The Details

Save the Dates

I love playing with paper so of course I wanted to make my save the dates from scratch. I found a template on Pinterest for DIY Instagram Save the Dates that was easy enough and got to cutting, taping and gluing. Putting together 130 save the dates was a lot, but this was just the beginning of the cutting of the papers so I enjoyed every minute of it. 

The Invitations

I wanted to make my invitations from scratch as well, but everything I found was way too time consuming. These DIY Wedding Invitations weren't exactly made from scratch, but I already had my hands full so they were about as close as I was going to get to making them from scratch. The color scheme was perfect and I also found them on sale at Target! Yeay!!

Image by Danfredo Photos & Film

Escort Cards, Favor Tags & More Favor Tags

Surprisingly I couldn't find any templates that would fit with our wedding favors or any templates that I loved where I could just plug in the names of our guests and print, so I designed my own with an Avery label template. When I start something, I have to finish it, so I sat on the living room floor for hours with my paper cutter, slicing 130 escort cards, then 130 favor tags, then 130 tags stating what the favors were, which I ended up not using because anyone in their right mind could see what the favors were. Like I said, I love playing with paper, but this was beginning to stress me out. I should have asked for help, but I never do, so I didn't. 

My original idea was to attach the escort cards to mini bottles of champagne, but our budget didn't call for this champagne type of expense so my Plan B was to go with mini bottles of sparkling water. Groomsman-Randy ended up gifting us with cans of Bruce Cost Ginger Ale, the best ginger ale I have ever tasted in my life. The ginger ale ended up working out perfectly especially because the color of the ginger ale can coincided the color scheme of our wedding.

Maid of Honor-Giselle and Bridesmaid-Daisy came over to help me put the favors and escort cards together. At this point I stopped trying to do everything by myself and began accepting help wherever I could get it. Edward could see that I was becoming a bit frazzled so he offered to help and I gave him the task of snipping 130 pieces of ribbon.

Image by Danfredo Photos & Film

The Flowers

I'd read an article that suggested Costco as a good place for purchasing flowers in bulk. This ended up being a very cost effective recommendation, but it involved more work. I would have to assemble and arrange the flowers myself. Bridesmaid-Daisy came over to assist with that task. I ordered three hundred stems of babies breath which was more than enough to create the bridesmaid bouquets, the table setting arrangements and serve as decorations for the ceremony. There were so many flowers that, sadly, I ended up having to toss a few bunches at the end of the wedding. Two hundred stems would have been enough.

Image by Danfredo Photos & Film

The Cake

... was fake. Kevin, Maid of Honor-Giselle's hubby, is extremely crafty, so I asked for his help with quite a few of the decor items that we used in our wedding. I purchased the cake shaped tiers of Styrofoam from Michael's and handed them over to Kevin so that he could work his magic. Our edible wedding cake came from BJ's which was also cost effective and delicious! Two sheet cakes were enough to feed all of our guests and we still had a third of one cake left untouched.

Image by Danfredo Photos & Film

The Wishing Well

I also asked Kevin for his services to paint our wishing well, welcome sign and table numbers. Our wishing well came from Michael's and our table numbers (among other items) came from IKEA. Since I don't have any wheels of my own just yet, Mr. & Mrs. Maid of Honor were awesome enough to make runs to IKEA on my behalf. I will forever be grateful to them for actually humoring my ideas and having a huge hand in bringing them to life.

I didn't find a template for the table numbers that worked for me, so I designed my own template in a word document which meant more cutting of papers. I found mini envelopes on Amazon for the wishing well notes, but I couldn't find any mini note cards that matched our color scheme (or maybe I was just too cheap to buy them). I ended up buying a ream of card stock and commenced the cutting of the papers...

Image by Danfredo Photos & Film

Although it was a bit overwhelming, I still thoroughly enjoyed all of the creative projects that I burdened myself with. I could have spent the money to have most of these details taken care of, but there was an inexplicable thrill of satisfaction in handling most of the projects myself. I'm so looking
utilizing some of these ideas when the times comes for planning a baby shower - but for that event I will be shelling out the loot so that someone else can do the bulk of the handiwork ☺.

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