DIY: Wedding Card Book

I've never been one to throw greeting cards away...I am pretty sure I still have birthday cards from when I was ten. As I have grown up I have been better about throwing them away; but I still hoard a few here and there. I knew I wouldn't be able to throw away the cards from our wedding so I did what I always do and looked on Pinterest for a solution. I found an image on Pinterest that took me to a blog; but the link did not take me to the actual tutorial of the card book; but it wasn't that hard to figure out how it was done. 

I bought chipboard (I think that is what it is called), embellishments, a hole punch, and the book rings. Then I divided the cards by size:

I found the largest card and used that one to determine how big to cut the front and back covers.

Then I decorated the front and used the hole punch to punch holes in the covers.

Then I punched holes in the cards and put it all together. This is definitely a project that I will finish in parts because using that hole punch started to hurt my hands. I only punched holes in about 15 cards before I had to give up.

I think it turned out very well. I am really excited that I found something to do with the wedding cards. There are so many well wishes in the cards that I would not want to toss out. This will be another awesome keepsake from our wedding. 

What about you...what did you do with all the wedding cards from your wedding?

Our DIY, Budget Friendly Wedding: Part 3

Here is the final installment of our wedding pictures. Looking at all the pictures really brought back a ton of memories. Our wedding day was so blessed. We had wonderful friends and family there to help out and to share in our wonderful day. The weather was beautiful. Everything just seemed to work out. I know my husband was super stressed and super busy that day. I told him all I wanted was a wedding that was not full of stress, was cheap, and was fun. Joe may have been stressed but he kept the stress away from me so that I could have the perfect wedding. I love my husband; he makes so many sacrifices to always ensure that I am happy.

I gave my niece a note to hand to her Uncle Joe. I saw this idea on Pinterest and I thought it was perfect. Joe and I work at the same school and when we first started dating we would always leave each other "love" notes. So I thought it was perfect to give Joe a note right before we said "I do."

It says "I can't wait to kiss you!" I didn't remember to do this until the last minute; so I just grabbed a scrap piece of paper and jotted this down very quickly...which is how most of our notes to each other are created anyways. I didn't take a picture of it at the time and I thought maybe it had been thrown away but I should have known Joe had saved it. I found it in the box with all our wedding stuff.

I insisted a couple days before the wedding that I wanted the door to be red. When I was younger and dreamed of my wedding day I always wanted to get married in a church with a red door (I must have seen it in a movie?). Since we weren't getting married in a church I wanted our front door painted red. I think Joe and I debated on for a while but I finally won out and it turned out beautiful.

I told my dad he could wear whatever he wanted. He is not the suit and tie kind of guy. Plus, he was working all day long trying to make sure his little girl had a perfect day and I think after all that he deserved to be as comfortable as possible. 

Right before we kissed I realized we probably should have practiced our kiss. It's not very often that a couple kisses in front of a whole audience and it was kind of awkward. But It looks like I got cheek kiss down...I didn't think anyone was watching then though. 

Here are these cuties again! Ellie, my niece, kept saying she wanted to give me a kiss but then she would turn away; so we never actually got a picture of her giving me a kiss just these "almost" photos. She is such a little stinker. 

The groomsmen wore shirts to match their wives who were my bridesmaids. The only exception to that was the guy in the pink...he is not my sister's husband he is one of Joe's friends. The flower girls and ring bearer wore dresses to match their mom's and dad's attire. My goal was to have all the families get family photos out of this since they were all matching; but there just wasn't enough time for that (once again that all boils down to getting my hair done and like I said before I won't talk about that because it will ruin this whole experience.). 

I thought the price of cake toppers was too expensive, so I decided to make my own. I saw a version of these cake toppers on Etsy and they were ridiculously expensive. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some grapevine wire (I think that is what it is called?) and I made my own. I was not present when they placed the cake toppers on the cake. I think I had decided not to use them at all. I liked how plain and simple the cake looked (If you haven't figured out yet I like plain and simple). But someone put these on and I am glad they did because I think the cake looks great. It also tasted amazing!

I found that cake plate at a flea market. I thought it was so cute. I think my mom told me it was probably from the 70's. She said they were popular then and couples would get them engraved. I think I only paid a couple dollars for it. I got the box that the cake is on from a garage sale. They actually gave it to me for free. The wind had blown over a clothes rack they had and helped pick it up and I guess the box was my reward for being kind. I try to teach my students all the time that kindness pays off. I never thought to buy a cake cutter...I think my sister brought hers from her wedding...another unnecessary cost avoided.

