Pink and Brown Candy Buffet

Candy buffets today are what chocolate fountains were to weddings circa 2005....everybody had them  

And they actually surpass just weddings. They are at birthday parties, showers, graduations....you name it!  They are definitely a popular trend right now

I'm not at all against trends as long as I know I actually like the idea and I'm not just doing it just because it's "in"

Because of this I actually resisted the idea of the candy buffet for the majority of my wedding planning....now I couldn't imagine my wedding without it!

I figured out why I just wasn't digging it at first

It was because most of the ones I had seen online on different wedding sites seemed to mainly consist of  just...... well...candy.

You're probably saying..uhh....DUH!....it is after all a freakin candy buffet!

I know I know!  But I kept seeing tables full of just gumballs...M&Ms...lollipops....MORE gumballs...Kisses...jelly beans.....and good god MORE GUMBALLS!!!

While those are all good....they just didn't really catch my eye enough to make me want to have it

Then it hit me

One day I was at the Ranch Market (big Mexican market) and I was in the bakery section.  I'm not even sure why I was there to begin with because I almost never go there...but I was drooling over all their amazing baked goods when I saw these GIANT pink and brown cookies

At that distinct moment I realized I wanted a candy buffet....but with more than just hard candies...I wanted the good stuff!

And the rest is history ladies and gents......

If you're wondering why the heck there is a cat on the table click here 

So as you can see, we had the above mentioned gumballs, M&Ms, and a few swirly lollipops...but we also had....


Circus animal cookies. I know....it's pink and white not pink and brown...but they were such a favorite of mine growing up I let them skate past the Match O Meter

And The Boy loves coconut the so coconut neapolitans were a perfect match!

Pink and brown tootsie pop...another one of my faves.

 Rocky candy

The big giant pink and brown cookies that started it all

Mini chocolate donuts

 Pink snowballs.  This was the one thing that made me cringe a little.....but I let it go like a good bride.  They were supposed to be taken out of the packages and they weren't....but what are you gonna do?  I'm over it...............kinda

Chocolate and strawberry wafer cookies....pink and  brown salt water taffy

 

Pink and brown marshmallows.....homemade pink and brown dipped pretzels

There aren't any good pictures but we also had both of these

Strawberry hazelnut cream dippy deals...  I don't know how to describe them but they are creamy and come with a little stick to scoop it out with...they're good!

 And these mexican cookies that are kind of like oreo but with a pink marshmallow piped on top

Here's everyone digging into the  Table O' Diabetes

I had plain pink treat bags with twisty ties to take it all home in

And just a recap of everything I had

*M&Ms

*Gumballs

*Rock candy

*Taffy

*Tootsie pops

*Coconut neapolitans

* Marshmallows

*Strawberry & hazelnut creams

*Chocolate cookies w/marshmallows

*Circus animal cookies

*Pink and brown cookies

*Snowballs

*Chocolate & strawberry wafers

*Mini Chocolate donuts

*Pink and brown dipped pretzels

*A few lollipops

DIY Photo Props (pink and brown wedding)

Hiring a company to run a photo booth is awesome.....we went to a wedding that had it once

You get the cool little printed out strip of photos that remind you of your tween mall rat days and makes you crave Cinnabons....but it was WAAAAAAY out of our budget

I mean Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I mean, I guess we could have...if we didn't want an officiant (who needs it to be legal anyway?)....or say..maybe music?....or me in a pretty ivory dresss (I curse way too much to wear white)

But call me crazy...those things are kinda important to me

But I still wanted people to get silly and take some pictures..so I decided to just make props and let our photographer take over...along with our guests using their own cameras

Here are some of the items I made

Well actually I made like half of them....my sister made the mustaches and pipe out of stiffened felt and the glasses are felt and glitter foam just glued to sticks

I painted the mask (it was in the Halloween section) to look like our kitty Mo

(You can read all about how we represented Mo in our wedding  here)

And made the ties out of foam and glued them to alligator clips so people could easily clip them on and off

I bought this little chalk board at Hobby Lobby

And painted over it in brown chalkboard paint.  This was before I found out on Pinterest that you can make your own....so I paid out the booty for a jar of brown chalkboard paint....LAME!

