The year of paper

Traditionally, the first anniversary is paper.

I thought long and hard about this gift. I wanted to give soemthing that was traditional, yet practical. It wasn't until the day that I was going to give the gift that I stumbled across the perfect gift.

a politic chit chat book, its quirky and fun

and a box of 100 postcards. P has been writing our friends and I regularly. The postcards have a retro feel of a comparison of new york and paris.

wrapped in a paper bag and twine

I don't know about you, but anniversary cards are so plain and impersonal

I took some of my favorite/ most impact events of the last year and drew them in a road map on stationary left over from our wedding invitations. 

What did you do for your paper anniversary? 

I am linking up here

Year one: the marriage

Last year on this day I married my wonderful husband.

The year has not been perfect by any means but I have cherished the time that we have spent together. I could not be happier with our marriage and where we are now. I love you more and more everyday P and every day is a new adventure waiting to be discovered.

Food 101

We talked about our ceremony here

We talked about our reception here

What wedding is not about good food.. well.. you know its hard

BUT.. this was our goal.

WE LOVE GOOD FOOD

so this was our goal.

Peter's step sister and her husband own a Hickory River in Peoria and offered to do our catering

It wasn't free but they were so good to us, and everything was exceptional.

(OK, THESE NEXT 2 PICTURES, may be graphic)

We decided on a hog roast

With the hog roast we were able to get a couple sides 

and bread, condiments, etc. WE have a few people that are vegetarians and we kept all of the sides veg friendly which was done by the caterer and they were so helpful and we had an option for them as well. 

They also set up the bar person for us.

We had a $1300 limit, but someone didn't tell the bartender. 

He did not keep track so we pretty much doubled our limit but didn't have to pay for it.. phew

Next, Our cake 

 I went to several local bakeries in town and could not find a "good" cupcake that was consistently good and moist and delicious. Until i went to the one place I thought would be too expensive. Turned out to be the cheapest and they were so nice.

I knew I wanted cupcakes because a of of people do not like cake.

They replicated the butter creams to look like the invitations

and varied it up. I made the paper flowers and the airplane cake topper,

 they did all of the set and delivery for free.

It cost $200 for all 100 cupcakes and the cake

We also had a candy bar.. I love candy

Everyone liked the idea and it worked great with the kiddos

SO .. food

Alcohol.. $1,300

Food.. $2,000

Cake.. $200

Candy bar.. $50

Total ------------------------------- $ 3,550

for 50% of our budget and it was so worth it. 

People are still talking about the food =)

What did you do for your food

Reception 101

So all the way in SEPTEMBER I promised you something I could not keep to recap on our wedding. I know I suck. So I posted about the ceremony here. Now we are going to talk reception, the fun stuff.

- Venue (same one already accounted for, one stop shop)
- Table and chair rentals: $200
- DIY'ed table cloths, runners and napkins: $200
- Paper lanterns and lights: $100
- Band: $750 for all night and the lead guy played the violin for the ceremony. IT was a blue grass band and it was absolutely amazing. (my family was awomse and loved it)
- Card and gift table: $10 made from left over table cloths and things we had bought a few frames and things
- Centerpieces: $10 my dad made the boxes, we filled them with rice and bought sticks. made flowers out of book pages.
- mason jars: FREE my grandma use to can
- candles: $20
So       -----------------------------------------------    Total: $1,290 or about 17.2 % of our budget
I think that was awosme.. we will talk about food and booze next time.

What do you think? What did you do for the reception part of your wedding?

Ceremony 101

So this will maybe ( we will see) be an ongoing series about the wedding breakdown and budget, etc.

This post is all about the CEREMONY.
- Venue: $450_ the venue included the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception
- Backdrop: $70_ I bought 3 doors from an architecture  re-sale nurse and we reassembled them
- Vases: $80_ Peters mom was set on buying these vases and we did and it looked great.
- Glads: $20_ A friend bought 4 bunches of glads at the farmers market that morning and they were                 absolutely perfect
- Rings: $180_ Peter's titanium ring was 180 and I used my engagement ring which I love.
- Flowers: $130_ All of the corsages, buttoners and bouquets (Yes I am cheap and didn't care)
- My attire: $600_ my dress/corset: $500, my shoes: $30, veil: $10, & garter from etsy: $20
- Peter's Attire: $300_ for a sword (yes you read that his uniform was free)
- Everything else was included in the ceremony room and extras were put in the ceremony room.
So................................. total: $1830 or about 26% of our budget
That's pretty awsome.. don't you think? What did you spend?

Now for the pictures.. woo hoo!

dress

ceremony room

backdrop

rings on paper flowers from center pieces

rings on flowers from bouquets

my shoes

First kiss as man and woman

Walking down the aisle as man and wife

This is our significant couple and this wedding could not have been possible without these two.

Spice it up.

I needed some change in my life.. and I am kinda loving corals right now so there you go.

As I promised I would share a little about my scrap book. I bought a kit like this, as you can see it is just the  text block and the cover boards. I bought some cloth paper in brown to do the cloth portion of the book. The Paper source website has a great how to video and the staff there is more than willing to explain it as well. I also bought some fish paper on sale and this is the end product.

(Front)

(Back)

(Spine)

I felt like the process was not very hard but you did have to move quickly because the glue does dry super fast also because of this you have to make sure you have everything in the right spot before you smooth it out. I used kraft like paper  under the fine fish paper because it is very thin.

I really like the way it turned out. What did you do with all of your wedding photos?

MORE PICTURES..

I received pictures from my now brother-in-law's fiance (they got engaged while we were on our honeymoon and are truly excited for that) who is almost like a real photographer and they are beautiful. I hope you enjoy them.