We all know that weddings can be extremely stressful!  The preparation, the planning, staying organized, the expense and of course the marriage itself!  We all can't afford to hire a personal wedding planner, so that 's when your own creativity and a few tips from some helpful sources come in.

I myself just got married in July.  My new husband and I are both really creative people and the more we looked for invitations and card boxes, the more turned off we got.  Everything looked the same!!!  So that's when we decided to take matters into our own hands.  We started out by chosing our colors and a theme.  Ours for example was a vintage 40's kind of thing and since we're both musicians we encorporated that in as well. 

We started out by making our own intvitations which is actually really easy!  They sell boxes with all the paper, envelopes, cut and ready to go with the program / printing info right on the box.  It works for the seating cards, the labels for the envelopes, and the reply cards as well.  We found a small picture of a 40's style couple, copied and paisted that on the front then wrote out our invites and printed them right from our home printer.  It's as simple as 1, 2, 3, seriously!

Our next move was the card box.  I took 3 different size hat boxes (small, medium and large) and glued one on top of the other almost looking like a cake.  Then I put a slit through the top one and holes through the bottom 2 that way when someone would put a card in it would fall to the bottom of the 3 boxes.  Then I covered them all with vintage sheet music and added a few minor touches of origami throughout (also made with the vintage sheet music).  I used a gluestick to do all of this!  I know it might sound a bit confussing but it's actually really easy!

The next was the cake topper.  I did basically the same thing as the card box but with 3 different size mini boxes instead.  Added the sheet music and origami then topped it with the bride and groom!  Perfect!

I even went as far as making my own bouquet with a variety of silk flowers.  It looked beautiful, real and I still have it at home in a vase.  If you don't want to throw your bouquet make a second one out of silk flowers.  When you put it together create seperate little bouquets with tags on them and then combine them into one big one.  On the tags write things like "You're going to Marry a Millionaire" or "You're going to become famous", that way when you throw the flowers it all comes apart and the girls all catch a portion with little fortunes on them.  Something fun to do, not a must!

For the tables buy mini picture frames and place the table numbers made on your computer in those.  Place disposible cameras on eveyones tables so they can take pictures of the evening from their points of view.  After the wedding you have even more pictures to enjoy! 

Something fun I did for the bridesmaids was give them each a gift bag with their jewlery which I made for them, and cute little things for their purses for the day of the wedding - kleenex, mints, etc.  Then I gave them each a parasol to hold for pictures and to be shaded with.  They look amazing in the pictures!!!

There are so many fun things you can do for a wedding and save a bundle while doing it!  Ebay has tones of items to help you on your way.  The trick is, get started early and don't stress! 

I hope I've given you a few ideas for your big day.  If you have any questions or comments on any of the things I've listed or anything else, just drop me a line I'd be glad to help.  

While your at it, check out my store at All Together Now 8!!!  Thanks and Happy Shopping!  Jenny