And I painted the border pink

Then I threw in a bunch of store bought stuff....as closely sticky to our wedding colors as possible

We had:

*Big pink sunglasses

*Pink and brown cowboy hats

*Pink foam glitter crown

*Sombrero.....a nod to The Boys Mexican heritage....arriba arriba!

*Chefs hat...since we met in Culinary school

And I put them all in this basket with a little sign on it

We had tons of fun with them!

Can you tell by the horrified look on my face that she'll be waiting a while on that one?

And this one here really chaps my lips.....

Nobody forced them to write this...this was a self proclamation to the world....and I'm still waiting,

Tease.

Hurry. Up. Brian.

I would like to plan another wedding please




Oh...and I'm totally down with making you an OFFICIAL member of our crazy ass clan...we give out jackets!  Just a little bonus that might entice you ;)

Anywho.......

It was fun!


And didn't cost us a gazillion dollars....and people still got to eat.....and drink.....and our marriage was legal

All good!

DIY Here Comes The Bride/ Just Married Sign

FYI....I'm suddenly realizing that I have ALOT more posts about weddings than I knew about.  So as of today Wedding Week is now renamed "Wedding NowOveraWeekIGuessIWillGoUntilWhenever theHellIRunOutofPosts"

Did ya catch that?

We didn't really do the whole flower girl situation very traditional

First off, we didn't have a flower girl we had flower girlS

Yes 2.

My two youngest nieces Brooke and Elsa

Second, there was to be no throwing of the petals

Not that I have anything against it really....like I won't laugh at you if you throw some petals around or anything  (just make those petals $20 bills...mmkay?)

It's just not really "me"

Instead my niece Brooke carried a small bouquet of the coffee filter roses and a small stuffed cat that was to represent my precious Mo Mo kitty which you can see here

And Elsa was in charge of carrying the sign

I got these cute plain pink wood signs at Hobby Lobby in the Valentine's Day section for a $1 a piece

I had my sister Kinsey, the family artist, paint "Here Comes The Bride" on one side

And "Just Married" on the other

Looks like we didn't get any shots of them holding it on the bride side....darn.....

But we got quite a few of the Just Married ones

We tried to make things as easy as possible for a 6 year old.  Here cue to flip the sign over was when we kissed....she took her role very seriously and she got the job done!

They carried it again as the were announced at the reception

And another random shot at the very end of the night

Cute huh?  

The kid.

And the sign.

Oh...and The Boy

Flip Flop Baskets

I wanted to have baskets of flip flops in the bathrooms for the women because let's face it......

Girls wear heels to look cute....not to comfortably dance all night long

(all night.....all night)

I apologize.  I just had to go there

So before the girls ended the night walking out like the zombies in the Thriller video, heels in hand.  It's the walk of pain....but hey....least it's not the walk of shame!

I figured I would offer them an  alternative...comfy flip flops...coordinating with my wedding colors of course!

I watched the ads at Hobby Lobby and waited until their flops flops were 50% off.  They are normally $1.99 so you get them for a buck...not too shabbyy!

I got them in a variety of sizes (but more of Medium than any other size) in a mix of pink and brown

I made individual size tags to hang from them that I made out of cardstock, some stamps, and ribbon

And rubber banded them together at the bottoms....then I pealed off their little size sticker from the bottom.   The reason I made my own was so it was at the top and they wouldn't have to dig through the entire basket to find their size....it was displayed right in view

Stuck them all in a big basket that was next to the bathroom baskets

And let the ladies have at em'!

Here I am pretending to be all shocked an appalled that they were completely wiped out

 (if you can't see...the board says WTF?)

