It feels like just yesterday that my farmer got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife… Was it REALLY over 6 months ago…? Jeez, time flies! We have hit the THREE MONTH mark ladies and gentlemen… In three months, I will put on that white lace dress and cowboy boots, my dear Daddy will walk me down the aisle, and I will become Mrs. Sunflowerfarmer… Feels almost surreal. I still sometimes wonder “how did this happen? is this really my life?”.. One of these days am I going to wake up and find it all to be a dream? But it’s not, it’s real life…. and the truth is I am marrying my best friend who I place the utmost trust to be the best husband, father, and person he can be for the rest of his living and breathing life. That is something I do not doubt. In the least bit. And realizing and feeling that “truth” makes me feel a lot of things… Giddy, eternally blessed, thankful, happy beyond words, excited, scared…. I could go on and on. But I know that “truth” is what will make our marriage last so hopefully someday we can celebrate something crazy like our 50th anniversary.
As it gets continually closer and closer, I get more and more excited for the big day. To celebrate with our closest friends and family in Montana, at our amazing venue, and most importantly, to start the beginning pages of my life as a Mrs. But at the same time, as it gets closer, I get a little more frantic every month. I mean, it feels like 6 months has flown by, three months will seem like the blink of an eye and the big day will be here! Sometimes my farmer has to resort to calming me down and ensuring me that I WILL get everything done on my long list of to-do’s and that it will be amazing… He has the utmost faith in me, y’all. He is seriously the best. But I think two near break downs in the spectrum of wedding planning isn’t TOO bad, right!? Come on brides, back me up here! 🙂
Anyway, so where are we…? Last Wedding Haul blog I talked about our planner, our venue, our invitations, our food… This time I am going to focus a little more on the little details. So any of you engaged ladies or non-married ladies, listen up.. And really, feel free to pillage my ideas. I mean, that’s what the internet is about, right? Sharing ideas and getting inspiration from others! Everyone that knows me knows that I get a little neurotic about making things perfect. I think about the little details and I really want our special day to reflect us. That as people walk around and remember back on our wedding day, they remember that it reflected “us” in every way possible. My way of doing this…? Not only am I constantly thinking “how can I make this more personal?” I am DIY-ing and making everything I possibly can. Also the neat thing about personalizing things for the wedding, it means that I can use them and put them in our house once the wedding is over!
In celebration of our wedding being three months out… I figured I’d give everyone a sneak peak of what our big day will look like…. Our decor! I still have a mile long list of decor left to do… But slowly but surely I spend my evenings crafting while my farmer is out working late. It all works out, he works late and stays out of my hair and I get wedding things done! 😉
When my farmer and I first got together, we had this grossly mushy habit of sending each other super sweet e-cards or things we found on Pinterest. And sorry hunny if this is taking away your man card, but a man in love does crazy things I guess. The ones that touched my heart the most or I really liked, I saved to my phone. Thank goodness I did because now I am going back and finding them. I got this brillant idea to take some of these sayings and make my own “e-cards” in a sense.
I made these by taking an 8×10 canvas and spray mounting one of our engagement photos I had printed to an 8×10 size. Then I cut the saying out of vinyl using my cricut cutting machine and used transfer paper to transfer the vinyl onto the image. I finished it off by putting a Modge Podge clear coat over the top just to make sure the vinyl is really stuck on there as well as preserving the image for future cleaning, etc.
For our ceremony, we have decided that we don’t want people to “choose a side” and I found some great examples of chalkboards with the saying “As two families become one today, we ask that you pick a seat not a side” written on it. And I really liked that. So I’ve been on the hunt for a chalkboard and I finally found one. It’s cute, it’s not your traditional square chalk board, and I decided to personalize it by hot glueing sunflowers around it since sunflowers will be a re-occurring theme throughout our wedding day. It also came with a cute magnet & sign and stakes so it can be put into the ground. I envision this sitting at the entrance to the aisle alongside two metal buckets of sunflowers AND my customized sunflower ornaments…
I found these sunflowers at Kohl’s long before I knew I was getting married. But they were sunflowers and I knew I needed them. Instead of leaving them all metal, I figured a pop of color could make them even better. So a few coats of paint and I am loving their bright yellow petals instead of the dull brown! Now I just need to paint the leaves and they will be the perfect addition to the entrance to our ceremony! And when our wedding is done and over, I plan on putting these in our yard! How cute will they be spinning in the North Dakota wind!?
Burlap and lace will both be key elements to our big day. I saw a similar idea on Pinterest and knew I wanted to use mason jars for our centerpieces… I came up with this idea and I think these will look stunning filled with sunflowers and put on all the white vintage tables at our venue. I made these by taking quart sized jars (actually I think they were old mayo jars) I upcycled from a friend who was looking to get rid of them. I found burlap ribbon at Hobby Lobby which ended up working FANTASTIC because all I had to do was make one cut. This ribbon is sewed along both the top and bottom so there aren’t any fraying ends which is common with burlap. I then simply hot glued the burlap ribbon to the jar and then added the lace ribbon (also found at Hobby Lobby).
We have opted instead of a bridal table, we are doing a sweetheart table where just the two of us will sit. I picked up these cute little Mr. and Mrs. sign at the same place I found the chalkboard. I figured I’d add the sunflowers to them, again, to make them a little more “us”.. And they can also hang in our office or where ever in our house along with the rest of our already existing sunflower decor.
Being that I love photography, of course, I want to include as many photos of us possible from when we first met to our gorgeous engagement photos taken by our amazing photographer. Well, frames are expensive and it’s been really hard to find frames that really fit our style and other decor. So I came up with this idea instead. I took this unfinished wooden plaques from Hobby Lobby and much like the canvases above, I spray mounted the photo onto the painted plaque That way I get the colors I am looking for and I think the total project cost less than $10.00! I could even add vinyl letters much like I did above if I wanted to as well.
I have a bunch of other ideas that have yet to be done… Some of these include vintage windows (which my mother-in-law had in her garage SCORE!), more handmade signs with cute sayings, more photo projects, and some more mason jars for each guest table to put candles in.
So there it is… a little sneak peak into our what our special day will look like… Are you as excited as I am to see it all come together!? Feel free to implement these ideas for your special day… And if you’ve already gotten married, what special touches did you add to your wedding day to make it more personal?
THREE MONTHS and counting!! It’s about to get real!!
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I love all your DIY projects! Seeing things like this make me think what my wedding would have been like if Pinterest had been around then… Some of my favorite things from our wedding were our corn husk flowers, luminaries leading up to the church, and engraved and personalized mason jar mugs for our bridal party.