This is theultimatediyer's Blue Wedding!

Hi ladies,

I'm considering ordering my dress from Julius Bridal and I wanted to know if anyone has any experience or any pics of dresses they ordered from Julius.

Thanks,

Nikki

Ok, so I'm fortunate enough to be having my reception at a place that allows you to bring your own liquor. This is wonderful for our pockets but I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how much liquor we will need considering the following:

There will be 250 guests (adults only)

The Bar will be open for 4 hours

Our bar will be limited to Beer, Wine, Light Liquor (maybe Vodka), Dark Liquor (no clue yet), and of course champagne for the toast.

In regards to the Hard liquor there will be 6 different drinks offered 3 light and 3 dark.

Cups will be 5 oz (wine), 8 oz (mixed) and 10 oz. (beer)

So with all of that said I need to know if I should purchase Kegs or beer bottles? How many fifths? How many cases of wine? etc...... I found a few beverage calculators but they all seem either to over or under estimate a great deal.

Any suggestions would help!!

Thanks Ladies!

Hello all my damask lovers, I found these bags on the net and thought I would share.

http://www.packagingsource.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=8_830

Enjoy!

Hey Ladies......So......I've decided against the escort candle idea only because I need a way to display our favors and I thought it would be wonderful if I could do a CD favor escort card. But I'm at a lost on how to display them as the guests come in. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!!!!

Hi ladies can I please get you all's opinion on this save the date.

Also, for those of you who plan to DIY your save the dates Vista Print is amazing, I'm having 250 printed for only $15 with shipping. Once they are here, I'm gonna attach a magnet and waaaa laaaa!!!

Thanks!

So I played around with photoshop to see how the pictures would look with the ladies' names and shrunken down to a certain size.......here are a few examples a coworker, me, and one bridesmaid. This picture will be the front of the bag and the back will black satin.

Sooooo........I found a really great gift for my bridesmaids, but because my wedding party is so large (10 BM's) I can't afford $23 per lady for one gift. The gift is a photo cosmetic bag featured on www.bagettes.com.

I love these and unfortunately once I fall in love with something I have to have it! As with all other things I love I've been wrecking my brain trying to figure out how to make it happen. Well........after discussing it with my very good friend the world wide web I found a solution!! I had already had the idea of buying a cheaper version of the makeup bag and having a picture put on or doing a iron on. But I was unable to find any cosmetic bags that would work, however I did find a tutorial of how to make one!!!!

So, the plan is to take an image with some Photoshop embellishments and ironing it on the fabric of my choice.....then making the bag following the tutorial below. This should be a fun project and I'll definitely keep you guys posted on my progress!

I actually found 2 tutorials, the other one has a really nice finished product but I'm not even daring enough to try it, so those of you who have outstanding sewing skills might want to try this! Good luck!!

So their complete gift will be the make-up bag, some flip flops to wear if they decide to come out of their heels at the reception, and the jewelry they'll wear with their dresses.





The baguettes.com bag:
http://www.bagettes.com/bridesmaid-gift1.html



The Tutorial of the bag I plan to make courtesy of Queenofdiy on Crafster.com:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=176509.0



Tutorial of the other bag that I would'nt dare try:

(unfortunately this one is not working on my home computer, but hopefully it will work for you guys)
http://smallhand.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_smallhand_archive.html#112473596029582231

The Mr. and I both LOVE, LOVE, LOVE music!!! With that said we easily decided on a CD as our favor. Now I've been to wedding that gave away CD favors and I personally was not impressed. So of course I had to turn to my friend the world wide web to find a classy and elegant way to present the favors........and let me tell you I found a gold mine that includes a dun, dun, dun.........you guessed it.....a TUTORIAL!!!!

Thank you to knottie Heather&Peter for this template. All pictures are courtesy of Christopher Bickford. (not including the picture of the wrapping)

Also, the complete set of pictures are on the site below.

