Chraela,  In My Life,  Lifestyle,  Wedding

Chraela Wedding Planning: One Month!!!

Happy new year!!

I know – two wedding posts in a row! If it seems like all I write about now is the wedding, that’s because all I think about now is the wedding. I hope you had a great holiday and lovely new years’ celebration. While January 1 represents a lot of things for many people, for us it means that we are only ONE MONTH away from the wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are equal parts stressed and excited. Well, honestly I’m actually probably feeling more excited than stressed, but rest assured I am definitely still stressed haha

We are down to the wire now and I honestly can’t believe how close we are. A month from today we will be getting ready to be MARRIED and it’s just unbelievable. Here’s what we’ve been working hard on the last month or so:

Programs/Paper Products

Now that we are getting closer to the actual day I started to think about programs and signs. I saw a lot of things on Etsy that I liked – we really wanted to go for that infographic style that’s informative, easy to read, and fun.

However, while both of those choices are beautiful (1 and 2) none of the ones on Etsy had exactly what we wanted…so I decided to just do them myself! And I am in love with how they turned out!! Personal details obviously blurred but here’s what I came up with, front and back:

I basically just took whatever aspects I liked of the ones other people have done and made it our own. It honestly didn’t take that long and I’m glad I did them myself instead of paying for them haha. I think they look so amazing and I can’t wait to see them in person!!

Once I started on that I kind of got on a kick of making things so I decided to make our seating cards and table numbers as well. I am SO excited about these and how well they turned out! We have known for a while that we wanted the seating cards to be our main “touch” of Disney in the reception. We don’t want it to be overboard and have people feel like they’re at a Disney wedding, but it would be weird not to at least acknowledge that Disney is in fact how we met in the first place. I wrote about Disney wedding inspiration at length here and in it I mentioned the idea of using fastpasses in wedding decor:

These two examples are both from Etsy as well (1, 2). We loved the idea of using FP as table theming – but once again I wanted to have complete creative control over how they looked, and we worried about how the different colors of the FP would clash with our existing decor. Like, I love some of these rides as much as the next person, but some of the colors just were not going to work with our purple/grey color scheme. So…I hopped back into Photoshop and came up with my own version!

fp

I created my own template using the FP images I found online, the barcodes on the side, and real fastpasses I had collected. Then I used Photoshop to change the tone of all of them to the same purple used in the program. Some of them looked great with this method, while some beloved favs had to be sacrificed from the lineup because they really didn’t work in purple (RIP Enchanted Tiki Room & Splash Mountain).

fp2

The hardest part was honestly finding the font. I used images of real fastpasses and plugged them into a bunch of “what is this font?” websites haha. The answer I came up with was the font OCR-B. At first they were all recommending OCR-A but after meticulously comparing the letters of the real FP, I decided that B was closer and downloaded that one. Once I had the correct font instead of a placeholder it really all came together and started to look like a real fastpass!!

I am absolutely IN LOVE with these and I think our guests are going to love them too! All we have to do is fill them in with the guests’ names once all the RSVPs come in and then get them printed. I can’t wait to see them in person!

The last thing I decided to make on my designing kick was some simple cards and signs. These were much easier and didn’t require as much work since it was pretty much just picking a pretty font and typing everything out. Here’s some of the signs I made that we’ll print out nice and big to put up around the reception:

I found that font and really fell in love with it – I think it’s perfect for signs like this as it is relatively easy to read and really pretty too! This one is called Carolyna Black.

It was really important to us to have an “unplugged” sign so our ceremony photos wouldn’t have tons of people holding up their own phones and cameras in the audience. We took to Etsy to find some inspiration for the wording and I’m happy with how it turned out:

unplgg

Even though we are having a no phones rule during the ceremony, we want our guests to take as many photos as they want during the reception, especially since we will have a super cool photobooth! I also made this one to share our hashtag so everyone knows to use it when they post photos:

hashtag

I am so happy with each of these signs and I can’t wait to put them to use at the wedding!!

Flowers

Last month I was low key panicking about the fact that we hadn’t done ANYTHING with flowers yet, but don’t worry! We have officially decided on using sola flowers, which are made out of a thin wood. We’ve started the process of dying them to our colors and the results look great so far!!

I think they look beautiful and it’s such a relief to know that we will have flowers haha. My mom is working hard on making them and doing the bouquets and boutonnieres, and I know they are going to turn out amazing!!

