Weddingbee

This weekend Mr. Chickadee went camping with the boys so I hopped up to the Chicago suburbs to help my older sister with some of her wedding plans. She’s getting married October 7th, so she’s getting down to that frantic time when all of a sudden she’s remembering all the things she’s forgotten to do.

I thought I’d share some of the things we’ve done for her wedding, as my own DIY projects are mostly in the conceptual phase at the moment.

To begin, this is my dress, finally altered. It’s still wrinkly and I’m looking rather bedraggled, but you get the idea. I had my alterations done at Wee Sew in Bloomington, Illinois. They were inexpensive and really quick (it was done the next day!) so I’d recommend them to anyone in the area.

(It’s Alfred Angelo, style 6495, in Clover bought from Bridesmart in Schaumburg)

The favors are going to be little bags of green, pink, and white jelly beans. We’re going to attach these little tags to each favor. I designed a logo, then uploaded it to Design Your Own Card.com and a week later I had our custom stamp in my hands. I used VersaColor ink in Sage for the stamping. You can see the final result (prior to attaching it to the bag) below: We also worked up an emergency kit for the bride and a bathroom basket for the reception. Included in the basket is clear fingernail polish, lotion, bobby pins, kleenex, mints, medicines, and a sewing kit, among other things. We also included a little poem, adapted from the one Mrs. Bee wrote about here. The card was made with the help of Martha Stewart…we used both her paper punch and her 18″x18″ cardstock in evergreen. In fact, we bought all the evergreen paper Michael’s had in stock, as I’m using it to make menus & escort cards. At Mrs. Snow Pea’s recommendation, we used the Making Memories Tool Kit to score and fold the card.

We also worked hard on writing up very specific schedules for various members of the bridal party, family, and vendors. We bought petals from Michael’s for the flower girls and a shawl from Von Maur because my sister is always cold.

One of the biggest projects we had slated for the weekend was to get a make-up trial. It doesn’t sound like a huge undertaking, you just sit there and get your make-up done right? Right…unless you’re the Maid of Honor and have been charged with the task of actually recreating said make-up for the day of. For some reason Sister Chickadee finds me capable of doing things that only trained professionals ought to be doing.

So we went to the Clinique counter at the Carson’s in Charlestowne Mall and worked with Ursula. In the end the make-up looked absolutely gorgeous. I have to admit, though, for a while there I thought it would be like the time in high school when my sister tried to get her hair cut like Ashley Judd and ended up with a mullet. It may have been the first time I had to give an emergency hair cut over the bathtub, but it certainly wasn’t the last!

Luckily, it was not necessary to do any emergency make-up rescue because it ended up really gorgeous! She purchased gobs of Clinique make-up and the responsibilty to re-create the look is now all on my shoulders! Haha, I’ll have to let you know how that little endeavor goes in a couple weeks.

So, I know my sister’s not the only one getting married this October. How are the rest of you preparing in your last month?

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