Bouquet Alternatives : Brooches & paper & Crystals, Oh my!

Purple bouquet

As you all know I am not a very traditional bride and I could really care less about flowers. Though flowers are beautiful, they make me sneeze and they die. And I have a huge problem with spending so much money for something that is not going to last beyond the day .  At first I wanted purple calla lillies, but after pricing them out and considering how low the bouquet was on my list of priorities, i decided to forgo one all together. But after browsing the wedding blogs the past few months, I have come across a few unique bouquet alternatives that I would consider.

Crystal Bouquet

I originally wanted a winter themed wedding and I thought these crystal bouquets would be perfect. They are really expensive, but pretty easy to DIY. I still love them but they no longer fit our theme.  You can find a great tutorial here or buy them online here.

  

Brooch Bouquet



I love bling so I am drawn to these brooch bouquets. They are kind of expensive but seem pretty easy to DIY if you can find the brooches. I really love these but think they are too vintage for my theme. What do you think?  You can find a tutorial here or buy them here.



Composit Bouquet

I loved these and considered one for my flower girl. I think they are pretty chic and I am still considering them for sure. You can find a tutorial here or buy one here.

Fabric

These  fabric bouquets are by far my favorite. Super easy and the price can vary depending on the type of fabric you use. I will post a tutorial when I'm done making mine but here is where you can buy them.

Some other ideas that are cute but did not fit my wedding

Metal:

Metal

Feathers:

Feather

Fans:

Fans

Paper:

Paper

Candles: 

Candles

In the end I think I'm going to try the fabric bouquet since I like how they look and they are fun to make. Im still going to try the composite flower since that might turn out to be pretty awesome.  But who knows, i might still decide to walk with nothing. So do you/did you have an alternative bouquet? Do you think they are trendy or will they stand the test of time?

My first DIY

Finally getting started on my long list of projects. These are the trial run of my fabric flowers and I LOVE how they came out.

Private Last Dance

SOURCE

There are several songs the FI and consider "our song", so we had a very hard time deciding on one for our first dance. We decided we wanted to take dance lessons, so we wanted to choose a song early so we have time to take lessons and get plenty of practice. So while browsing the internet I came across a few lovely shots like the one above, that caught my eye.

What happens is, when all of the guests leave to get ready for your grand exit (or when they all leave if you are not doing one), you and your new husband dance together alone. Its just the two of you, the DJ and the photorapher. Or you could even have the DJ start the song and then step out. So not only do you get another intimate moment with your new husband, but you can also get some great photos!

This seems like a great solution to our first dance song problem since we can pick two songs to dance to. Plus we dont have to eliminate any songs that are difficult to dance to since for the private last dance we can just sway if we want. We plan on limiting it to about 3 minutes, which will give the guests enough time to prepare for our grand exit. Plus I love the idea of having a few moments to basks in the last few minutes of our wedding together.

Did you do this at you wedding or have you ever heard of it?

More stuff I Learned From Others Weddings

This year has been full of weddings for my fiance and I, and we still have at least one more to go. Even before we were engaged, after we attended a wedding we would point out what we would and would not do. So here is a few things we learned from the last two weddings we went to:

• Fake flower petals look fake. We originally planned on using silk petals for the aisle and for the petal toss. They are inexpensive, we can get the exact color we want, and nobody will notice the ones on the aisle are fake.....wrong. We noticed and it really detracted from the decor. So we decided real was the way to go for us, even though its going cost a lot more.
• Really long weddings suck. We all like solos and reading, but they get repetitive after a while. And 2 or more hours is way too long to hold peoples attention. At the last wedding several people made us promise our ceremony would not be so long. An hour, tops, is reasonable.
• Dont start late. Again, both these weddings started at least an hour late. That is super annoying to someone like me who likes to show up early to events. We are starting on time even if all the guests are not there.
• You can have great decor on a budget. I really liked the reception decor at both weddings even though i knew both couples had modest budget. They both had rather large ccenterpieces that really added to the space.
• Bands can be awesome. Both weddings had a live band (the same band) and it really created a nice ambieance. I would not do one for the entire night, but they are great for dinner and cocktail hour.
• Have someone with a list of tables. At the last one we could not find our escort card. Luckily the coordinator was walking around with a list so she could tell us where to sit. My FSIL grabbed our card for us, but we could not find her at the time. This lead to out decision to do a chart instead of cards.
• If people eat too much at the cocktail hour they wont eat a lot at dinner. This has been true at almost all of the NY weddings I have been too. At the last wedding the dinner was pretty good but i could not finish since i was still full from cocktail hour. And they had fruit and salad served before the entree and only a few people actually touched it. What a waste. My fiance refuses to serve a lot a food at our cocktail hour for this very reason. So far we are thinking of only offering fruit and veggies since there will be dinner and a late night buffet.
• Serve dinner while the speeches are being given. At the last wedding, I was not really hungry for dinner, but some people at my table were. And it felt like we had to wait forever for the speeches to end to be served.
• And lastly, make sure your venue is committed to service. The last wedding reception was at a very pretty venue but the service was terrible. In their defense the reception started over an hour late and there was another event right after, but the staff still should have been professional. As soon as my fiance and i arrived we heard a few complaining about the late start and how they had to hurry for the next event. During the cocktail hour if we sat our plate or drink down on the table for a second, someone was comming to take it away. At dinner my FSIL bent down to fix her shoe and when she looked up her plate was gone! I understand the need to move things along but at least ask if the person is done. They all seemed very unhappy to be there and it really brought down the experience for us.

Thats all I have for now. Have you been to any weddings lately? What have you learned?

So....Now I want to do a Wedding Trailer Save the Date!

This is the cutest thing ever :)

Cutting the guest list: The Bridezilla Rumors Begin

Image from We TV's Bridezillas via this

  Well, we received our free save the date postcards from vistaprint.com and plan on mailing them out  in November, about a year before the wedding. My FI was super excited about how they turned out, so while I had his attention I forced him to sit with me and go through the guest list to narrow it down to the people we were actually going to invite.

           This was going to be tough. We originally budgeted for 150 guests but our venue had a 180 minimum so we stretched our budget to meet that. So we really want to keep it at exactly 180. Not to mention that our vendors have to be in our headcount in order to receive vendor meals.

180 may seem like a lot but we still had to leave out some people we care about. My fiancé's father is the pastor of a fairly large church so there are a lot of church member he grew up with that he wants to invite not to  mention friends, coworkers and family members. And then there is my huge family. I have 21 aunts and uncles, most of whom are married and have a few kids so as you could imagine, my family takes up my entire half of the guest list.

So we had to make cuts and limit the list to only the closest friends and family members. We also have an age cutoff at 21 years old and are not extending  +1's (unless they are married or engaged or will not know anyone at the wedding).  Even with all this, there are still a few people that we want but wont fit so we are going to send invites out early and send a second round once we get some no RSVP's.

How did you trim down your guest list? Did you regret it?

How Soon is too Soon to Send Save the Dates?

We went to a vow renewal today, and everyone was asking for details of the wedding, such as the date and location, so they can save for the trip. Many of our guests are flying in from NYC,  a couple from Canada,  at least one from Haiti, a few from other states, and the rest will be driving 45 minutes from Ohio. So I guess it makes sense that people want the travel info now, especially in this economy, since many will have to save for the trip. We planned on doing e-save the dates but vista print gave us 100 free postcards so of course we had to order them!

FI wants to send the save the dates as early as possible but I think we should at least wait until November, one year from the wedding. Is that too early?