Storybook Wedding, Peter Pan Inspired Shoot for Valentine's Day Part 2

And welcome to part 2 of this Peter Pan inspired storybook wedding shoot! You'll notice some more reception details...most notably the table setting, cake cutting and the happy couple themselves (Peter and Wendy, of course!).

Vendor Credits:
Styling: Pink Parasol Designs
Venue: Hummingbird House
Cake: Blue Note Bakery
Catering: Good, Better, Best Catering
Sweets: Sweet Solutions
Silhouette: Silhouettes by Cindi
Rentals: Illusions Event Rentals
Vintage Rentals: Bee Lavish
Florist: Wild Bunches
Stationery: The Stationery Bakery
Jewelry: Viva Revival
Bridesmaid’s Dress: ASOS
Bridal Gown: Unbridaled
Hair & Makeup: Mayhem Beauty
Models: Ann Cambell, Heather Alayne, Leighton McLeod

Storybook Wedding, Peter Pan Inspired Shoot for Valentine's Day PART 1

What could be sweeter than a Peter Pan inspired wedding shoot for Valentine's Day? I had the privilege of being involved in this glorious styled shoot with Andy Sams Photography and Pink Parasol Designs. We meet Tinkerbell in Part 1 and some of the beautiful reception details. Tune in tomorrow for Part 2...where we'll meet the happy couple, Wendy and Peter.

Don't you just love the pirate-themed bar? Genius! And I love all the sparkly details like the DIY green glitter filled favor vials (with acorn and thimble details!), the gold painted crocodiles and green sugar rimmed glasses. All these subtle details come together beautifully to create a sophisticated and grown-up story of Peter Pan.

There were so many amazing photos to share from this shoot I had to do it in two parts. Don't forget Part 2 tomorrow!

Vendor Credits:
Styling: Pink Parasol Designs
Venue: Hummingbird House
Cake: Blue Note Bakery
Catering: Good, Better, Best Catering
Sweets: Sweet Solutions
Silhouette: Silhouettes by Cindi
Rentals: Illusions Event Rentals
Vintage Rentals: Bee Lavish
Florist: Wild Bunches
Stationery: The Stationery Bakery
Jewelry: Viva Revival
Bridesmaid’s Dress: ASOS
Bridal Gown: Unbridaled
Hair & Makeup: Mayhem Beauty
Models: Ann Cambell, Heather Alayne, Leighton McLeod

Our wedding anniversary cake topper

*Disclaimer: This post has caused quite a bit of controversy. Of course, I am the queen of controversy LOL. I love nothing more than a bit of drama** So, while you're reading this post keep a few things in mind:

1. It is normal to ship a cake topper. There is nothing unusual about this. Shipping companies will gladly do this. Bakeries do this EVERYDAY in America.

2. This is not how the cake was shipped. There was actually packing material in the box. They did not ship a cake floating in a box and expect it to arrive safely. It was packed incredibly well and nestled in there tightly. I took out the packing material to show off and impress with my smooshed cake.

3. If you read the last sentence above, let me state this...THIS BOX WAS DROPPED. It was dropped. That is all. $75 for shipping and someone dropped it, this is the issue. 

4. The controversy may be the fact that I called out the name of the shipping company. In order to save my sanity and to not be called a stupid fart head any longer (you know for receiving a broken cake-I'm such a terrible person), I have replaced the shipping company name with *splort*. I was calling out the shipping company in a little friendly razzing. It was meant to be lighthearted. They were very good and refunded. However, I still had a broken cake. :-( 

5. Yes, I actually deleted some not nice comments and I will tell you why. Fine, yes, they insulted me, but they also insulted everyone that commented which are some very sweet blogger friends and that was not cool.

