Bachelorette Party and Bridal Brunch

I don't care what anybody says. I had the best bachelorette party ever. At least, everything about it was so perfectly tailored to what I wanted to do. Alana was such an awesome maid of honor for planning something that was so perfectly me.

I didn't want to go bar hopping. It's loud, and I really wanted to spend quality time hanging out with my groups of girls. So Alana decided on nice dinner in Ohio City followed by drinks in a private lounge at the Velvet Tango Room (an incredible old Speakeasy style bar that serves classic cocktails like Ramos Gin Fizzes, Sidecars, and Dark and Stormies).

I'll just tell the rest of the story in pictures:

Dinner with all my favorite ladies at the Flying Fig

Dinner at the Flying Fig. This was the special that night; a frisse salad
with wild mushrooms and pine nuts and a wonderful sweet dressing.
One of the greatest salads I've ever eaten, hence the photo. I ordered duck
for my main course, but it was too delicious to interrupt with a photo.

The bachelorette party right after dinner, before we headed to the
Velvet Tango Room for cocktails.

At the VTR where we played bachelorette party games (A How Well Do
You Know The Bride one and a hilariously entertaining Never Have I
Ever game) over cocktails, with lots of laughs.

An awesome shot of us all sitting at the bar.

The next morning, I wanted to hold an elegant tea party/brunch as a thank you to my bridesmaids for being such amazing ladies. So I corralled my mother into helping me to host, and we came up with a delicious menu (sour cream coffee cake, vanilla french toast, fruit salad, and scrambled eggs), delicate teas (Harney and Sons Wedding Tea and Tokyo blends), and a classy and beautiful tablescape. I'll tell you, there's nothing better than drinking orange juice out of crystal goblets. After we ate, I gave them all bridesmaid gifts (including the jewelry to wear with their dresses for the wedding), and handwritten letters of love and thanks. 

I'm glad I had the opportunity to get a little girly and mushy on them. They know I'm not generally all about that sort of thing, but I can get pretty sentimental thinking about the people I love, and this wedding just highlighted how much love John and I have all around us.

Sour cream coffeecake, and teapots with my favorite teas in them.

The tablescape for the brunch. I loved my mom's green tablecloth; it
really made everything pop.

The top of one of the gift boxes. It's a vintage floral image I printed and
glued to the top to make the white box less boring.

A complete box as it looked when it was opened.

Not only was this a fitting present, this happens to be one of my
all-time favorite teas! It's a wonderfully fragrant white tea with
vanilla, rosebuds, and lemon.

A champagne Swarovski crystal necklace, which they wore to the
wedding with their bridesmaid dresses. I stole the idea from
a J.Crew necklace that was $60-something a piece...

The original J.Crew necklace. I loved the color of the stones, but
not the rectangular shape or how they were vertically suspended
from the chain. So I bought gold crinkle chain (much more
delicate), champagne-colored Swarovski crystals in an oval shape,
and I set the stones horizontally.

Just a little pretty card I printed off to tuck in with
the jewels and other gifts.

Erin's locket and handkerchief

Erin's locket

Alana's locket and handkerchief

Alana's locket had some pink tint on the bows.

Priya's handkerchief. Daffodils are our sorority flower.

Priya's locket close up.

Dani's locket and handkerchief

Dani's locket

Hilary's locket and handkerchief

Hilary's locket and handkerchief

What was in the lockets, you ask? Photos of me with that bridesmaid. I had the idea a long time ago, about the time I started wearing my grandma's old locket. I have a mini collection of lockets going, and I got the idea to try to collect five for my ladies, but it was an expensive endeavor. Vintage lockets go for at least $20 a piece on Etsy (and most of the ones I liked were $40-$60).

I had almost given up on the project when I saw a vintage locket charm bracelet. It had 10 or 12 lockets on it in different sizes and was totally affordable. I not only had lockets for each bridesmaid (and it was pretty easy to determine which one should go to each bridesmaid), but I ended up with the ones that adorned my bouquet, and a few spares to add to my collection. Win-win in DIY-land!

I also wrote each bridesmaid a letter telling them how much I loved them. There were some tears flowing at the brunch. I'm just glad I had a chance to show them how much they mean to me.

It was an amazing weekend. I had the greatest time. It's easy to forget just how much fun I had because the following weekend really was the time of my life...

Favors: Homemade Vanilla Extract

I wrote all about the favors before, but I wanted to include some pictures of the final product. They were a big hit with the guests. I think including a recipe made all the difference. Who wouldn't want to make honey chocolate chip cookies?

But the design of the label changed before the big day...

I abandoned the original label design...

...In favor of this one. But I didn't want to cut that out (too tedious).

...so I made the background transparent and added a round label.

Stickers for the bottles.

Bottling the vanilla the week before the wedding.

In action at the reception.

Garter

John and I decided the garter toss tradition was creepy. We've seen it at so many weddings, so we don't knock you if you do it, but we just thought it felt a little weird to have him crawling up my leg under my skirts with all those family members at our wedding. Plus, I didn't have a spare bouquet to toss, and I certainly wasn't going to get rid of mine, which was everything I dreamed of and more.

Thus, in my heart I knew the garter wasn't really an important detail in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't going to be an old, new, borrowed or blue. But then I stumbled across Florrie Mitton's garters on etsy:

Perfection.

It's girlier than I would normally go, but there was something about the fluffiness of it, and that amazing applique, the glittery tulle. But it was way out of my price range ($92), so that seemed to settle it. It sat in my favorites and I would look at it longingly from time to time.

Then, a month or so after I discovered the garter, I discovered this listing in one of my favorite millinery suppliers. So I ordered it, cut it apart into individual appliques, removed the cheap sequins and pearls, and tea-dyed them (it sounds really labor intensive, but it wasn't that bad).

