{DIY} Hessian bunting!

Can bunting ever get old? I doubt it. It is such an easy, cute and pretty way to spruce up any party. We definitely thought it was something that had to be at our wedding and soon my mom (the most amazing woman on earth) started gathering materials to MAKE bunting for the garden area at our reception hall.

There’s only one thing I regret about bunting at my wedding, and that is the fact that I didn’t have more.

 

Making it yourself is also a great way to cut costs and provide some bonding time with your mom (and in my case, my sister-in-law). Grab your bridesmaids to help you with the cutting process, and it will also be easier and quicker.

 

Here’s what you need:

Hessian (our bunting was 10 m and 6 m long, respectively, so if the hessian is 3,5 m wide, you will only need about 1 m in length. You can find the fine hessian at your local haberdashery.)

A very sharp and sturdy pair of scissor

Patience

A couple of hands to help you cut (your hands will tire)

Bias Binding 

A sewing machine

Doilies or white paint - depending on how you are decorating your bunting.

Method:

1.  Cut a template out of carton. We used a piece sized 25 cm in width, and 30 cm in length.

2.  Cut the two top corners 0,5 cm shorter.

3.  Mark with the aid of the template the hessian in the following manner:

     For  10 m bunting you will need 30 flags.

4.  Cut the flags out and line the raw edges with Ponal or similar glue to prevent fraying. When using ordinary material, one can use fray check to prevent fraying of the material.

5.  I used bias binding to link the flags.  

     Start about 60 cm from the end of the bias binding.

     put the bias binding flat with the raw sides facing you.

     Place the raw edge of the top of the flag in the centre of the bias binding and stitch the flag to the bias binding a bout 0,25 cm from the edge of the flag.

6.  Leave an 8,5 cm space before attaching the next flag. Leave another 60 cm  bias binding at the end of the last flag.

7.  After attaching all the flags, fold the bias binding double lengthwise and stitch along the complete length of the bias binding. 

 

We rounded the bunting off with pretty circle doillies as well as heart cut outs, because it was our day of love!

Did I throw the bunting away? Oh hell no. It is now used to decorate some windows in my house

Wedding pics: Kikitography

Wedding Table Numbers {DIY}

Our wedding might have been almost three months ago, but I still have so much to share. And with all the time and effort my dear mother put into all the little details, it would just not be fair to her to not share her amazing handy work. We did almost everything decor related by ourselves - and it was hard work! I helped where I can and documented when I was there. Luckily, I could help over weekends and was there for the table number making process.

Firstly, you need to dive into your local Hospice or Thrift shop and find some sturdy, old - but still decent, books. My mom's church has a little library from which it sells books. There were boxes full. My dad and I delved into a box one afternoon and found these sturdy Reader's Digest compilations. You don't have to choose books that are all the same size, but it does make it more uniform and easier when it comes to the wrapping part, as you can cut a template and go from there.

To ensure that the books can stand open and, to have a space to put your table numbers and menu, you need to stick all the pages together - with the exception of two pages in the middle. We used ponal glue.

So, obviously after procuring your books, you would need to wrap them. My mom and I had a funny system, where we cut out two sizes from the paper and stuck them on. I think we didn't wrap the book as the paper was too thick and it would have made wrapping a little more difficult. We used double sided sticky tape to do the job.

After all the cutting, taping and sticking, we lined the back of the books with green librarians' tape, but you can use coloured duct tape, it works just as well. This was just to round the books off. But, before we did this, we measured and cut our lace pieces. On half the books, we used the lace horizontally, while on the other half, we stuck them vertically. I couldn't decide which one looked better and even asked the ladies on instagram whether I should go with the horizontal or vertical look. They all chose the one I wasn't too fond of, so I went half/half.

Once all the sticking is done, you can print out your table number and menu to stick on the inside, where you left two pages open. And now you can relax.

My mom and I enjoyed looking at our hard work over a cup of tea!

