Weekend Wedding Warriors

This weekend Mr. T, his mom (Future Mother-in-law T), and I hammered out our plan for the wedding table centerpieces, which she's helping us assemble.

First, we ruled out dry ice as a potential part of the centerpieces. There's actually an Albertson's near Mr. T's mom's house that sells dry ice, so we bought a pound and tested it out. FMIL T thought we could put a dish under the centerpiece pumpkin, with something in that dish to elevate the pumpkin itself, and have dry ice in the dish, waiting to be activated with water at the start of the cocktail hour. Here's what we found:

• Dry ice melts pretty fast. Timing its placement in the centerpieces would be tricky (AKA, a pain).
• Unless you have a lot of ice, and a lot of warm water, the effect isn't as grand as one would hope. When we had everything in place, you could barely notice the steam snaking out of the centerpieces. And for that much trouble, I want a lot more wow factor!

So, we decided to do dry ice in big cauldrons at the bar and the escort card table. Someone will still need to get the dry ice, not too far in advance of the ceremony, and then we'll have to make sure the staff knows not to activate it until cocktail hour, but apparently 5 pounds of ice and a good amount of hot water is supposed to give you enough steam to last an hour, which is perfect.

So now our centerpieces will consist of:

• Pumpkins, which we'll need to buy beforehand and carve a few days before the wedding. We've decided instead of table numbers, we'll carve "icons" into the pumpkins, like a bat, ghost, cat, raven, etc. Then folks will be assigned to the raven table, or the cat table, etc.
• Flowers that will go in the pumpkins. Even the "cheap" websites like fiftyflowers.com are pretty expensive, so we're going to hit the SF FlowerMart and Trader Joe's between Wednesday and Friday before the wedding. This stresses me out a little, as I feel like we have a lot to do at the last minute, but I think it's better than overspending on something I didn't even want to have in the first place! And flowers die so fast--no need to spend top dollar. Unless they're Black Baccara roses. Mmmmmmm. Anyway, filling out the flower arrangements are an assortment of feather and other picks that FMIL T and I have gathered over the last few months. This weekend we also cut branches off her curly willow and spray painted them black, applying orange glitter as they dried. That was Mr. T's job this weekend! So we'll have creepy glittery sticks in the centerpieces too.
• Fake tea lights that will sit in the pumpkins (under the flowers, which are not going to extend all the way down) and hopefully illuminate our icons so they are more visible and just plain look cool.
• Wreaths. The pumpkins will sit in the center of these. We bought some plain twiggy wreaths at Michaels this weekend and my task was to spray them with clear enamel and apply copious amounts of orange glitter to them. FMIL T is keeping them at her house to apply other fun things to them with hot glue.
• Votives, which we already bought.
  
• Possibly scattered (fake) Fall leaves. FMIL T had bought some of these.

Hopefully it will all come together! My concern is that folks aren't going to be able to see around the centerpieces, so we've committed to buying shorter, fatter pumpkins.

We were also on the hunt for cheap frames that could hold the various signs we'll need to post, like our menu for the bar, the menu of cupcake flavors, etc. We didn't find a ton, but the ones we found were only 99 cents, so I'm not complaining.

We pretty much traipsed all over town in hunt of frames, spray paint, containers to hold all our crap, wreaths, glitter, fake tea lights, and other fun decor elements. At the end of the weekend, I was exhausted! So much for a long holiday weekend. We packed most of it up and brought it to our house, where it's all cluttering up our front entryway. And the wedding mess begins! The cats were very puzzled about all the new stuff.

And of course, I didn't take any photos because I'm a bad bridal blogger. You'll just have to see it all later, I guess!

Votives, favor bags: (Partial) check!

I love Ebay! This weekend I purchased 30 votives for the tables and 90 favor bags and they are winging their way to me. I may add some more votives and/or favor bags, but I'm hoping that I'm done, actually!

The votives are fun and modern and simple, which we liked. There's a lot of crap out there for Halloween decor, as I'm sure you can imagine! We have to use glass votives, also, because apparently there's a law in the city where we're getting married that all candles must be in glass containers. Odd, huh? Unfortunately that rules out a couple of things I already bought, but I'm coming up with work-arounds.

I was intent on finding paper bags because even though the plastic ones were cute and cheap, I just couldn't contribute to landfill in that way. So I spent a good chunk of time researching, and we like these. They were affordable, and invoke a vintage feel. We may supplement with some actual vintage ones to mix it up.

Phew, another 2 things off the list!

After-Halloween Sale Shopping

The day after Halloween, Mr. T and I woke up (not too early), went out to breakfast, and strategized about what we needed. We then proceeded to go to 13 stores:

Ace Hardware
Halloween Superstore
Walgreens
Andronico's
Z Gallery
Restoration Hardware
Crate and Barrel
Sur La Table
Some random other home store in the same neighborhood as the last four
Paper Source
Target
Ikea
Pottery Barn

I was worried when we set out because it was later in the day (like noon) and I had gotten multiple calls and emails saying that stores were out of things and that some stores had started discounting items earlier in the month, but we did okay, actually.

