Hello Readers!

For our wedding, I thought it would be nice to share our excitement with out-of-town guests by providing them wedding weekend boxes filled with treats and information.  It was a small token of our appreciation for our wedding guests to stay a night or two at our top hotel accomodation.  I have listed below some tips I used in regards to making the out-of-town wedding boxes.  Enjoy!

• I purchased white gable boxes online in bulk (50 individual boxes). Oriental Trading.com has some fabulous gable boxes on their website as you can see here!   Another inexpensive site for white gable boxes can be found at Packaging Source.

• Go to your local arts and crafts store (Michaels, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, even WalMart), and purchase items of your choice for your out-of-town wedding boxes  like: ribbon, beads, sequins, pearls, rhinestones, craft paper, stencils, markers, craft glue, hot glue gun, super glue (just to name a few).  Remember to keep your wedding theme and color palette in mind when purchasing.

• I attached satin ribbon that went around the gable boxes horizontally.  I used my hot glue to attach the ribbon to the box  as it didn’t show through the satin ribbon like super glue does.  Additionally, I put some clear, adhesive rhinestones and pearls on the front of the box to make them a little more sassy! The hot glue gun was brought out again to adhere the pearls to the boxes.

• When looking back, I would not have attached pearls. The rhinestones were flat, making them less likely to brush up against something and fall off.  However, the pearls were not flat, and several pearls were knocked off in transport to the hotel.

• I used the labels from the company My Own Labels to adhere to the front of the gable boxes, which also kept the ribbon in place.  The sticker to the right is the theme I used, and I was able to customize the colors as well. I really recommend their wedding labels as I had no problems with shipping and delivery, plus their customer service is excellent!

• Inside the boxes, I placed hot pink or black tissue paper.  This was to add a sprinkle of color!

• The contents within the boxes ranged from candy I bought on Oriental Trading.com, to water bottles that I applied wedding labels around (again, from My Own Wedding Labels).  North Carolina’s Department of Transportation even provides free maps of the state in quantities of 25.  This can be convenient for your out-of- state guests. I would check with your state’s DOT to see what options they may offer. In each out-of-town wedding box I also provided the time and directions to the wedding ceremony and reception site.

• A great idea is to include contents in your out-of-town wedding boxes that are specific to your state.  In North Carolina, a great website for sweet treats and gifts with a Tarheel theme is  A Southern Season.  Some of the treats that I used from A Southern Season can be found to the right.

• Make sure that you arrange with your hotel beforehand to either place one out-of-town wedding box per family in their hotel room prior to arrival or give one box per family during check-in.  Sometimes there is a cost associated (by the hotel) with placing the out-of-town wedding boxes in rooms prior to out-of-town wedding guest’s arrival, so don’t forget to ask your hotel!

• Finally, assign the task of ensuring the out-of-town wedding boxes are passed out to your wedding consultant, or a family member or friend if you and your fiance are unable to pass them out during guest arrival.

Stay Tuned Next Week on How To Create a Wedding Ceremony Wagon for your Flower Girl!

How-To Tip of the Week: Out of Town Wedding Guest Boxes is a post from: Wedding Blog by With This Favor. With This Favor is your official superstore for wedding favors.

Hello Readers!

My tip of the week can be very helpful when having a sit-down, plated dinner for your wedding reception, or if you like the idea of assigned seating.

Creating a DIY Wedding Seating Chart can be time-extensive, but can be very inexpensive compared to having a calligrapher or invitation and stationary designer tailor the seating chart.  Also, doing your own seating chart enables you to leave room for error (such as cousin Billy letting you know he and his girlfriend will not be able to make it two days before your wedding).

So where to start?

• Sit down with family members (or call, text, email, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc) at least one month prior to the wedding day and start hashing out the details: how many tables are needed, how many chairs, where should the bride and groom sit, where should the wedding party sit, who gets along well with others/who doesn’t get along well with others, which people have common interests, etc.

• Make note that a week before the wedding, the original seating alignment will probably change, so go ahead and tell yourself, “change is ok!”  Some guests that rsvp’d that they could come will not be able to come, or some guests will want to bring an additional person. So a week before the wedding, have another “pre-wedding meeting” with family members to discuss seating.

