Wedding Inspired Wednesday {No. 15}: Mason Jars

Our "Country Boy Meets City Girl" themed wedding involves a lot of mason jars. Luckily, living in Texas there is an abundance of mason jars and we were able to obtain A TON of FREE mason jars from a local peach orchard that had retired - my fiance's aunt was his friend and heard he was going to just throw away all those fabulous mason jars. She remembered me and was able to bring me out there to load them all up and take them off his hands. Sweet!

I like this idea! Especially for those few mason jars that are plain without the vintage writing on them already.

Source

This eclectic mix of mason jars wrapped in twine, bows of raffia, or just filled with cotton/twigs is perfection to me.

Source

I love the simplicity of this - wild flowers with various candles, rustic horseshoes, wooden base, burlap table clothes - Perfect for a rustic outdoor wedding.

Source:

Now this was found completely separate from the above post, but again would be a good idea for mason jars - especially those small mason jars that you could easily use for single blooms. Another idea, mix food coloring with mod-podge and you get a simple translucent stain, perfect for any color you need! Then add tea-light candles!

Source

Simple twine to dress up mason jars.

Source

This is my FAVORITE of all centerpieces - the mason jars with jute ribbon or burlap, held together with twine or raffia, topped off with that main focal piece with cotton and wheat - Oh, la, la!

Source

You could take this idea with the suggestion above - if you didn't color the candle itself, again use the idea of mod podge + food coloring to add the colorful glow to your homemade mason jar candle!

Source

Do I even need to explain this picture!?

Source

Great way to decorate the isle or walk-way - you could even take this off the shepherd hook and hang from tree branches or wooden beams from the ceiling with clear fishing line. It would be very magical.

Source

So many ideas!!! As the wedding gets closer, I am finding it harder and harder to narrow down all these inspirations to figure out what I want to actually do! Tomorrow I head to Canton with the in-laws for my future MIL's birthday. Hoping I can find further inspiration there on ways to dress up mason jars in a rustic way. :-) Main goal for Canton - 150 horseshoes. Yes - ONE-HUNDRED-FIFTY. I can't wait to blog this idea! 

Wedding Inspired Wednesday: {No 11} Delayed - DIY Wedding Floral

         I am doing all my own wedding floral. If you are currently planning a wedding or any sort of event, you have probably come to learn how pricey flowers can be! I have browsed website after website, local vendors, etc. to try and find the cheapest way to DIY, without giving up your favorite flowers or looking cheap. Fifty Flowers has been by far the cheapest across the board, not to mention free FedEx shipping, options for sample orders, and numerous helpful tips! They even have wedding consultants that can help you determine how much to order based on what you need. In my case, 16 centerpieces, 2 wedding party table centerpieces, 1 sweetheart table centerpiece, 11 boutonnieres, 6 bridesmaid bouquets, bridal bouquet, 5 corsages, grooms cake table decor, wedding cake floral, sign in table - aaaaaaaaand I think that covers it? HA!

        Through Fifty Flowers I found Affordable Floral - This website is where you can get decently priced DIY wedding floral tools, as well as ideas on how to do the floral. They have a page titled "Build A Bouquet" with various types of bouquets listed to help you, just like it says, build a bouquet. Fabulous!


How about this DIY Bouquet? Black and White Rose and Feather Hand-Tied Bouquet It provides a list of all materials and how they were used, pictures and even a video! Then it gives you the list of materials and the option to order them right there. Pretty nifty, eh? You could even substitute the black feathers for wheat stalks, or peacock feathers. Many ways to switch this simple DIY up to fit your theme.



Fall Dahlia Hand-Tied Bouquet This is my style bouquet! The same things are provided, materials, pictures, video and option to purchase the items.



This is a gorgeous simplistic DIY centerpiece idea - Manzanita Branch Idea with Moss Runner



Don't you just love this natural decor?! If only my colors were green. Find this DIY Green Wedding Centerpiece at Affordable Floral as well!

