Report from DIY Headquarters

Over at DIY Headquarters, Team Fam is nearing completion of all DIY projects and getting ready to deliver them to our Outer Banks holding station!

Under the leadership of 'Lil Sue (otherwise known as Mom), the hands of Big D (Dad), Best Woman with Unborn Child (sis), grandparents, neighbors, cousins, and more have been worked to the bone to turn our fun decor ideas into reality.

Here's what the tally board looks like back at the homestead:


First up, the fabric pomanders that will be mixed in with actual flower pomanders for the "altar" decor. I begged my mom to do a step-by-step post with photos, but I begged too late. Know this: each one takes up to 9 hours to create. We have 18 of them. Wow!


I'm going to try to explain our reception decor as best as I can. We ended up going with two types of fabric for tablecloths after all: Blue and Red (bottom right).

• On each table, there will be a pedestal (different types on each table) that will hold a single flower pomander from the ceremony (our florist is staying to trek them over to the reception for us, because she's awesome like that).
  
• Surrounding each pedestal will be paper-covered cans of varying sizes and shapes that will each hold an arrangement of one type of flower. For example, one can will hold all red tulips, one will hold all blue hydrangeas, one will hold all white ranunculus... you get the idea. To make the cans, my sister and I created sheets of paper using design elements from our invitation suite as well as additional graphics. They're covered in varying designs and are a range of colors and scales. There are 140 total cans. (Well okay, almost 140... they're in the 11th hour of production -- and hint, hint, we would love a photo when they're done!)
  
• Sprinkled amongst the paper-covered cans, we have white rice paper votives with small graphics applied to them. These are much simpler, keeping the white really visible to ground all the pattern a bit.

Here's how it comes together:

You have to imagine flowers in the cans!

The streamer things in the middle are creations that I don't have a name for yet. Our floral designer calls them "wish sticks" and my mom calls them "happy sticks." Basically, they are sticks with ribbons attached on the end. They'll be displayed on the back of each chair to give the ceremony site a punch of color without having to pay for chair ties. Photographed jumbled together, the streamers look a bit 4th of July, but they will be separated at the wedding. The sticks do not have both red and blue combined, never fear - one is all blue and white, and the next is all red and white. (An example of little decisions we've made to help downplay the patriotic look - in addition to lots of light blue.) The sticks will be waved in the air three times: After we're married and are walking back down the aisle, during our large group photo immediately following the ceremony, and later that night while we're exiting. I've been wavering between attaching a little tag to the sticks explaining this or explaining their use in the program - thoughts?

Votives lit up and pretty.

Yes, my mom really did line the front steps with the completed votives - all 165 of them. Hilarious and awesome!

A closer view... although I spotted a heart in there and have already given instructions that it must be eliminated! I'm so cold and heartless, you know.

One project unrelated to the tables: a card holder. I was thinking a random receptacle in my parents' attic would be great to hold cards in a cute way, rather than have them scattered on the table. My mom ran with the idea and found an antique birdcage for cheap on eBay. Lots of scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint later, and look what we have:


Adorable! It has a stand we can use, or we can place it on a table like this. At the reception it'll have a few flowers on it and also have a cute "Cards" sign attached.

That's all for now... whew! I'm exhausted! So (as you can see) is Team Fam!