DIY Card Basket and Preventing Wedding Gift Theft

Of all the things to stress about when it comes to wedding planning, some things are plain silly. For example, I stressed over what to have guests put their cards in at the reception. Many girls have made these gorgeous, elaborate card boxes out of stacked paper mache boxes. They look nice, but I really did not see them fitting in with my classic, nautical reception. On top of that, the budget savvy part of my brain could not justify spending $30 in supplies for a piece of decor that no one will remember. To go along with that, what would I do with a card box after the wedding? Throw it away? Attempt to sell it? Store it in a closet? I talked to Tom about a card box as well, he agrees with me completely. Again, nothing against the ladies that decided to make card boxes, they just aren't for us.

So if I'm not going to have a card box, what do guests put their cards in? A bird cage? That looks cool, but again, doesn't really fit in with our theme, and what would I do with it after the wedding? Then I visited our reception venue, and the event coordinator gave me a good idea: a basket! This got me thinking, I could get a fishing basket! That would fit perfectly within our nautical theme, and, even better, I could definitely use a basket after the wedding. Problem solved!

The next step was finding the perfect basket. I visited a couple antique shops and found gorgeous antique fishing baskets for $50+, not exactly what I was planning to spend on a basket. I visited several craft stores and found some nice baskets, but nothing that was distinctively nautical. Then I went to the Christmas Tree Shop and found the perfect nautical style basket.

All that was left was decorating the basket to match our wedding colors. I started by wrapping some left over ribbon around the basket, then I added a sign that I made on Microsoft Paint that simply says "Cards" followed by our names and the wedding date, and finally I added a left over shell for an added detail. I attached everything with minimal amounts of hot glue so that it could be easily dismantled after the wedding.

Now back to the why I was so stressed about the card situation to begin with. Wedding gift theft is a rising problem at reception venues across the country. I'm not accusing any of my guests of having sticky fingers, but problems happen when receptions are held in locations that are easily accessible by the public. My reception is being held at a hotel, and while we have our own entrance, it is easily accessible from the main lobby. In fact, any hotel guests that want to use the hotel pool will be walking past the door to my reception. I'm not trying to be paranoid, but common sense warns against leaving cards that commonly contain money out in the open for anyone to grab. For this reason, many wedding sites recommend a card box or some other sort of locking container. My coordinator suggested a basket because it would be placed at the guestbook table at the beginning of the reception when guests are arriving. This way, guests can simply drop their card off in the basket. Once all the guests have arrived, my coordinator will personally place the basket in a secure space, preferably in our honeymoon suite. The gift table will be on the opposite side of the ballroom from the door. This is just another security measure, as would-be wedding crashers would have to walk clear across my reception to get anything. I'm hoping that this is all silly and that I'm worrying about nothing, but at the very least, it's one less thing to have to worry  about on our big day!

10 months to go!!!

10 months to go! This is going to be the first of a series of posts that will count down the last 10 months of wedding planning. My goal is to summarize all my progress of the previous month while at the same time setting goals for the next month. In the end I will have a countdown to the wedding.

This month was spent visiting with vendors, signing contracts, and window shopping for future projects. The biggest accomplishment was depositing the reception venue. Tom and I also visited a potential baker and designed our wedding cake. Other accomplishments include booking our photographer, choosing our men's attire, and setting up hotel blocks. In regards to DIY stuff, I designed our invitation mock-up and put together all of the save-the-date cards.

Goals for the next month include putting the deposit on my wedding gown, picking out the bridesmaid's dresses, creating a wedding party newsletter, having our professional engagement pictures done, and depositing the florist. I would also like to finish up the pinwheels, make the ribbon wands, and decorate the wedding bubbles. The wedding is really starting to come together, and I am getting more and more excited by the day. If the last two months are any indication, the next ten are going to fly!

Staying Organized While Planning a Wedding

As many of you may recall, last month I posted about my wedding planning website to help my wedding party keep track of various ideas that I have and the vendors that I have booked. Now it's time to discuss what I do at home to keep the bride (me!) organized.

Wedding planning can be a hectic time, and there is nothing more stressful than needing a phone number or a copy of a vendor contract and not having it readily available. Or, for that matter, trying to explain the exact shade of your wedding colors. For all these little things, I created a wedding binder.

