Wedding Wednesday- Isle Decorations

If you are new to our Wedding Wednesday update make sure to check out the other posts about bouquets, the dress, choosing colors, location of love, wedding favors, and cakes. I am trying to cover everything that has come up for me but if there is something specific you would like to hear about please let me know!

This week I am talking about isle decorations, the thing I have learned about this is you can make this part of your wedding  as cost effective or as expensive as you want. There are affordable ways to decorate your isle while still making a statement. Some of these are budget friendly while some of these could cost a bit more then some brides would like to spend. I think there are ways to still have the wedding of your dreams while doing things within your budget.

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I really like the idea of some form of bow in your color scheme on the end of every other row of chairs. This is perfect for an outdoor wedding with a gorgeous view. You don't want anything that will take away from the view but you still want something that will add a little extra. I also really like how at the top of these bows they have added a little bit of babies breath, it is the perfect touch.

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I'm not going to lie, I LOVE lanterns. I like them in my house, in my wedding, in my life. I am a huge fan of the lantern but, this could get very expensive. I like how they have spaced these though so you don't have to use near as many. I also like how they have the touch of flowers at the top of the pew, this gives a good pop of color and helps break up the dark of the pew and the floor. 

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Now this is a simpler version of the previous isle decorations. I like how they have the flowers with a longer ribbon on the pew ends and the flowers on the ground lining the isle. I think this is a really good idea for a church that may or may not have some ugly carpet that you are trying to hide. 

The link to this image was not available anymore, if you know who should receive credit please let me know! 

I really like the idea of the tree stump with some wild flowers in a vase on top of it. The colors and textures in this are perfect for an outdoor wedding. The hardest part of this would be finding the tree stumps. The flowers are gorgeous though and I really like the different colors they have incorporated here. 

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Here is another version of the flowers and candles. I like how the flowers are a different color then the candles here and I really like how they have three different sizes of candles to add some depth to this display. I think that this is a really pretty idea and would be great at a night wedding. It would really high light the romantic side.

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And just for kicks here is one more different version of the lantern and flowers. I like how it looks like the flowers have fallen out of the lanterns here. I think this is very pretty and would look good indoor or outdoor.


What kind of isle decorations do you like for weddings? Are you a flower and lanterns person?

I'm linking up at these parties!
Coastal Charm 

DIY Wedding Invitations

Today I'm going to share with you a little trick that I learned while wedding planning. If you can make it yourself it will save you TONS of money in the end. So for our wedding I definitely took advantage of this. When I was looking at wedding invitations I found plenty that I really liked, they were all going to cost between $2-3 a piece, per invitation! Now, I quite frankly think that is insane. Yes is is our wedding but we don't need to spend an arm and a leg or take out a loan to pay for everything.

So I did what any girl would do, I designed my own and ordered them online. That's right, I used a wonderful website called PicMonkey and I created our invitations with a lot of trial and error. So I'm going to give you the scoop on what I did and how to avoid a lot of pain and suffering while making your own wedding invitations. Everything in this post is my own thoughts and ideas, I am not getting paid to promote these sites I just really like them and think they are very user friendly. Now on to the tutorial.

When you get to PicMonkey this is the home page. I'm going to walk you through step by step what I did for our invitation. It might not be the best way but it worked well for me. So first I decided to do collage and put in one picture and then text next to the picture. 

So after I picked the collage option it opened up a blank canvas and I went to the left side of the screen and clicked on the above icon and opened up ducks in a row and then picked the very first option with two boxes. 

This is what it looked like after I had selected ducks in a row the first option. I had two blank white boxes side by side. 

Next I put in my background color so that it wouldn't cover anything up. I decided to go with a dark gray color but as you can see in the picture above you can choose any color that you want on their rainbow chart. 

After this I put in my one picture in the left side of my invitation. Then I went to the very bottom of the screen and adjusted the size of the collage. I wanted our invitations to be 5X7 so I did what anyone would do who needed to know the pixel size. I googled it. So first, click on that lock to the right. It will unlock the percentage part of the sizing, then you need to put in your pixel size which for a 5x7 is 2100x 1500. This should adjust the size of the collage. 

Next I wanted to add in some text on the blank right side, so I went to the top of the page and clicked on edit. After you do this a warning will pop up letting you know that you are leaving this part of thew website, that is okay! Click okay and keep going! 

On the new page you will have a variety of options on the left hand side of the website. To insert text you need to click on the text box. As you see above there are several text options that are available for you to use and if you really love the premium fonts you can sign up for a free trial and get them to make your invitations. 

Once you select a text you will get a text box that appears on the middle of the screen. You can move this box, change the color, and even change the font once you have written something in it. This gives you the option to truly customize your invitation. 

There are also several boarders and graphics that you can use to make your invitation special and customized just for you. This is something that you can play around with to really make the design that you want. The best part about PicMonkey is that you can save this in a PDF and you have all the rights, so you can print it where ever you want and for whatever price you want to pay. 

My next step was finding a place that would print our invitations with high quality for an affordable price. After looking around at several different places I decided to go with VistaPrint. I liked them because you could choose the amount of invitations you wanted without having to pick 25, 50, or 100. Which was really nice because we didn't need 100 but we needed more than 50. So this was the best option for us, plus they provide envelops with the invitations that you print for FREE.

When you get to the Vistaprint homepage you have to make sure and create an invitation to get the bonus free envelops. Above you will see the exact sets I took. 

After you choose wedding invitations this will pop up on your screen and you will choose to use your own design. 

Next this window will appear below the use your complete design option. I selected the 5x7 flat invitation but you can pick whatever works best with your design. 

Then you will go to a page where you upload your design. On this page just upload the front page design and then hit next. 

On the next page you can crop and alter your invitations. Now as you see above, it gives room for the print line. So I would suggest keeping this in mind when you create your invitation or you will be extremely frustrated when you have to edit your design a million times. Then you will have the option to insert a design for the back of the invitation which I thought was fun. 

I created this to be the back of our invitations, but you could put anything back there. After this you will have several options, what kind of paper, how many you want. What kind of envelops and color, as well as if you want return address labels, mugs, blankets, magnets, and a variety of other things. 

It took us about a week to get our invitations in the mail and we are very happy with them. They are great quality and they cost about half the price of the other invitations that I found online. We also created some insert cards on PicMonkey that we are printing on cardstock and including with the invitations. They were super easy and also saved us a ton of money by doing them ourselves. 

What do you think about making your own invitation? Do you have any questions about how to do this more in-depth?

I'm linking up at these parties!
Coastal Charm 
Craftaholics Anonymous
The Foley Fam