Wedding Recaps - Color Me Periwinkle

Wow, 7 months goes by fast. I can't believe I've been married for 7 months. I think I'm allowed to be called a newlywed for the first year, right? So recaps of a wedding that happened in July isn't crazy, am I right? 


*crickets*


Well, I've already disclosed where we were having the wedding, but I haven't much talked about my design or my plans with how I wanted to transform the space to make it my own. 


First, it was all about color. For many, this is an easy task; choose your favorite color, and move on, right? Well, that would just be too simple for me. I needed to find a color that's ridiculously difficult to find. Make life hard for myself - yes! This is a GREAT idea! Periwinkle! Let's choose Periwinkle!! And brown, because frankly, the colors go well together. 


Brides use Tiffany Blue for everything these days, so let's change it up a little so people, including everyone involved in making your wedding possible, are confused. Perfect. 

Tiffany Blue? Too easy.

 Did you know that periwinkle isn't a trend these days? Yah, me either. So, finding inspiration for this color had to come from the voices in my head. And though they are entertaining, the voices are more for the whimsy than the real. So, for many things, I needed to create from things I've seen and make them my own. Some things worked, others didn't. The most important thing I learned was that it's okay to have several shades of blue, periwinkle and brown and use them together to make a continuum of color that ties everything together. 

Many thought I was crazy because they were from the old school notion that you should have 2 colors for your wedding, and they should match exactly. This is the same notion that says hunter green and burgundy are still the wedding colors of choice. (Side note - in high school, I was CONVINCED these were going to be my wedding colors. Ugh.)

However, I'm glad to report I think it all turned out okay...

Pictures by Metsker Photography

Overall, I'm glad I decided to go with a twist of a trending color. It allowed me the freedom to play with more color options and create a palette of colors instead of one or two. 

What factors have played in your decisions for color?

Star Wars Party

My son loves Star Wars. As a 6 year old, his experiences are more along the Clone Wars lines, and less the days of Ewoks and Chewbacca. So, when it was time to celebrate his birthday, he asked to have a Star Wars party. And since I refuse to completely fall into the commercialized visions of how my party should be, I decided to explore the blogosphere for some inspiration...this is what I found:

The Ultimate Death Star

The woman that wrote about her party inspired me to do a very similar party. Imitation is a form of flattery, yes? Let's discuss:

My son's birthday is in October, so the orb of choice was a pumpkin, and with so many people carving death stars out of pumpkins, I thought, hey, why not?

Um, I am no pumpkin carver, like this dude is.

Here is my son's party in all it's glory: 

The Death Star pumpkin in all it's glory, accompanied by Federation Fruit (with dip), and pretzel light sabers - pretzel sticks dipped in colored candy melts. These were to die for by the way. I can't believe I've never made them before. They taste like yogurt covered pretzels. Yum!

My aunts bake great cakes, and can be pretty creative. They were troopers when I asked them to tackle Yoda. They even used a glow stick for his light saber. So clever. 

Though, we did find that Yoda's head, removed from his body, transformed him into E.T. 

Beeeeeeee Goooood.............

Food with a little creativity paired with family and friends makes a great party. Have you ever stepped out of your normal to make a party fun for someone? 

Be Mine, Valentine

My son Angelo is in Kindergarten. Which means just about every day I'm given some sort of permission slip, reminder note or something of some sort of activity he is participating in. Of course, with it being February, the activity is the infamous Valentine's Day party.

Oh, I remember my elementary school Valentine's Day parties...hoping you got a 'special' valentine from that cute boy in class (it never happened). Decorating your mailbox and then taking turns with fellow classmates passing out valentines. Oh, and there are treats. Always treats at these parties.

Source here, here, and here

So, as a parent, I was initially excited to get the letter home that Angelo is having a Valentine's Day party. However, I was a bit disappointed to find that for the most part, everything must be store bought. Well, Boo! Each parent is allowed to choose what they want to contribute to the party.

Since baking on my own is out of the question, I decided to go for party favors. There are 26 kids in Angelo's  morning Kindergarten class. We've been asked to make things simple, so I searched for something that would be simple, but cute, and different from anything store bought. The result? I went to Michaels and made favor bags.

(pictures by me)

Each bag contains a coloring/activity sheet, 2 crayons, a scratch-n-sniff sticker and a little bag of Hershey Kisses. The bags were simple - Ziploc bags with a construction paper wrap stapled to the top, embellished with foam stickers.

I think it brings a touch of home-made to a cookie-cutter party. What have you contributed to your children's party?

Something old, something new...

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." I figure, a time honored tradition hasn't led too many people a stray, so why not? 


My new was traditional - I bought my wedding dress new - very easy. I loved wearing my white dress for my wedding, but it felt, well, common. How do you stray from traditional without straying too far away from my traditional wedding?

Why, my shoes of course! Payless Shoes has a line of dyable shoes that happened to work perfectly for what I needed. I chose to make these bad boys the same blue that I put throughout my wedding and reception. Periwinkle is a difficult color to make matchy-matchy with everything, but who knew - shades of the color work really well together. 

