Charming Vintage Farm Wedding Theme - Red, Aqua and Pink

I hadn't built an inspiration board for a very long time. When it got down to doing all of the work to plan my own wedding, I just didn't have the time. After the wedding, although I still love all of the "details", I just hadn't found the time and inspiration to get back to it. Recently I received a sweet note from one of my blog readers, Traci. I think she was facing something that most of us brides run into during wedding planning -- feeling overwhelmed by all of the possibilities! She gave me some of the details for her 2012 summer wedding. She and her husband-to-be live on a farm, and that's where they plan to have their wedding celebration. I asked her to give me some words to describe the general feeling of the wedding she's imagined. The words she came up with included:

• country


• vintage


• a bit playful


• cozy


• relaxed

Their plan includes using hay bales for seating, and a BBQ summer feast. She also mentioned possibly using some red gingham as part of the theme.

I hope that some of my ideas here will help to inspire them with their future wedding planning!

{click to enlarge}

(I would definitely recommend enlarging this one, because there is a lot of detail that is hard to see in this smaller version.)

The DIY Pie in a Jar wedding favors came from Green Wedding Shoes. Nothing says charming vintage farm life like homemade pies!

The beautifully simple dahlia bouquet is from Heather Bayles Photography.

The little girl on the top row in the red gingham dress is from PrimadonnaBride.co.za.

The Vintage Gingham Blue Red and White Flower Bunting in the top right corner is from vintagegreenlimited on Etsy.

The Butterfly Mornings Flag Bunting (with the aqua polka dots, pink gingham and red floral fabrics) is a great exmaple of the color combination I had in mind. It's also shown in the larger picture with the little cutie holding a book. It's from LeilaLou on Etsy.

The bright fuschia colored peonies in blue mason jars are from Shell's Shabby Shack.

Vintage hankies are one of the things that immediately inspired me with this board. The photo of a beautiful assortment of vintage hankies is from JacquieG on Flickr.

I especially love the bunting on the left. It's the best of both worlds -- it's an adorable bunting, and it reminds me so much of vintage handkerchiefs! It's called Photography Prop 9Ft Long Fabric Flag from StarlitNestGifts on Etsy.

The red ranunculus flowers in the blue mason jar on the bottom left corner is from The Bride's Cafe.

The down-home feast is from this wedding on Green Wedding Shoes. I know Traci is a fan of sunflowers, so that ranch wedding might also give her some fun ideas.

The galvanized metal pedestal plate, simple flowers, and those vintage handkerchiefs (this time being used as napkins) come from Flower Mag.

The aqua and red plaid bowtie is from General Knot & Co. The company specializes in ties made in the USA from vintage fabrics.

The red gingham baking cups are from one of my favorite kitschy stores to buy baking supplies from, Layer Cake Shop.

I am currently obsessed with paper straws. I want those vintage looking stripey delights in every color. The red striped paper straws were used here as an adorable little Valentine's Day project that you can download for free from Papermash. If you want paper straws in gorgeous colors and designs, make sure to check Etsy!

Okay, the last thing for me to explain is the mason jar picture in the center of the board. I saved these for last because I think this is so cool -- you can download these for free! You can customize the entire set of mason jar wedding invitation suite, including your save-the-dates, invitations, and RSVP card all for FREE! How cool is that?!

Here is a sample that I made for Traci and Ronnie. I filled in the blanks with generic information, but I loved being able to see a customized sample!


They also have this bunting design that I love! (I just thought the mason jar one went with the theme a little better.) You can also customize and download this invitation suite for free, too!

I couldn't resist, here's the customized one for Traci and Ronnie in that design, too.

To see the other adorable designs available to download and print FOR FREE, please visit The Wedding Chicks!

Okay, so some of my other thoughts on cool farm wedding details:

For wedding favors: little jars of jam or honey, seed packets that can double as place cards, or the individual pie in a jar favors I showed above. This example is from My Eco Wedding.



For flowers: Dahlias and peonies are both great for the most bang for your buck summer flowers. I put an ad on Craigslist a few years ago for a friend's wedding and found multiple local farmers that were willing to sell huge gorgeous flowers for a dollar or less per stem. Sunflowers are always bright and fun if you want to add a little more yellow to the color palette. One of my personal favorites are ranunculus -- they come in perfect shades of reds and pinks for this palette, and I just love how romantic and ruffled they look. Either way, I think there definitely need at least a few of those old pale blue mason jars!

