Making it Naturally N’awlins!

When I first started blogging on Weddingbee, I mentioned a few New Orleans traditions that I wanted to bring to the wedding. Well, I kept to my word! These are a couple of last minute DIY projects that I think will add some fun to the party!

For our second line dance, I decided to save a little money and glam up our umbrellas myself. They are pretty pricey for someone else to do them, and it’s amazing what some hot glue and a little bit of feathers can do! I’m pretty sure I’m leaving them as is, but who knows, I might add some sparkle and more flair to them later!

I found these white and black umbrellas at Accent Annex, which is a pretty popular Mardi Gras throws store in the New Orleans area. They were a steal for $4 vs. the $30+ completed umbrellas at local bridal shops! I also purchased white and black boas to glue to the edge of the umbrellas with hot glue. At the most, this project took me 15 minutes. Easy peasy!

Mr. Ballet Flat had a problem with the boa on his at first, but I mentioned that this was just for 3-4 minutes and it’s New Orleans…just let it happen!

Doesn’t this make you want to dance?

Another New Orleans tradition is the cake pulls. Of course, I could have just bought a set, but why not make it even MORE New Orleans. So, I went uptown on Magazine Street (a popular shopping district in New Orleans) and bought New Orleans charms at the Bead Shop (they do not have a website to order from, sorry!)

Check out my stash!

Since my charms were unique, that would mean there were NO meanings for them whatsoever. So, I improvised with meanings I found on the internet. (Who really knows what the charms are supposed to mean anyway?)

Steamboat – life of adventure and travel
Mardi Gras Mask - life of mystery and spontaneity
Fleur de Lis – prosperity and wealth
Party Girl in Glass – life of the party
Crawfish- red hot romance
Bride & Groom – next to wed
Saxophone – life of harmony
Tiger (think LSU, not New Orleans) – strength and triumph
Streetcar – desire and passion
Drunk Guy on a Light Pole – loves a fun night life

I basically took these charms and put a jump ring on them myself. Then, I strung some satin thin ribbon on them. The total cost for 10 cake pulls? About $15. Not too shabby, right?

How are you incorporating your hometown traditions in your wedding?

Hobby Lobby is my new friend!

I have been constantly thinking about the ring bearer’s pillow for the ceremony. They are so pricey in my opinion at stores and also on Etsy. I was starting to lose hope, and was thinking the impossible: DIY. I say impossible, because I haven’t sewn a day in my life on a machine. I love DIY but I wasn’t about to take on a brand new craft two months before the wedding!!

Last night, I went to Hobby Lobby to get another scrapbooking marker for our DIY invites, which will be sent out MONDAY! Really excited about that! I was walking towards the scrapbooking and saw a HUGE 50% off ALL bridal items. So, of course, being the thrifty girl I am (remember me loving clearances?) I checked it out.

By the way, this looks to be a nation-wide Hobby Lobby sale until Saturday, as seen in the ad here. Also, here’s a 40% off Hobby Lobby coupon if you wanted to get something extra for the crafty person in you!

Anyway, after looking around the two aisles, I found a ring bearer pillow! It looks very similar to this, except the ribbon is satin!

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The price? $19.99 $9.99!!!!

Also, I’ve been wanting to DIY an LSU colored wire beaded cake server set, like this one here.

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I found one in a local cooking store, but the set was $80. I thought that I could totally DIY that for less, and of course, Hobby Lobby had a plain server set for $9.99 $5! I can’t wait to figure this little craft out!

Have you found any great sales lately for your wedding?

The (Gocco) Party Continues!

This time it was a party of one to make this task, but I will say that it was pretty darn easy. I borrowed the idea of Gocco’ing napkins from Mrs. Cupcake who got the idea from Mrs. Cream Puff. The only difference is that I don’t think we have fun facts, like they did. I’m a little lame . So, I designed some generic napkins and printed them on teal and brown napkins.

