DIY Wedding Open House: M&M

Unfortunately for me, the photos I got do not properly reflect how beautiful it was....or what a labor of love it was!  But let's take a look nonetheless.

Vintage was the theme of the wedding, so we carried it over in a shabby chic vintage kind of way for the open house.  In all those months of my pregnancy that I was so sick, all I could do was lay there and feel sorry for myself, I dreamed this up....

So let's go over the details...I'll just share what we did, and then in later posts will come the how-to instructions for my DIY projects.

First and foremost, lighting.  We strung white lights (the large bulb outdoor Christmas kind...don't use LED, they look bluish-neon and ugly) from the deck to one of the trees.  We were going to do another two or three strands off the other end of the deck to a couple other trees on the other side of the yard....but we may or may not have blown those strands by overloading the circuit.  Whoops.  In addition, we had a floodlight on the food, and one off the corner of the deck to replace the light that we would have gotten from the strands we blew.  We hung purple and silver paper lanterns from the light strands, trees and deck to add some color.  

And we had candles EVERYWHERE!

To further set the mood, music is ALWAYS a must.  This was an open house, not a reception, so we weren't doing dancing, but that didn't lessen the importance of a good playlist.  To match the feel we were going for, I used mostly older tunes with a few of my favorite modern songs thrown in.  My playlist was as follows:

L-O-V-E, Nat King Cole

The Best is Yet to Come, Michael Buble

La Vie En Rose, Edith Piaf (I prefer the French version, though she does do it in English too)

Fools Rush In, Elvis Presley

Over the Rainbow, Harry Nilsson

Come Away With Me, Norah Jones

Never Saw Blue Like That, Shawn Colvin

You and I, Michael Buble
At Last, Etta James

Return to Me, Joey Gian

Dream a Little Dream of Me, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

Moonlight, Sting

Anchor, Mindy Gledhill

For Once in My Life, Michael Buble

As Time Goes By, Billie Holiday

Unforgettable, Nat King Cole

All the Way, Frank Sinatra

The Way You Look Tonight, Tony Bennett

The Nearness of You, Norah Jones

Sway, Dean Martin

Guests entered through the side gate.  We had balloons at the corners of the chain link fence, and little baby jar lanterns hanging along the fence.

The sign-in table was at the immediate left after the gate.

I used a puzzle composed of photos of the bride and groom as the guest book.

Hanging above the sign-in table were mason jars that I stenciled their names out on.  Inside each jar was some tulle in the wedding colors (coral, lavender and splashes of aqua) and a battery-powered votive...so we wouldn't burn the deck down!  I hung them, staggered, from the underside of the deck with my trusty staple gun and some jute twine.

 

 The gift table ran at a right angle from the sign-in table,

and over that I hung baby jars with 'gifts & cards' stenciled on them, with battery powered tea lights.  Also hung with jute twine.

Tables, chairs and white linens we borrowed from our church.  For the centerpieces, I cut about 6 yards of tulle and folded it into a multi-layer square, then on top placed two tinted jars full of flowers, three jars of candles and framed photo of the bride and groom from their wedding day at the Portland temple the week previous.  These decor items were also spread out on the sign-in and gift tables, as you may have noticed.

 

The food....I took no photos of, since it wasn't my deal.  We decided to do a dessert bar, and I did bake a lot, but the table, while attractive, wasn't my work of art, so I just didn't even think about taking pictures of it!

And last but not least, the bride and groom.  The only photo I really got of them the whole night!

Mandy was wearing her paternal grandmother's 1940's wedding gown and her maternal grandmother's sparkly vintage brooch as a hair accessory.  She looked stunning.  And Matt looked alright, I guess.  :)  They opted not to rent tuxedos, so instead he bought a new grey suit.  Looked pretty snazzy.

So there you have it!  The event that absorbed me for months!

More posts to follow on all the DIY projects I did for this.  To see the rest of the posts on this wedding, click here.

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DIY Wedding M&M: Little Boy Ties

I know, it's been a ridiculously long time since I posted anything.  Let's just say recovering from this wedding and regaining any desire to do anything has taken some time!!!

But let's talk about the wedding!  Today, I wanted to show you the ties I made for the little guys.  All the grown up men got the same awesome lavender paisley tie (I love paisley...but I didn't pick it out, yet another reason I love my new sister-in-law: she likes paisley), and I thought it would be nice for the little guys (i.e. the three nephews) to match, so I offered to make them matching ties out of grown-up ties.

So I bought two little guy tie patterns from the Little Gentleman's Closet, her bow tie and her regular tie patterns.  Michelle, the owner of this shop, is an old friend.  We met in our 7th grade music class, and I assure you, our friendship was definitely the only good thing that came out of that class!   These days she has two little boys, which inspired her to start this shop to begin with.  (You've got to check out her Halloween ties....I love them.)

Anyway, the patterns are great.  Very clear step-by-step instructions with lots of photos.  But since I was making the ties from grown-up ties, there is a couple extra steps I had to take.

One, take the ties completely apart.  Make sure you remove all threads. 

Two, iron out all the creases.

Three, I had to lay out the pattern pieces a little differently, so this is how I did it:

Other than that, I followed the instructions and they came out great.  I made two regular ties for the 4 and 5 year old nephews (my son is the 5 year old) and a bow tie for the 9 month old little guy, out of the scraps from the two other ties.

My son just finished pulling his all out of shape, so ignore his!

I was also supposed to make dresses for me and my daughter....I bought coral chiffon and white lining to make them.  I'd never sewn with chiffon previously.  It was awful.  I ended up scrapping the pattern for my dress and just making in essence a halter-style tent, which I then added white satin ribbon for the neck tie and to act as a belt over my pregnant belly, and wore a white shrug.  It actually looked pretty cute, and I wish I had a good photo to show you, but that's what you get when you're the one walking around with the camera. This is the best I have...shows my cute family, but not really my dress!

My daughter, I gave up and just made her a little bolero jacket to go over a white dress she already had.  Oh, and a cute clip using this basic method.  Of course, I have plenty of photos of her!

More wedding stuff to come, folks!