First thing's first. I'm going to put this at the beginning of the blog since I know most of you won't make it to the end. I have this crazy idea that I want to use mismatched vintage china as place settings for the wedding. Stick with me here, folks.
I know it's a little quirky, but I think it would fit with our Country/Rustic Chic vibe. I've been putting out feelers and quite a few other brides are doing the same thing. I'm going to hit the local thrift stores, goodwills, Salvos, etc. from now until the wedding in order to amass a collection of 150ish dinner plates, salad/cake/dessert plates, and maybe cups and saucers.
Here's where you come in. Does your mom/grandmother/aunt have vintage china coming out of their ears that they don't know what to do with? Do you yourself like to frequent garage sales, Goodwills, and antique/thrift stores? If so, you could totally help me out! I will buy all of that stuff off of you. Or if your meemaw would let me get some use out of her vintage china, I would love to borrow. I promise to make sure that everything gets back to her I'm looking to keep costs really low on this adventure -- no more than say $1 or $2 for each piece. After all, I think you can rent plates (the plain matching white ones used by caterers) for 50 cents or so. I don't want this to break the bank. I plan on selling most of the lot later. I'm going to use a few to make cake stands and random crafts, but I don't really need 150 plates for crafts.
If you want to go with me adventure hunting for plates, etc., let me know! I love a good antiquing buddy.
As far as colors are concerned -- I'd like to keep this somewhat unified. I want creams, greys, aquas and teals. I don't mind having bits of pinks and yellows mixed in, but I want there to be enough blues and greens and teals that they sort of look unified. If you find a random plate at a thrift store for 50 cetns and it's a gorgeous pink rose pattern with no blue at all on it -- get it for me! It's okay to have a little visual interest! But I want to keep them mostly muted colors. If you have questions, just snap a cell picture and send it on over to me and I'll let you know. As always, I will totally pay you for them. I don't want you out of pocket for my stupid ideas.
In other news, my maid of honour, Robin, made us a wedding website! It's AWESOME! www.weddinwire.com/lindsaychris. Clearly Bank of America doesn't have her doing much. Actually, she just got a promotion (YAY!!!). I think she did an awesome job! I didn't even need to ask her -- she just told me that she wanted to make a wedding website for Chris and I! She's the bestest.
So what did Chris and do over Christmas vacation? We decided to have the ceremony on the grounds. I know this is old news, but now it's official. I told my dad that it was his job to break it to my mom that we weren't getting married in a church. It was just way to much logistically and financially to get married in a church, particularly when we had this beautiful reception space already booked. Wedding Planner Mel talked to Boone Hall, and they're letting us use the back garden for the ceremony and will give free tours of the house for the cocktail hour (while Chris and I are doing last minute pictures). Yay Mel!
We also booked out hotel blocks. You can check those out on Robin's website. Ask for that week off now, folks and get your hotel room!
We're like 75% booked on our 80s band! Our awesome wedding planner extraordinaire sent us the names of 2 bands. This was in the middle of finals and clearly very distracting. I put Robin on the task of choosing which one she liked better. When I had the chance to look over it briefly, I totally agree. Soulfish plays all the good stuff and the song playing in the background of their website is my fave 80s song. I think it's a sign!
Meanwhile, my other friend Christian is in this badass Bluegrass band out of Nashville, the Farewell Drifters. He's the cute one playing the fiddle. I've been friends with Christian for a looooooong time, and I told him as my wedding gift I would love it if he came and played the cocktail hour. He agreed and is stoked! So brush up on your lyrics, kids. I fully believe that if you tap the talents of friends, you can have an awesome wedding at a fraction of the cost.
Speaking of tapping talents, I put Chris on the task of making 200 mason jar lanterns. He's so good to me. I told him what I wanted and he said that yes, that was doable. Then he asked me how many I wanted. When I told him, I could tell he was about ready to say "WHAT?!" But the boy has learned to pick his battles and decided it was better just to give in to my crazy schemes. His new tactic is to calculate how much money and space in the house my newest idea/purchase will involve. If both are small, then he gives in. He's a quick study.
So we love our venue, but one of the big problems is lighting. I saw pictures of mason jar lanterns on some random blog and fell in love. Pottery Barn sells mason jar lanterns, but they're a whopping $7.50 EACH!
I want to use glitter to sink the candles in, because let's face it -- everything's better with glitter. I'm not sure if glitter is flammable or not. I'm sure they make non-flammable glitter out there. I'm on a hunt to find it. On another note, did you know that you can buy GLITTER BY THE POUND?! It's like heaven.
We're planning on letting people take them home as favors or whatever. I mean seriously, what am I going to do with 200 mason jar lanterns? We're going to keep some as well. The rest, we're going to sell on etsy. People are selling them for like $3 a pop, so that sounds good to me. I told Chris about this and he started thinking that we should just make them and sell them on etsy in general. Right, Chris... In my spare time. I also think that our florist may consider buying some of them from us. Mason jars lanterns are seriously huge right now and it's very southern wedding chic. I'm sure she could use them. My friend Sarah (shout out!) said that her friend is also having a wedding in Charleston either the week before or the week after ours and wants mason jar lanterns. We will totally sell them to her if she wants them!
So, what else? Chris and I registered. That was fun but a chore all at the same time. I told Chris he could hold the gun and he got really excited. I went online later and looked and there were random random things on the registry. Like 53 brandy glasses. He must have been scanning behind my back. What's great is that you can manage your registry and add and subtract thigns online. Thank god. I did loads of research on the best of everything to buy, particularly for the kitchen. If you want this list for yourself for whn you register, let me know. It's all yours.
Chris and I also bought a cool antique/country China hutch for our breakfast. It's rad. I'm really excited.
I also made our Save the Dates, ordered them from vistaprint, and am now in the process of letterpressing the backs of them. I found a vintage postcard of Charleston from a random antique store, scanned it in, and used it for the front of the postcards. You'll be seeing those in the mail soon. I ordered them from vistaprint and after loads of online coupons, I ended up getting about 250 of them for like $40. 250 is way more than we need, but there wasn't really a way to order the amount we really do need. $40! I'm so stoked! It was going to cost that much just to print them on my own, and this way vistaprint did it all for me. Save the dates through a company would have cost about $100 for 150, so I'm thinking I'm doing well on my budget!
Once these Save the Dates are addressed and finished, I'll take some pix and post. I've contracted myt Maid of Honor, Robin for a weekend to help me craft away to finish these up. She has no idea what she's getting into!
While I'm at it, if you haven't sent me your updated address, you need to otherwise you're not invited to the wedding. Seriously. i need an address from many of you.
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