Believe it or not but my bridesmaids dress was a lot harder to chose than my own wedding dress! Maybe because I wasn’t going to be the one wearing the dress and I wanted my bridesmaids to be comfortable but stylish or because there seemed to be way more options (color and style) that it was really overwhelming.
The dress worn is White by Vera V Neck Halter Gown with Sash in the color Blush. The dress was purchased at Davids Bridal.
The great thing about Davids Bridal is that there are promotions/discounts pretty often. I told my bridesmaids to purchase the dress when there was a 20% off sale. There are also tons of colors, dress styles, and designers!
I chose a simple baby’s breath/eucalyptus combination for their bouquets and nude shoes. I let the choose their own shoes, which 3 of the 5 wore sandals. It didn’t matter since the dresses were long.
I love how the dress looked beautiful on all my bridesmaids and I hope its a popular dress/color that maybe they can be worn again at another event or wedding.
I found this awesome free printable for our wedding programs via Pinterest. I loved how when it downloads it’s a Microsoft program so you can completely personalize the programs to your liking. The only things I changed was the wording and the font style. Other than that the design worked great with our wedding style!
Photo Credits: Danyelle Dee Photography
Items purchased:
– Heavyweight card stock. Choose a weight that you’re comfortable with. Remember the thicker the paper the harder to get a crisp fold. I used a boning tool to help create a more defined crease. My cardstock is the color ivory and purchased at Staples.
– Print/photocopy the programs. I printed one copy at home and had Staples make copies.
I combined the programs with a wand to wave instead of throwing birdseed. Unfortunately no one used the wands once we were announced Mr. and Mrs. but it was a fun piece for children to play with while formal pictures were being taken.
– Dowels: choose a width that suits your preference. I purchased mine at Walmart.
– Ribbon: I chose two different ribbons to incorporate my wedding colors.
– Bells: the bells are to help make a cute ringing noise while they’re being waved.
– Spray paint: I spray painted the dowels gold to help tie in my color scheme.
Hot glue all the items together and you have a super cute wand!
Overall thoughts
Since I had a decent size wedding (approximately 140 guests) these programs were kind of a pain to make only because I had to produce a large quantity. I would definitely recommend either a girls night with wine and create an assembly line to help get these finished in a timely manner or for a smaller sized wedding. That being said I absolutely loved my programs and if I had to do it all over again I would probably deal with the carpal tunnel and make 140 all over again!
When it came to picking out the men’s attire I knew I wanted my husband to wear something slightly different from his groomsmen. Originally I wanted him in a navy tux but since our table clothes were navy I didn’t want him blending in.
My now husband wanted to wear a classic tuxedo but because of his skin tone and height, I just didn’t like him in a classic black/white tuxedo. I saw this one picture of a gentleman in an all black tuxedo on Pinterest and I instantly fell in love with the idea (Johnny Cash anyone?!). I also like my husband in a bow tie more than a regular tie.
It took some convincing but my husband finally agreed to the all black and I think he looked fantastic! Groomsmen wore the same Calvin Klein tuxedos as my now husband but with a white shirt.
Groom in a Calvin Klein all black tuxedo rented from Men’s Wearhouse.
I was looking for something comfortable, stylish, but also something more like a sandal because of our August wedding near the ocean. I thought these were perfect! These are the Champagne Grosgrain Women’s Clarissa Wedges via the Toms wedding line. I bought them online for a little over $70. Pretty inexpensive if you ask me! I love how the material goes all the way down instead of cork (which they have also if that’s your style). I feel like I can stay in these shoes all night long! I cannot wait to wear them!
My mother puchased another pair of wedding shoes and I was originally going to wear the ones she got. They’re actually the ones in my wedding photos but I didn’t actually wear them. I ended up wearing my Toms.
Here’s a slideshow of the shoes in my photos and the ones I actually wore.
I created my photo book guest book using Shutterfly.
First off, I love the quality that Shutterfly produces. I’ve ordered various items from them in the past so I wasn’t the least bit hesitant in ordering my guest book from their site.
If you’re hesitant buying your guest book from Shutterfly because of the price let me tell you that my book was free! My fiance and I created our gift registry at Macy’s and one of many awesome perks is that you get a free Shutterfly Guest Book. Okay so mine wasn’t completely free, I paid $35 because I ordered extras (matte cover finish, glossy paper, and a few extra pages). But it would’ve costed over $60! I think it’s a pretty awesome deal when I purchased all the extras when I normally wouldn’t have if I had to pay the full cost of the photo book.
It’s extremely easy to create. You can create your own page designs or you can use the suggest page layouts. All you have to do is upload your photos and add/edit any text. I used photos from our engagement photo session with out photographer to fill the guest book. It is extremely easy to navigate their site and user friendly.
For those of you who are planning an event and looking for a cheap alternative but still want high quality I highly suggest the guest books from Shutterfly.
Guest Book Sign:
Love how my diy guest book sign turned out! $5 frame at Target and used my @silhouette.inc to create the design.
Just choose a font and cut out a design with your cutting machine. At the time of making this sign I was a newbie with Silhouette Studio so I only used simple text and nothing fancier but to this day I still like that I decided with just text because less was more.
Mariesah 
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