Wedding Craftiness

I have a love-hate relationship with DIY projects. On the one hand, they allow you to express your creativity and can say a lot about a person. On the other, they can be time consuming, frustrating, and a pain in the butt!

Our short engagement plus our busy schedules did not allow much time for extra work. If I had it my way, our wedding would have been decked out with nifty handmade projects. Although, we did manage to pull off a few. Taking this route enabled us to add our own personal touch to our wedding, as well as save quite a bit of money. But be careful if you decide to take this route, things can add up quickly!

After several days of looking at wedding invitations, I could not find a single thing that really fit what we were looking for, and when we could, the cost was just outrageous! Therefore, we decided to take things into our own hands and take a shot at our own handmade invitations. I then proceeded to spend many more hours searching for ideas of how I wanted to go about this. Despite my fickleness, I finally made a decision on how I wanted to proceed. Stamps. No, not postage stamps (many people seemed confused by this), but rubber stamps. The one and only, faithful to all my craft needs, Hobby Lobby, was the center of my inspiration to all things wedding craft related.  I could spend hours wandering the aisles, staring at the endless possiblities, and letting my brain become overwhelmed with creativity.

I was inspired by this little number right here from Impress Rubber Stamps, and got to work on my sketches.

A week later when the stamp came in, it was time to begin working on what I thought was the most fantastic design ever. Wrong. I spent an entire day trying to get the invitations to look just as I imagined in my head. They looked far from it. I hated everything I tried. After a second full day of trying, exhaustion and disappointment took over, and I called it quits, deciding to purchase after all. Although, I don’t like to give up that easily. After a sleepless night and hours of brainstorming and sketching, by 4:00 a.m. I had about 10 new designs sketched out that I just couldn’t wait to try. First thing the next morning, I was back to Hobby Lobby. By that evening, things were finally coming together how I imagined. We finally had something to work with. About a week later, we had around 200 handmade invitations ready to be stuffed and put in the mail. It definitely wasn’t easy work. It had me pulling my hair out and asking “WHY?” time and time again, but in the end, it was worth it. They were personal, which to us, means much more than something printed from a machine. Here is a look at our handy work…

Each and every word, slit, stamp, ribbon, and monogram were printed, cut, stamped, and glued by us. To let our guest know all about our hard work, we included this little token  in each envelope…
Looking back now, as much as I loved our invitations, I think our final product would have turned out a little different if we would have had a little more time to plan. Having a six month engagement didn’t allow for a long planning period.  I didn’t really have a grasp on how I wanted our wedding to look until after it was time to send out invitations. Yes, I had ideas, but it wasn’t until later that I had an overall vision.

Although, even though our programs were an even bigger pain to assemble then our invitations, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about them! I had originally planned on using the same stamp and paper that we used for the invitations for the programs, but after a stroll through Hobby Lobby, my mind was swimming with ideas. This time it took just one trip and no sketches to come up with our program design. They were even more work, but I am so pleased with how they turned out!

Each one was unique and fit perfect with the theme of our wedding!

Another project we worked on (and this time we means my parents and I) were the mason jars that hung on the chairs lining the aisle at the ceremony. I had originally wanted pomander balls hanging on the chairs, until I discovered that the cost for one ranged from about $60-$80!  So, instead, we came up with these beauties for a grand total of about $8.00 per arrangement. Plus, the look of these fit our theme so much better!

Last but not least, all of our flower arrangements were put together by my mom and I. Our bouquets and boutonnieres were provided by Rose of Sharon,  but the rest of these beauties were largely thanks to my mom’s handy work.

Ranunculus, dahlias, freesia, billy balls, and peonies.

Many of our vases were one of a kind antique finds.

Freesia, peonies, garden roses, and a few billy balls.

Although these projects weren’t always easy work, they allowed for our personal touch on our wedding. I loved every minute of our projects, and long for more. I am already brainstorming craft ideas for our new home. I can’t wait for the inspiration that Boston will bring!