Save the Date

Yesterday Chris got the mail and handed me an enveloped marked “do not bend”; an envelope in which I didn’t recognize the return address.  I opened it up and quickly realized it was from my friend Beth who is getting married in June – it was their Save the Date announcement, and it included a dvd.

I popped the dvd in my computer to see that it was a video of them, and it was SO adorable and creative that I wanted to share it.  Here is the video via made u look photography.

Day 13 & Some Cookies

Today’s photo challenge was kind of weird: A photo edit that you like.   So I interpreted as my favorite ways to edit my photos. And that would be 1) My favorite Lightroom preset, and 2) washi tape strips!  Here’s an example:

I almost always quickly edit all my photos in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (I’m no fancy pants). I have a bunch of “presets” I can use to quickly click and edit photos, but my most used/favorite edit is called “Afternoon Delight“, which adds a touch of goldenness/rustic-ness to photos, which I love. Oh and washi tape strips from Pugly Pixel are my favorite ways to add text to photos 🙂

Anyways, some other things I wanted to share….some lovely friends of mine got married this weekend, aren’t they cute? Adrien (da man) has been a friend since I was in high school, and his new wife, Jen, and I have become friends since they started dating.

I helped them with some wedding stuffs, Jen did a ton of DIY and I was happy to share ideas and thoughts. But I also helped put together a cookie bar for them. Here were the results!

Since I only have one little cake stand, I decided it would be best/cheapest to just make some more. I picked up a set of white dishes at Goodwill ($10 for maybe 18-ish plates) and some glass candlestick holders from Goodwill and the dollar store.  Glued em together and voila!  I spent less than $20 and made 3 stands with 2-3 plates on each and could have made a few more 🙂  And if you’re wondering, I made chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and chocolate salted caramel cookies.  We also had milk at the table. Perfection!

Wedding Wednesday: DIY Favors

Probably not a surprise to anyone that I love anything Wedding + DIY.  A while back I posted a tutorial on making your own coffee bag wedding favors (we made them for favors at our wedding). I loved them so much.  I wish I could have done 80 different favors, there are so many great ideas out there that give your wedding a personal touch.

Here are some great ideas that are easy and super cute:

Succuelnt Favors.  How adorable are these?  There are tons of different types of succulents out there, so there’s a million different ways to make this unique to your wedding.

Smore’s Packages.  These are pretty much perfect for an outdoorsy wedding.

Birdseed heart favors.  This is one idea I almost did for our wedding! I love it so much. Super easy and cheap to make a ton of them.

Custom Sodas. OK, I know these aren’t totally “DIY” – but I have loved Jones Soda for a long time and I adore them for a wedding.  You can order custom labels and chose any of their colors to make your wedding. Perfect.

Custom CDs.  I love that you can create a cd with your favorite songs, or music you picked for you wedding for your guests to take home.  We created our entire wedding playlist, and it would have bee awesome to give our guests favors of all the songs we spent hours and hours picking out. Plus, making rad cd packaging would be so much fun!

Wedding Wednesday: Pretty Desserts

I’m a sucker for an adorable, creative dessert display. Whether it be a simple cake with a little twist to it, to a creative dessert table with so much yumminess you can’t even handle it.  Here are some favorites I have accumulated on Pinterest.

A rustic wood cake stand + cupcakes + a cute topper = perfection. I LOVE this.

This pie table is so dreamy! I love how they are displayed with the tiers and I also love the fabric/colors.

The bunting around this cake is SO adorable on this white cake. I also love the whimsy-ness of the paper straws on top. Too cute.

So this is a DIY cupcake topping bar! It’s obviously from a fall wedding, and I’m not sure I care for the pumpkins, BUT it’s still a rad idea. Click the photo to jump to the post with more photos…it’s worth it. Yum.

This grey wedding cake is SO pretty! I like everything about it, especially the flower details – it looks like fabric!

Milk and cookies…cupcakes. Agh! So much yumminess!

Wedding Wednesday: Minty

Here’s some pretty minty green wedding inspiration for you 🙂

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Wedding Wednesday: Succulent Edition

It’s no secret that I’ve been loving succulents a little bit lately, and I’ve been seeing them them pop up all over the wedding blogs I read.  There are so many things you can do with them, from bouquets to table decor to boutonnieres to favors. So pretty.

Here is some pretty wedding + succulent inspiration.

Image credits: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11

I think what I love most about them is that they are so versatile: there are so many different shapes, sizes and colors. Also, I am a big fan of non-traditional wedding flowers. I mean, all the flowers at our wedding were technically dried so obviously I could care less 🙂

 

Wedding Wednesday (Er, Thursday)

Sorry I am a day long on my Wedding Wednesday post, I didn’t have very much energy last night left to throw something together! Luckily, I got a bit of inspiration when a friend of mine (whom I’m helping planning wedding decor for) told me she hadn’t really found any wedding invitations yet because the cutest ones were way too pricey.

I was thinking: I hear ya girl! I think I had 75 wedding invitations made and spent almost $300 on them. When you’re on a budget (or just like to be as cheap as possible, like me!) you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a piece of paper that most of your guests will throw away in a month or two. But, you still want them to be cute and something you love as well.

One thing I found a little late in my wedding planning stage, was that some Etsy sellers offer DIY printable wedding invitations. Meaning, you are buying a PDF of your invitations and printing them out yourself.  This could save you a TON of money.  I found a bunch of cute options last night and they range for $25-$100 for the design.

{Click images to head to the Etsy shops}