Wedding Seating Chart

Today is my last wedding post, or at least for my wedding ;) Over the last few months a few of my friends are getting married.  A few asked with all of the people at our wedding how on earth did we seat them without going crazy.  Well this chart is how!  A good family friend gave me the sticky note idea and I took it to the next level with the colors.  Go figure!  For the River Mill I had to have a picture with a list of names.  So I took their room map for our wedding and projected it on a board and traced the board with the same numbering of tables.  Then there was no mix up in where what tables went and who sat at them.  We generally had the tables designated by work, family, church, friends ...   Then I used clear colored post it notes using certain colors for certain foods (Beef- Yellow, Salmon- Pink, Chicken- Blue and Pasta- Green).  Then as I received the RSVP cards I wrote names on the post it notes.  If I knew where they were sitting I posted their note on the table.  If I did not I was able to put the put the notes to the side and attach them when I knew.  It was great as I went because I could easily move people from table to table if I needed.  This saved me huge headaches, lots of time and many tears!!!  Thanks for the suggestion Shirley!  

My Wedding Set

Well the blogging fun from my wedding is almost over.  Oh how I loved my wedding and all that went with it! Thanks also to ALL of the people who helped with certain parts of these crafts.   In the end I think I made over 3,00 of these stamped brown C's on the blue Cricut scalloped circle. I went through 13 boxes of Zots, 46 rolls of ribbon, 2 brown Stayson stamp pads, 1 pack of cream card stock, and over 300 sheets of 12x12 paper (in blue, brown and cream).  I hope you had fun taking this trip down memory lane with me!!!  

My Wedding Gift Open Brunch Invite

The next day we opened gifts as a family!  This way Sean's family could be part of it before they had to head back home.  I wanted to send out invites, but as you can see the colors stayed but the theme faded.  I think at this point I just wanted them made, and was okay with the fact that they were not the same ;)  Looking back I guess I could have made a scalloped circle around the Cricut circle ;)

Finished Product

Can I just say it is not often that when it is all said and done and you would not have changed anything!  Than you mom and dad for allowing me to have and do exactly what I wanted for our big day!  Thank you Tonya for this great picture of the table and how perfect the room came out!!!

Up Close

My Wedding Seating & Dinner Tag

Just like the escort cards the favors were a labor of love!  After they found their table they had to look to find their own chair.  Due to the food choice options we had to mark the seat that they were in so the waiters knew what their food choice was.  This was a great idea, but they said to make a colored dot or a hole punch.  I did not want to make my favor ugly so I realized I wanted to do a picture in the center of my scalloped circle.  Little did I know how hard it would be to find a farm set in this size!!!  I searched the Internet for days and the only thing I could find was this one set.  Though I love the set, I was amazed at how hard it was to find a farm set to use.  Our selections were Beef- Cow, Chicken- Chicken, Fish- Shark looking fish & Pasta- Carrot.  I started my stamping a bunch of food choices as we waited for response cards.  

Again right before we brought the favors to the River Mill we attached the name label to the cream paper.  Then the ribbon and food choice was added to the cream paper.  Then I attached everything to the brown tag with a hole punched in the top to go over the bottle.  The hole was a little bigger than I wanted but it was the smallest anyone had at the time.  We wanted a wine with a blue label and cap.  Barefoot wine had a red and white wine with two different colored blue lids so Barefoot wine it was! We alternated the white and red on the tables and put the labels over the bottles and loaded the in boxes!  The funny thing is that Stampin' Up! had this idea in their new catalog!  What a great project! 

front of tag

back of tag

My Wedding Escort Card

The River Mill also required us to have Escort Cards to tell people what table they sit at due to the food choices.  I was so not sure what I wanted these to look like, but again the theme had to continue.  This was one of the most time consuming things.  Not only did we have to type out each name but you had to have the seating finalized before they could be done.  I started by typing all 300 people's names onto clear labels.  Then I cut the brown cards and attached the tan rectangle to it.   In another pile from that I stamped 8 of each scalloped per table number to be attached after the name was on. (ALL of our wedding stuff had to be checked into the River Mill on the Wednesday before the wedding).  So as you can imagine Tuesday there was a mass sweat shop going on at my parents house.  It was such a mess that my dad did not go into his office for a day or two.  From here we attached the names and then looked on the seating chart to find the table and attached the scallop.  After that all of the tags were put into a box in alphabetical order.  Wow was it a process but I'm glad it turned out perfect!

Table Numbers

Oh the joy of matchy numbers!!!  I had a lot of fun in making these, though I would have LOVED to had found brown or blue numbers so I didn't have to make my own.  Sadly the only ones I could find were black, gold and or silver.  So yet again it was time to create.  I have to admit that I made them during recess, lunch and my afternoon prep when I was working.  I guess you craft when and where you can.  I wanted something that would still match the theme and the favors, but not be bright.  So this is what I came up with.  I Cricut out the numbers so that I could use my paper and make them fit the circles size wise.

My Wedding Family Seats

At the River Mill you had to label the front two rows of chairs to help the family members know where to sit.  This was a great idea but I was not sure what to do at first.  I did not want some ugly thing to accidentally show in a picture.  I got this idea from my table numbers.  Tomorrow you will see the table numbers, but that was my basic idea that still fit in with the theme.      

