Beards, Hair & Invitations

The nights are drawing in, I'm wearing a jumper, the living room is full of boxes and I'm soooo excited, it can mean only one thing... Christmas!!! No, wait, talking about Christmas in September is early even by my standards, I haven't even had my birthday yet. It appears however, that preparing for an autumn wedding brings out similar emotions, as well as a similarly cluttered living room. There are just over 4 weeks to go before I'm a Mrs. and things suddenly feel like the are gathering momentum. 

Little dress up beards have been printed, stuck on card, cut out and put on sticks. 

Invitations have been printed, cut out, divided into piles and sent out. In fact all the RSVPs are also back. 

All flowers have been made, all the ball arrangements are completed. My mum and auntie have already put dibs on a ball each. 

 Our ring box has arrived. (We aren't doctors, those are just our initials silly!)

A wonderful hair and make-up trial with the lovely Fenella St John has been and gone (don't worry, hair and make-up isn't a surprise, Fubby was there with me as he was the one that drove me to Ipswich. It also meant that I was able to keep my pretty hair and make-up all day, even if it did mean I was a little overdressed for KFC). 

 

Frames for dress up photos have been painted (rather roughly, but it doesn't really matter). 

 LED candles arrived and are now all in jars ready to go! 

I'm starting to think about stationery for the actual day. Lots of things are ready on the computer, but I wanted to print out some rough place cards to make sure they sat in the bits of tree okay. They do! 

I also printed out some rough hot chocolate instructions for our favours so I could have a play and practice at punching holes and adding eyelets. The real ones will be happening this weekend.

So what's next? Lots, we have sweets arriving, we will be ordering pumpkins, I need to create table plans and make bookmarks, as well as lots of other things! I'll keep you posted! :)

Flowers, Bouquets, Posies & Buttonholes

Wedding preparations continue. I spent a week surrounded by growing snippets of organza, slowly spreading around the house like a carpet of confetti. It wasn't ideal, it sticks to everything, but the boxful of flower shapes at the end was worth it.

I've now put together a couple of posies and my bouquet. I'm not going to lie, I winged it completely. My bouquet is a little more mushroom shaped than anticipated, but I'm still really pleased. Originally, I had an idea in my head that the flowers might have some kind of organisation, but it turns out that thin copper wires have their own ideas, and will go where they wish, regardless to how much Blue Tac you use to try and hold them in place. Yup, that's right I said Blu Tac, it's crafter's gold I tell you, it's a bit of a bum to cover up, but it does the job! 

I've been experimenting with arrangements to hang from nails on posts. This is the first unfinished prototype, and I also have a hanging, half polystyrene ball prototype too. We plan to visit the venue in a few weeks time to help decide whether to go for bunches or balls. 

 

To hide the Blue Tac and Sellotape holding the flowers in place, I have sprayed a little gold paint (but it's nice to know that I'll have something blue with me on the day), and wrapped the bases in hessian (burlap). I've also wrapped ribbon around the wires, which is possibly the hardest thing I've ever had to do! Well maybe not ever, but it made me swear a fair bit. It moves all over the place, kudos to florists everywhere that have to wrap ribbon around things all the time.

 

I've made a start on buttonholes too. I've only completed the one above so far (it now, after some more swearing, also has ribbon wrapped around it), we are going to try it on Rob's suit, then if we are happy, I'll continue with the others.

I've also been making ribbons on forks. It's such a neat and easy idea, heaven knows what people did before the internet though! I can't remember which tutorial I used in the end, but there are loads. 

 

I had about twenty jars left to decorate with hessian or paper cut-outs, and when they were done I went through them all and finished a majority off with little bows. With just over eighty jars complete, I think I probably have enough! 

The next step will be yet another box of organza flower shapes, as I need to make sure I have enough for the eight post arrangements. I've actually stopped counting how many flowers I've made so far, but I guarantee that is now comfortably over a thousand. 

Woodland Animals & Vintage Suitcases

The loose colour scheme for our wedding is orange and brown (and any other autumnal colour I fancy throwing in), and the idea is that there will be some pumpkins lying around, so I thought it would be quite cute to have tiny, bright white woodland creatures dotted around to add a bit of contrast. Woodland creatures also feature on the invitations etc so they aren't completely random, it's all a bit rustic! So I bought a bunch of little plastic toys and spray painted them white (and a few gold). I think they look quite effective. Admittedly some do have 'made in china' on their sides, but that's just the classy kind of look I'm aiming for! 

And the award for the dullest blog image ever goes to... a reel of copper wire is frightfully dull, but it's also very important, it means I can get on with flower making! Hurrah! 

I've also been taking on those vintage suitcases I bought a while ago. Aside from the big rip, the paper inside looked a little like a troubled child's expressive scribble, not exactly cheery. So we raided Paperchase for some bright (and a little bit retro) paper (below). There was some measuring and rulers involved initially, but you can only do so much with bent and warped suitcases, in the end I just had to shove the paper in and try and make it fit. It isn't my neatest work ever, but it will do the job. Both cases look much happier now. I know some people are a bit over suitcases at weddings, but they are so useful, and I think they look neater than a box wrapped in paper with a slot cut out, and more individual than actual little postboxes.

So now it is back to petal making. I have a jar full of cut squares ready for folding, and another jar slowly filling up with folded petals that will then need to be glued... and then the process will undoubtedly start again. Fingers crossed I have enough by October! 

Rose Heads & Pretty Jars

I've been taking a little break from making flowers over the last week and a half, but there have been other wedding related things going on. Our hessian rose heads arrived from Accents and Petals, they are so effective, I just need to work out how to get them on a stem! 

I have also worked my way through our collection of jars, rewashing and trying to make sure all the glue has been removed, with a little help from my friend bicarbonate of soda. Then I had to cut paper inserts, cutting leaf shapes out for the light to pass through. Oh don't worry, they won't catch fire, we are using LED candles. Fingers suffered a fair bit, all sores and blisters, as each jar took about and hour to cut, ouch! The jars will also need to be finished with a ribbon.