Wedding Blog

“Last minute details” for any normal person probably refers to the little things that you were able to find time to do before the wedding, after all the important stuff was done with.

“Last minute details” for me included menus, place cards, programs, BRIDAL GIFTS, petal cones… oh my god… the list just went on and on. On top of all that, Mr. M and I wanted to host a low-key dinner at our apartment for our BMs and GMs, since we decided against having an official rehearsal dinner. We felt this was much more comfortable and laid back for us and our friends, and still a nice way to thank them for everything they’ve done for us throughout our engagement. Two days before the wedding, I was scrambling to finish everything I needed to finish, while Mr. Martini prepared dinner for 14 people. Needless to say, I really wasn’t expecting to get any sleep until the wedding day.

Since my BMs were about three hours away from coming over, I decided to start assembling their gifts first. A large part of their gift was that I would be paying for their hair and makeup for the wedding. But I still wanted to get them a little something for when they came over. Who knew this “little something” would stress me out? Let me just tell you that I’m horrible with gifts. I’d have much rather had them tell me what they wanted. I almost went the “get them what they need” route, because I didn’t want to buy them something totally wedding related and useless that they would end up throwing away not long after the wedding. But after speaking to a few people, including a couple of my BMs, I was vetoed. Apparently, BMs don’t want gifts that they NEED. So how would I get them something that they didn’t need but could still use? I’d been “collecting” random items for several weeks, but I hadn’t actually sat down to assemble everything until then.

I chose these personalized USB flash drives from thingsremembered.com. I’m a bit of a geek that loves technology, and for some strange reason, I love portable space. For Valentine’s Day this year, I asked Mr. Martini for one thing only—and that was an WD Passport 320 G external hard drive (and believe it or not, the darn thing is almost already full!). I thought these flash drive key chains were elegant, and with the names engraved, looked really cute! The only bad thing was that they only had 1 gig of space, but they’re still great to use for smaller files. I originally wanted to fill each flash drive with songs, pictures, and other things for each of my girls, but unfortunately I didn’t have the time. I also forgot to take a picture of the actual flash drives, but they really did look much better in person.

I bought these Philosophy all-in-one shower gel/shampoo/bubble baths from Sephora. It was a little tribute to the awesome times we’ve had having girls’ nights out and drinking cocktails into the wee hours of the night. They smell amazing, just like the real things! Although, I’m not exactly sure if going to work smelling like Mimosas and Margaritas is a good thing.

I saw this book at Papyrus, and I thought it was perfect. I love how-to books like this, and this book contained how-to directions for anything a girl could ever want to do. I wanted to get one for myself, but alas, I had to go to two locations to nab six of them for my BMs. It’s on my to-do list for the near future, though!

Cute note cards in pink. These were an afterthought, but I thought these cards were cute. I used the same cards in green for my bridal shower thank you cards.

I also wanted to create handmade mini-scrapbooks for each of my girls, but I also didn’t have time to even start on that. It’s definitely something I still want to work on in the coming weeks. I bought mini Kolo scrapbooks for the job. They’re the perfect size for individual scrapbooks, with 12 pages to make it short, but still sweet.

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Along with a bottle of wine for each BM, I placed all the items in these adorable canvas grocery bags that I got from the Container Store. I decided to use grocery bags as a tribute to MOH J, who I credit to making me more aware of being green.

After I got these out of the way, I quickly assembled the kids’ activity bags. We made sure to specify as kindly as possible that our wedding would be an adults-only reception. But two of the four kids that would be guests at the wedding were Mr. Martini’s nephews, who were our two ring bearers. The other two would be visiting all the way from France. Since I never got the chance to make OOT bags (because 99% of our guests were local) I wanted to give the kiddies a little something to keep them busy during the reception. They weren’t elaborate or anything, and really took no time at all, but they really loved them!

I tried to make everything animal themed, and found these cute gift bags at the Container Store.

I don’t even know where I found these Planet Earth coloring/activity books. It might have been at a local Walgreens, and I nabbed four right away. Who doesn’t love Planet Earth?

Mini PlayDoh containers

Adorable Martha’s Stewart animal hand puppets. No glue or scissors needed, so they were perfect!

And because it was close to Easter, bunny Pez dispensers.

What were you doing two days before your wedding?