Weddingbee Blog

In the week before the wedding we had some ladies over to help finish up some crafts. Sister MB, Momma MB, Grandma MB, Aunt Eileen, flower girl Abby and Aunt Annie were there to help, and so was Mom’s friend Linda. Thanks for all of your help, ladies!

I felt it was only fair to give my workers provisions. I made panzanella and minestrone—both were a big hit.

Quick recipe, because it’s so easy and yummy.

Panzanella (Bread Salad)

• 1 loaf of bread
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Bell Peppers
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Dijon Mustard
• Olive Oil

Cube and toast the bread.

Dice all your veggies.

Smash some garlic cloves into a bowl or vinaigrette bottle, squeeze in some lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all up and strain over your veggies. Toss with bread at the last minute.

Top with some grated Parmesan (the real stuff, not the can, trust me).

It’s my kind of salad (more croutons than veggies).

Aunt Annie and flower girl Abby stuffing recipe cards into favor bags.

To make the vases for the reception we gathered a bunch of mason jars. We used the quilted jars. They seemed a bit more appropriate for our family that has made 100s of quilts. Get a bunch of cotton fabric, some ribbon lace, buttons, fabric flowers and hot glue. We ripped the fabric into appropriately sized strips and removed all excess threads. To rip fabric, just notch the fabric and rip apart. Important note: you can only properly rip along the lengthwise grain of the fabric. Lengthwise means parallel to the selvage. Selvage is that finished edge that runs along the length of a bolt of fabric. If it’s puckering as you rip it and not ripping straight, you’re ripping the wrong way.

Then it’s really just a matter of hot glue. Wrap your fabric around and glue in place. Wrap ribbon around and glue in place. Attach fabric flower with hot glue and then add the button with, you guessed it, hot glue.

We had two sizes of these cute little vases. Larger for the tables and smaller for filler on random tables. We also had little tiny jars with little tiny plants in them.

Here’s the only shot I’ve got so far of a vase in action. This was either taken by my Aunt Annie (the family shutterbug) or London ’maid. Either way, thanks to both of them for taking pictures, especially Aunt Annie, who got a ton of things that we forgot about. And, of course, there were things that didn’t make it onto that table. We could not find the tea lights and I wanted squares of the same fabric we used on the vases in the center of the table, but at some point you just let go of things. I try to remind myself that I’m the only one that notices.

Are you dressing up your vases? What clever materials have you come up with to jazz them up?