Craft a Fall Wedding

The wedding invitations were easy. I cut brown cardstock to fit a quarter fold envelope and rounded the corners with a punch. I printed the front and back pages on cardstock (after several test prints and careful alignments), rounded the edges, and used double sided tape to put them on the brown cardstock.

The "love" ribbon on the font is green cardstock under fall leaves paper. I used the "love" border punch from Oriental Trading as an accent.

I blurred out the RSVP info because I just had people call or email to reply, instead of make and keep track of reply cards. I made two sets of invitations, including a set for family that included ceremony details, and a set of reception only cards.

If you're looking for a little something more, simply search the web for "fall leaves greeting cards" or "fall leaves wedding cards." There are thousands of great ideas out there.

I created my own tri-fold bulletins for the ceremony. Once the schedule was set, I was able to type up the center portion, and I used the inner sides to list the wedding party and relatives, and thank everyone who helped.

This is the scrapbook page I made, which shows the bulletin cut in three strips, but it was all one piece for the wedding. Below, under the bouquet in the vase, you can see what the outside looks like.

I had my friend Kate design and deliver my wedding bouquet and I was so unbelievably impressed. It was the most beautiful bouquet I've ever seen, and she did it pretty much on her own. I had showed her a few photos I liked but didn't give her any specifics.

It's made from four orange lilies, red roses, some berry things I don't remember the name of, and preserved oak leaves in various color stages.

I didn't have her create a toss bouquet because I figured I'd just toss this one. What was I going to do with a dead bouquet, anyway? I loved it so much I tied the kids' bouttoniers together to toss and kept this in a vase for two weeks. I still have the leaves for scrapbooking.

See what can happen when you let go and trust things to turn out right?

Kate took the flowers she had to order for the bouquet and turned the rest into boutonnieres and corsages for the family.

Since much of our families had never met, I made name buttons for each family member. I set them out at our night-before-the-wedding dinner. We rehearsed the morning of the wedding, so our "rehearsal dinner" was a casual meal of burgers, beer, and ice cream at a local favorite restaurant. (They have a Thursday night special - burgers for just $1! Plus toppings...) By the next day, we were well acquainted.

I found a fall leaves scrapbooking frame to use for various signs and notes. I turned some into "stories about the bride and groom" cards, that guests filled out in place of a guestbook. I used a few at the reception to direct guests to food, cake, beer, etc, and on the gift bags I put together for everyone who helped.

My friend Sara took this picture while she was setting up the cake. The leaves and berries are from candle rings from Michaels, and Sara cut them apart to stick in various places in the cake.

As you can see, the cake itself wasn't fall themed. Sara decorated with a simple white piping design and wrapped brown ribbon around the bottom.

In the photo above you can see a brown, wooden "S" I bought at a craft store. Sara put dowels in the bottom and turned it into a cake topper. I had a few other fall leaf toppers picked out but with less than 10 weeks of planning going into the wedding, this was quicker and easier, and I think it came out so much better.

I didn't get a good photo of JUST the reception decorations or the garter, but this kind of sums it up. (I call this photo "success!" on my Facebook album. ;)

I took a $2 garter and hot glued silk leaves and a ribbon to the front. Yes, my husband is wearing a camouflage vest, and it's awesome.

The reception was held in an enclosed Lions' Park shelter and two friends from a local sandwich and cookie shop did the ceiling decorations. Actually, they do such an awesome job with weddings they sold the shop and JUST do weddings. They added paper lanterns to the bare ceiling lightbulbs and made tissue paper balls. They set out a few stick topiaries with lights and it was totally fabulous.

For the centerpieces, I wrapped six small galvanized buckets with wire-edged ribbon, stuck a square of foam inside, and inserted three coordinating fall leaves flower picks. I fluffed and arranged the leaves and easy, peasy, done. They looked great. I got table scatter silk leaves at a dollar store, and ordered the candles from Oriental Trading. There is another candle design with fall leaves.