Wedding Project Round-Up – A Retrospective

As of tomorrow, I will officially have been married for 14 days. That means I am 20% of the way to beating out Kim Kardashian’s stellar marital record of 72 days.

Many of my projects, crafts and sewing efforts over the past 6-8 months have been wedding focused. And most of those projects were featured here on this blog. That being said, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and see how these crafts looked in action.

Napkins

For a few months I labored over sewing more than 150 napkins, which you can see the final blog about it here. Of course, I only ended up using about 116 napkins – but the extra 39 napkins were still worth the labor of love.

At the reception the napkins really added the final colorful touch to each place setting.

(c) Ken Kienow

(c) Ken Kienow

(c) Ken Kienow

Another way the napkins were used – as fabric swatches under the floral and decor arrangements.

(c) Ken Kienow

Centerpieces

The centerpieces were some of the items I was most proud of. You can see some of my progress here on an old blog post.

I intend to frame the one I made for our table. I matched our hair colors and color scheme as best as I could.

This tendency to have a red-headed girl goes back to childhood when nothing for kids had red hair (except for Barbie’s dull friend Midge and various villains on Saturday morning cartoons). I felt some pathetic, ill-placed form of discrimination (that is also what happens to you when you grow up in a town of 3000 people). So everything I could draw, color or make, I gave it (cat, person, flower, golf cart) red hair. The tradition continues. And per usual, I digress.

(c) Ken Kienow

The Lucha Libre centerpiece for the groomsmen was the most popular amongst the guests – the photographer snapped about 4 or 5 photos of this one alone.

(c) Ken Kienow

Table Number Flags and Cake Toppers

In making the pennant flag table numbers, which can be seen here, I didn’t really think about how they would be attached or included with the centerpieces. Ends up my florist took care of that worry for me.

They were the perfect touch of shabby chic that each table needed.

(c) Ken Kienow

(c) Ken Kienow

Programs

The programs ended up being a surprise hit of the ceremony!

Cutting out and gluing mini pennant flag garlands to each program was worth the effort and we received a multitude of compliments on them.

A tip of the hat to my Matron of Honor for sitting there next to me for three days the week of the wedding to make this possible.

(c) Ken Kienow

I will post a how-to guide retroactively on this project. Look for it sometime next week.

Pennant Flags

(c) Ken Kienow

When I made my variety of pennant flag garlands – I wasn’t sure exactly how they would be utilized. Ends up, the groom and groomsmen came up with a great solution. Not only is our ceremony nicely framed, but you’d never see how poorly I painted those letters on each fabric flag. The original project is in this Weekend Round-Up.

Flowergirl Dress

Knowing how much of a mover and dancer our flowergirl would be, I created loops on her dress to hold her satiny ribbon sash in place. You can check out the handiwork here.

And look at her motor.

(c) Ken Kienow

She danced and worked that party like a grown-up. I’m proud to say, the dress and sash kept up nicely.

Bean Bags for Corn Hole Game

During the cocktail hour, many of our guests employed the bar, the restrooms, the appetizer station, the bar some more, and the corn hole game. My father made the boards and I sewed the bags – which was mentioned in this post.

(c) Ken Kienow

Various items of decor

I came up with little accents to various items throughout the reception.

Adding some ribbon and signs to a bird cage turned it into a card bin.

(c) Ken Kienow

Creating miniature pennant flag garlands to drape behind the place card frame added some nice dimension.

Using a hot glue gun to glue knots of ribbon to the place cards, as well as using a paper punch gave the place cards a more high-end feel. Who know that buying the Avery Template for business cards would double nicely as place cards for a reception?

(c) Ken Kienow

All the work, the projects, stops by Beverly’s Fabrics, shopping fabric swatches online at Esty, broken sewing machine needles, pricks on the thumb from stitching for hours on end, hot glue gun burns, inhaling spray adhesive and nursing blisters from crafting scissors made for right-handed people – it was all worth it. I hope you enjoyed that chapter of my crafting life as much as I did! On to new projects and adventures!

(c) Ken Kienow