It is possible to purchase a pre-made wedding organizer for $40 or so at most bookstores, I personally found this to be a waste of money. Yes, the pre-made wedding organizers offer plenty of helpful tips, but these tips can also be found online for free through various websites such as The Knot, Get Married, and various other sites. I have an account with The Knot and it has a customizable checklist that I can access from my phone, a guest list manager that is connected to my guest website, a budgeter, and a seating arrangement designer; and those are the toys I have found so far! I digress, as I was saying, yes wedding organizers have helpful tips, but these tips are readily available elsewhere. Another thing I did not like about the pre-made organizers is that they are not customizable to your specific needs. Every wedding is different, so why pay for something else that has sections you will not use and is missing sections you need?

I created my binder this past summer. I took advantage of the Back-to-School sales and made the whole thing for just under $10. Although, I admit that I am quickly outgrowing this binder and will likely be replacing it in the next couple of months.

My shopping list:

• Binder (look for a 3", 1 1/2" is too small)
• Pencil Case designed to go in a binder
• Set of Dividers (I'll be buying a second set shortly)
• Clear Page Protectors
• Notebook Paper
• Pen
• Post-It Notes
• Pocket Planner/Calendar
• Small Calculator

I'm not going to give step-by-step instructions on assembling a binder, it's really quite self-explanatory. I use my pencil case to house my pen, pocket planner, post-it notes, calculator, paint chips in my wedding colors, and business cards for all my vendors. The front pocket of my binder contains coupons and post cards from local bridal shows, the back pocket contains honeymoon information. My dividers are currently labeled: Attire, Ceremony, Reception, Flowers, Catering, Music, Photography, and Stationary. I keep copies of every contract, as well as receipts from all payments. I also keep brochures for vendors that I haven't booked yet and any other paper that has anything to do with the above categories; such as pictures of everyone's attire and a copy of our wedding ceremony. My stationary section contains mock-ups of my programs, invitations, and save-the-date cards, as well as some free samples that I ordered from an invitation catalog. I also have notebook paper in each section to jot down notes when I talk with a vendor, or to write down shopping lists, etc. When I upgrade to a larger binder, I am also planning to purchase another set of dividers so that I can have a section for the honeymoon, guest accommodations (room blocks), the guest list, the budget, and wedding party contact info. Like I mentioned before, the joy of making your own organizer is that you can continually improve it to better fit your needs. 

Whenever I meet with a vendor, my binder comes with me. I like having the ability to show versus tell. For example, rather than describing the shade of purple or green I am looking for, I simply show the paint chips. I can also show the florist what my cake looks like, give my reception coordinator the phone number to my DJ, etc. As far as wedding planning goes, my binder is my brain. 

I also have a digital planning binder on my computer. In my documents folder, I created a folder called "wedding planning" where I keep all the templates for stationary that I've made, inspiration pictures, and anything else that I find and want to save. I also set up a wedding folder in my e-mail where I save every message that I have received from my vendors. 

Finally, I have all of my DIY projects packed away in a plastic bin that is stored in a back bedroom to protect them until my wedding. I fully intend on taking a picture of my wedding pile, but I want to wait until it gets really out of control first. Or maybe I'll start doing monthly pictures so I can watch it grow over the next 10 months... we'll see. 

We Found a Baker! (We Think)

Source

Tom and I met with a baker yesterday and we had an absolute ball. Tom and I have been spending our evenings looking at pictures of wedding cakes online as of late, and the baker was more than excited to see our leading contenders. Our primary inspiration was the cake that I have pictured to the left. We absolutely LOVE the star fish, the simplicity, the clean lines, and the "seaweed" piping on the sides. My only change was that I wanted sugar shells in place of real ones. The baker was completely willing to work with us on this, and even had some fondant shells on hand to show us. We want the cake to be frosted in ivory butter cream, so she suggested decorating the shells with pearl powder to make them stand out against the cake.

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The next step was figuring out how many layers of cake we would need to feed all of our guests. The baker was attempting to do the math in her head, but then opted to pull out the actual cake pans so that we could get a visual. Tom and I were originally set on having a square cake because we really liked the clean lines. While the baker was digging out her square pans, she pulled out a set of hexagons. Tom immediately commented, "Those are different." We eventually asked the baker to stack the hexagon pans just to get an idea of how they would look. Hexagons stack like a traditional round wedding cake, but have the clean lines of a square. We loved it! So we changed our idea a bit, The baker was right along with it. We want to have our tiers stacked off center like the picture to the right.

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The picture to the left is another one of our inspirations, we loved the rope border between tiers, and the baker is going to add that detail to our cake. 

