DIY Bride

This week’s wedding awesomeness comes from The Wedding Planner’s Blog and Paper Orchid.

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Fab Finds Friday is a new feature that starts today. Each week I will showcase some of the awesome resources available to the wedding community.

I’m kicking it off with 2 fab companies this week: Albert Zoll and Dial Dir-ect-ions.

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For those of you lucky enough to be able to bring your own alcohol to your reception venue, BevMo is having their 5 cent sale. Buy one bottle and get the 2nd one for 5 cents (on selected items). Prices start at $6.99 and there are over 150 wines to choose from. You can buy in-store or via the web, if your state allows it.

… or “You Go Ghoul!” (I couldn’t decide on a subject line.)

Today feels like Fall. It’s gloriously delicious and cozy and wonderful. There’s a teeny, tiny bit of rain this morning, just enough to clean the air and give the neighborhood that crisp, fresh Autumn scent.
Looking at the calendar (and the latest round of magazines to arrive in the mail) Halloween is nearly upon us. Only 10 days to go! (I don’t care what you say. Halloween begins on October 1st and lasts all month.) I’m so excited, I can’t stand it.

Halloween is a major holiday at the Casa de DIY Bride. I’ve already been planning this year’s Halloween crafts for a few weeks now. I’m seriously counting the seconds until I can bust out the decorations.

Last year I kinda missed out on the whole Halloween experience. The first shoot for the DIY book was in mid-October so I was busy frantically prepping for that, plus an extended trip to Albany, plus actually writing the book which was far more work than I ever could’ve imagined. So, yeah, last October kinda blew by without much of a celebration here. It was a sad, sad moment in my Halloween history. <sniff> I’ve vowed for this year to be different.

The reason I’m telling you this is that DIY Bride is going Halloween-ish for the entire month of October. There will be a mix of crafty wedding and Halloween stuff to celebrate the season (and to justify my spending on new craft stuff…). I’m really keen on sharing my love of the ‘ween with you and seeing what ideas and inspiration we can all come up with.

Until then, I’ll be on a short blog break. I’m feeling kinda burnt out and need to step back, recharge, and regroup. See ya in a week!

As an ongoing expression of gratitude, I’ve been sending out some linky love to all of the awesome peeps who’ve either given DIY Bride a mention or a direct link. If you’ve missed my previous linky posts, do check out the fine sites I’ve mentioned here and here.

I’m truly blown away by the fascinating, creative, funny, and all-around-awesome sites that are coming in. Thank you all for being online and sharing your talents!

This month, I’d like to give a shout out to:

• Ron & Courtni’s Wedding Journal
• New Mexico Wedding Planner
• Manolo for the Brides
• Travel Betty
• The Wedding Vendor Guide
• Indecision 2008 - Cindy’s Wedding Blog
• Budget Wedding Guide
• Love is in the details
• Simply Me
• Classic Bride
• Gabe & Kate
• Always Fabulous Events
• An Excited Bride
• Marry? Me?
• Darling Make Do
• Promised Hearts

Last month I blogged about the launch of the online television show Bride-O-Rama. Well, they’ve released a new episode this week and it’s just as cool as the first. This episode is from Melanie and Saul, a fun New York couple.

What I love about this episode are the personal touches, especially those incorporating their families into the celebration. Melanie and Saul used heirloom rings and drinking cup and Melanie wore a gown chosen by her recently-passed grandma. I was really touched by that.

You can watch the episode below or go directly to Bride-O-Rama.

I’m not a friend of the traditional bridal shower. The mere rumor of one being held in my social circle makes me break out in a sweat of dread and dismay. It’s not that I dislike hanging with my pals or that I don’t want to celebrate the bride. (I love my friends and family. Honest.)

What drives me away are those god-awful games. I hate them. Passionately. I think most are embarrassing/dumb/boring. They do not equate fun to me no matter how much I love the bride. And I’m one who loves be silly and who adores kitschy things! There’s just something about showers that I. don’t. get.

And I know I’m not alone. There have been grumblings in my circle about this very topic over the years and I get many requests from DIY Bride readers every year for suggestions on fun showers that don’t dumb it down.

Some ideas I’ve gathered over the years:

• Wine and chocolate tastings
• Spa-theme (at-home spa afternoon or a trip to a day spa for all)
• Stock-the-bar shower for the couple
• Craft day (invite the guests to participate in a crafty activity like a scrapbook for the couple, for example)
• “Small bites” dinner  party where everyone brings a fun, exotic dish plus the printed recipe for the couple to include in their recipe collection.
• Casino night. Play poker, offer prizes, serve pub grub … great for a couples shower or even for girls only.

I’d like to elicit from you, my DIYers, some ideas for shower ideas that don’t suck. What are some fun, sophisticated, hip shower themes/activities that don’t involve purse raids or bingo?

After my “About My Wedding” post a few days ago, I’ve received several emails asking what I’d change about my registry. (I had no idea registries were such a hot topic.)

I’m kinda squeamish about registries. The idea of telling my guests what to give me still makes me a bit uncomfy. I know, as a guest, they’re tremendously helpful. (As an aside, some of the gifts we loved the most were not on our list at all.)

Registries are a tricky thing because you’re selecting items that are in season now that are supposed to fit into your lifestyle/decor/living space for years to come. Unless you have a crystal ball, there’s no way you’ll be able to predict what your housewares and decor styles/needs will be in X years from now. And that’s ok. Pick what you love right now and enjoy the gifts.

What We Did Right

There are some things from our registry that we absolutely hit a run with. We’re still using our Anolon cookware and Henckels cutlery, 7 years after our wedding. Extremely satisfied with both. Our Kitchen Aid blender has served us well. Glass and metal mixing bowl sets from Crate & Barrel have been terrific and sturdy.