$1 for this big bloom? Heck yeah!


$10 to $15 for a stunning bouquet or centerpiece like this? Sign me up!


I know Traci likes sunflowers, so I chose a few of my favorite sunny bouquets to share. I like sunflower bouquets to look a little wild and loose. My favorite is the one on the bottom right. I like the wheat, the color choices, and look -- vintage hanky!



For guests: Things to help protect your guests from the sun! You can make fans do double duty by having your programs printed as fans. A thoughtful touch that I really like is to have a tray or small table set up with a couple of bottles of sunblock, paper fans (if you aren't doing the program fans), and maybe a few inexpensive paper parasols for extra delicate guests. You can buy those pretty cheaply online at places like Oriental Trading Company. You may also try to find some of those pretty vintage hankies I can't shut up about to give to your bridesmaids or closest female relatives to dry their tears of joy!

I don't love the style of these, but they did kind of use the same colors as my palette, so I'm including these fan programs from Beau-Coup.



I DO love this fan template by Martha Stewart.


I would also highly recommend having at least some ice water available to guests prior to the ceremony to help keep everyone cool. Lemonade would be a hit, too.




For the wedding party: I think it would be really fun to let the bridesmaids (or at least the junior bridesmaids / flower girls) wear patterned dresses. I showed little girls in red gingham dresses, but I also really like something like this dress that I found at Nordstrom.



A couple of summers ago, I wrote about how cool it would be to have someone like Fresher Than Fresh Snowcones at your wedding reception to serve gourmet snowcones to your guests. Traci and Ronnie are in luck, because Fresher Than Fresh is actually located near them!

If you're looking for some more farm wedding inspiration, Green Wedding Shoes had several that I thought were really nicely done.

This one on a goat farm uses a lot of cute touches, including the buntings I can't get enough of, doilies, and hay bale seating.

This one is at a strawberry farm. It's one of the most colorfully fun and whimsical weddings I've ever seen. I love the details, including the rainbow selection of bottled soda pop. My favorite detail are the fruit and vegetable place cards and markers. That is one of the most adorable party details ever, and someday I might try something like that for a garden party. Doesn't that wedding just look fun though? I want to be friends with those people!

This is a page from The Natural Wedding Company about hay bale seating. I think hay bale seating can be a great element, but I definitely think you need some sort of fabric on top to protect your guests. I was thinking about it and I wondered about maybe just watching for some cheap linen sales and using a flat twin or full sized sheet to cover each bale? I've bought flat twin sized sheets for about $4 each, so that wouldn't be too bad. You could also check thrift shops to find a variety of floral patterned sheets for that purpose, too.

This farm wedding from Elizabeth Anne Designs has some good ideas. I especially like the idea of having some games and activities for your guests to do, like playing horseshoes, bocce ball, or a beanbag toss game. They also have some cool hay bale seating ideas, like this one:



Lastly, I had to throw this in for Ronnie. I know he's a John Deere fan, so I thought maybe he could do something like this tractor get-away car, also from Elizabeth Anne Designs:



I hope that my ideas help Traci and any of the other brides that come here searching for inspiration! Thank you for the notes and the kind comments!

Oh!

P.S. These adorable "My Favorite Dresses" notecards from alittlesweetness on Etsy would be sooo cute as bridal shower invitations!



P.P.S. If you liked this inspiration board, you might also like some of these other summery themes:

Light Blue and Red Palette

Aqua, Orange and Yellow Palette

Aqua, Orange and Brown Palette

Melon Inspired Summer Reception

Cherry and Berry Reds

Citrus Punch Backyard BBQ Wedding Theme

Hot Pink and Green Palette

Valentine's Day!

In honor of the holiday all about love and romance, I wanted to post some of the adorable Valentine's Day treat ideas I've seen online recently.

Do you have your holiday all planned out, are you leaving that up to your significant other, or are you just skipping it all together this year?

Maybe some of these ideas will inspire you!

I love reds and pinks, and I have to admit that I am a fan of Valentine's Day being filled with over-the-top hearts and other sometimes kitschy decor. Don't get me wrong, I am also a fan of elegant and understated romance -- I just don't think Valentine's Day has to be formal to be fun! Oh, and it must include chocolate in one form or another!

