Real Life Wedding Inspirations

As I mentioned in my other blog, we went Mr. Bean’s cousin’s wedding this last weekend. I want to share some photos from their wedding in hopes to inspire brides to be!

Note: Above is the “In Loving Memory Of” table complete with photos.

The Groom’s father made all the wine – isn’t that neat?

The cake was made by the Bride’s grandmother. Yes, those are fondant Calla Lilies. I can only aspire to be that great of a cake decorator.

My Rings

Since the lilies that Mr. Bean gave me for our seven-month-a-versary were finally in bloom, I thought I would try and take some fancy ring shots. Here’s my favourite:

Apparently my rings really don’t like being in focus – they’re camera shy!

Have you tried to take photos of your ring? Let’s see them!

The New (and I guess improved) Recaps Tab!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve added a “Recaps” tab to my blog:

They’re all listed in chronological order so you don’t have to waste time trying to find them!

What to do?

With the masses of cards you receive from all your showers, parties and wedding guests?

Why is there always such a battle between sentimental things and clutter?

What would you do?

Inspiration Board

I realized the other day that I have never made an inspiration board, so almost 7 months later I now present my actual wedding as an inspiration board. Maybe it will help inspire someone!

Have you ever made an inspiration board? Show me please! For those of you who are married, let’s see your wedding’s board.

Recaps: Throwing Stuff

I must apologize, as I lied.  I’m not quite done my recaps as I remembered that we did do a garter and bouquet toss. Apparently, they were that memorable. (Hey, in my defense, our photographer had let by this time.) Some people might find tossing stuff awkward, but I think they’re terribly entertaining because you’re throwing things at people.

Here I am, gearing up for the bouquet toss…

…and heave!

I don’t think it’s possible to look at these pictures and not say I’m a spaz. (But look how pretty my dress is!)

(photo taken by someone holding my sister’s camera)

It looks like some people were quite keen to get it!

And then it was time for the garter toss…

(photo taken by Heather)

I honestly don’t remember who caught the garter. I was just impressed that Mr. Bean got the garter off with his teeth!

What are your thoughts on bouquet and garter tosses? Would/Did you have one?

These photos are taken by my Dad’s cousin’s husband unless otherwise noted.

Simple DIY Ceremony Programs

You can see my tutorial for making my invitations here.

DIY Ceremony Programs

What you need for one program:

1 piece of cardstock
1 piece nice computer paper, printed double sided with program information, with 1/2″ cut off each side.
approximately 1 1/2 – 2 ft. of ribbon

1. Fold cardstock in half. (I used a straight edge and the back side of a butter knife to create a crease so it folded nicely.) Stamp whatever you want on the front – I used a penguin.

2. Fold program paper in half.

3. Centre program paper on cardstock and hole punch approximately 1″ from the edge in the crease of both papers.

4. Pull ribbon through the middle and tie a bow on the outside. (What I found worked best was to sit on the floor holding the program between your knees and then tying the ribbon.)

This is what I wrote on the program itself incase you are interested:

Page 1:

“The Marriage Ceremony
Uniting
Miss Bean
and Mr. Bean

<Our Wedding Date>

<Our church>
Calgary, AB

Page 2 (Next to the title, I lined up the person’s name):

Who’s who in the Zoo:

Parents of the Bride
Parents of the Groom
Grandparents of the Bride
Grandfather of the Groom

Maid of Honour
Best Man
Bridesmaid
Bridesmatron
Groomsmen

Officiant

Greeters

Ushers

Musicians

“Today we honor those who could not be with us, especially the bride’s grandparents: Grannie and Danda Bean and the Groom’s Grandparents: Grannie, Grandma and Grandpa Bean in law.

Page 3: (Note: this is a standard order of service at an Anglican church. In the appropriate place I listed names and page numbers.)

Order of Service

Processional
Gathering of the Community
Proclaimation of the Word
Lesson: Ecclesiasted 4: 9-12
Psalm: Psalm 121
Gospel: Matthew 7:21, 24-29
Message:
The Wedding
Prayers of the People
The Lord’s Prayer
The Blessing of the Marriage
The Peace
Signing of the Register
Presentation of the Couple
Recessional

Page 4:

We cannot express our gratitude enough. We are so thankful for all of the support, encouragement and prayers each one of you has given us. Your presence on one of the happiest days of our lives is a blessing!

Mr. and Mrs. Bean

Be Thous my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, They presence my light

- Be Thou My Vision, Old Irish Hymnal

There you have it! How did you make your ceremony programs? What were your inspirations?

Simple DIY Invitations

As I showed you yesterday, here are our invitations – complete with instructions on how to make them! If it doesn’t make any sense, let me know and I will do my best to clarify!

