DIY Cake Toppers

And the countdown continues - our wedding is in 10 days! Eek! I am flying to California Friday, so I've already been packing and organizing and finishing up as much crafting as possible before heading out. 

One of my favorites from our many DIY projects is our cake toppers! 

Initially, we hadn't planned on cake toppers because we aren't having a cake. A wedding without a cake - I know, right? But neither of us really like cake and we didn't see the point in spending a bunch of money on something we didn't care about. Instead, we are having a dessert station with assorted cheesecake bites! Although I didn't mind skipping the cake, I didn't really want to skip the cake cutting moment, so our caterer offered to prepare a sweethearts cheesecake just for us. At that point it only made sense to have (cheese)cake toppers, but they would have to fit our casual, country chic theme.

I stumbled across an Etsy shop called Goose Grease, which is a Columbian fair trade DIY wood figures business owned and operated by a family in Brooklyn. "Fair trade"often equals outrageous prices, but I really feel like I got an excellent bargain with their wedding kit, which only cost me $28.95! The box included four toppers, two brides and two grooms, which relieved my "oh no, what if I mess up!" anxiety. The six colors provided were adequate, since I was able to mix them to get the shades I needed for our wedding colors. The kit even included two paint brushes and a cute fabric pouch.

Wine Cork Board

When the beau and I booked our wedding venue, the owner was gracious enough to give us a massive bag of unused wine corks! For months I tossed around wine cork craft ideas, trying to decide how to incorporate them into our wedding. A couple of weeks ago, we were driving home from brunch when out the window I spotted an old, wooden frame at a neighbor's garage sale. I knew just what to do with it!

First, I detached one side of the wire hang on the back of the frame just to get it out of the way. Then, I attached a trimmed down piece of poster board, gently hammering in small nails every few inches all the way around the back of the frame. I glued the wine corks in rows to fill the frame. It's near impossible to find a frame that will fit the exact measurements of your corks, so either cut down corks to finish off your rows or, the much easier option, find a way to cover the gap. I used burlap and lace to create a runner around the end where the corks didn't fill the frame and topped it off with a bow in the corner.

I'm not sure exactly how I'll implement the cork board into my wedding decor just yet, but I'm absolutely in love with it!

Wedding Planning Update!

The beau and I spent our weekend in Amador County meeting with potential wedding vendors. Now that the sticker shock of these sort of appointments isn't quite so nauseating, we're beginning to enjoy the process a bit more.

Saturday we met with a few caterers and were reassured that our front runner is definitely still our front runner. We also dropped by our venue to take photos of the grounds and ask catering, rental and DJ related questions of the owner.

 

I haven't gone to any local wedding faires since all the vendors are likely to service only the greater Bay Area, and the faires here are generally too pricy to attend just for the heck of it. When I heard there was going to be a small wedding faire at Preston Castle in Ione while we were in town I couldn't resist!  

The entry was only $5 per person and benefited the Preston Castle restoration project. It certainly wasn't your average wedding faire packed with all sorts of vendors doing raffles and sampling - think small town, haunted castle, local vendors - but that's just what we needed. Our preferred caterer was there, a DJ we're really interested in, and we met a backup photographer just in case our current plans fall through. 

The best part of the faire had to be wandering around the haunted castle! That place is seriously cool... Maybe a happy alternative to a "trash the dress" after the wedding since the mere suggestion of partaking in the photo sesh trend sent my grandmother into cardiac arrest?