- Hotel Gift Bags -

Today, we filled the hotel gift bags with all of our favorite things! [We'll be dropping them off at the hotels on Thursday so anyone with early check-in will still have a chance to get their goodies.]

Check out these posts to see how the bags came together:

• Chocolate-covered pretzels
• Candied pecans
• Chocolate spoons
• Schlafly beers
• Door hangs

My very favorite part of the gift bags: "her favorite" and "his favorite."

Thanks, Margy, for your help! Thanks, friends, for booking hotel rooms so this project could keep us so busy! ;) 

- {DIY} Glitter Gourds - Part II -

...And they're finished! [CLICK HERE to see how they started.]

- P's and G's -

I love the way our parents' and grandparents' wedding picture frames turned out! I made little display cards today with their names, anniversary dates, and churches.

The frames will be displayed on a fireplace mantle at the reception [and hopefully in some sort of creative collage in our house afterwards]. So excited! 

[Even more than the frames, I love how my mom and aunt are so diligently working on wedding wands in the background!]

- {DIY} Wine Glasses -

[Can't tell who all these are for without spoiling the surprise, but] I love these flower glasses!  Dad painted them Friday night...

...and I personalized them!

So excited to wrap them and give them away! 

- {DIY} Door Hangs -

One more thing to stuff in your hotel gift bags! 

[I think we'll be hanging an extra large one of these on the honeymoon suite doorknob!]

- {DIY} Programs -

Letting a stranger create the wedding programs = absolutely unfathomable to a Type A bride.

So what was the solution? 

...DIY, of course! ;) 

After these were perfected and printed, we rallied up some family members to help assemble the pages and tie the ribbons on the outside. (Definitely glad to delegate out this part of the work!)

Thanks to George Press for printing. Thanks to Pat and Larry for spending their Friday night stuffing!

- {DIY} Bathroom Basket -

"To our favorite ladies: Whether your skin feels dry or your hair out of place, you're not feeling so fresh or whatever the case; we've put together a basket to help you along. ...Now hurry back out before you miss the next song!"

The women's bathroom is all stocked up for you, ladies! 

- {DIY} Chocolate Spoons -

More goodies are finished for the hotel gift bags! Mom dipped the spoons and I decorated them...

Quote of the night: "Do you think people know how to use a chocolate spoon or should we include instructions?!"

But seriously, do they? :/

- {DIY} Chocolate Pretzels -

In the middle of the Cardinal cheering and the pecan packing, we decorated our white chocolate-covered pretzels! 

These hotel gift bags are gonna be rockin' with all of our favorite things! 

- {DIY} Candied Pecans -

Everyone knows women are stellar multi-taskers, and Resa and I were no exception tonight! We used half of our energy to cheer on our St. Louis Cardinals and the other half to bag candied pecans for our hotel guests.

Before the bagging started, we stamped a special message on each card...

[I wish I could take credit for baking the pecans, but that was ALL my sweet momma earlier this week!]

Cardinals clinch the series: 1 day!

I marry my best friend: 20 days!!!  

- {DIY} Boutineers -

Groom, groomsmen, mothers of bride/groom, fathers of bride/groom, grandparents, musicians, lectors, program attendants, and wedding hosts: you officially have finished boutineers!

We [and by we, I actually mean my dad] used today to wrap flowers and put final touches on everyone's boutineers/corsages/wrist bands.

They are gorgeous! I love the purple feathers on the groomsmen's boutineers.

Thank you in advance to whoever gets stuck pinning all of these on wedding day! [Hopefully you won't LITERALLY be getting stuck! ;)]

- {DIY} Party Favors -

The past few weeks have been busy busy busy with finishing up our DIY-projects; one project we wrapped up was the party favors. Each plate at the reception will get a silver-tied baggie of these chocolate nuggets!