Since Valentine's Day is on Monday this year, we've decided to stretch it into a Valentine's long weekend. Dylan surprised me this morning by going to the grocery store before I woke up to stock up on some of our favorite treats. We've just been lounging around the house together, enjoying a day of leisure. Tonight I'm making us lobster tails with drawn butter and Meyer lemons, butternut squash risotto and roasted Brussels sprouts with truffle oil. I'm still working on what I want to make for dessert.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some of my favorite treat ideas that I found on Martha Stewart this week!

This has some of my must-have Valentine's Day elements: Chocolate and hearts!

To make the heart cut-out marshmallows, simply cut a marshmallow in half horizontally (so you have two circles), then grease a small aspic cutter with vegetable oil to punch out your shape! If you don't have any tiny cutters, here are some cute ones on Amazon:

You could also use those for a smaller version of the beet hearts below!

I wasn't planning a salad course, but one day I am going to do this because I love beets. They just thinly sliced cooked beets using a mandoline, then used a small cookie cutter to make the hearts! That Martha Stewart -- so clever!

Another clever and couldn't be more simple heart-shaped treat? Calimyrna figs look like hearts when you cut them in half!


Last, but not least, some delectable dessert ideas! I'll include a link to the recipes under each picture.

Chocolate Champagne Truffles

Spicy Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Truffle Brownies

Chocolate Eclair Hearts

I hope all you lovebirds have a wonderfully fun and romantic Valentine's Day! Let me know what you have planned!

Minted.com Discount Code + Our Christmas Cards!

I'm sad to say that my laptop is toast. Merry Christmas to me, I'm getting a new laptop! :-P Not ideal timing, but I don't think there is ever a good time for your computer to go kaput. I'm waiting for my new laptop to arrive so I can transfer my files, so in the meantime, I'm using Dylan's laptop.

I did want to share with you two things:

1. Minted.com has a great sale going on right now, but you'd better jump on it ASAP, because it expires on December 6th! Use the code DEC20 to get 20% off of all holiday cards plus FREE upgrade to 3-day shipping!

2. Minted.com has a cool feature called Find It Fast Holiday Photo Cards that allow you to preview their holiday cards with your picture! It makes it so much easier to find the perfect card for your picture!

I was surprised by some of the cards that ended up being my favorites after I got to see them with our pictures. Here are some of our favorites:





So what do you think?

My favorite wedding planning book.

I just went to the Amazon main page, and it recommended that I buy this book:



Apparently Amazon doesn't realize that I already own that book. If you don't already own this book, I would strongly recommend it. I have at least 50 wedding planning books, but I think that this is the book that I found the most helpful. It's called The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day by Mindy Weiss. Mindy Weiss is an amazing wedding planner. You may have heard of her before, she was responsible for Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi's beautiful wedding. This book contains a wonderful collection of information. It is full of great details, ideas, examples, and recommendations. It also includes lists of questions* to ask each of your vendors, which I found especially helpful. I honestly took either a list of written questions, or this book with me to every meeting I ever had with a potential wedding vendor. I know that a few of them teased me about my organizational skills at the time, but every single vendor at the wedding ended up complimenting us on what a pleasure it was to work at such a well organized event, and how impressed they were that things went so smoothly, especially without the help of a wedding planner or a coordinator. I don't think things would've gone nearly as smoothly without some of the tips I picked up from this book. If you only buy one wedding planning book, this is the one that I would recommend.

* Another book that had good lists of questions to ask your potential wedding vendors was this book: Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing A Fantastic Wedding On A Realistic Budget. This link is for the new 2010 edition that will be released on November 15th. I used the 2009 edition, but every edition of this book has always received great reviews.

I'm ordering our Christmas cards from Minted.com!

Now that the wedding is over, I've started to look toward the future and I'm already getting excited about the upcoming holidays. I can't wait to send out Christmas cards with "our" last name -- preferably with a fun picture of Dylan and me together! Maybe we'll even use a picture of us with our dogs, since that's what we've come to think of as our little family.

Some of you may have noticed that I have an ad for Minted on the sidebar of my blog. I've been very choosy about putting any ads up, because I'm very big on only giving props to companies or products that I would actually use myself. The ladies at Minted are exactly that kind of company. Recently they sent me an assortment of samples of their holiday cards, and I can't tell you how impressed I was with them. Their stationery is lovely online, but it's even more impressive in person.