Something I noticed on the Gocco, is lint gets stuck to the sticky pad, so for you to keep the stickiness going, you need to wipe the lint off. A little bit of screen cleaner can do this for you. In fact, if you ever notice that your sticky pad needs to be stickier like it originally was, just use a little bit of screen cleaner and a paper towel.

I also used Cupcake’s tip of holding down part of the napkin while pressing the ink onto the napkin. The napkin will stick to the screen and could smear if you aren’t careful when pulling off the napkin. So, holding a piece of the napkin with your hand before pulling the screen back up will help immensely!

Without further ado, here are our cocktail napkins!

Pardon the paint sprays. I was having trouble with Photoshop and wanted to share!!

Up next with the Gocco party? THE INVITES!! I’m so excited to send them out this week!!

What type of DIY projects are you working on right now with  your planning?

More Martha Love…

As I mentioned in my last post, I love Martha Stewart. My absolute favorite wedding magazine is her Weddings magazine. She has wonderful inspiration pictures and most importantly, DIY projects.

I’m definitely incorporating a few of her projects into the wedding. Call me crazy but I LOVE crafts!

Ribbon Flowers

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I’m planning on making quite a few of these into a throw away bouquet. It would be a funky personal touch to a traditional part of the reception. I bought TONS of teal and brown patterned ribbon at Michael’s on sale for $1. Gotta love the sales!

Program Pockets


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This idea would work so well for me. I have leftover pocketfold paper that could house the programs. However, I wonder if the church would allow me to do this, and if people would even notice that they are on the ends of the pew, rather than by the door of the church. I could gocco on little fleur de lis on the pocket too. Yet another use for the Gocco, right?

Pressed Bouquet
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I love this idea of making a keepsake for after the wedding. I’m super excited about the wedding flowers, and would love to keep parts of it with me for a long time. I’d have to ask my mom or sister to start it for me, however, since I will be out of town right after the reception.

Are you using any of Martha’s ideas in your wedding?

Shall we dance?

You know the saying, dance like no one is watching? Well, uhm, I only dance when no one is watching. It’s really awkward to think that 150 of our closest family and friends are going to watch Mr. Ballet Flat and I *gulp* dance. My idea of a dance is the ever-so-popular sprinkler, but I know that’s not necessarily the most traditional thing to do.

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See? P-diddy even does it. So, it’s GOTTA be cool, right?

Anyway, I’m a little nervous about this dance. So much, that I encouraged Mr. Ballet Flat and I to apply for TLC’s Rock the Reception. I haven’t gotten a call or email yet, but hey, there’s still hope for us right? Right?!

I know there’s not a chance in heck that they will call us, so I’m going to need some courage to just appear on the big day. I’m hoping the adrenaline and copious amounts of happiness helps!

As far as music goes, Mr. Ballet Flat and I are torn between two songs, it seems (last we talked about it, at least).

Here’s what I like:

Here’s what he likes:

In case this doesn’t work, click here. Savage Garden wants to cause problems, I guess.

Well, I kind of like his too, but I’m not sure what to think. This Aerosmith song comes from my favorite movie EVER (Armageddon). I played that tape (yep, good ol’ VHS) so much it’s now broken.

So, hive, what do you think? Should I bend to Mr. Ballet Flat’s liking or push for some Steven Tyler?

Was choosing your first dance song easy?

Some (favor) food for thought…

I absolutely love the idea of little favors for guests. Some people opt not to do them, but I see this as a fun opportunity to bring some kitchen love in. Everyone loves food, right? So, it was an obvious decision to do an edible favor. However, we are still undecided on what exactly we are doing for favors. I do have some fun ideas, but I’m afraid there may not be enough time in my day.

Idea #1 (at least for kids): (Kind of) home-made lollipops

These are SUPER simple to make. I make these for kids whenever I volunteer in classrooms, and are always a hit! I found these on This Mama Cooks! blog.

Here are the directions for these fun lollipops!

* 8 Reynolds® FunShapes™ Stars or Hearts Baking Cups (I’ve found these at Dollar Tree with 24 to a pack in both shapes)
* 8 (6-inch) Lollipop sticks (found at any craft store near cake decorating or candy making)
* 40 Jolly Ranchers

Preheat oven to 300°F. Place Reynolds FunShapes Stars and/or Hearts Baking Cups on a cookie sheet with sides.

