Flower Girl & Ring Bearer gifts

I found these adorable t-shirts at CafePress.com.  My favorite line is number 7:

 I ordered them for the girls and found a flower to match and pin in the upper corner to dress it up a bit.

 I thought these were cute for the boys as well, but decided on a different one that said 'Ring Security' on the back.  If you knew the boys you would know how perfect it is for them!  They are taking their ring bearer jobs very seriously :)

Also super cute for the boys but they were too big.

 

I got these totes through my sister's husband's company, Quality Gold (http://www.qgold.com/; Gift book; p. 356). I plan to fill it with their t-shirts, lip glosses, stickers, books, candy and other fun things!

I will fill these 'Thank you for being our Ring Bearer' mugs with candy for the boys (also ordered through Quality Gold). 

After we got engaged, I gave my ring bearers (Cole and Grant) these ring bearer books and inscribed them with, 'Will you carry our rings on our wedding day?' and gave the books to them as Christmas gifts.  I also inscribed a flower girl book the same way for their sister Lauren.  We gave our other two flower girls books with similar inscriptions.  Hopefully they enjoy them!

The Bridal Bible

When we first got engaged, the thought of planning a wedding was a bit overwhelming and a whirlwind.  People immediately started to ask if we picked a date, where we are getting married, etc., etc. etc.  Luckily, I have plenty of friends who have been through the planning process before. 

My good friend and bridesmaid, Chelsea, saved me.  She made me the most fantastic planning binder I ever could have imagined.  This thing has a tab for everything from my dress, to the florist, from the Music to the Honeymoon.  As soon as she gave it to me, I started to fill it with all of the wedding odds and ends, papers & receipts that had already started piling up.  I also put inspiration pages I had pulled out of magazines in the extra clear plastic protector pages she had put in the back for me.  This thing is a lifesaver and I don't leave home without it.  It's so easy to slip a receipt or an idea inside because there is a tab for EVERYTHING. 

This 'Bridal Bible' has been one of the most useful gifts I have ever received. 

Here is a picture to give you an idea:

 ...a tab for EVERYTHING!  You name it, there is a tab for it.

Love it!  Thanks, Chels!

Hotel Bags

So this might spoil it for any readers staying in the hotel but I haven't updated in awhile so here we go.....Hotel bags aren't really a big deal, throw a few waters, a sample pack of advil and pretzel bags together and you're done.  Easy, but we will have guests coming from as far as Louisiana, so I really want to make them special. 

First we'll start with a simple navy blue or lavendar gift bag.  I like these personalized bags from Oriental Trading:

Then I've created these 'Thank You' bag tags to attach with ribbon to a sachet of lavendar.

Bag Tags:

Lavendar sachets (got these for cheap on etsy too!):

Also, after browsing the wedding aisle at Michael's I came across these DIY water bottle labels.  Thanks to http://www.gartnerstudios.com/, I was able to come up with several different patterns combining different blues and purples (can't figure out how to rotate this!). 

Another idea I found on etsy was to make hotel door hangers:

Rather than pay $15 for 20 of them, I found a door hanger template on Microsoft Word and created my own using cardstock.

I'll laminate them, decorate with small rhinestones and maybe thread ribbon to make a bow under the doorknob hole.  Easy to make and fun!  Hopefully the hotel will  hang them on our guests' doors prior to their arrival :)

The hotel in which I reserved a block of rooms provided me with enough Miami County Guide books (which includes a map) to fill each bag:

Winans Candies ( http://www.winanscandies.com/default.aspx) is a great place to go if you want delicious chocolate.  The business is unique to Troy and the surrounding area.  For Christmas, my future mother-in-law put these caramels with our gifts:

I was never that big a fan of caramels until I ate these.  So to spread the goodness, I thought it would be nice to add a 'taste of Troy' to the hotel bags by putting a few caramels in each one.

