Our Popcorn Bar

While planning our wedding-etsy is one of the first sites I would visit when looking for a particular item.  I searched etsy for someone to make my dress before I found the ONE.  I spent hours on etsy looking for just the right birdcage veil and fascinator-before I found Kasia Fink.  

I love edible wedding and party favors, and Kelly Maron – mastermind behind Paper Stories and the hip Chicago bridal show Indie Wed – has stopped by EAD today to share her quick and easy how-to for S’mores on a Stick!  And even better, she has created three adorable printable tags for these goodies in two color palettes.  Print either the “Love on a Stick” or “Yum! Yum! Yum!” tags on sheets of label paper, and wrap around the S’more stick, or print the “Gimme S’more!” tag on cardstock, punch a hole, and attach to your S’more with decorative twine.  Voila – easy peasy S’mores favors!  Thanks Kelly for sharing!

If the ceremony part of the wedding can be a bit restrictive (at least if you’re going the traditional route), the reception is your chance to show everyone what you are about as a couple, and what constitutes a good time to you. I mentioned before that Jon and I wanted the celebration to be an introduction to the South for those of our guests who had never been to Atlanta; one way we did this was through the food. That’s what most occasions are built around down here, anyway!

I fancy myself a fairly crafty person, but I’m also a fairly busy person, so I didn’t figure on incorporating a lot of DIY projects into my wedding preparations. Making table numbers and creating a guest book in Blurb with our engagement photos were definitely the easiest things I did myself. But the bigger projects I took on – our save-the-dates, invitations and favors – saved us a lot of money and went a long way toward personalizing our big day, which is what DIY is all about, isn’t it?

How precious are these miniature pies baked right into jars?  They would be a wonderful wedding favor – or the perfect dessert for a picnic reception!

Out of everything that went into the preparation for our vow renewal, I probably had the most fun and least stress planning the day after brunch.  It was held at South City Kitchen in Midtown, just steps from our hotel blocks and our venue from the vow renewal the night before.

Ah food. One of my favorite subjects! Planning the menu was so much fun.

Pie on a stick? Yes please!

While I am in the middle of planning our wedding for October, I am also a full time wedding planner.  To be honest, I get much more excitement and joy out of planning for other brides than I do planning my own wedding!  I think it’s because I don’t get stressed when it’s someone else’s wedding.  I am much more confident in my abilities as a planner than I am when it comes to making decisions for our wedding.

So as a frequent visitor of all wedding blogs I can get my hands on, you can imagine that my “must have” folder on my computer is pretty huge.  I’ve managed to whittle it down over the past 6 months-and it now consists of only things we are actually going to have at our wedding.  Gone are the pictures of elaborate flowers, letterpress invitations, fireworks displays, and 12 piece bands.  I think it’s wise to be happy with what you have instead of pining for what you can’t.

There are lots of little details that us brides get hung up on.  When I first started planning our wedding, I wanted to do EVERYTHING I came across.  As the planning continued, I realized that I needed to pick things that were the most important to me, and go from there.  With that being said, we are still ending up with FOUR favors for our guests rather than just one.  We have the Popcorn Bar, which I’ve told you all about…and then we have these fun additions:

When looking for our invitations, I knew a few things for sure.  

Ok, so you have to love the movie Anchor Man to know why that title is funny-but at least I make myself laugh, right?

(This may well be the first recipe ever on EAD Weddings!)  Chocolate truffles, perfect for your favors…  Yum.

Wedding planning can be so overwhelming.  I knew so much of what I already wanted, but planning is hard even for someone who read and wrote wedding blogs regularly like myself.  So I did what most brides out there in blogland did…I went to Snippet and Ink.  I wanted an inspiration board and this is before I knew how to create my own..here’s what I found…

Goodness…another week, another Wednesday! I can’t believe how quickly the days are flying by. We’re right here at the 2-month mark, and it is CRUNCH time! I just submitted our invitations to the printer (luckily for me, a friend from b-school happens to have a friend who owns a printing company and can print my self-designed invites). Keep an eye out for Sunday’s entry about designing your own invites and DIY calligraphy.

If there is one thing we love here at EAD, it’s pretty things. What we love even more? Pretty things that do something good for the world! So, naturally I was completely excited when I learned about the Amazon Conservation Association’s new partnership with Smock, designed to encourage brides to make a donation to the ACA in lieu of traditional wedding favors. For a $5 donation per guest, couples are gifted with gorgeous letterpress favor cards to share with their guests in celebration of their donation. And those favor cards? Incredibly pretty letterpress creations printed on Smock’s exclusive eco-friendly bamboo paper, printed pro bono in support of the ACA.

Now that I have walked you through the planning process to the day of the wedding, I know what most of you are thinking: Can we get to the details already?!  I will start with the vendors who made it possible:

Throughout the planning process, I mentioned before that I wanted to stay sane and delegate where I could.  That included finding a florist who I trusted to do just about whatever she wanted, letting my parents be in charge of the catering and the alcohol, and letting my bridesmaids choose much of their own outfits.  However there was one thing I couldn’t let go of – I wanted to make the invitations and other stationery myself.  Naturally, that began with Save the Dates.

Such a simple idea, but the result is absolutely precious!  Package your wedding cake to go using this MS template, as seen on Stephmodo, found via the ever-inspiring Black*Eiffel.