         Another useful tool I found, Wedding Flower Recipe Worksheet - Here you enter in the flowers you want, and it calculates the flowers you need to create the specific item. Example: Bridal Bouquet has a column, below you put the number you need, which is 1. Then there are rows called "Focal", "Filler", "Greenery", "Line", where you enter the specific flower you intend to use, such as, Dahlia, Babys Breath, Lily Grass, Wheat. You enter the number of each one you intend to use to create the piece and it calculates how much you need for each one. You can then look through Fifty Flowers website to find corresponding packages to enter in and it will calculate how many you will have left over. This way, you don't buy too much or too little, and all your flower arrangements are there in a neat excel sheet to pass out to those who are helping
         These are just a few of the helpful tips on how to do your wedding floral yourself. The two websites above have a ton of tips for browsing through. Check them out! If you find anything different, or better, please share! :-)

Wedding Inspired Wednesday {No. 5} DIY Wedding Projects

          I love DIY Projects! I like being able to look at a piece of art, decoration, furniture & know my hard work, my own two hands, made that. I want my wedding to be the same way. I want to walk into that venue & see my hard work put together - I want people to know that this wedding was truly about Henry & myself, not what a florist or wedding designer came up with & put together for us. SO - here are some DIY wedding projects I have found browsing various blogs & of course, .


        One blog I have recently become a huge fan of is The Bride's Cafe - The author of the blog, Janie, is one talented lady & I never cease to find something inspiring! She has a wonderful page for DIY Projects & her DIY - Escort Card Box is one of those projects I can't wait to put my own spin on!

DIY - Escort Card Box - this set up is perfect for our wedding theme! Anyone could put a spin on it though - replace the moss with a simple bed of flowers for a spring wedding, sand and seashells for a beach wedding, fake snow or a bed of white glitter for a winter wedding - the options are endless with just a little imagination!

         Another wonderful DIY project idea from her blog - DIY - Mossy Monogram.

Now this isn't the quickest DIY - it will take a bit of effort & patience, but I think will be well worth it in the long run for the craft-loving Brides who want their own special touches added to their wedding day.

        Another wonderful wedding blog is Project Wedding - this blog has a TON of DIY ideas to be inspired by. The one I chose to re-post is the Semi-DIY Pocket Fold Wedding Invitation I found via Pinterest!

I  plan on doing my own invites for the wedding, so tutorials like this are helpful. She even provides a helpful website to buy well priced pre-made pocket envelopes http://www.cardsandpockets.com/.

If you are a local DIY Bride looking to make your own invites -or any part of your event stationary - another helpful place to go to is Paper Planet! What is Paper Planet? A crafty girls mini-heaven! You can buy hand-crafted rolls of paper - way cheaper than Hobby Lobby or Michaels with BEAUTIFUL original options! - You can even put in orders for more of your favorites if they don't have the full amount you need. They have envelopes of all sizes & colors, 8 x 11 pages of all colors & textures, weekend How-To classes - including a wedding invitation how-to class! - & one of the best things of all....they have a large work table & a wonderfully large paper-cutter for cutting those large sheets of paper you may have just bought that you can rent out for $25/4 hrs!!! That's a pretty sweet deal to me! Even if you aren't the crafty bride or person, well they have pretty crafty employees that can design any part of your stationary for any event from the simplest pieces to doing everything! It's worth it just to go look even if you don't intend to buy. Their website is currently being revamped, but you can also check out their Facebook page: Paper Planet Facebook

A photo of a wall in Paper Planet's store with large sheets of the custom hand-crafted paper! Photo courtesy of the Paper Planet website! :-)

          I hope these few DIY projects are enough to get your crafty-engines going! Be sure to check out those blogs for even MORE ideas. They are truly amazing - and well written! :-) Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Wedding Inspired Wednesday {No. 4} Our Wedding Inventory



          Our wedding inventory is slowly growing & boy is it exciting! Here is the list of items we have recently purchased from Save-On-Crafts. This is one of the best sites ever for a crafty bride trying to save money! 



Natural Jute Fiber Ribbon 1.5" width 25 yds $9 - We will be using this to wrap around mason jars filled with candles.



14.5" Basswood Tree slices, ~1" thick. These will be used in centerpieces & as a cake stand. I bought a few to play around with, but the majority will be coming from an actual white oak trees from my parents acreage in Livingston, TX. It'll be nice to have a home-made natural touch at our wedding, courtesy of my parents.



Cedar Wood Roses - I mentioned in a previous blog that I do not want a lot of real flowers, so I thought these 2" wide wood roses would be a nice touch. 



This is an example of how the Cedar Wood Roses, tree slabs & Jute Ribbon will be used.



Cotton Stalks - Now I know we have plenty of cotton farmers around us that we could get free cotton from, but that is a ways away. I wanted to get some on hand to play around with ahead of time, so I went ahead and bought some. These will be used in centerpieces, bouquets & boutonnieres.





Natural Touch Hen & Chicks - the deep burgundy color of these will be perfect to add to centerpieces & bouquets! I have also seen centerpieces where these were just set on the table directly amongst burlap & mason jars filled with candles.

