The Details
Crafting has always been a hobby of mine and when it came time to plan my own wedding, I knew I was going to DIY as much as I could. Not only to save on costs, but also to add custom and creative touches to make our day just a little more special. I knew I wanted lots of white florals and greenery with touches of copper. My bridesmaids dresses were my favorite shade of dusty blue and everything just kind of fell together. Below are some pins from my pinterest board that made up the basis of my inspiration.
There were a lot of firsts for me in the process of creating custom items. I had never worked with wood before and realized that I LOVE IT! Working on wood signs is quiet the process. You have to find the right wood, sand it, stain it and then wait. I found that waiting at least a week to let the stain fully dry works best to avoid bleeding when you hand letter your sign.
The seating chart was very large and quite the project. It takes time to layout the names for each table and consider placement based on the length of each name. I wanted the sign to look as symmetrical as possible with the placement of each table, which can be a challenge when you have longer guest names.
The table numbers were made from a 2x4, cut into ten inch long pieces. These reminded me of large style Jenga lawn game pieces. When I was thinking about details for our wedding, I wanted the items to be sturdy. Napa Valley can get pretty windy at times and our event was held all outdoors. I didn't want to have to worry abut table numbers or place cards blowing away. I wanted our guests to enjoy every aspect of the day and not spend time chasing our decor.
I'm sure many of you have seen the marble trend floating around the wedding world. I loved the idea of adding some texture to the wood tables, linen napkins and table runners. Added bonus, they would not blow away if the wind decided to pick up! This was another first for me and took some practice to get it right. I used copper calligraphy paint pens to add each guests first name to hexagon shaped marble tile.
The benefit of getting married after most of your friends is the recycling of items used at their events. We borrowed several signs and they added the perfect touch and helped the budget. I used a copper paint pent to up cycle some items to fit our theme. As always, we are so grateful for our friends who lent us items and allowed us to make some changes.
I was also fortunate enough to have the talented DezaLetters create an amazing sign to welcome our guests to the ceremony. I'm also lucky to have had her stand by my side that day (and everyday). Her floral art is amazing!
There was not enough time in the day to complete every detail on my own. I ordered several items from some very talented creators' Etsy shops. Click each image below to check out their shops.
I'm not only lucky enough to have such amazing friends in my life, but I get to have their very talented parents as well. My matron of honor's dad, Cliff, is a very great artisan and was able to build flower girl boxes that fit our wedding style perfectly. He even added copper wire to the handles! He also helped create our cake stand. We found the perfect one at Williams Sonoma on clearance, but the wood color wasn't just right. Cliff took apart the cake stand, sanded, re-stained and reassembled to create an item that matched every other detail.
My childhood besties' mom, Laura, is a very talented seamstress and a second mom to me. She not only altered my wedding gown and several bridesmaid dresses, but she also created a pattern to make the flower girl dresses. She took both my now mother-in-law's and my mother's wedding gowns and with a little TLC was able to bring them back to life as flower girl dresses. My mother-in-law's original hem was used on all three dresses. It was so special to be able to re-purpose their gowns. She also made our ring bearers tie from the hem of a bridesmaids dress. Laura also stepped it into high gear pre-wedding to make sure everything was just right. I will never be able to thank her enough.
The one design aspect that has been featured on almost every picture above and made the event perfect is the floral design. Melissa Rose Floral Designs worked with me to bring my vision to life. She helped me find ways to add copper accents to so many aspects and taught me so much about flowers! It was such a fun process. My mom has quite the succulent garden as she is the ultimate plant lady. She allowed us free range to her garden and we used a ton of them. Some big, some small. We were able to tie in succulents throughout the wedding floral design. Melissa's dedication to make everything custom was something I admired the most. Without her, our wedding would not have been what I visioned.
A special shout out goes to all of the behind the scenes family and friends who helped with every aspect of our wedding. We could not have done it without you. You know who you are and I am forever grateful. Every time I look at our wedding photos, I think of you and all the sweat and sometimes tears that went into this. I had to include a cell phone photo to show you the welcome boxes that each guest received in their hotel rooms in Napa (obviously taken in my moms beautiful backyard - note the succulents). We had the best time celebrating with each of you that were there.
All photos from the day of our wedding were taken by Jennifer Skog.