wedding invitations to be boring or traditional and I wanted them to be as DIY as possible.   I began to get discouraged since all of the invitations I liked didn’t at all fit into my budget, but then our friend and graphic designer, Kirby Doss saved the day.  He took my handwriting and ideas and made our invitations oh so lovely.

I wrote this about ten times.

With our wedding invitations we sent a RSVP postcard (which used less paper than a traditional RSVP card with an envelope) and a map to the Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center which had our registry information on the back.

(I thought maybe when our guests filled out their RSVP card they would remember that global warming kills polar bears and I am sure that is exactly what they thought.)

This was on the back of the map that we sent with our invitations.

Since we forgot to put a blank for the guest’s name on the RSVP postcard and I didn’t notice until I picked them up from the printer, I put a small number on the opposite side in pencil in the bottom right hand corner that corresponded to the guest name on my wedding guest list spreadsheet.

If you would like me to email you a link to this template, leave me a comment.

My advice to anyone who is shopping for wedding invitations on a budget:

• When you start to get discouraged, step away from the computer and come back to it later, picking out invitations is not worth stressing yourself out.  You will be less creative and decisive when you are stressed.
• If you know Photoshop or other editing software, be creative and see what you can come up with on your own.  Free fonts are available from dafont or you can do like I did and write it yourself.
• Look for inspiration on Etsy or check out the galleries at Once Wed, Style Me Pretty or Martha Stewart Weddings.

I love a good list.  If we have this in common you should browse the entries from the over 90 bloggers who particiated in the Review of 2009 writing project at Daily Blog Tips.   Make sure and read my entry 2009 in Review: 9 Things I Learned While Planning My Wedding.

My favorites include:

Biggest Parenting Failures of 2009

9 New Things I Tried in My Kitchen in 2009

50 Inspiring People of 2009

The Best of Daily Blog Tips in 2009

2009 was an exciting year.  I learned to ride a motorcycle, conquered my fear of flying, bought a house and  got married.  Encouraged by Daily Blog Tips recent group writing project 2009 in Review, I decided to write my own review of 2009.  Check out Daily Blog Tips on December 14th to see the complete list.

9 Things I Learned While Planning My Wedding:

1.   Martha Stewart Weddings is  a wonderful source for  creative ideas and advice and has free online planning tools that are really helpful.  I used their planning checklist,  budget tool and their DIY Photo Booth template.  I also used their guest list tool as the basis for the Google document spreadsheet I created to keep everything organized.

If you would like me to email you a link to this template, leave me a comment.

2.  Wedding Blogs are so fun to read and full of inspiration.  Check these out, you will thank me.

My favorites include:

3.  When you receive a wedding present whether in the mail or at a shower, always write down what the present is and who gave it to you.  At showers it is a good idea to assign this task to your Maid of Honor or your mother.  Make sure they also write down the person’s address.  When you receive gifts in the mail and you will, keep the packing slip.  It should have the sender’s name and address as well as the item you receive.  Once you send a thank you note, add the gift description and the date you mailed the thank you note to either an excel file or you can use Google documents which are free.

4.  Register for everyday china.  My husband and I were not going to register for china because we already had hand me downs and thought it would be wasteful to have more.  My mother in law sat me down and told me I should register for china.  She explained that I should register for china because I would probably never purchase it for myself and that people love to purchase wedding china as wedding gifts.  She was right!  We registered for Lenox Chirp everyday china and I love it.  We boxed up our old dishes and took them to the Salvation Army.

This is our wedding china and we love it!

5.  Delegate.  The stress of doing everything yourself will drive you insane and your friends and family want to help.  I delegated many small tasks to my bridesmaids and they were very helpful.

My bridesmaids were ready for anything.

6.  Make your vendors sign a contract that outlines exactly what you want from them and the agreed upon price.  Vendor contracts are available online for free.  Even if you decide to hire your friends (which we did), have them sign a contract.  It eliminates confusion and provides structure.

7.  Hire a wedding planner or make sure you have a support team that is as dedicated to your wedding.  I wanted to do everything myself and thought that I didn’t need a wedding planner.  I was wrong.  It is very hard to get everything done during the day if you work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Planning a wedding on your lunch break is crazy.  Thank God I had bridesmaids that didn’t mind making calls to vendors, quick trips to the florist and other various tasks for me during the day.

8.  Regardless of how stubborn you are, make a plan in case it rains.  It rained on my wedding day and our beautiful outdoor wedding had to be moved inside.  Thank God we had a backup plan.  Our venue had multiple options for us to choose from in case of rain and our indoor wedding was still beautiful and actually more intimate.

9.  Relax and enjoy your engagement.  Being engaged is so much fun.  I wish I had relaxed more.

These Save the Dates are so pretty!

These are going on my wish list.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones

My Husband and my Maid of Honor (later in the night)

My beautiful bridesmaids minus one.

Too cool for school

What is Kacey doing?

Our Best Man and his even better wife

Turby and John

My nephew Landon loves my kisses.

We love each other a whole bunch.

Thanks Martha!