Wedding Crafts & Gifts in Action

Check it out, my DIY hair piece totally worked! And stayed put even during this serious dance party to Pulp's "Common People."

Following the wedding we took three days to just RELAX right here in Brooklyn. Good bye wedding diet! Hellooo egg creams...

We visited the MoMA where there is an exhibit called Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen. Tupperware was featured prominently, and I was tickled to spy the very same popsicle molds I own, passed down from Mom and used in my popsicle test kitchen post last summer.

And while we made the rule not to touch the kitchen during our post-wedding staycation, Mr Homewrecker was super psyched to try out one of our wedding presents, a Moroccan-style tagine from the Brooklyn Kitchen. This is a photo of lamb shoulder tagine with apricots, chick peas and slivered almonds. Mmmm nom nom nom. Being married to a great cook rules!

DIY Wedding Wednesday: Crafts!

Holy crap, it's only days until matrimony. Wedding crafts are in full swing and I wanted to just take a moment to share what I've been working on.

We wanted to give our guests some kind of personalized favor more unique than a baggie of chocolate almonds without spending a bundle. After seeing this blog post from Once Wed*, I got the idea to borrow the button maker at my office to make our own wearable favors. My friend Toby came over and we cut out something like 200 buttons from metallic paper printed on our home printer plus some abstract buttons made from scrapbooking paper that matched our color scheme. Cute, right?

After bookmarking several Etsy boutiques with feathered hair pieces for my maids, it occurred to me that I own a glue gun -- I can do this myself! Instead I bought "blank" hair combs and headbands from Etsy and glued on peacock feathers and silver embellishments. For my bride hair comb, I used bleached peacock feathers from Jamali Garden (a haven for DIY brides!) and added a 1950's vintage brooch I found at Pippin Vintage Jewelry in Manhattan. I'll share some more impressive photos after the pro takes pics at the wedding with our hair done did up.

Next? Glue several yards of silver decorative fringe onto my cardboard cupcake stand...

When you hear from me next, I'll be married -- wish us luck!!

*Footnote: I grabbed a lot of inspiration from Kim & Zac's wedding, whoever they are. I believe it's also where I got the idea to shop at Unique Vintage for my dress and where I got the idea to buy turquoise shoes. Which I did. Thanks Kim & Zac & Once Wed!

DIY Wedding Wednesday: We Wed Econo

I've started reading Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life about the emergence of indie and punk rock in the 1980's, and I was reading the chapter about The Minutemen on the subway on my way home from work today. I'm still not sure I actually dig The Minutemen's herky jerky, weirdo music all that much, but I have mad respect for their attitude when it came to being in a band. No sense of entitlement, no egos, just a crazy work ethic and dedication to D.I.Y. and touring and releasing records as affordably as possible -- "jamming econo" as they called it.

That's my kind of guys.

I found myself thinking about The Minutemen again tonight as I'm hand-gluing together all the invitations for our wedding. The invitations we designed ourselves with paper we bought from a wholesaler and printed at a local copy shop. It's not unlike self-releasing a 7" or printing up your own show flyers. Just like The Minutemen realized they didn't need to wait for some almighty hand to reach down and make them rock stars like Journey or CCR, they could just Do It Yourself. And they did. So it was with us as we priced out all the professional stationers out there, we realized we could save a thousand bucks if we just got creative.

We wed econo!

photo nabbed from marathonpacks.com

D.I.Y. Wedding Wednesday: Summer Wedding Decor

While I'm still at work on our D.I.Y. wedding creations, I wanted to share some awesome design from some friends' recent nuptials. Above is a photo I stole from Facebook from my friend Valerie's backyard wedding. How cute are her "I'm a Fan of Valerie & Matt" fans?



Last month we escaped upstate for our friends' Hillary & Dan's Catskills wedding. Everything from the Save the Dates to the signature cocktails were perfectly coordinated hues of pink with brown and green accents. Hillary and our friends made dozens of tissue paper flowers which adored every corner of the venue (a Dirty Dancing-esque Ukrainian summer camp!), they glued fortunes on old timey soda straws plus many other creative touches that made for a very beautiful, personalized celebration.







Our talented friend Melissa, aka Cake Hero, outdid herself with a delicious collection of flower-topped wedding cakes.



