The Day Before

The day before the wedding was kind of crazy. In hindsight, we probably could have been better organized, gave ourselves more times, and asked for a little more help. However, I was so specific about every detail, that I probably wouldn't have accepted any more help than we had. Mr. Tal and I spent the morning finishing a few last minute details and loading them into the truck and heading over to the reception site. There we spent about 4 hours on set up. We weren't smart enough to take pictures of the hall before and after set up but I have some beautiful detail shots.

(All Photos by J Wagler Photography)

All this was a joint effort between Mr. Tal, myself, Momma and Daddy Sal and Momma Tal. To start, we had to set up all the tables, literally. We had to take all the chairs off the tables and any that we weren't using we had to stack in the back. We had to move them into the place and put on the table clothes and set up the chairs. Once all the tables were into place we had to actually set them up to look all pretty. We decided to set up the smaller tables first, like the guest book table, the place "card"(aka the wooden disks) table, and the cake and gift tables. Once those smaller tables were set up, we moved on to the guest tables (without the runners because they hadn't arrived yet, haha, long story), first up centerpieces.

We had no choice but to assemble our centerpieces at the site because the manzanita branches in the pots would have been too high to transport and more than likely the pots would have fell over en route. So in our own little assembly line, Mr. Tal and Momma Sal filled the pots with litter (yes, we used cat litter, it was the most economical choice), then the branches were stuck into some floral foam and more litter added on top, after that the spanish moss and little birds were added by myself and Momma Tal, then the finished product was taken to the tables by Daddy Sal. After all those were in place we had to go around and add the strings of beads (cut up garland with wire added), and paper lanterns with battery-operated tea lights. Voila! Centerpieces were up and looking fabulous, in my humble opinion. After centerpieces came the wooden silverware wraps at every place, along with the bagged cookie favors and our table letters. Once we were done our hall looked transformed, and that was without chair covers, which were being delievered later that afternoon.

We all went our seperate ways early that afternoon to get ready for our rehearsal.

Next up, our rehearsal or why my day-of coordinator is worth her weight in gold.

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.

I've seen the light!

Throughout the wedding planning process I've used my gut to make my decisions. Obviously, careful thinking and planning was involved in the decisions as well, but ultimately, I knew in my gut when a vendor or decision was right. That's actually a little weird for me, I'm usually a think-it-through type of person, but the wedding has been easy. Caterer, flowers, venues, all gave me a certain feeling. This feeling was what I felt when I found the centerpieces in The DIY Bride and fell in love with them. They were clear vases, filled with water, rocks on the bottom, with a table number suspended in the water, very pretty, very simple. I loved them. I made a mock up of them several weeks ago, which you can read about here.



That was all well and good, but ever since the mock up I've had a nagging feeling about those centerpieces. They just aren't what I want. Plus, they aren't very big, and at a table of 8 with no place settings or favors, the tables would look very bare. So after some deliberation and some research, I've decided I want to do luminary centerpieces. Images like this made me love the idea. It's simple, elegant, and beautiful. However, will it turn out like I plan? I don't know, I'm still going through the materials to see if it's in the budget. I have lots of paper from the original centerpiece idea, which can be crafted into very pretty luminaries (I know I tried it!) and hung from branches with floral wire. The branches we can get for free from local parks and family back yards. We plan on using clay or plastic flower pots which can be spray painted those aren't very expensive, neither the sand or rocks to hold the branches in place are too horrible, and we can get tea lights for a steal as well. Well at least candle tea lights, see Mr. Tal is adamant on using battery powered tea lights for fear of fire. I understand his fear, especially with children running around. However, these are the expensive portion of this project and after some online research it didn't seem that it would be in the budget. Then I went to Meijer, 99 cent battery powered tea lights!!! It's in the budget, which means I can at least try this project.

Now all I have to do is make a mock up and hope that my gut likes this one. I hope it does, I don't want to have to pick something else again!

How about you, readers, have you ever had decisions made and then end up changing your mind about it?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY Bride!

Disaster Transport

I vaguely hinted at the failure of my adventures into centerpieces in my last blog, so I shall tell you the tale. Oh, and if you guess where the title of my post is from I'll give you a cookie, or at least your computer a cookie (that's right, starting off with the geek jokes, we're in for a ride).

Anywho, like I said before I have stocked up on craft supplies like Armageddon is on the way and they are burning a whole in my pocket, figuratively speaking. I've been itching to do some crafty wedding things since my friend announced her engagement two years ago (and has since been married), but it wasn't her style so I had to wait until now to do some wedding crafts for myself. I know it's early, but I like to jump the gun on things. Like this whole wedding, I'm planning without the "official proposal" (BAH I say to that!). So I made my little earrings, and some matching bracelets (they are cute, but again super easy) for my BM, but I yearned for a bigger challenge. Bring on the centerpiece mock up. Mr. Tal and I sat down and carefully read through the instructions in The DIY Bride (aka Future Mrs. Tal's Bible) for submersible table number centerpieces. It seemed relatively easy. Ha.

The process was fairly simple, it involved: some white card stock, a pretty paper of our choice, printer, laminate sheets, a hole punch, craft wire, heavy weighted objects of our choosing and a cylinder vase (in this case 10'' tall 6'' wide). Basically, after cutting the card stock to a predetermined size, we had to load it in the printer and just format a word document however we wanted. This was the easy part. We made our pretty table name in the font we liked, really made it our own. Then tried to print it...nothing. It ended up taking 2 hours to try to print this tiny piece of card stock. That was merely a technical difficulty at the time, but as I look back, I think it was a sign from the DIY gods that this project was not meant to happen. We finally get it printed and then we have to use double sided adhesive to tape it on to our pretty boarder paper and then we laminate it. All of this goes down easily, YAY Team Tal! Hole punch the bottom of the laminate, use the craft wire to secure it to a rock. Done. Rock on Team Tal! Then we go to put that laminated piece of beauty into the vase and it doesn't fit. Fail Team Tal. Fail hard. Not really, just a minor set back, so we trim it down and get it into the vase. Then comes the big moment; adding the water, and our submersible isn't submersible, it looks more like a bobber. Tie more rocks to it. Still doesn't sink all the way. At this point, Mr. Tal tells me it's just a mock up, the real vases will be higher so just breathe. Then I see the ink begin to melt like the make-up off an extra-sad clown in 100 degree heat. UGH! Only a mock up, only a mock up. It's my mantra with this project. We figured that we hole punched a little too close to the paper, no biggie, just have to remember for the final version. Mock-up centerpiece was a nice learning experience and we both did like the way that it looked.

Now I realize that this doesn't sound too bad, and really it wasn't. The horror part of the story hasn't come yet. When we finished up I realized that I don't know how big the opening of the vases we plan on renting are. This actually gets me a little giddy, because I'm hoping for an extra half inch or so. I immediately e-mailed the rental facility and asked this question, not caring when the response comes. Well she got back to me quickly to tell me the openings on the vases we want are 3.5'' (Internally, !$&*#@) Externally, I say to Mr. Tal, "Umm, honey, we have a problem with the rental place..." And I proceed to explain. Basically it all boils down to this, we now have to buy 15 cylinder vases for our centerpieces because the size we need isn't available for rent in our area. ARGGGGG! We've found them at a decent price in bulk online, but it's still the matter of paying for something that isn't within our budget. The plan is that we can hopefully sell the vases after the wedding and maybe only lose the amount of what we would of paid renting them. I'll cross my fingers on that one.

What about you fellow DIY brides? Any projects that didn't go quite as planned or unexpected expenses because of projects?

Tune in next time for more tales of a DIY bride.