• Go to your local arts and crafts store (Michaels, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, even WalMart)about a month prior to wedding day, and purchase a sturdy felt board.  I chose a black felt board as black was in my color palette and I wanted any other colors that I put on the felt board to really stand out to wedding guests.

• While at the arts and crafts store, also purchase items of your choice for your wedding seating chart like: felt numbers, ribbon, beads, sequins, pearls, rhinestones, craft paper, stencils, markers, craft glue, hot glue gun, super glue (just to name a few).  Remember to keep your wedding theme and color palette in mind when purchasing.

• Don’t forget to purchase an easel for the seating chart to rest upon.  If your groom-to-be is especially handy with woodwork, perhaps he can craft together a sturdy easel and you two can then paint the easel in white, black, silver or gold to give it a more elegant feel.  Also, ebay.com has a nice selection of easels.

• Make sure to coordinate with your wedding consultant or a member of your wedding party as to where the seating chart and easel should rest so that wedding guests can easily view it. At our wedding, our wedding consultant set the seating chart and easel out during our one hour cocktail reception. Before guests moved to the grande ballroom–where the wedding reception and dinner would take place–our consultant moved it to the entrance of the grande ballroom.

• Have a bridesmaid or family member with a creative flair help you with this project. Sometimes stuffing invitations and putting ribbons on programs can be a bit monotonous, so enlisting the help of a bridesmaid with some artistic ideas can be worthwhile.

• Let your wedding theme influence your seating chart style!  Some great and free templates for seating charts can be found at:

http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/eventplanning.asp?id=81452

http://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-planning/wedding-seating-tables.html

Stay tuned next week for DIY Out-of-Town boxes!

How-To Tip of the Week: DIY Wedding Seating Chart is a post from: Wedding Blog by With This Favor. With This Favor is your official superstore for wedding favors.

Hello Brides and Grooms!

Here are a couple of tips on how to create DIY table numbers that also help to promote intermingling among your wedding guests.  These are really great if you decide to have assigned seating.

Table Numbers with Pictures

• Go to your local arts and crafts store (AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, etc) and purchase some frames.  I purchased 13 frames, both vertical and horizontal as we had 13 guest tables I wanted to put the frames on.  There are some websites that offer frames at good prices, but it is important to always take in account shipping costs.

• While at the arts and crafts store, also purchase items of your choice for your table numbers like: felt numbers, ribbon, beads, sequins, pearls, rhinestones, craft paper, stencils, markers, craft glue, hot glue gun, super glue (just to name a few). I purchased colors that matched our wedding color palette of: black and hot pink with accents of gold and white.

• If you have 13 tables, then you can number the tables based off of the bride and groom at a certain age.  For example, we had tables numbered 1,3,5,7,9,11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, and 25.  We then found pictures of us at that age. The funnier we looked, the better!  The picture of me at age 13 –with an outlandish wave of bangs– still brings  a warm smile to my face.

• Hopefully most of your pictures will not be copyright protected, and you can take them to a Wal-Mart and make copies at their photo center for just a couple of dollars as it truly is inexpensive.  Plus, you don’t want to use your original pictures in case something happens after the wedding (during clean-up) with the frames.

• Practice decorating your craft paper(where the pictures and table numbers will go) before gluing the pictures.  Sometimes, less embellishment is  better.  I really wanted the decorations to look tasteful and elegant, so it took some practice before I was satisfied. Additionally, too many embellishments makes it very difficult to slide your finished decoration into a frame.

• Use craft glue on the back of the pictures as hot glue and super glue will sometimes distort the front of your pictures.  Scotch-Tape works well too! Adhere the back of the picture onto the craft paper.  By adding the pictures to the table numbers, it can be great conversation starters for your guests, and also to motivate people to get up out of their seats and look at each table.

• Make sure to leave room for the table numbers!  I used black felt numbers that had adhesive on the back, but you can always draw the numbers or use stencils.  Just make sure that the numbers are really highlighted or “pop” on the craft paper, so that when your wedding guests look for table numbers, they can easily identify them.

• Slide your finished creation into the frame and voila!  These table number creations can be made all the same, or you can decorate each one different.

• Let your creativity shine!

More next week on  unique and elegant DIY seating charts!

How-To Tip of the Week: DIY Table Numbers is a post from: Wedding Blog by With This Favor. With This Favor is your official superstore for wedding favors.