Tutorial:
http://hawaiianwedding05.bravehost.com/heathers_program.html

Brides.com Real Wedding which the CD wrapping was featured on:
http://www.brides.com/weddingstyle/realweddings/159173/detail/159184?af=Theme%3aColor&page=2&offset=22

Sooooo.....I have some invitations that a friend found for me a while back...the kind that you print out yourself with the sheet of vellum on top.They were on sale for $7 a box, but now I want to make my own invitations. Anyhow, the new invitations are the bomb, me and the Mr. both love them! He loves them sooo much he even offered to help put them together! Now my baby is very loving but he usually does not get involved with my DIY projects, so I know he must really like them.

I found these on the knot and the greatest thing about it is that the lovely Jody aka tjrocks also included a tutorial!!!! LOVE HER!!! By the way tutorials are my new favorite thing!! I probably could have figured it out myself but imagine the time and materials I'll save by using her tutorial!!


Here's the information for those of you who like these invites as well.

Jody's Knot post:
http://community.theknot.com/cs/ks/photos/weddingdetails/picture97010.aspx

The Tutorial:
http://design.jodyprouse.com/freebies/tut_Pocketfold.html

Once you click on the tutorial it'll take you to her site.....be sure to look around she also has tutorials for other stuff as well.

Alrighty!!! At this point in our planning we still have not decided on a photographer. I've seen many that I like and only one that I ADORE, but unfortunately *she's completely out of my budget. So the search continued when I came across this opportunity to take a "Valentines Photo Shoot" with a photographer by the name of **Dartise. I figured this special offer was a great way to see ourselves through a professionals lens. (Sidenote: I hate the way I look in pictures, so I imagine that I'm going to have a few trials of the whole engagement photo thing......I gotta get myself right for the big day.)

Anyhow, the special was only $75 and a disc of the images were released to us to do whatever we wanted with them. This deal was perfect for me becasuse I just got Photoshop on my computer and I wanted some professional photos to play around with for invitations, save-the-dates part II etc.

We have 2 more photographers that we're considering before we make a final decision. I plan to do engagement sessions with both of them before we make a decision....I'll be sure to post the results to get yalls opinions!

Oh and these photos were taken at Chicago's Navy Pier.



*The photographer that I mentioned above is Sarah Anne........she is awesome!!! Those of you who have a bigger budget should definitely check her out, she's based her in Chi city but she does travel! Check out the engagement photos on her blog I'm sure you'll love them! www.sarahannephotography.blogspot.com

**Also, if you like the photos I posted check out Dartise's sight www.dartise.com

Sooooo..........I have'nt been blogging in a while because I had some chaos in my life over the last 2 weeks. Long story short, I lost an aunt and a few family members that were on the way to the funeral from out of town got into an accident (thankfully, everyone was pretty much ok). As you can imagine this was all very hard to deal with! But our family is strong and we have been taking it one day at a time.

I forgot to mention that I took a well needed vacation after all the chaos. I went to sunny Miami with 13 other ladies to celebrate our friends bacheorlette party. It was an amazing trip......just what I needed! And even more amazingly all of us got along so wonderfully! No attitudes or anything!!!!

So, I'm back to wedding planning!

I love this dress! I'm going to try it on Friday.....this could be the one!

I love this dress, it's from the house of brides, but I'm looking else where to purchase it. I was not feeling the vibe and service and house of brides and don't feel they deserve my money.

So, the place that our reception is at is one of those DIY places, they only provide tables, chairs, and the hall. Everything else you have to provide. So far it's been perfect for our small budget and large guest list. We are going to have a limited open bar with wine, beer, and 4 drinks. The decoration company does not have any barware. UGH! Plastic is NOT an option, so I'm going to rent barware. With that said to minimize the number of glasses I need to rent is it tasteless or tacky to serve beer in a bottle? Can's are definitely not an option. Please help!

I found a few people on the Knot that do custom monograms for next to nothing!!!

http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/user/page.aspx?username=char-char

www.idooriginals.com

Some one was looking for a great site that has discounted vases I found one it's:

http://www.save-on-crafts.com/vases6.html

So orignially I wanted us to have a nice custom made monogram that was artisy and elegant but there was a communication problem between me and the artist so...........I decided to see what I could come up with so here it is.....I personally like the second one better

So, my Hubby to be is as avid football fan!!! To suprise him I'm going to wear a Chicago Bears Garter under my dress!!

