brian & melissa's paper wedding fantasy - nov. 28, 2009

brian and i have a lot of family. our wedding is going to have 180 guests with plenty of children coming which led to making a lot of things to save money. i am a graphic designer and i knew i could handle making a lot of the things we need with paper. we are already saving a ton of money by having the wedding and the reception at my church. they are giving us complete freedom at the reception area and this led to plenty of decorating ideas. here are the pictures of everything i have made so far with descriptions of others still in the works.

up first:

invitations - i designed my own invitations the day after i got engaged. i designed the rsvp's and save-the-date cards as postcards to save money on postage and not having to buy envelopes. we ordered our invitation envelopes from french paper and had everything printed at psprint.com on sale. i am using address labels printed on adhesive paper that i designed and printed at home to wrap around the envelope so that they don't have to be hand addressed. total cost for 200 (invitations, rsvps, stds, addressing and envelopes) with shipping $277.82

favors - since i love crosswords, we designed our own and are using those along with real wood branch pencils purchased in bulk on ebay that i hand wrapped with ribbon as our favors. we used paper that was purchased at a going out of business sale. total cost $59.50

the groom's tie - the groom and his men will be in khaki suits with chocolate brown vests and i wanted orange in the ties to make them pop. i bought his tie on ebay for $5.99 plus shipping. it matches everything perfectly. total cost $14.95

bridesmaid gifts - i bought the bridesmaids jewelry on sale from macy's at their after christmas sales saving me $50 per person. they are hand wrapped and decorated with hand made pom poms inspired by martha stewarts diy poms. total cost $29.99

next we have:

tables - i designed and will print at home all of the table numbers as well as the seating cards. i am very good with an exacto knife so it will save me a lot of money since i am using the same paper that i use for my own business cards which is a nicw white linen from french paper. this means it costs me nothing extra for paper.

cupcakes - i am making my own cupcakes (yes, everyone says i am crazy) using boxed cake mix i got on sale at the grocery store for buy on get one free. to make them fancier i am making home made icing that tastes much better and more interesting than the canned stuff. i am using a 2" circle hole punch to cut out the designs i made to describe what each cupcake is. they will be attached to toothpicks and stuck in the cupcakes to make them look fun and informative.

lots of diy pom poms:

flower balls - i wanted a flower ball that my flower girl would be able to keep but fake flowers were costing too much and the ones from the florist were around $50. so i purchased a 5" styrofoam ball from the michael's craft store and just made a ton of small pom poms and glued them on with hot glue. i glittered the centers to make them look more like actual flowers and added some gems i was already using in the vases in my centerpieces to hang from the bottom. added some ribbon to match the table candles, and voila! i also made 2 large flower balls to decorate the drinks area which will also have a home made "drinks" banner hanging behind the servers.

pom poms - i have loved these big pom poms since i was a kid and they were sold at the local park as huge flowers. so, when i found the diy for them on martha stewart's website, i knew i was using them in my wedding. i bought 2 colors of tissue paper wholesale online and some wire from the craft store. i made 22 small light orange ones to decorate the church pews.

reception pom poms - the reception hall has an extremely high ceiling. so, to bring it down i also made 44 large poms in both colors of orange to hang from the ceiling in the reception hall along with 44 chinese lanterns in light and dark orange purchased in bulk online. they will all hang in an alternating height over the dance floor.

lantern leds - you can buy 3 led lights for lanterns online for $4.95 but i thought this was excessive when i needed 44 of them. i saw a diy for homemade led "throwies" that would be perfect to light them. all you need is a button cell battery, an led, some tape, and paper to break the connection so they can be turned on and off. total cost to make 44 myself was $85.36 whereas buying the premade ones would have cost me $217.80 for 44.

and finally:

door covers and banners - the recepetion hall has 5 sets of glass doors that you can enter. we wanted everyone to only come in through the center 2 and needed something to block off the others but still look nice. we are having an evening wedding and decorating the plants outside the hall with mini lights which will cast enough light to shine through the kraft paper banners i made. i used a projector to cast the same swirl pattern from the invites onto 2 side by side panels of kraft paper cut to the size of the glass on the doors. i then used an awl to poke many many holes inside the pattern. this lets the light through and looks awesome! we are also using kraft paper to hang large banners on the walls where the church has it's own banners that we are taking down for the event. these will be decorated with large hand painted patterns and saying for guests to enjoy and lit with floor spot lights rented cheaply at the local lighting rental place.

gift card box -  i purchased a martha stewart gift box on sale at wal-mart and used glue and glitter to decorate all of the originally white dots on the box. total cost $9.96

cake topper - i am making a small cake for us to cut and i designed an image of our initials that matches our invites and had it cut out of orange acrylic on ponoko.com.

unity candles -i purchased plain white candles with coupons that michael's crafts sends out all the time through their online newsletter. i covered them with ribbon that i am also using on the centerpiece vases that i added glitter to. for the center candle i added a jeweled buckle to add some interest. total cost $19.94 and they match everything else

table candles - we are having 8 small candles around our centerpieces. we bought ikea votives which are twice as big around as standard votives. they were $1.99 for 6 glass holders and $5.99 for 24 of the candles and we got a ton of them. i used ribbon to wrap them to make them less plain looking. total cost for 200 candles, 200 holders and ribbon $189.15

we aren't having a bouquet toss because they are so few single people at the wedding and they refuse to get up for it. we decided to do small candy bags since halloween candy will be on sale and in our wedding colors. we are going to just toss them all over the dance floor and let the kids go crazy.

i'm sure i will try to find more things to make with all of this tissue paper that i bought for the pom poms and any diy inspirations i find up until the actual wedding. i can't wait for my big day!