Post-Wedding DIY

All of the powerhouse women in my family make quilts.

My MeeMaw made quilts from double knit fabric she found at thrift stores. My mom makes these now, and they aren't the prettiest things to look at, but they are warm and they last forever. My Grandma hand quilts absolute masterpieces that are more for display purposes...you would never take one of her quilts outside and h

ave a picnic on it.

I'm aiming for a combination of the two. And I have been chomping at the bit to get one started, and now that the wedding is done with and those DIY projects are over, I can figure out how to make a quilt.

I'm starting with a baby-sized quilt, because I don't want to invest the money and time into a full sized quilt when this is a learning experiment for me. I was sold when I saw the Road Trip Quilt, and I bought fabric for my very first quilt adventure today! The fabric is the Nicey Jane line from Z&S Fabrics. Originally I was going to with some 1930's repro fabric I found in my hometown quilt shop, but it was $9/yard and I wasn't 100% crazy about it. THEN Z&S announced a 20% site wide sale, and the line I had wanted from the get go was suddenly affordable.

This is what I bought:

A

I think the colors go together nicely but aren't super matchy-matchy. Hopefully they'll come in ASAP and I can get started!

What was the first big post-wedding DIY project that you took on, or are you DIY-exhausted and don't want to hear about this nonsense?

Favorites without Heads

I love this one because our shoes are bad*ss, and we all know how obsessed I am with that bouquet.

And I love this one because...wow.

Also my butt looks phenomenal.

And I love that pin.

Clearly, your head doesn't need to be in the picture to make it amazing!

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Favors

Favors were fighting for the bottom spot on the I-don't-care list along with programs and place cards. So when Ryan's mom volunteered to make cookie favors for the wedding, I was all "go for it!"

She made butter cookies dipped in white chocolate that she dyed aqua (genius) and then dipped them in red sprinkles. They were then tucked in simple cellophane bags and tied with a red ribbon. Voila!

So delicious. And when I got to our hotel room after the wedding, my bag had been stuffed with them. I enjoyed them very, very much at midnight in my filthy dirty wedding dress and bare feet.

It was a spur-of-the-moment planning decision that worked out beautifully, thanks to Ryan's mom and family for the wonderful idea and execution!

Doesn't going with the flow work out beautifully?

Did you have any random decisions that lead to something fantastic?

Photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Details Scmetails

Or, how your wedding can be absolutely gorgeous and insanely memorable without gratuituous amounts of details.

First of all, I have insane amounts of respect for the people who can pull off elaborately coordinated weddings, where everything goes together perfectly and everywhere you look you'll find thoughtful, creative details. If you are one of those people, high five to you my friend!

But this post isn't for you. This post is for the lazy brides, the brides who just aren't super detail oriented. The brides who don't notice 95% of those details unless they're on a wedding blog such as Once Wed or whatever, and then they make you break out in a cold sweat. This is to show the non-detailed oriented brides like me how your wedding will not suck because you aren't making 5,000 handmade cupcake flags.

Exhibit A: Our church. It's lovely, isn't it?

We didn't decorate a d*mn thing.

Except for the gay pride decorations that were already there.

We didn't need to decorate the church. It was gorgeous. Did you see the ugly green chairs? Yeah I didn't notice either. Besides, we were in this building for 25 minutes tops. I'm not decorating a room for 25 whopping minutes.

Probably the most detaily thing at our reception: the dessert table.

Here is a typical table. Simple centerpiece, table overlay, favors at each seat, and the reserved sign since this was a parent's table or something. This is super, super simple. And it looks fine. Please note the non-decorated chairs. You can pass on the chair upgrades you guys, trust me.

The buffet line. We had a buffet because it's way cheaper, and they are the only kind of wedding meal around these parts. We moved 225+ through these tables in under 20 minutes. The decorations here are just left overs from the tables.

Here's a peek at the head table. The empty vases are for the bouquets. It's really simple, once again.

And here's a good shot of the hall with people in it. If you look closely along the sides of the room, you'll see fake trees with Christmas lights in them. The center refused to move them. I didn't fight this since they were pretty much unnoticeable.

Our gift table with our stunning $5 card box with the lid that wouldn't fit. I refused to cut a hole in the top (that would've look nicer) because I wanted to reuse this box for fabric storage post-wedding. This probably could've looked better....but here's where the lazy part of me kicked in. Didn't care, still don't.

This table was set up when guests first entered the reception. Some extra overlays were thrown on it and there was a display of family wedding pictures in NON-MATCHING frames. I was too lazy to get matching frames, and it worked.

There were no place card holders, no photo booth with clever props, no pretty linens, no fancy chairs...and I thought everything looked lovely.

