Dress up the Dog (In a Tasteful Way)

Dogs truly are one of the family, especially for young couples. So including them in the wedding day is not uncommon. But one of the biggest crimes against dogs and weddings is the tiny tuxedo/white dress. I think a dog as part of the day, whether in the wedding or just present can add a very personal touch and even some humor. Dressing the dog too can be done tastefully with fresh flowers or just a big bow in a coordinating pattern.

(Photo by MERGE Weddings.)

(Photo by Tanja Lippert Photography)

(Photo by Todd Pellowe)

Hopefully our newest family member will be able to make it to the wedding. Meet Logan, our 14 week old Border Collie/Lab Mix we rescued a few weeks ago. I hope he can be at the wedding and if he does, I promise he will look tasteful. No tiny dog tuxedos (besides the one he already has on).

(Photo by Lindsey Lu)

Photo Backdrop at the Reception

(Photo from Martha Stewart Weddings.)

As much as we would have liked to rent a photo booth, it just wasn't cost effective to get one out to the coast. I've admired this idea from a beautiful wedding featured on Martha Stewart's site for quite some time and finally decided on doing our own version of this.

Instead of the gorgeous Marimeko fabric featured in the photo above we are using this pattern from Amy Butler's Midwestern Modern 2 collection. We plan on hanging the fabric in one corner of the yard and will be asking my younger brother (who is a photography student) if he would be willing to hang out around the "photo booth" at least durring cocktail hour and take portraits of our guests.

Napkins (Yes, a whole post about napkins)

Being about 80 days out I am finally able to really get into the tiny details of the big day. Recently it came up I hadn't really considered napkins for the reception and I had to make the decision of paper vs. rented napkins. Neither of which really appealed to me. I didn't like the rentable polyester napkins in the generic color choices (they were all so dated, I probably would have just gone with white) and paper napkins were just... meh. Attempting to jazz up the paper napkins I was going to get some printed with our monogram and they were getting mighty pricey for something people were going to throw out.

SO when I went to finalize rentals, my mom brought up making my own napkins. I brushed it off at the time wondering when I would have the time to do that and not being able to justify the cost but last week I started pricing renting vs. buying paper napkins again and t relized both were going to be almost as expensive as making them.

So long story short, I spent all weekend perusing etsy's memorial day sales and managed to get a bunch of Amy Butler (Woot! Fellow CCAD Alumni and SUPER talented designer!!) prints for a resonable price. I'll be cutting them and either shipping them off to a seamstress to be finished off with a 1/4 inch rolled hem or doing it myself (with the help of Jared's mother). I think they will add so much color and texture to our tables. Hopefully people will take them home but what they don't I'll either quilt, sell or keep as a setting for our table at home.

Here is a sampling of a few of the 14 patterns we got...