Wedding Attire Etiquette for Guests

I just felt the need to say something about this publicly.

Maybe not everyone knows it?

I actually didn't know it at first until my own fiance (then, boyfriend) asked me about not being able to wear white to a wedding.  So I looked it up on the internet and of course, everyone says it's just courteous.

So now, as a guest myself, I never go to a wedding wearing a white dress... or anything that might appear white (cream, beige, light gray, etc).  I even have dresses that aren't all white (they have a black sash), but I still just avoid wearing them to weddings.  Why try (or appear) to upstage the bride on her wedding day?

Even if the bride doesn't mind, someone gets offended, whether it's the mother-of-the-bride or someone else in the family.  Just don't do it!  You have plenty of other dresses in your closet.  Don't pick the white one.

So I can only HOPE... the guests at my wedding understand this etiquette.  Ladies... I ask that you please do not wear a white dress or a red ao dai on my wedding day.  And I hope you take this advice to other weddings you attend to in the future as well (unless if it's distinctly a black and white event, then that's okay).  Other brides will greatly appreciate it.

And just so it's not just me saying this, see what other brides are saying about it on weddingbee.

Silk Petals Alternative

So I was making more pillow covers, since I found some more 18" square pillows on the cheap for $2 at some 98cent bargain store near my gym (and I had extra fabric still too).

Remember these?

In the middle of cutting fabric from my purple leafy taffeta fabric... I realized I was cutting off and throwing away a LOT of these leaves... then I thought... WHY am I throwing them away?  They kind of make for interesting table confetti, don't they?

I have about a ziploc bag full of these now.  For the bride who doesn't need a lot of silk rose petals, this is a pretty good idea to save money and try to make use of ALL your materials. 

And we don't need a lot of rose petals for our wedding.  I definitely won't do any rose petals on the aisle floor of the ceremony venue (cuz who wants to clean ALL THAT up?!).  So I just need some petals for a little extra added decor as table confetti for the escort card table and maybe the cake table, kinda like below:

 

Then add some diamond confetti and I think I'm set!

BUT rose petals do look a bit better (curled edges and whatnot).  I still don't know if I want to use the taffeta leaves.  I can always get cheap rose petals on eBay.

FYI, 500 silk rose petals on eBay from China go for $3.99, free shipping.  And 1000 clear diamond confetti (10mm size) goes for $9.99 + free ship, also from China.  It's not much cost to give me peace of mind to make sure I have enough rose petals for everything!  It is a 300+ person wedding after all!  

DIY Digital Save-the-Dates

I only started to see the trend with save-the-dates a couple years ago.  I wonder how long this stuff has been going on with mailing out postcard save-the-dates and whatnot.  But seriously, when I first thought of it, I just thought it was kinda ridiculous to spend extra money on postage.  I'm already spending a buttload of money on stamps to mail out the actual invitation itself, why would I even want to spend MORE money to tell people to keep their calendars open on my wedding date 6 months in advance?

Sure, the save-the-date (STD) notion is a good idea.  BUT spending money on the postage to send them out isn't a good idea in my book (sorry, I'm just not that old-fashioned and I don't think any of the wedding invitees would care).  In this day and age, I find nothing wrong with doing things digital and doing it over the internet. 

That being said... I decided our STDs would be a digital photo of some sort and we'd email it out to all our friends!  Solves the problem of postage!  Woohoo!

I'll be honest and say that I wasn't completely original with the idea of our STDs.  But apparently the people on Pinterest thought it was unique!  Ha!  Woopsie. 

And of course, if you know me and Mat, then you'd understand the significance of photobooths to us (first kiss, proposal... yadda yadda yadda).

This idea seemed easy enough:
- Camera?  I'm a photographer, duh.  check!
- Chalkboard? Bought it at JoAnn's Fabrics.  check!
- Chalk?  Got some chalk from a friend who's a teacher.  (Thanks MyLinh!)  check!
- Backdrop?  That would require some creativity, but... check!






So we had to be a bit innovative for our backdrop.  We were doing this at Mat's house.  I wanted something bold like the red curtain in the above example.  But we didn't have any red curtains.  I actually wanted to use a dark brown curtain that I have in my room, but I forgot to bring it.  So we had to work with what we had.

Debated on using plantation shutters as a backdrop.  But it was too boring or plain to me.  Especially with the white.

After browsing around Mat's house for potential backdrops... looking at his mom's bedroom curtains (which had a pattern), to his sisters' bedroom walls painted red and another blue... we decided on Mat's shower curtain:

Hm yes... I think this will work!

But Mat's shower curtain is a bit neutral.  Soooo... we'll contrast it with his sister's red leather wingback chair!  Put it all together and we've got our makeshift photo studio!

All this was set up in Mat's sister's room... while she out.  Haha, she didn't know we were doing this until we posted pictures later.

This would have been a lot easier if I had a remote for my camera.  But no remote, so it was a lot of going back and forth with the camera set on timer.  Here are a few okay pictures from our photo shoot that we didn't use:

So with a little bit of editing, cropping, and more photoshopping... we got this for our digital STD!

And I also love Mat for his spirit.  After our photo shoot was done, I said, "Okay!  Torture over!"

He said, "Torture?  But that was fun!"

Ah, I love him.


I've already started to send out the STD as well.  And we've gotten back some replies from friends saying this is the cutest thing ever.  Haha... it's funny, but I'm glad I'm doing something a little different from the norm (even though our idea wasn't really that original).  But it's unique if our guests haven't seen it!

Cost of this project: less than $3 (for the chalkboard)