Purple and Pearls

I have to admit, until we received our professional photos back from our photographer I had absolutely no idea what our sweetie table looked like.  From the minute we arrived at our venue with our boxes stuffed with wedding paraphernalia the staff completely took over the job of decorating the marquee.  They did a wonderful job and really paid attention to my comments and instructions (I wasn’t too bossy, promise!)  They didn’t set up our sweetie table until later and by the time the evening had rolled around I was too busy dancing to think about sweets!  We had loads of comments about how yummy everything was and there is plenty of Facebook evidence that the Starbucks sweetie holders were a hit.  The next morning all that remained were crumbs, empty vases, wrappers and the odd gummy lying around so I think from this I can assume it was a hit!

As well as a variety of sweets (Jelly Belly Beans, Flying Saucers, Hershey’s Kisses, Haribo and popcorn) we also had yummy mini vanilla and chocolate cupcakes from Blue Door Bakery and some delicious Lebanese sweets supplied from Has’ Dad.

I was so thrilled when I saw the pictures, I loved how our little DIY painted letters looked on the table and the hanging felt “H & L” Suzie made for us.  Everything looked exactly how I had imagined it to.  I’d spent time before the wedding planning what vases would contain what sweets and how they might be arranged on the table, obviously this was time well wasted but it doesn’t matter – I loved how it turned out!

Sweetie shopping – possibly one of the most fun wedding jobs!  We have a sugary mixture of Haribo, lollies, Jelly Belly Beans, Marshmallows, Flying Saucers, Hershey’s and Celebrations.   Our candy table will also feature some mini cupcakes supplied by Sarah at Blue Door Bakery

Hopefully our guests will enjoy the extra treats!

Our favour boxes were actually one of the first wedding related items I bought after getting engaged.

There are so many amazing and fun ideas for favours and if I’d thought about it enough before jumping feet first and committing myself with these favour boxes I may well have been inclined to have been a little more creative.  But I was eager to start the ball rolling and so, handbag shaped favour boxes for the female guests at our wedding it is.

To be honest and this is just my opinion, I don’t believe anybody really takes notice in favours.  We could have spent a lot on unique and fancy favours, but we both felt it as an area of the wedding budget where we could cut back on.  Our guests will be receiving miniature Dairy Milk bars.  (Hey they’re purple!)

Just because our actual favours are rather run of the mill, doesn’t mean I can’t jazz up the boxes!  On Monday I popped round to Suzie’s with my handy glue gun and we set about making and decorating the boxes for our female guests.  The boxes for the boys are a little more simple and need to be made up around the chocolate – another job for another day.

Despite the fact that I’m not 100% in love with my decision to go with handbag shaped boxes I actually really love the way they’ve turned out.

Considering I’ve just lost my job I have never been so busy!  In fact I’m wondering how I would have coped finishing off all the remaining wedding projects whilst still being in full time employment.

I have now managed to finish off all our table names using my handy glue gun.

I’m really pleased with them, and glad I had the patience to add the little pearls to the design as well… no matter how fiddly!

Our venue have tall chrome stands for us to borrow, I know it’s not the most exciting way to display table names but the tables will include a photograph of Has and I at that landmark.  Another job – done!

All our guests names have now been painted on to each heart, and I have to say I think they look pretty-darn-good!

Don’t just take my word for it… Look!

The making of my chalkboard placecards
The experiment, Part 1 - Drilling and mass spraying, Part 2 - Mass spraying the backs, Part 3 - Chalkboard paint, Part 4 -How will they look?, Part 5 - 90 chalkboard placecard hearts hanging in a line…! Part 6 – Ribbon up.

I went to see our florist last night to discuss the finer details and to tell her about any changes I had made since the last time I saw her.  (Which was the day Has went to India for a month can you believe!?!!)

We arrived at her house and knocked the door…. no answer… knock a little louder… still no answer.  Hmmm tried ringing her…. no answer.

