My Wedding DIY Opinion

Let me start out by saying I love Pinterest. I can be on it for hours, sorting through the people who I follow's pins or searching things I am curious about. A lot of things in my house are the result of DIY Pinterest recommendations (the ones that were NOT more complicated than the blogger made it seem). My wedding was almost entirely DIY.

Essentially all of my decor was made by myself with the help of friends and family. Most of these ideas came from Pinterest. Overall, every project I started was easily accomplished without much difficulty or time. Some things I knew would be tedious, but I scheduled myself enough time to take care of it without stress. This is part of why it is so important to stay organized for your wedding. If you have a lot of DIY ideas, you need to be planning out your time specifically so you can get it done (not the week of or night before the wedding). My book can really help you get organized.

See? Even now I am getting distracted. This is why I was ultra organized with my DIY projects. Putting them off to clean the house or go out to dinner would have put me severely behind and cause a great deal of unnecessary stress.

Even though I love DIY projects, the ones I can actually accomplish anyway, there are some parts of my DIY wedding planning I would love to go back and redo. As an experienced DIY who was planning on a budget, I am here to give you my DIY opinion.

Invitations - Buy Professional

I tried to add a personal touch to my invitation envelopes based on an idea I found on Pinterest. All you had to do was put a lace doily on the corner of the invitation, spray paint the envelope your desired colors, let it dry for a moment and Voila! Beautiful and handmade envelopes.

This was my first wedding planning DIY experiment and it went horribly, horribly wrong. First, if you have more than 30 invitations it is a terrible idea. Second, you need high quality cardstock envelopes to endure the weight of the spray paint. Third, you better plan on coming back to the envelope and spraying the back so you don't have weird overspray around the edges. Fourth, you have to wait at least 15 minutes before peeling the doily off. Fifth, the doily will rip apart within six sprays. Sixth, Krylon will NOT spray evenly and leave a horrible, horrible envelope mess. 

Just don't do it.

Centerpieces - DIY

I believe making your own centerpieces is much better than buying predone centerpieces, expensive floral arrangements, or basic candles and vases. You get to customize a look that is unique to your wedding and save money at the same time. If you want floral centerpieces, it is a lot of fun to get together with your bridesmaids the day before the wedding with flowers you purchased in bulk and create the arrangements.

Wedding Favors - Buy Professional

If you choose to have wedding favors, buy them completed or choose a vendor who will customize the favors for you. Trying to make the favors yourself will slowly drive you insane. The pain of creating your own favors is especially harsh when your guests don't take the favors with them.

Signs and Miscellaneous Decor - DIY

It is difficult to buy any signs or other miscellaneous decor for your wedding professionally. Usually this decor is highly customized and extremely expensive to get from a vendor. It can also be hard to find the specific vendor that came make any misc decor. This is the perfect time to browse Pinterest and get inspiration or how-to's for your misc decor.

Guest Book - Buy Professional

If you have some digital media skills, like I did, feel free to build your own guest book. Otherwise, look at Amazon to find a pretty guest book for the ceremony and reception. You can also see if your photographer can make a photo book with spaces for signatures. They might even add some fun questions for your guests to answer.

Wedding Album - DIY

This is not specifically for the wedding, but rather a result. Your photographer will probably offer to build your wedding book for you. Usually this is expensive and they do not put all of the pictures you want in the album. Go to a photo book creator website, such as Shutterfly, to build your own album. If you choose this route, you can make the building process as easy or as difficult as you like, so don't worry if you have no experience making a photo book. 

What is your DIY opinion? Is Pinterst your best friend, unimportant, or your worst enemy? Let me know in the comments!

5 Ways to NOT Become a Bridezilla

Every woman before they get engaged swears up and down they will NOT be one of those brides on the reality TV show Bridezillas. No matter what you promise yourself and others, you will become a little bit of a monster during your engagement. Here are five ways to reduce or eliminate your transformation into the dreaded bridezilla.

Relax

This may seem like a no-brainer, or you may want to slap me for telling you, but relaxing is one of the best ways to avoid becoming a bridezilla. You won't remember the little things that weren't perfect. Even if big things get messed up, you will shrug it off after a couple months. Allows yourself to relax. Don't stress about getting every little thing perfectly right. Things will get skewed from your vision no matter what you do.

Don't Micromanage

You have all these people at your disposal - bridesmaids, groomsmen, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more. You may feel the need to micromanage every task you ask them to help with. Sometimes you might rip it away from them because they aren't doing it right. Don't do this. If someone wants to be helpful, assign them something that would really help you out. Check up on it when the due date is approaching, but don't constantly badger and correct them for not doing the task they are graciously helping you with perfectly correct.

