Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Wedding Wednesday: DIY'ing our Centerpieces

It's been awhile since I've done a wedding update!  I have something fun to share this week as my mom and Chicago SIL were here this past weekend to help me make the centerpieces.

Let me start by saying that I NEVER expected to do many DIY projects for our wedding. But when I started to talk to people who've gotten married about the (high) cost of the flowers, I decided that I needed to move outside of my comfort zone and do some serious crafting.  Plus with our book theme, it was easy to come up with decor ideas that use a limited number of flowers, thanks to pinterest. Luckily my Chicago SIL is super crafty and was thrilled to help me translate our vision/theme into decor. I hate asking people to help with things so it was great that she offered to help without me asking. I did use some Delta miles to fly her in for the weekend, though, to make it inexpensive for her to come.

We had a long list of projects to tackle but they all turned out great!  Here is what we accomplished!

First off, we needed sustenance for our busy day! I made this egg bake but substituted chicken sausage for ham. I had to put mushrooms on one side since Phil is anti-mushrooms (gasp!). You can assemble it the night before and just put the cheese layer on top before baking!  I'll be making this again!


My sister-in-law brought her cricut machine with which was sooo helpful. It's a machine that you can program to cut things. We used it to cut the book pages for our candle projects (it trimmed the pages to 5" x 5" and we also used it to cut hearts in some of the pages). It was a huge time-saver!

My mom and sister-in-law Emily working on the book pages!
I don't have a lot of action shots because our hands were often covered with glue and/or glitter when we were working on the candles!  My mom snapped some action shots when we were working on putting glitter on wine bottles and votives. 
The bride getting her glitter on!
My sisters-in-law, Julie and Emily, working on the votives. You may notice flutes of champagne in the photo - we needed a treat for all of our hard work!
We worked from 10 in the morning until around 5 so it was a long, full day. We did have to make a stop at Joann Fabric's in the middle of the day for more supplies and we of course took a break for lunch.  But it was a very busy day!  Here's a picture of the finished products from Saturday!


Next up, we mocked up the 3 different centerpieces. I decided to hire a day-of wedding coordinator to handle the decorating and all of the last minute details that pop up on the day of the wedding. So I wanted to give her pictures of how the tables should be set up.  Here's what we came up with! We only made 5 glittered wine bottles to use on the guest book and escort card tables, so they won't be used in the actual centerpieces (instead we'll use gold-painted bottles). But they at least give the coordinator an idea of what the centerpieces will look like




The next day, after fueling with a breakfast of sweet potato hash, we headed outside to spray paint a whole lot of stuff.

Wine bottles and table number holders
 Luckily the weather was very mild so it was the perfect day to be outside!


After all that spray painting, we had earned some lattes!

But first, coffee

We headed back to the house to apply glitter to the "YUM" letters, which will go on the dessert table!


And then we were DONE!  In total, we worked about 10 hours on all of these projects. It was a lot of work but I'm so happy with how everything turned out!

We capped off the weekend by going to my good friend Courtney's mini-golf birthday party. It was great for my SIL to meet some of our friends, including one of the best men and 2 of the ushers!

Emily and me

I'm so grateful for all the help I received from family over the weekend!  I couldn't have done this without them!

16 comments:

Erin said...

Everything is so cute! And it sounds like you had a fun time putting it all together. This brought back memories of my DIY get together for the wedding. I love how your theme is so perfectly you. You just couldn't have picked something more fitting!!!!

Charbelle said...

I'm with you, I'm not crafty, at all!!!!! It would be totally outside my comfort zone to do those projects! However, when you have people who are good at that to be on hand to help it makes it a lot of fun! The pictures are going to be super helpful!!!!! When Patrice's sister got married Aly had all the pieces to the table decoration in it's own box, with a picture and the table it was to go on. All we had to do was take each box to each table and assemble the decoration. I'm so glad you've hired someone to coordinate the day of the wedding, that will help you SO much!!!! AAAHHHHH I'm so excited for you!!!!!!

Marlys said...

We did good! And had fun while working, so that made the day extra fun!
It was a great feeling to get so much done in that amount of time!

Mandy said...

Everything looks fantastic! I love, love, love the centerpiece and other DIY projects that you all tackled this past weekend. Im glad that so many family members could come help!

Abby said...

Wow what a great weekend!!!! You guys got SO much done and it looks as though you even squeezed in some fun! ;-) I love your vases and the book centerpieces

Gracie said...

I'm loving how it's turning out! And the good thing about Pinterest, Michael's, and the overall DIY movement is that ideas, materials, and tools are much more available than they used to be. It makes it easier - though no less time consuming.

katielookingforward said...

Way to go!! I see pinterest ideas for crafting but rarely trust that I could actually accomplish it all, your centerpieces look beautiful!

Stephany said...

Oh my gosh, I love those centerpieces so much! Better than any "professional" centerpiece. They are so unique and perfectly YOU. And how fun to get together with your family to do all these projects. What a great experience!

Kelly (She Wears a Red Sox Cap) said...

Oh my gosh I just LOVE how the centerpieces came out! So perfect! I think it's so fun that you got your SILs and mom together to do this project. I am so not crafty at all but I love the idea of just spending time together doing something for your wedding like this :)

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

Wow! Great work on all the crafty projects. I love the gold, and the books are so perfect for you. I can't wait to see pictures from the big day, and how it all comes together. It's nice that you hired the day-of wedding coordinator - so handy to have someone take care of all those little details so that you don't have to worry.

J and A said...

Beautiful!! Good job! We did everything ourselves too and it's so much cheaper and you enjoy it all that much more. Can't wait to see it all come together!

Jeanie said...

Work, yes. But so much fun! I love the finished projects -- they'll be so beautiful on all the tables. And the YUM for the dessert table is really a cute idea! So personal, Lisa. And you had a great team on hand. I'm glad you have a wedding coordinator for the day. At KevMo's wedding, the moms and dads were in charge that morning and while it all worked out fine and was sort of fun, it was also a little stressful. Oh, I think these are just fabulous! It's going to look wonderful with all the tables together!

Amber said...

I love that you made doing the DIY projects into a super fun family weekend! It actually sounds pretty awesome and fun and I can't wait to see those beautiful centrepieces at your wedding! <3

San said...

I love it... esp. since you usually don't think of yourself of creative much.

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

I love the book theme and the fact that you are doing it yourself. I think that even though it's a lot of extra work, there is just something so magical about the pride of doing it yourself AND this will be what you remember when you think about your wedding. You will remember all the times people came together to celebrate your day, not just the one day of the ceremony.

And hello! I have never heard of a cricut machine (it makes me want to say Crikey!) but now I want one of my very own. How cool! I am looking forward to seeing what else you have in store for us!

Shoshanah said...

I'm definitely happy I diy-Ed so many projects for the wedding. I don't consider myself a crafty person so it was fun to have the excuse. I will say 5 years now from our wedding (which is crazy!) I'm sure no one else remembers our centerpieces,but I still look back fondly on them.