Woody Winter Wedding

If you're a child of nature and you've always dreamed of an outdoors wedding with flowers and garlands, a winter wedding may sound like a death knell for your dreams of partying au naturale (and I don't mean nude!) with friends and family. But wait, there's plenty of nature to be had in the winter, you just have to change your perspective!

Berries and greens make a festive bouquet that is inexpensive and unique, and pine cones and wooden letters can be sprayed with clear coat to seal them or edged with gold and silver paint to make them a shimmering accent! Greenery abounds this season, and you can get it cheap and easy from Christmas Tree lots, grocery stores, and even chain stores like Michael's and Target if you're OK with faux flowers.

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Keep up with these items and more on my Winter Wedding Pinboard on Pinterest!

It IS easy being Green!

Kermit the frog's got nuthin' on us these days! Eco Friendly weddings are all the rage, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I think there are so many ways to do a Green wedding and they range from the smallest of gestures to the grandest-- same goes for the price!

I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about our wedding, but since it's the only one I've planned from start to finish it's getting center stage yet again!

Ours was small and on a tight budget, so we used recyclable plates, flatware and cups and served drinks in cans and glass bottles that could be recycled. Sure it isn't a lot, but it's enough to show an effort and enough to make your guests feel like they're involved in the process. Here are a few other ideas we used that were simple, easy, and effective!

The favors were in unwaxed paper boxes (which meant they could be recycled) and the extras were donated as stocking stuffers for a local women's shelter.

Nobody minded the prosecco in a plastic cup! I think most of my friends were happy to not have to worry about dropping their glass, and there wasn't a large load of dishes to be done at the end of one little toast!

Since our city lets us recycle EVERYTHING, even the foil wrappers on the cupcakes were recycled! (check with your local recycling plant to see what they'll take)

We didn't have a lot to spend on flowers, so we splurged on sustainably farmed roses and just had smaller arrangements and a few stems in bud vases on the tables for the reception. The smaller bouquets were easy to carry and handle (I've seen bridal bouquets that weighed 20lb!) and didn't leave us feeling like we'd wasted flowers at the end of the day. 

Getcha hur did Pt. 2

OK, so really we have to talk about hair for a second. If you're like me, you spend most of your life with the "easy" option-- generally speaking, a ponytail. If you have something big going on, why not toss the usual style, forget torturing it with the straightener and go get a blowout? It's the difference from your hair looking like this...

And looking like this...

Taking the time to either style your hair yourself or the $30 to go up to the salon and have them do it could be that big of a difference. Clearly, this isn't a huge difference, but to me it's big enough. When you have an event, whether it's your best friend's wedding or a Christmas party you've been going to for the last 13 years, you don't want to look back at the pictures and wince just a little. That's what the 80's/early 90's were for, they're good at it, so from now on I'm saving my winces for the over-sized star print sweater from third grade.

Need a good blowout? Check out fresche in Oakhurst (yes, yes, I'm their biggest fan EVER) where a basic blowout starts at $25 which isn't much to pay a few times a year for your favorite events! They also do makeup sessions AND makeup lessons for those of us who only ever khol'd our eyes for the stage and feel a little like Cleopatra sometimes.