Listen to Advice

Everyone, and I mean everyone, will want to give you advice during your wedding planning. This can get old after a while, especially when you think you know what you are doing and don't need any help. In hindsight, I realized these people had first hand experience with their weddings and were giving you an excellent look behind the veil of marriage. Take their advice. When they tell you that won't matter, it won't matter. When they say something is going to be difficult once you're married, it's going to be difficult. Listen to their advice and drink it in.

Make Time for Your Fiance

Ironically, it can be easy to forget why you are stressing yourself out and working your butt off. It is so you and your fiance can celebrate your union with friends and family and kick start the rest of your lives. Make some time for just you and your fiance so you can enjoy your "single" life without all of the pressure marriage brings.

Organize

This is the best way to avoid becoming a bridezilla. When you organize your planning, you will be less stressed and therefore less likely to lash out at other people that makes you the crazy bride stereotype. When you check out How to Create the Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder, you will see how to organize your planning to avoid this stress.

What is your best advice to avoid becoming a bridezilla? OR what is the worst bridezilla story you have experienced? Let me know in the comments!

Being Unique: How to Personalize Your Wedding Day

Let's face it, weddings are pretty traditional. Millions of weddings happen every year and they hit the usual roadmarks that all couples plan for their day. Some people even hate weddings because it is the same thing at every party.

Don't be that couple! Thanks to resources like Pinterest, The Knot, Wedding Wire, and other inspirational websites, you can find ways to personalize your wedding and make it memorable for yourself and your guests.

Make a Theme

For the ultra creative, you can choose an entire theme to base your wedding around. Right now, country chic and Jazz Age themes are very popular. These choices are beautiful when every detail is considered and a lot of fun to attend. You can base themes on locations, time periods, books, movies, music, and more. While more details need to be considered for a theme wedding, they are overall easier to plan because you have a roadmap of items you need to get.

Incorporate Interests or Hobbies

If a theme is not really your thing, try to at least incorporate some hobbies or interests that you and your fiance share. For example, if you both love to go camping or hunting, incorporate some wood motifs into your decor. You could have guests carve their initials into a fake tree or have a mini campfire as the centerpiece on tables.

My husband and I both love Star Wars, so we incorporated pieces of the movies into our wedding. Our cake toppers were Han Solo and Princess Leia figures we got from Comic Con. We were announced as husband and wife to the Cantina Band song and we had a Darth Vader element I'll cover at the end of the blog post.

Signature Drinks or Desserts

To add a touch of personality and more choices for your guests, consider offering a signature drink or dessert based on you and your fiance's personalities. At my wedding, I specially ordered alcohol. I had Pink Lemonade and Vodka for my signature drink and Crown and Coke for my husband's. You could also do two of your favorite desserts. To make it more fun, have guests vote on which is their favorite to see who "wins" at the end of the night - the bride or groom.

Reception Games

Some guests don't like dancing, so give them something else to do. Photobooths are starting to lose their newness at weddings, but they are a great way to entertain your guests. You could also have some fun games available, such as an I-Spy game. Consider switching out traditional reception activities, such as the dollar dance, with unique and fun spins on classics. The picture above is my husband and I playing the Shoe Game. It is like the Newlywed Game, but you answer questions about your relationship using the other person's shoe.

Another fun thing we did at our reception was have Darth Vader kidnap me instead of doing a traditional dollar dance. While I was kidnapped, my husband had to raise the "ransom" money to get me back. This was a HUGE hit at our wedding and my awesome DJ Nick Chavez persuaded me into doing it when I was worried no one would participate. 

When looking for fun things like this to do at your wedding and reception, start Googling. There are so many great wedding blogs that have tons of unique ideas submitted by brides across the country. Adding these little touches to your wedding will make it extremely memorable and way more fun. 

Today is the last day you can get my eBook "How to Create the Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder" for FREE!

The Importance of Organization and Release of Print Book!

The whole reason I created this blog and wrote my eBook was to help brides become stress-free and how organization is the best way to do that. To give all the new Christmas brides (and soon to be Valentine's brides!) more awareness on how to be stress-free while planning, I have released my eBook in print format as well!

I felt like releasing the book in the print option would allow more brides to take advantage of my advice, and help it appear more often in Amazon searches.

As part of this signal boost for brides, my eBook is FREE from now until this Thursday, February 6th! Please review my book if you choose to take advantage of this free promotion so more brides can get the help they need!

Even if you don't get my book, I want to talk about how important it is to stay organized when planning your wedding. You may think in the beginning you can keep everything in your head or make little notes in your phone calendar. I guarantee you are going to get lost along the way and end up with those movie-quality wedding castrophies. 

It's like when you get your electric bill in the mail and you put it on the table to pay later since it isn't due for a couple weeks. Then more mail gets piled up and before you know it you have the electric company sending you late fee notices and power shut off warnings. You want to avoid this stress and panic for your wedding by staying organized. 