Make a hole in one side of each of the baking cups near the bottom of the cups with a toothpick. Insert the lollipop sticks from the inside of the cup through the hole made with the toothpick and push it to the outside leaving at least 1 inch inside the cup.

Arrange 5 candies in each baking cup, placing one candy over the lollipop stick. (It does not need to lay flat, it will melt around the stick.)

Bake 5 to 6 minutes (it took my oven 9 minutes but watch them carefully) or until candy is melted. Carefully remove baking cups from cookie sheet onto a tray to cool; immediately twirl stick to completely coat with candy. Prop sticks with handle of a wooden spoon if necessary to keep the sticks straight in baking cup while lollipop cools.

Remove lollipops from baking cups by tearing foil and peeling away from lollipops.

I think this would be great for kids (especially with heart shapes, who could resist right?). You can make these ahead too, because they don’t go bad quickly.

Idea #2: Home-made Truffles

I made Oreo Truffles when asking my friends and sisters to be my bridesmaids. I also make them as gifts around the holidays, and these are a hit too! These have an easy recipe, but a little tedious and time consuming to form into truffles. However, buying a truffle mold makes it a LOT easier in this instance, rather than forming into balls and dipping.

The truffles read B My (squiggle pattern on third truffle) B M ? Cheesy, I know…but I couldn’t resist, really!

Here are the directions for these (found in Beantown Baker’s food blog):

* 1 bag Oreos (crushed either by food processor or in a Ziploc with a rolling pin)
* 14 oz. condensed milk
* Chocolate candy melts or almond bark

Mix the oreos and condensed milk together, and roll into small balls…I used a half teaspoon measurement as guidance for this…then freeze the oreo balls (used wax paper b/t layers of balls to prevent sticking).

Melt the chocolate in a glass or plastic bowl according to the packages instructions. Make sure the bowl has NO WATER in it because that will mess up the chocolate’s texture, making it very difficult to work with.  Then, dip in melted white chocolate or dark chocolate (to make the chocolate more shiny, I sprayed a tiny bit of veggie oil in the bowl with the chocolate).

I used a mold for this for pretty purposes…so for a mold, you “paint” the shell of the mold with chocolate first, freeze for like a minute or so, then take out the mold, put the ball in the mold, then pour in chocolate to fill the rest of the truffle mold and allow to set in the freezer for another 2 minutes, and then they pop out!

If you want to dip instead, just dip the balls in chocolate with a toothpick and allow them to cool on parchment (with the toothpick taken out).

For writing, I used a plastic cake decorator bag and microwaved the chocolate in the bag at 30 sec intervals, squeezing the chocolate around the bag after every interval, on the defrost setting until smooth and melted. Then snip a small corner off and write. Be careful though…the bag can be hot!

Idea #3: Cupcake Pops

While I haven’t made these myself (yet), they have become quite known to the food bloggers out there, and I think I’m going to attempt these for the holidays. I just love this idea, made famous by Bakerella.

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Aren’t they just ADORABLE?

Here are the instructions for these beauties. Linky.

Are any of you brides thinking about giving some kitchen love to your wedding favors?

Some New Orleans traditions…

I love New Orleans. I’ve lived here all my life (with the exception of 5 years at LSU), but it never grows old. After Katrina hit, a lot of things slowed down or halted in life. I remember staring at the TV the day after, and looking for my house in the aerial videos they were panning to all day. My house was fine. As for my relatives, not so much. I remember how depressing it was to drive through the Lake area, near the levee breach, only to see cars wrapped around poles, homes demolished and wow, the smell. I’ll never forget that moldy smell that resonated MONTHS after the storm hit those areas.

