Wedding Favors

Instead of sugary treats, my husband and I decided to give something more romantic to our guests: a handmade wedding favor that would say something about us as a couple.

Also, we wanted to tie the favors to the general color palette for the wedding: red, white and aqua blue, and to the handmade quality of all of our decorations. So, I spent a good portion of the year cutting and folding favor boxes, favors tags (each tag was cut and decorated by hand - yes, even those tiny flowers on the tags were cut and glued one by one), making paper flowers and paper butterflies to decorate the boxes, and so on...



It seems like a lot of work (and it was), but it was absolutely fun to do it, a great joy :)



Inside each box was a scented rose candle for our guests to light on a special evening. The floating rose candles also came in red, white and light-blue.

Dancing Shoes

My wedding day seemed pretty long and I was on my feet most of the time. Even though these beauties don't look that comfortable, I loved wearing them for my first dance as a married woman.

I also wore 3-4 different pairs of shoes that day, so my feet didn't really suffer from all that standing, walking, dancing... Under my long bridal gown, who could tell if my shoes were pink, red, white or any other color? All I can say is - they were all pretty dear to me: my pink shoes and gold sandals reminded me of the pre-wedding party at my parents' house, my white platforms of all the times my husband and I have enjoyed walking around Boston this summer, ...

Most of all, I love these white shoes , for they took me on a fabulous journey...

Vellum Flowers

These almost transparent flowers are made of vellum paper. The layers of petals in different sizes are held together by a jeweled metal brad.

The flowers may look dainty, but they traveled across the Atlantic to Europe and were hung all over my parents' house as decorations for the wedding.

Handmade Boutonniere

I made the boutonnières for the wedding party myself. I used white silk flowers and little mulberry paper flowers, silk threads, velvet and sheer blue ribbon. These were the less fancy ones.

I'll post the fancy version soon.

Wall Art: Paper Flowers

These are just some of the paper flowers I made for the wedding (I also had lots of flowers in light blue). I got the inspiration from the Chanel Couture 2009 show.

We used them to decorate the stairways in my house, the wedding table at the reception, the trees in my garden, and so on ... They give a soft and whimsical feel when hung on the wall, so they're pretty amazing as wall-art (right now we have them in our apartment).




They are pretty easy to make. All you need is a nice paper, glue-gun, scissors, a pencil (to shape the petals), and pearls.

Please email me if you'd like to know the steps to make these flowers.

Bridal Bouquet

I wanted to have a dramatic red bouquet (to match my red bolero that Angelika Liv designed), so mine was made with 17 roses. Each rose had a wired pearl in the center (I used silver wire and pearl beads), and the whole bunch was wrapped with white satin and organza ribbon.

Something Red For Church

Since it's custom in Macedonia to wear something over the dress during the church ceremony, I wanted to have something more creative than a shawl.

I spent some time looking for bridal bolero jackets, but couldn't find the right thing ...until I discovered Angelika Liv on Etsy. She designs and makes romantic bridal (and Gothic) pieces - they're fun, unusual, and something you can't really find in a store.

I absolutely love her work! And she was very sweet and helpful over email. Since I wanted something red, she made the perfect little red bolero from raw silk for me, and had it ready within a couple of days. I have to say, I was really impressed about how quickly I got it (she shipped it from Israel) and how incredibly gorgeous it turned out - much better than what I imagined.



So, it was the perfect thing to wear - fun and creative enough for me and formal enough for church :)

... and... it matched my bouquet :)

Church Ceremony

We had our religious ceremony at St. Naum monastery, a charming little church close to my husband's home town of Ohrid, Macedonia.



St. Naum's monastery is more than 1100 years old (built in the early 10th century A.D.). It is set on a rock hill overlooking the lake. It is one of the most beautiful spots in Macedonia, and my favorite place in the world.



In 1980, Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Interesting Invitations - Macedonian Version

Since we decided to have our wedding in the tiny European country of Macedonia, we needed a separate set of invites for our Macedonian guests.

At first we thought we'd print them there, but I wanted to keep the same design (with a few small changes), and Kayla from InklingPaper really helped me with this, even though she didn't speak the language or understand the Macedonian alphabet :)

Interesting Invitations

After searching for 1.5 year for the right invitations, I was happy to discover Kayla's wonderful designs on Etsy. She was amazing to work with - really patient and creative.

And the invitations really fit in with our wedding colors: aqua, red and white.



Also, we used the Love: King and Queen Of Hearts stamps from USPS.

Lovely Butterflies

These beauties were part of the butterfly collection for my wedding.

I made them from card stock, using materials from a local crafts store:

• a lovely butterfly stamp, 
• black embossing powder, 
• embossing tool, 
• white gel pen, and 
• glitter glue.

I used the butterflies as table decorations, favor toppers, wall decorations, around tree branches, flowers, and everywhere where a real butterfly might land.

Handcrafted Wedding

When I first started planning my wedding (about a year and a half ago), I had no idea how incredibly overwhelming all the little decisions and details could be. Luckily, I had my fiance by my side to help me eliminate endless options and focus on what was important for us.

Yes, we wanted a big reception (our first guest count was 300), but we also wanted to keep it simple and heart-felt. Since there was no chance of spending the entire evening talking to our guests (hey, we wanted to dance the night away), we decided to let all the little things around tell our guests how special and welcome they are, how happy we were to have them there.

So, all of our decorations had to tell a story - our story - who we were, as individuals, and as a couple.

Since I'm into paper crafts and I like to work with my hands, I decided to make all the favors myself, as well as all the boutonnières, corsages, invite embellishments, my headpiece, hanging decorations, table names, confetti, wedding crystal tree, and hundreds of little (and large) butterflies and paper flowers.

It wasn't easy (it was hours and hours of hard work, really), but it was absolutely rewarding to walk into my wedding day and see the joy of our guests, sitting at tables that were named after places where my husband and I have been happy, as they opened their little presents, danced under tissue paper spheres, flower balls, handmade butterflies, vellum flowers, lights, music... ah, it was lovely :)

So, the wedding day behind me, I decided to share my ideas here so that future brides can find an inspiration for something unusual, ... and handmade.

Also, I'll post my most recent ideas for Christmas ornaments, paper embellishments, cards, interesting gift ideas and so on.

And, there are many wonderful crafters out there that have inspired me, so I'll post my occasional likes and favs :)

Enjoy..