Things we made for the wedding

No photos yet, but now that the party is over, I can share details on the wedding. It was fantastic but I'm not quite ready to blog about it yet. So while you wait...

1) Bride's jewelry, earrings and bracelets for bridesmaids and flower girl.

Making jewelry is what I do in my free time, so it was natural that I’d want to create my own. The champagne pearls for this project were a gift from my childhood best friend. Stringing pearls was the second most frustrating project I tackled. I hadn’t checked the diameter of the pearl’s drill hole, and it was much tinier than expected. In a rush and unwilling to run to the store for a beading needle, I improvised. Really, really not worth it. Buy beading needles! Keep a stash of them around your house! I struggled far longer than I should have, feeding the silk thread through itsy wire “needles.” Even without the threading issues, pearl beading is pretty time consuming. I read a little about pearl knots on the internet and I think I got it right, though I would need a lot more practice before attempting to sell them, as the labor in this necklace far outweighs its potential sale price! Good thing I’m keeping it!
To go with the necklace, I made two sets of earrings: the long dangles are on silver ear wires and contain pearls, my great-grandmother’s vintage crystal beads, and rubies. The other pair, on gold-filled posts, are much simpler, with matching champagne pearls and crystals. Total labor on the earrings? Maybe 30 minutes, most of that being the dangles, which were kind of labor intensive. I also made some earrings for my attendants and a dainty pearl bracelet for the four-year-old flower girl.

2) Veil and hairpieces

I talked about this in an earlier post. Phew. Glad it’s done! In retrospect, would I have paid someone else to make it? Yeah, probably. The flowers were super easy. I just removed the plastic parts (stem, etc) from the petals of silk flowers, laid them out as desired and wired them together. I glued a satin covered clip to the back of the flower and used them to cover the gathers in my veil.

3) Invitations

We hired a friend to do engagement pictures before I left Brazil, and chose one for the invitation. We decided to go with a postcard and my talented sweetheart laid out the text on the back. We ordered ours off of Mpix, then liked the printing so much we sent them out in the included envelopes. I’m glad we did, as it made the whole thing a little more “proper.” I even heard that some people framed the postcard!

4) Paper products: Reserved signs, guest book, water bottle labels, stickers, crossword puzzle and programs

I made all these in Publisher, which was a great way to learn how to use the program while occupying my excess free time. Some of the templates were from other websites. I got the water bottle labels from this site. The crossword puzzle was from one of the online generators. Hint to future brides: print out less than you think you need. We had WAY too many crossword puzzles (people ended up doing them in groups) and lots of left-over programs.

5) Favor Boxes

Made from white cardstock (free) on the die-cut machine at the library (free). DIY brides really ought to make friends with their local librarians, especially the ones in the children’s section. My library had: a die cut machine with 4 or 5 different box types, as well as letters, numbers and other fun things; a Cricut machine; craft punches; laminator (fee to use); color laser printer and copier (fee to use); and probably more that I wasn’t aware of! Also, the color printer was much, much cheaper to use at the library than other places, as apparently there is a limit to what the library can charge patrons for copies. It’s your tax dollars at work, people! Anyhow, the boxes we used have a little heart closure at the top and were glued together and closed with a strip of ribbon. Filled with Hershey's dark kisses (stickered with our names) and wedding mints. Yum! Photos to come…