Coral Neckties

If you haven't already noticed, our wedding colors are navy and coral.  Surprisingly, it was my Dad who suggested the navy suits (we found great ones at Macy's) with white shirts!  And they look awesome!  However, good luck finding a decent coral tie.

the boys suit shopping (that tie was too bubble gum pink)

Apparently the men's fashion industry hasn't heard that coral is a hot color this year, because coral ties are nowhere to be found!  They make plenty of wonderful true-pink, red, and orange ties in a variety of shades, weaves, and prints, but no coral.

We eventually got lucky and found a handful that work, but I thought I'd share my hard-sought collection of options with you (seriously, we're talking 10+ hours of google searching for these babies).  Because I had to order 10 ties (one groom, six groomsmen, two Dads, and a ring bearer), I kept my budget under $25 per tie.  Lucky for you, most of them are even less than that!  My best advice: skip the mall, go straight to google, and order/return until you find what works!

Don't take the following the wrong way.  All the ties were great, they just didn't match the other colors we had chosen.


"Coral" ties that were a bit on the red side for us:

1) Coral Tie, Continental Gifts and Scarves,  $9.99

2) Bright Candy Red Men's Tie, Bows N Ties, $9.90

3) French Rose Pink Silk Ties, Etsy, $18.95

4) Solid Mens Tie Watermelon Red, Bows N Ties, $9.90

"Coral" ties that were a bit too orange:

1) Herringbone Coral, The Tie Bar, $15.00

2) Solid Tangerine Orange Necktie, Bows N Ties, $9.90

3) Solid Satin Coral, The Tie Bar, $15.00

"Coral" ties that were too bubblegum pink:

1) Solid Satin Wild Pink, The Tie Bar, $15.00

2) Ribber Stripe Pink, The Tie Bar, $15.00

"Coral" tie that was too peachy:

1) Solid Color Necktie in Coral Pink, Bows N Ties, $9.90

Coral ties with patterns (Tommy decided he liked the solid ones better):

1) Silk micro-check striped tie in Coral, Haspel on Ideeli, $14.99
2) Coral Red Designer Tie with Blue Flowers, Bows N Ties, $24.90

And finally, solid coral ties!  These colors all looked super with our other wedding choices.

1) Coral Rose Silk Solid Color Necktie, Solid Color Neckties, $12.95

2) Silk Classic Red Orange Tie and Hanky, Megasuits, $28.99

3) Coral Rose Solid Color Necktie, Solid Color Neckties, $4.95

4) Hot Pink Men's Solid Necktie, The Perfect Necktie, $14.95

My home experience:

These are four returns (red #2, orange #1 and #3, peach) and our final choice (coral #3)

Also, I have some great things to say about some of the companies (and they don't even know it!):

• Solid Color Neckties has a fabulous selection with the lowest prices.  They even offer matching pocket squares, boy's ties, long ties, you name it.  And fast shipping!  Ultimately, this is who we went with.
• The Tie Bar also has great prices and selection, with skinny, long, and boys ties (and they come recommended by our most fashionable groomsman).
• That said, I didn't have a bad experience with any of them, so happy shopping!

You might also like these posts:
DIY Coral and Navy Wedding
Coral Bridesmaid Dresses
Coral Wedding Bouquets

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!

If you've been wondering why loads of new posts have been coming out lately, it's because my Mom took time out of her life, flew all the way across the country, and spent 10 days with me to accompany me to 3 showers, finish 11 wedding projects, work on my wedding gown (that she designed and is making), and even do some fun touristy stuff.

Mom and Lucky dog at the Azalea forest, National Arboretum

As far as DIY weddings go, my Mom has been honing her skills her entire life, through her custom wedding gown business, costuming, quilting, deal scavenging, and more!  I think we've successfully put all her amazing skills to the test this year, the best one being infinite patience!

Mom working on the belt for my wedding ensemble

I really, truly don't think I could have made it through the past year without her love and support.  She's a wonderful Mom and a fantastic friend.  I'm the luckiest daughter in the world :)

I love you, Mom!!!

My surprise shower was a surprise for her, too!

Flower Girl Hair Bows

When my Mom made the flower girl dresses, she had loads of good-size scraps left over.  Hello project!!!

Using the Clover Flower Frills size small flower template, I folded and cut out ten sets of petals, stringing them onto thread after finishing each one.  Once I had ten on the thread, I bunched them all together and secured them with several more stitches.

I sewed a few loops around the center of the barrette to anchor the flower.  I also attached a petal to each end of the barrette to made sure the metal would be covered when they wear it.

The cost for this project was just a package of 3" barrettes.  The fabric was leftover from the flower girl dresses, and the thread I already had!  Cheap, easy, and adorable.

These match the dresses and baskets, and will be super cute on wedding day!

Update: They were adorable on wedding day!

Bonnie Projects

Save-a-Guest Kit

Due to my klutzy predisposition, I often find myself in need of a band-aid, safety pin, or Tide pen.  To "save" my guests from all manners of issues, I put together a "save-a-guest" kit for each of the bathrooms at my reception.

For the men's kit, I had:

• Tide pen
• Lint roller
• Band-aids
• Antacids
• Ibuprofen
• Floss
• Safety pins
• Breath mints

For the women's kit, I had all the above items, as well as:

• Nail files
• Bobby pins
• Tampons
• Pads/panty liners

It took me maybe ten minutes to assemble these, with a total cost of $20.  I got the medicines, lint roller, and baskets from Dollar Tree.  The band-aids, safety pins, and ladies products were from my house.  Cute nail files from the dollar spot at Target, mints and Tide pens from the grocery (with a coupon), and the floss I begged from my dentist!  Ta da!

