Yes, it's true, we've been married for almost 4 months (!) now, but I am determined to finish my wedding posts! I certainly could have done a much better job blogging about our wedding had I done it just after we got married, but at the time I wanted a break from anything wedding related.

While planning our wedding, Steve and I decided we wanted to tackle as many details as we could on our own. This was a good thing in that we did save a little money and we could design and make things just how we wanted them, however, it took A LOT of time and energy (something I didn't have much of last year). Hopefully in sharing some of our details, we are able to provide an idea or two to another bride-to-be (there's at least two of you who read this, right?!).

First, we chose to make our own paper products.  This was a HUGE undertaking!  We spent so many hours designing and finalizing the stationary that we started to think it wasn't worth all the time and effort. In the end, it was most definitely worth it because we were able to be proud of our accomplishments and our stationary was very personalized. In the meantime, however, we had to buy many different packs of cardstock and envelopes to make sure that what we used was just right. And we had to have many trial runs with the printer. And we had to buy a paper cutter to cut everything ourselves. And we used a corner rounder and individually rounded every.single.corner of stationary. Yeah, it was really fun! :)  In the end, if you asked me now, I would still suggest making your own paper products, but you have to be prepared for the time, effort, headaches, and late nights that ensue. All I can say is thank goodness for Steve who helped with the computer issues when I was ready to throw the darn thing out the window.



We wanted to have something for our guests to shower us as we exited the church. Bubbles look so fun in pictures, so we ordered a bunch of little bottles on eBay. I tied bows of orange, green, and yellow ribbon around each bottle and made the sign to accompany the basket.

For the reception, half of the tables had a small flower arrangement from the florist and half of the tables had hurricane vases (that were bought one at a time using weekly coupons for Michael's) full of whole limes that we prepared a few days before the wedding, along with chalkboard table numbers -it's the teacher in me.
The outdoor centerpieces were simply vases filled with sand and a candle - super easy to make (and a great project to do well in advance...6 months in advance!) and they looked really nice when lit at night.

After some searching online, I put together a bathroom basket for the men's and women's bathrooms. I tried to include items I thought would come in handy throughout the night. Don't expect to have any leftovers though! When we picked up the baskets the day after the wedding, all that remained was some allergy medicine, half a pack of Rolaids, and some tampons.

I think my most favorite thing from the wedding was our guest "book." Instead of having an actual book, we had a basket of river rocks for our guests to write messages on/sign and place in a large hurricane vase. The vase of rocks is now a beautiful decoration in our home.


We also put together a bucket of flip flops for our guests' pleasure during the night. I bought a bunch of Old Navy flip flops when they had their $1 flip flop sale at the beginning of the summer season and tied size tags on each pair. We used a beverage tub from our wedding registry to hold them all :)

Our favors were Virginia Tech colored M&Ms. We thought it would be a fun idea in order to tie in VT with our wedding and you can't really go wrong with edible favors. We thought of the idea early on, but when it came time to order the M&Ms they were a bit pricey. Luckily we had a coupon, but unfortunately you have to order each customized color separately. The cute packaging is all thanks to my aunt's crafty skills. She made the little packages, sealed them, tied them, and stuck on our little monogram. They were super cute!

Yikes, this post turned out a bit longer than I anticipated, sorry!  I hope someone is able to take away at least an idea or two for their wedding or any other party or event you might be planning. Enjoy :-)