DIY wedding – Xapa to the World

I promised that I would put up reviews of the vendors I used for the smaller details of the wedding. I’m going to start with the ceremony first and then move on to the reception. First, I would like to say that most of these photos were taken by Sadie Hodge of Sadie and Jess Weddings. I did a pre-review for her here and you can find their Facebook page here.I’m going to include things that I bought as well as things that I made and was inspired by something on Pinterest, online, etc. I will try my best to site the resources for you. And here we go!

Program

I went simple with the programs. We printed them out ourselves and I designed the whole layout. The top image is something I designed and made into a stamp that we used on our invitations. (Post 1, Post 2 and Post 3) The bird in a tree stamp came from Hobby Lobby. I only stamped one program and then made copies of it. Yes, it was the easy way out, but I was still putting these together the week before the wedding, so I was loving “Easy.”

At the bottom, there is some text that I think was very helpful. It says, “Please do not use any flash photography during the ceremony. Be respectful of our hired photographers. Also, please put your phones on silent. Thank you!” We commissioned everyone at the rehearsal to mention it to guests. I had originally planned to have some sort of verbiage like this, but that was only strengthened after reading this.

The order of participants we chose was: Officiants, Parents of the Bride, Step-Mother of the Bride, Parents of the Groom, Grandparents, Bridesmaids, and Groomsmen. We listed our grandparents together with their spouses and any that had passed away, we put an asterisks after their name and a note “(* in loving memory).”

We worked out the order of the ceremony with my pastor and included instructions for communion. We (Matt and I) love communion and since we are coming from two different churches, not to mention the many churches represented by other friends and family, communion is a great way to draw unity with a diverse group of people. Different churches have different traditions in the act of communion, so we had to make sure everyone was on the same page. It worked out wonderfully!

We also invited the guests to sing along with our singers while people were walking down the aisle. The back page of the program shared the lyrics of the primary songs so people could join in. It was a lot of fun to walk down the aisle to people singing along one of my favorite songs, “For the Beauty of the Earth.” Ever since I heard it at Meg’s wedding in Little Women, I have wanted it in my wedding. We also had “Greatest Commands” which is a great acappella song that Matt’s church sings, “Blessed Assurance,” and “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.”

Rings and Bibles

Matt and I have great love for our families. We both have lost two grandparents each, one from each side in the last 4 years. We wanted to include those who couldn’t be there as much as possible. We know they’re in heaven, and would’ve been so glad to be here for our wedding, but God decided to take them on home. What you see here is my Pappy Cook’s Bible and Matt’s Grandpa Charles’ Bible. It was inspired by this pin. My grandma decided to give Pappy’s Bible to my nephew, Jason, who was a junior groomsman in the wedding. It has his notes and everything and I heard that Jason just loves it. Pappy is touching our lives and discipling us even after he has left earth. What a testimony that man has.

Unity Candles

This is a two part mention. The candles came from The Oliver Company on Etsy. They have all sorts of home sweet goodness, beeswax coming straight from their own hives. I just checked the shop and didn’t see the unity candles on there, but I’m sure they will be back. In the meantime, check out the other great products they have from lip balm and honey soaps to burlap flowers and bows.

The stands came from Morgan Hill Designs. I was looking for something unique and something that could be customized to our wedding colors. Totally found it with this purchase. I loved the “His” “Hers” and “Ours” labels. I haven’t found a place for the His and Hers yet, but the Ours with the pillar candle is displayed with some other things from the wedding in our living room. It is perfect. There is a guide for paint colors on the shop and you just have to designate what it is you would like. I just took another stroll through her shop and there are 75 pages worth of items! all hand-carved and painted. So many unique finds and completely personalized. Be aware that there is a bit of a turn-around time. She is up-front with the prep time so be sure to read the fine print so you’re not disappointed or act too late.

Groomwear

We got most of Matt’s outfit from JC Penney. My original thought was that he would be in all red with the khaki’s, but he wanted to make sure he stood out from the groomsmen, who would also be wearing red and yellow. He chose a white shirt and we managed to find a red bow tie at the store. However, the red suspenders proved a little more difficult than we anticipated. I thought that with the hipster culture going on right now, suspenders would be super-easy to find. No go. I looked everywhere and it just wasn’t happening.

Naturally, I redirected to Etsy. Dapper Gent is THE place to go when you are looking for suspenders, bow ties, or matching sets. I found what I was looking for quickly and received our order in record time. It was good, we were running close on time. The cost was a little more than I was anticipating, but at that point I was willing to pay a little more to get what we (ok, I) wanted. They have so many cute sets for kids. Absolutely precious if you have a boy and he’s cool with stepping up his style.

Jewelry – Bride

Picture taken from Etsy.com

I chose to go minimal. My dress was so detailed and beautiful that I didn’t want too much else taking away from it. My makeup was minimal and done by my MOH. The hair complemented the dress (wish I had a good picture of my hair, but I don’t) but I still wanted a pop of color and a way to tie myself into the wedding besides my flowers. This necklace was just the ticket. It matched the dress perfectly and combined the wedding colors in a way that I swooned for. I bought it from Winter Garden Studios on Etsy. I had originally wanted to find a jeweler in my own area, but this was far and beyond what I could’ve wanted. Here’s the best picture I could find of me wearing it.