Etsy Shopping Spree

I’ve already mentioned Etsy probably 500 times collectively in these posts, but I truly don’t know how people have gotten married before Etsy existed. Where did you buy anything?? Where did you rip ideas from?? I’ve made more Etsy orders than I can count in the past few weeks and as they’ve all been arriving, visiting the mailbox has been a fun surprise every day! Here’s some of the fun things I’ve gotten recently:

robes

Robes for me, my bridesmaids, and my mom and sisters! we will wear these while getting ready on the day of so we all look cute and put together for our getting ready photos. I chose the floral ones for my bridesmaids and had them each pick a different color of their choice. I think they look so beautiful together!! The white floral one is mine and I chose to have it embroidered with my new last name. For my sisters, I got solid black ones with lacy sleeves and they both have said how excited they are to get them and wear them again after the wedding haha. For my mom, I got one in navy with embroidery that says “Mom” and it turned out super cute. The seller I got all of them from is LoveyDoveyDesignsByUs and I seriously could not be happier – all the robes are beautiful and great quality and they shipped out LITERALLY the day after I ordered. I am so excited to give them to everyone!

cake

Next is our cake topper! We searched for a long time for the perfect cake topper and just couldn’t decide. We didn’t know if we wanted something cutesy or themed, or just something simple, or a personalized one. We decided to go simple but personalized and decided on this one by the shop alphabetcanvas. It’s cute, simple, matches our colors and is personalized with our name. It was also inexpensive which of course was important to us too! This shop was amazing as well – they sent us a digital proof within hours of ordering (despite the fact that we ordered at like 11pm) and sent it out as soon as we approved it.

shirts

This isn’t a necessity obviously but it’s super cute and I can’t wait to wear them! I’ve had these matching shirts in my Etsy favorites for legit years, since before we even were engaged. We aren’t normally matching shirt people, but I figured if we’re gonna do it the one time we can get away with it is probably during our honeymoon. So I got them to wear for our first day in Disneyland the day after our wedding! They’re super nice quality and I think they’re gonna be really cute in photos too. The shop also sells Mr./Mr. and Mrs./Mrs. sets too which I think is really cool!

ears

Continuing on the honeymoon items train, I mentioned in my Disney wedding post that I wanted to find the perfect pair of bride ears. I decided on this pair of white iridescent ears from the shop OctostacheCrafts. They’re really well made and look and feel like a pair of authentic Disney ears. I plan to have my mom add a veil to them so they look even more bridal for me to wear leading up to and after the wedding!!

I don’t have photos of these two but I also ordered my two hair accessories – my headband and veil!! If you’ll remember from the last post, my hair trial was recently and I’m going for something like the right pic:

And these are the ones I ordered:

Headband on the left and veil on the right! They look even more beautiful in person – the headband is SO SPARKLY and the simple veil will really pull everything together I think. Both items are from the same shop, USABride, which I really loved as well!

teddy

I am SO EXCITED about this one haha…if you follow me (or Teddy) anywhere else you’ll have already seen that his wedding attire has arrived!! We got him this super cute collar with a bow tie for him to wear as he walks down the aisle. It’s really comfortable for him and not too tight or anything, and he doesn’t seem to mind wearing it at all. I think he might steal the show honestly!!

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Saving the best for last…my wedding band came in and it is ABSOLUTELY stunning!! I had it custom made by this shop and I could not be more pleased with how it turned out. It’s beautiful, fits perfectly, and is exactly what I wanted. I debated posting a pic here but I couldn’t resist trying it on and I figured that most people won’t be able to really see it on the day of anyway, so here you go haha

Odds & Ends

I know this post was basically just us buying stuff but that’s just the things that are easiest to show in photo form haha. In the past month we have also:

  • had SO much fun tracking RSVPs – like I said in the last post we are using a site called RSVPify to do it online and it’s so easy and fun to see them come rolling in. We have so far 75 acceptances and only 34 people who haven’t yet responded! And today’s officially one month out which means it’s time to start bugging people who haven’t responded yet…if you’re reading this and haven’t responded to your invite yet, consider this your warning haha
  • made hotel and flight reservations for our family and close friends. My siblings decided it was a good idea to wait until pretty much the last minute to book anything…but it’s all sorted now so I feel much better about that haha
  • breathed a sigh of relief because I officially have all the days off of work for both the wedding and honeymoon!! This may seem like a small victory but for those who have worked at Disney, you will know that this is not an easy feat sometimes. Luckily, we’ve worked it all out and I’ll have a full 2 and a half weeks off for everything and I am SO excited!!!

What’s Next?

We are really in the home stretch now!! Here’s what’s on the agenda for the next month:

  • Finish flowers!!
  • Buy all the last bits and pieces – gifts for each other is a big one (I have mine picked out, hehehe)
  • Final alterations appointments, and grooming appointment for Teddy
  • Get final counts to the venue, and check in to touch base with all vendors!
  • Getting everything printed, made, finalized, finished basically!

It really is starting to feel more exciting than stressful and I can’t believe one month from today it will all be happening. I know it’s going to get stressful but at the end of the day I’m more excited than anything and I can’t wait for the big day!!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for reading as always!! Not much longer to go now <3

xo, Kaela

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