Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

I’ve been referring to the wedding as a DIY wedding because we had organised every element of the day ourselves.  We had to hire furniture, cutlery, crockery, glassware.  We had to arrange for a local pub to move get a license to serve alcohol in the venue.  We hired the services of caterer and two dj’s.  We also had to set up the venue entirely.  It took 20 of our family and friends 6 hours to create the wedding venue of our dreams! Mike mentioned in his speech that it was a DIYFF wedding….Do it with Your Family & Friends.  We couldn’t have done it without them!  It was an amazing day, everything went very smoothly and we had a ball.  Here are some pictures……

3pm Thursday

3pm Friday

Just after the Civil Ceremony

The Wedding Cake and the Barbie Cake

The “logo” from our wedding invitations displayed on Daghdha’s projector screen.

The details of our menu is here if you’re interested.  I will post more pictures at a later stage, these are just a selection from our own camera which was in the hands of my new Brother in Law for the day.  Cheers Padraig!

Sometimes things become stale and you lose interest in something you were previously passionate about.  That happened to me (a little bit) with blogging and social media.  I suppose if I’m honest, I just didn’t have room in my head for the past 6-12 months for anything other than the wedding and trust me I know how sad that sounds.  There was a point in April where I started to think that I had early onset alzheimers as I kept forgetting everything.    There was an ‘incident’ where I rang Eircom to give out that I had not received my phone bill and when the copy arrived, I paid it and went to file it only to find the original tucked away exactly where it should be……I had no memory of ever receiving it.   My resident medical expert (my friend Mairead) assured me that I was preoccupied not sick and she totally forgave me when I nearly forgot her birthday and had to buy her a very impersonal voucher instead of actually putting any thought into it!   Anyway, after a recent bloggers meet up I have been completely re-inspired to blog.  It’s like I’ve found my voice again.  The word ‘Woohoo’ comes to mind

So with my renewed interest in blogging and my recent defection from the rest of the social media world I present my latest project……mademarian’s posterous.  That’s not as rude as it sounds, posterous is a new (to me) blogging platform which I was introduced to by Elly.  It’s rediculously easy to post to it and it’s perfect for what I call ‘non-wordy blog posts’.  I’m going to use this platform to post a photo a day in a  Photo 365 project to document my first year as a Mrs.  I’m also changing job/career so despite my best intentions now I may not have as much time for blogging as I’d like so this is a nice and simple way to make sure this year gets documented in some way. Hope you enjoy it.

Day 1 was yesterday 24th July and we had a barbeque at Mike’s parents house, however I didn’t get to take any photos myself so I will post Day 1 retrospectively.

It seems I’m not the only one with a button themed wedding, you’ll find some buttony weddings here and here. Our wedding has button napkin rings, button invitations, button name cards, button and candle decorations, button menus and I’m sure there are more but I can’t think of any!

Now onto the point of this post, I often have a look at Martha Stewart’s website for craft ideas so I was inspired by this project to make holders for the dessert labels.  (All our desserts are going to be homemade for us by family members so I wanted to make labels to acknowledge the people who will have put so much effort in.)

Here’s my version.

We plan on having a special area for the kids that are coming to the wedding, there will be jigsaws and colouring books and possibly even a TV and DVD player for them.  Mike’s Mom has a friend who looks after kids professionally so she will be helping us out, one of the activities we have planned for them is to decorate their own gingerbread people.

It would have been much easier if I had the puncher that they mention in the instructions but my alternative was to use Microsoft Word Clip Art and insert an oval into a Document, then just printed that and used it as a template.

We are heading off to Bordeaux for our honeymoon and although the focus of the honeymoon will be on food and wine I hope to get some time to visit craft shops or at least go to see some local arts and crafts.  However I’m having some difficulty, so far I’ve manged to find this fabric shop and a few art and craft supplies shops but my french is so bad that I have no idea what the shops actually sell, I’m guessing that Papeterie Guilbaud might sell paper and that La Maison du Collectionneur must sell something collectable but what that something might be is a mystery.  The third one I found is Groupe Castet but I haven’t a notion what they might actually sell.

