Here is the last bit from Beth and Mike’s GORGEOUS real wedding. I am so impressed that this lovely couple pulled off this beautiful affair for less than $10,000. Just goes to show that a little DIY and a great sense of style go a long way in creating an affair that you and your guests will always remember!
From the beautiful bride, Beth…
For another little touch…we designed custom menus. I printed out the menus using luxe white cards and used as matting some country floral wrapping paper that I also found at paper-sourceand cut to size. I taped the menus to table tents also from paper source. On the other side of the menus were the table “numbers” which were actually locations that were significant to my groom and me. We had an Oberlin table (where he went to college), a “Dominican Republic” table (where we were engaged and went on our honeymoon), a Red Hook table (where he used to live while we were in a long distance relationship), etc… I found pictures of the locations on the internet and printed them out on cardstock and used the country wrapping paper as matting again.
The out of town bags were a real labor of love, as well. I bought a bunch of reusable canvas bags from cheaptotes.com. I printed the cardinal image on transfer paper, cut out the cardinals and ironed them onto all the bags. I bought various snacks (fruits and nuts, peanuts, goldfish, bottled water, gum, cheerwine (the softdrink of North Carolina). I filled them up in bags I bought from Nashville wraps and used lables with the cardinal on it to seal them.
A few other tidbits…My hair and makeup were done by Salon Medusa, which, along with my caterer, I can’t recommend highly enough. I walked into that salon the day of the wedding a wreck and walked out beaming. They knew exactly what type of style I was going for a did a great job.
For the first part of the reception, we used a jazz band, run by Wally West, (my sister, who is a professional pianist knew them and recommended them highly and they were great!). Wally became our DJ the last part of the wedding, where we had him play (almost exclusively) Motown (or Motown-era) songs.
Also, we found our photographer, Linday Brooke Emeigh, on Craigslist (in Greensboro) about 2 weeks before the wedding. She was just starting out and is working to build her portfolio, so she was really inexpensive. We were planning on not having a photographer at all (!) to cut costs since many of our guests were professional photographers, but I’m glad I did now. The photos all turned out beautiful!
Thank you so much to Beth and Mike for sharing their big day with us! And, if you are a DIY lover like myself, I would love to see your favorite DIY projects for our contest. The deadline for entries is October 15th, so you have a bit of time to craft something fun!