DIY Wedding in Philadelphia
Well, we’re back in Boston after four awesome days in Palm Beach. And, I’m kind of re-thinking this whole “we should move to Boston” thing because of the four seasons. Which basically translates to really cold, pretty wet days. It’s probably just a Palm Beach hangover but still. Leaving the sun was a tad challenging. Anyway, I’m padding the blow with this absolutely darling wedding sent our way by the beautiful bride, Jasmin, and her groom, Steve…who were all about the sweet but totally elegant DIY details. Love, love, love this little gem and I know you will too. Click here to see even more!
click here to see the gallery and all of the super cute DIY details!
To wed or to elope? As self described scrooges…Steve and I wrestled with this question for a few months! In the end, we decided that it was important that we celebrate the day with our family and close friends. Once we went down this path, well, I went from “Monique Lhuillier who?” to owning a Monique Lhuillier dress! I obsessed about every detail of our wedding and spent my nights lurking on websites such as SMP looking for inspiration. Now that the planning is over, I’d like to contribute back to future brides!
There were several DIY components to our wedding; the most notable were all our paper items, our flowers, and our origami name cardholders. We DIY’ed as much as we could, not only because it was budget friendly but also because I had a lot of fun doing it. We knew we wanted to play with color and decided on green, yellow, and gray as our color palette. Our event ended up more yellow and gray with a touch of green but it definitely helped to have a color palette from the get-go so as not to be led astray by all the beautiful color choices out there!
The paper products were one area where we decided to save (splurging instead on our venue, caterer, and photographer). Three invaluable items which I used over and over again: my Xyron machine, paper cutter, and Fiskar corner punch. With an architect and a marketing professional as two of my three bridesmaids, I did not lack for creative talent and they helped create our bird logo. This was one of the best decisions to nail down early in the process because we were able to “brand” our wedding from start to finish in a consistent manner, from our website to our programs and menus.
My favorite component of the invitations was the envelopes! I had a crazy idea of sewing glassine inner envelopes with green thread around the borders. I purchased a $40 sewing machine on Amazon to test my project. The effect was pretty but I discovered that I couldn’t sew a straight line if my life depended on it. Using a pencil to lightly outline where to sew seemed to do the trick! I also fell in love with envelope liners; they were so easy to do and did not require a template or kit. If there’s only one DIY project that you do, this is it because it gave our invites extra oomph without taking up a lot of time.
Flowers…yes, logistically you CAN do your own flowers! And no formal training is required (I am a geeky number cruncher by profession)! I knew I wanted to have tons of flowers without breaking the bank but I was on the fence about this, worrying it would take away from time with friends and family. But with careful planning, I banged out table arrangements for 13 tables, 4 bouquets, 11 boutonnieres, and 4 corsages while still spending quality time with our wedding party. The trick is to have your flowers delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday assuming you have a Saturday wedding. You can then prepare your arrangements on Wednesday and Thursday (although corsages are best done on the day of). My other secret ingredients were the use of corsage picks to provide the bouts with a water source, a flower sealant spray to lock in moisture, and Oasis flower adhesive for the corsages. Make sure to do a couple of practice runs a few months or weeks before your wedding.
Our actual wedding day was so much fun and we felt so grateful that we could spend it with our closest friends and family. We chose to take pictures before our ceremony so that we could max out time with our guests. Our first look was just so precious; I’ll remember it always!Seeing each other before the ceremony had the added benefit of calming my nerves so that I was able to remember actually walking down the aisle! We drafted our own vows and we were able to inject some meaningful readings and humor into our ceremony. And the speeches during dinner…well, they were one of my favorite moments that day. We were touched by all the speeches (best man, matron of honor, my brother, Steve, and Steve’s mom), words cannot even describe.
For the Philly and NYC brides, I totally have to give a shout out to some of my vendors who made a big difference during the wedding planning process. Our photographers Margaret and Max from Unusually Fine, located in NYC, took amazing pictures and made us feel so comfortable in front of the camera. Stephanie at Robert Ryan Catering rocked! She took care of so many details and was always a step ahead. Tasha and Christina at cHill Weddings were our day-of coordinators; it was the best money I spent to make sure all went well during our wedding. Ann Hamilton, also in NYC was absolutely wonderful to work with and transformed my $250 dress (that’s right, you didn’t misread, I bought a Monique Lhuillier dress for $250 on sale!) into the vision I had in my head.
I had a lot of fun planning my wedding and I wish you ladies the same as you plan your special day!
Photography: Unusually Fine / Coordinator: cHill Weddings / Catering: Robert Ryan Catering / Alterations: Ann Hamilton / Bridesmaid Dresses: Jenny Yoo / Groom & Groomsmen Tuxes: Mens Wearhouse / Online Flowers: 2GRoses / Cupcakes: Brown Bettys / Makeup: Aleksandra Ambrozy / Hair: Calista Brides / String Quartet: Anamaria Achitei, Musicali Strings / DJ: Kim Walsh / Custom Hand Lettering: GalaFont / Custom Table Numbers: Blue Mountain Crafts / Hair flower: Twigs & Honey / Cupcake Toppers: Naked Peggies
Jenny Yoo is a member of our Look Book. For more information on how members are chosen, click here.
32 Comments about “DIY Wedding in Philadelphia”
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What a lovely and inspiring event! Congrats to Jasmin & Steve.
this wedding is so simply and beautiful. where did it take place? i did not see the venue marked anywhere and i love the way that dining room looked
Those shoes make me swoon!
hsr-- the venue is Appleford Estate in Villanova, PA... its really lovely! The tables are set up on a tented patio.
Love those little cupcake-plate-toppers! SO cute!
I love the origami cranes as name cardholders! I really wanted to include the origami crane into my wedding next year and was trying to figure out a way to do it and I think the way this bride did it, makes complete sense! I'm going to have to "borrow" that idea ;)
Love the details, the yellow, and the lush green-ness of the venue are so lovely all together!
hi andrea - the origami idea is well worth recycling...i "borrowed" the idea from an SMP post a year ago ;) i made 120 cranes and it probably took me about a week to complete (couple hours a night in front of the tv). it was something our guests really seemed to like and it was a nice personal touch. good luck!
Where did the bride get a $250 Lhuillier dress? I'd love to know, thanks!
hi ivy - ah, yes, that was due to a lot of good luck and one of my bridesmaid's good eye for value and taste. it was at the last call neiman marcus in the jersey gardens mall. we were told that they weren't going to be carrying wedding dresses anymore...which is why it was so heavily discounted. i would have totally passed on it if i were on my own but cynthia, my bridesmaid, grabbed it off the rack and insisted i try it on. once on, we knew it was the one! the fabric alone was worth more than what they were selling it for. we found a great seamstress (ann hamilton) who really made it shine.
This is where I'm having my wedding next May! Viewing these pictures is making me very giddy. I love the choices you made, especially the invitations and shoes! I hope my wedding is as beautiful as yours! :)
hi adie - congrats on your upcoming wedding! i had so much fun planning it that i kinda wish i could do it over again. haha. we were married may 22 and temperature wise it was perfect, not too hot or cold. but we did get some rain. we had hoped to have dinner under the stars on the grassy area but it was not to be. which is why appleford worked out so great b/c they have the tented area that is included in the price. 2 quick recommendations...if you are having a string quartet, i would recommend that they bring a small speaker to amplify the music. b/c appleford is so open, we thought the live music didn't carry as well as we would have liked...we put alot of time into selecting rock music that would be played by our string quartet (think guns n roses and metallica) but it wasn't quite as dramatic as we were hoping for i think mainly b/c of the amplification. the 2nd thing i would recommend is to have your afterparty planned in advance! since appleford has a hard close at 10pm and the evening goes by so fast, you will definitely want to have some additional time to spend with your friends and family on what i'm sure will be a magical night for you. good luck!
hi jasmin! what a lovely wedding! would love more insight on how (logistically) you made the flowers work for you - i've been fretting over that recently as i do want to do my own flowers as well (and am not formally trained either!). a flower sealant spray? an oasis flower adhesive? what are these terms you speak of?? :)
Where are the table runners from? I love them! What is the fabric made of? In the photos it looks matte which you usually don't see with a pintuck fabric.
I have to know where these bridesmaid dresses are from! They are so pretty and simple!
Your love looks gorgeous, Jasmin! You made our job easy. We should get a drink (diet coke) sometime. Cheers!
hi tina - the bridesmaid dresses are from jenny yoo. they have great wedding dresses also!
http://jennyyoo.com/eastern_shangtung17.html
hi beth - the table runners were actually rented so i don't have any intel on that. sorry!
hi keiko! it is totally doable! i am a philly transplant so all of our family and our guests were coming from out of town...so i basically did most of the work since everyone was getting in on thurs/fri (we had a sat wedding). however, i had about 100 guests and i think any more than that, would have been too much work to do for 1 single person... if you have helpers that are close by, then it definitely shouldn't be a problem. i guess the other caveat is that our arrangements and bouquets were simple. but if you like that look, then it works, saves you $$ and you can order more flowers to boot since you're saving on the cost of a florist. i would also highly recommend doing a trial run or two; this allows you to test out how many flowers you'll need and whether you like the look of your selected flowers together (for instance, i found that i needed more flowers than i orig anticipated since ranunculus have smaller heads than say peonies or even roses; and i ended nixing salal leaf greenery and pom poms). dont be discouraged, during trial, it took me 3-4 tries to get my bouquet exactly how i wanted it. i almost gave up after the 1st try! i wrote down how many flowers i used for the sample bouquet and centerpiece and figured out how many flowers to order for the big day.
sorry, something went awry...here's the rest of it:
below are some links which i thought were extremely useful (you can purchase the supplies from several different sources on the internet btw):
the easiest/best way i found to do corsages is to glue them (saves time on wiring)! but you'll have to do this fri night or sat morning since the flowers wont have a water source and you definitely want them looking fresh!
wedding-flowers-and-reception-ideas.com/how-to-make-a-wrist-corsage.html
tells you why corsage pics are important
wedding-flowers-and-reception-ideas.com/make-your-own-corsages.html
why flower sealant:
wedding-flowers-and-reception-ideas.com/fresh-flower-wedding-bouquets.html
anything i missed or if you have any other questions, let me know. best of luck!!!
Hi Jasmin!
Do you think you could go more in depth with what you did with your invites, I really love them, the simplicity of them yet they go so well with the program and menu! I would love to know where you got everything, especially the envelope liners!
hi joey! the invites were surprisingly easy enough to execute; but i did go through a process of trial and error to figure out sizes, margins, fonts, etc. two things i'd advise are 1) start with your envelopes first since that'll determine the size of everything else; and 2) test print everything! if you can, i would pdf your invitation so that if you print on different computers, the margins wont shift around on you and your fonts don't change (in the event you're using any special fonts).
i used paper presentation for most of my paper supplies. they also have a website: www.paperpresentation.com. i decided to use A7 envelopes since i didn't want to spend more than the standard postage... A7 envelopes are 5.25" x 7.25", so the invites themselves needed to be 5" x 7". also, i don't know what kind of printer you have access to but i had problems printing on paper that was more than 80-100lbs. and even the 80-100lb paper i'd have to manually feed 1 by 1. so my solution was to print on 30lb paper and back it onto cover weight paper. easy peasy ;) well, it was once i figured that part out. this is where the xyron machine came in handy since it basically made a sticker of the 30lb paper that i pasted onto the coverweight paper.
envelope liners...super easy to do if you're using A7 envelopes (i used 4bar envelopes for my thank you cards and noticed that the liners weren't quite as easy to execute this time around since i had to make a template). for A7, cut simple 5" x 5" squares. fold in the middle to create a triangle. line up the crease of the liner inside your envelope; i found it a perfect fit each and every time! glue the top of your liner "triangle" and paste onto inside of flap. and you're done!
i used fun paper to create my liners...some websites i liked:
www.papermojo.com
www.paperstudio.com
Outstanding wedding. The colors are gorgeous and the location is so breathtaking! I love the use of lanterns in the reception. It looks so great.
Hi jasmin! Beautiful wedding, and Congrats!!! Would love to know where you got your table numbers.. I've been looking for sone exactly like that!! Solid silver numbers that stand on their own.... Thanks!!!
hi caroline - thanks for the kind comments :) the numbers were purchased on etsy from blue mountain crafts. you can specify what font you want. they are made out of mdf board and arrive in a standard brown color. we used spray paint primer and gray spray paint to customize the color. good luck with your wedding!
I think I am in love....Where can I get those amazing yellow flats?
This is a very minor question, but I'm absolutely in love with your flower arrangements. I'm curious to know where you found your vases, especially on a DIY budget! SO glad I found the pictures of your wedding and tips on doing the flowers yourself. Also, where did you keep your flower arrangements since you did them a few days in advance?
sometimes simplicity makes things look more beautiful and that's actually it is seen in these pictures. such a beautiful wedding pictures. I'll make sure that my wedding is also the same as like this one. lovely
I want one of those cupcakes!!! 8-)
I LOVE the shoes! Our son is getting married next January, and I already have my dress (a light grey) and could you tell me, PLEASE, where I could fun these color of shoes... would be a PERFECT go-together! THANKS.