Burlap and Lace Wedding

My friend's daughter was married earlier this month.  The theme was burlap and lace and it turned out beautifully.  It was a lot of work, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT.  Let's just say I am glad that I have all boys.  

This is the entry way set-up.  I bought the giant "S" (the last initial of the bride and groom) at JoAnn's Fabric.  Normal price was $10 but I got it for 40% so it was $6+tax.  We spray painted it an off white color and then used stain to make it look older.  We finished it off with ribbons, burlap and lace.  We made really cute little fabric flowers and burlap flowers.  This youtube video will give you the basics on how to make the flowers.  We also made these flowers to go on the aprons we made for all the kitchen workers.  We used a hot glue gun instead of the glue they used and we did it without putting fabric behind it.  I burned most of my fingers when I made them for the aprons. I'm coordinated like that.

 

We had a fun cocoa bar in one corner of the room.  We used my bedroom dresser to display all the toppings. The actual cocoa urn and cups were on a table next to the dresser.  I made all the containers to hold the toppings from "upcycled" materials.  I bought glass bowls, plates and candlesticks at a local thrift store (I had to hunt for them) and then attached the candlesticks to the bottoms of the bowls/plates using E-6000 glue.  My friend made all the banners for the wedding along with a million other things.  She cut the triangles out of burlap and then borrowed a Cricut machine to do the letter on brown cardstock. She sewed it together using a piece of fabric.  I am not a sewing person so I don't know the details but it sure was cute!

Here's a closer picture of the hot cocoa banner.

We had this sign on the hot cocoa table in a fun white frame from IKEA.  Only $0.99 each and they turned out darling.  We had signs on the food table as well.

Speaking of those cute little IKEA frames, we put this sign on the guest book table and invited people to post pictures on Instagram. We also had little cards on each eating table with the same info.  We copied that idea from another reception earlier that week.

We used my kitchen table to use as the guest sign-in table so add an interesting element other than a regular church table.  We used a birdcage for the cards and then had a basket with wedding favors.  Our friend Lisa-Marie from Potterazzi Photography did a great job on the photography.

Up close picture of the wedding favors.

The centerpieces were simple and pretty.  Our friends cut these cute wooden disks from a tree that had fallen near their cabin.  Those tree disks can be expensive to buy so making our own was a great option.  They used 3 glass jars of varying heights on each table and then put roses and babies breath in them.  Burlap and lace served as a simple runner across the table.  

They tied burlap and lace ribbons onto each chair.  We had to try something to make those metal church chairs look better.  Bows were assembled in advance.  Only thing I would have suggested was to use that ticky tacky white stuff to help the bows stay put.  Some fell off during the reception.  Luckily I didn't have to help make these or assemble them.

This was the backdrop for the wedding line.  Father of the bride made a frame out of wood and then they sewed an off-white linen type of fabric and attached it to the frame when we set-up at church. The burlap was bunched up and held together with purchased metal flowers.  The pink fluffy stuff at the top were pom poms made of tissue paper (from Martha Stewart's website even though she annoys me).

We used my armoire to store all the gifts as they arrived.  It was also borrowed from my bedroom.  Again it added some variation to the decorations and was super cute with the burlap sign. 

 This is a picture of part of the reception hall.  Of course the lighting was a lot different at the reception since we turned off the overhead lights and just used lamps from home and white lights.  You can see in the corner how they hung white lights behind tulle.  There were several sections like this in the room.  They had to hang a white plastic tablecloth (well several) behind the tulle because the tulle was too see-through and there wasn't enough to make it thicker.  My friend bought the white tableclothes in a big roll from Party City.

The hot cocoa bar is way in the background (in the picture below) and then on the left is the food serving table.  I did all the food for the reception by default.  I am certainly not a caterer but I did my best to pull it off when I was asked three weeks before the reception.  We served ham and cheese sandwiches, pasta salad, a green salad, and a lot of veggies.  Lots of friends helped prep and serve the food. There was also the cocoa bar with cookies and cake at the cake table.

We served ice water and a mock champagne (no alcohol) for drinks.  The punch was made with a 1:1 ratio of ginger ale and apple juice.  Most people chose water or cocoa and we didn't go through much punch.  The glass serving jugs were purchased from Costco.

 We put the serving dishes on different layers on the table.  We used boxes under a tablecloth and also a tiered platter stand.

Here are graphics of the food signs that we put by each dish on the serving table.  These were in those IKEA frames too.  Most of the graphics were from Stampin' Up's My Digital Studio and I pulled the burlap from another graphic collection and cropped it for my purposes.

Here's a close-up of one of the bows from the serving table.

This is the cake table.  The doors were borrowed and super vintage and fun.  They added a lot to the look.

Another burlap sign that went behind the cake table.  We had three burlap signs in all spread out throughout the room.