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DIY Projects ~ Putting It All Together

May 21, 2011 By Maureen Chapdelaine 1 Comment

Enjoy today’s post by Janet Mitchell: “I am the mother of a 21 year old college senior, currently assisting with planning her wedding and (mostly) loving every minute of it!”

The long Easter weekend brought my daughter and I some extra days off from school and work to devote to our craft projects for the wedding. The Do-It-Yourself (D-I-Y) websites and magazines like Martha Stewart Weddings promised overall cost savings, and individualized customization of your wedding designs. Coming up with ideas for designs is super-fun for me, but actually creating the art is beyond my comfort zone. So for me, the easier the better!

Besides the display stand for our cake balls (taking the place of the groom’s cake), for which we had painstakingly shopped for the materials several weeks prior, I had also hit upon some easy cost-saving favor ideas. When I conveyed my ideas to my daughter and the relatively low cost of doing them, she was highly enthusiastic and gave me free reign to go for it!

She wanted to have bubbles as a favor for the guests to use at Send-Off time when she and her groom depart the reception. She had already ordered white and light blue bubble tubes with a heart design on one end from TheKnot.com’s “Wedding Shop”. They arrived shortly, and while cute, I thought they needed a little extra something to make them extra special.

To dress them up a little, I ordered labels from http://www.123print.com/ and had them printed with the phrase “Love is In the Air” –(Get it?—bubbles in the air?) Can’t take full credit — I had seen this idea online. These labels also carried the couple’s first names and the wedding date. I also thought tying light blue ribbons would be a nice added frill. My “prototype” came out really well!

So, the Maid of Honor (my younger daughter) was also home from college for Easter, and she and I took care of applying the labels to the first 2 of 5 boxes of bubbles right away. I applied the labels to 2 more boxes of bubbles in later days myself, when I happened to be sitting around watching TV. One box to go (with less than 3 weeks left before the wedding.) Now I am second-guessing the ribbon. How long will it take to tie 200 little bows like this, and is it really worth it?!

My other idea was to supply take-home boxes for guests to pack up leftover wedding cake and cake balls into. After a long Internet search with price comparisons of different container options, I settled upon pint-sized Chinese take-out boxes as the best bang for our buck. I ordered them from PaperMart.

To my happy surprise, the boxes arrived pre-assembled, except for the top flap! The cupcakes might be a bit snug in them, but I think they will work and they will definitely be ideal for leftover cake balls. The only problem was they were just plain white, and again I thought a little something could be added to make them personalized. The answer — more labels with the couple’s names and wedding date! What can I say — labels are cheap, they are easy, and they definitely personalize! For these labels, the vendor I chose was: http://www.orientaltrading.com/

The Maid of Honor and I knocked out putting labels on all 150 takeout boxes the first night she was home for Easter Break, while settled on the couch watching a movie. I think they look fine, considering the guests will likely get these smudged with icing and cake oils, and probably will not keep them anyway.

The Bride did not get off free. She had her crafting hat on for that Easter weekend, too. She and I set about decorating the heavy corrugated cardboard cake ball tree. And yes, as I feared, we had to make another trip to Hobby Lobby to buy more ribbon and materials, after we determined that a) some of the ribbon was too sheer for the edges of the tiers, (it did not hide the cardboard that well) and b) for appearance sake, we would need to cover the supporting columns as well as the tiers themselves, and c) we did not purchase enough yardage of ribbon to begin with, either for this project or the larger square cupcake tree. Another $50 in materials was chalked up to the cake display budget. And we had not even ordered the “topper” yet for this University of Florida Gator-themed cake ball display.

Well, after much trial and error, we got it accomplished — here is the final product, (just imagine a Gator figurine on top amidst the orange and blue ribbon, and cake balls lying on the tiers!) At least now my daughter has some experience under her belt for decorating the large square cupcake display, which will hopefully hold 250 cupcakes. However, she will be doing that with the help of the groom’s Mom and grandmothers. I pray that they have more crafting skills than I do, and although it was kind of fun, I am pretty glad I’m about done with D-I-Y.