Metzer Photography

Something borrowed - Oh, you have to love Mom. Well, I love my Mom. She is a very religious person, and during any of her travels, carries several rosaries, all of which I'm sure she used at some point during her trip to Washington for our wedding. The conversation of whether or not I had all of my elements for the wedding. I sheepishly replied, "Well, I have new and blue." She pulled out several rosaries and said, which would you like? I chose this one pictured, periwinkle and absolutely beautiful. She initially told me I could borrow it, and it would be my old and borrowed. 

We wrapped it around my bouquet, and throughout the day it reminded me of my Mom and her incredible faith and love for our family. Today it hangs in our son's room as a constant reminder of my Mother and her faith in God and in us.

Did you take on this wedding tradition? How did you make it work for you? 

Idle Hands are the Devil's Workshop

My high school math teacher had that saying posted in his classroom. I remember looking at that sign daily. We had quizzes often, and if I didn't know the answers, my eyes would wander upward. I wasn't looking to cheat, I think I was hoping I would get some sort of answer from the Math Gods, and they would help me get through the quiz.

I've been married for over a month now. And I have idle hands. I feel like I should be crafting something, or trying to figure out what to do with a tablescape. I've spent the last 11 months of my life trying to figure out the minutia of my wedding. Now that the wedding is over, the gap in time between getting home from work and crawling into bed at midnight is well, gaping. I feel lost, and I find myself circling our apartment wondering what in the world I'm supposed to do next.

Is this bizarre? Probably.

What do I do with myself? Well, besides the regular post bride activities (writing thank-you notes and trying to get my house back to normal), I'm still reading the blogs I used to read (I call it wedding porn these days), and I'm trying to find ways to reinvent myself. This, I think, is proving to be incredibly difficult. Where most self-reinvention should be enlightening, I'm finding this forces me to look back at my wedding critically, looking at every detail and how I should have executed it differently. And, though this is a great exercise to grow as an event planner, it's a horrible way to reflect on your own wedding. In fact, it's down right depressing, and I'm sure incredibly unhealthy.

It's been a serious wake up call. But, I think it's teaching me some valuable lessons. First, the wedding isn't the have all-end all. The wedding is just the tip of the iceberg. I plan to have many amazing years with my husband, and eventually I'm going to replace wedding crafting time with new, fun and exciting adventures with my family. Until then, I'll be recapping my wedding, and hopefully I can extend some helpful party planning tips to you through my successes and failures. Don't get me wrong. I love my family, and would do anything for them. This is less about them and more about my ability to transform from bride to wife. It's a strange and lovely journey - I hope you join me for the ride!

Bad Blogger!

I am a baaaad blogger. So bad, that I've managed to skip over blogging about any details about my wedding and well, got married. Whoops.

Well, miraculously I suddenly have some time on my hands (hmmm...could be my lack of DIY projects that I had to have for the wedding) so I'll hopefully take the time to recap the wedding and the projects and my forward movement into wifedom. Yep, that's a word now.

Wifedom - the institution of having a permanent life partner with duties that include dishes, cooking and keeping the Mister happy in bed. 

Um, ahem. Anyhoo...

I'm happy to be back; I was happy to plan, and I'm more than happy I'm married. Please join me to recap my months of insanity!

And a peek at the wedding?

Picture Courtesy of Metsker Photography. She rocked the house.

I promise to come back soon with many more details about the best day of my life so far (minus the birth of our son. Bringing a new life into the world is hard to compete with, you know?)

DIY Part Deux

Okay, my first attempt to make petal holders...FAIL. Ugly. And didn't make sense. They were awful. But! Let's not let that get the best of us, shall we? No, instead, I did what any other girl does when she's all out of ideas! I look to the interwebs and poof! I found what I wanted!

But, before we go there...let's recap. This is what I wanted:

Beautiful, aren't they? 

This is what I made...

Definitely not what I wanted. So, I read somewhere that you can make cones out of doilies cut in half. What? I can do a half DIY and still make it my own? Oh, I'm sold.

I bought these babies at Party City. I could wander that store for hours. But, that's another story. A pack of 48 was plenty enough for me. 96 of these guys is more than enough for our guests.

Easy peasy: Take a doily and fold it in half.

And then let all your anger out with a swift chop with the guillotine! Er, I mean, the paper cutter.

Roll the half-doily into a cone shape with the lacy part on top.

Tape it together ( I taped in two spots because I'm just well, an over-killer), and voila! A petal cone!

Tada!! And with petals inside: 

Ahhh...I feel so much better about this project now. And it was incredibly easy - like used half of my attention easy. I got to watch District 9 while making these bad boys, and now they're a part of my filling hall closet I call the "wedding closet."

I am now living proof that you don't have to be completely crafty to make nice things! Apparently, you just have to be a good Googler!

Have you ever found better ideas on the internet to fix your own DIY disasters?