Has anyone been to Bordeaux?  Any suggestions where I might look?

I have blatantly abandoned my poor blog for wedding planning at this stage, but here are some photos that tick both boxes.

These are some supplies that I have acquired for crafty projects for the wedding.  I can’t really say too much of course, but I’ll have loads of photos after the big day.

We decided to get the invitations printed for the wedding because we have the opportunity to get a professional graphic designer to do them as a wedding present and some people have been surprised that I’m not making the invitations by hand.  I did think about it, but in the end I wanted something a bit different and when you have a brilliant graphic designer in the (soon to be) family why not take advantage of that.  However I absolutely love handmade invitations so I decided to do something a bit unusual and make invitations for my Hen Party.  My Mother is hosting the party in her house and it’s mostly family (both sides), including three children under 10 so it will be a very civilised affair.  I ordered supplies for a very girly invitation from daintree and here are the results.

You might have noticed the lovely yellow buttons in the first picture, well buttons will be a big part of the wedding so I decided to introduce them here too..

To be honest, there hasn’t been a lot of wedding planning lately, it’s still over a year away.  We’ve booked the registry office and the reception venue,  decided on a caterer and we’ve pretty much worked out who will be providing the bar services on the day. So other than that, there’s not much we can do at this stage except keep notes of our ideas for decoration, music outfits etc.

The only thought I’ve given my own outfit is that I want a dress but not a weddingy one, if that makes sense.  That’s why I’m really liking the Monsoon bridal range, it’s simple and budget friendy.  I’m considering doing some customization though - if I think it’s something I can do myself that will be great but otherwise I may be calling on Ruth from Nice Day designs to work her magic. My other half needs a new suit anyway so we’ll just buy a regualar two-piece suit, I don’t think either of us are into all those fancy morning suits and top-hats and tails.  As for the witnesses, well they can wear whatever takes their fancy.  I’ve decided that I’m not choosing wedding colours, I want the whole event to be as colourful as possible so I don’t want to limit the palette.

I did invest in this book of crochet flowers patterns because I’m planning on crocheting my wedding bouquet and the lapel pins for the fellas.  I have yet to actually try any of the patterns though so this could turn out to be purely aspirational.

My main focus lately has been the decoration of the reception venue.  I’ve been keeping a note of any ideas we have and I’ve been roping in family and friends to help with different things.

By the way, this is wedding planning HQ……..

That gorgeous wedding planner you see at the front is from Paperchase and I’ve been using it to jot down ideas as well as keeping cut-outs from magazines etc for inspiration.  If you’re looking for a great wedding folder than I would definitely recommend this one, there’s just loads of blank pages so it’s not one of these ones that gives you ridiculous check lists!  There are also super-handy plastic pocket pages at the back.

So, how do you set the date of your wedding when you’re not going down the traditional route?  In our case we had Summer 2010 in mind and taking the World Cup into consideration (I was deeply concerned about same, as you can imagine) we decided that late July/early August would be best.  Then we spoke to the manager of the venue and found out that July is their quietest month so she advised us that we could have any Friday or Saturday in July 2010.   After that we had a look at the calendar and decided on 23rd/24th July.

Next step was making it official.  I checked the website groireland and got the number for the registry office in Limerick.  If you’re looking for a Civil Ceremony you will be put through to the Registrar and he/she will go through the process with you.  But basically it’s like booking an appointment with the hairdresser.

Him:  When were you thinking?

Me: July 2010, do you do Saturdays?

Him: No, only Monday to Friday?

Me: Would you be able to do the ceremony in our reception venue?

Him: Only on Wednesday.

Me: Oookay then, what about Friday 23rd July 2010?

Him: No problem, what time would you like?

Me: How about 1pm?

Him: Ah sure we’ll be on lunch at that time, we can do 12.30.

Me: OK, see you then.