But I wasn't!  I was glad to see they were put to use!

Everyone loved them!  Like I said in my bathroom baskets post....I like to give the guests that little extra something that makes them feel like they were thought of

Yes ladies....I was thinking of your poor little feetsies.....you're welcome! =)

Color Themed Wedding Bathroom Baskets

Bathroom baskets are another wedding trend right now.....but I happen to LOVE the idea of them!

I think it's great to have some added perks for your guests as well as things they very well may need for those "oh shit" moments

How many people carry pepto? Or safety pins? Hair ties?  Or even deoderant?

Well actually....I carry deoderant.  When you live in Arizona and work in a kitchen where you stand directly over flames and stick your head in ovens on a regular basis....carrying deodorant is a smart move...for everyone's sake

But while I carry deodorant on a daily basis....chances are for a wedding I wouldn't be carrying my day to day purse...but most likely a small clutch of some sort.  So my point is...chances are people wont have this stuff on them...but they could need it!

If you go on Pinterest or Google and look up bathroom baskets...you'll see dozens....hundreds.....millions.....TRILLIONS....

They're pretty doggone popular!

But what I think sets mine apart from most of the ones I've seen is that I tried to keep mine as themed to the wedding colors as I possibly could

Even going as far as to make custom labels for bottles out of scrapbook paper so they would match

And I bought as many items in pink or brown as possible....hairbrush....pink hair ties, pink hair spray, pink tic tacs..etc

Here's some pictures of basket in the women's restroom

My full list of items in the basket is:

*Mouthwash

*Pink & brown dixie cups for the mouthwash

*Spray deodorant (pink)

*Pepto

*Advil

*Tums

*Tide stain stick

*Mini sewing kit

*Mini first aid kit

*Hairbrush

*Hair ties

*Lint roller

*Bobby pins

*Small nail kit (clippers, emery  board)

*Colgate Wisps

*Cotton balls, cotton pads, and Qtip set (all pink)

*Pads & tampons

*Jar of pink Tic Tacs

*Hairspray

*Wipies
*Lotion

We didn't get a picture of the mens basket, but it was considerably smaller since it doesn't need the obvious girly items like tampons and hair ties

I used brown spray deodorant in the mens and included gel in addition to the hair spray

I had alot of fun trying to track everything down in my colors.  It was almost like a scavenger hunt.  I would have my mom calling me from stores telling me what she found. Most everything was from either the dollar store or travel sections

I had so many people tell me how much they liked the added touch of the baskets.  I had one of my best friends from work tell me she was SOOO happy when she say the hairspray because her hair she worked so hard on was starting to fall....she said she thinks she used half the can lol

So help yours guests out and leave them some extras!  You wouldn't want them heading out early over an upset stomach now would ya?....just direct them to the bathroom for some Tums and Pepto and get them back out on that dance floor!

DIY Coffee Filter Rose Bouquets

This post isn't a tutorial.....but more of a pat on the back, 

A "You can do it I believe in you!"......

 "It IS possible!"......

"If I can do it you can do it!"....kind of post

As you probably already guessed....me and The Boy aren't made of money.

Nope.

 We are middle class America at it's finest.... where our idea of splurging is buying laundry detergent that isn't Great Value brand  (oh how I long for the smell of Gain)

Here is one of my all time my  favorite moments on Roseanne....one of the greatest shows to ever represent us normal folk!

Middle class was fun!

you get the picture....we aren't exactly rolling in the cash

So when it came to our wedding I tried to save as much as I could by doing stuff myself

Have you seen how ridiculous the prices on bouquets can be?  It's insane!

So for a while I toyed with the idea of buying fowers in bulk from either Sam's Club or Costco and putting together the bouquets ourselves they day before

But then I started getting nervous. I don't know much about flowers to begin with....then I started wondering how I was going to store them and keep them fresh

Then the idea of doing the flowers, the rehearsal dinner (which I cooked for myself..with help) and baking 200 cupcakes for our favors, and hauling my mass ton of shit to the venue....all in one day?