My Wedding Program

Now we are at the wedding :)  As guests walked in they were handed a program.  Now I have to say that these programs were a little selfish and not such a must have.  Though I guess many could say you don't need any of this too ;)  I was at a wedding years ago and they had a program similar to this one.  I did not know many people at the wedding so it gave me something to read as I waited.  After seeing it I knew I had to had to have it one day!  This also gave the older kids a job to do in passing them out that day.  Each section contained information that we wanted to  remember along with that day.  The With Love was a note from Sean & I thanking people for spending our special day with us.   

The Verses were the ones that were read in our ceremony.  The Wedding Party & Thanks was to people we asked to be part of the big day.  The Ceremony was the layout of our ceremony.  Though they were not easy to make I was glad we made them.  They were a great addition to the day and a great memory keeper. 

Car Tags

I really wanted to than my guests for taking the time to come and share our special day with us.  So I thought I would give them one last surprise.  As people arrived they left their cars with the guys to be parked.  After the wedding started the guys went to every car and left one of these mint Thank You's in the car on the rear view mirror.  Each card had two Lifesaver mints attached.  In order to get them to stay we punched a small home on the top of the scalloped C and threaded a black plastic hair band through.  We thought about ribbon but that is a lot of bow to be tied, so these small bands helped to cut the time down.

My Wedding Invite

Before I started this whole process I knew I wanted to have the pocket invite.  So when I found the company Cards & Pockets I knew they were the one.  So I mailed away for a sample of the folder and the colors I thought I wanted to use for the wedding.  It was really neat the company sent me swatches of the 10 colors I wanted to look at for only about $0.15 each.  At first I was not sure if I wanted to have a blue or brown folder or outer or return envelope.  These samples were great!!!  I went to JoAnn's with the samples and tried to make the best paper match I could.  The real adventure started with the paper sale!  Mom and I sat there trying to figure out how much paper we would need for EVERYTHING.  We made our best guess and then bought all they had and ordered the rest.  Wow was it a lot of paper.  

I started with the basic folder and the Save the Date.  From there the craftin' began.  I took a basic one from the computer and began to make it my own.  As I did I cut my paper from 12x12 to 8 1/2x11 for the printer.  That was only the beginning of the challenge.  I got the map off the River Mill website including directions from different directions.  The Accommodations were a few places we found near the venue and my parents house for out of town guests.  The blank looking blue card is the return envelope.   Each R.S.V.P card was personalized to the recipient and there was a line for them to check their food choice.  With the number of people this was a polite way to say no children and or bringing extra guests.  If it was a married couple it said Mr with a line for his name and a space for him to check his box and then Mrs. and the same.  I was shocked and glad that it worked so well.  We only had a few who were confused.

Hope you enjoyed today's wedding post.  Tomorrow begins the actual Wedding Day!

My Wedding Shower Favor

Part of the fun of going to a shower you did not plan is seeing the fun shower favors people come up with.  This favor was made by my old roommate Andrea for my Fresno shower.  I have to say to a normal bride the favors were cute and crafty.  For me they were amazing!!!  She not only kept the colors for the wedding, but went a step further and added my "C" from the invites.  It was so fun to get there and see this cute little purse filled with chocolate.  I had to take the extras home and give them to my crafty friends who could not wait to try to make one for themselves :)  Thanks Andrea!!!

For more of Andrea & Nicole's fun crafts check out their blog at http://www.teehee4two.blogspot.com/

My Wedding Thank You Card

With all of the showers I knew I would need thank you cards.  I knew I would not come up with a better idea for the wedding thank you cards so I was going to mass produce all at once.  I wanted to make them simple & light, but yet again fit the theme.  So this is what I came up with!  I kept the ribbon and the scalloped C in the center.  Then I used the large packs of cards that came with envelopes (to help cut on the cost). Then I used the same brown to make the ribbon pop.  I have to admit that I did not sit down and perfectly center each card before I glued it.  I actually sat in the back seat of my parents Jeep as we drove down to see my grandparents.  It was an adventure as I unloaded myself at each stop!  But by the time we hit Magic Mountain (where my grandparents live) I had finished all 300 thank you cards.

My Wedding Save the Date

In celebration on my upcoming one year anniversary.  I thought it would be fun to flash back to last year and every day blog a piece of my wedding set.  Let me start with I really wanted the brown, cream and light blue.  Once my heart was set on these colors I knew I had to have them!  Sadly as I began to search stores for invite sets NONE had brown and baby blue, they were all brown and teal.  So I decided to make EVERYTHING on my own.  My poor Cricut got a work out in the fact that we invited 350 people (so that is about 150 addresses) crazy I know.  

Since today is the first of the blog set I am going to start at the beginning with the Save the Date!  This is where the theme started!  I wanted to have ribbon and paper with the same theme all the way through.  I started with these stamped brown c's on the blue Cricut scalloped circle.  After this I designed the rest of the save the date around it :)  

I hope you enjoyed today's post and for those of you who went I hope these posts will bring back fun memories!!!