It turns out, to feed 150 people, we would need a 4 tier cake (awesome) but even then, that would only feed 136 people. The baker suggested a simple sheet cake for the remaining 14 people, I asked if she could decorate it and we could have a groom's cake. She was right on board with that idea. So, we are having two cakes! The only thing left to do was to pick the flavors. Tom and I are both a fan of lemon cake, so we really did not have to take much time to pick. We also decided to use butter cream frosting instead of fondant, which the baker also recommended because it would further emphasize the clean lines of our hexagons. The wedding cake will be lemon cake with an almond butter cream, and the groom's cake will be lemon cake with a chocolate fudge butter cream.

All that is left to do now is tastings and a deposit. Another check! We now have the showpiece for our reception! 

Inspiration Board- Pulling together the Reception

Back in September, when I was first starting to plan the wedding, I put together an inspiration board for the wedding reception. I was still in the early phases of planning, I was still thinking that I was only going to have about 60 people at the wedding. I also had this bright idea that I would make cheesecake in place of a traditional wedding cake. It's amazing how things can change once you have a realistic perspective on things. Since we booked the reception venue, I have been really looking into and planning the reception decor, and it's finally starting to come together. So, without further ado, here is our Nautical/Classic Elegance inspired wedding reception.



Seriously, I'm in love. The cake is our leading contender for wedding cake inspiration, only we want to use chocolate starfish in place of real ones. The "Mr and Mrs." shells were made by yours truly back when I made the table numbers. The frosted glass votive candles are going to be our favors, I found a great deal online for them (more on that later). We are going to have two centerpieces; half of the tables will have wooden sailboats, the other half will have fishbowls filled with green seaglass and a pillar candle. Oh, and my favorite part, bubbles during the first dance. How fun is that? And I already got the okay from the reception venue.

DIY Save-the-Date cards... done!

I am happy to announce that the first round of wedding stationary is complete. I made 50 cards to hold my save-the-date magnets. They are only slightly different from my original design. The front is exactly the same, in place of the little poem on the inside, I provided guests with hotel and rental car information. I decided to give this information to guests in written form just in case some one is not able to look at the wedding website. It also gives me a chance to emphasize the fact that only a limited number of hotel rooms are available due to the popularity of our wedding date.

I used three different shades of purple cardstock for my cards. My original intention was to purchase identical shades of cardstock, only when I went to the craft store, I discovered that the cardstock that was sold by sheet was almost a dollar a piece. It was also different on the front and back. My mom found a package of varying shades of purple cardstock for $2.50. All the purples coordinate, and I still have quite a bit of cardstock left over. Besides, I have a variety of purples in the wedding, so I'm quite happy with my choice. I also think they look really nice all grouped together.

The biggest challenge I had was figuring out how to attach the magnets to the cards. I wanted to attach the magnet so that it didn't fall on the ground when guests open the cards, but I wanted to make it obvious that the magnet is supposed to come off the card. The solution was surprisingly simple, I found some removable adhesive squares at the craft store and attached each magnet with one square.

All that is left to do now is to put the cards in envelopes to be mailed out in January. I want to wait until after the holidays to minimize the risk of people accidentally throwing the cards away. Logically speaking, with all the excitement of the holidays, the last thing on most people's minds will be making travel arrangements for next September.

Something Blue

So, maybe this isn't as appropriate as some of my other posts... but I wanted to cover ALL aspects of the wedding.

We all know how the rhyme goes: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Like many brides before me, I'm hoping to include all four in my bridal outfit. Statistically, the most common place for a bride to wear blue is on her garter. Mine are purple. The next choice is for blue shoes, again, mine are going to be purple. For a couple of days, I tried to reason that purple is, kind of, a shade of blue. That didn't go over so well. Then I got the idea, what about blue underwear? I pity the wedding guests that ask me wear my blue is...

That being decided, over the weekend, my mom and I were out shopping. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, we were actually on an errand for Tom. Low and behold, I found a pair of lacy blue panties. So cute, so girly, so blue... and on sale! So I bought them, and now I have my something blue.

Having second thoughts... on the cake!