While New Orleans has been beaten pretty hard, I remember that next February. Mardi Gras… Some of the krewes were cancelled or stripped way down, due to the lack of funds or even standard floats suffering major water damage. However, just seeing Mardi Gras parades made it feel like home again. I’m not talking Bourbon Street Mardi Gras here, I’m talking St. Charles Avenue, parade central.

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Ahh…the King’s Jester of the Mardi Gras Day Rex Parade. This is what I know to be the face of Mardi Gras, and I think I teared up a little when I saw this float for the first time after Katrina hit.

Mr. Ballet Flat knows about how much I love New Orleans and want to incorporate New Orleans into our wedding. While I’m not necessarily having a Mardi Gras parade at my wedding, there are some of the fun things I want to have in the wedding to remind everyone of where we are having this celebration .

The Second Line dance

I’m sure some of you are like, what is a second line? New Orleans natives know about this. Here’s a little history on the second line, which revolves around the idea of a jazz funeral. Jazz funerals are funeral processions with music, some of which are still held to this day.

From Wikipedia: The “first line” of a  jazz funeral consisted of the people who were an integral part of the ceremony, such as the members of the club or krewe, or family and friends of the deceased. Usually brightly coloured items such as beads and feathers were offered to the “second line”. The “second line” originally referred to people who were attracted to the music. Traditionally such people would follow behind the “first line.”

In New Orleans, however, second lines are held in events other than funerals. You will see them at Mardi Gras, balls, and in my case, weddings. It’s really just a simple dance where you grab a napkin or handkerchief and just dance around in a line waving the napkin in the air. Brides and grooms traditionally wave around decorated umbrellas too. It’s fun, I promise! We are going to GOCCO some fun second line napkins, and I’m thinking of GOCCO’ing a funny second line tutorial on them, just to make the locals laugh and help the out of towners understand what is going on! Check out a dance I found on Youtube at a wedding!

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King Cake

While this isn’t set in stone, I really hope Mr. Ballet Flat goes for this idea he thought of. For the groom’s cake, we would (hopefully) have a tiered king cake. While King Cake is traditionally for Mardi Gras season, I think the out of towners would enjoy this New Orleans favorite. It’s basically a big cinnamon roll, but SO good! I have bad king cake withdrawals too, so I REALLY hope Mr. Ballet Flat settles on this! Here’s a little history on the king cake

From kingcake.com: The main part of the celebration was the baking of a King’s Cake to honor the three Kings. The cakes were made circular to portray the circular route used by the kings to get to the Christ Child, which was taken to confuse King Herod who was trying to follow the wise men so he could kill the Christ Child. In these early King Cakes a bean, pea, or coin was hidden inside the cake. The person who got the hidden piece was declared King for the day or was said to have good luck in the coming year.

In Louisiana, Twelfth Night also signifies the beginning of the carnival season which ends with Mardi Gras Day. The bean, pea and the coin have been replaced by a small plastic baby to symbolize the Christ Child.

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Cake Pulls

I love this idea. This is a Victorian tradition that is in almost every New Orleans wedding I’ve attended. Basically, charms are attached to satin ribbons and are placed inside of part of the wedding cake. The ribbons are basically hanging out of the cake, and before the cake is cut, the female attendants gather around the cake and each pull a charm. Each charm has a meaning, from next to be married to old maid. (However, I’m not using an old maid charm. I really don’t like that idea) It’s really a fun idea, and I can’t wait to see what everyone pulls!

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Are you having any local traditions in your wedding?

The hidden deal breaker…

I wanted our wedding to be held in my hometown of Destrehan so badly. I really did, but man, the sticker shock of a reception made this very difficult! I knew for a fact where the ceremony would be. I told Mr. Ballet Flat from day one that we had to get married in St. Charles Borromeo Church. I would move the date around as much as possible to get this venue, because this is the church I’ve always gone to. It’s a beautiful, traditional church with a crazy long aisle to walk down. What more is there to ask for, right?

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That was easy enough. Now, to find a place for our reception. It would be so easy to have the reception in Destrehan as well or as close as possible. So, I had a couple choices in mind.