Is it all worth it? Well, there is a certain satisfaction in knowing that your hands personally contributed to making the wedding (hopefully) more special and beautiful. As far as cost savings — well, honestly for a busy Bride who is a full time student and her Mom who has a full time job, I’m not so sure that the cuts to our bottom line will be worth the extra time and effort it took, especially since we don’t particularly enjoy crafting that much to begin with. And the materials often can put a pinch in your wallet, unless you are able to order in bulk. (The ribbons and trim for the cupcake tiers turned out to be fairly expensive, yet the Chinese takout boxes and labels were quite reasonable because I ordered so many of them.) It all depends on each individual bride’s circumstances, her vision for the wedding, and how much friends and family will be able to help out, I suppose.

Now, about tying those little bows on the bubble tubes, … should I, or shouldn’t I…?

You can read more by Janet on her blog: My First Daughter’s Wedding

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Wedding Planning ~ Time for DIY!

May 13, 2011 By Maureen Chapdelaine Leave a Comment

Enjoy today’s post by Janet Mitchell: “I am the mother of a 21 year old college senior, currently assisting with planning her wedding and (mostly) loving every minute of it!”

DIY = “Do It Yourself”. When it comes to home-made, hand-crafted items, I am definitely no Martha Stewart. This is definitely out of my comfort zone, and I think my daughter is in the same boat. I had not planned on us doing a lot of D-I-Y projects for this wedding, but plans just sometimes take a turn in ways you don’t expect.

My frugal daughter had already decided that to her groom and her, who are not big cake fans, modern wedding cakes (although beautiful) are an overpriced addition to the wedding reception. They decided to go with cupcakes, only to subsequently find out our small-town baker does not supply her own cupcake display stands and that we would need to supply these. And we are not talking the little wire cupcake racks that hold maybe 12. We are talking a stand that will hold 200-300 cupcakes. Our venue people did not seem to have anything that would work, nor did the local party rental places. Cha-Ching!!! There goes our savings to the bottom line of the cake budget.

After a quick Internet search, we found that glass or even heavy-duty plastic cupcake display stands are quite pricey. So, despite the Father of the Bride’s misgivings that they look too “cheap”, we have decided to use disposable, heavy duty cardboard cupcake stands, or “trees” for both our reception cupcake and cake ball displays. (The cake balls are being graciously made for us by a friend of my daughter’s as a wedding gift to the couple, and they will be taking the place of the traditional southern “groom’s cake” at the reception.) I ordered a large square tree (for the cupcakes) and a small round tree (for the cake balls) online from ttp://www.cupcaketree.com/. They arrived very quickly–and they arrived unassembled. The idea is then to custom decorate them any way you like. There are decorating how-tos on the website.

There were also instructions included in the cartons for assembling these trees, but I am so challenged in areas like that, that I was intimidated from the onset! Thankfully my D is a bit better spatially and can probably figure that part out. Here is a photo of the unfinished square tree, (guaranteed to hold up to 300 cupcakes!) to give you an idea of what we are going to be working with:
My D also informed me that her future M-I-L is going to help her decorate the main display – which is for the cupcakes, but she will do the cake ball display at home with my help, since that is taking the place of the groom’s cake and she wants him to be surprised. That was a bit disappointing at first, but it will be a nice “Bonding Opportunity” for my D and her future M-I-L, (and a later conversation I had with the MOG revealed that his grandmothers LOVE to do crafts and couldn’t wait to help!)

 

At least I was invited to help her select the materials to be used. (Actually, that’s the part I enjoy–I would rather design things than actually carry the design out!) So on a Thursday afternoon as she came home for her Spring Break from college, I took an afternoon off from work to devote to this project. (Thinking we would do both the material selection AND the project itself.) Ha! Ha!

Well, this was an interesting shopping expedition, to say the least. We headed out to the craft store, and of course we were too impatient to look at the how-to’s that http://www.cupcaketree.com/provides on their website, so we had nothing pre-planned as far as what items we would use for decorating. We just sort of winged it! It would have been helpful to have an idea beforehand how many yards of ribbon, etc. we would need to purchase to cover all the tiers! As it turns out, I think we may have understimated, so we may get the extreme pleasure of trying to track all the stuff down again at some future time to purchase more of it!

Anyway, my D and I got our exercise that day traipsing all over Hobby Lobby several times over (for those not familiar — it is a huge big-box craft store). She decided to use her general wedding color scheme, light blue and white/ivory for the main large cupcake tree, alternating the tiers with some pretty light blue crystal beading, and white lacy ribbon. I suppose it will be glued on to the edges of the tiers somehow. We are going to leave the actual tiers alone and just use the white cardboard — the cupcakes will be nestled in paper containers anyway. We hit upon the idea of using doilies to pretty the tiers up a bit before putting the cupcakes on them. (But that turned out to be another big goof — I proudly found her some beautiful round white paper doilies which we purchased, only to remember later after we got home that the stand for the cupcake tree is square! Duh!!)

