wedding jewelry

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Wedding Details – Ceremony

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

Ceremony001 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

Ceremony194Matt 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

Ceremony007This 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

Formals073We 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.

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Getting Married: 9 Weeks – Shopping

We were able to get a lot of things done this past week.

Monday, my sister took her daughters, my two junior bridesmaids, to get their dresses. I was able to meet up with them and give my input on styles and such. They are going to be so lovely, I can’t wait to see them when the dresses are altered and they have their hair done up.

After we left the dress shop, I stopped at Hobby Lobby to see what kind of stands they had for Unity Candles. Let me tell you, they were just pitiful. There was nothing really beautiful. I’ve got a more earthy turn and the ones they had were either glass with gem embellishments or metal with big random hearts all over. Definitely not my style at all.  I shared my dismay with Matt who immediately began searching online for one that would be a better fit.

He found something so suited to what I wanted, it was fabulous. I ordered a set and it should be here by the beginning of May! I don’t want to share it, but here is the shop on Etsy. She has some other lovely things.

Matt and I both had Thursday off and so decided to spend the day getting some other shopping done together. The plan was to find his clothes for the wedding (I’m fairly taken care of) and then find some cheap rings for the ceremony.  We went to JCPenney for the clothes and found just about everything we needed! Our bridal party are wearing/alternating of sorts, the wedding colors, and the thought was that to make Matt stand out more, we would have him all in red and then tan khakis. We easily found a red bow tie, but could not find a good fitting red shirt to match. So, Matt decided he’d rather stand out more by wearing a white shirt with the red accents. There’s nothing more frustrating than looking at wedding pictures and not being able to tell the groom apart from the rest of the guys. This would’ve been a problem because the best man (Matt’s brother Adam) would’ve been dressed almost the same as Matt. This will definitely keep him distinguishable.

Did you know that suspenders are hard to find? I didn’t think they would be, what with the hipster culture going on right now. We are not hipster, but you plan on things being easy to find and when they aren’t, that’s frustrating. So, I went to my default problem-solving website to find what I needed. And, voila! Etsy pulled through again. Albeit, a little more pricey (more than half what the rest of Matt’s outfit cost!!), but I found what I was looking for.

week09 suspendersThe shop owner is currently on vacation until the end of April, probably sewing up Matt’s suspenders! 😀 I can’t wait to see them in person. I hope they look as wonderful as I think they will.

We finished up with the clothes and on a whim, stopped by the jewelry selection. We found just what we were looking for, probably cheaper than we could’ve found elsewhere too! It took some convincing, but we finally got the lady to understand that we weren’t looking for anything spectacular. See, Matt’s job requires him to be jewelry-free, including wedding bands. He needs something he can easily take off and put back on. He also needs something that isn’t so expensive that if he loses it, we’re devastated financially. We are willing to pay for certain aspects of this wedding, but other parts are just not a big deal to us. For me, we found a simple, narrow sterling silver band that will sit beautiful next to my white gold engagement ring. Maybe for our anniversary, we’ll spring for the matching band to my engagement ring, but it’s not essential. We just need something for the wedding. What we found cost us just over $75 together! I like that kind of spending.

Might not be valuable to the world, but they're precious to us!

Might not be valuable to the world, but they’re precious to us!

While I’ve got you, I’ll let you in on a secret.

I was at Target and found this lovely little glass pitcher, the kind with a spigot on the bottom for easy dispensing. It is very sweet. I wanted to add it to our registry, but I didn’t have time to go all the way back to the counter to get a scanner gun configured and go back to scan it and then leave again. It would’ve been a pain. But recently, I added the Target app to my Android. I signed in to my registry on my phone and found this handy-dandy bar code icon at the top of the screen. I touched it and amazingly, I could scan the barcode of the pitcher through my camera. In just a few moments, the pitcher was now on our registry! Remarkable! I was so excited that, had I had more time, I might have run around the store to add some more things on it, but I’m so glad to know that I can do this in the future. You can also manage your registry from there (increasing item counts and such. It’s a great tool. The only thing I couldn’t do was remove an item, but when I got to a computer, I could do that. Anyway, take that knowledge and go with it, m’dears! Oh, and remember that you have to scan the barcode on the actual item, not the one on the shelf with the price. Why they can’t work that out to be the same, I don’t know, but it’s ok. We still love them.

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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!

My Pinterest Wedding Board

Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

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Getting Married: 10 Weeks – Fitting in Lithuanian

70 Days and 10 Weeks. Wow! The time is getting so close!

This past Sunday, Matt and I met with and booked an awesome DJ! I’ll have some more info up for you after the wedding about DJ B. We are pretty pleased with our pick. He was very organized, detailed, and personable. And he could laugh. That’s always a good sign.

Tuesday night, Mom and I lugged my wedding dress and accessory clothing to David’s Bridal for my first fitting! It was pretty fun and informative. My dress is so gorgeous and detailed…that means alterations are going to be a bear. We actually have to go back at the end of April for a Part Two because she could only focus on the top part and not the hem. That’s right. I might be long-waisted, but I’m still short and the back was way too loose. The dress looked so pretty when I first tried it on, but it felt wonderful after she clipped it up to the right dimensions on the top.

Who is this she? Her name is Grazina. From Lithuania and bearing a thick Eastern European accent – she was just what I wanted in a seamstress.  When we bought the dress, we also bought a slip to go under it. It had tulle and a couple layers to make the dress poof out a bit more. When I tried it on for the fitting, Grazina decided that it was too much and found one with tulle only towards the bottom. It fit so much better. Alas, that one was also too long, so she will probably have to alter that as well. But, at least we didn’t have to pay for the second one; she let us swap out the first one.

I have been putting the finishing touches on the design for some of the favors. We are having a couple different favor choices and I love the variety of the reception so far. We have several cake flavors, different favors, and the decorations are going to be cockamamie – just my style. The music too, will exactly suit our taste, spanning a few decades. I absolutely can’t wait!

I got a text from both my bridesmatrons. My MOH, Lanna, found her dress and it is so lovely! Amy sent me a picture of the dress she found for her daughter who is my flower girl. Both of those dresses are in yellow and Amy found red shoes to match. I know she is going to be so amazingly adorable. My sister is going to take my nieces out, who are my junior bridesmaids, to find their dresses hopefully this week.

Things are starting to come together and the RSVP’s are coming in too!  I am so excited for all of this and hope that I don’t get too stressed out throughout the next 70 days. I’m so glad that Matt and I decided to stay home after the wedding if only just to be able to relax and recoup from all the planning and the day. I know that I will be exhausted.

Oh, I bought a necklace to wear with my dress. I won’t post which one it is, but here is the link to the shop. I think her jewelry is darling!

I will leave you with another shop to peruse. I’ve been following this Meg Duerksen’s blog for about a year now. She has creative women come to her done-up barn once a month for a crafting weekend and they get crazy! She is a Christian and inspires me in so many ways. She just reopened her online shop, so I think you should check it out.

This next week will be – shopping for Matt’s outfit and our wedding bands! Yay!

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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!

My Pinterest Wedding Board

Our Wedding Website on WeddingWire.com

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