To make two invitations, you will need:

• 1 sheet of black paper
• 1 sheet of red paper
• invitation wording printed on paper like this (try to use a laser printer – it turns out that much nicer):
• double sided tape or another mechanism of adhesion. (Do NOT use glue. It’s too messy. I learned the hard way!)

1. Cut the black piece of paper in half width-wise. (I used a paper cutter, but I guess an exacto knife and a ruler would work just as well.)
2. Cut 1/2″ of length and width of red paper (so it is 8″ x 10.5″) and cut it in half width-wise.
3. Cut 1″ margins off of invitation paper and cut it in half width-wise. (I suggest printing light grey lines as guidelines, unless you’re a champion.)
4. Adhere red paper onto black and invitation paper onto red. Make sure they are centred – pencil marks help with that process – so that there is 1/4″ exposed of both the red and black papers.
5. You’re done! Repeat for how many invitations you need.

Note: you can use whatever colours of paper your heart desires – the simple design makes it really attractive! (at least in my opinion.)

If you cannot read the text, here’s what it says:

Mama and Papa Bean
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter,
Bean with Mr. Bean
<Our Wedding Date>
Two Thousand and Eight
at One Forty One in the afternoon*
<Name and Location of Church>

Reception to follow at Five Thirty
<Name and Location of Reception Venue>

If I could have changed anything, I would have put MIL and FIL Bean’s names on them. But I was being too sticky to etiquette as my parents were footing a large part of our wedding bill.

RSVP cards are similar – you print 4 cards on 1 piece of printer paper and cut so that they are 5″ x 3.75″. Then adhere the printed RSVP onto the 5.5″ x 4.25″ black piece of paper.

Again, if you cannot read the text, here is what it says:

A favour of a reply is requested by <Date to RSVP by>
M_______________________________(names)
__ of __ guest(s) will attend

One can also RSVP at <our wedding website>
The password is “password”

Please contact us with any special allergies or special needs.

I would suggest not putting the “M” because it confuses people.

The out of town map package was pretty easy to make. It consisted of three 3.75″ x 5″ pieces of paper with a map, accommodation information and information of activities to do in the area layered on a 4.25″ x 5.5″ piece of paper tied with a ribbon. If you want to make the sheets more secure, I suggest using two holes and a bow or another fastening method.

Did you make your own invitations? How did you do it?

Next up, making ceremony programs, place cards and reception schedules.

*Does anyone know why we picked this time?

DIY: Our invitations

Yes, we made our own invitations. Perhaps it was a bit silly and I really wish that I had thought about double sided tape earlier. Oh well, you live and learn. The thing I liked about our invitations is the simplicity and the fact that most of the cuts were either 1/2 a page or a 1/4 of a piece of 8.5″ x 11″ paper.

Here is a run down on what we stuffed into our invitations:

• Invitation (5.5″ x 8.5″- half a sheet of paper)
• RSVP card in envelope with return address and stamp (5.5″ x 4.25″ – quarter of a sheet of paper)
• Map (as shown here)
• Out of Town information (a map, accomodation information and suggested activities)
• Registry card (I know some people think it’s tacky, but there would have been lots of confusion and angst if we hadn’t.)

I printed the addresses directly on all the envelopes, using the wonderful program called “Mail Merge” in Word. You should try it!

Coming up, a run down on how to make the invitations!

Recaps: Penguins

I admit it, I love penguins. My first stuffed animal was a penguin (named Applesauce because my sister read the label saying “applause” incorrectly.) I squee at the sight of penguins – it doesn’t matter what kind. I thought that March of the Penguins was really depressing because the narrator was always saying: “And then this happened and more penguins died.”

Well, I think that paints the picture for you. So how did we incorporate penguins into our wedding? First of all, our colours were black, white and red. You’ve already seen the penguin cake topper, but because I like it so much, I’ll show it to you again.

Next up are our ceremony programs. Instead of creating a nice stamp with our names or something on, it I decided to use a special kind of stamp:

And last, but not least, were our table numbers. All the pictures were taken at my parent’s cabin, but some in March and others in July. One of our friends gave us this board and we hung it up in our closet to show wedding paraphernalia, such as our remaining table numbers.

On the backs of the table numbers were just a plain number, tying in the theme of the rest of our stationary.

What mini theme did you/do you want to incorporate in your wedding?

Well, I think that’s pretty much it for my recaps. I might post a few more general ideas for things and recap the weddings I’m going to this summer (but, that’s a ways away.) What would you be interesting in reading about? Ideas and inspirations? Our Stationary? Our honeymoon? Pictures and ideas from previous weddings I’ve been to?

First photo taken by Kathleen Goertzen of Precious Portrait. The rest of the are taken by me and my terrible photography skills.