It's all about FASHION!

Fashion! I love it. <3
I have been searching etsy long and hard for a bracelet that will compliment the pearls I will be wearing as a necklace on my wedding day. They are my grandmother McGlynn's pearls and I am so happy and excited to be wearing something that was so close to her on my wedding day. It will really be special and a way of keeping her in my heart and mind on that day. The necklace is a simple string of lovely ivory pearls. To go with this, I knew I wanted a little more flare with a chunky bracelet on my wedding day. I searched many hours trying to find something that would compliment the look of the pearls and still be stylish enough where years later I don't look back and say, "what the hell?"

I am trying to keep as much of my wedding DIY and handmade. That will make it more unique and more me. So finally on etsy I found Melanie of Damselle. I found a bracelet in her shop that I absolutely loved. When I emailed her with questions, her responses were immediate and very helpful. I even asked if I could see a picture of the bracelet being worn, to which she immediately sent one. When my bracelet came, I was more than happy with it. It sparkled just like it did in the picture, fit perfect and was just the right size of chunky and the color matched the picture. It is just lovely and I would tell anyone looking for custom jewelry on etsy to check out Damselle first! Her style is romantic, unique and in my opinion has some awesome vintage qualities with some of the looks. Check her out! And here is my awesome bracelet. It is going to be hard to wait to wear it until Wedding Day!

Damselle- Etsy

Damselle- Etsy

Her Etsy Shop: Damselle

Handy Pops

So, it is a good day when you have a daddy like mine who says "yes" to any woodworking orders his daughter places for her wedding. Today, I discussed with my father several projects/ideas I have in mind of the wood quality for my wedding. He is extremely talented and has made majority of my families beautiful country furniture, a chess set, a beautiful barn window decoration, birdhouses, and my very own grown-up coffee table and end tables!

Before his eyes glazed over from sheer boredom due to too much girly activity at one time I was able to order the following:
1. Browsing etsy.com (<3) I saw and fell in love with a card box that was a little wooden house painted with doors and windows and a little twig wreath attached with the couples name and date. The slot was in the roof for guests to slip those cards into and well, I LOVED it. I saw the price and was a little hesitant because my dad is awesome and he does a lot of wood-making projects or whatever it is you call wood crafts. He is especially great at birdhouses and he made my sister and I barbie houses when we were little girls out of wood (where are those?). So, order placed. Dad will put together said little house, and I will help paint, decorate and attach mini-twig wreath to door. Yay!
2. Frames. My dad has this great old barn wood that he found, scoured up, who the heck knows but it appeared one day at our house. He has made some awesome stuff out of this wood. Sooo, dad is going to help me put together some picture frames out of this wood for our centerpiece table numbers and some aisle decorations I have in mind....
3. Signs? I am not so sure on this one yet. I may have my dad craft me a sign that says "Our Wedding" or "Happily Ever After" to hang somewhere.

As of now, these are his orders. Who knows if more will be added but I am excited. My dad did have a etsy shop at one point which I would totally give a shoutout to but he currently has nothing for sale in it! DAD!

DIY?

Ok so, I am all for do-it-yourself as long as it does not look do it YOURSELF! I just don't want anything I do or make to look...bad (?) I want everything to look professional but still crafty. So early in the days of scouting for wedding decorating ideas, I happened across this idea on theknot.com. To be fair, let me say I love buttons. I am not quite sure WHY I love buttons, but I love buttons. Strange, I know. Okay, so I saw this image:

And I was kind of obsessed. So I tried thinking about my own spin on things. I wanted to create this idea but make sure it also reflected my idea and theme. So tonight set out preliminary planning of this idea. I wanted to first see if this idea is truly something I could create. In my head I have this vision of a burlap type fabric with purple buttons backed on a weathered wooden frame. So keep this vision in mind when you see my rough design. Remember ROUGH design!

This was just using what I had on hand and the actual buttons I intend to use will be of more similar sizes. The fabric I used was un-ironed hence the bunching and again, so not my colors or intended fabric use. This only took 20 minutes of sewing and was really quickly thrown together. Also, the sharpie marks on the fabric obviously will not be on the burlap design.

Keeping in mind my general idea and concept here, is this idea plausible? Will it look...too handmade? too DIY? Again, remember burlap type fabric and weathered wood frames with purple buttons! My dad has awesome wood from an old barn that I intend to use if I decide to follow this through... Is this effort really worth my sanity and time? I am probably going to have to make 12-14 of them.

The floor is open... Honest opinions!!!!! trust me, I know this rough outline is really crap but try to envision final design. I personally do not think I will be sold on this idea until I get the actual materials I would be using and create the next "rough idea" but what are we all thinking here?

Ceremony start times

So, when to begin? I read in a magazine, that only weddings in movies start "on time." (ugh damn you! knot.com!) Whether or not this is true has caused me to be nervous about my ceremony time. Now that we know the location and reception venue our time between the two can be rather close. However, here is where the problems begin!
Some stipulations Mike and I both have when we began to plan this wedding was that we wanted to enjoy all aspects of our wedding on the day of. We want to be apart of the cocktail hour and not be sequestered away in some small room hiding until we are "introduced" I still want to be introduced but I intend to enjoy all or as much of my cocktail hour as possible. Also, Michael and firmly believe in not seeing each other BEFORE I walk down the aisle. We want that moment we see each other all done up, waiting to be married to be special and yes, romantic. (ah tears!)
Some other key pointers to think of here:
Our cocktail hour doesn't start until 6pm so as to be sure all golfers have cleared the venue. (remember its a golf course?)
It's going to be August so presumably it's going to be hot!! And the ceremony is outdoors. We dont want grannies or for that matter anyone suffering or passing out in the sun.
The ceremony location is 2 minutes (if that) its just down the hill from the reception hall.

So here is the debate. Mom (love you Mom! <3) wants the ceremony to start at 5pm and end by 5:30pm. Leaving only a half hour in between.  I want the ceremony to start at 4pm and end by 4:30pm leaving an hour and a half in between.

Our Arguments:
Me: When does this leave time for pictures? I say in between the ceremony and reception we have time to do all the family formals and Michael and I's picture. An hour and a half may seem like enough but I know it will flyyyyyy by, especially with all the family portraits I know will be requested. Plus, I wanted to head across the street to the horse farm and take pictures over there. (my photographer Kiley) thinks this is the better choice too. So, what about the guests? Well, there is a beautiful garden to wander and spend time in and their is two beautiful ponds to walk around or they could spend time wandering up to the reception hall or venture across the street to the historic little museum. I know this seems cruel but I just don't know what else to do? If we had the wedding at the church our start time might have been as early as 1pm! That would have been four hours of nothing for the guests!

Mom: What about the guests!? The heat! Their boredom? Their hunger!

I get it, I feel the pain! :) So for all you future guests out there, and wedding guests of weddings past, what do you prefer!? Remember the beautiful gardens to wander in! Ah!

ps- vote for meeeeeee!