So, when Tom and I first started planning our wedding, we got this wonderful idea in our head of having a cheesecake buffet instead of a traditional wedding cake. Then we looked into the cost of ordering enough cheesecake to feed 100+ people, and fell in love with the romance of making our own cheesecakes. We both love to cook and I'm always bragging about how I love to bake. It seemed like an awesome idea. Then reality kicked in. Assuming each cheesecake could feed 10 people, I would need to make between 10 and 15 cheesecakes. Secondly, to prevent them from going stale, I would have to figure out how to remove the cheesecake from the spring form pan and then freeze it. I would also have to find space to freeze  10 to 15 cheesecakes. Then would be the pain staking issue of thawing all those cheesecakes without them going soggy. Once everything was baked, frozen, and thawed, I would then have to figure out how and when to transport all the cheesecake to our reception venue on the morning of the wedding. After thinking about all of this, I was seriously beginning to question if I would ever want to see a cheesecake again by the time my reception came around, let alone have it be the first dessert of my married life. Thank goodness this reality kick hit me now, and not two weeks before the wedding amidst a never ending sea of cheesecake.

Where now? Tom and I are looking into the more traditional wedding cake, with some minor upgrades. First of all, no fondant. Tom describes it best by saying it tastes like plastic. Secondly, we want a square cake instead of the traditional round one. We just like the clean lines. We also want ivory on ivory, again, for that clean look. We've been searching around online, and have found a couple pictures that we like. We are also beginning to talk to a couple of bakers, so we will see what comes along. I'm excited for the prospect of cake tasting.

Tracking Down the Photographer

Much to Tom's chagrin, our wedding photography package includes an engagement session. For those of you keeping track, this means TWO engagement sessions for us. The first session was taken by my mom over Labor Day weekend at our wedding venue. The second will be taken by the professional who is also taking our wedding pictures. Tom HATES having his picture taken. In fact, hatred would be an understatement. He loathes the idea. That is why I am insisting on the second engagement session, rather than swapping it out for something else.

Before I am accused of being insensitive, let me give my case. Wedding photography is expensive. As far as our wedding budget goes, the only thing more expensive than the photography is catering dinner for all 100 or so of my guests. If I'm going to pay more than $1000 for pictures, they better be good pictures. Hence the second engagement session. I already have all the engagement pictures I want. The ones that my mom took are gorgeous, and I have them displayed all over the place. I also used them for our save-the-dates and I plan on using them for our invitations. The reason I am going for the second engagement session for a trial run with the photographer. How do our personalities blend, is he someone we can work with? How do his pictures come out, is it our style? and most importantly, can he capture good pictures of Tom, without Tom necessarily realizing he is having his picture taken? The company that we purchased our photography package from has several photographers, so better to find this information out early when I still have the chance to switch if I need to.

When I chose the photographer, I did so because I fell in love with his portfolio. I have always loved "art shots" in photography, and that is really what I want our wedding photography to be. The way I look at it, anybody can take pictures of me in my dress, but a true photographer can catch the overall feel of the wedding. It took me countless phone calls to the manager of the company providing the photography and the tuxes to finally get a phone call from the photographer. I finally have the photographers phone number and email address, now it is just a matter of figuring out where, and when we want our professional engagement pictures done.

Am I a bride, or a travel agent?

Yesterday I was all giddy about the reality of having a reception space. Then the reality kicked in, that I was having a wedding and that in about 10 1/2 months (holy crap time is flying...) I will have over 100 people in town from all over the country for our wedding. The first thought that came to mind was "what am I going to do with everyone?" Seriously, as horrible as this sounds, throughout my wedding planning, I haven't really put much thought into my guests. Where are they going to stay? How are they going to get around? I was suddenly overcome with questions, not to mention, I've traveled; nothing is more of a pain in the butt than being in an area that I am unfamiliar with and not knowing how to get to the simplest of things. That being said, I got to work.

The first thing I did was visit hotelplanner.com. This website was recommended to me by another bride on one of the discussion boards I frequent. You simply put in some information about the number of guests and the city you are in, and area hotels submit bids for group blocks. Very handy indeed. I also was able to score a group discount code on rental cars for my guests.

Once I confirmed our reception venue, I immediately called their corporate line and arranged a room block of 30 rooms at the venue, with a considerable discount. Tom then encouraged me to call two other hotels that are within easy walking distance of the reception venue. All in all, I have 60 rooms blocked off for my guests.

Finally, I made a wedding map on weddingmapper.com. My map includes various wedding venues, such as the rehearsal dinner site, ceremony venue, reception venue, and Sunday brunch venue; as well as some points of interest for people who may not be familiar with the area, such as hotels, restaurants, points of interest, the local Catholic church, hospitals, shopping, the closest Wal-Mart, and movie theaters. By the end of the day, I felt much more prepared to welcome my guests. I want them to be comfortable and enjoy their time in Maine. As the big day gets closer, I am going to make welcome bags as well, one for each hotel room that I blocked off. But alas, that is for another day, and another post.