Amanda & Brian
What do-it-yourself projects did you do? My wedding was my baby, my second job! And by that I mean every single thing that I could put my touch on, I did!
Our invitations: I designed, printed, assembled, pressed and decorated each of my ivory and slate blue pocket fold invitations. The invitations were adorned with ivory silk ribbon and a single silvery crystal and closed with a seal.
Escort Cards: In keeping with our beach theme, I imported some sand dollars from Florida and tied an escort card to each one with a white ribbon. I placed them in three different round, wooden trays filled with craft sand so that when guests took their places around the room, they also got a beautiful shell as a keepsake. Buried in the sand, I also made some beachy, reed like grasses (that I glued to small rocks) so that they stuck out here and there amongst the sand dollars and sand.
Favors: I ordered the most amazing sand dollar cookies from an adorably sweet baker in Georgia to serve as our favors. My mom and I dipped the back of each cookie (over 250) in white chocolate and packaged them, two at a time, in a clear favor bag. I sealed the back with a rectangular message printed in a frosted vellum sticker explaining that in lieu of a substantial favor, a donation was made to the Rainbow Kids of Louisiana.
The Wedding Program: I also designed, printed and assembled our wedding program. They were silver card stock, which was punched with a single sand dollar embosser. The inner white paper leaves were tied in with a white ribbon and the outside was stamped with a lowercase “m & b” (it’s a sort of the signature way that I sign Mandy and Brian to things like cards and such) in a slate blue ink on clear vellum.
Guest Book: I created a guestbook that was part scrapbook, part message book. Each guest got a small card upon which they could write a message to us, and the pages of the book alternated between photos of family and us and friends, and small envelopes affixed to the page in rows for each individual card.
Table Numbers: I hand-painted our table numbers on small flat canvas boards that I bought from Michael’s. I painted the numbers in a font that matched our invitation font, added some depth to the black number with some silver edging. I applied various seashell photographs that I had edited to be blue and white line drawings on each board using decoupage. Finally, I did some sand painting where I added swirls and dots of beach sand to bring a unique texture to them.
Card Box: I created a beautiful card box to receive our wedding cards out of four silver painted wooden 8x10 picture frames that I turned into a scrapbook of our histories
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from childhood to engagement. I created a top out of cardboard, which I covered, stuffed and pillowed with white satin, and added crystals to the indents. I tied off the two opposite corners with a ivory satin ribbon to close it and mounted it on a white turntable so that guests could twirl it around to view all sides.
Stained Glass Window: Probably the most important thing I made for our wedding was our stained glass window. When I was christened, my late-uncle made me a wooden cross out of the wood taken from our old church pew back in 1885. He had passed away the summer before our wedding and I really wanted to honor his presence there. So I designed a window to feature prominently in the altar area I designed on the beach.
What advice do you have for other brides? My matron of honor reminded me of this: remember to take a breath. Before you walk down the aisle, before you walk into the ballroom, before you take any step… stop. Look around. Really look. See all your beautiful hard work, all your projects you stayed up so late doing all those months before. See how it all comes together. Look around and breathe it in. And remember to do that the entire time, because if you forget to, you’ll blink, and it will be over. If you do that, you’ll have the most amazing time, the most amazing marriage… and the most amazing life.
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