Our Wedding Story: the details

Invitations & Program

Our invitations really weren’t that exciting. And I wasn’t too concerned about it either. As I’ve said throughout this whole process things had to be simple and easy. Less than 90 days to plan and execute meant I had to be intentional with what was important and with what was not. To me, as long as the invitations looked nice and served their purpose I was fine with just plain white. Simple, clean and easy to manage.

We ordered ours through Rex Craft {now a part of Bed, Bath and Beyond} and they turned out just perfect.

Rex Craft did such a great job with our invitations I used them for our wedding program as well. I really liked the way our programs turned out {and I ordered and had them made just days before the wedding!}

Favors

I have this weird kind of hate towards wedding favors. I don’t know if it’s because I hate nick-knacks and often that’s what they are, but when it came time to consider them for our wedding, I was not too thrilled. I wanted something people could actually use and might enjoy. Enter Martha Stewart. I didn’t have time to go into as great detail as her site suggested, but I loved the idea of tying two candles together for guests to take home and use at a later time. I bought a few different fall colors in bulk and simply tied them all with raffia ribbon {I used raffia ribbon for quite a few things to have a bit of a rustic feel—it was almost a thread through the wedding details}.

I then purchased a few containers from Michael’s and they added such vibrant beautiful color to the gift table. It turned out just how I had envisioned it would look. And my picky favor personality was satisfied.

Card/gift table

I was in a dear friends wedding a few years ago and fell in love with how she honored her parents. The venue where she had the reception had this beautiful fireplace so she took full advantage of the mantel and used it for candles, pictures of her parents, grandparents and the groom’s parents and grandparents, as well as placed a lovely sign in the mix. It stuck with me so that when it was time for my wedding I knew exactly how I would take advantage of the lovely vintage {and HUGE} trunk in our venue.

Our faith is at the core of who we are and our family and friends were there to celebrate with us so when I saw this cute {and cheap} sign at TJ Maxx I knew it was meant to be.

I also really like the idea of a birdcage to serve as the card holder. I didn’t like the white ones I saw, not to mention the white did not match the décor. But, as in His true fashion throughout this entire process, God had my back and I found a lovely antique style one. It matched the décor of the venue perfectly.

The next element was the pictures. I found two inexpensive frames at Michael’s and simply inserted the pictures of our parents. I loved both photos as they were so different but so lovely. Mr. Z’s parents have this beautiful professional album that has been kept in incredible condition {they have been married for 45 years!}. It was quite simple to make a copy at the CVS store down the street.

My parents on the other hand do not have a photo album quite like theirs. But they did have this adorable picture from their wedding day of them standing in front of the alter. My parents look so young in the photo, it’s simply precious.

All these elements combined made the table look beautiful! The favors were also on the table and added great color.

Hotel Gift Bags

Okay, in all honesty this was another item that I simply thought was a waste of money. But then my mom kindly reminded me how hospitable it is to have something for the guests when they arrive in town. So I headed my mother’s advice and I was so glad. A wonderful friend of mine has a knack for things like this and I knew I was pretty helpless on my own in this area. When I asked her to help she happily said yes and off she went. She even made a prototype for me to see before she went into full production—yes, she is that amazing!

I wanted the bags to contain a few items:

1. A note from us welcoming them
2. An itinerary for the weekend
3. A map of the area
4. A suggestion of things to do
5. A bag of Garret’s popcorn because it’s just so Chicago

And this incredible friend of course went above and beyond! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

All photos {except hotel bags} are from our wedding photographer Brian Kinyon Photography.