Jewelry – MOH and Bridesmaids

Picture taken from Etsy.com
These earrings were for my Matron of Honor. I fell in love with these when I saw them. If I could wear earrings, I probably would’ve got them for myself. I bought them from McKee Jewelry Designs on Etsy, which I would link for you, but Etsy says she no longer exists. That’s sad. Lanna (MOH) was wearing yellow for the wedding, so her accents were all in red.

Picture taken from Etsy.com
For Amy, my bridesmatron, dear friend. Her dress was red so her accents and flowers were more yellow. Yellow is our collective favorite color, so it worked out perfectly. I discovered IKE and Co through the Craft Weekend blog and fell in love with these earrings. They are perfect for Amy. Ike is the name of their dog, by the way. IkeandCo is on Instagram too and she puts up some great stuff. 🙂

Picture taken from Etsy.com
These earrings were for my two nieces who were the junior bridesmaids of the wedding. They were wearing red dresses so their accents and flowers were mostly yellow like Amy’s. JoMazing Accessories has quite a bit in their shop so I recommend stopping over for a visit. She’s currently on vacation, so give it about 3 weeks.

More on the Wedding

You can find more about the wedding by checking out the Countdown Post. I posted each week leading up to the wedding and detailed a lot of the preparations for the big day. Soon to come, Wedding Details – Reception.

Ok, ok. I know I’m behind. I totally had a great post in mind for 16 Weeks, but then time just went crazy and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to write it how I wanted, so it’s on hold. Here’s what we’ve got going on though.

I am so not a cook. I can bake up a storm, but cooking…eesh. I think it’s because there are no real set rules. There are loosely put together guidelines. I like rules. I like formulas. I loved Chemistry because things had to go in a specific way in order to get the right result. Baking is Chemistry. Cooking is…well, I don’t know…not a science that’s for sure. It’s more of an art form and while I love art and being creative, food is not a medium I’m well-versed in yet.

While we were visiting Matt’s grandma, she told me that she could barely cook anything when she first got married. She is such an incredible cook now. I told her, in my most Anne of Green Gables fashion, “You have given me hope beyond anything I could have imagined. I will always remember you as a benefactress.”

By the way, I’m in the fourth book of that series, Anne of Windy Poplars. It’s a sweet book. I love all the chapters that are just letters she’s writing to Gilbert. And how it shows where sections were omitted because Anne had just the right pen for writing love to him.

Back to food. I tried to make a pork chop dinner for Matt and I the other weekend. It was…alright. I think Matt liked it, but I know that it didn’t come out alright. Timing is such a hard thing. Mine and his mom encouraged me that it does take practice to get the timing of meals down. I will not lose heart. Matt says that he is looking forward to me learning how to cook. I reminded him that I will fail quite a bit, but he said he didn’t mind. We’ll see how that goes. There’s a pizza place and Subway just down the road. We might keep them in business – all by ourselves.

We got our invitations back from the printer so now I’m working on stamping them. It’s a process. I did a bunch of stamping while listening to the State of the Union address the other night. It helped me have the right amount of pressure to get the stamps pretty well even. I get fired up sometimes. And John Boehner and Joe Biden’s exchanges of looks were quite amusing. Usually with Biden grinning widely and then catching Boehner’s eye and slowly dropping his smile and clapping slower. It was humorous. Boehner’s eyes were daggers over his glass of water at times. I can talk about him like that because he’s from around here.

I have just 45 mins to finish Matt’s Valentine’s Day gift. Last year, I made him a cake loaf with red and pink heart sprinkles in the batter and icing. It was yummy. I’ve not had much practice with Valentine’s Day, so I’m still a little rough around the edges.

I scheduled my dress fitting! Now, I just have to get my hair scheduled and I’ll feel a little better about my appointments.

We had our first premarital counseling last night. It was mostly about the order of operations for the ceremony. It ended with me all jittery inside – in a good way. 🙂 I’m so looking forward to it and I’m hoping that we can fit everything in that we want to without making it too long. We’ve got some good ideas, but I will not stress about it. I.Will.Not.

This is the book we will be using during our counseling:

The Most Important Year in a Man’s/Woman’s Life

I’m pretty jazzed about it. I want to take it, and highlight, and write notes in the margins, and then keep it on my bookshelf for forever and ever and ever amen.

That’s all I’ve got for today. Now I have 30 mins. Eek!

Catch ya later!!

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I’m getting married to my, you guessed it, best friend on June 1st, 2013! Matt and I are super-excited and since we have quite a bit of time to plan this thing, I decided it’d be fun to blog about it. Well, maybe not always fun, but at least informative and it might give me a welcome distraction. You can find all the posts by clicking the “Getting Married” tab on the right of this page, or by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!