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Here's a great idea for all of you do-it-yourself lovers: make your own wedding rings. At the Wedding Ring Workshop, a jeweler will help you make your very own wedding rings. Not only can you probably save a little money (well, if the price of gold stops going up), you'll have a special keepsake from your wedding. And it will be something you'll probably want to pass down in your family.

You get your choice of design and metal (from those offered). The workshop takes about 5-6 hours to complete and they will make sure that you don't mess up your ring. Already have a stone that you want to incorporate? They can do that, too.

You can make the rings as a couple, or you can surprise your spouse-to-be with a wonderful gift. Either way, we're sure you'll treasure these for years to come.

Treat your guests to homemade pink meringue and chocolate drops - a very sweet and romantic addition to your table!

The recipe is from Martha Stewart and can be found here. It yields 16 dozen drops, and doesn't require any special equipment; you don't even need a special piping bag - just fill a ziploc bag and cut off a corner. It works great, and there's nothing to clean up at the end. Try it for yourself!

As I was cruising around Flickr, as I am wont to do, I ran across one of the cutest ideas I've seen for reception place settings. A gent named Alan made these for his wedding.

What a great idea for personalized settings! It looks like he drew them in an illustration program. He then printed them on 5mm foam board, cut them out, and made little stands for them.

If you have any artistic abilities, this is a great way to add some personality to your reception. If you look closely, there are a variety of little monsters, including an octopus with zippers for mouths. And the bride's setting has lipstick and mascara.

We're in love with how creative and artsy this is. It makes a great keepsake for your wedding guests, too. Have you done anything like this for your wedding? We'd love to know.



Photo by alanbenzie used under Creative Commons license.

On your wedding day you want to look and feel your most beautiful. That sentiment shouldn't be limited to the wedding itself but should also include the hours leading up to your walk down the aisle. Across the Internet personalized bridal hoodies are available for the bride-in-waiting to wear while she sips on mimosas and counts down to the "I dos." It's an adorable trend and one that can be personalized to say things like "bride" and "soon to be Mrs. Smith" in an assortment of colors to match your big day.

Unfortunately the price tag isn't quite as lovely, as you can expect to pay anywhere from $60-150 (plus shipping costs) with the price only increasing if you choose to pair the jacket with matching lounge pants/shorts.

Thankfully, there is a cheaper alternative to getting this fun bridal style. Just pick out a plain hoodie -- like this American Apparel fleece jacket for $38 or this lounge hoodie on sale at Old Navy for just $15 -- and then take it to a local embroidery shop. In fact, you can find an embroidery kiosk in most large malls across the country, all offering quick turnarounds and plenty of thread colors. After spending $10-20 on embroidery and cutting your shipping costs completely, you'll have something fun to wear on your wedding day without a moment of buyer's remorse.

Flowers are definitely a high-dollar item on most wedding budgets. Maybe you don't have the garden space or the green thumb to grow your own wedding flowers, but if you have a knack for arranging, you could save big money by purchasing the flowers wholesale and doing the bouquets and other arrangements yourself.

Grower's Box sells farm-direct wholesale flowers online, and they organize the most popular wedding flowers and flower combinations like roses and calla lilies in their Wedding-In-A-Box packages. You can select the colors, mix and match, and save hundreds when you buy flowers wholesale instead of going to a florist.

Check out the gallery to see the different Wedding-In-A-Box choices from Grower's Box.

If you want to do something a little different for your centerpieces, here's a craft project that anyone can do. All you need are some records you don't care about (you can usually find these at thrift stores for about 25 cents apiece), an oven-safe bowl, and an oven.

Each bowl takes under 20 minutes to make, then you can paint them if you like, or leave them as they are and use them as bowls for your centerpieces.

Fill them with fruit, flowers, m&ms, colored rocks -- whatever you please! After the wedding, you can use them in your home, too. We love this cute idea.

With gas and other prices soaring, you may be looking for ways to save money at your wedding. Recently we took a peek at The DIY Bride by Khris Cochran. This book has 40 projects for a "one-of-a-kind wedding."

The book is organized into sections for different aspects of a wedding. Section 1 is all about save-the-dates, invitations, and thank you notes. Section 2 features jewelry and accessories. In Section 3 you'll find crafts for your wedding ceremony (ring pillow, boutonnières, etc.). Section 4 contains items for your reception while Section 5 is all about favors and goodies. The final section gives ideas for saving your memories.

The author advises readers to work out a budget first, prioritize what's important, then figure out how much time and money you want to spend on things. She gives a comparison of retail vs. DIY costs so you can see if the project is worth it.

