Bridesmaids Gifts - Part II

Prior to the wedding, I shared one of the gifts that I made for my lovely bridesmaids.  In addition to the fascinators, I also made for them clutch purses and a quick little "survival kit."

To make the clutches, I began with this tutorial posted on Craftster.  I used a couple of fabrics from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane fabrics and a coordinating green.  In the end, I modified the tutorial quite a bit:

• I reduced the width of the purse by about 3 inches.  I, personally, hate a large clutch.  I find them unwieldy. 
• I ditched the pleating on the backside.  It didn't seem worth the effort. 
• The tutorial instructs one to cut out regular rectangles for all of the unpleated panels.  I found that they didn't lay flat, so I cut the top edge of each of these panels to mirror the angles of the bottom of the handle panels. 
• I changed the construction method entirely in order to avoid having to topstitch the edge.  Generally speaking, I try to avoid topstitching at all costs as I have no faith in either my or my 35-year-old (and never once maintenanced) sewing machine's ability to sew a straight and uniform stitch.
• Finally, I added a fun fabric flower! 

I churned these out like a machine.  In the end, I made one for each of my six bridemaids, one for each of my two coordinators, one for our singer, one for my mom, one for Michael's mom, and one for myself.  Wow.  I'm just now realizing that that's 12! 

For the survival kits, I whipped up some little pouches using the fabric I had used for the lining of the purses. I stuffed them full of essentials--lip balm, Shout wipes, oil absorbing sheets, tissues, pain reliever, bobby pins, gum, and bandaids--and added a label I printed out on cardstock. 



Unadulterated Narcissism

...because it's probably all downhill from here, right?

Bridal Portrait by Betsy Limbaugh

Oopsy

It's not much of a secret that I put in an unfathomable number of hours working on my wedding.  If there was a project to be done, I found it and did it.  I've thought about putting together an inventory of all the things I made, but then I feared that I would actually be embarrassed by how much time/effort I put into one day if I put it all down on paper.  I still might do it, just for posterity's sake.  

From the arrival of the first guests to the footsteps of the most champagne-inebriated of my friends dragging themselves up the highway to the after-party at a friend's nearby home, our wedding was about 7 hours long.  As these things go, that's pretty long, but even still, as all newlyweds seem to say, the day really did fly by.  Since much of it was a blur, you might think that I would regret some of the smaller details that I never even saw on the wedding day.  Honestly, though, there are very few, if any, things that I regret about the preparations for my wedding day.  

This is not to say that I don't admit some, er, mistakes.  For example, there are apparently some differences between wedding sparklers and the sparklers that you buy at your average 4th of July fireworks stand.  The #1 difference?

SMOKE!

Photography by Betsy Limbaugh

Our "exit" (quotation marks because it was staged...we were absolutely not ready to leave!) evoked more than a little coughing, maybe some hacking, even.  In all the blog entries that I saw for all the weddings with sparkler exits, there was never mention of a substantive difference between sparklers.  Even the online vendors of wedding sparklers never obviously mentioned this detail.  Sure, most of the wedding ones looked longer, but to be honest, I didn't really want to pass through a gauntlet of 36" fire-wielding sticks. I just thought it was another ploy by the wedding industry to charge luxury prices for an everyman good.  And I, sir, would have none of that!  (Note:  If I ever go into the wedding sparkler business, you better believe that I'd put a big, bold note saying, "Hey, you are paying a premium here because these do indeed fulfill a need that Bubba's State Line Firework's can't fulfill!")

Which leads me to difference #2: PRICE.  Cost for 200 sparklers from a fireworks tent the day after the 4th of July: <$10.  The price of 200 "wedding" sparklers: ~$45.  

But you know, in the end, I don't really regret it.  It saved me $35 (which I guess in the grand scheme of things, is arguably insignificant), and it was pretty freakin' hilarious.  I actually really like the photos of it, because we basically look like bad ass action heroes.  "Yeah, we just got married, but I guess we could spare a few moments to, I don't know, save some people from a burning building.  No big deal."

Hitched

The "I Do's" are done, the cake sliced, the rug cut.  I am officially married, and I can say that it was the best, most fun thing I have EVER done!  Until I have access to more photos, I thought I would share with you this post with some peeks from my photographer Betsy Limbaugh.