Destiny Acres & North Star Shetlands: 2011

As a little girl, I dreamed about having the perfect wedding, as every little girl does. Pristine white dress, winkling lights, and my prince charming all wrapped up into a little bundle of perfect. Needless to say, life is not perfect. And not everyone has tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a wedding to make it princess perfect. Our wedding was perfect for us. This blog is just to share some things I came up with or found, maybe to help other couples, or maybe just to relive it a little more :) Plus figured I'd give some resources as to where I got different things.

Just because some people were so impressed with the different things we did at the wedding, I figured I'd include a small description of them. When I walked up, I lit two candles. I had forgotten to tell Bridget (our officiate) about it, and so it wasn't announced, but one was for my friend Shirley who died this year suddenly, and the other was for my grandfather who died shortly before the wedding.

At the beginning of the ceremony, we had tied the rings together with ribbon, and tied them to the inside of Christinas (our flower girl) basket and our officiate gave our rings to Steve (best man) to give to my side of the family first (I guess it's tradition to give to the brides family first? lol), as part of our ring warming ceremony. Basically everyone gets to look at the rings this way, each person looks, prays, thinks happy thoughts, whatever they want to do, and then passes them onto the next person. At the end of the ceremony, when it's time I wants my rings back so I can put them on my loves hand, the officiate asked for the rings, and Steve went and picked them up. It was really amusing in our case because he handed the rings to Bridget and she just stood there and stared at them. I hadn't showed them to her before because I had been planning on keeping them until that day, but I did end up showing Adam early (I'm SO bad about keeping presents when I have them in advance). She probably stood for nearly 30 seconds while everyone was wondering what she was doing and I was silently giggling to myself, and then turns to me and asks where I got them from lol. I had found this awesome guy on Etsy who hand stamps rings. John @ Unicorn Trading also did Adams promise ring for me. He's a joy to work with, and likes a challenge :) Go check him out!

And now for the box. This puzzled a lot of people as no one had heard of it before, but I've heard some feedback that a lot of people are thinking about it for themselves now. :) I had a box fashioned on Etsy that worked out fabulously. I was originally going to have a box made or find a vintage box that suited me, but everything happens for a reason. The handmade boxes were going to range from $50+, and even more if I wanted different woods for different meanings. But, I found a company called DesignCraft Industries who made me a custom sized box, big enough for a bottle of wine and some other things, for a little over $30 including shipping. I thought that was reasonable enough. Here's a link to give what they suggested for the ceremony, but of course we had to tweak it. We didn't want to ruin or crack the box with nails, so we found a couple of hasps and used antique-y looking locks, each locked our own lock, and then placed the key on yarn (in matching blue, of course) over each others heads. We both wrote letters, and plan to open them on our 5th anniversary while sharing the wine. We didn't put glasses in, we figure we'll have plenty of those :) Plus didn't want them to break. My best friend/maid-of-honor/honorary sister's mother (a.k.a. Mommy #5 for me lol) offered to wood burn the box as part of our gift to us. Here's what she came up with :)

From the front. You can see our locks are heart shaped :D

Close up

Closeup of the hearts

Closeup of the peacock feather. Such detail! She's soooo talented!

The top.

Closeup of the open rose. She said roses have meaning, and the bud was the when the relationship was just taking off, and now the rose is open that we're married...or something like that...LOL.

The bud

One side

The other side

The back

Closeup of the back

And this she added as a joke she said. She actually asked Tracy if either of us would be offended if she put that on there. I was THRILLED! I would actually love this as a tattoo...this or the peacock...or both :)

Isn't that darling? I love it :) She also paints just as lovely! I am extremely proud of this box, and it will be treasured forever :)

I used real freeze dried hydrangea petals for up the walkway and our petal cones. We made our petal cones from old sheet music that I picked up at a rummage sale or estate sale for very reasonably. The petals were from Flyboy Natural Petals, also found on Facebook, and rather reasonable I thought. They do all kinds of flower petals, and they lasted a long time as I bought them shortly after we were engaged and they survived nicely in their packaging for over 6 months. I thought they really added nice color to everything. Wish I would have thought to put some on the tables at the reception *rolls eyes* Ahh afterthought. :)

Instead of a traditional guestbook at the reception, we used a wishing well and black river stones. People could write their names, little thoughts of encouragement, or whatever they wanted and place them in the well. That way when we have a place we'll be staying at, I'm going to spray coat them and they will be placed around our garden, that way everyone will be with us always :) We used black stones from the dollar store, a locally made wishing well, and oil based Sharpie paint pens.

And the bouquets. I was very happy with how they came out. I actually had some people think they were real! I purchased the bridesmaids bouquets on clearance, and actually two bunches of flowers for mine to make it fuller. The hydrangeas in the centerpieces on the tables I bought from the dollar store, and then the bouquets I purchased at Afloral. I REALLY liked that site, tons of awesome floral stuff. Highly recommend it if you want fake flowers. I preferred that anyway, because that way we have them forever :) Yeah sure you can dry real ones, but it's just not the same. I hot glued ribbons on all of them, and then also placed a Three Days Grace guitar pick on mine attached to a string. Our favorite band, if you don't know who they are, check them out :) "Lost In You" is our song, was our first dance as husband and wife, and part of the chorus is engraved on our rings :D

So all in all, I spent a lot of time on Etsy & at the dollar store....lol :) I think the biggest thing is to remember to breathe, and that even if something goes wrong, or not as planned, it's not the end of the world. I just can't believe some of the women on that show Bridezillas. I got complimented a lot on how calm I was.

Oh yeah, and last thing. I bought my dress on clearance at a bridal store...check other outlets. I paid a lot more than I had been hoping, which was still half price, and there were a TON online that were cheaper. Now that I have it, I wouldn't have traded my dress for the world, just a thought though :) Oh, and ivory looks awesome...I always thought it would be too dark and always wanted a white dress...it's not. It's lovely. :) Anyway, those are some explanations and thoughts and whatnot. :)

Who's ready for Black Friday?! Well, I work Thursday night into this maddness...*sigh* Walmart will be staying open, and sales will begin at 10pm. 10PM! What is this world coming to?! Next year Walmart will probably begin sales at 9! And I heard a rumor that beginning next year, we will be open through Christmas. Seriously? What happened to our FAMILY company? I tell you, if Sam Walton was still alive, it wouldn't be like this. Money, money, money, that's all they care about. I was out on Black Friday once with my mom before I started working overnights, and while I enjoy shopping with her, it wasn't nearly as crowded as it gets nowadays, nor was it as chaotic. People have gotten KILLED in the last few years. So sad. And so I'll likely be doing a majority of my shopping Cyber Monday(being it's my day off :D ), and a majority of that on homemade stuff, or supplies for me to make my own homemade stuff. I encourage everyone to make your own gifts. There is a sense of pride that goes into making your own gifts, and if they're useful gifts (i.e. clothing, etc), they may just become a family heirloom! I hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday season :) /endrant :)