As anyone who has read my blog will know, I am a details girl. Minted does not disappoint. They have details that I love. Specifically, they have coordinated envelope liners and wrap-around labels available for most of their designs! Even the backs of most of the cards have coordinated patterns. They've thought of everything, and I love that. I also love that they give you different paper choices and color choices for so many of their designs, so you can customize them just to your liking. I'm personally a fan of the pearlescent paper for a lot of the holiday cards I've looked at, but it all depends on your style and preference.

I've spent hours admiring the samples they sent me, and looking at all of the designs on their website to try to narrow it down to some of my favorites. I don't think there's a single one that I didn't like, so narrowing it down has been more difficult than I expected.

These are just some of my favorites:

{clicking on the pictures will take you right to that card on Minted}

{Love and Peace Eternal -- whimsical, folksy, eclectic and unique}

{Celebration -- elegant, classic, and understated}

{Mittens -- festive, cute and cozy. I love both the font and the mittens!}

{Holiday Stripes -- traditional with flair, preppy, a nice balance of masculine and feminine}

{Octavia -- rustic, kitschy, vintage, and charming}

{Woodland Wonderland -- woodland critters with a faux bois birch bark monogram! Love it!}

{Mistletoe Wreath -- artsy, warm, and sweet}

{Reinpet -- what's not to love about your pets with reindeer antlers? And I love the liner!}

{Joyeux Noel + St Nick -- This is one of the samples I've seen in person, and it's a lovely charcoal gray. The liner and label that came with my sample are a pretty muted peach color. You know how I love gray and peach together! I think this one is especially adorable if you've got a cute little munchkin to show off!}

{Delicate Flourishes -- ornate and pretty without being bonk-you-over-the-head 'holiday'}

If you want to go all out, what about sending gorgeous mini-books as your Christmas cards?

My favorites include:

This Airmail Holiday Minibook would be perfect if you got to travel somewhere exotic this year. Maybe you could showcase some honeymoon pictures?

This Peppermint Ribbon Holiday Minibook is a little kitschy, and a lot adorable.

And this Snowflake Window Holiday Minibook is perfect if you want something rich and wintery, without being red and green.

For those brides-to-be who are still in the thick of wedding planning and aren't even thinking about the holidays yet, Minted also has gorgeous wedding stationery, from save-the-dates to invitations and thank you cards. On November 1st, they're launching an exciting new addition of photo calendars that would make perfect save-the-dates, or New Year's greetings for those of us who tend to get too busy during the actual holidays to get our holiday cards in the mail!

So what do you think? Which holiday cards should we send out this year?

Happy Sweetest Day!

What better day to start catching up on my wedding blogging? If you've never heard of Sweetest Day, you aren't the only one. Google it. I think of it as an October version of Valentine's Day, but more simple. It's a day to celebrate the people who help to make your life sweet.

Besides Dylan, most of the people who help to make my life sweeter were present at my lovely bridal shower, so that's what I wanted to share today.

First, the bridal shower invitations:
(I blurred some of the personal details to protect privacy.)

These invitations were the cutest! They're actually from Martha Stewart, and you customize them yourself. They include the adorable pop-up wedding cake invitations, the printable inserts, RSVP enclosures (which we used as direction cards instead), the eyelet lace belly bands, and envelopes. I added the little daisy embellishments, which were also from Martha Stewart.

The morning of my bridal shower, my maid of honor Melissa, my dear friend Samantha and I all went for mani-pedis at a local beauty school.


My mom and her best friend Amelia hosted my bridal shower at Amelia's beautiful home. They put on quite a spread! Samantha made devilled eggs, and my friend Joanna made the fun cupcakes!

My mom has always been quite the chocolatier, so she made tuxedo chocolate covered strawberries. She also played bartender, and made us huckleberry mojitos!

My mom and Amelia both made different kinds of pasta salads.

We toasted with white peach puree and champagne from Ambrosia Bistro -- Yum! My mom gave a really beautiful toast that sent me right into the ugly cry. Thank you Mom! :-P

My favorite girls! From left to right: Bryne, Joanna, Melissa, me, Kristi and Samantha.

And now with our lovely Pink Mustaches for Girls! (I love this picture the most.)


It was the most beautiful bridal shower I ever could have hoped for!