- Nicki Kezerian
It’s official! I thought I would let our loyal readers know that I finally got engaged last Tuesday after dating my now-fiancé (wow that feels weird to say!), Todd, for three years. We went to look at the stars (with a telescope borrowed from his neighbor) at our favorite place in our favorite canyon, and after a while of him acting nervous and fidgety, he got on one knee and asked me. I couldn’t have asked for anything better—it was personal, thoughtful, and just our style.
Almost immediately, I started thinking about the long “to-do” list that I need to finish before my winter wedding—I decided on black, white and gold for my colors, and I was even able to book my dream reception hall last weekend! But more than anything, I want everything possible to be as personal and thoughtful as Todd’s proposal.
And here's my new favorite piece of jewelry!
Of course, when I came to the Paper Crafts office the next day, I started getting excited about all the personal touches I could add to my big day with my own paper crafts. And this is where the loyal readers and contributors come in. After discussing it with the amazingly creative editor, Kelly, we decided that it would be fun (and also helpful for me!) to see what wedding ideas you paper crafters have. Any paper craft related to a wedding would be fun—from invitations and thank-you cards to favors and reception décor! And since no idea is a bad idea, I’ll randomly pick two people to win a wedding-themed clear stamp set. All comments must be received by midnight (MST) on Friday, Sept. 25.
Thanks for all of the contributions you make to Paper Crafts. I’m excited to see whatever ideas and advice are given to me—I need all that I can get!
Your Paper Crafts intern,
Nicki
P.S. Today just happens to be Brandy’s birthday! I’m sure we’ll be posting pictures of her new birthday sign very soon! Happy birthday to one cute momma-to-be!
Congratulations!! I will have to keep an eye on the comments to your post as I’m planning a wedding, too, and would be delighted to hear about everyone’s suggestions! Mine is- instead of real doves, you could make a dove banner. Cut dove shapes out of chipboard,then layer pretty white paper on each, embellish with real or faux olive branches (in the mouth) and string together- maybe with tulle and pearl strands? You could add white feathers to the tails, too.
Can’t wait to see the projects you create!! *Hugs*
Congrats. I have no ideas for you as my wedding was very easy. Good luck
All I can imagine for a wedding is white and embossing. Those look so elegant together for a wedding invitation. Congrats!!!
For the reception you could make a paper banner (you know the kind with the little triangles hanging down) with white paper embossed with added flowers and glitter, that says “Just Married” to hang behind the cake so when you take pictures there will be that pretty banner in the background.
That’s all I’ve got. It’s been too long since my wedding, LOL. I wish I would have been into paper crafts back then, it would have been so much fun.
Congrats!
Congrats. Little fancy nugget boxes would be a nice addition to your place settings. They could be done up with fancy embossing & in your wedding colors & add a little chocolate nugget to each one.
At my local craft store they sell mini Wine glasses in a kit with ribbon and tags. They are so cute! Anyways for a cute table favor you could fill the glasses with candy or whatever and make your own personalized tag to tie with the ribbon aroud the flute or stem.
for my wedding we made little personalized tissue packets. I think I got the instructions from Martha Stewart. They were so cute. we folded the paper, then stamped on the fronts, then stuffed a few mini tissues inside.
Congratulations on your engagement!!! How exciting to use your crafts to enhance your wedding! Idea: felt die cut (maybe snowflake) wrapped about the napkins & utensiles (in place of a napkin ring)…maybe with a rhinestone in the center of one of the snowflakes. Have a wonderful time planning your wedding!!!
Congrats! I’ve helped with a couple of weddings where we’ve made invitations, wedding favors (bags with a stamped and punched thank you tag), church programs, and of course the thank you cards to send out after your wedding. You can even stamp and emboss on your napkins if you want.
Wow Congratulations!! There is so much that you can do to personalize your wedding with Paper crafting.
Here are some of my ideas
1. For Bridesmaid gifts, get some of their favorite lotions, soaps etc, then get some paper, ribbon and an alpha stamp set to create new labels for the items, just wrap the patterned paper around the lotion or soap, then stamp their name onto card stock and place it on top of the pp. Use some pretty ribbon to tie a bow, and maybe attach a tag that says “for you” on it. In the little basket, maybe include a hand made necklace or bracelet.
or
Take a photo of you and your bridesmaid, get a bare wood frame and alter the frame. Maybe stamp your names onto the frame, paint the frame in her favorite colors, add nice ribbon to the back to hang it up with. Make a pretty card to go with the gift. Inside the card, write a heartfelt note.