We wanted our reception to be the buffet style with passed hors d’oeurves rather than a sit-down meal. We wanted the food to be standard of Louisiana cuisine, since hey, honestly, you go to New Orleans, you have expectations of a great bowl of jambalaya, right?

A couple months before we were engaged, I was obsessed enough to call Ormond Country Club in Destrehan for prices. The price was $22/pp, which was amazing, but there were no Louisiana dishes offered. With the price though, we were pretty set on that place. However, they just had renovations and hired a new wedding planner. With that, the price jumped…a lot! The package was now $32/pp!!

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Another location I vaguely heard about was in the next town over, where my father grew up. It was called La Maison Magnolia and the location was just exquisite. This was a more all-inclusive reception venue with much more food variety (including quite a few Louisiana dishes) at $33/pp. This was fair, since it included so much besides food (cake, dj, duty officer). However, it was a little on the small side for our 150 guests.

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I thought this would be easy…but here comes what killed the deal. The G word, yeah, you brides know all about it. GRATUITY! 18% of whatever the reception cost was tacked right on top of that already sticker shocking price! Wow…this was going to kill the budget.

I couldn’t afford for our wedding to be in New Orleans, unfortunately (after much research, trust me), so it seemed that these two reception locations were really our only hope!

So, what’s a girl to do? I vented to my mom. My mom mentioned the place where they (mom and dad) had their reception. I thought, well, it’s in Metairie, which is the city RIGHT next to New Orleans. It’s about 15 miles away from Destrehan, so it’s not too too far. However, most of the Metairie venues were way pricier than my hometown options. Well, Mr. Ballet Flat was coming in town that weekend, and we decided, why not? Let’s give this place a visit, because we needed to make a decision about this soon!

I have to thank my mom. This place was $28/pp, all-inclusive like the $33/pp venue we looked at, had good food variety (including jambalaya and gumbo) and had a HUGE ballroom! So far, so good. However, this venue almost made me cry out of happiness when the coordinator said, “Tax and gratuity included.” I present to you, the Jefferson Orleans North!

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So, Mr. Ballet Flat and I decided to go to the car and think this out a bit. Really, a few minutes later, we were back inside the venue, signing the dotted line. This felt like the perfect place to have our reception, so we knew we couldn’t wait. We had our venue. Thanks Mom (again) so much!

Have your parents really helped influence you on a pretty big wedding decision?

Everything is BUDGET! (Part 1 of 5)

I’m trying a 5-part daily series this week, as a challenge to myself to blog more on here. The sole reason? To help me sort over my budget…

As many brides are, I’m on a strict budget. Before Joey proposed to me, I knew that we would be paying for the majority of this wedding. In my head, being a Disney nerd, I always imagined the perfect princess wedding in Cinderella’s castle with fireworks, beautiful cake, my guests having a wonderful time, etc.

Being rational, however, I knew that being from New Orleans, there was NO WAY a destination wedding, much less a Disney wedding would happen on our paychecks. Joey and I make great salaries for our age, but we are avid savers and don’t want to break the bank for our big day.

Needless to say, being from New Orleans, there is a lot of character in the city that we could incorporate into our wedding. I decided, based on my yearly wages and spending, that I was able to easily save $800/month. The budget would be strict, and my days at Target were numbered. Given that I had 13 months to save for this (since most places require the money a month before the day started), I had $10,400 to potentially work with. I made it an even $10,000 for the sole reason that I could have wiggle room in my savings to go towards furniture, house stuff, etc.

The first thing I did was book my church, the church I grew up in. Being a parishioner, we booked this place for a cool $250. The church is beautiful…long aisle, tons of seating and it’s not modern by any means (I wanted an old fashioned, woodsy, beautiful stained glass windows church), so it just adds some great character to the wedding. Not many churches look like this anymore! I’d post interior pics but they aren’t online…I don’t blame the church…churches aren’t meant to be advertised…

With my potential $10,000, I then purchased my first wedding planner binder off Amazon. I love this little planner, but after a month of being engaged, the binder was too small, so I went to Office Depot with empty ink cartridges from work (to get $3 off coupons). Yes, I’m THAT frugal. I bought a 2″ binder for 72 cents total and transferred everything to it. My planning binder is now a nice arm weight. It’s great but HEAVY and full of every magazine clipping, DIY inspiration, budget tips, etc. that I could FIND. It also holds the contracts and the not-so-fun reminders of the cost of our wedding.