This is the bride and groom table. It doesn't look very good in this picture; but this is the only one I could of it. The wind was crazy that day. Those milk jugs were found on the farm...I had been eyeing one that I saw in the old barn for a while and I finally had Joe go get it for me. I wouldn't get it myself because there were too many wasps buzzing around it. The table and chairs used to be my Grandma's before she passed away. I thought they worked perfectly for this. 

The rooster and chicken were found at a flea market. As a little girl I always went to flea and antique markets with my dad and I saw these chickens and roosters everywhere and I always wanted to collect them; not sure why but I did. When I saw them at a flea market right before the wedding I knew they would be the perfect decoration for our bride and groom table. The little bowl on the table is filled with mints that my Grandma and Grandpa Jones made for us. They were delicious. And the little bowl is from Joe's Aunt. She gives a piece from this collection to me at major holidays and she gave me this bowl at my wedding shower. The collection used to be Joe's Grandma's. I can't wait someday to have a bigger house so I can display all the pieces she has given me. 

Oh, I just found this one...it shows the bride and groom table a little better. 

We had snow cones at the wedding. The kids loved them and they were a perfect treat for a summer night.  

I bought these printable coloring books from the Etsy shop SquishyCuteDesigns. I think I only paid $5.00 for the PDF printable, but that was two years ago. Now it is $7.99; but I think that is still a great price for something as cute as these coloring books. You send them the information and they send you a PDF back with your information and then you print them off. I already had the ink from printing off the save the dates, so all I had to do was buy some card stock and printer paper. Not too costly for something so cute. 

We used mason jars as drink ware which of course you can see this idea all over Pinterest. I bought the mason jars from an estate sale. I got a great deal on them. The best part of using these jars is that I didn't just use them for the wedding...now I use them to can vegetables from my garden. The straws and the bags came from the Etsy shop DimeStoreBuddy. The tags were so people could write their names on their glass so they wouldn't get them mixed up with others. I don't know if anyone actually did this... but it seemed like a good idea. My husband made the "drink station." I saw something on Pinterest that led me to the girl. Inspired. blog that I thought was so cute and so he decided that he would put his own spin on it and made the above. I was wanting something a little cuter but Joe's version actually worked out better because now we use it in our outdoor entertaining area and it "fits" better than something girly and cute would. 

We borrowed this tent from our town. They use it for the town fair. This saved us a lot of money...tents are expensive. It is also what gave us the idea to have a county fair type wedding with hot dogs, popcorn, snow cones, and peanuts.

That's it...that's all the photos from the wedding. We planned this wedding in three months while teaching summer school, running physical education grant programs, and Joe coaching his off season basketball program. It was a lot of work; but it was worth it. I think it turned out perfectly!

I hope you enjoyed looking through the pictures of our wedding. 

Our DIY, Budget Friendly Wedding: Part 2

Part 2 of Wedding Pictures. I have to post these in installments because I am editing them myself and it is taking me a while to do that. In this post I have pictures of my bridesmaids, flower girls, and ring bearer. There is a link to a tutorial for the ring bearer box if you are interested. 

I hope that my pictures will inspire someone who is planning their wedding right now. There are so many ideas on Pinterest and sometimes you can get lost in all of those ideas. I think the key to a country wedding like mine is to just keep everything simple. Don't over think it. And don't get on Pinterest to find an idea for something because then you are going to find thirty ideas that you could use and that will just confuse you and stress you out! It might also result in you spending more money than you had originally planned. 

My bridesmaids. The one in the pink is my twin sister; she was eight months pregnant with my nephew at the time. I think she wishes Joe and I would have waited until after she had the baby to get married so she would be a little more comfortable :) Eight months pregnant in 90 degree weather...sorry sister! 

I picked out the fabric and a pattern for the dresses and each of the bridesmaids had someone make their dress for them. None of them complained about it so I assume they didn't mind having to find someone to make their dresses. This was a very cheap option, I think. None of them told me if they paid to get their dress made or they didn't tell me the price so that I could pay them back. I think they knew people who could sew. Either way, I think they turned out awesome. I loved how colorful they were and I loved the floral prints.

The Ring Bearer is one of Joe's groomsmen's son. I made the ring box for him to carry. When I was trying to figure out what I wanted the ring bearer to carry I pinned about a million things on Pinterest; but this is what ultimately caught my eye. I found the tutorial for it at Bliss Bridal Magazine. It was very easy to make.

These next pictures are my favorite. Sorry if I post too many; but they are just so darn cute!