I knew it wasn't happening.  And I'm the type of person who needs to leave myself time for a Plan B if something doesn't work out...and I knew there was a HUGE chance of something going wrong 

So after alot of research...I decided on coffee filter roses

Yes.  Coffee filters

 

I got lucky and found a girl on The Knot classifieds board who had already started doing them....and then ended up decided to scratch the idea all together

She had been planning to use them for EVERYTHING at her wedding....bouquets, centerpieces.....everywhere.  She quickly realized that was far too ambitious, especially considering she had no help because she lived away from family

She had bought the filters, traced the petals, and already begun cutting some out when she decided to stop

I bought them from her for just a little more than she bought the supplies....but it saved me tons of time because she had already done so many of the preliminary steps.  I basically just had to assemble and paint them

Like I said, I don't have a tutorial but here are the two that I used

This one from Martha Stewart

http://www.marthastewart.com/266346/paper-roses

And this one.....

http://www.emmalee-design.com/art-design/coffee-filter-rose-tutorial/

Because one is video and the other is pictures I think it helps to use both....it makes it even more clear

I assembled the majority of them myself and then had a painting party with my sisters 

I stuck them in styrofoam to dry  

I don't have pictures but I'll explain how I actually made the bouquets after all the flowers were done

*I cut PVC pipe to the height I wanted the bouquets to be and were comfortable to hold....I think I cut them 6 inches for the bridesmaids and 7 inches for mine...I wanted mine to be a smidge taller

*I spraypainted the PVC pipe brown because I knew I would be wrapping them in brown ribbon but the ribbon was sort of see through

*I inserted the flowers into the pipe and hot glued them in place.  I used 9 for the bridesmaids and 18 for mine.  Since the flowers are on wire you can glue the wire to the inside walls of the PVC and bend the tops of the flowers around as needed to fill it out nicely for a round shape

*I inserted a few fake leaves as well for a little bit of filler

*Wrap the ribbon around the PVC, gluing in place as you go.  I used glittery ribbon so I covered it in a few coats of Mod Podge after it was in place to keep from getting glitter all over our hands....worked perfect!

This is me scolding him for stepping on my dress ;)

I found some cute rhinestone letter pins at Hobby Lobby that I clipped onto each of the bridesmaids bouquets.....thought it gave it a nice touch

 Sorry for posting more picture than you ever wanted to see in your life....but I'm pretty proud of them

I think they photographed really well!

Oh...and I even made a mini bouquet of just 3 flowers for one of the flower girls.  I'm not a petal throwing kinda gal

So here's what I have to say as my words of advice and encouragement.  If you try it out don't get too discouraged....it took 3 tries before it even remotely resembled a flower....then a few more before they looked good.  But when you get it....you get it....and then you can keep pumping them out pretty easily. I would just veg out in front of the TV and made them while I watched marathons

It's hard for me to gauge how long it actually took me because I worked on them off and on for 3 months....sometimes going weeks without doing anything. 

They are most definitely a labor of love....they are time consuming and much more effort than picking what you want out of a book.....but they are soooooooooo much cheaper!  I think I paid under $50 to make 5 bouquets and one mini bouquet.  And that is leaving some wiggle room.  I used 40% off coupons at Michael's for most of the supplies

Aside from the mass money savings....you can keep them forever!

I was at my sisters the other day and took a picture of her bouquet she had on a shelf.....over a year later they still look great!

I came away feeling so proud of this project and the reactions from some of my guests when I told them I made them myself was priceless!  My high school Art teacher was quite impressed.....

Of course I tried to play it off all cool though and was like "Cool thanks....it was no big whoop.."

Meanwhile I was giddy on the inside

So if you're still weighing out your flower options....don't completely rule out a DIY approach.  I'm proof it is posible!