**Not true. This is internet sarcasm. I hate drama.

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When we got married, we bought our delicious beautiful cake from a place in Dallas called Frosted Art. We picked this place because I have always admired Bronwen Weber and all her wins on the Food Network Challenges. Here is our cake:

You should see the orchid on the side, it's gorgeous! Our wedding venue was Hotel Zaza in Dallas. And they are so caring and good at putting on weddings (sarcasm) that they didn't even serve the bride and groom cake. But, we did manage to rummage some leftovers. But, I didn't get to try my beloved black forest, which we especially ordered just for me.

Anyway, something else we liked about this bakery was that you don't have to save your cake topper (we were going straight to Hawaii) and we can order a free one for our anniversary. Amazing, right? You just pay overnight shipping through *splort* (unnamed shipping company, LOL) for $75. Ew, *splort*. Oh well, I was truly excited about getting this cake topper so I could finally try the black forest. Yum! My favorite! And here's what you get from *splort* for $75:

Thank you *splort*! I'm sure it's delicious.

Blog redesigns all over the place!

My very talented wedding photographer friend Cari is starting up her very own wedding blog. And because I don't feel like I'm drowning in projects and my brain will explode (quite possibly the only way I am truly happy), I volunteered to take on her header design. I love doing this kind of work. I love to get my girly brush out and paint some pink all over the place, so a wedding blog design is right up my alley. Here's the logo I designed for her blog:

And I featured some of her lovely photos as well. You can visit her photography site at cariwiblephotography.com. I'll let you know as soon as her blog is up and running.

What I got for Christmas (part 1)- DIY digital picture frame

David got me a digital picture frame for our wedding pictures. He made it special with some little DIY additions! He's got my fever now! Muhaha!

First, he covered the frame with a dark metallic gray (my favorite color!) cardstock. Then he used a gel pen to write some of our favorite places, experiences and just things that are special to us (like the scary giant black crane from David's beach night wedding proposal in Florida). He also added some of the leaf ribbon we used on our wedding invitations as a border and attached a purple flower like the ones at our wedding.


This was probably the sweetest and most thoughtful gift he's ever given me (and he's very good at that!). He also picked out a cute little bird stand to put it on since he knows my love of birds. Thanks honeybear! You're the best husband I've ever had (even if I've only had one)! Love you!

DIY Friday-All about weddings

I just realized I never shared any other wedding DIY other than my own. Whooops. Better late than never. There are so many fabulous ones out there. That's right, I whipped out a 'fabulous' on your.  Enjoy!

Photo from Style Me Pretty

Very cute and thoughtful bridesmaid survival kits.


Pretty wedding banner and topiary.


I kinda wish we would have had bubbles at our wedding.


How about this beautiful doily lamp? I'd use this right now!


And a whole lotta pretty wedding crafts.

More wedding DIY and crafts-Part 2

Welcome to my final wedding DIY post! Soon, I will also have a recap of our big day with some photos you haven't yet seen.

Reception: At night, with deep and dark colors, more of a romantic feel.

Centerpieces-These are the reception centerpieces we created using the wedding centerpiece tutorial I shared with you earlier this week. This one has the little beaded strings and candle holder I was telling you about. 

Favor Candleholders-We designed these at home, using our theme of manzanita branches and printed them on Avery Clear Full-Sheet Labels. They stick right to the frosted candle holder. We also included a battery-operated tea-light for our guests to take home. If you decide to go this route, make sure use a ruler to flatten it onto the glass, so there are no bubbles. We chose these candle holders because they are not tapered and the paper can lay flat.

Placecards-We found some great illustrations online and printed them on the same stationary as our invites. The we took a sparkly paper from Michael's, cut it into 4 slices and glued it to the top. We found out the hard way you can't glue something on top of glitter paper!Bride and groom chair markers-These were very simple. I bought the hearts and letters at Michael's. I painted the hearts purple and laid a cut piece of textured purple paper on top, to give it some extra dimension. Then I glued the pre-painted letters on top. I stapled some satin ribbon i cut on the back to tie around the chairs. You can hide the staples by leaving a little extra ribbon after the staples, folding it on top of itself and gluing.

