It's mid-spring now, and wedding season is just getting started. I mentioned in an earlier post that I got married last summer - it was an amazing day - you'll see! And speaking from experience, I know brides are always looking for little details, especially artistic and handmade, to add to their big day. I was lucky enough to be able to make many of these items for my own wedding myself, with the help of talented friends and family. But many people don't have that luxury - they don't have the time or the resources or the motivation. That's where I come in!
Now, we seriously made A LOT of the items for our wedding. Both because it saved us some money and because it was just more special that way. We made the save-the-date postcards, the programs (fans! - it was outside in August), I calligraphed the envelopes for the invitations - my awesome sister-in-law printed them for us through her business Sassafras Paper. As decor/favors my mom and a whole group of friends and family and I made little clay birds that hung on trees in the tent as decor and then people got to take them home. Mom and I arranged all the flowers for the centerpieces ourselves in her antique milk glass china. My super-talented friend Annie made 600+ origami paper cranes that I strung into a curtain to line one side of the tent.... So many things. But what I'm going to focus on here are the bridesmaids' jewelry, which were some of the reversible disc earrings you have seen samples of already, and the copper cones I made for the gents' boutonnieres.
This is a close-up of Mark's boutonniere:
I wish I had taken a couple pictures pre-flower, but I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. I'll make more. They are basically just a cone made out of copper, with a commercial pin stem soldered to the back with a handmade catch. The copper cone has a decorative cut along the front seam, but you can't see that right here. I'll dig Mark's out this weekend, and see if I can take some photos.
But I think couples looking for special touches to add to their wedding would love to have something like this! Just have the florist put the flowers in so they'll stay put, and you've got some sharp-looking gentlemen!
And now the jewelry! I really hate that I don't have better detail shots of the ladies' jewelry, but I'll figure something out for marketing purposes...
Being a girl who clearly loves color, that was definitely going to be a big part of the wedding, I actually found the dresses at David's Bridal and then I found enamels to match. (They will give [sell] you handy-dandy little color swatches for all your matching needs.) Here you can see my friend Emily and my sister Catherine are wearing their earrings in pretty closely matched colors to their dresses.
I knew I wanted to do the reversible earrings, because that's just fun. Here's a picture of all the girls, then I'll explain what I did...
So Emily, in the sangria-colored dress on the right, her earrings were sangria on one side (seen in the first pic) and bright orange, the color of Andi's dress on the left - you can almost tell in this photo. Andi's were bright orange on one side and red on the reverse. Emily H. is in the red dress, hers were red on one side, grape purple on the other side like Cat's dress. Cat's were grape purple and darker orange like Lindsey's dress. And Lindsey can't wear regular earrings, so I made her a reversible pendant, which is sangria (seen) with the dark orange to match her dress on the reverse side.
So I am working on a way to market this right now. Really wishing I had a more detailed shot. (Wonder if I can convince the girls to get all dressed back up again. Hmmm... maybe if I butter them up with more jewelry. Tee-hee! They did look beautiful though!) What I'm thinking is, I would have the bride send me fabric samples of her bridesmaids' dresses or whatever it is she would like to have the jewelry matched to. We'd work out color combinations, and she'd have her own custom-made jewelry to give to her friends as a thank-you. Love it!
Leave me comments if you have any ideas about how/where to market this idea for maximum exposure. I'm thinking theknot.com could be a good place to start. I also have some friends in the wedding biz, so perhaps some sort of mutual advertising or trade situation could be arranged. I love having talented friends!
Speaking of which, I would like to give photo credit to Emily Barefoot of Emily Alane Photography for all of these photos exept the one of the groomsmen, which a friend took. And if you follow that link, it will take you to the "featured weddings" section of her website, and you can see more beautiful shots of our wedding (the one that says "Mark and Annie") should you be so inclined after I've talked it up this whole posting. It really was an amazing day, and Emily Alane did a magnificent job capturing it. If you're getting married, call that girl! For real, fabulous!
Ok, I'm off to plan and market and do business research............... woot woot! Thanks for reading!
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