Less than three months to our wedding, my decor planning -- and better yet, my SHOPPING -- is is full swing. I ordered a shipment of feathers and vases from Save-On-Crafts, an online wonderland of wedding D.I.Y. Of course I somehow shattered one of three 20" vases as I was unpacking it, but the fine people at Save-On-Crafts graciously agreed to send a replacement. I've also been making trips to the wholesale floral district for arm loads of willow branches (which I carried on my head back to my office where they are currently making my cubicle a willowy jungle) and taking lunch breaks at Paper Presentation to hem and haw over thank you cards and decorative paper from the scrapbooking section. Oh how Martha Stewart I could get on this wedding if I only had a little more time, budget and patience with pinking shears and glue sticks.

I got bridal-showered by friends and family in Chicago, which was a truly lovely event. I received about two suitcases worth of bath towels, steak knives, an iron skillet and a stone mortar and pestle, amongst other things. Needless to say, getting back on the plane was a challenge. I'm also the idiot who thought to put an ironing board on our registry, not considering how someone would manage to gift wrap it, let alone tote it to or from a shower or wedding. Nevertheless, I'm psyched to finally have a proper surface on which to iron. I might actually have to start ironing (crap!).

Next D.I.Y. wedding project? Invites designed my Mr. Homewrecker! Lots of gluing and envelope licking in our near future...

A Rose for Don Corleone

Ok, I'm a day behind on "DIY Wedding Wednesday," but I've been busy packing up the apartment for another move. It will be the 4th home in as many years, but this time we're really planning to settle in, getting married and all. Count on some HSW decor updates soon.

But for now, I'm back with another wedding planning post. I've been exploring the options for DIY wedding bouquets and flower arrangements, and wanted to share some advice and resources.

As you may know, NYC has no shortage of fresh flowers for sale at on almost every block at corner bodegas and neighborhood markets. We even have a wholesale flower district as one user on on the Brownstoner forum tells us: "There are still a few flower markets left in 27th & 28th street between 6th and 7th ave in Manhattan - good deals for bulk." Another user offers advice on hydrangeas, my wedding flower of choice, "to keep hydrangea going for more than 12 hours, you have to smash the stem when you get them home. take a hammer or something heavy and smash the stem. they need that much water. next day, cut and repeat. keep in fridge overnight helps too." Good to know if you are going the DIY route.

My fav wedding craft and decor site Save-On-Crafts has several guides on how to make your own bouquets plus all the supplies you'll need: satin ribbon, floral tape, corsage pins, etc.

After poking around on wedding forums like Indiebride.com, it sounds like mail-order bulk flowers are a good option for the crafty bride too. I have scoped out a couple like fiftyflowers.com and rosesource.com and I think this might be the way to go. No need to run an errand to the flower district -- the flowers come to you!

Has anyone out there tried mail-order bulk flowers before? Let me know your experiences and recommendations. I think I'm going to be going with Rose Source based on customer reviews, their prices and the fact that they can ship the exact pale yellow rose my husband-to-be is requesting. It's hilarious to me the wedding things he decides to have a strong opinion on. Like, I didn't think boutonnieres would be one, but he got this idea that he wants to look just like Don Corleone on the day of his daughter's wedding with a single rose on his lapel which he can sniff dramatically. Only the rose will be yellow, not red, because that's the color he chose for our wedding palate when he got a bee in his bonnet about wanting a pale yellow necktie. What a weirdo, I'm so psyched to be marrying him!



Finally, I wanted to share this great group of images I found on RuffledBlog.com showing single stem flowers on display in all variety of vintage bottles and vases. Those yellow roses will look beautiful in the bottles I've been collecting, like in the photo on the lower right.



To order your wholesale flowers -- from Alstroemeria to Zinnia (ok, not zinnia, but tulips, yes they have tulips) -- click here to visit Rose Source:

Wedding Cake Toppers That Should Not Be

Oh hell no.







The 'Bride "In Charge" Wearing Pants and Groom "Not In Charge" Without Cake Topper' is so not okay:



And then these ones I have no problem with, except that instead of calling it what it is, it's the "Fashionable Bride And Groom Mix & Match Cake Toppers."



I guess "mix and match" is a cute euphemism for gay marriage.

These and many more wedding accessories -- some stupid, some perfectly adorable -- can be found at Wedding Star.

DIY Wedding Wednesday: On the Cheap

Yesterday in a thread I was following on Yelp regarding where to find affordable wedding dresses in NYC, some bonehead dude had the nerve to chime in as follows:

John Q. said, "Any woman who wears a dress that cost less than a thousand bucks deserves to be left at the altar."