More wedding DIY and crafts-Part 1

Welcome to the last day of wedding DIY! This is just a miscellaneous assortment of some of the smaller DIY's we crafted for our wedding. We had a very do-it-yourself wedding, indeed! I think we took on a bit too much really. But, it turned out great. Here is a list of some of the things we did as well as some tips.

Ceremony: We wanted a light, airy and nature theme.

1. Hanging flowers-We came up with this idea and David's mom worked hard to make it for us! She strung some flower petals on clear string that I had taken apart from a multi-layered flower. It was kind of like a hydrangea, but bigger. 

2. Aisle lanterns-We bought these cute little lanterns on Ebay. They came in a back of 10 for a really good price. Again, fake tea-lights in case someone knocks them over, which I did! We also laid rose petals on the aisle runner. The aisle runner is from Save-on-crafts.

3. Chair decor-These are some fake orchids we found at Michael's pretty last minute. We snipped them into smaller sections and David tied them around the chiavari chair ends. He even tied the little bows! Awww! First, you have to secure these with wire. Just wrap it around the top part of the chair.

4. Ceremony cards-I designed these using the artwork I made for our wedding invitations. Same paper as well. These are a bit simpler though! Our ushers handed them out at the door.

5. Veil and hair clip-This veil is from Michael's! After spending lots of money on my dress, I didn't want to spend $200 on a piece of fabric. Plus, I wanted a birdcage veil. I didn't really think the long ones went with the style of my dress. I made the hair clip using leftover petals from when my dress was altered. I sewed them in the middle, attached an alligator clip and sewed a small vintage earring (without the back!) on top. It was easy to sew on since there are tiny spaces between the leaves.

6. Belt-My dress already came with a belt. I just jazzed it up a bit. I found this great applique on Etsy. I just glued it on to some pin backs and pinned it on the belt. Easy!

7. Boutonnières-These were so easy to make. I wish the bouquet's were this easy! I used a feather pick and tiny white center buds from Hobby Lobby and the same "diamond" pick, template and ribbon that I talked about on my wedding bouquet DIY . Then, they were stuck on the boys with the "diamond" stick pins I used on my bouquet.

But wait, there's more! Later on today I will have the rest of our DIY's from the reception.

All photos by ee photography

Simple Centerpiece DIY

David and I originally made this centerpiece for our reception and our ceremony. Now a simpler version sits on our dining room table, since we loved it so much. Create this simple centerpiece for an elegant wedding or even Thanksgiving! It's so simple and very inexpensive. You only need a few supplies and I'll show you what and where to get them. 

Photo by ee-photography

This centerpiece flanks each side of our altar. We used the darker version of branches for the ceremony and sand blasted for our reception.

Here's what you'll need:

1. Clear glass vase-This is from Hobby Lobby. I just picked it up at the store. I waited for them to go 40% off though, woot! It's about 8 inches tall. Any vase will do though, just make sure it's tall enough for the branch to be stable.

2. Sand-This is from Michael's. They have lots of colors. This is called sage green.

3. Preserved orchids-These are real! We chose the color "Purple Mauve." Perhaps a little redundant? These came from Save-on-crafts, which is an awesome online store! They really have great prices (except the Manzanita!). These orchids come in so many colors and they have other great preserved flowers too. Great quality stuff.

4. Manzanita branches-We bought the ones from Blooms & Branches. We chose 18" ones. You can buy them in bulk or singles. They have the best prices that I've found, including shipping. You have to really watch out for shipping on these, it can run high at some places. You can also sometimes get these at the florist, but it was hard to come by for me.

How to make it:

1. Step 1 and step 2 are pretty interchangeable. It just depends on how you like working. First place the sand in the vase. Then wiggle the branch into the sand. This is all the support you will need. It stays very well in just sand.