        




Last on our list for this order is the 20" tall, 7" wide Aspen yellow golden queen flower - This beautiful golden fall flower will give a wonderful pop of color amongst all the tan, brown, & white colors we will currently be using.



         I can not wait until it all arrives so I can begin to put things together and get a real idea how it will look at the wedding! Yippee! Photos will definitely be added as I experiment with arrangements. Stay tuned! <3



Wedding Centerpiece Ideas

          Henry and I got engaged April 24, 2010 - our wedding date is October 13, 2012 - 9 months away!!! Finally we are under a year away.
          With that said, I have been browsing ideas for centerpieces like crazy! I want our wedding to have as much DIY as possible, so it has to be something I can easily put together. I want to stay away from a lot fresh flowers so I can make centerpieces as far in advance as possible. I don't want to be scrambling the week of our wedding to put EVERYTHING together, especially since I work, and our wedding is 2 1/2 hours away from where we live. Eeek! 
          Our theme goes with the blog, "Country Boy Meets City Girl" - this means a lot of natural touches. Below are inspiration photos I have found browsing various websites:

Another blog full of wonderful ideas : Style Me Pretty - I absolutely LOVE the use of cotton. COTTON! Who would've thought?? This is so classy & rustic to me, which for our wedding style = perfection!

Another photo from Style Me Pretty of the previous centerpiece. I can't get enough!

This simple decoration photo of mason jars, floating candles & raffia can be found at My Bride Idea - a wonderful blog full of inspiration!

This photo is from one of the most organized blogs I have ever stumbled upon Luxe Finds: I know I said I wanted very few fresh flowers, but I love the colors, the long wooden box, pumpkins & fall colored leaves. 

This photo is courtesy of Save-On-Crafts - a fabulous website full of really well priced items to decorate any event! I love this photo with the use of the branches, grapevine balls, candles & strategically placed flowers. Now if I were to do this it would be a little toned down - I feel like this particular one has too much going on, but you get the idea, right?

Another photo from save-on-crafts with the use of branches and floral arrangements.

          Needless to say our computer is filling up with wedding photos. hehe These are just a FEW of the many centerpiece photos I have lol Hopefully these can inspire you in some way too. As always, feel free to share any centerpiece ideas you have as well! I love new ideas. :-)

Wedding Inspired Wednesday - {No. 3}

         I have not done much browsing for wedding things this past week. I have instead been dealing with my "Will you be my cards...". I had one minor dilemma. I wanted my girls/guy to open their pocket invites to beautiful maroon glitter words that said, "Maid of Honor" "Bridesmaid" or "Bridesman". Unfortunately, there are no craft stores that carry maroon glitter. I ordered a Martha Stewart fine glitter 3-pack from online with a color that looked maroon. I was super excited - until it arrived. It was a magenta color. UGH!

The magenta glitter is in the 3-pack towards the bottom - You can see my glitter attempts
on the paper up on the top left - and the invites are sitting there at the top.
I am sure Henry is ready to have his dining room table back lol

         So, I go about looking for a new glitter that actually says burgundy or maroon - BINGO FOUND ONE! It looked burgundy in the photo and was called "Burgundy fine glitter". Sweet! Right? NO! NOT RIGHT! It came in a few days later and was just plum purple, Techie red, and black glitter mixed together and still looked PLUM PURPLE NOT BURGUNDY!! UGH! I could've punched that website owner in the face! I tried varying things. I tried putting black glitter first, then the "burgundy" glitter and it worked a bit, but still looked more purple than anything. It just looked like plain poop, not literally, but you know.

Burgundy?? I think not!

       My new idea I think is a bit better - and may actually end up working out better. I also had to special order their envelopes which was a bit of a hassle, but they should be in by the middle of next week. This means I can finally blog the invites themselves!! Despite the troublesome times of these cards, I am uber excited. One thing I did find and wanted to share was a chalkboard seating chart. I like the casual feel of it - plus my wedding is outside, it will be nice to not have to deal with a bunch of little name cards being blown all over the venue haha.

I liked this wedding blog - it was very casual - the top left chalkboard is what I
truly loved though - You can check out more at the Wedding Chicks Blog

My fiance has the tendencies to move & sit on my papers so I apologize for the slightly unclear paper lol

This blog is going to be cut short.  The last thing added was a Seasonal Wedding Flowers list. I have had such a hard time with this and was handed a list at the Dallas Bridal Show. Love it!

