Jade's Planning & Diy Blog (Pic Heavy)

[missjade]

Hello Brides To Be!!

 

Even though my wedding has since come and gone (I know it’s been over 6 months!!!), I still wanted to share my planning and DIY projects with future brides looking for ideas and inspiration.  This site was super helpful to me during my planning days and had inspired me to do things on my own rather than spending a ton of $$ on things. In the end, I wouldn’t have changed a thing!!

Here we go…. Hope you find this helpful

 

Engagement

My then Fiancé and I were celebrating our 5 year anniversary in Puerto Plata, DR. During dinner, we exchanged cards as we do every year.  The card he gave me was for a 25th wedding anniversary, where he wrote from the future looking back at all the years we’ve been married and together. Funny enough, the idea of an upcoming proposal didn’t even cross my mind. He suggested that after dinner, we could take a walk on the beach while listening to music on his iPod (the songs he wanted to listen to were ones we used to listen to while we were first dating). At first I was like “Meh… that’s ok” But he pushed for it and I reluctantly obliged. LOL. So we’re on the beach, the music is playing… he skips a couple songs and I’m like “I thought you wanted to hear these songs..?” Next thing I know he skips the last song and I hear a recording with his voice! He was professing his love to me! My eyes instantly filled with tears as we listened to his recorded speech. Once that finished, our song came on next and I watched as my Fiancé reached into his pocket for the ring, get down on one knee and extended the open box towards me. There it was - The Proposal. I was literally speechless and bawling my eyes out. I never thought I’d be so emotional (although I’m not surprised, as I’m such a sap). I must’ve kept him waiting in suspense for what he felt was a lifetime but was probably a good long minute.. before I said “YES!”.

 

The Rings

My husband knows me so well – he chose the perfect engagement ring for me: Simple, yet beautiful! It’s so me!

For our wedding bands, he wanted a plain white gold band and I again wanted something simple that would fit perfectly with my engagement ring… et voila:

 

 

Ocean Blue & Sand Resort (Punta Cana, DR)

We thought a beach wedding was the best way to get hitched, as we both LOVE the beach and the heat! Not to mention, we knew that an all inclusive destination wedding would be financially more feasible for the both of us. Since our very first trip away together was Punta Cana, we decided that would be the perfect destination to tie the knot. J

After doing research on a bunch of different resorts on our own and with our Destination Wedding specialist (Karen from MyWeddingAway.com), we stumbled upon Ocean Blue & Sand. This resort looked beautiful and offered amazing wedding packages! After reading people’s reviews and having received great feedback from friends who’ve been, we decided that OB&S was THE resort for us.

 

THE Dress

I looked at several different dresses before I found THE one. I knew I wanted one that beautiful and simple, would be easy to move around in, not too heavy, and still look like a traditional wedding dress instead of one typical for a beach wedding.

 

His Suit

He wore a white dress shirt under a khaki coloured 3 piece suit custom tailored from Empire Customs. Accented with blue tie.

 

Save the Date

I designed our save the date magnets on Vistaprint.ca using a picture I had taken from our first trip to Punta Cana as the background and just added text.

 

DIY Passport Invitations & Boarding Pass RSVP

The first of many DIY projects…

I loved the idea of using Passports and Boarding passes as invitations. I personalized all of these for our guests (Husband’s amazing idea )

 

The passport pages were designed on Microsoft Word and printed onto white cardstock purchased from Michael’s.

 

I hand stamped a palm tree using a gold stamping ink and printed out the text in black and went over it with gold marker

 

I perforated each boarding pass using my paper cutter… tedious but did the trick! LOL

 

I found pictures of the resort and used them for the front of the luggage tag.. on the back I made the template for people’s address

 

Pocket folds to hold the Passport, Boarding Pass, Luggage tags, & RSVP envelope

 

Made these ribbons with our monogram to bundle our invitations

 

Final products

 

DIY Bouquets & Boutonnières

I ordered artificial flowers from eBay and efavormart.com and spent approximately $145 to make 6 bouquets and 7 boutonnières. Best part of this is that I can keep my bouquet forever!

 

Here is my bouquet

 

Bouquets for the girls

 

Boutonnières for the boys

 

DIY Dress Hangers

I found an awesome tutorial online so thought I’d give it a shot on my own. They turned out pretty good for a first timer. I made one of myself, and each of the girls in the party. Hot glued a flower head on top to finish them off.

 

 

DIY Centerpieces

Artificial rose petals and diamond table confetti were from eBay, flowers and floating candles were from Michaels, vase and mirror plates were from Dollartree.

 

DIY Table Numbers

We decided to use Chinese words appropriate for a wedding as our table numbers and quotes that I found that related to each. We also add our own personal thank you message.

 

DIY Menus and Programs Fans

Both designed with Microsoft Word and printed on white cardstock from Michael’s

 

OOT Bags

We purchased plain white paper bags to put all of the goodies in for our guests.

List of things we put in: Welcome letter, Wedding Day Schedule, Empty sand bottle, Personalized tumbler, Pashmina & purse holders (for the ladies), Cigar & condoms (for the gents), Chapstick, Immodium, Tylenol, Moist wipes, Glasses wipes, Bandaids, Candy and Gum.

 

Well, that about sums up everything for my planning thread. I hope you all enjoyed the pics and details and that they are helpful in your planning.

 

Jade

Edited January 20, 2014 by missjade

[jwalsh]

Wow great job I'll have to google how to do my own hangers I was gonna order from etsy but they're pretty pricy

Edited January 20, 2014 by jwalsh

[missjade]

Wow great job I'll have to google how to do my own hangers I was gonna order from etsy but they're pretty pricy

 

Thanks!

I found the tutorial that I had used.

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/topic/68275-diy-wedding-dress-hanger-tutorial/

 

Good luck!!

[jwalsh]

Great thanks!

 

 

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[amandab36]

Wow. .everything looks amazing. Could I ask where you got your dress? Thanks

 

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[Carlicardenas]

Awesome OOT bags

[missjade]

Wow. .everything looks amazing. Could I ask where you got your dress? Thanks

 

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I bought it at a boutique called "Bridal Suite" in Toronto. It's Mori Lee Style 4971

Awesome OOT bags

 

Thank you!

[Stack02]

Thank you for such a great post. Gives great ideas, what venues at the resort did you use for the big day?

[missjade]

Thank you for such a great post. Gives great ideas, what venues at the resort did you use for the big day?

 

Thank you!

 

We went with a Sand Extravaganza package that was offered by the resort and held our wedding on the beach. Our package included a centrepiece and bridal bouquet (which we did not need, and they added flowers to our cake) but on the day of, we were pleasantly surprise with draping and flowers on our gazebo (probably from a prior wedding) and pretty isle runner. Reception was held at La Brasa terrace. We rented the sound system and projector and brought our own media.

Our photographer was Caribbean Emotions and they did a wonderful job.

 

[ylime12344]

can you please email me the attachments? this site will not allow me to download anything. please PRIVATE MESSAGE ME