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Wedding pics: Kikitography

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Keeping your name after the I Do's

Newly engaged women, and those ebbing closer to their wedding day, seem to be torn between keeping their maiden name and taking their husband's. Now this phenomenon, although modern, is not new.

On the one side of the fence, it seems that a lot of women are embracing the big change - and the accompanying administration.  In 2011, TheKnot.com surveyed 19,000 newlywed women and found that only 8 percent kept their last names; 86 percent took their husbands' names, with the remaining 6 percent presumably modifying or hyphenating. This figure might have changed to even less in the past two years.

A friend of mine has sworn that he wouldn't marry his girlfriend if she didn't take his name, and even Flip has uttered this notion. It must be a pride thing. Some women opt for the double barrel name, but I don't think that mixing an English and Dutch surname would go down so well, besides, it would be far tooo long. Wait-Van Wyngaardt. Could you imagine?

Now, I am going to take my fiance's name when we marry, but I am considering keeping my surname for professional reasons, and to avoid pure frustration. A lot of people struggle to spell my surname at the moment, and it's just a simple W-A-I-T. Even if I explain it as, yes my surname is Wait, as in wait a minute, people still struggle to comprehend and, when I was still going to events- before deskjob editor came along -  I would find beauties on my name tags - Weight, White, Waite.

How frustrating would it be if I have to explain and spell out Van Wyngaardt a million times?

I also feel like it allows me to keep a bit of my maiden identity, if I keep my maiden name for business only. 

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picture via here

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How do you feel about the name keeping thing? Chuck it, or keep it?

Wedding things: Our invites

With the exception of a few people who we haven't yet had the chance to see, most of our guests have now received our wedding invites, which means I get to share them with you! {Also, the people who haven't received them yet aren't very big on social media, so no chance of them seeing it either ;) }

The invites were designed by the very talented Susan Brand from Susan Brand Designs. 

She was so patient and great! I love it!

{Please note that this is just for show and tell and should not be considered as an open invite}

Lovely, aren't they!?

Friday Fancies: in love with Lace

Tomorrow I am going for my first wedding dress fitting, and to be honest, I have been taking calming pills like they are sweets. If I'm this bad now, how on earth am I going to cope the actual week before the wedding, or the day of?

We might have to invest in horse tranquilisers. Just saying.

In honour of today's Friday Fancies with it's lace theme, I am sharing some beautiful lace wedding dresses. Although I still have no idea what sort of dress I am going to wear, or choose, I have gathered a few pretty lace wedding dresses from Pinterest. 

Get ready to drool some.

 

 

 

 

I asked, and they said yes {DIY bridesmaids Valentine's day surprise}

Happy Valentine's day lovely people in blogland! Valentine's Day sure is one of my favourite days of the year, and even though there are a lot of cynics out there, I will not let it dampen my romantic spirit. This morning I stood up really early to make Flip breakfast in bed - will show you that tomorrow.

But today, I want to share something else with you. I officially asked two very special ladies, my best friends Tracy and Idele to be bridesmaids this morning by presenting them with these carepacks. They were really surprised, even though I mentioned to them before that they were in the running.

It was a total do-it-yourself project and fit in both with the look and feel I'm going for for my wedding, and of course with Valentine's day! Here's how I did it.

Now these things weren't just some random items I grabbed to put in there, each one were symbolic of something - but I will get to that later. I got the baskets and hearts from Biggie Best for about R65 and R12 each, respectively.

I then proceeded to glue the hearts to the basket to add that special touch, because it would have looked so bland without it. The next step was to put the tissue paper inside the basket, followed by all the other items and bunching up the tissue paper, to make it look like a parcel. I tied it up with some scrap blue ribbon.

 
Along with their basket, I wrote each of them a letter, explaining what each item meant.

"In this basket, I present to you the symbols of things a bride needs to have good luck on her wedding day.