And just like that I’d arranged the date and time that we would sign our lives over to each other.  Whether you’re doing the Civil or Religious ceremony you still need to give three months notice in person of your intention to marry so I also made that appointment for later in the year.  The registrar sent out all the forms that day and also the list of documents that we need to bring with us.  I’ve filed these away in my new accordion file devoted to the Big Day (I seriously recommend one of these files to keep all your bits and pieces together, I got mine in Easons for €10).  I would also recommend that you get two notebooks, one small one that will fit in any handbag for jotting down things on the move and one larger one to take to meetings with vendors etc.

Another organisation tip is google documents.  I’ve done out our budgets (one for the party and one for other stuff like rings, outfits etc) and our guestlist on a google spreadsheet with a seperate sheet for the three things I mentioned above.  I’ve shared this with my SO so that both of us can access and make changes to things at any time and of course we can access the info anywhere in the world (made all the easier by my SO’s iphone).

PS: I have a few crafty projects on the go so it should be business as usual here in the next few days and you’ll have a break from the wedding stuff.

To gather my ideas together in some kind of organised fashion I decided to make an inspiration board using mosaic maker.   The mosaic below should give you all some kind if idea of what I* have in mind.

Here are the links to the original Pics

Daghdha External

Daghdha Inside

Crochet Flowers

Lego Bride and Groom

Knitwear Vases

Purple Sandals

Earrings

Monsoon Bridal Wear

Monsoon Dress

Wall Art

Hydrangeas

Centre Piece

Invitation

*Note: I feel the urge to say “we” but in fairness his prioroties for the wedding are different to mine and since this is my blog I’ll most likely be focusing on what’s going on for me.  Being focused on different things seems to be a very positive thing because it means that every angle will get covered.  Predictably, I seem to be focusing on stationary, decoration, dresses, flowers (both crochet and fresh), the guest list and how I’m going to fit a pair of Louboutins into the budget And my SO seems to be focusing on food and audio visual stuff.  I’m sure some of you will be interested in those things too so I will try to blog about those too.

Photo from The wedding Wire

So, many of you will already know that my significant other (from now on to be known as my SO) and I got engaged late last year.  Many of you may also know that I’m more than a bit uncomfortable with the idea of being a “Bride”, I want to be married far more than I want to get married - if you get my drift. My dream wedding was 25 people in the Registry Office and the off to the Market Square for dinner, no speeches, no hired cars, no chair covers, no wedding music and no “giving away”.  My SO on the other hand wanted a larger, more public affair (although he didn’t want hired cars or wedding music either and I’m not entirely sure that he knows what chair covers are) .  So after many discussions we came up with a compromise - a small private ceremony and a big casual reception. I asked around (i.e. on twitter and it seems that this might be a topic suitable for the blog - since there will be a lot of handmade/homemade aspects I think I’ll get away with it.  First up - venue finding.

So, the search was on for a reception venue.  The problem with this was that  we didn’t want to have it in a hotel, mostly because we are wannabe foodies so we didn’t want a traditional “wedding” sit-down meal and also we just wanted something a little bit different.   The first idea we had was a marquee on the lawn of my SO’s families house in Ballyferriter, however the more we looked into it the more problems that came up, for example someone mentioned public liability insurance and that immediately put me off. Also the thoughts of having to hire portaloos really didn’t appeal to me.

So we searched on, Margaret suggested the Daghdha dance space in St Johns Square and a cousin suggested a local yacht club.  The yacht club was a no-no due to the necessity to jump through too many bureaucratic hoops and I didn’t really give Daghdha too much thought, that is until I went to a Swell Season gig in that very dance space.   I was pretty much smitten as soon as I walked in the door and as it turns out my SO felt the same.  So we sent an email and a very nice lady came back to us and said that occasionally they do rent out the space for functions and that as long as our date didn’t coincide with any of their own functions that we could hire the space.

Next up, what to put into the fabulous venue. Stay tuned.

P.S. Soon after we decided on our venue, I found out about the lovely Ciara Crossen and her website devoted to helping you find the perfect place for your BDO (Big Day Out).  It’s called weddingdates.ie and you should definitely check it out.