Pretty Pink Centerpieces for Brunch

I am finally getting around to posting the lovely photos from my Mother's Day brunch.  I was pulled away from my inspiration board when I saw these lovely lavender mini roses, which I had to incorporate into the centerpieces.  I lined both my kitchen and dining room tables with pink tablecloths and bubble bowl vases with tea light candles and curled gold ribbon scattered between.  The place settings were very simple with thick clear plastic plates and gold silverware with gold napkin rings.  I served an awesome sausage and egg bake as the main course and also make a homemade raspberry jam.  The raspberry puree served two purposes: I poured it into champagne for a fun girly drink, and I also had it available to spread on toast with Nutella.  The fresh bread from the bakery and chocolate chip scones were also a hit.  My guests brought salad, fruit salad, and cake...so we had more than enough to eat.  What do you think about these centerpieces?  They are so pretty and can be used for any type of event.  Would you set your table in a similar way?  Here are some more shots just because they are pretty.  Thanks for reading today!

Adorable Wedding Flat Sandals

I just got off the phone with the wedding shop that I got my dress from.  They informed me that I need to bring my wedding shoes with me to my first fitting.  I am going to have heels as well as flat sandals to wear at the end of the evening.  Here are five of my favorites.

Ivanka Trump, $150

Steve Madden, $70

Mystique, $165

Sam Edelman, $100

Guess, $32

These are all so much fun and adorable.  I love all of the sparkles and bows.  So feminine and girly.  What do you think of them?  Are you opting for a change of shoe at your wedding?

All That Glitters Is...Gold Napkin Rings

 It has been a crazy week around here - I am sure glad it is the weekend.  I spent the day reflecting on how lucky I am for having family close by.  I love that my sister visits often and my parents (and cats) are a quick car ride away.  Last Saturday, I hosted a brunch for my extended family where I decorated with accents of pink and gold.  Despite the cold weather, the day went smoothly.  These gorgeous gold napkin rings were the perfect touch to dress up the event.  

I bought the gold knives, forks and spoons from the Dollar Store and also purchased the shiny gold ribbon there.  The napkin rings were easy to complete and really kept costs (and clean-up) to a minimum.  I learned how to roll silverware in my days as a waitress long, long, ago...and I am happy to share the secret with you too.

Story of Us DIY Save the Date

We are waiting until spring to get our engagement photos, so I had to think outside of the photo postcard box.  Most of my friends getting married order their save the dates from a company like vistaprint.com.  I fell in love with this save the date by Bayside Bride and used it as my inspiration for designing my own save the date.  

Phil and I have been together for 8+ years, so we had a lot of little stories to tell.  This was our first big DIY project for our wedding, and we had fun designing it and making it our own.

The first step was really designing the text portion of the save the date.  Phil and I sat down one evening over a bottle of wine and wrote a list of all our fondest memories together.  We started dating in high school, went to college together, traveled, moved to DC, bought our first house together...we tried to capture all of these stories and more in our save the date.

We almost went out and bought a new version of Adobe Photoshop (so expensive!), but fortunately Phil's dad found us a free link.  Download Adobe CS2 for free here.  It took us some time to get the hang of it, but once we did it was really easy to use.

I download some adorable fonts for our save the date through Dafont.com.  There are a ton of free fonts, and there are so many cute ones.

We printed two per sheet of ivory cardstock paper to save trees and money.  You can do this by saving the image and creating a new document the size of your paper.  Add your image as a layer and duplicate it.  Make sure you save the image the size you would like to print it and with high pixels so it does not look fuzzy.

This Martha Stewart edge puncher made our save the date look a bit more professional.  It was easy to use, but punching out 100 sheets of cardstock took a long time.  It took me about 1-2 minutes per paper.  This was my TV watching activity for a week.

The method I used was to use the corner punch first and punch out all the corners then go back around and do all of the edges.  The tools is easy to use with it's built in alignment feature.  

Prior to assembling our save the dates, we cut out and gathered all of the items we needed.  My parents let us borrow their paper cutter, which made the process much easier.  I did not have to worry about cutting straight lines.

Save the date text sheet on ivory paper

Edge punched cardstock

Punched out hearts (I bought a punch for the heart and another mini hole punch)

Initial tags (printed with initials, punched with save lace detail as base, and punched using mini hole punch)

Rhinestones

Thin ribbon (sold at Jo-Ann Fabrics for 0.50 a roll)

It was nice having everything laid out so we could do an assembling line process to put all 100 invites together.

Spray adhesive was a great way for us to attach the ivory text cardstock to the neutral cardstock.  It looked very professional and clean.

A. Purchase a Spray Adhesive (I got mine from Hobby Lobby)

B. Layout ivory pieces and spray with adhesive(3 at a time seemed to work best)

C. Line up the ivory piece at the top

D. Continue to align all the way down

E. Press down with paper towel (it's important to press, not rub)

F. Let dry for about 30 minutes

Add all the pretty details.  String the heart and initial tags onto the ribbon and tie into a bow.  I found stringing them on the right hand side worked best in making sure it laid right.

I also added rhinestones onto the ring clipart that we found.  It dressed it up a bit, and made me smile.  I love all of the little touches. 

I am so happy with how they turned out and excited to send them out to our guests.  Now I need to start thinking about what to put together for our invitations.  What did you do for your save the dates?

15 Unique Chair Rentals for your Wedding

Oftentimes, the importance of the right chair at a wedding is overlooked.  Some venues come with standard chairs or offer white satin chair covers in their packages, so it is tempting to go with a cookie cutter option.  But there is nothing more lovely than an unique, totally gorgeous chair to make your wedding's tablescape picture perfect.  For my wedding, I rented silver chiavari chairs with white cushions to accent my candelabra centerpieces.  While chiavari chairs are trending right now, there are a lot more options to consider.  Take a look at this collection of 15 hand picked chairs ranging from Lucite ghost chairs to vintage Paris bistro chairs.  But I must warn you...this gallery might leave you breathless.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15

Which one is your favorite?  Are you renting chairs for your wedding?  Also, I must send a special shout out to my beautiful sister, Brittany.  Today is her birthday.  Thank you for being my best friend!