Here are some cute ideas for personalizing your wedding weekend schedule:

 

My wonderful friend and bridesmaid Britney came all the way from Delaware (OH) last night to help me finish up some wedding projects.  After sending Brian on a mad search for cute wedding stamps (I didn't want the ugly gold rings or wedding cake-they are too boring!) he came back with the Garden of Love stamps.  Go figure, one of them has two doves on it.

So, Britney and I spent the night stamping all of my wedding envelopes & RSVP cards, finishing a few table number frames, making some of the door hangers and putting the hotel bags together.

 Britney stamping envelopes.

 We thought these Dasani water bottles had navy blue lids when we bought them (which would match our theme perfectly!) but they are the 'Plant Bottles' (30% made from plants!) so the lids are green instead of navy blue :(  But that's okay, they still look nice!

Finished Project.

What other goodies should we throw in? 

First Bridal Shower Gifts!

Just recently, Brian and invested in a King sized bed (why didn't we do this sooner?!).  The bed was delivered during my mom's visit.  As a bridal shower gift to us, she bought us our mattress pad, 2 new king sized pillows and beautiful sheets by Palais Royale.

When you get a nice new king sized bed and all of the necessities, it's also time to pick out beautiful bedding.  Just like the dishes, I've had my eye on the 'Sienna Paisley' bedding from Pottery Barn for quite awhile:

My grandfather bought us this bedding as a shower gift.  I'm sure if my grandma were still with us, she would approve of our choice :)

A trip to Grandma's...

This past weekend, Brian and I spent 3 long days helping my parents empty my Grandparent's sold house.  We took a lot of trips down memory lane, especially my mom.  I was truly amazed at how much "stuff" my grandparents actually owned.  Not a cupboard was left empty, and not a container left unfilled.  Although it was tiring, we came across some pretty neat things along the way. 

My grandmother was a collector.  For one, she collected bells.  My mom reasoned that when people found out she collected them, they started giving her bells for every holiday so her collection grew that way.  She also collected Swarovski crystal figurines, vases, Thomas Kincaide houses, Christmas village houses and lastly, it would appear that she and my grandfather collected matchbooks. 

Brian and I were debating on getting personalized matchbooks to put at the bar for our wedding but when we came across these, we realized they were vintage matchbooks.  We thought it would be really neat to put these at the bar instead.  They kept matchbooks from every wedding they went to, some dating back as far at 1980.  Some matchbooks are even older than that.  Who would have ever thought that Burger King gave out matchbooks? 

Here is a picture of the collection:

I want to make some kind of small sign to display next to them at the wedding noting their significance.

I also mentioned that she collected vases.  During my hunt for hobnail, I never thought that my grandmother would own so many pieces.  I probably found 10-15 pieces of milk glass, 4 of which were hobnail.  We gave the rest away although I hated to do that seeing as how difficult it was for me to find milk glass at first.  Here is a picture of some of the pieces I recovered:



They are all unique and for the most part they are unlike anything that I have for the wedding so far. 

Bridal Shower Invites

Just recently, I received an invitation to my Bridal Shower in the mail.  It's really an exciting thing when you realize, "It's finally my turn!"  My sister picked out these adorable invitations from http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/.  She said one of the reasons she chose this particular invitation was because of the two doves on top of the cake.

When we got engaged, I found a picture of two very intricate doves used as a cake topper in The Knot magazine.  I did everything I could to find them by contacting the people at The Knot, searching the internet, looking through various stores but to no avail.  I showed the doves to my sister and she ended up finding a similar pair at TJMaxx.  I gave them to my cake lady at our last visit so I don't have them to show on here but they are just perfect.

Here is a pictures of the original doves:

We hope to have them sitting atop the cake in a ring of hydrangeas.

Thanks Rachel, for helping a vision become reality!

Toasting Flutes

As soon as the time came, I showed Brian these beautiful Park Avenue toasting flutes and serving set from Things Remembered:

They engrave each piece with your names, wedding date or a logo of your choice.  They e-mail you the logo so you can use it on anything else.

We received them a few days ago and they look fantastic.  Can't wait to toast with them each year on our anniversary!