DIY Wedding: Card Book

All throughout our engagement, we got cards. Cards came when people found out we got engaged. Cards came with presents throughout the 10 months we were engaged. And of course, we got cards at the wedding. Instead of just throwing them in a box and never looking at them again, I wanted to make something with them that I would look at from time to time. 

I found this pin on Pintrest and changed it slightly to fit my needs. 

"Mixed Paper Journal"

I liked the idea of making a book of sorts for all of the cards we got. One weekend when Keegan and I drove to a bigger town (a.k.a. one that has a Michaels and Hobby Lobby,) I grabbed a hole punch and two rings to make my book. Helpful suggestion, the only place we could find the rings was in the embroidery floss section. They're used to keep embroidery floss bobbins together like so: 

 Anyways, first thing I did was arrange the cards in order of size.  

  I then decided where I wanted my holes to be and marked it on the edge of each card. (It's kind of hard to see, but there are two pencil lines on the edges.)  

And then I punched away! (Suggestion: get a strong hole punch. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish this project in one day because some of the 3-fold cards were too thick for our hole punch to get through. Keegan bent it in half trying to punch through them.) 

After you get all of your cards punched, thread them onto your rings and ta-da! A card book that (hopefully) you'll look through more often then if they were just in a box. 

DIY Wedding: Candy Bar

I'll admit it, the candy bar trend sucked me in. I have an insane sweet tooth and loved the idea of snacking on some of my favorite candies during the wedding. Little did I know that I'd be so busy dancing and seeing everyone that I wasn't able to enjoy any of it! 

After I had fallen head over heels for the candy bar, I started looking up prices. Many websites and blogs I found suggested buying in bulk over the internet from places like Candy Warehouse. Don't get me wrong, websites like these are great if you are interested in finding candy in your wedding colors or a specific type (sour, chocolate, etc.) However, they are expensive. I've heard at some websites the shipping costs more than the actual candy itself. With that in mind, plus not wanting to deal with ordering candy a few days before the wedding and hoping that it made it in time, I decided to go a different route. 

I started browsing Sam's Club to see what they had to offer. I wasn't able to find candy in only our wedding colors, but I was able to get some of our favorite candies for a fraction of the price I would have paid at a wholesaler online. I got Tootsie Rolls, Laffy Taffey, Sour Punch Straws, DumDum Suckers, Starbursts, Skittles and AirHeads for under $50. It was enough to fill our candy bar and we even had some left over (we're still whittling down the DumDum suckers.) I put the candy in jars, most of which Keegan's mom donated for the wedding. We put pictures of our parents and grandparents at their wedding day behind the jars and ta-da! One sweet candy bar. (This is where our "Love is Sweet" bunting was supposed to go, but it didn't get put up.) 

Now, shopping at Sam's worked for us because we didn't really care if we only served green and orange candies. We just chose candies that we enjoyed and that we could pawn off on our friends and families if we had any left over (we gave my parents the majority of a 5 lb. bag of Tootsie Rolls.) If you're interested in doing a candy bar but can't stand spending hundreds of dollars online, Sam's might be a great budget saver!

(I was in no way compensated for this post by any company.) 

DIY Wedding: Guest "Favors"

When I first started wedding planning, I was bombarded with websites full of trinkets that were supposed to be used as wedding favors. Picture frames, chocolates, coasters; it all seemed like a huge waste of money to me. I decided pretty early on that either I was going to either do a donation "favor" or not do one at all. 

I know that there are two schools of thought on donation "favors;" those for it and those against it. Out of all of the reasons I've read that people are against it, the most common I've seen is that guests don't like them because they don't get to choose where "their" money goes. The bride and groom might choose a charity that their guests don't support so they don't feel comfortable donating "their" money. Because of this, I decided that I wanted our guests to have a say on where "their" money went. We chose two foundations that are both close to our hearts and our families. My dad was diagnosed with Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome about 10 years ago and Keegan's uncle was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer earlier this year so we decided those were the charities we wanted to support. 

We contacted both my dad and Keegan's uncle and told them what we were planning so they wouldn't be taken aback on the day of the wedding and also so they could suggest charities we could donate to. Both of them had foundations that have helped them and wanted to donate money towards so that's how we chose the Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome Foundation of America and the The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at Johns Hopkins. 

To allow our guests to participate in the donation, we gave each of them a card with two tokens. On the card it explained why we wanted to do the donation, what the charities were, and why they were important to us. Many of our guests knew about my dad's and Keegan's uncle's struggle with their diseases so they knew why the charities were important. The card also explained that each token was worth $3 and that the guest could choose where "their" money went. We had two jars next to our guest book with labels for the tokens. Throughout the night our guests placed their tokens in the jars. After we got back from our honeymoon, we tallied up the donations and wrote each charity a check. 

Sheet explaining the charities and the coins

Jars for the tokens (before they were placed next to the guest book.)