DIY Wedding {Veil and headpiece}

I knew I wanted to use vintage items for my wedding....well, since I knew what a wedding was! My mother had saved a bunch of special family wedding items and when I got engaged we looked through the collection to see what could work for mine.  I ended up using a bunch of things, however, today I want to share with you all my veil and headpiece.  My grandmother had used as a veil a white, beaded headband thing with white (since yellowed) toole. 

.Walter and Kathryn Goodin.

.Walter and Kathryn Goodin.

I loved the white beaded piece and knew I had to attempt to make it work.  I hadn't picked a dress out yet, so it was important to take it with me!  My mother was heavily involved with the following process (well, really she did it all, I was WAY TOO NERVOUS with a family heirloom).  She and I called a bunch of different services/restoration specialists.  None of them wanted to

#1 do it themselves

#2 tell us how they'd attempt it due to liabilities

One sweet man (after my mom worked her convincing magic...amazing) on the phone finally explained his ideas on restoration and my mom went to work....bless her!

Pre-Cleaning

Pre-Cleaning...upclose...look at that beadwork!

Days, sweat, anxiety and multiple cleaning products later we had what we wanted.

My dear bridesmaid Lisa cut the veil fabric the day of the wedding (no sweat right).  I had ordered Russian netting over the Internet (hard to find here in Cincy).  Lisa cut it for me (I was too nervous) in a big rectangle.

what a great friend....as I laugh at her...

we wrapped this around my side bun and bobby pinned it down

..Tracy putting it all together..

I loved my veil and headpiece and wouldn't change my decision for the world! I meant so much to me to have something of my grandma {who past when I was in high school} ON me for our wedding and could feel her presence and love all day.

{Kate}

DIY Wedding {flowers}

I am NOT a florist. I don't even attempt to be a flower arranger for my own house.  So, when I decided to do all my wedding flowers on my own...commence sweat!  I talked with a couple different floral companies and individuals, who really did help me.  However, still out of my budget!  So, I was able to use a wholesale flower company in downtown Cincy and create my mental picture!

I used hammered items throughout our wedding {rings, centerpieces, buckets, flower holders}.

When I found these hammered flower holders....holy excitement!!

I knew then, doing the flowers myself might just work.

I researched/priced out all the flowers I wanted to use that would be in season.

Here they are:

Green Button Mums

Green Fuji/Spider

Green Dianthus (love these)

Mini Green Hydrangeas

Green Hypericum Berries

My sweet helpers came the day before the wedding to put all my ideas (and theirs) together!

..Enjoy..

I wasn't sure how it was turning out....and I don't hide my emotions...

considering a new career path in floral!!

My bouquet and our shoes

love the green!

Mother's bouquet

Bouquets and men's boutonnieres

For our ring bearer, his mother (my pianist and long time friend) made him a boutonniere out of fabric...precious! My flower girl carried a homemade holder for petals!

For the alter, we choose to purchase two topiaries (my fave) and then we wanted to plant them outside our front door after the wedding.  I found them here in OH (my home state) and I found out they had been grown in OR (my hubby's home state), so I knew they were the ones!

I ended up loving doing my flowers (in the end once they were gorgeous).  They ended up being much easier than expected and since I didn't do centerpieces including flowers...I was able to handle it all! 

~thanks to my flowers helpers, couldn't have done it without you~


{Kate}

Wedding Season. August

I love weddings and all the meaning they hold.  Wasn't Tracy and Kirk's day beautiful, such a celebration of their love!  It was so fun to re-live it in July, thanks T!  I'm going to be sharing my experiences and DIY knowledge (however much that may be) through this August 2011!

Background: Geoff joked early on in our relationship that we should just get married and the date 8.9.10 would be perfect!  Well, once we were engaged we looked up the date and it was a Monday...HA!  So we kept looking and 8.27.10 was perfect and if you add up 2+7=9....LOVE IT!

This was a Friday night and with Geoff's family all from OR and friends all over the US, we thought this would be the best day of the week.  We wanted to really spend time with everyone without the 'stress' of the wedding...so we were able to spend quailty time with the family Saturday and Sunday!  I do want to re-thank everyone who took off work for our wedding.....it wouldn't have been the same without you.  We were very blessed with such generous people surrounding us.

Once picking the date everything started rolling into place.  We got engaged in Feburary of 2010...leaving us 6 short months to prepare!  I wanted to create everything myself....for multiple reasons.

1. We set ourselves with a small, reasonable budget!

2. I enjoy creating things, and I had a lot of historical family items I wanted to use!

I hope you'll enjoy seeing how we pulled off our big event in the next month, I'm looking forward to reviewing it all a year later, with you!

After a long day of school and parent/teacher conferences, Geoff had set up a touching scavenger hunt...love him!