wedding wednesday

I really thought last week would have bored you guys to tears...but I actually think people liked it! And hopefully I helped some of you who are going through this process right now. 

I wanted this post to be my dress post, but no one in my family can seem to find the pictures they took of me trying on all the dresses. So until my mom can track down her broken camera for the memory card (this could take years, people), I can't do that post. 

You've probably noticed a trend - I did a lot of the wedding things myself. Partly because it saved some money and partly (mostly) because I'm incredibly OCD and everything had to be absolutely perfect. 

One of those "this has to be perfect" things was the programs. Yes, I am aware that most people throw those things away right after the ceremony. If I caught anyone throwing away one of mine, I probably would have cried. 

I was browsing some wedding blogs (something I did for HOURS and hours each weekend) and happened upon a post about DIY programs that had a pocket for tissues. I WAS SOLD. How hard could it be? I got out my sewing machine and after a few trips to Hobby Lobby, I was set.

I highly underestimated the amount of work it would take to do this. I thought I would just spend one Saturday watching Lifetime movies and get it done. Well, first-off: it's kind of impossible to watch movies while sewing because you can't really hear the TV and you have to watch the machine. Second: ONE Saturday? More like every Saturday for a month and then nights after work. (A was off on rigs for pretty much our whole engagement, so I did need something to pass the time, but not every.single.day.) 

I didn't do a very good job documenting this because I didn't have a blog back then, but here's what I did for the pockets. I first printed out the "for your happy tears only" sheets on just plain white computer paper but I made them have a light grey background. Then I individually cut those out. I also had to cut the craft paper and vellum into fours. The first round of sewing was to sew the tears tab onto the vellum, that's the top stitch you see. I ended up doing 90% of them with the stitched zig-zag stitch and not the normal zig-zag. Then I sewed the vellum onto the kraft paper with the normal straight stitch on the three edges to make the pockets. 

Did I mention that I had to make 200 of these?

27872 bajillion hours later, I finished the pockets. Fast forward 3 months and the week before the wedding I FINALLY get approval on the program itself. I was still working that week up until Wednesday night, and it just so happened to be the busiest week I had all year. (OF FREAKING COURSE.) I didn't get a chance to print out the programs until that night. 

And then I still had to fold them. I waited until Thursday night to do that (nothing like last minute!) and recruited some of A's groomsmen to help while drinking red wine in their hotel room. (Bless their souls for coming in a day early and trying to help. I'm too OCD for that so I freaked out politely declined the help.) I finally finished the folding Friday night after the rehearsal dinner. I was five or so margaritas in. How they ended up looking good, I HAVE NO CLUE.

This picture makes me laugh because while my bridesmaids were getting hair and makeup done, the ones not currently in the hot seat were assembly lining it to help me finish these. One would stuff it with a tissue and then the next would tape the pocket to the program and then the next would put it nice and neat into my program baskets. 

Besides the table runners, the programs were the most complicated DIY I did. Yes they were a royal pain in the ass, but if I had to do it all again, I would still make them. I would just make sure that the church gets back to me a lot sooner than they did so I could complete everything in advance instead of an hour before I walked down the aisle. And there's no way these would have gotten done if it wasn't for the best bridesmaids EVER. They also helped me do the thank you notes I had on each place setting that day...but that will be in another post. Seriously, they were amazing. Especially my SIL Tiffany, she calmed me down so much by being so willing to jump in and do whatever I needed. 

Someone mentioned to the priest before the ceremony that I had handmade these so he worked that into his homily. I thought that was really sweet...and ok, maybe I was also glad he mentioned it because hopefully it made people less inclined to throw them away. 

In case you were wondering (duh, you were) above is what the inside/back looked like. 

And yes, it does say sign of peach. You think I was going to re-print and fold 200 programs because of that? YEA RIGHT. 

Linking up with Meredith!