For the cake balls, and the smaller round cupcake tree, she chose more masculine style ribbon trim in the colors of the University of Florida Gators, (which is her groom’s favorite team) — royal blue and orange. She wanted the tiers themselves to be a chocolate brown color. For the top tier, we are thinking of ordering a team nick-nack.

What threw us for a loop is how to do the chocolate brown tiers. We vaguely rememberd seeing on the decorating how-to page on the manufacturer’s website that some people just use spray-paint. So we were going in that direction, until I asked my daughter if the cake balls would be in any sort of paper wrappers. She said they would not, and the Hobby Lobby employee who opened the locked spray-paint cabinet agreed with me that its probably not a good idea to lay the cakeballs directly on top of spray paint!

We ended up finding some heavy duty posterboard in a chocolate brown color that my daughter will have to cut out and glue to the tiers. I’m still a little concerned that we are going to have butter and oil stains on the brown posterboard. Since this stand is going to be round, I thought about using the round doilies I bought by mistake, but since they are white that kind of defeats her chocolate brown idea. I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it — perhaps I can look for some sort of butcher paper or colored foil to lay down under the cake balls to stay with the color scheme.

Getting all these materials turned out to be fairly time-consuming, and we did not get to this project that weekend or even during her Spring Break after all. We had too much else going on (like her first Bridal Shower and getting the wedding invitations finalized). So, it was postponed to another weekend that she planned to be home.

And the costs? Well lets just say the materials cost more than I thought they would. Hobby Lobby is wonderful because it is a one-stop shop and has just about all you would need. But you may also pay a premium for that convenience.

What to take away from this? Well, first off, do the math! Is your idea really a cost-cutting measure, or in the long run, would it pay off to let the experts do their thing (in both extra costs of display/decor, and time?) And if you do decide to go the D-I-Y route, if D-I-Y is not normally your thing — definitely do your homework and have a plan before heading out to the craft store! Find out all the materials and quantities you will be needing ahead of time, and consult the experts — those who are comfortable with D-I-Y projects can give you some pointers, and lead you to the best vendors and resources for your particular project.

To be continued…Pictures of the final product(s) will come eventually!

You can read more by Janet on her blog: My First Daughter’s Wedding

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Cyn’s Spin ~ Some of My Projects

April 21, 2011 By Maureen Chapdelaine 1 Comment

Cynthia Keeley is author of Cyn’s Spin and frequent contributor to The MOB Blog.

I already talked about how I added black crystals to the invitations, and once the rest of the paper goods were made to coordinate, I decided to continue the theme by adding the same crystals to them. We had menus, table numbers and candy buffet tags that had the fuchsia cardstock backing with the white overlays and black print. The swirl pattern was continued on all, so I added at least 2 black crystals to each piece. Of COURSE it wasn’t necessary, but I’m a glutton for punishment! My kitchen and dining room were filled with all my project pieces, as I needed everything to lay flat while it dried.

I bought several containers for the candy, but also used many of my own things so we had a variety of sizes and shapes. The tags I had made presented me with a problem I didn’t anticipate because I had her make them in a diamond shape….not so easy to attach to curved jars and have them look nice, and I didn’t want to glue them on and ruin the glass. With some experimenting, I decided my best option was to punch a hole on the top corner and just tie them on with sheer black ribbon. Done.

Speaking of candy for a candy buffet….it really pays to shop around. There’s a formula to use for the amount you’re supposed to need per person, but if you are having it available to your guests all night, make sure to get plenty. We had 75 pounds plus handmade truffles, turtles, and chocolate dipped Oreos, and bought 2 different types of bags. The larger bride & groom paper bags held a LOT, but I also found black sheer small totes for people who wanted just a small amount. I must say it was a tremendously popular item to have, and we made sure that one of the waiters kept everything filled all night. Not much left over, I have to say!

I drove myself crazy looking for some decent table number holders that I wanted to be tall enough so the numbers could easily be seen, but not obtrusive once people were seated. I had to make a quick phone call to the Sheraton about something non-related, but in the course of our conversation I mentioned not being able to find anything I liked for the numbers. She solved my problem by telling me they had silver ones available that we were welcome to use. Done. (Don’t be afraid to ask your venue for what they have for you to use.)