I’m started to get a little confused at this point thinking things like “this is the right house isn’t it?” and “I do have the right day don’t I?”  Luckily I was able to check my emails on my phone to reassure myself I wasn’t going mad and I did indeed have the correct date, time and address.  After ringing another couple of times – I received a text message telling me she was at work doing a wedding appointment and she’d call me later… erm what?!  I text her back explaining I was outside her house waiting for my appointment!

With that she came out of the house looking rather embarrassed - apparently she hadn’t heard us knocking and had thought the phone calls were from a different Laura she knew!!!

Despite the initial heart attack she gave me, the meeting went very well.  We went over what we had decided at the first meeting and to be honest I hadn’t changed my mind too much.

I still want my poofy, messy and very natural looking bouquet filled with ivory avalanche roses, purple roses, lisianthusm, freesias and hypericum berries.

(Source unknown)

I bookmarked this bouquet ages ago and I still love it.  I gave it to our florist as an example of how I wanted mine to look. I have a gorgeous Yarwood-White brooch to pin to the stem of my bouquet, which will be wrapped in an ivory lace ribbon.

The bridesmaids are having smaller bouquets made up of the ivory avalanche roses, a purple rose and purple freesias.

Has’ button hole will be a purple rose with dark green foliage and the rest of the wedding party (best men, ushers and dads) will have a white rose with dark green foliage.

Our mom’s are going to have a corsage made up of a selection of our wedding flowers in ivory, so the purple doesn’t clash with their carefully chosen outfits!

Our table arrangements have all stayed the same apart from our top table ones.  We decided to have 4 small square vases with a small arrangement of our wedding flowers to go along the length of the table.  Our top table will be used as the buffet table during the evening so those little vases can either sit on their or they can be moved into the quite room just outside of our marquee.

So ignoring the initial heart-stopping-panic moment it was all in all a very good meeting!

Wedding has exploded… ribbon, glue, paper, bags, shape cutters, jewellery, shoes, presents, stationery, pens, gems, flat packed boxes and chalkboard hearts…. everywhere!

There are wedding related items scattered in every room in our house, so last night I took charge.  I finished off my top secret project for my bridesmaids (shhh!) and they are now safely hidden away from prying eyes!

I then ran around the house collecting everything related to the wedding and separated them into a few categories and divvied them out into their new boxes.  My thoughts being that it would be easier to put my hand on something now they have been organised.

• Venue Decorations – including favour boxes, the candy table “sweets” sign, photo frames, wine charms, floralytes for the table decorations and chalkboard hearts.
• Gifts – Childrens activity bags and presents.
• Decorations and Tools – Stickies, gems, ribbon, shape cutters, tape and glue
• Invitations – made up wedding invitations and anything else I need to finish them off.
• Stationery – Paper, card and the yet to be cut out Chrysler Buildings and evening invitations

Doing this I have found I have actually misplaced a few items, nothing major more annoying as I can’t really think where they would be.

It’s also helped me see what I need to buy and what I need to finish off, wedding invitations being numero uno, top priority at the moment!

Looking pretty good huh!?

All that’s left to do now is write our guests names on, when we receive our RSVP’s…!!!

The making of my chalkboard placecards
The experiment, Part 1 - Drilling and mass spraying, Part 2 - Mass spraying the backs, Part 3 - Chalkboard paint, Part 4 – How will they look?, Part 5 – 90 chalkboard placecard hearts hanging in a line…!

Have you seen these?

A fabulously cute cupcake favour idea from My Cakies

Using the photographs from our wonderful pre wedding photoshoot with Deborah Stott, we decided to create our very own guest book with Bob Books.

We wanted to find a way of showcasing our pre wedding photos, rather than just keeping them on the CD and I also wanted to create a guest book that was slightly different from the more traditional ones.  It seemed like the perfect solution.

I downloaded (for free) the album software from Bob Books and used it to create our guest book photo album.  It was really very easy to do and only took us a few hours one evening to complete.  We left it another day before ordering just to make sure we were still happy with the album.

Our guest book photo album arrived within 4 days of ordering and we love it, really couldn’t be happier!

What do you think?

The quality of the printing is excellent and I would definitely recommend Bob Books to anyone wanting to create they’re own photo book.  I’m definitely using them again!