And hey, if nobody uses these things, I can always keep them in my purse as a "save-a-Bonnie" kit.

Bonnie Projects

Cake Topper Pennants

Call them pennants or bunting, but those adorable triangles on strings are quite the hit this year!  We're having them all over our wedding, so naturally they need to be on our wedding cake, too!

My grandmother gifted us this sweet cake topper by Willow Tree.  I can't wait to see it on our cake AND in our home after the wedding!  Thus, requirement #1 is for the pennants to be tall enough not to interfere with the couple.

Many people use wood skewers (for grilling) as the poles for the pennants, but mine required more height so I used a super narrow wooden dowel I found at Lowe's for 50 cents.  I painted them silver to add some pizazz.

Next I made the strings for the pennants.  I twisted together embroidery floss in our wedding colors to make it extra cute.  String, yarn, or ribbon would also work quite nicely.

I then chose a number of papers from my scrapbooking stash that coordinate with the life-size pennants at our wedding.  I could have used the same fabrics, but the paper seemed easier.  I made a triangle template from a plastic folder so they'd all be the same.

I folded the paper to create the top edge of the triangles.  Then I traced the triangle using my template, and cut the non-folded sides.

Once I had a good collection of pennants, I arranged them on the strings.

Using one of my new favorite products, I applied adhesive and glued the two sides together, trapping the string in the fold at the top.

This super-cute project took about an hour and cost me 50 cents out of pocket (because I already had all the other stuff).  But if you absolutely had to buy everything from scratch, I would guess $10 at the most including adhesive, embroidery floss, and pretty papers.

I chose not to do this, but you could easily print or stick letters on your pennants to say "I Do", "Just Married", or even "Happy Birthday".  I can't wait to make more of these DIY cake topper pennants for other parties!  Happy crafting!

Bonnie Projects

Flower Girl Baskets (with exchangable liners)

Pre-Easter, I was so certain that I would be able to walk into any store and find pretty white baskets that would be perfect for my flower girls.  That wasn't the case.  They were all too big, too small, too colorful, or the handles were too long.  Eventually I settled on the one you see above.

Obviously the Easter theme had to go, so I decided to replace the liners with ones that match my wedding.  The cool thing about these particular baskets is that replacing the liners is super simple (and cheap), so I can pass them along to friends or family for their weddings (I'm looking at you, future sister-in-law!).

My Mom disassembled the original basket liners, and laid them on top of the new fabric as a pattern.

She used their same sewing technique, where inside the basket the seams would be hidden, and they would also be hidden on the outside, once the excess was folded around the basket.  This means that not all the seams are on the "right" side of the fabric.  I know.  Confusing.

To make the edges cute and allow them to tie, she used coordinating grosgrain ribbon.

I used a the Clover Flower Frills size medium template and scraps from the flower girl dresses to make the cloth carnations.  It's SUPER easy, and a great use of scraps!  You simply fold the template around the fabric, snip the end, and thread it onto a string. 

Add 10-15 of these, then stitch them all together.  Fluff it up a little, and you've got a cute flower!

It took us about two hours to make five complete baskets.  We used fabric from the bolt we got for the flower girl dresses, and I used scraps from cutting out the dresses to make the flowers.  

I can't wait to see those cutie pie flower girls with their baskets!

Bonnie Projects

Ring Bearer Pillow with Flower

DIY ring bearer pillow with fabric flower, made from wedding dress scraps

Until yesterday, I've been highly uninspired about ring bearer pillows.  All I had in mind was making it from scraps from my wedding dress.  I did some light googling, and came across this DIY silk flower ring pillow tutorial by Martha Stewart.  Perfect!

I started by cutting the fabric for the pillow - 9.5" squares of the lace, taffeta, and lining leftover from making my wedding dress.  I used the lining simply to make it stronger.  I put the right sides together, and sewed around the edges and all four corners, leaving about 3" unsewn so I could stuff the pillow.  I trimmed the edges off in the inside so that the corners would look better when turned right side out.

Then I stuffed the pillow.  My Mom suggests using small tufts of stuffing, and shredding it before you insert it.  She says otherwise it'll look lumpy.  No lumpy ring bearer pillows allowed!

Next I sewed through the center of the pillow to give it some dimension.

On to the fabric flower!  I cut long ovals from taffeta scraps from my dress.  The large ones were 10" long and about 4.5" wide.  The next size down were 8" long by 3.5" wide.  The tutorial I was using as my guide suggested using four sizes altogether, but once I started putting it all together, I found I didn't need those extra layers, likely because my fabric does a nice job of being poufy.

I cut 4 ovals of each size, for a total of 8 ovals.

The edges were unraveling a bit, so I held them close to the flame on a tealight candle and slightly melted the edges.  This also made them curl a bit, and I liked the effect!

Then I basted through the centerline of each oval, and gathered up the fabric.  To finish it off, I sewed through all the layers a few times.  I did this with all the ovals.

Next I layered two ovals of the same size to make an X-shape, and sewed them together. 

Then I stacked two X's of the same size to make one layer of the flower, and stitched all of that together.  I did the same with the smaller set of ovals.

Finally, I attached the two layers and a small ribbon to the pillow, sewing through the center to make it all nice and snug.  I arranged the petals aesthetically, and... ta da!

This project cost me about $4 for the bag of stuffing (of which I used about 20%), and all the fabric was free because it was scraps from my dress!  The ribbon I had hanging around from a long-ago project.  It took me about 4 hours total to make this.

I can't wait to see it walk down the aisle!!!

Bonnie Projects