Here's what we bought (I haven't totaled the receipts yet, but I believe we spent about $150?):

Ace Hardware: 6 strands of lights. There's not a ton of outlets in the room, so we were just going to light up the two sets of railings that separate the sunken middle section of the room:



At the Halloween Superstore, they were pretty cleaned out, and anyway, their stuff is always pretty cheap. I did pick up a cute plush bat bucket for the flower girl's basket:


Tikka agrees that the bat is very interesting:


At Andronico's, I picked up two high-quality pumpkin carving sets, two metal luminaries, and a spider candle holder:


At Z Gallery, they didn't have much, but what they had was 70% off! We got a glittery "tree" and a glittery black cat candle:




You can see that Dobby is very interested by the tree, or maybe it's that paper bag she's spying on:


Target, which I thought would be empty, actually had a lot and was our biggest haul. We got a 5-foot black tree with orange lights (we figured this could go in one of the two large niches in the wall, or over by the bar area), a smaller table top tree with vintage-looking Halloween ornaments for the guest book table, a black (fake) pumpkin with Happy Halloween carved into in orange letters, a cute box for cards for the gift table, runners for the cake and guest book tables that are silver with black velvet webs on them, and two orange frames for photos:





Pottery Barn was our last stop, and again, I was surprised they still had stuff. We probably got there around 5:30 and we were what my friend calls "hangry"--so hungry that we were very irritable. Mr. T didn't love their stuff, but I did, but it was one of those disagreements where it was very civilized and considerate, "If you like them, get them!" "No, if you don't like them, I don't want to buy them; this is not all about me." So, instead of buying their entire stock of skull and crossbones votives (Mr. T had mixed feelings about using a lot of skull imagery for our wedding), we compromised and got one set to help decorate the bookshelves. And we also got a really cool metal bone candle holder. They had cool feathery garland, but those were $15 a piece even on sale, so I thought I'd skip them.




After all that shopping we were exhausted! Our feet and legs even hurt, and this is from a couple of people who walk over 2 miles almost daily. We were also soaked, since it was pouring rain all day.

We still need table decor (and a fog machine for Mr. T!), but we might be almost set for the rest of the room, so that's progress!!

Random Halloween Wedding Pix and Other Inspirations

Here's an entirely random assortment of inspiration pix I've been saving.

First, more pumpkins!

This is a sweet pumpkin pattern I found called "Wedding".


This is from a bride and groom who got married close to Halloween, so they added some Halloween touches...she had a toned-down Bride of Frankenstein costume on. Can't remember how I found them, maybe the Offbeat Bride photo group?


I actually found a tool online that will do this to pumpkins (or fruit, or what have you) so you can put tea lights in them. I love these little votive holders! I totally want to use this idea.




I can't remember where I found these, but here are some cute pumpkin patterns that are more abstract:


One couple used a pumpkin as their guest book. I'm torn on this one--it's super cute, and am I really going to look at the guest book in the future? But then again, if I wanted to, I couldn't with this guest book, since it will rot eventually!



This is a really cute idea for table numbers, if we decide to go that route:



More table inspiration:







I love all these candles. It looks so pretty:



More candle ideas:


From the wedding with the pumpkin guestbook, courtesy of Offbeat Bride, here are some cute favor bags:


And prizes for best costume! I've thought about a costume contest for our wedding, but as Mr. T pointed out, who would be the judge?



That same couple had an awesome cupcake stand, and creepy Halloween cupcakes! They are a couple after my own heart (check out the toasting flutes too, I totally want to steal that idea):





Not Halloween-related, but fun, and also by way of Offbeat Bride, a whole wedding party in Chuck Taylors (even the bride!):


More unusual bridal footwear (and appropriate for Halloween!):




Another Halloween wedding. I think this photographer is local to me. I like her work, so I'm going to chat her up when the time comes...This minister looks like Otho (from Beetlejuice) to me, and I love the coffin backdrop (again, note the groom's footwear):


Mr. T didn't like the idea of black suits with black shirts and orange ties for his guys (he said they'd look like waiters), but I just think this looks very cute and seasonal. Sorry about the thing in the middle, I did this as a screen capture and apparently my mouse was in the wrong place, bringing up bizarre messages about settings and such:



I found a leopard print wedding dress! So cute! I don't love this particular print, but I am a huge fan of the faux leopard. Hm....


I found this dress as a possible alternative silhouette. It's like the best of both worlds: I could dance in it, but could have a bit of a train (I think...it's hard to tell). Imagine this as a red corset dress and sans the odd diagonal line down the front and tell me what you think:

First Wedding Purchases!

This weekend Mr. T and I went to visit his mom (my FMIL, or future mother-in-law) and she and I scoured all the local thrift shops and yard sales for glass jars for our candy bar. We ended up with 5 jars for just under $10, much better than the $15/jar price I've seen online. FMIL says she'll keep checking for interesting/good-sized jars periodically. It's nice to have a partner in crime. I mean, Mr. T is of course excited about the wedding, but possibly not quite as excited about going to every thrift shop in town to find that one perfect jar.

I also found some LED tea lights at the Dollar Tree. They are not as bright as real tea lights, but they will stay lit a lot longer, and will get us around any weird candle rules the venue may have (only in certain areas, only a certain type of candle, etc.). Plus, I think they'd be great in pumpkins, so we don't have to worry about putting tin foil in the pumpkins.

So, we made our first wedding purchases! (Aside from magazines and books, that is.) How exciting.

I also found a great stained glass lamp for our room, but that has nothing to do with the wedding. Actually, if I were being really budget-conscious I wouldn't have bought it, but come on. A deal is a deal, right?