Wedding Inspirations Part 1

             The title of my blog page is City Girl Meets Country Boy - naturally because I am a city girl, Henry is a country boy. Not only is that the title of the blog page, it is also the theme of our wedding October 13, 2012.

            Our wedding will be held at Double Creek Crossing in Caldwell, TX - a beautiful outdoor venue on a secluded ranch. Leah is the sweet lady, that just happens to be from the town - Burleson - right next to Henry's hometown, who opened the wedding venue after retiring from being a nurse - she was home for a bit and told her husband she couldn't just sit around doing nothing = Double Creek Crossing! And thank goodness she did too because it is GORGEOUS! Her husband and her put a lot of thought and effort into building the outdoor venue. Her daughters helped her think of minor details such as, making enough room on either side of the Bridal Suite toilet for a bride if she has to go to the bathroom in a large ballgown dress - ahem, that would be my situation! Or having a built in counter, long mirror, barstools, and wonderful lighting so all the girls can sit next to each other as hair and make-up are done. Or how about having "tarps" that can be rolled, and pinned down to the ground all around the reception area in case of bad weather - yet they are clear so you can still feel as if you are outside? The venue is city-like, with the nice stone walls, vaulted ceilings, wonderful landscaping - yet very country with the visible wooden beams, concrete floors, front rocking chairs, and of course being on a ranch itself. That equals perfection for our theme.



A picture of the venue from the "altar" of the Ceremony location



Looking out to the Ceremony area



Walking up to the Reception area from Ceremony area



Walking outside to Reception area from front entrance with Groom/Bridal suites/Cake table/Gift Table

        Our theme was so obvious and inspired by our kick-A photographer, Michelle Peyronet with Peyronet Photography. After meeting with her and discussing what we wanted in photos she mentioned the theme - I couldn't believe WE didn't think of that already! DUH! We picked Michelle after seeing her gorgeous photos of a friends wedding. She did a type of jounalistic photography and boy did her colors POP! It was amazing how every detail of color was beyond perfection - and I was blown away by her ability to catch such loving facial expressions and moments in their natural settings - not posed. Not only do we get her for our entire wedding day, we get a 2nd photographer, as well as 2 photographers for the rehearsal dinner. She will be doing our engagement, bridal, boudior, rehearsel dinner, ceremony, and reception photos - as well as a Trash the Dress shoot post honeymoon. Can't wait! Here is one Blog post by Michelle that we love (looks like you will have to copy & paste the link):
http://peyronetphotography.com/blog/weddings/kate-luin/
&
http://peyronetphotography.com/blog/weddings/suzanna-matt/

       Our planning/decorating will be with the help of a good friend, Lacey, who happens to own a wedding/party rental business called Details Event & Party Rentals in College Station, TX. She has pretty much everything you can think of, at great prices! http://detailsevent.blogspot.com/ - That is her amazing blog - you should check it out! She does her research on up to date trends, and has plenty of unique ideas of her own to help you design your perfect wedding down to the last detail!



Photo taken from Lacey's blog - This is the ceremony at Double Creek Crossing



Another photo by Lacey - Cake table at Double Creek Crossing

      My sister is the Maid of Honor - so naturally she has done some research on bridesmaid dresses. I am letting my bridesmaid choose their dress for the most part. Afterall, they are doing me a favor by being in my wedding and should be proud of the dress they have to dish the money for. All I ask is it be around Tea-length or a little above the knee. I plan on asking the girls to wear brown boots - so it has to go well with boots too. Here are some suggested photos, feel free to comment or lend advice:

       Our colors go with the fall theme Henry and I love so much! It also gives us an excuse to use Maroon as a color. haha Our colors are burgandy maroon, espresso brown, rust orange, and a golden yellow - fall colors. And yes it is rust orange, NOT burnt orange - UGH!

I love this wicker ball, or "tumbleweed", with the simple fall colored flower attached.

I don't care too much for the escort card table, but I do absolutely love the wheat stalks and their beautiful golden color!

I love the colors, but I really love the wooden box!

Again, I am in love with the wheat and colors



I absolutely LOVE the color of these Callas Lillies - which are one of the flowers I want to use for the wedding as well



I am drawn toward the burlap and colors of the flowers of this one - I also love square & rectangular tables instead of the traditional round



The maroon flowers and branches stood out to me in this set up at the Brazos Bridal Show



Henry & I have a slew of photos of our initals carved in things - starting with an Aspen tree from Colorado - hence the love of these invites



Again with the love of carved initals - I love these invites & RSVP cards

Pin It