Our Wedding Day: Reception DIY Details

I thought it would be fun to show some of our DIY projects "in action" at the reception! Many of you have been with my blog for the long haul and have seen the creation of so many of these items so I thought you might like to see them on the big day. Enjoy the pictures!

How sweet it is...

... to be finished with my candy buffet! I must say, getting the candy buffet all fancied up was a much harder task than I originally thought! I have had the jars for the candy forever, we finished the candy boxes about awhile ago (as in LAST JUNE! haha), made this sign for the center of the display and had already bought all the candy so the last task was making the jars look pretty!

I knew I wanted some labels on the jars, so I printed some up in my second favorite font (DJ Fancy), printed them out and glued them to some cardstock and then glued that to a ribbon and put it on the jar. They do not all look the exact same, since the shapes are different. Here they are all together:

And here is a close-up of one of them:


A word of advice to anyone out there who plans to make some labels of any sort to put on their candy jars (or anything else that is glass) - USE THE HOT GLUE GUN!!! The first time I put these together, I used some glue dots and tape runners thinking that that would work. Well, by the time I woke up the next morning, pretty much everything fell apart and I had to start over. The hot glue gun worked wonderfully... and everything has been holding up perfectly since then!

I also added some ribbon to the scoops and ladles that we will be using for the candy. Here is how they turned out:


The scoops were purchased here and the ribbon is from Michael's.

That is one more project down and only a couple to go! It really is bittersweet!

More D.I.Y. for M.E.

Last week, I made a 5-page list of everything that I need to do over the next 250 days (yeah I know, it seems like a lot of days) before the wedding, and feeling overwhelmed, I decided to get a few of the easy DIY projects out of the way. Here's what I crossed off the list:

A sign to put in the center of the candy buffet with a quote about candy or sweet or something:

Naturally, I had to go with "Sweet like candy to my soul, Sweet you rock and sweet you roll" from Crash by Dave Matthews Band:


I also finished my coloring books from DIY Bride:


Honestly, whoever created that coloring book file deserves an award or something. It has been used so many times, and is still such a great touch! My final project was my Program Basket:

EDIT: The "Programs" thing on the front of the basket is not actually crooked, I just took the picture before it was glued on for good! It does look a little shabby in the picture!

More on my actual programs when I finish them.. I am in love with them! It seems like a small amount of things, but just crossing 3 to-dos off of my 5 page list felt like a huge accomplishment!

Favor Boxes

My biggest project lately has been my favor boxes. We are doing a lot of different favors throughout the reception, including a candy buffet. We have been planning on it all along and have accumulated quite a collection of giant glass dishes for the candy. This Saturday, I was at a reception with a candy buffet (the first one I have seen in person) and it was a HUGE hit. We are going with the 4x4x4" size Chinese take-out boxes to hold the candy, but I really want to spice them up a little. Originally, I was going with the white boxes, until I found fuschia & kelly green ones at Michael's, and I could not pass them up. I went to both of the stores here in Lexington trying to accumulate about 125 fuschia and 125 kelly green and came up with 38 total. Not so good. Sadly enough, the employee that was helping me at the store beside my office told me that she "sees me in there all the time" and could tell I was working on wedding stuff. I think she could tell that I was stressed about coming up with just 38 boxes (even though I still have 11+ months until my wedding) and so she thoughtfully offered to special order the other 212 that I need! She also gave them to me for 25% off because I was ordering so many! I was super pumped about this... because I feel victorious when I find a bargain! To spice them up, I got some grosgrain ribbon, Staples Sticker Paper (love this) and used Microsoft Publisher and my monogram to create a label for the front of the boxes. Here are my finished products:
I wanted them both to have a matching ribbon/ border to the label, but it just didn't work out on the pink ones. I could not get the green to match the green on the ribbon, so we went with black, and I really like how it turned out. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the green on the labels is really the same shade of green on the box and the ribbon. So, assuming that I don't get sick of these over the next 11 months, these are the favor boxes we are going with. What do you guys think??