2. For place cards, make labels in photoshop (easier than stamping if you have a large group), print them out onto heavy cardstock, then for a professional look cut and emboss them with a Spellbinders die.
3. Making your own invitations is a lot of work and its best to have someone do that with a high tech printer or if you are having them letter pressed. However, you could make your own Thank You cards. I suggest putting time aside every weekend starting now, to make a few every weekend. They will be done in no time.
4. Using a Bind it all, make little notebooks to place at each table, have your guests write their favorite memory of you and your husband. If you are really ambitious, put a polaroid camera next to the notebook and adhesive so the guests can take pictures of themselves and adhere it into the notebook next to their memory.
5. For your bridal showers and even your wedding, again with a bind it all, you can make your own sign in books. You can make them to match the theme and colors of your wedding.
okay I will stop at 5 lol…really just think outside of the box you will be surprised how much of you and your craft you will be able to incorporate into your wedding!!
hugs
Latisha
OH Congrats to you darling! Well I am not the one to ask about wedding crafting because I got so worked up w/mine 7 years ago I told my honey hmm what are you doing Friday March 1st how about lets go get married! LOL.. (that was 2002) Back then I wasn’t a crafter really. I KNOW GASP.. but this past May we finally renewed our vows and what I decided to do was send simple invites for our friends to join us.. using vellum and Razzleberry Lemonade (fav. color from SU right now) and added some ribbon and that was it..What advice I could use is to make sure whatever you do make that is has a piece of you that when your guests recieve it they will say oh yes this is so Nicki(yes I know its suppose to be about our loves too but really.. lol) So enjoy and just pick something that you think represents you and take it from there!
Wow…it would be a dream to get married today during the time of unlimited papercrafts. There are so many wonderful ideas out there. I would do matching invites, replies, shower invites, place cards and thank you notes. You could pretty much make everything yourself for your wedding. How much fun would that be!! Congrats and I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
I did lots of papercrafting for my dd’s wedding–you know the usual invites, response cards, tu’s, programs etc. One of my favorite touches was to use gold sealing wax with the two initials interlaced on the envies. That added such an elegant touch.
my favorite idea for favors is to decorate a tin or take-out box (buy it or cut from a die) with ribbon and a cute monogrammed label and have a candy buffet (a table with different candies in jars for the guests to fill their box or tin with).
Congratulations Nicki. The one thing I thought of was you could make your own card box for your guests to put their cards for you and Todd in annd decorate it in your wedding colors. There are wedding fans you could make as favors, matchbox notes, scrolls with a message from you and Todd thanking everyone for their support and attendance. For yourself, you could make a wedding planner book to help you keep track of things.
Janet
Congrats Nicki and Todd! I did my own invites, tu’s and such but OMG..that was 18 yrs ago.!!! And btw..we’re still on our honeymoon!!
I did mine with caligraphy..but with today’s cool tools, I’m sure you could easily find a way to print your invites ( vellum or clear overlays, gold ribbon & black textured cardstock). Table favors are quite the thing too. THere are so many ideas out there … I really liked Julie’s (1st comment) about the doves..that sounds really pretty!
Good luck, time flies, stay focused ( hard to do when you’re so happy) and it will all be perfect!!!
What an exciting time for you – when my niece got married 5 years ago – there wasn’t a big budget and so we did a lot by hand from the shower invites, programs, wedding invitations to even STAMPING THE NAPKINS (turned out very cute)! I also helped a friend do a guest book recently for her sister where we took photos of the engagement couple and put one (maybe 2) on each page of a 12 x 12 album with a few little embellishments and then the guests were to sign at random on those pages. The bride was astounded!
Good luck!
my advice is to devote the most time on items that will not ultimately get thrown in the trash the next day…but rather on things that are keepsakes either for you or for your guests. i learned this with kids. it’s all great and fun to create cute packages and cards but ultimately kids don’t care about those things and so i try to devote my crafting time to items that will be long appreciated after said event.
