~8~ Wedding Recap: Ceremony Decorations

My dear blog world, I promise that I have not forgotten you, even though it's been over a week since my last post.  I do however, have a lot to update on, as I have been very busy enjoying my new craft table and room.  But before I get to that, I have another wedding recap post as promised in my last post.  The focus of this one is ceremony decorations.

Jake and I got married in my grandmother's church, Gethsemane Lutheran Church,  which has a long family history.  My grandma has been an active member for over 60 years, having raised my mom and her siblings in this church.  My mom, aunts, and uncle were all married at Gethsemane, and it was important to me to carry on that tradition.  I also know that this meant the world to my grandma, and would have made my grandpa beam with pride.

Gethsemane has a large, beautiful sanctuary with stained glass windows throughout, so there was not much decorating needed at all.  After much thought, I decided that the only thing I wanted to add to the already gorgeous space were pew decorations and memorial candles on the altar.

I found the inspiration for my pew decorations at THIS website, but made a few modifications to the directions to make it a little easier and more cost effective.  Materials I used were:
*12 styrofoam cones-Dollar Tree
*Royal blue fabric-JoAnns in the remnants section (a great place to find discount fabric when you don't need a lot of it)
*Pearlized push pins (38mm)-JoAnns
*Hot Glue Gun/sticks
*5/8" Satin Ribbon in silver
*Silk hydrangea stems, 7 of each in blue and white-JoAnns (Tip, I bought these either when they were on sale BOGO, or 1 at a time using a 40% coupon, as they run about $6-$7 a stem.)
Total Cost: $75

To assemble, I hot glued the fabric around the cone and to the top of the cone.  The left over fabric at the bottom, I twisted and wrapped to the back and pinned it in place.  For the ribbon, I found the middle of a long piece and pinned it about 1/2" from the top on the seam of the fabric. I brought it around to the front and overlapped the ribbon once (step 1) and then twice so that it had a twisted look (step 2).  I used a pearl pin the in the middle of the twist to hold it in place (step 3) and pulled the ends around the back and pinned them again so that they wouldn't move, and then brought the ends back around the front and repeated the first 3 steps, making sure that the twists lined up correctly (step 4).  I made 3 twists down the front of each cone.  

The next step was to add the flowers.  I kept the blue ones intact, but separated the white ones into small pods and stuck those into the styrofoam on the front edge along the top of the cone.  Then, I stuck the blue flower stem (the whole thing) into the back of the cone and pushed it down far enough so that it sat right on top of the white ones.  Finally, I added a ribbon tied to floral wire and hot glued it into the back.  To hang my pew decorations, I hung them around the pole to the candelabras that were inserted into the end of the pew.

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As for my memorial candle project, they were turned out to be so much easier than I thought they would be.  I found the directions in a book I had bought just after we got engaged. It's called The DIY Bride: Crafty Countdown by Khris Cochran.  While I wasn't able to use anything else in the book, the tutorial for these candles made the book totally worth it.  Have you seen the price of customized memorial candles?!?
Materials used:
*Vellum-I bought a pack of it from CardsandPockets when I ordered my invitation supplies
*Embossing Tool
*Pillar candles-Ikea
*wax paper
*Candle template in word. (contact me if you would like it, I am happy to share)
Total Cost: $15

Once the vellum is printed and dried, cut down document to fit on the candle.   Lay candle on wax paper.  Use the embossing tool to heat the surface of the candle.  Once it starts getting shiny, gentle roll the vellum onto the candle, which will fuse with the melted wax as it dries.  Do this all around the candle.  

You can also add ribbon and other embellishments to your candle for a little something extra.  I made 4 memorial candles for my paternal grandma, maternal grandpa, cousin, and Jake's best friend.  On the back of each candle was a popular quote: "Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us, to let us know they are celebrating with us in spirit"  (I have also seen an ending that says, "to let us know they are happy").  One of the neatest compliments I got on my wedding projects was from my photographer who loved these candles.  He said that he's seen lots of memorial candles before, but he has never seen ones with pictures on them, and marveled at just how personalized they were.  

Well folks, this is the last post in my wedding recap series.  I also took on other small projects, such as personalized bubbles, a monogramed aisle runner, and escort (place) cards, programs, but do not feel need to chronicle them on this blog, since I really want to spend more time focusing on current projects instead of past ones.  I will however leave with you a final picture collage of those wedding extras I did. 

Until next time, 

~7~ Wedding Recap: Centerpieces

I'm going to start this post by saying that I LOVE fresh flowers.  I love the look and smell of them!  What I do not love is the price tag attached to them.  Honestly, if I could afford justify the cost, I would buy fresh cut flowers weekly to have displayed on my kitchen island. Alas, I am not made of money-and when it came to my wedding I felt the same way.  I would have loved to have all fresh flowers-but I couldn't fathom spending hundreds to thousands of dollars on something that would get thrown away at the end of the day.  To save a bit of money, I decided to use fresh flowers for all bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages-but use fake or silk flowers for everything else.

There were 2 different centerpieces that I particularly liked and knew would be relatively easy to replicate.  The first was submerged flowers in 3 tiered vases with a floating candle on top.  The second was a floral pomander atop a tall vase with uplighting, crystal beading 'dripping' down, and and river rock in the bottom.

My Inspiration Pictures:

                                   

My favorite flower in the whole world is an orchid.  Lucky for me, orchids replicate very well in silks and really do look like the real deal.  I used both white and fushia silk orchids and took the buds off of the stems.  I bought my floating candles at IKEA and 7.5" vases from the dollar tree.  The 6" and 10" vases were rented from my florist.  It turned out to be a very pretty and inexpensive centerpiece.

For my pomanders, I found a tutorial at "The DIY Bride" blog on how to make tissue paper pomanders.  It was very easy to do, but also very time consuming.  Supplies included royal blue tissue paper (found at Target), floral wire, and 6" styrofoam balls.  To make the task of putting together hundreds of floral "buds" less cumbersome, I created my own personal assembly line.  Stage 1: cut and accordion fold a dozen or so 3"x4" rectangles (each rectangle consisted of 5 sheets of tissue paper).  Step 2: Fold in half and insert between a piece of floral wire that is also folded in half.  The fold on the tissue paper should line up with the fold of the floral wire.  Twist the ends of the floral wire around the bottom of the tissue paper to hold it in place.  Step 3: pull apart each layer tissue paper and form into a flower. REPEAT.  This made the process go a lot faster.   I did not put the flowers into the styrofoam ball until just a couple days before the wedding so that the transfer from IA to MN would be a lot easier.  (Could you imagine transferring 6 large pomanders in a car already packed full of wedding supplies and a wedding dress?!?)

As for the crystal drip hanging from each pomander-I bought the beads from Michaels and strung them about 20" long on bead wire, which I attached to floral wire and hot glued into the bottom of the pomander.  See video below for more detailed and step-by-step instructions.

At the bottom of the vase were royal blue glass stones.  The 30" pilsner vase and flameless lights were rented from my florist. 

Imagen International Photography

I really can't even begin to describe just how breath-taking our reception hall looked when we saw it for the first time!  I have to give huge props to my florist, Deven Nelson.  She is the sole reason that our room looked as beautiful as it did.  Her hard work and understanding of my vision is what made my centerpieces glow.  I received so many compliments that night for how amazing everything looked - and that made all of the late night crafting sessions, trial/error frustrations, and tired/sore hands completely worth it!

Next up: Ceremony decorations (yes, I realize I'm going backwards).

Until then,