Everyone please join me in a collective HOW DARE YOU?!?! to John Q. I don't expect he's headed to the altar any time soon with an attitude like that. Also his profile pic is a pint of beer, so I'm sure he's really hot too.

Therefore, for today's DIY Wedding Wednesday update I thought I'd highlight some of the ways I'm getting creative to stretch our modest wedding budget. Because despite what John Q thinks, you can have a very tasteful, beautiful, and fun celebration without paying the going rate for everything that the Wedding Industrial Complex demands. The toughest part is managing the funds to feed and get-drunk a crowd of friends and family. Unless you plan to invite only your immediate family and your one best friend, once you open up the guest list the costs go up quickly. Since we don't want to limit our party to just our parents and my dozen Mormon relatives (hey at least they won't drain the bar), my philosophy is don't skimp on the food and drinks but search for savings on the things you only need to buy one of. ie: the dress.

THE DRESS

Some girls buy two dresses -- one for the ceremony, and another for the reception. Me, I bought three! Ok, so I'm only keeping one, but I needed to try them all on. I found two contenders online at Unique-Vintage.com, a vintage-inspired store based out of Burbank, CA. They specialize in pin-up girl style, prom dresses and super frilly Barbie doll quincenera-looking gowns. But they also have a great selection of perfectly tasteful wedding dresses with vintage flare. Since the groom and I intend to ride bikes from the church to the reception, I also am saving money by getting a tea-length dress (less fabric!). My third dress I picked up at a sample sale at the Jenny Yoo showroom in Manhattan. Jenny Yoo has a great selection of simple and elegant wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses, so even without sample sale prices, her designs are affordable. The dresses I'm not keeping I can unload at OnceWed.com's used wedding dress forum. Easy!

THE CEREMONY

We've recruited a good friend to be our "minister" since any speech about the meaning of our love will mean more coming from someone who actually knows just why we're meant to be together forever. Instead of someone who is paid to act like they care. I'm also planning to make all my own bouquets (see my last Wedding Wednesday post) to get around the high price of professional florists. I just need to be ready to work with whatever is fresh and available in the flower district the day before the wedding.

THE RECEPTION

My groom and I both grew up being told we were "different" (or when someone was being nice, "creative"), so of course we won't stand to have a pre-packaged wedding. We checked out the standard banquet halls and popular venues but settled on a raw loft space that we can build out however we want. Sure that means 100x more work for us, but undaunted I've made a list of what we need to rent (which is everything), and we've started thinking up ways to decorate that will be more "us" than copious fleur de lis and ice sculptures. I've found a jackpot of decorating supplies at Save-On-Crafts -- willow branches, peacock feathers, glass crystal garlands -- and I refuse to let DIY wedding equal barn themed decor, no matter how trendy twine, mason jars and burlap seem to be on the wedding scene right now. Yuck.

As for the food, we're forgoing the usual special event caterers and going instead for catering-style delivery from our favorite grocery store, Fairway. Just as delicious without the pretense or the hidden fees. Working with a non-traditional party space means we aren't strapped to a limited list of vendors, so we're getting my favorite cupcakes from Baked (much cheaper than their custom wedding cakes) for which my dad is building a decorative tower, and we're staffing the whole affair with a mix of licensed freelancers and talented friends.

One more cost-saving tip for the reception -- offer wine, beer and a signature cocktail or two instead of a full open bar. You'll buy less mixers and less varied booze, and you can make it fun by naming the signature drinks after something inspired by the bride and groom. I'm still coming up with mine, but the groom's is going to be the "Rock n Rye" which is a beer and a shot of whiskey. We can also save on champagne by serving its bubbly, Italian cousin Prosecco instead.

INVITATIONS

I'll blog more about these once I get involved in the actual creation, but we've already picked out colors, fonts and an illustration. Now it's off to the local stationery store to pick out the paper and envelopes. We're skipping the RSVP cards because they are wasteful of paper and they are an added expense. Instead guests will be directed to our Tumblr page (free) where they can RSVP via Google form (also free). The old folks who fear the web can always phone us from their land lines with their reply. Our save the dates, or STDs as I like to call them, cost us a whopping $36 including shipping for 100 custom postcards from VistaPrint.com. They aren't fancy, but they are adorable and informative, and we'd rather spend the big bucks on the "real" invite and not blow our load on the STDs (hahaha).

More money saving wedding tips as I come up with them!

DIY Wedding Wednesday: Flowers and Floorplans

There's just SO much to do before the wedding this October, I thought it would be best if I broke down the to-do list by month, and if nothing else, at least got one wedding thing done every Wednesday.