Congratulations!!! And happy birthday Brandy! (p.s….don’t put me in for the drawing, just had to send my best wishes!!)
congrats!!! may you be blessed with a lifetime of love and happiness
i had a good time crafting everything for our wedding last year. i was able to save many things to use in my wedding scrapbook too! below is a link to my post that shows some of the stuff i made.. not shown are the magnet Save the Dates I made in photoshop and the newsletters i sent out occasionally to the wedding parties, the photos aren’t the best, but maybe you can get some ideas too! we were on a tight budget, so you can always expand on the ideas i used to make them super elegant 
http://army08love.blogspot.com/2009/05/diy-wedding.html
I had an idea for wedding favors. Bake or buy cookies and put into the small clear bags. Design your own placecards & staple them onto the tops of the cookie bags. So you have favor with the placecards all in one!
wow congrats. i would of course say make a wedding album all about how you got to this point so one day you can tell the future how you came together.
Congratulations! I made all of my invitations with vellum, ribbon, cardstock and stamps but we had a very small wedding. You could make (or buy) pillow boxes to put small candies or trinkets into and decorate them with ribbon, patterned paper, gems, Prima flowers even. An easy way to say thanks!
I’m so excited for you! Many blessings to you and your fiance. I’m getting ready to celebrate my 18th wedding anniversary and hope to have many more!
I’ve always wanted to create a mini album for the bride or the wedding party or even the family of different pictures leading up to the glorious day. It could be made personal for each person to have a picture with you and them and then just you and also include some shower pictures, rehearsal dinner pitures, ect…And it could all coordinate with your colors or theme.
It’s all very exciting! Congratulations to you both!
My hubby and I got married out of the country and family did not come. So…we took pictures of the wedding, framed them and added a floral accent to each frame. Those framed wedding pictures then were the table centerpieces at the reception. It was the best idea because the pictures were all different. The reception guests mingled about looking at all the pictures and chatting with the other guests.
Since you and your fiance have some history together, maybe you could frame photos of your relationship and use them as table centerpieces! Just a thought!
Paper lanterns with intricate hand punched or hand cut designs with tiny white lights to illlumninate them..you could also use vellum with designs from white cardstock to create shadow and pattern….intersperse with hand cut butterflies or die cut butterflies dangling from fishing line with icicle lights to finish the look. Imagine dancing surrounded by a circle of them, the only light to illuminate you and your groom!
Congratulations! You guys are a beautiful couple! That’s all a wedding really needs;)
I find great ideas at this site & today’s post just happens to be about wedding invites! http://www.papercrave.com/
Congrats! What a beautiful proposal!
Congrats on your engagement! You two are very cute together! I would say placecards, invitations, thank you’s, the list is endless!
I have just discovered the paper crafts site..great blog and magazine.
Congratulations on your engagement..and what a beautiful place to propose in a canyon..Always remember that its just the two of you that are important and not the endless lists involved in planning a huge wedding ceremony..all the best for the big day..it will go wonderfully
Congrats on your engagement!! I made practically everything for my wedding and had a BLAST doing so! The first idea that popped into my head when I read this was… I don’t like traditional guestbooks, because I know I won’t pull it out and look at it that often. So instead of a guestbook, I made up several 12×12 scrapbook pages with embossed wedding images in a few corners, and asked the guests to please sign and/or leave a message. It was a great way to add a little more personality to the guestbook tradition.
Good luck with everything!
Congratulations to you! I was not into paper crafting when I got married 11 years ago but LOVE it now. I love to make shower, wedding, congratulations cards and could really use a stamp for the occassion!
Enjoy this time & have fun!
Congratulations! What a wonderful, exciting time for you! I did all the “Save the Date” cards, place cards (with different colored die cut daisies popped out to let the wait staff know by color who wanted chicken, fish or vegetarian), favor cards (my daughter and son-in-law opted to make donations to charity in the name of their guests, rather than give favors) and the programs for the wedding. It was so fun to use my cardmaking and craft skills to make it personal which is what my daughter and her fiance wanted. You couldn’t be in a better place for creative ideas!! Keep us posted.
I had a winter wedding 6 years ago with black, ivory and gold as my colors! I got a great workout from a beautiful snowflake stamp I found. I used it with gold ink to make background paper for our invites, I added it to our programs using gold embossing powder for extra dimension.
Another thing I did – instead of having a guest book, I had a basket with pieces of cardstock (with a snowflake punched out of each) sitting by the door and a pile full of archival safe pens. I asked each person who attended the wedding to write us a note of encouragement or wisdom. I put the notes into the scrapbook of our wedding along with photos of the people. It’s one of my greatest treasures of the night!
Congratulations on your engagement! My now-husband and I dated for 3 years before getting engaged too! We made (yes, my husband helped) our wedding invitations and the RSVP cards. It was a lot of work, but also a really special memory because we worked on it together! Enjoy your wedding day….it goes SO fast!