~something old~
The basket represents the past, our friendship over the years, as well as the years to come. We'll become old friends.

~something new~
The champagne symbolises optimism and hope,  joy and overflowing love. With this, we can cheers a new life and adventure.

~something borrowed~
This is represented by the items I took from their desks. From Tracy's I stole a cat, and from Idele a teddybear {which caused a lot of commotion in the office. haha}. It serves as a reminder that I can borrow knowledge and advice from you.

~something blue~
The blue candle means that you light up my life and add joy in dark times.

Now, I just need a fifth lucky charm and that's you.

Will you be my bridesmaid?"

This was their reactions

 She's asking here if anyone knew about this, and her lost teddybear! haha

Me, peeking around the corner.

What's in a date?

Ladies, and gentlefolk, I present to you our Save the Dates - taadaa!

I made them in December, from a template I found on Wedding Chicks {get it here}. I customised it a bit, to my home language and to include a few extra titbits. Being fairly parsimonious, I decided to rather do my own - well, half own - design, rather than pay someone a lot of money to do it for me. Besides, I only emailed it, as I didn't want to spend money on postage either - untrustworthy South African postal service and all. And I can save this money for something else, like posting our real invitations.

Anyhoo, as you can see our date is on the 12th of October, which is the second month of Spring here in the southern hemisphere. Not only is the weather just perfect {except for the rainshowers} - and it not being too hot or too cold - it is also the most beautiful month in my opinion. All the flowers are in bloom, lawns are green once again, birds are happy and chirping etc. Further, the month of October also holds sentimental value to me, as it was the same month my parents got married in 1978, with their date only five days prior to mine.

Why did you choose your wedding date? Did it hold any significance to you?

PS: Linking up with Joelle at Something Charming.

Wedding Wednesday: Surviving a bridal expo

I attended my first Bridal Expo at Oakfield Farm in Muldersdrift this past weekend. It was fun, informing and quite overwhelming. So to future brides, here are my tips for surviving your first bridal expo, and how many others you are planning to attend thereafter.

 

       Picture from Oakfield

{1} Wear comfortable shoes, you are going to walk all day, and walk far. High heels are not going to cut it here. You might end up crying. Luckily, I don't wear high heels, but still had pretty sore feet after a long day.

{2} If the expo takes place on a hot summers day, such as the day we had - the temperature was soaring in the high thirties - make sure you have a bottle of water with you, so that you don't dehydrate.

{3} Eat before you go. Beverages and food are ridiculously expensive at these events. I had to pay R20 for a bottle of sparkling water. Hectic.

{4} Take your friends {and mom} with you. It's fun and you can ooh and ah about everything together.

{5} Have a pretty good idea of what you like and how you would like your wedding day to look like. All those stalls can be pretty overwhelming and you could end up choosing something you didn't want at all.

{6} On that same note, I hired my biggest service providers - venue, photographer, make up artist - before the expo and wasn't so overwhelmed. This helped me to focus on the smaller things, like a dj, decor, the cake etc.

{7} Bring a bag in which you can put all your business cards and brochures!

        Picture from Oakfield

{8} A lot of the companies will ask you for your details. Kindly decline and ask them for a business card, and that you will contact them, or you will get unwanted junk mail and spam. Nothing against people in the wedding industry here, love you guys.

{9} But do sign up for the giveaways. You might just win a prize!

{10} Take your camera to capture things you really like.

{11} Ask lots of questions, know exactly what you want to know - and write it down.

{12} HAVE FUN! Drink the free champagne at every stall and eat their cupcakes and fizzers and toffees and sweets. 

PS: linking up with Something Charming ::

  

So this post is about weddings :: the invites

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Dead set on having a very intimate wedding, I have often voiced my opinions on guest lists for the BIG day. I believe that you don’t have to have a hundred people to make it big and often threw caution to the wind in my statements. These are some of the things I have learnt about setting up a guest list {for an intimate wedding}.