I mentioned our favors already, but what I didn’t talk about was the problem we had in getting them there so A) what was inside didn’t melt in the heat and B) how to transport them and pack them with the bows already tied on. It just wasn’t possible. I’m a stickler for a neat and straight bow, and I wasn’t about to have 120 of them smashed before the wedding even started. I had to decide to just leave the ribbon on the spools, recruit as many people as I could that would be there early on Rehearsal day, and pack a lot of scissors. I also had to make a conscious decision to give up control and go with whatever bows I got. Another dilemma I had for the boxes was that I had to figure out a way to make them a little more prominent on the tables, so I had to find something to make that work. I ended up buying cupcake stands that were plain white cardboard~ so of course I had to come up with an idea to make them look better. What I did was really simple. I glued the same thin sheer black ribbon I used for the candy tags on the edges to make them look more complete, and it made all the difference. We ended up staggering the tables and having some on the stands and some flat and directly on the table.

I also had to change up the flower girl pouch, so I added a pink sequined flower to it with some pearl strands, and made her a ribbon wand to carry down the aisle (in case she wouldn’t throw the rose petals.) She was just two, so we weren’t sure what to expect from her with so many people staring at her. (She ended up being great for the rehearsal but had a meltdown before she had to walk, so ended up using nothing!)

The cake knife set I got was originally for the beach wedding and had raffia and a starfish on the handle, so rather then get another set (and since she didn’t care anyway), I removed it all and wrapped the handles in black and white ribbon and attached sequined fuchsia flowers (gotta prepare for the photo ops!). Simple.

For toasting flutes, I found an Etsy artist who hand paints glassware. The style wasn’t perfect, but the colors were. I got them hand painted champagne flutes with black branches and pick flowers. Done.

We were using white chair covers and sheer black sashes, and I was promised by the vendor that the covers would be pressed and ready to be put on for us. My sister helped me iron 125 sashes which we clipped on hangers and sent up there a few days early. My plan was to have them tied neatly in a simple knot. Let’s just say that the event manager thought she was helping me out by getting started before we arrived, and she ended up tying 2 tables (20 chairs) in large crooked BOWS. UGH. I didn’t have time or the energy to untie and re-iron them, so the rest of the chairs had to be done the same way. I was not happy, but had to give it up.

Making a card box for Quinn was something I knew I needed to do, but after what seemed like a million trips to several stores and not finding anything that would work, I was pretty discouraged. I had made one for my niece a few years earlier, so of course my girls expected me to do the same for them. Nothing ‘store-bought’ was the same, so I began randomly picking up some things to use so when I found the right boxes I’d be ready. (I’m not the kind of person who can spend days on a project. Once I start I finish it that day, no matter how long it takes.)

Some of the things I found to use were in Michael’s and AC Moore, but since I didn’t have my boxes yet or decide on a size, of course I bought more than I could possibly use. I ran into HomeGoods one day and happened to find a set of stacked oval shaped boxes that I thought would work perfectly. I bought them.

The next day I gathered all my goodies for the project, but soon realized the oval boxes were too similar in size to each other and wouldn’t give me what I was looking for. Never underestimate the things you already have, and start opening closets to look at shoe boxes! My husband had a new pair of boots still in the box, so I confiscated it to use for my base. It was bright yellow and black, and the ovals were floral, so they needed a quick coat of spray white primer before I could do anything. I had my spray adhesive, hot glue gun, rolled batting, exacto knife, several sizes/patterns of white fabric, spools of ribbon and trim, and all my little designs I might use all laid out and ready to begin. I didn’t finish it in one day, but came pretty close. I needed to double glue the boxes together and allow for drying time, and I also decided to hand pleat the fabric on one of the boxes so that also took a lot of time. It was finally done, and looked pretty good! The best part was her face when she saw it, tho. Done.

I bought simple folded place cards, but had to be-dazzle them too! I only used a plain clear crystal (self adhesive) on those and they took no time at all.

Quinn had 2 veils, a feather fascinator, 3 pairs of shoes and all her ‘bride’ items ready to go, so early in the morning of June 19th, we packed up the cars and headed to the hotel for getting the room all set up early, and hopefully to have some time to relax before the rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner!

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Cyn’s Spin ~ Switching Gears

March 20, 2011 By Maureen Chapdelaine 1 Comment

Cynthia Keeley is author of Cyn’s Spin and contributor to The MOB Blog.