I love small paper boxes decorated in the wedding colors for favors. I immediately starting thinking: white box, black ribbon, and gold ‘stars’. The stars could be punched with gold glittered paper. They would be so gorgeous at a reception sitting by each place setting. If you did 2 stars attached to the bow you could put your initials in the centers. Inisde could be a gold-foiled wrapped fancy chocolate. Or what about a pouch with hot cocoa mix?
I love small paper boxes decorated in the wedding colors for favors. I immediately starting thinking: white box, black ribbon, and gold ‘stars’. The stars could be punched with gold glittered paper. They would be so gorgeous at a reception sitting by each place setting. If you did 2 stars attached to the bow you could put your initials in the centers. Inisde could be a gold-foiled wrapped fancy chocolate. Or what about a pouch with hot cocoa mix?
I love small paper boxes decorated in the wedding colors for favors. I immediately starting thinking: white box, black ribbon, and gold ‘stars’. The stars could be punched with gold glittered paper. They would be so gorgeous at a reception sitting by each place setting. If you did 2 stars attached to the bow you could put your initials in the centers. Inisde could be a gold-foiled wrapped fancy chocolate. Or what about a pouch with hot cocoa mix?
Renee from Me and My Big Ideas just got married and she made amazing party favors… and I won one. She had these gorgeous boxes, made a huge flower for the top and put a recipe booklet of favorite family recipes inside. She also included some spices that the recipes used. Amazingly personal and thoughtful favor. Check it out here: http://livespace.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/08/im-back-and-a-giveaway.html
Congrats! I’m not sure that I have any great ideas!
Congrats! What a personal and great way to get engaged. One of my favorite centerpieces is an elegant branch (painted gold) propped in a glass container with pretty rocks and the branch adorned with accordion paper flowers. It’s elegant, artsy, and just different. Also it’s pretty inexpensive!
Enjoy the wedding planning!
Congratulations! That is wonderful!
Sandra
Congrats Nicki and Todd!!
With all the papercrafting talent out there I’m sure that someone could even make you a paper cake!! Of course chocolate would taste a little better.
I’ve found that making your own wedding stationery saves a lot of money. We went with a simple design and splurged on some Japanese cord for the top. And of course I couldn’t tie the knots!!
Love reading other’s ideas, the list is truly endless!
There are so many areas where you can incorporate paper crafting..from the invites, bulletins, thank yous, etc. Even your placecards and table markers can be made special just by hand making them.
CONGRATS!!!
Congratulations!!! You could make some adorable paper flowers for your flower girls to carry!
Congratulations! Wedding is surely fun and shouldn’t be stressful. Before I was the one who took care of my own wedding from invitations to souvenirs. For the invitation, I bought a bamboo shoot that is already cut diagonally on both sides then I glued the ribbon on the sides and put a nice bow in the middle then roll my invitation and put it inside. I even made a stamp with my name and my hubbys name and a thank you word and stamp all the paper napkin and put on the table. I also decorated my own table card (name) for the guest with a simple ribbon and put in on a beautiful butterfly stand
… Hope I help you a little bit with this one.
take a class fish bowl and decopage off whit tissue paper in torn strips to the bowl. thhn get silk faul leaves and decopage them randemly to the bowl, then take more off white tissue paper and decopage a thin layer over the leaves. after it dries you can but a baterry operated votive candle in for a pretty center piece. if it going to be a fall weddening.
There are so many fun paper crafts for a wedding, but I think my favorites are ceremony programs, favors, and menus. The nice thing about doing it yourself is that you can make everything match down to the tiniest detail.
Best wishes for a lovely wedding and happy marriage!
Oh my goodness, weddings are so fun to plan!! I know this has probably been done over and over, but I love wedding invitiations that include a picture of the bride and groom. I think that a black and white photo would be perfect and you could somehow make the picture the actual invitation!! This would be a personal little touch and also a keepsake for your friends and family! Best of luck and have fun!
Congratulations! You’re going to be such a beautiful bride!
)
Everyone has such great ideas here…the first thing that came to mind were the invitations and the wedding program – so many great products out there now w/ stamps and punches – even letter presses! One thing my cousin did was to create “save-the-date” magnets – so that guests could remember the special day by putting the magnet on their fridge. (We STILL have ours up on our fridge.
Best wishes on this exciting time in your life – so happy for you!