Wedding DIY: Decor

I think this is the last wedding-related post, with an assortment of DIY decor I haven't written about yet.

Seating sign

Weddings are full of traditions, many of which we embraced, and others we threw to the wind because it wasn't what we wanted or it didn't work for our families (since both sets of our parents are divorced). For instance, I had both my parents walk me down the aisle:

I didn't have a maid of honor, just five wonderful bridesmaids:

And both our brothers and dads gave toasts during the reception:

We didn't do a father-daughter dance, but I did grab my dad during the reception for an informal dance:

We also didn't do a bouquet toss or garter toss.

Anyway, one of the other traditions we eschewed was having "bride's friends and family" sit on the left during the ceremony and "groom's friends and family" sit on the right. We thought people might be uncertain, though, so I made a sign to put out at the ceremony letting people know.

I knew I wanted to make a sign, but wasn't quite sure how I would do it. Then one day in the spring I was walking to school, and saw a used and partially broken kids' easel on the sidewalk:

It definitely was not looking good, but I thought it was easily (easel-y? har har) fixable.

First I sawed the legs off, to make it a little less unwieldy and easel-like:

Then I applied a few coats of turquoise paint that I already had from past projects (and the same paint I used on the basket for the ceremony programs). Here's the photo I took when I realized that it matched my nail polish:

Then I used a chalkboard pen (which is bolder than regular chalk) to write on the chalkboard side of the sign (I just painted over the whiteboard side). I used an online photo I saw for inspiration. Here's how it turned out:

 And here it is at the wedding:

Wish Tree

For our guest book, we made a wish tree -- branches in a vase and tags that people could write wishes and comments on and then hang on the tree.

For the tags, I bought plain ivory gift tags off of Etsy, and then some turquoise string and pink string (in line with the color scheme) that I tied on each one to hang them:

The branches I found in my neighbor's brush pile, which had been there for months (and after the wedding, I returned them to the same pile...). I put them in a vase I already had, and filled it with decorative stones I also already had to keep the branches in place:

We got some really sweet messages. And some confusing ones.

Once we move, I'm going to find a way to display the tags (maybe laying them all out in a grid and framing them).

Table settings

For table decorations, we went fairly simple. We used the rectangular tables that came for free with the venue, so I wanted something that would but long and low (whereas many centerpiece ideas are good for circular tables). From the beginning, I liked the idea of a burlap table runner down the center. But then I decided to go with brown craft paper runners, which were easier and less expensive. I bought it in big rolls (from Michael's), cut it in half down the middle to get the right width, and then cut 8' lengths for the 6' tables and 10' lengths for the 8' tables.

Then I used the colored and patterned scrapbook paper I mentioned here to add some color. I used three pieces per table spaced evenly and turned diagonal to the craft paper. We had a small flower arrangement on each of the outer two pieces (the flower arrangements were very simple and done by our awesome florist in pasta sauce jars that I'd been saving/hoarding for about  year). Then on the center piece of paper, we had a candle holder (I collected blue glass candle holders from goodwill over the course of 22 months), a table number (which I made out of turquoise cardstock), and photos of each of us at the age of the table number (so us 3 years old at Table 3). We also had a few additional electric votives scattered around that the caterer provided (we weren't allowed to have actual votives for fire safety reasons).

Here be some photos:

The room all set up:

Looking down a table (they don't have plates on them because the caterers served the salads plated right at the beginning of the reception):

More flowers:

Photos and table numbers:

(In case you're wondering, yes those are binder clips holding the photos up)

From above:

And more:

I liked how simple they were, but they still felt elegant.


So...I guess that's it? Wedding blogging over! Now it's time to pack up our apartment, close on our house, and move! So excited.