After getting a planner, I went to various websites on how to divide the money best. Most places said the reception venue should be 40-50% of the budget. Easy enough…I have $5000 at the most to work with. This was scary…New Orleans area weddings were proving to be on average $35pp and up (plus tax and grat, which would be another $1500). So essentially we could invite 100 people. What a SQUEEZE that would be…both of our sides of the IMMEDIATE family (talking parent’s siblings and their kids) would be all we could invite, if even that. It was a sad reality. My mom (thank GOD!) mentioned her old reception hall the morning we were supposed to see 3 halls. We had an impromptu appointment, and their prices were $29pp INCLUDING grat and tax! (and cake, dj, duty officer…extras that weren’t included in other halls) We had to book…and we are so glad we did. We can invite 150 guests (kids under 10 counting really as 1/2 guest) for $4800 TOTAL. Beautiful!

We had the biggest chunk of our day figured out…the PLACE(s)!!

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow

Mmmm…cake (and traditions)

Joey and I went to Haydel’s Bakery on Saturday morning (around 9:30am). Just a pointer for NOLA brides, go 9:30am or earlier….after we got there, the place got PACKED. However, the service there was impeccable. We met with a woman named Tonya, and she was extremely knowledgable and understanding in seeing our view for a wedding cake. We brought a picture of of cake I saw online for inspiration, as well as our palette colors. These two things helped the consultation go extremely smoothly! The only thing we lingered on was filling flavors..hehehe!

Tonya brought out a plate of six pieces of cake. They were all almond wedding cake but with different flavors. A small part of me wished they brought out some red velvet and cream cheese…mmm…but for a cake that was pretty much paid for with our reception, (I’ll explain pretty much in a bit) I wasn’t about to complain. Lemon buttercream, Chocolate buttercream, buttercream, Raspberry, Strawberry and Pineapple were the choices…and they were all pretty darn good!

With our reception of 150 guests, our reception was paying for a 3 tier wedding cake (really 2 tiers for the guests). We wanted to give our guests 3 choices of cake and not take chances in case people want to try them all, so we were offered to buy another tier for $35 dollars extra. Not too bad..so we added that!

Our flavors, after much going back and forth…and a lot of compromise…here is the lineup from the bottom up. Pineapple, Strawberry, Chocolate buttercream, and for our first anniversary cake yumminess, Strawberry .

Note: Joey HATES chocolate, so he really did compromise for me on this one…thanks babe!

Another small note, the pictured cake below is fondant. I do cake decorating for a hobby, and while fondant is more smooth looking, it’s terribly nasty and expensive (like $20 in fondant at the store to cover two 8″ cakes). Your guests will peel it off the cake, and seriously, why not just do buttercream and make things easier on the guests(and cheaper for you!)

So, here is the cake that we showed Haydel’s for inspiration. Another thing that wasn’t free is the fleur de lis on the side…these are little molded sugar cubes, which we are having “painted” in a bronze color. These were $25 for all the fleur de lis needed for the cake…a little high IMO, but whatever . The beading will be in teal, and the flowers will either be a mini bouquet of mine or an LSU inspired DIY cake topper. We really haven’t decided yet. We have time

Another idea I really didn’t give much thought to was the cake pulls. Haydel’s wanted to charge us $10 per charm (hells to the no!)….and then $25 for a new trend, a bracelet with the charm. The lightbulb in my little head went off…I could DIY these bracelets! Yet…another…project hehehe . I don’t think I want the thimble charm in there…I want happy charms…old maid (I’ve gotten it before) is soooo blah!

So…..now I just need to figure out….how many cake pulls am I doing? Should I restrict this to the bridal party or branch out to all the single gals there?