Weddingbee Blog

… I’ll be busy making 120 cloth napkins. No matter that I have little sewing experience, and have never sewn a napkin in my life. It’s a basic square, right? Um, right. This is just another one of my crazy* ideas.

(*I prefer to think of them as “inspired”, not “crazy”.)

You see, I’ve been inspired by other bees — Mrs. Beagle posted about making cocktail napkins for the guests at her wedding, and then incorporating them into a quilt after the wedding. I thought it was a very cute idea, but figured I wouldn’t have the time or the dedication to pull something like that off. Although, I had to admit, the quilt she posted as her inspiration was gorgeous:

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Then I saw a different post by Miss Daschund about how she, too, was planning on making napkins for her wedding. She said that she was planning on using the quilting project for after the wedding to keep her busy and avoid “PWD,” or Post-Wedding-Depression.

Hmm, maybe these bees might be on to something… a project for after the wedding — what a novel concept! Mr. French Fries has asked me, while embroiled in the throes of another crafting/DIY project, ”What are you going to do with all of your time after the wedding is over?”

I figure that this is a good alternative to bouncing off the walls.

With the help of MOH French Fries and Mama French Fries, we determined that we can get roughly 120 napkins out of around 30 yards of fabric. Armed with a few 40% off or 50% off coupons for Jo-Ann fabric, this should be a relatively cheap DIY project with — I hope — a decent impact on our wedding decor.

Here’s a sampling of the fabrics that I’ve gathered so far. I’m going for similar in color tone, not necessarily pattern. The second fabric from the right has some additional detail to it, but you just can’t see it very well because of my shoddy camera skillz.

Dad and Mama French Fries have generously helped me with this project (and other wedding projects to be announced) by giving me an early birthday present — my very first sewing machine! I couldn’t very well sew this many napkins by hand (just thinking about it gives me a cramped hand), so this was extremely generous of them. I’m simultaneously excited and intimidated by the sewing machine, but I know that soon, using it will be like old hat. Or maybe “old napkin”. Lame, I know.

MOH French Fries took the napkin idea one step further, though. (That’s part of the reason that I keep her around — for her right-brained creativity and her ability to talk me off the ledge.) She suggested buying fabric pens to put on the tables so that people can sign a corner of their napkins, in lieu of signing a guestbook. Such a great idea! We can put out small signs on the tables (along with the candy jar signage, our wedding is going to be extremely informational!) explaining to guests what I’m planning on doing with the napkins, and requesting that they sign them, give advice, etc. Awesome. Then, Mama French Fries suggested monogramming the front of the napkins with my initials, so that people knew that I made each and every one of them by hand. Another awesome idea. I don’t know what I would do without MOH French Fries and Mama French Fries helping me with this wedding. I’d probably be laying in a ditch along the side of the road, mumbling to myself and vacillating between the benefits of dupioni silk and silk shantung. But I digress.

This is shaping up to be one of the biggest DIY projects for the wedding, and definitely the largest craft project that I’ve taken on to date. So, if anyone out there has any pointers that they could share, I’m all ears!

Have you been to a wedding where a significant portion of the decor was DIY? Do you think a lot of the guests noticed?