When you choose to keep all your wedding planning information and decisions in your head, it causes your short term memory to fizzle out. Your short term brain's hard drive is full and all processing programs are going to run slow. You know how you get stressed and irritated when your computer is running slow and not acting right? Your brain does the same, causing you to be stressed and anxious.  

• 48% of people experience a negative impact on their personal and professional lives when they are stressed
• 54% of people fight with people close to them (like your fiance!) when they are stressed
• 26% of people are alienated from friends or family members if they are stressed

When you start organizing all of your wedding thoughts, even tiny things such as ideas for centerpieces, your entire engagement period will be so much more enjoyable. You can avoid the horrible symptoms of stress, including irritability, anger, fatigue, nervousness, lack of energy, and the feeling like you could break down crying any second, when you get on top of your wedding planning organization. 

How to REALLY Time Mailing Invitations

"When should I send out my invitations?"

The answers to this question vary widely depending on who you ask. Every website will tell you something different. I learned from my mistakes and believe I have a formula for the perfect invitation timeline.

In hindsight, I wish I would have sent out Save the Dates. They are a great way to alert your potential guests that you are engaged and that they will be receiving an invitation in the mail closer to the date. This helps get the thought into their head to take off work or make arrangements so they can attend. I recommend sending these out no later than six months before the wedding day or else they become irrelevant. For longer engagements, you should send out Save-the-Dates a year before.

Generally, the rule is to send invitations out between 8 and 12 weeks before the wedding. I believed that 12 weeks was not enough time to get the responses I needed for vendors. Invitations not only tell guests the details of the wedding day, but the responses will give you an indication of how many guests will be coming. This is used to set out the right number of seats and tables, order enough food for dinner, make sure there is plenty of dessert available, enough drinks to keep the party going, and so the DJ can bring the right equipment for the number of people.

For all of these reasons, I wanted to send my invitations out very early. I thought I would get responses early and not have to worry about the guest count. This completely backfired. Either the invitation got buried under months of other mail pieces until it was forgotten, or people RSVPed "yes" early then forgot about the wedding and didn't show up.

Trying to get a guest count was very, very difficult for me. What I should have done (and what I recommend all brides do) is go through the guest list with both sides of the family and mark what people would absolutely come, what people might come, and what people most likely would not show up. Even though there will be strange mix ups in that number, it will be close enough to get an accurate guess without having to stress and rudely call up people and ask if they were coming. I was one of those rude brides because wedding websites assured me it was perfectly fine to do this. It still didn't help me with the people who said yes then forgot to show up or something else came up.

Because of my dilemma, I have the perfect answer for the age old question. Send out the invitations between 12 and 16 weeks before the wedding. Include an RSVP method, even if you take my advice and estimate your count. Keep track of these RSVPs and who did not answer.

One month before the wedding, create a cute postcard with a picture of you and your fiance on the front, preferably from your engagement shoot. On the picture, put the date of the wedding. On the back, say something like, "We are so excited that our wedding day is only a month away and hope you are too! (Name) and (Name) are looking forward to seeing you on (Date)." Underneath this friendly reminder message, I would also put, "If you have not RSVPed, please call (Number) or email (Address)." This gives people a direct line to contact you without having to go through the trouble of putting something in the mail. This way you can get more RSVPs and remind those who responded yes that your wedding is coming up.

The guest count and RSVPs were the hardest part of wedding planning for me. Luckily, you get to learn from my mistakes and find out the best way to let your guests know when they get to enjoy your special day with you. Don't forget to check out my previous blog post about the magic of Vistaprint to order all of your wedding stationary.

From now until Sunday, February 2nd, my eBook "How to Create the Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder" will be available on Amazon Kindle for only 99 cents! Take advantage of this amazing price while you can!

The Latest Trend: Chalkboard Signs

Every few years a new wedding trend will appear. Sometimes it is just the most popular dress style. Others it is a song that everyone uses for their first dance. For the past couple years, the trend has been DIY, simplistic-yet-chic weddings.

I'm going to attribute this DIY trend to the rise of Pinterest as a major influence in wedding planning. Women can now brainstorm ideas for their wedding before they are ever engaged (another great reason to get my eBook about how to create a wedding planning binder - it's never too early to be prepared!).

I was absolutely a victim of this DIY movement. Most of my decor and other wedding ideas came directly from Pinterest. It was so much cheaper to do things myself than trying to pay for stuff premade. Some things completely backfired, like spending weeks creating monogrammed champagne flutes for the guests to take home. No one ended up taking them, even with my note on the table. Now I use my champagne flutes in place of red Solo cups at all family parties. Other things, like my chalkboard signs, worked out perfectly.