Just to recap and clear up any confusion, Quinn’s wedding was planned and booked at a B&B first (then canceled); it was rescheduled for a different beach venue (and canceled with the deposit being Held); then I won the EBay wedding at the Sheraton (and that’s where it eventually was held!) WHEW!! I PROMISE we are not some crazy people who plan and cancel things willy nilly, but this was beginning to be TOO MUCH, even for me!

Of COURSE all the beachy type wedding things I’d purchased were not right for a ballroom wedding, but some of the colors were still doable. We decided to keep the fuchsia color, the Sheraton‘s linens they were providing were only available in white under the contract, so we needed a third color to pull it together. Quinn decided on black (of course! her love of black came to the forefront again!) With a palette of fuchsia, black and white I thought we’d be alright. The bridesmaid dresses were fuchsia (Dessy, American Beauty), but on seeing them again, Quinn decided she didn’t LIKE them anymore! UGH. I had to search for another dress for them (only two, thank goodness) and get them ordered ASAP. Luckily, I found an EBay vendor who was selling NWT dresses, and had both sizes available in a style and color they all loved. I got them in less than a week. Minor alterations were needed on each, so at least that part was done.

We moved on to deciding about centerpieces. Quinn then decided she didn’t want flowers, so I was left trying to come up with a non-floral centerpiece. I also realized that all white wedding linens might be a little boring, so I scoured the internet for some fuchsia overlays we might use for under the centerpieces to bring some color to the tables. Of course I also decided we needed to find someone to make menu cards and table numbers, and since we were also doing a candy buffet, I needed name tags for the containers! It was coming together, slowly but surely.

They couldn’t decide on anything after looking through the books of invitations I brought home, so I spent a LOT of time looking through Etsy searching for something a little different and emailing them my findings. One vendor was just starting out on Etsy and had no feedback as yet, but she had a brick and mortar shop in Georgia, where she custom designed and printed invitations. I asked for some samples of her work, and eagerly awaited receiving them. I could hardly contain my excitement the day they arrived, as I just KNEW they’d love them. They were different from most we’d seen, and certainly more different than any we’d ever received. They were black pocket folds with a light silver design on the outside of the pocket, with a black swirl design on the sides of the printed information, and were just edgy enough to satisfy them both. It was decided, and we placed a rush order for them.  Another item crossed off the list.

I had a much harder time with the centerpieces, in all honesty. I’d saved an image from a Martha Stewart garden party, where they used stacked boxes tied with ribbon as a combination centerpiece/favor. I loved how it looked, so ran the idea past Quinn. She loved it too, so I had to A) find some boxes that would work and B) decide what to put in them! It seemed like every day I was requesting samples from different companies or placing orders for things to finalize. I found the perfect sized boxes at Papermart, the perfect soap designs from another Etsy vendor (we got hairdryers and lips, as she’s a stylist and wanted to give everyone a KISS, lol), as well as a variety of sunglasses for our family table(another hit), and yet another Etsy vendor to hand make a few flavors of truffles. In the end we decided to fill the boxes with a variety of things, as just a fun little way to thank them.  (Everyone loved them and we got a lot of fun feedback on them, which surprised me, but made me happy anyway.)  I almost forgot I had to also find someone to make us stick on tags for the soaps so people didn’t think they were candy, so I had them made saying ‘Please don’t eat me, I’m soap!’

Once the invitations arrived (and let me tell you how difficult it was dealing with someone who is in Georgia while I’m in NJ and getting the proofs done right and the copy completely lined up…isn’t this her business?!), but finally they were done and on my doorstep. I felt so much relief in opening that huge box! They were really nice, but I thought (unbelievably, I know) that they were missing something. Before Quinn got home from work, I had already gone to the craft store and bought several sizes of self adhesive black crystals. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them yet, but I had to experiment. We ordered more invitations than we really needed (which is something I’d suggest that everyone does), so I had no problem playing around. What made all the difference in them was my adding some of the black crystals to the dots on the swirled pattern. However, I was unsure about them staying adhered, so I also used tacky glue to keep them in place. I also needed to find a way to keep them closed, as it wasn’t something we’d thought about before. Thank goodness I had already bought a million little things to play around with, as I had some sheer silver ribbon that just might work. Tying it in a bow wasn’t quite right, but using a simple knot WAS. When she came home, she was seriously in tears at what I’d done, as she was so happy about the transformation. Now all I had to do was to add the crystals to the remaining invitations, tie the knots on them, handwrite the addresses and get them in the mail. We were running out of time already! (Forgot to add that I also added the black crystals to the table numbers as well.  Lots of crystallizing going on in my house!)