What's great about these projects are their varying levels of difficulty. Anyone can do most of the projects. While some are fairly time consuming, Cochran recommends enlisting friends and family to help out. Some would be perfect for getting your bridal party together over a glass of wine and some craftiness.

If you're looking for some budget solutions or just want to personalize your wedding but need help with the step-by-step, then this book might be for you. You can also find other projects at Cochran's site, DIYBride.com.

Invitations are a must-have for any wedding. We all know this. There are thousands upon thousands of invitations out there. So how do you find something unique? It's not easy. If you want something formal, you'll most likely take a look at a huge binder in some stationery store. But for something a little less formal, something with a little pizazz and personality, think uncommon. Like the Uncommon Bride in Calgary, Alberta.

The Uncommon Bride has some really cute invitations. They use some great fonts, colorful paper, and unique designs. And if you want to create something like it yourself, you can buy a DIY invitation kit and customize things to your liking.

Go on, check out the invitations. You just might find something perfect for your big day.



Via: The Handcrafted Wedding

I have to admit that just typing the title of this post sort of sucked the wind out of me -- I cannot fathom making my own dress. Of course, I also hot-glued my apron for middle-school home ec (and got a B, thank you very much).

Anyway, if you or a loved one have a good deal of skill in the sewing room, and you have quite a while before your wedding, you could consider making your own dress. And, if you choose to make this a DIY project, you can shoot for the stars -- you get to choose your fabric, your pattern, your embellishments, everything!

We've covered the idea of silk flowers here before. There are plenty of advantages over real flowers -- they won't die, you can get the colors exactly right, they won't make you sneeze -- but there's another product that offers the same advantages, and they might even be cheaper than silk: wooden roses.

Perfect for DIY bouquets and centerpieces, you can by these flowers wholesale and assemble bouquets of colors that don't even occur in natural roses.

The Wooden Rose Company sells the flowers in open, semi-open, and closed buds, along with a selection of several other types of flowers and dozens of colors to choose from.

One thing I love about weddings is that you have free reign to do extravagant things merely for beauty's sake - like chilling champagne or white wine in a bucket full of rose ice cubes. This idea is unabashedly romantic and and adds a touch of glamour to a forgotten detail - and that is what a wedding is all about, in my opinion.

The ice cubes are easy to make (instructions are here) so you can make them for other special occasions as well. They would work equally well at a Valentine's day dinner or at a bridal shower.

If you are having a period wedding or just want to incorporate some historical traditions into your wedding day, a kissing knot is an easy do-it-yourself decoration dating back to Elizabethan times.

A kissing knot is a ball or wreath of herbs, brightly colored ribbons and flowers, and featuring rosemary (seen in the picture) suspended above the bride and groom at the head table of a reception. The kissing knot is said to bring lots of luck and love to the couple and everyone sitting near them.

For just a few dollars, you could easily pick up all the necessary supplies for a kissing knot between a craft store and a flower shop, and then simply bind the rosemary and flowers with the colored ribbon for your kissing knot and hang it from the ceiling at your reception.

Lots of brides who wear a crinoline under their dress like to dye this piece of fabric for the big day. It's a fun way to add a touch of color to your ensemble, though it won't stand out. Usually, the color of the crinoline only peeks out from time to time, like on the dance floor or as the bride is walking around.

Sometimes you can find a colored crinoline, but most brides tend to dye their own. The most popular way to do this is using Rit dye, which sells for just over $2 per box and comes with easy-to-follow instructions right on the package.

The easiest technique is just to fill your washing machine with hot water and dye, and then follow the instructions on the box to add dye and rinse when necessary. The process may take a few hours, but can be done in one day. Just don't forget to clean out your washing machine so the leftover dye doesn't stain your next load of laundry.

Ice sculptures make a beautiful impression at a wedding reception, but hiring a professional can be very expensive, especially for something that probably falls into the "nonessential" category. If you love the look of ice sculptures but need to watch your pennies, do-it-yourself with these ice sculpture molds.

Choose from a bride and groom, heart sculpture, or swan in a mold that's approximately 14 inches tall. You add water, and voila! Your own ice sculpture. Better yet, the reusable molds can be used to make gelatin, ice cream or chocolate sculptures, too. What a great way to get the elegant look of ice for a budget price.

According to my friends who were crazy enough to venture out shopping on Black Friday, the digital photo frame is THE must-have gift for this holiday season. But it's not just a great gift from Santa -- it would make a fantastic wedding gift, too.

Because it's digital, you can set up the frames to scroll through several images, eliminating the difficult choice between the many fantastic photos from your wedding day that you'll want to put on display.

These picture frames are available at many retail and online locations, starting at under $100. Or if you're feeling crafty, you could build it yourself with some help from our friends at DIY Life.