Pinterest is full of pictures for this beautiful, simple-yet-chic chalkboard trend. For years before I got engaged, I pinned these beautiful chalkboard signs as a simple decor option. The problem was you either had to learn excellent calligraphy or hire a professional sign maker to accomplish this look, neither of which I was willing to do.

Then I found this pin that taught me how to do my own chalkboard signs. You buy chalkboards, stencils, chalk, and a chalkboard marker (found at your local arts and crafts store, like Michaels) to create these signs. Sharpen your chalk to a point and use the stencils to trace the letters you want. Fill the blank space with the chalkboard marker and Voila! It looks like you had an expert calligrapher create your decor.

Of course, no DIY thing on Pinterest will ever go perfectly. I couldn't find the chalkboard size I wanted anywhere, so I wandered around Michaels until I came up with a alternative. I bought a four pack of canvas prints, black chalkboard spray paint, cardboard scroll frames, and blue spray paint.

I used the black chalkboard paint on the canvas to create an authentic chalkboad look. I then spray painted the cardboard scrolls to match my wedding color and hot glued it to the canvas. I didn't have the right size pencil sharpener to sharpen my chalk, so I made do and simply used my chalkboard marker over the actual chalk. I luckily found some chalkboard markers that contained all of my wedding colors (blue and fall shades) to make my boards more colorful.

I made a ceremony program sign instead of printing out a bunch of paper programs, an I-Spy camera game that I got off Pinterest in case guests got bored, the website and code to share photos from the wedding, and a fun little "History of Us" sign with significant dates from our time together. All of these ideas I got from Pinterest. I also made some smaller chalkboard signs out of silver serving trays explaining the desserts, guest book, and signature drinks.

I was extremely happy with my signs, but if you want perfection higher a calligrapher. It was trying at times, especially wrestling with my unsharpened chalk, lining up each letter of my stensils, trying to make everything fit, and forcing just a little bit more color out of my markers. As you can see, I used my very best cursive on some parts of the signs because I was fed up with the stencils. Overall, I love my chalkboard effect and would recommend this DIY project to anyone.

From now until Sunday, February 2nd, my eBook "How to Create the Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder" will be available on Amazon Kindle for only 99 cents! Take advantage of this amazing price while you can!

Invitations and More: The Magic of Vistaprint

Wedding traditionalists will tell you to get your invitations from a fancy invitation designer, either one you visit to customize your invitations in person or a complicated website full of invite options you have never heard of. If you want the regal invitations with bows, strings, bells, whistles, and whatever else you can cram on there, then you have to go to these specialized stores. If you simply want a beautiful invitation to send out to your friends and family, then I suggest Vistaprint.

Vistaprint is an online printing website that began in 1995 when the internet was still a baby. They are known for on demand printing and have hundreds of products available, from promotional materials to (you guessed it) invitations. They only provide customization options that people actually need, taking the complication of printing.

Even though their products are stock designs, if you are particular (like I was) then you customize the arrangement and amount of text, the font, and the colors. You can also choose from different backing options or upload your own image to use. You can also add images to the invite, either your own or from their stock, but I don't recommend it unless you choose a design that is set up to add images. Vistaprint gets a little picky when you add your own images without a pre-done image layout.

TIP: Make sure when you start moving text around and adding images that you are doing it right. It can be very easy to misalign text boxes or add images that will come out grainy or pixelated. Spend a lot of time and care arranging your invite layout and quadruple check your design before submitting to the printers.

Not only can you get your invitations through Vistaprint, but any and all wedding stationary you need. Within each design family, there are multiple stationary options so all of your papers will match. Vistaprint offers:

• Invitations
• Save-the-Dates
• RSVP cards
• Direction cards
• Thank you cards
• Bridal shower invitations
• Engagement party invitations
• Reception place cards
• And more

Each card has a front and back option, along with numerous other choices. You can get a sheet card or folded card. You can upgrade to a higher stock paper. You can even choose printing options to make your design basic matte or premium glossy. If you don't like any of the predone designs and you are super crafty or graphically talented, you can upload your own design to print.

The best reason to choose Vistaprint (right behind their hundreds of beautiful design options) is the price. If you were to go to Vistaprint and order your stationary right now, it can cost as little as $15 per 10 invitations. This is much cheaper than other invitation retail sites. But it gets better.

Vistaprint is constantly offering deals on Groupon to all areas across the US. Their deals usually consist of something like, "Spend $10 on this Groupon and get $50 worth of products." You can also visit the wonderful Retail-Me-Not to find excellent coupons for free shipping and other discounts on your orders.

If you are looking for more wedding planning advice, along with a way to keep track of how many invitations you need to order, consider checking out my eBook on Amazon called, "How to Create the Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder - And Other Helpful Wedding Planning Tips."

P.S. This is NOT a sponsored post (I wish!). I just really love Vistaprint and think their products are perfect for most couples.