Wedding Day: Wedding Dress

All I have to say is: $25 at a thrift shop. Seriously.

Wedding Day: 6:00 pm

Good morning! 

I am already up and busy baking Apple Cider Donuts for this weekend!

In a heart-shaped pan of course, while listening to our wedding soundtrack. 

Therefore, time for more wedding pictures!

Wedding details.

Very important stuff here.

Skipping the traditional expenses of having a florist make your bouquets and decorations, I decided to make my own bouquet with fake flowers. No worries of wilting or missing petals. 

Less worries is most ideal.

I used white peonies with small pink roses. I finished my bouquet off with twine and suede ribbon.

Of course they ladies had to be a part of our wedding day. 

These are our two best girls, Carmella + Ronda.

The groomsmen were accessorized with twine and baby's breath. 

We borrowed globes and mason jars for our ceremony and reception. 

Our guest book was found at a yard sale brand new! 

We covered it with burlap to make it more fitting. 

We placed candles in the mason jars to add some whimsy to the aisle and coffee tables at the reception. 

The candles we got for free from another wedding before ours that had a lot left over.

For our programs I designed a boarding pass that had their assigned seating on the top portion. 

We gave each row of seats a letter for our guests to board our ceremony.

This allowed families to be seated together and near familiar faces, and prevented having empty spaces.

For coffee table decorations we arranged mixed flowers in mason jars and wrapped burlap around the base.

More wedding photos to come! 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wedding Day: 2:00 pm

No Postage. No Problem.

Josh and I chose to email our save the dates rather than the traditional mailing of a small card. 

Frankly, we just didn't see the reason to spend money on save the dates. 

Especially not with the rising cost of stamps. 

I mean, who could possibly afford that additional penny they recently added?!

Anyway.

And who could really pass up another reason to pull out the design belt?

Well, not me! 

 We first sent just the save the date attached with a list of items we would like to borrow for our wedding day. Mainly just decorating tidbits. Nothing major.

We asked our guests to respond to that email with their mailing address so we could easily make our list, in an excel spreadsheet of course. It is after all Josh and I. 

We followed up our original email with this lovely reminder. 

It is quite lovely. 

Look at that stamp. Mhmm.

And this was all made possible with Mail Chimp. (Which is just about the coolest mass-emailing system I have ever used.) It is super easy and free depending on how many emails you must send. 

I originally decided to sign up for Mail Chimp to email my sales, promotions, new products, etc. to my wonderful handbag loving customers. (Which if you haven't signed up for yet, make sure you do! Check out the previous post to sign up) And then one day I had a brilliant idea to use it for our wedding as well! 

Genius, I tell ya. 

Therefore, grand total for save the dates: $0.00

Yipee!

End of February.

 Dance classes wrapped up until April.

What shall I do until then? Gym maybe? Yoga videos?

 We had a perfect snow defined by pillowy soft mounds resting upon tree limbs...Pure white fluff dusting the yard...and best of all clear iceless roads! 

I finally made my sparkling gold pears to use as table accents at our engagement party. 

Despite the Future Hub hating glitter, I feel they are a great success and I managed to create these gems relatively mess free. I highly recommend pouring glitter into a plastic container (like one from the deli) and dropping your glue covered fruit in, closing the lid, and shaking.

It literally takes two seconds and almost all the unwanted mess of glitter remains in the container.

 36 artificial pears = $23.00  + 1 jar of glitter = $2.50

Total: $25.50

I fully intend on using these for another party or two and then as Christmas decorations. 

Pear tree, anyone?

Other decorations included:

Mini Milk Jars (really just recycled Starbucks Frappe Glasses)

Utensil bags: Handmade by Etsy sellers, Bags = $15.75 for 50, Custom Stickers = $11.00 for 50

Tulle Garland (Made by me) = $5.00

Plates, Utensils, and Napkins: $36.00

Food: $99 for 50 people

Total Party Cost: $192.25, divided by 50 people = $3.85 per person. Not bad!

On to the next task! 

Follow me on instagram: http://instagram.com/agirlnamedkatie

Sometimes I'm a graphic designer....

So as you have probably heard by now,

I'm getting married!

We are super excited! (Josh is particularly excited for the day after our wedding, when the planning is all over.)

However, I intend on making the most of my planning experience and enjoy the process as much as I possibly can. Because after all, I love planning parties! 

And a wedding is just a HUGE party, right? 

As two young folks, Josh and I don't have 30 grand to drop on a wedding. 

Nor do I believe that is necessary even if we would. 

So we are going to save as much as possible on our wedding day by thrifting, borrowing, and creating everything to keep in check our $4,000 budget for the entire shindig from engagement party to after party. 

First up are the invitations and guest cards for our engagement party! 

These are the Guest Cards. 

The Guest cards are simply that, cards for our guests. (About 45 people will be invited (...I'm marrying into a big family!))

On the back we asked our select few to be our wedding party as well as assigned other family members to ways they could help us on our big day. 

 I took the time to design these invites myself! (Being a yearbook graphic design editor in high school came in handy afterall...)

And we paired these bad boys up with some colorful envelopes which we got at a craft store half price. 

Pack of 100 Envelopes in various bright colors = $10.00

I even printed them and cut them all at home! 

I got the cardstock in clearance at a craft store for $3.97

I don't really consider myself a graphic designer, but hey, I don't think I too shabby of a job either way!

Cutting out Joshuas beard...

Not fun, but worth it. 

And finally, the engagement party invitations! 

Altogether:

$13.97 for invitations and guest cards

Perfect! 

I am swooning over the ideas I have for my wedding and can't wait to share with you the decorations and recipes I have chosen for the party! 

Stay tuned! 

We're Engaged!

I'm the future Mrs. Joshua Kline! 

Proudly donning a gorgeous vintage wedding ring set. 

He's pretty awesome...

So.... I'm marrying him (and her =] !)