What We Would’ve Changed

• Cut back on the gadgets. We have more doohickies and thingamajigs than you can shake a whisk at. I love gadgets but we ended up with a lot of specialty tools that we don’t use and that are taking up precious space in our small apartment (or that were never used and donated to Goodwill).
• Cut out a lot of frivolous stuff. Related to the point above, we put things on our registry that we really didn’t need but added anyway because they were (a) at low prices points, (b) they looked cool, or (c) because they were on a list of “must haves” that we got from some wedding magazine or wherever. (This includes gadgets, duplicates sets of anything, special glassware, bar stuff, linens, decorative kitchen stuff …)
• Added more basic-but-pretty serving dishes. We entertain far more than we ever thought we would and had to add a lot of serving stuff to our supplies very quickly post-wedding.
• Never, ever asked for any vases. We ended up with 15 or 16 billion of them. (A slight exaggeration.)
• Put a registry for charity somewhere. I don’t remember if places like the I Do Foundationexisted in 2000, but I sure would’ve created a way for our guests to donate charitably. My DH just reminded me we did ask for donations to the cancer society as an option in lieu of gifts. No one did donate (that we’re aware of.)

Those are the major things we learned soon after the wedding that we would’ve changed. The short answer is we would’ve edited the list to our most basic needs and things that we absolutely lusted for that fit into our space and lifestyle. If we could’ve had that crystal ball we would’ve added a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, some quality tools for the grill, and some basic linens that could be transitioned from season-to-season. For non-household stuff, we would’ve registered for camping/outdoor gear.

Not earth-shattering, uber-fascinating info, is it? But you asked and, well, there ya go.

I don’t talk about my wedding much here mostly because it is now in the distant past. Next month will mark my 7th wedding anniversary and to reference it seems somehow odd.

Weddings haven’t changed that much since 2000, really. The trends are different, sure, and you guys have so many more options and resources now. My attitude about weddings has certainly changed and I know lots of nifty shortcuts and crafty stuff. But, at the end of the day, you’re all dealing with pretty much the same stuff I did waaaay back then.

Since many of you don’t know me that well - or at all - I thought I’d give a little Khris’ wedding 411.

Wedding Date: October 07

Place: (Ceremony) Berkeley Rose Garden; (Reception) Brazilian Room

Number of Guests: 120-ish

Catering: Serves You Right

Cake: Julie Durkee of Torino Baking (She’s since gone on to Food Network Fame. I’m so proud.)

Photography: Michelle Walker. Brilliant. Wonderful. We still love her and her work. Highly recommended.

Hair: Stacey Williams (genius); Makeup: Done at Preston Wynn in Saratoga.

Dress: Don’t remember! Mori Lee, I think. Purchased at Trudy’s Brides in Campbell, CA.

Bagpiper: Ian … cannot remember his last name. He was good.

Transportation: A 1940’s Citroen, owned and chauffeured by a friend of the family.

Wedding Night Accommodation: The Claremont Resort and Spa

Honeymoon: French Polynesia (Vahine Island and Bora Bora). Highly recommended.

Our DIY Projects: Favors (petits fours in a hand-cut vellum box), invitations/rsvp, programs, thank yous, guest book (doubled as the CD covers for our reception music) and all of our reception music.

What I remember most: Being outrageously, gloriously happy and sharing that with the most amazing people on the planet. Dancing. Falling flat on my arse because my bustle pushed the chair out from under me when I went to sit down. Being outrageously, gloriously tired at the end of the evening. The cake. Being silly with our friends and family.

What I would’ve changed: Nothing and lots. Saying I’d change anything feels like I’m saying I have regrets. I don’t. Buuuut…

• I would’ve picked the *right* dress for me. I was in a situation where I had to settle. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t me.
• I wouldn’t have gone into deep debt.
• I would’ve accepted more help from those that offered.
• I would’ve worked more with my husband to make the wedding and reception more reflective of us and not a variation of what was “the norm” or suggested at the time.
• I would’ve changed my bmaid situation. Too much drama, totally not worth it.
• I would’ve gone on honeymoon right away and not waited over a week to leave. I went to work the Monday after my wedding!  (We had originally booked  a spot in Fiji but they went into some sort of civil unrest right before the honeymoon. We had to change plans only a few weeks out and couldn’t get anyplace we wanted right after the wedding.)
• Reworked our registry. Cut out all of the frivolous stuff and gone heavy with the gadgety stuff we love and better dishes. (We did not, however, register for china and do not regret that one bit.)

My advice:

• Celebrate who are you now, not who you’ll think you’ll be in X number of years. We fell prey to the “Don’t do xyz. You’ll look back in X years from now and regret it.” spiel. Humbug! Hogwash! You will never, ever know who you’ll become or what your preferences will be in x number of years. Enjoy the now, my friends.
• Let go of your control issues. Doing so will save you from so much drama, tears, and stress.
• Work harder on preparing for the marriage than the wedding.
• Communicate. Love. Trust.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance.
• Don’t be afraid to set boundaries around your wedding plans or your relationship(s). Lots of people will have opinions about how you should celebrate your wedding.
• Treat each other with kindness, honor, and dignity. Always.
• Get the best photographer you can afford.
• Treat your guests with kindness and love. Invite only those that you hold dear.
• Have a fabulous, fun honeymoon.

Hey, bargain hunters! There are a couple of great sales going on you should know about.

Joann’s: 40% off

Kate’s Paperie: 80% off Envelopements (select styles in packs of 25)

The coupons/links: