Bride’s Eye View: Wedding Crafting Report – 4 days to go!

Hi again! It’s 4 days until our wedding, and Jamie and I are furiously at work in the Wedding Command Center, also known as two 8-foot tables in our basement covered in scrap paper, burlap remnants, spreadsheets, gift boxes, cocktail napkins, dirty dishes and other casualties of wedding planning.
I wanted to share a couple thrifty and crafty projects from the Wedding Command Center that we’re working to finish by next weekend – our seating card display, and cupcake table design.


(My future husband in our embarrassingly messy basement/Wedding Command Center)

Escort Card Table and Table Names
I grew up in an apple-farming family, so when Rachel found a collection of vintage apple postcards we knew we’d find some way to incorporate them into the wedding. My little sister came up with the ingenious idea to use apples as seating cards, and name the tables after the apple box labels.

Along the way, I also became obsessed with burlap. Why? Burlap fulfills the coastal-organic-barbeque theme nicely, and is conveniently an inexpensive wedding trend at about $3/yard at most fabric stores. In addition to making burlap table runners and a burlap photo backdrop (more on those projects later), Rachel suggested we pin the postcards to a burlap backdrop on the seating card table, to help people identify their tables.


Voila! Décor and helpful directional signage in one fell swoop!

To assemble this project, I purchased a 2’x3’ piece of foam core for $3, a $7 gold table-top easel, and pearl-head pushpins for $4 at Michael’s. I previously purchased a bolt of burlap on Craigslist, but this project would require about 2 yards (or $8) worth of burlap. My postcards totaled around $20.
I wrapped the burlap over the foam core, tucking the edges in on the backside and securing the fabric with the pearl-head pushpins like so -



Sitting on my $7 gold easel from Michael’s, the table name display looks pretty from the back and front. Not too bad for a $42 do-it-yourself project!


These postcards coordinate nicely with our wedding colors and design concept, but this idea can be incorporated into many other events. I’ve seen so many wedding blogs feature vintage postcard projects lately, so I’m sure there’s many a bride out there using them in some fashion.

Cupcake Stands
Next up was my cupcake display table. Jamie and I chose cupcakes instead of a traditional cake to save money and hassle, and I’m so glad we did. Look at the fun project our cupcakes led to - 



Can you believe Rachel and I scored all these beautiful cake stands for a total of $100? The secret behind our frugal design is that we made 6 of the 9 stands in the picture. Can you guess which ones? The other 3 were purchased on Ebay and Craigslist.



We assembled the cake stands by purchasing $50 of serving plates, ashtrays and parfait cups at Goodwill. Playing around with different combinations of bases and plates led to us this design. We glued them together with Super Glue, the adhesive suggested by the professionals at our local Home Depot. You can find more detailed instructions along with a materials list in this previous Finch & Thistle post - http://finchandthistle.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-vintage-cake-platters.html

My baker was so taken with this idea that she’s offered to purchase our handiwork after the wedding, but I’m not sure I can part with such a fun project!