I still had to find a guestbook and pen, a cake knife and server, toasting flutes, a florist for bouquets and various florals we needed, a vendor for chair covers, chair ties and for overlays, and buy all the candy, containers , serving pieces and scoops and something for the guests to put it all in. I was also on a quest for a ring pillow, the flower girl’s dress and basket, had to make a card box,  decide on place cards, get ribbon and shred for the favor boxes and get them filled, and decide how to stack them on the tables.

Am I making anyone tired yet?!

Filed Under: Cyn's Spin, DIY: Wedding ideas, Mother of the Bride, wedding planning Tagged With: , , , ,

DIY Wedding Jewelry

February 11, 2011 By Maureen Chapdelaine Leave a Comment

Kim Francis is a guest author for The MOB Blog.  This post is a follow up to Kim’s latest contribution; The Candy Buffet

When Kim wasn’t busy shopping for holiday candy and interesting containers to create her magical candy buffet, she was designing personalized jewelry for Whitney and Devin’s wedding day.

 Kim writes:

“The picture of the cufflinks is really special to us. I personally made those for Whitney to give Devin as a wedding day gift. I also made photo jewelry for all the grandparents. The grandmothers along with the mothers had photo charms on their bouquet.  The dads received photo cuff links and the grandfathers received a photo tie tack. We used pictures of Devin and Whitney as toddlers on all the parent and grandparent jewelry. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when we gave those out!

Lol…I always like to give gifts that have meaning and can be saved for a special memory.”

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Wedding Accents ~ The Candle

October 22, 2010 By Maureen Chapdelaine Leave a Comment

Ahhh…the candle.

It is often difficult to say good-bye to summer when you live in New England, but with the turn of a head, you will find me excitedly planting colorful mums, and placing pumpkin and fall decorations throughout our home. 

My favorite home accent for these chilly days and the early evening darkness is to begin lighting candles.  Candles emit a feeling of warmth and welcome.  Used with low lighting candles provide an atmosphere of relaxation and friendship.

Is there a better table accent at a wedding than tiny votive candles, or traditional tall tapers?  And for DIY mothers of the bride, table arrangements will glow with elegance at very little cost.

If you are considering candles as an accent to your daughter’s wedding, read this helpful article, 5 Ideas Why to Use Candles at Your Wedding, to get you started.

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DIY: Don’t be afraid to Do it Yourself!

July 16, 2010 By Maureen Chapdelaine 6 Comments

Guest post by MOB Squad contributor Kim Francis

With so many memories to make and wanting to see every dream of my daughter’s wedding day come true; it became clear that we would have to tackle some of the wedding projects on our own in order to stay within our budget. We needed to join forces with any and every DIY website, crafty friend, wedding magazines and even each other and let the creative juices begin flowing.

Our first step in the DIY process was to decide on the idea we wanted and scan every nook and cranny until we found the creation we wanted to see in her wedding. Our first DIY project was the invitations. Our cost would have been over $900! We found an idea we liked and added a few of our own personal touches and took it to a local printer and walaaaaa….saved over $750!

We are using our home computer to address the invites with a beautiful calligraphy font, thus saving us hundreds of dollars and countless hours. We achieved a professional look without the lofty spending and saved ourselves from writer’s cramp!

Our reception centerpieces would have cost us in the hundreds just to rent the vases. We have started going to thrift sales, antique malls and yard sales to pick up the pieces we want to use for less than a hundred dollars. We are also having a candy buffet in the reception. Instead of paying to have someone decorate and stock this we are also doing these ourselves. We are buying our candy in bulk and are using some pre-teen kids to take care and restock the candy during the reception. They are thrilled with the responsibility and the grand prize of getting to keep any unused candy! Many of the candy containers are items that we or our family already had at home. We are picking up many unique items at our favorite thrift stores. You can make any glass jar, vase or platters into a special candy dish. Ribbons, craft paper and any embellishment can make an excellent display.

Let your imagination run wild! The time my daughter & I are spending creating all of these ideas have also brought us closer together and allowed us to see a side of each other that we have never known existed. Gather your ideas and find a way to make your dreams come true!

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