Weddingbee Blog

When we got engaged last May, I couldn’t wait to tell everyone! Even though Mr. Cubbie and I were in Thailand, we immediately hopped on a computer at our tiki-hut to spread the good news. Two of my future bridesmaids (FB?) were on Gchat - I told them right away I wanted them to be my bridesmaids! The rest of my girls I asked over the phone when we were back in the country.

There’s a million and one ways to ask your friends to be your bridesmaids. No one way is better than the other. Personally, if I have a fab secret, I can’t keep it! I’m bursting with happiness! Asking my girls while I still had that “just slipped the ring on” glow was 100% me.

And then I saw all those other wonderful ways to ask, “Will you be my bridesmaid?”, and I of course I wanted to do that, too! I decided this would be a great way to

1. RE-ask them (it’s been almost a year since we got engaged!)
2. give them more up-to-date info about the wedding
3. pass around b-maid contact info
4. make them feel special
5. have an excuse to craft - tee hee!

The only problem is that now I live in Chile, and as we already know, there’s not a whole lot in the way of crafting supplies here. No Goccos, no PaperSource, no nothing that you lucky lucky brides in the States get to play with. You know what I did? I went to the grocery store.

Ironically, in the grocery store, they carry [a minimal supply of] felt, [random colors of] cardstock, and [probably lead-laden] acrylic paints. I had never really painted before, but I was on the verge of considering markers, so I figured, what the heck? Might as well try.

When I was looking for supplies, I told my super-cute mamacita Spanish teacher that I was having trouble finding pretty paper to work with in La Serena - and she whipped out a packet of purple artisan paper made from seaweed! It’s not enough to make into 80 invitations, but it is enough to embellish cute letters to my girls! I also found in my closet some old (PaperSource brand!!) matching white paper and envelopes - I was set to craft to my heart’s delight!

If you’re interested in making cards for your girls based mostly on the junk you can find in the grocery store, you’ve just hit the crafting jackpot!

I bought blue cardstock (it was either that or hot pink), white felt, and acrylic paints in green, red, purple, yellow, white, and black. The old PaperSource letter paper was already sized to fit into its envelope, so I borrowed a guillotine-paper-cutter from work to cut the cardstock.

My idea was to paint a background of a lavender field with 6 sets of poppy buds (for each 6 of my bridesmaids!). Then, to give the card a little more texture, I affixed the lavender-colored seaweed paper to the front as a base for a little felt hand-cut wedding dress.

I first made one card completely to make sure I was happy with the result. I mixed my colors until they matched a picture of lavender, and then I painted the soft green lavender stems, then the flecks of lavender buds, then the bright poppies, and finally some touch-ups. The work wasn’t so bad for six cards, but I don’t think I could survive hand painting 80 wedding invitations.

All of my bridesmaids are scattered across the states. I really had to give them a lot of information in a little letter - long distance coordination is crazy! I gave them the dates of the wedding, the wedding location (if they didn’t already know), dates to be in town (for fun BM outings!), the color palette, a BM coordination website, email addresses for the other BMs, and attire suggestions.

I secured into the envelope some paint chips from our palette to help them get an idea of how the mixy-matchy BM dresses will work together.

I wanted the pretty frayed edge to be the most obvious, so I put the glue on the front side of the letter:

I miss my friends in the States a whole lot - I’m happy for the opportunity to make them feel special, and I can’t wait to see them in September!

How are you coordinating your bridesmaids before the wedding? Did you ask your BMs over the phone? via gchat? with a cute little card? Are you crafting wedding paraphernalia with run-of-the-mill supplies and leftovers?