Lots of brides save their bouquets by having them freeze dried or preserved, and some even just dry them on their own and keep them in a safe place. I knew that 1) I didn't feel like paying hundreds of dollars to save my bouquet (I wasn't in love with it to begin with, but that's a different story) and 2) I'm not a "flowers" kind of girl, so saving the bouquet wasn't too important to me. But I knew I wanted to keep some of the flowers for memories and because, despite the fact that I wasn't too attached to them, I would be upset with myself down the road if I got rid of them.
After we got home from our wedding, I layed out at least one of each of the flowers I had in my bouquet and let them dry over our honeymoon. In August, we went to the beach with Chris and Shannon, and Shannon gave me a photo Christmas ornament to put them in! I kept the white satin ribbon that my bouquet was wrapped in, some of the lace from my dress which was cut off during alterations and added to the bouquet wrap, and also some of the pearl pins that held all of it together. After I had the ornament in hand, I just sort of went at it arranging and rearranging all of the different parts to make this...
I set it aside in a safe place and in the months following summer, I knew I wanted to make some more wedding ornaments that we could have forever!
I've seen all over Pinterest the "wedding invitation ornament" and I decided to tackle that one. Sometimes I can be pretty crafty, so I just kind of made it up as I went along, and I kept getting happier and happier with the result.
I started by gathering one of our extra invitations, all of the paper that we used to mount it, the envelopes we sent them in, the return address labels we used on our RSVP cards, our favor bag, a stamp, and the orange we had hanging around the wrap that held the invitation together. I sat down with my paper cutter, a cake pop stick, and a pen and went for it!
I used the pen and the cake pop stick to curl the strips that I had cut. I used almost all of the text from the invitation itself including our names, my parents' names, the location, and the date and time.
I took 2 of each of the orange, the stamp, and the favor sticker and put them back to back so that the blank backs wouldn't show in the ornament.
The empty ornament! Ready to be filled up.
As I started putting strips in and shaking it up to let them mix, I noticed our names hooked up and wouldn't UN-hook. How cute?!
The finished product! Ready for the tree.
While we were in Bermuda, the first port on our honeymoon, we gathered some sand and seashells (shhh-- don't tell customs!) that I wasn't sure what we were going to do use for... But after making the other ornaments, I decided it needed to go into an ornament as well. I attached some pretty ribbon and a hang tag with the date that we were there to jazz it up.
Here is what our ornaments look like hung up on the pretty tree!
I am so happy with the final results that I'm considering having them out all year long. I'm so glad I saved so many things, because pictures can only do so much. Having actual tangible things from such important events displayed in our home is so special!
And now, a picture of our Christmas tree all decorated and lit up... Complete with 2 different "A" ornaments (I'm thinking of collecting them, "A" is such a great letter!).
I must say, I do love our tree.
