Shoes of YAY

Ok, so boho-geeky-outdoor theme. Shoes were a tough one. Since we're getting married on grass, I knew any sort of pointy heel would be worthless.

Enter Shoes of Prey. Based out of SoCal, it's a design--your-own-perfect-shoe site. I liked the idea of colored shoes, so I kept a light blue and figured the tan accents would go well with the ivory dress.

As we continued with the planning process, I began to doubt whether or not I even wanted to wear shoes. The kiddos are probably going to be barefoot, and I don't really want to be stumping around a lawn in heels all morning.

I ordered these awesome barefoot sandals from Australia that I'm going to end up changing into when I switch to dress #2 (yes, I'm THAT bride). Check out the site for Forever Soles, I got some really simple beaded ones that I adore.



Now I still wasn't loving the idea of the heels. BUT I still had some book pages left from making the bazillion flowers, so I decided to have at it! They're still a little rough around the edges (literally) but they look damn good from a distance.

They also have our wedding date (nine-sixteen) on the underside.

Spirits, Potions, and Libations

What millenial wedding is complete without a signature cocktail? (Overachievers Erin and Bryan made 6.)

The cute little potion bottles will probably be filled with colored water for effect, and we'll do pitchers of each cocktail for the night before and the day of.

I intended to cut small slits in those wine corks and use them as stands for the recipe cards, but an unfortunate slip with a boxcutter turned me off to that idea (and added to the callouses and scars on my fingertips that this wedding seems to create).

We tried to include everyone's favorites. We'll also have beer and wine  (and champagne, duh). We're going to do "Butterbeer" for the kids - probably some applejuice variation so they don't get too amped up on sugar.

We kept the Felix Felicis recipe from our engagement party, since it was so dang felix-delicious.







(SO proud of that pun)

Ring Bearer/Odd Man Out

Little Man is going to be the only dude amongst the kiddos, so we had to give him quite the dapper outfit.

What better than a bowtie and suspenders?!

Again, ETSY TO THE RESCUE!

BowTieFun has great kids-length leather suspenders and the most hipster burlap bowtie I've ever seen. It's perfect.

Add a little boutonniere, and he's good!

The Cutest Flower Girl Ever (sorry, kids)

Obviously our one and only is going to be in the wedding. I created her a collar from scratch, using a bunch of the fake flowers that are in my bouquet. I also added a few of the buttons that fell off my dress, and one of the satin rosettes.

She was obviously thrilled to be modeling.

"Flower" Girls - Outfits

Since our wedding is a small, outdoor, bit-bohemian affair, I wanted the kids' outfits to be sweet, but comfy and carefree.

ETSY TO THE RESCUE!

KateGraceRose had the cutest, comfiest, laciest and affordablest kids' lace dresses anywhere. They are unbelievably soft, and will hopefully fit all the munchkins on the day-of.

Adding to the boho feel, I created flower crowns for the girls. We'll see how long they actually stay on (they turned out a little poky on the inside) but I love how they look!

"Flower" Girls - Bouquets

A factor of the decision to use fake flowers was the question of what the flower girls would do. We have three of them, and throwing fake flower petals didn't have quite the appeal that nicely-scented real petals have.

So I found another use for the paper flowers! Each flower girl has a paper-flower bouquet with a few real/fake flowers thrown in, and some fun little wiggly pearl accents.

Again, hot glue + fingertips, but I seem to have survived.

Wands for the Wandless

The floating candles inspired a variety of themed details. Since our wedding is so intimate (i.e. tiny) we figured we could give little gifts to the attendees that would fit with our theme. Wands seemed the obvious choice; I had been looking to use all those bazillion paper flowers that I had made, so everything came together into some pretty cute souvenirs!

Working on the fonts for these was probably one of my favorite activities. Half of them have "Ministry of Magic" style fonts (Linda's, above) while half have the book title fonts (Patty's). There are about 6 different wand styles dispersed - I made sure no couple had the same ones, but we did repeat styles within the entire party. Each wand has a thank-you card and a paper flower attached.

The Best and Worst Idea Ever

One thing I had seen while cruising HP DIY crafts was paper flowers. I loved the idea of incorporating the actual books into the wedding, so I picked up a paperback copy of The Sorcerer's Stone and went to it.

I did have a crisis of conscience when starting this craft. As awesome as these flowers look when they're done, they require tearing pages out of the book.

Like, tearing all of the pages out of the book.

As a lifelong bibliophile, this awoke my inner Madame Pince and it took a lot of effort to rip out that first page. The second page was a little easier, and on an on until I was gladly tearing every last page out of that poor book. I am now left with an empty paperback shell (which I will hopefully find a use for) and a crapload of paper flowers.

Most of the flowers I used in various crafts that you will see coming up; I still do have a boxfull that are still looking for a purpose in life.

I'm not sure how much time I spent making these, and I'm not sure I want to know. Hours of my life are certainly gone, though I did multitask quite often while watching Olympic Dressage and Bryan playing video games.

My poor little glue gun overheated a handful of times, and my fingertips now have awesome burn-induced callouses, but these things came out so cool I have absolutely no regrets.

Magical Lighting

So far, wedding details have not ventured into the geeky realm. I'm not sure what started all the HP details, but I think it was these:

We were hoping to emulate the floating candles from the Great Hall in Harry Potter. Using stock paper, battery-operated tea light candles, and a LOT of hot glue, we put together about 18 of these. Once we get to the venue, we're going to string them with fishing line from wherever we can find. There are some great trees in the yard, and I think an overhang on the porch, so we'll see where they end up!

Fake Flowers and a $3 Glue Gun (continued)

A surplus of bouquet flowers and some letters I found on sale turned into a table centerpiece. Who knows where we'll actually put it, but it'll make a good piece for photos at least.

And so began my hot-gluing obsession. I think my fingertips will never be the same. Yet the little $3 glue gun has held up so far...

Fake Flowers and a $3 Glue Gun

One of the things I was hemming and hawing over for our wedding was the flowers. I simply couldn't wrap my brain around spending thousands of dollars on fresh cut flower arrangements and throwing them away the next day. Plus, I wanted to DIY as much as possible, so a trip to Michaels kicked off the gluing frenzy that was to be the next few months!

The first item to get put together was my bouquet. At this point, we hadn't even decided on a color scheme (which is still more of a loose idea than a "scheme"), so when I started grabbing flowers things kind of fell into place. I can't for the life of me remember which fake flowers I actually chose, but I know there's some lavender in there, and whatever that big white bunch is comes in blue and purple as well (you'll see those show up in some later crafts). I added the little pearls much later to fit in with the flower girl bouquets.

Amazingly, I don't think I hot-glued anything in this. One of the few pieces that can actually make that claim!