My dad placed the flowers on the baskets for me since I was still getting my hair done and had not gotten around to doing the baskets. I left a lot of things up to other people because I tend to over analyze things and then nothing gets done. I told people my thought process and my basic idea of how I wanted things but I gave most of the control over to them. I am sure they did not like me doing this; but I sure loved it. It was almost as if a lot of my wedding day was a surprise and I really think that helped to make the day extra special. Also, the thought and knowledge of knowing that our loved ones helped us put this wedding together was an overwhelming feeling. So many people gave up their time, money, and resources to help make our wedding happen. That is a testament to both of our families, our friends, and our community. I really think that is what made our day so special...we wanted our wedding day to be full of love and not just for each other.

I will post the rest of the wedding pictures in a future post. Stay tuned!

Our DIY, Budget Friendly Wedding: Part 1

Wow! It has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to get these wedding photos posted. Joe and I asked a friend to take photos for our wedding and she offered to do it free of charge! Hard to pass that up. Our photographer gave us the CDs of our wedding photos unedited and I thought that one day I would get them edited and printed off; but I never have...much to the dismay of my mom who keeps asking me for a photo (it's only been a year and a half...get off my back Mom; just kidding). Thanks to picmonkey.com; I finally have some of my photos edited (I just learned about this program and I love it). I have spent my Valentine's night watching love stories on the Hallmark Channel and editing wedding photos...perfect! Joe is coaching a basketball game tonight. He gave me my Valentine's Day gift yesterday at school (my favorite things) and for our Valentine's date night we scouted a high school basketball game and then ate Subway.

Here is the first installment of wedding photos. A few things to note: Joe and I had our wedding in the middle of a drought. I had grown all the flowers for our wedding; but the drought killed them all so we ordered flowers from Sam's Club. They come in big bunches and you have to make your own bouquets but since that is what I was planning on doing anyways it didn't bother me that the bouquets were not professionally done. My mom and brother did the flowers and I think they did a great job! You will notice that a lot of the flowers look kind of droopy and that was because as I mentioned in an earlier post there is an amazing (as in powerful) breeze at our house. Even though our area was in a severe drought it actually rained (sprinkled) the morning of our wedding making it hard to decorate before I had to leave to get my hair done. If I could do my wedding over again I would have chosen a different hairdresser that was closer. I will not share my experiences with the hairdresser because it is the one bad spot in my day and I don't want to spoil this post with negativity.

This was at the entrance of our driveway showing our guests the way. 

More signs helping guests find their way.

I watered these every day to try and keep them alive in the drought. We had to do a lot of watering that summer and most of it was in vain since most things like my flower and vegetable garden ended up dying.

This was our memory table. Those are pictures of our family members that couldn't be with us on our special day. I wish I would have made a sign for it so people knew just exactly what it was. I painted an old desk that I found in Joe's parent's garage. It is not set up exactly how I wanted it and I wish there were some flowers on it for more color; but I wasn't there to set it up since I was getting my hair done. 

Guestbook station. I had some of my high schoolers be my guestbook attendants. My friends and I made a bunch of scrapbook pages for people to sign and write their advice to the bride and groom. The wedding guests stood in front of the quilts and got their picture taken. I later placed the pictures on the scrapbook page they had written on. I will post pictures of the scrapbook pages later. This was a cute way to do the guestbook; but I kind have wished I would have done a regular guestbook too because a lot of people did not want to get their picture taken and kind of just skipped over this section. I think if you have a younger crowd at your wedding this idea would work much better. 

Gift Table. I made the card box out of an old case I found at a flea market. I lined the inside of it with cardboard pieces that I had wrapped in burlap. Then I made the "cards" banners using some cute fabric I found. I used pinking shears on the fabric so it wouldn't fray.

This is what our guests first saw of the ceremony area. The tall green plants are supposed to be sunflowers; but because of the drought they didn't flower or get as tall as they should have by the day of the wedding. I think the first sunflower actually bloomed two days after our wedding. I watered those flowers everyday...Joe's family even helped water them. When our spring started to run dry Joe's brother and dad filled the water tank from the well at Joe's parent's house and drove it to our house to try and keep the flowers watered. Everyone tried really hard to try and have some color and vegetation at our wedding.

                            

The cutout of the carriage came off of the shutters on our old farmhouse. We fixed up the outside of our house so it would look nice for our wedding. That is what we spent most of our wedding money on...but it seemed like a practical thing to spend money on since we were planning to live in the house for a while. I will post pictures of the amazing farmhouse transformation at a later date. 

We borrowed the straw bales from a farmer in the community so that we didn't have to purchase them. The tree stumps down the aisle were also borrowed. I was lucky that Joe knows everyone in the community and knew who to ask for what. It was amazing how many people in the community were involved in our wedding and were willing to help out in various ways. 

  I will post the ceremony and reception pictures in another post. Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures! Let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions.