Kits55 DIY and Planning Project Thread

I will start off by saying that I think every single idea that I “came up with†for my wedding was a direct idea or a combination of different ideas from other people on this forum. I swear on my life that this forum SAVED my wedding! I always knew we were going to have a destination wedding but I had no idea that brides could do so many things, be so creative, and have such gorgeous, memorable weddings.

Can I still call this a DIY thread even though I got the ideas and templates from others on the forum I hope so! 

I will give kudos to as many projects as possible, although I may forget someone because my emails are all over the place and some ideas were bookmarked while others I sent to myself via links in random emails. I apologize ahead of time if I forgot to give someone credit. If you see one of your ideas PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take credit for it!! You deserve it!

I thank everyone for their amazing ideas and work! Now I want to make all of my friends have destination weddings so that I can try out other ideas and actually finish ALL of the projects that I wanted to for mine. I procrastinated so long that I ran out of time and had to scrap about 5 ideas. 

Electronic Save the Date

My DIY Save the Dates which weren’t really MY DIY. I have to give credit to SunshineKC08 for creating my entire STD basically. I picked the picture and was trying to get the wording formatted correctly but wasn’t able to do it. I also wanted it to open up in a full page and didn’t know how to do that. So basically, I had an idea but had no clue how to go about making it come about.

Favorite Std

Invitations

My inspiration for these invites came directly from AmyH. I nearly copied her invites exactly as I couldn’t imagine wanting them any other way. I used the template that she recommended in her DIY invitation thread. My fiancé did all of the measuring and cutting and of the paper. I did the silk belly band (a HUGE PITA in case anyone is thinking of using silk) and all of the formatting. All of the black designs are embossed so they’re raised. I had to have the stamps custom made after I spent hours and hours on Photoshop isolating the images from scrapbook paper that I scanned in. The invites were my biggest and probably least pleasant project They didn’t come out exactly as I had hoped, not to mention there are many mistakes on them but I almost didn’t get them out in time so at least I finished them. 

Pre-Travel Brochures and Resort Map

Thank goodness for Morgan! I know I’m not the only on here that thinks this! I’m am grateful that she put her templates on the forum as they saved my brochures! It still took me a long time in Photoshop to get everything done because I didn’t format things ahead of time so I had to borrow a lot of the wording from Morgan and someone else on here. I apologize but I can’t find who else I borrowed wording from but I do still have the template!  If recognize it as your work give yourself a shout out for me! 

I got the resort map from someone on Webshots. She was kind enough to let me add her as a friend and then I was able to get the map. It still wasn’t excellent resolution but I was able to get it to be passable. The map had to be it’s own page because otherwise it too small to see.

more to follow...

Luggage Tags

I loved the thread that Becks started with pictures of her luggage tags. I had NO clue where to buy the luggage tag holders but I knew that I didn’t really want the self laminating ones. I am grateful for her suggestion with different pries listed. I will say that I purchased the same brand as Becks. I think I only used about 40 of the holders tops but within that 40 I had four that just ripped right down the side seam upon trying to get the card in. So it’s not the best quality out there but it was definitely good enough for mine. Many of guests used them which I thought was awesome. We used two different images, and sent one per person. I also loved using the fuchsia ribbon since fuchsia was one of our colors. The inserts that I used for the tags were a special size (I wanted them to fit exactly so they are a tiny bit bigger than business cards). I would have used Vistaprint but didn’t have the time to wait for shipping.

Welcome Books

OK, this idea totally goes to MelanieS. She started a thread with pictures and templates for a welcome book for her daughter’s wedding. It is an amazing idea and I even some guests crying while they read mine. Again, I basically took the templates and re-did everything to personalize it for my resort and guests. I did not do the Sudoku because I changed the formatting and it wouldn’t print out right. I just bought Sudoku books at the dollar store instead. My idea for Meet the Guests (I came up with it on my own! Yay!) was a little word find about each guest/couple. No one actually did theirs that I know of but I think most of our guests at least read through them so maybe they had an idea of the other guests’ interests, etc. I also used a funny Spanish phrase translation from Simistar. I loved it even if no one else did!

Unfortunately we only had one left over and I have no idea where it is so there is no picture available.

OOT Coolers and Inserts

Gail and I ordered the coolers from Western Graphics Plus and we dealt with Tom Poyer. I thought the service was very good and they were pretty quick. He did warn me that the imprint area on the front of the cooler was going to be rather small. He had them send me a virtual proof and they had to play around with the image and words a little bit but it came out looking GREAT. If you’re interested in these coolers Gail might still have some for sale! They were $2.39 a piece plus tax, shipping, and set-up fee.

The cooler inserts were also a special size because the size of the ID holder on top of the cooler was fairly long. I wanted them to be as big as possible so that people could read them. Again, this could have been made and ordered for free from Vistaprint. Instead, I had them printed at Kinko’s, not without issue although they did cut them for me for free because of the “issueâ€.

Post Cards-Gracias

I just ordered these from Vistaprint and then we’ll put our DIY return address labels on them. I specifically made the Gracias parasol because I really wanted a cool picture of us with it for our Thank Yous…I’m not entirely happy with the quality of the picture but my photog sent it to me as the “best†one so I’m really afraid to see what the rest of them look like. I actually had to crop the right side of the picture because our photog got his assistant in it. It’s weird because he’s usually pretty good about details like that.

Post Cards-SMB

I ordered these for Vistaprint way a head of time. I didn’t realize that the giant white borders on the sides would also print. I couldn’t just cut them off because of the writing on the back. The writing on the back would then have been cut off. I didn’t re-order them because some friends said they thought it would be OK…by the time I was mired down with all of the other projects I decided to just let it go. I cannot remember who’s idea this was, but of course I got it from someone here on the forum.

Guestbook

I got my guestbook as a combination of ideas from the thread Creative Guestbook Ideas. Originally I had a few different ideas. Luckily some friends pointed out some things that I hadn’t thought of. My first idea has been to buy a book with pictures from the Riviera Maya and have guests sign that. I loved that idea but was afraid to wait to buy that book in Mexico. I thought I might not be able to find the perfect book (it had to be exactly what I envisioned) and I didn’t want to be running around Mexico looking for a book.

My second idea was then to create a giant puzzle. I was going to send a piece or two to each guest. Then they’d all bring their pieces and we would put it together at the reception. I thought it was pretty creative but then a friend pointed out to me that I couldn’t count on all of the guests to bring their pieces…then it wouldn’t have been complete.

The idea that I ended up using worked out well for us. We had pictures from our Save the Date and Engagement photo sessions so that was good. I also used a couple of pictures of our resort to make it even more special. I thin this idea maybe came from the same thread as well.

I had our guestbook made at My Publisher (MyPublisher | Create your own Photo Book with MyPublisher and receive a published hardcover book!). I used Photoshop to fade out all of the pictures. I then typed the words over the faded out picture. It took me FOREVER to figure out how to fade the pictures but once I did everything moved along fairly quickly.

Townie Princess saved my guestbook. I couldn’t think of any good questions while I was creating it in Photoshop. I sent her an email and thank goodness for huge favors…she was sent me an email back very quickly so that I could keep on going. She said that she got the questions from some other websites but I’m grateful that she compiled them for me!

Boutonnières

It took me many months to finally pick a bouquet. I knew I wanted a silk bouquet because I didn’t want any unpleasant surprises with a live bouquet, I wanted to show it off at our AHRs, and I just couldn’t make up my mind in general. I tossed the idea of having either a crystal bouquet or a feather bouquet but they were really expensive. I finally found a bouquet that I fell IN LOVE with. The feathers I had my vendor (Plumerias Wedding Flower Boutique) use in my bouquet I used for my boutonnieres. I purchased some beads from Beadaholique (I think). I purchased the wire from a local beading store. I made these at about 9:30 pm, only 6 hours before we left for the airport for Cancun. I was extremely rushed and stressed out so I didn’t get to wrap ribbon or green floral tape around the base like I kind of wanted to.

Centerpieces

Oh boy, I don’t even know where to start with this one. This is something else that took me many many months to finally decide. I decided on these centerpieces about 5 days before we left for Cancun. In that time I had to rush the trees/branches. That cost A BUNDLE. I bought the trees at Crystal WeddingTrees & Hanging Crystals for Centerpieces & Decor. I had to order the gold ones in order to have them ship out in time so we bought good quality silver leaf spray paint to make them silver. The crystals in the vase are acrylic “gems†from Hobby Lobby. I also bought some of the very small acrylic diamonds. The little pink lights are pink floralytes. The pink orchids are extra stems that I purchased from the woman who made my bouquet. The crystals were ordered online. The vases were the resorts.

Parasols

I posted about making these parasols in a different thread: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t3273-6

This will open up to the exact page where I posted my instructions on how I made mine.

Return Address Labels

Thank you to JMB0902 for the Address Labels. I love her idea and because my mother in law had a circular punch I knew these would be perfect. We are using them on our Thank You postcards. I also made some from JMB’s templates for the AHR that my in-laws were having us. Instead of the address it said “You’re Invited! May 2, 2009â€. I hope to use this same idea for my sister’s wedding to give it some flair. 

Playing Card Template

This is from MarieSam…another amazing bride on here! I LOVED her template so I just changed the colors and font and voila, a cool template for our card cases!

Color Changing OOT Cups

The idea came from many other brides on here. The cups are fron Pens Promotional, Pens Personalized, Inexpensive Pens Personalized, Cheap Imprinted Pens,Customized Pens and Custom Beer Bottle openers by Vendo Direct.com. The cups went in the OOT bags and I love them! I split the order with other brides on here; I was lucky that so many other brides wanted in!

Programs

I was so divided until 2 days before we left. At first I NEEDED to do them, then not, then yes, then no way (not enough time), then yes, I better make them. So I also had to overnight ship the fans from Oriental Trading. I bought the ribbon from Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. I already had the glue dots. Now, I will say that I would NOT recommend using the organza ribbon as I did. I wanted the satin ribbon but could not find it in the color I wanted. I thought the organza would be pretty and shimmer in the sun so I bought that. Well, the glue dots don’t stick to it! We had so many unraveling by the time we got to Mexico that I had to go through them TWICE to put more glue dots on them. I wasn’t sure how to word the program because I wanted it to be very simple, did not have a lot of room, and basically just took ideas from BDW.

I believe I got the idea from SusanK although I can’t see the pictures from her planning anymore. In my email I have that thread as the one for my inspiration for the programs. If you recognize the formatting as yours please give yourself props! 

I used one of my creations in Photoshop as the background and created the program itself in Microsoft Publisher so I could fill in the white box and play with the wording.

OOT Bag Magnets

These were made from Vistaprint. All I did was add the wording! Phew, one easy project!

No picture available 

Sand Ceremony Frame (kind of Disaster for us)

We’re fairly certain that no one explained what was supposed to be done with the sand frame because they had us pour the sand into a random vase (how were we supposed to get that in the frame??) and DH had to pour his sand into the vase from a Ziploc bag! They put my pink sand in a smaller vase but not his. It was a disaster so now we’re going to have to buy more sand and because we got glue all over the inside of the frame we might have to order a new one of those too.  The resort said it was their first sand ceremony so maybe that’s also why it didn’t run smoothly. No picture available. 

Hair Flower/Feather

Bouquet

Ceremony Set-up

Lounge Furniture for Cocktail Hour

Wow, everything looks like amazing! You can now call yourself a DIY queen Congrats!!!

Everything looked wonderful! Thank you so much for posting this. I am looking forward to when I can start my DIY project. Right now I am just looking for inspiration. Congratulations...I am sure all of your guests appreciated your hard work!

Wow- great job on everything!

wow SUCH an amazing job!!! Im sure your guests loved all the personal touches. Everything turned out so well. Also a huge thanks again for organizing the color changing mugs - i was one of the brides that was in on that order and they were a big hit

Thanks for posting all this!

Wow! Great job on everything. I'm sure your guests loved all of the personal touches. Love the idea about the meet the guest word find. Thanks for sharing!!!!

Everything looks so good. I am so incredibly impressed!