2. Use hot glue to place the orchids into a "V" in the branches. You'll have plenty. it just makes a nice place for the flower to site securely. You won't really be able to see the hot glue, but if you want a pretty arrangement from all sides you can glue another flower to the other side of the first one. We glued 3-4 orchids per branch, but we had other decorations on them as well. 
3. Ta-da! That's it! But, we wanted to add some extras to ours. Customize it however you want:
    a) We added candle holders with fake tea lights. Use a chain to secure the candle holder    
    or buy something pre-made to hang. 
    b) We also added little iridescent beaded strings. Our friend hand strung these, thanks  
    Cari! She used different beads of varying sizes. Larger chandelier crystals would look  
    fantastic also.
    c) For the reception we tied a ribbon around the vase and tied a bow.
    d) For the ceremony we took a large square of satin fabric and tied a contrasting ribbon  
    around it.

Wedding guestbook alternative

We knew we didn't want a guestbook. The chances of us ever opening up this book again was next to nothing. We wanted to do something different (and truth be told we also wanted a picture of us on the wall without seeming too narcissistic!). So, we ordered a canvas of one of our engagement photos and I mixed in a little bit of my illustrations from our invitations. It's all printed on a canvas. We made sure to include a large black border. Then we bought a silver gel pen for everyone to sign our picture. It's a nice memento from our wedding that we will eventually hang on our wall.


If you don't want to use your own photo like us, use a framed art print and have your guests sign the matte. You can always change out the art when your style changes.

We bought ours through Miller's, but we had to go through a photographer friend. You can buy canvases at many places, just google "photo canvas" and you'll find tons. 

Handmade wedding invitations

One of my favorite things to design freelance is wedding invitations. I pick out pretty typefaces and illustrate the artwork on the computer. But, I always love to include a handmade element to them. It might be as simple as cutting out the invitations myself to adhere the invitations to a pretty border, like my friend Laura's invites.

With our wedding invitations though, we went all out. First, I started with the flower of our wedding, an orchid. I really didn't want to do a flower per-se because it seems very ordinary to me for a wedding invitation. So, the challenge was to make it unique somehow. 


I decided we were going to do die-cuts. But, that can be really expensive. I drew the orchid and vines in Illustrator then cut them out with a X-acto. We layered a nice textured purple paper underneath the orchid to give it some dimension. Then, we layered a larger green paper to border the entire invitation. David found this great vine ribbon at Paper Source. We used that and the same purple textured paper to keep the invitation, rsvp card, etc. together. I really wish the pictures did it justice! 

Now, how did we cut out 60+ invitations with an X-acto knife. Well, we didn't! I have this nifty little machine called the Silhouette. What is awesome about this machine is that I can make my own designs in Illustrator for the machine to cut out. I don't have to rely on pre-made designs! This thing is amazing, there are so many uses! It would even be great to add something extra to a ready-made invitation. 

Silhouette

Our wedding venue-Hotel Zaza Dallas

There's a beautiful boutique hotel in Dallas called Hotel Zaza. It's very eclectic, but modern in its decor. This is where we chose to have our wedding. The people there are quite difficult and I wouldn't recommend giving them your business, but it sure is pretty to look at! Besides, our wedding turned out quite lovely, despite all their attempts to ruin it for us. David wants to go back and stay a night so we can actually enjoy the place. I think it might be nice.


We had our ceremony in their art gallery. Originally it was to be in their covered pool area called the Urban Oasis. But, they lied to us about it being closed. It was open and ready after all for use a couple of days before our wedding when we came by to visit. The reception was in the ballroom. The hotel is so gorgeous I just wish the people that worked there weren't a bunch of scumbags. :-) But, I think you'll find this kind of thing often when you're getting married. You just kind of have to let it go. I don't stew about it like I used to, but I do want to warn anyone who is thinking about having their wedding here.


One of the best things about out wedding was our photographer. She is so sweet and very talented. These are some of the shots her and her husband took of the location.

Photos by http://www.ee-photography.com