Weddingbee Blog

After presenting the napkin options I had considered to a couple of my bridesmaids, they tried to knock some sense into my napkin-saturated brain by rationally evaluating each option I presented to them.

First up: the shop rags.

We felt that the shop rags didn’t look formal and finished enough for our reception venue. If our reception were going to be outside, I think they would be the perfect inexpensive napkin alternative. Unfortunately for me, our venue is more on the formal side of things, and these would end up looking out of place.

Next up: the ric-rac-trimmed napkins.

Crooked little pillows

Even though I expressed my love for these napkins, my girls made me see how ridiculously time consuming it would be to make 140 of these things for our wedding. They also said my attempt at making these adorable napkins made them look more like pillows. Whoops. I still plan to make these napkins someday, but for a much smaller event.

Finally, we discussed sticking with making basic napkins.

For some reason, I was convinced that our napkins needed to stand out (Did I really just say that? Wow.), and a plain ol’ napkin didn’t seem to do it for me. I had contracted Napkin Inferiority Syndrome. I blame my completely legitimate disease on pictures like these:

Photo by Jen Causey Weddings / Via Style Me Pretty

Photo by Riekert Cloete / Via Snippet and Ink

Photo by Katie Slater of Carla Ten Eyck / Via Ruffled

But, in the end, my girls made me realize that:

1. No one cares about napkins this much. Ever.

and

2. I should invest more time into more productive and fruitful ventures, such as finding a job. (I was unemployed at the time.)

Ultimately, I decided to DIY our napkins but keep them plain, simple, and—I hoped—stress free.

Despite the many warnings of brides before me, I bought my supplies, dusted off my sewing machine, and got to work. My goal was to get them done in 2010 and start my new year without napkin-making looming over my head. And guess what? I not only accomplished this goal, but I got them done two weeks early. Take that, napkins.

And now, a napkin photo shoot for your viewing pleasure:

Clearly they need to be ironed.

I am so happy to have all my napkins sewn, and I am so proud to be able to say I made these napkins (with a little help from Mr. Pony) all on my own! Now I just need to figure out how to properly display them at our reception, and we will be ready to go!

And because I want to torture my dear bees with three, yes three, posts about napkins, I’ll give some tips and advice on DIY-ing your napkins without going crazy in my next post.

Are you making your own napkins? Would you please make the pretty ric-rac ones and then invite me to your wedding so I can compliment your napkins profusely?

*all personal photos unless otherwise noted