Truth is I got a few things done this week including procuring a floor plan of the loft space where we're having our reception and tracking down the bride having her wedding there the day after ours. I figured if we both need to rent a hundred chairs and tables and votive holders etc etc etc, maybe we can save a few bucks by sharing some items. She was thrilled I contacted her. My thriftiness is so catchy.

Since today is my newly dubbed "Wedding Wednesday" (not to be confused with "Tecate Tuesdays" at the office), I went to the fancy deli on my lunch break and picked up some pale blue hydrangeas and baby's breath so I could start toying with floral arrangements.



In my opinion, floral arrangements are one of the biggest rip offs when it comes to weddings. If you have even a slight knack for design, or if you are able to mimic photos of bouquets you like, you can make your own bouquets and arrangements. It's not like sewing your own dress or baking your own cake. Flowers are already pretty; all you have to do is group them. Granted the DIY approach is best if you are going for something simple or for an earthy wildflower look. I don't want to totally discount the talents of a skilled florist.

That said, you also don't want to be fussing with flowers the day before your wedding and find out you're going about it all wrong. Practice. Also that's not my finished arrangement above on the left, that's just flowers in a vase. I'll practice making them look like the Real Simple photo on the right later, but first, I wanted to start playing with this...



Last weekend I attended the Brooklyn Based Wedding Crashers fair where I got buzzed on free Prosecco (Italy's more affordable answer to Champagne), stuffed my face with canapes and met with a couple dozen of Brooklyn's hippest wedding vendors. I'm not a girly girl in the traditional sense, but this event had just the right amount of quirk and class that it didn't take me long to start cooing over cupcakes and custom letterpress coasters. But I digress...

I got some really good ideas from the vendors at the fair, whether I'll be able to afford to pay them for their talents or if I'll attempt my own knock off in the end. One florist had a beautiful willow branch arrangement decorated with "crystal" beads and blue feathers (stealing that idea), vintage glass bottles with baby's breath (see my attempt above) and beautiful, simple hydrangea bouquets (I can do that). So that was the inspiration for today's Wedding Wednesday as well as this Style Me Pretty post I came across a few months ago.



I started collecting vintage glass bottles at the Brooklyn Flea and from awesome second-hand shop Junk when I saw that post. I figure I'll create groupings of three or four bottles with either baby's breath or single stem dahlias. No paper pom poms or anything with yarn though. This ain't gonna be a barn wedding, this is BROOKLYN.

Wedding Version 2.0

Last weekend, after attending a childhood friend's wedding, I was lured by the promise of danishes and mimosas to a day-after brunch at the bride's parents' house. Turns out this was also a trick to get us to watch the newlyweds open their pile of wedding gifts. I've never really understood the appeal of sitting around watching someone open many gifts when you have no gifts of your own to open. I love Christmas morning gift opening, because everyone gets something, but bridal showers, baby showers, graduation parties... it's dull. Especially wedding gifts because we all saw the registry. There's rarely any surprises.

Even further beyond my understanding is why one would want to videotape the gift opening, as the father of the bride was on this occasion, and watch it again later. Of course, this particular video will have the running commentary of her dad's wonderfully awful puns. Guess which gifts were being opened while these one-liners were delivered: "They're barely married and you're already MUGGING them!" "Boy, I can really DISH it out!" "You seem really BOWLED over by that gift!" "I think this marriage has gone to POT!"

The good friend sitting next to me agreed that this is not an activity we'd ever want to relive by watching the video, which led to the plan that when I get married the gift opening will happen via webcam. That way anyone who really wants to watch can do so from home, and even fast-forward to their own gift being opened, while I remain in my pajamas amid a pile of Crate & Barrel boxes.

Even better, my friend added, "you can have the maid of honor Twitter all your gifts as you open them instead of taking notes!" It was then decided that my friend will get ordained online and preside over my eventual Web 2.0 wedding. Guests will be invited via Facebook and each sent home with a flashdrive keychain party favor.

You can add to my earlier post about this modern internet age two additional engagements I recently learned of thanks to Facebook. This is not including the wedding I'm heading to this weekend -- that's two weekends in a row! I get the feeling this couple are the type of people who already have everything, so I decided to get them a primarily edible gift. I filled a basket with local pickles, organic coffee, tea, dark chocolate covered peanuts, ginger chocolate, wine from the bride's home state and ceramic mugs from the city where the lovebirds met - NYC!