Dana: That looks just like the applique on that garter!
Hmm...

De-sequined, ready to be tea-stained.
Did this while watching The Social Network with John.

Yes, that may or may not be Harney & Sons Wedding Tea
in that tin. I'm so cute.

I left the appliques in for about 40 minutes. I guessed
as I went along, checked for color every now and then,
and removed them when they looked slightly darker
than I wanted them to be (since they dry lighter).

Also tea-dyed some lace leaves while I was at it, which
I use in my hairclips/fascinators. It smelled amazing as it dried.
I like that they're dyed in wedding tea, even though nobody
would know that detail without my telling them.

Wedding Tea is basically Vanilla/Rosebuds/Lemon, in a
white tea (of course). It was one of my favorites long
before being engaged.

After that I did some searching for nude colored glitter-tulle, and found one in a color called sand. From there, it was simply a matter of beading the appliques with 3 and 4mm swarovski bicone beads in silk (which I had lying around from other jewelry projects), and champagne seed beads in the leaves. This was the tedious part; I only completely beaded a handful of pieces before getting caught up in other projects. I may finish the rest and turn them into necklaces, like this one:

A finished applique. This one became a lace necklace a la White Owl.

So much better with the tea stain and the different beading. The
original trim looks so cheap in comparison.

I'm actually wearing this necklace as I write this entry! :)

From there, I asked John's mom to help me by sewing it all together. She has a sewing machine, so she gathered the tulle on elastic so it would fit around my leg. I basted the applique on it and I think it turned out great!

My one regret is that I added a bit of watercolor to the original applique, which wasn't diluted enough to get the gently muted effect of the original. It turned out too green and wasn't as subtle as I had hoped. I considered carefully taking a seam-ripper and removing the original and replacing it with one of the regular, un-painted versions, but I loved it just the same. I can't wait to see pictures of me getting ready, pulling the garter on and the like. Should make for some nice photos.

The garter added a fun layer of tradition to my day to have it, even if it wasn't my something-anything. I recommend having it, even if you're a non-traditional bride. As with many things pertaining to weddings, when do you ever get to do this again? How often do you wear garters in real life? Or big white dresses? Or veils?

In lieu of a ring bearer pillow...

Yes, I cut a hole into a vintage book. It wasn't the most kind I've ever been. But, to be fair, I tried to read the book first, and it was dry as dust. I kid you not. With a title like "Their Wedding Journey" I expected a sweet romance that ends with a wedding. 

Nope. It's a story about some boring Victorian couple who take their honeymoon way after their wedding. Also the bride is slightly older than most brides (which in those days probably meant she was like 22 or something). The honeymoon is pretty much to Niagara Falls. The book wastes time on pedantic descriptions of the travel conditions and awful, awful dialogue.

I say this to justify myself, but really, I don't feel that bad. If the book had been more interesting I would have kept it as is and displayed it on a table or something.

But the hole in the book didn't look like much until I added a small ring box and teal ribbon (not to mention the rings!). The ribbon was courtesy of my maid of honor, who had brought it to tie treat bags at the bachelorette party, because yes, she made party favors for my bachelorette party. She is so classy and southern and I love her to death. The ribbon looks green in the photos, but I took the photos at night, so that's probably why. Blame it on lightbulbs+no ambient light+my camera skills.

Why did I even bother, you ask? I mean, I could have handed Andy the rings in a regular little ring box, he could have kept them in a pocket, and not have a huge book to carry around. Well, the answer is ring-warming.

Alex, one of the groomsmen thought I said "ring-worming" when I first told him about it. Not quite the same. This is the point in the wedding ceremony planning where couples decide they need to add another layer of meaning and ritual, and basically make up their own. Some of these ideas catch on and are used in many weddings.

I've seen couples planting trees using the soil from their childhood homes (so cute). I've seen unity candles, where your mothers light a candle representing your family and you take those candles and light a larger candle representing your new family (I've also seen brides and grooms then proceed to blow out their family candles, which bugs me every time because I don't like the symbolism there). I've seen sand ceremonies where it looks a little like sand art you do at summer camp and then you display this random hurricane vase full of sand in your wedding colors on your mantel in your new home (not as cute, but practical for a beach wedding I suppose).

But I found one that I really thought would fit John and I. A ring warming is where you actually pass the rings through your guests. The idea is that they will hold the rings for a moment, think of a wish or prayer for the couple, and pass them on. By the time the rings come back, they are then stronger and more precious since they contain the love and support of your friends and family.

What I like about this ceremony is how it recognizes everybody: not simply your mom and dad or your immediate families. I know that my relationship with John is the result of a lot of conversations with friends (especially before we were together when they were all trying to convince me that John was madly in love with me and I should pursue it). They say it takes a village to raise a child, but I also think  it takes a community of family and friends supporting your marriage for it to truly succeed.

Thus, we had a ring warming. I could have placed the rings on a pillow (and I had ideas to cover one with vintage handkerchiefs or scraps of my grandmother's lace), but it seemed so strange to me to have a pillow when we didn't have any small children to act as the ring bearer. Andy with a frilly little pillow? Funny, but not quite right.

This was one of my favorite details from the wedding. Our officiant explained how I had made the wedding bands as a tribute to my grandmother, so the ring warming took on an extra significance as the guests examined my handiwork and gave us their blessings.

At first I wondered if this was going to be cheesy in practice, but I had so many people at the reception tell me it was a beautiful, meaningful idea and a wonderful way to include the guests in the ceremony. My aunt was in tears thinking of her mom making wedding bands and me carrying on the tradition. I was beaming as I watched the book travel through our families and friends and I really felt that it added something to the exchange of rings to feel all that love and support radiating out from our loved ones.