So if you're like me, and have a full time job and lots of other things going on, or you're lazy and don't really care, it'll be OK, I promise. I had to dig to find these pictures, and I can guarantee you that they will not be making it into the album. We kept it simple and went with spaces that were already nice looking, and I am thrilled with how it all turned out. Once Wed is not knocking down my door to blog my wedding...but that wasn't what this was about. It was about us staying sane and keeping things affordable, and we did that and still had a beautiful wedding. The details were never a priority for us-it was about committing ourselves to each other for life, bottom line. Everything else was purely extraneous to us.

Are you a bad*ss and had lots of gorgeous details? Are you nervous your wedding won't have enough details? Or are you lazy like me and owning it?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Rave

We wanted to get people to the dance floor ASAP, so directly after toasts we did the mother/groom dance, the father/daughter dance followed by the first dance...and then we had a rave.

As soon as Ryan and I got off the dance floor we dashed for the head table where I had glowsticks (from the Target dollar spot!) ready and waiting. "Sandstorm" came on, we ran over to the table where all of his ushers were, we handed out glow sticks right and left, and wonderful things happened...

I cannot tell you how hard I was laughing, it was absolutely awesome! Most of Ryan's runners were dancing, and a ton of his old co-workers hopped onto the dance floor too.

It was so Ryan, and I am so, so glad we did it. It was a blast for him and his friends (lets be honest...everyone thought it ruled), and it really got the party going in a big way. The dance floor was packed all night.

Did you add anything to your reception that was a big hit?

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Let them eat cake!

Marie Antoinette never said that, apparently. Anyway, cake!

I had absolutely nothing to do with selecting the cake. Ryan did it all, and my little sister Mary went to a cake tasting with him. So the cake was a total and complete surprise when I got to the reception, and here it is in all of its glory....

We ordered 2 of the round cakes for display purposes, and the rest of the cake was the exact same flavor, etc but they were sheet cakes that were cut up and ready to go in the kitchen. The milk glass cake stands we got at thrift stores, and the ribbon was from Michael's, and Ryan ordered the cake from Russell's Bakery in Fenton, MO. And wow. Ryan knows how I feel about strawberries, so he ordered white cake with cream cheese icing and strawberry filling. NO WORDS. So good. People were telling us and our parents all night that it was the best cake they had ever had. I agree!

We didn't really know how to start. Cutting into a pretty cake is somewhat intimidating!

Me: Let's just cut it.

Ryan: No cake smashing!

Me: Ok, just FEED ME CAKE.

Me: OMG that cake is so good. Let's make out it's so good.

Me: Oh, I guess you want cake too. FINE. Here you go!

Moment of silence for the cake.

It's so good we obviously need to make out again...

Me: Feed me more cake!

Hehehee, I love how grossed out Ryan looks here.

We didn't wait for forks or plates, we cut that piece of cake and plopped it on a napkin and went it at with our hands. Classy? Probably not. But I can't be expected to maintain self control when that pile of deliciousness was in front of my face!

My stomach was weird the whole week before the wedding. I worked 40 hours in 4 days and dinner just got put on the backburner, so I didn't eat much. By Friday I was too wrought up to eat a lot, so I think the biggest meal I had all week was at the rehearsal dinner. I hardly ate anything for dinner at the reception, so I was all over that cake. All over it.

Did you have a ton of cake left over? Because we had entire untouched sheet cakes left over. If we could do it over again, I think we'd literally order 1/2 of what we ordered, because we have a massive chunk in our freezer, Ryan's old workplace got cake, Ryan's parents handed it out...it was insane how much we had left over.

Ryan blew me out of the water with this cake. Did your partner surprise you with anything on the day of the wedding?

This is making me hungry...

All photos courtesy of Gail Fleming.

Receiving Line

One of the absolute BEST decisions we made concerning the wedding was having the receiving line before the ceremony. Oh my goodness you guys, seeing everyone beforehand and seeing how happy they were and excited for us....talk about a warm and fuzzy feeling all over! We definitely felt the love.

So many people made the 2 hour trip, and we were so glad that they did.

We got lots of hugs...

...and a chance to visit with pretty much everyone.

I got to meet some of Ryan's friends I hadn't gotten to meet yet...it's so nice to put faces to names!

There were fist bumps...

After the wedding, I realized that my Grandma and I hadn't ever taken a picture together. I had this awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach over it, and I had just about decided that I was going to bust out the dress again and have Ryan dress up in his suit (he was 100% game) and use my Dad's nice camera to get a picture with Grandma. Then we got our pictures...and I saw this candid shot from our photographer. And I was blown away, because it's better than any posed picture we could've taken. I LOVE this picture.

Ryan and I got to hang out, which was really nice.

There were meaningful moments...

And before we knew it, it was time to cool down and get ready to make it official!

All photos are courtesy of the talented Gail Fleming.