    Picture by Kikitography aka the guys who are going to capture my special day

1.    Invite the people that contributed to your journey – these are the people that helped your relationship grow, or perhaps even introduced you to each other; the ones who cheered and cried {happy tears} when you said that you got engaged; your close friends.

2.    Invite people who still go through the trouble of contacting you – uhm, so you had this friend from primary school and you see each other at mutual friends’ houses for a party or such, but you never really hear from them, even if you try and make contact – scratch them.

3.    Family doesn’t always have to come first – I would say that grandparents are importantish {I only have one grandma, so can’t really voice my opinion on this one}; then of course your own parents, his parents and siblings. That’s where I draw the line with really-cannot-not-invite.

4.    Aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, and cousins – Everyone has a cousin or uncle and aunt that live miles and miles away, that you haven’t seen since you were ten, but still feel the need to invite them – don’t.

5.    Invite people that will make the day fun – I have seen this at too many parties and a few weddings, that there are people who don’t want to dance, don’t want to participate in chatter or games, and stare at their watch all evening. They will bring your mood down, so don’t invite them. {I’m all for hooligans, they make everything fun}

6.    Colleagues – just because you see them every day and have decent conversations with them, doesn’t mean you have to add them to your list. They will understand. Except if you are friends outside of the working place, then you best invite them.

7.    The one about kids – If you feel that children will be disrupting to your special day, and that they won’t have anything to do, be easily bored, then indicate politely in your invite that kids are not allowed. Or leave their names off of the invitation.  

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What do you think? Am I wrong in my choices?

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PS: If you haven't read how the love of my life was proposed, you can catch up here.

Wedding Wednesday: the venue

{ I am not committing to Wedding Wednesday, it's just ironic that this post fell on this day. Booyah!}

When Flip and I first started looking for a wedding venue, I was dead set on a place with a stone chapel. The idea would be that we were to get married in the chapel and have our reception outside. Reality knocked, and since I decided that we would get married in October, because it’s my favourite month, we went against this. October is almost always soaking wet. The irony is that we are now getting married outside and still in October, just not at above mentioned venue.

Also, I never really realised the importance of a budget, until I got a ring on my finger. And then the stress started. I felt like running away, eloping, if you may. “Flip, why can’t we just get married in a court and spend all the other money on a honeymoon, or the house?”

But every girl dreams about her wedding day, plans it from age four, so I wouldn’t be doing myself a favour by eloping. I would begrudge it. And Flip is traditional and old-fashioned, so getting married in a court was out of the question to him.

Soon, we came upon our venue, had a look {first and only wedding venue we had a looksee} and chose a date. Twelve October Twenty Thirteen.

We had to revisit it again this weekend, as the venue planned to plant some Jasmine over the gazebo we would get married under {I am highly sensitive to smells and Jasmine triggers some ugly allergies in me}, and they were planning on moving it to another spot I chose. I almost went Bridezilla on them. Does the drama ever end?

Here is a sneak peek of the venue.

PS: Linking up with Joelle from Something Charming.

A bit of a royal affair

Am I too late with this post? Oh well.

Unlike most of the world, I could not watch the entire wedding on Friday, as I was at work. I at least saw the important bits, such as Kate's arrival at the church and the flimsy little kiss on the balcony. My timing to go to the kitchen was perfect.

So I asked my mother to record the whole do for me, planning to watch it with her on Saturday. Somehow the wrong bits recorded and I was very upset. But then a highlight-thingamabob came up in the afternoon, and I had a chance to witness it all, be it a day and a half late.

My friend Melissa joined me for the proceedings. We also had hats.

Me & Melissa

However, much to the dismay of single friends, family and the beau, the royal wedding has sparked up my wedding fever flame again and I am in full swing of irritating everyone on the topic.

On another note: Wasn't she gorgeous?! Gah!

A real princess