Brian and I spent [you don't even want to know how many] hours working on the favors one night, and only 75 were finished when we were ready to throw in the towel.  Tons of thanks to my grandparents, aunt, and cousins for creating an awesome assembly line  this week to finish off the rest!

[Squeeze in for a picture!  I promise they weren't forced to work this closely all day!]

- {DIY} Wedding Wands -

Wedding wands are almost finished! Thanks to my sweet aunts and grandma for helping in the assembly line this week. 

The wands will be taking the place of bubbles, rice, and rose petals [or anything else you were hoping to throw at us!]. Get ready to wave them loud and proud!  

[One month to go!]

- {DIY} Thank You Cards -

Welcome to our card shop! My mom and I love to stamp and cut and tape and be creative, so we thought we'd get ahead of the game with a little card-making this weekend. [Thanks, Mom, for letting me dip into your stamp collection!]

Bridal shower thank yous, bachelorette party thank yous, musician thank yous, and wedding gift thank yous are ready to "THANK YOU!"

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! 

- {DIY} Flowers -

My parents' house is spewing flowers, flowers, and even more flowers... Let me just say one thing: planning a wedding gets a LOT more interesting when the father of the bride is also the FLORIST!!!

The week after Brian put a ring on it [literally...a week...or maybe it was only like 5 or 6 days], we were raiding every Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Jeffrey Alans, and Old Time Pottery within a 65-mile radius of our house. 

...Annnnd we basically bought out the purple section in every Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Jeffrey Alans, and Old Time Pottery in that 65-mile radius.

"What do you think of these?!"  ...It's fine Dad, it's fine...

He's one of a kind...

Good thing there were no other shoppers!

By the end of our twenty-something-th trip, I was over the wedding flower business and onto the BABY business! ;) ;) Joking, of course. [Luckily, the FOB was too engrossed in flower picking to notice this pose!]

So proud of his purchases!

Cheers to the winter/spring/summer/every season/never-ending flower project in our basement! Goodbye, Dad... See ya in November!

- Love Story -

I stole this idea from Pinterest, and it was the perfect project for a rainy day. Love it! 

~ Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite. ~

- {DIY} Invitations - Part I -

After lots and lots and LOTS of intricate measuring and Photoshop editing and last-minute tweaking [and maybe a little bit of rational arguing]...

...our invitations are off to George Press for printing! Phew!

Brian and my dad were AWESOME at transforming my [really picky] visions to words to sketches to computer files!  Making the invitations ourselves was one of the things we were most excited about in the wedding planning, but it also definitely proved to be the most work.  

[Like literally mind-exhausting work. And Brian earned his sainthood!]

We are so ready to get these back from GP so they can be cut and taped and stuffed and addressed and MAILED! :)

[77 days and counting!]

- {DIY} Rose Balls -

Total bummer: our church doesn't allow flower girls to toss rose petals down in the aisle.

[What?!]

That's ok; we decided they will carry white rose balls instead!

Classy but fun, these balls are easily becoming the new hot wedding trend. We had an entertaining few hours tonight sticking and hot-gluing rose stems into a styrofoam ball -- another super easy DIY project! 

This groom is getting craftier by the day!

They turned out really cute [and will be even cuter as an accessory to our sweet flower girls]! :)

- {DIY} Table Numbers -

15 minutes with the MacBook...

...25 minutes with the paper cutter...

...35 minutes with the double-stick tape...

...and the table numbers are finished! 

[Here's to hoping that we get enough RSVP's to fill the tables! ;)]

- {DIY} Card Box -

Our DIY reception card box is painted, glued, nailed, and ready to rock-and-roll!   

To make this box, I ordered four 8x10 engagement pictures from Schiller's in St. Louis (this lab is WONDERFUL!) and bought four black picture frames from Hobby Lobby (they are 50% off every other week). 

Mesh those materials together with one super creative Dad who can OWN a wood shop (unfortunately, this guy isn't up for purchase), and the card box is set to go! 

One more project checked off the list! Yeah!