So, I've been trying to figure out a unique way to display the "escort cards" .........and after searching endlessly on the net I saw this escort candle idea. Each candle will have a label on it with the guests name....and once they go their assigned table they will place their lighted escort candle in its respective place in the center piece. Making it complete!

So.......the place we're having our reception at is very pretty...I love everything about it except the draperies. Their draperies are maroon which is not what I'm looking for at all. Soooo.....I'm going to have the linen company/decoration company put up some pipe and drape behind us, and maybe in front of the windows. I'm very pleased with this solution. So now the question becomes how to display our monogram?

Option A: Float a DIY cardboard version with fishing line in front of the the drapery lay out (see pic 1, minus the lights under the table)

Option B: rent a projector (the small ones, not the old school kind) and project the image from under the head table? Imagine the image in the 2nd pic being projected where the gold emblem is in the 3rd pic.

Also of course the draperies will be sheer brown and the blue/green color.

Ok, for the next order of business.......Centerpieces. I am willingly taking on this task becasue the centerpieces that come with the reception hall are not at all my taste, and the same goes for the linen company's centerpieces. So, I think I've narrowed it down to 2 choices, though they are very different stylistically I LOVE them both.

The pics are for more instructional purposes so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit. In the first picture the bases of the vases have a touch light in them which will be a nice touch. Also, I want to dress it up a little more with nicer candle holders, some flower petals on the table, and of course flowers that fit my color scheme.

In the second pic try to imagine the glass beads and the glass "cups" in my blue color (whatever it's called) with a silver base, with some flowers incorporated some how. The finished product will be about half the size of this one or maybe a little smaller.

So what do you guys think?

Ok, so I want to change the shade of blue I use in my wedding. Visually I know what color I want but I don't know the name of it and David's Bridal does not have what I'm looking for.......so what is a girl to do? On saturday I'm going to meet with the man from the decoration company and I need to have some swatches to give him to match the linens to.....BUT I don't just want to go to some random fabric store and pick some swatches and not be able to match them to anything else (bridesmaids dresses etc).

I thought I saw the color I wanted online until I printed the picture out. It was nothing like it looked on the computer. Soooooo.....I'm at a lost.

Ok, so the dress in the picture is the color I want (at least on my computer it is) but when I printed it out it was more green than it looks.

The bottom swatch is called light teal but it looks really green in print

So....I absolutly adore this pattern!! But I never knew it actually had a name! I forgot which bride posted it but thanks!!! This is the pattern that I tried to mimick with the save-the-dates. It will also be featured on the menu cards, invitatons, and favors. The cake in the picture is perfect! It works so well with my color scheme!

And speaking of cakes, I was talking to a co-worker and they meationed having a fake cake........sounds crazy right? But the logic behind it was having this goreous cake made from cardboard and rolled fondant or marizpan decorated really nicely with a small insert of real cake for the bride and groom to cut. Once the fake cake is cut it's wheeled to the back by the servers and they bring out the already sliced real cake with similar colored frosting........it's supposed to be a way to save money and allow variety. This way you can buy 1 or more sheet cakes (which is cheaper). The whole thing sounds a bit crazy to me, I personally have never heard of this....has anyone else?

I love the designs on these cakes!!

I love some of the centerpiece ideas in these pictures!! This should be a really fun DIY project!!!

This dress is sooo my style!! My bridemaids are gonna look ultra hot in these!!!

I'm kinda confused as to which blue I want as an accent. I like them both!

Any suggestions?

I absolutly LOVE these Tuxedos! Imagine this tux with a Serene colored vest, tie and hankie!! Very Swank!! I Love it!!

To save money I'm taking on a lot of my wedding projects with the help of my friends and family of course...... but the save the dates were really easy to make! A little creativity can go a LOONNNG way and save you big bucks!!