Some of the Bouteneers and Corsages

Its common in our family, (and even if it weren't, I would want it) for parents, and grandparents to get bouteneers and corsages to wear at the wedding. I also wanted to honor my Brothers, 2 of which will be "giving me away" and my brothers' wives & gfs, since they are like sisters to me.

In addition to including them in the processional, they get corsages.

My Craft Fairies made the following:

For the Brothers:

For the dads, and grandma's long time boyfriend:

For the Sisters-in-laws:

These have the same kind of initial charms that the bridesmaids' bouquets have.

For the RBs and Jr. Ushers:

they will be wearing black tuxes with Royal Blue bowties. The Flowergirls will be wearing light purple, so we included purple in the boys' bouts. (its hard to see in this picure) The Jr Ushers' bouts are slightly larger than the RB's but otherwise match.

For the Officiant:

I forgot to take a picture, but its a silver rose with blue accent. His tux is black with silver bowtie and vest.

It may not be standard to include the officiant in the bouteneer wearing group, but he is an long time friend of Mikeys, and would have been a groomsman choice if he wasnt ordained.

Still to come: Groomsmen, Bridesman, Groom, Moms, Grandmas, Train carriers.

PRICE BREAKDOWN
it is difficult to decide exactly how to breakdown the cost, because the bouquets, bouteneers, corsages and other items are all being made with the same supplies. After all silk floral was purchased however i spent maybe $60. I will get Bouquets for 3 bridesmaids, 1 bride, 1 MOH, and 1 to throw. PLUS bouteneers for: 3 dads, 3 brothers, 1 bridesman, 4 groomsmen, 2 ringbearers, 2 jr ushers, 1 officiant. Corsages for 2 moms, 2 grandmas, 3 sister in laws, 2 train carriers, and it looks like i will have bunches of leftovers. So you do the math.

(Some) Bouquets are done!

I got supplies from http://www.efavormart.com/ I was very happy with price and quality. used in this bouquet, are Blue Calla Lilys, Orange Rosebuds , and Silver Headpieces . I bought the orange ribbon from Michaels on sale for like 0.20 a roll, the dangly bead things were left over from other weddings in my crafty family. We used floral tape from Michaels to bind the stems together.

My favorite part of the bouquet is the initial charms on each one. (this pic has an L) When I saw other bouquets with initial charms, or beads, or whatever, I thought if I could get each letter for like $1, it would be worth it. On our Preweddingmoon in Las Vegas, we went downtown to a super cheap souvenier shop and found these slide on charms for $0.50 each + stupid tax. I hadnt decided exactly who my bridesmaids would be at that time, but got some extra letter options for the undecided girls.
After deciding on my girls though, I found that I needed another L so my darling aunt, who works in retail, looked online and found me Dog Colllar Slide Charms that look the same as the ones I had already got. They offer your choice of 6 for 5.99 + 1.41 shipping. Because I had extra letters, I opted to add a letter charm to each of my sister in law's coursages (they were possible bridesmaids candidates) and I also wanted a heart charm for the throw bouquet, so I am ordering 5 letters and a heart charm. The extra letters will be for my Traincarrier corsages, and my brother's girlfriend, since she is like a sister-in-law also.
In the end I was very happy with the little charm letters better than taking apart a keychain (original idea), the slide charms were easy to add to the ribbon wrapped around the bouquets and the size fits the bouquet very well, anything larger would have looked out of place.

We have yet to make mine or the MOH bouquet's, they will be a little fancier than the one above. Mine will have both a star charm and a C.

Funny story, when my Craft Fairies were helping me with the bouquets, bouts and coursages, my darling fiance balked at the idea that all the girls got bouquets, we all insisted that theyre supposed to have them. He insisted that every wedding hes been in(8) and to(countless), the bridesmaids didnt have bouquets, only the bride. how crazy is that? after a quick FB poll, everyone replied that theyve never seen weddings without bridesmaid bouquets.

PRICE BREAKDOWN
it is difficult to decide exactly how to breakdown the cost, because the bouquets, bouteneers, corsages and other items are all being made with the same supplies. After all silk floral was purchased however I spent maybe $60. I will get Bouquets for 3 bridesmaids, 1 bride, 1 MOH, and 1 to throw. PLUS bouteneers for: 3 dads, 3 brothers, 1 bridesman, 4 groomsmen, 2 ringbearers, 2 jr ushers and 1 officiant. Corsages for 2 moms, 2 grandmas, 3 sister in laws, 2 train carriers, and it looks like I will have bunches of leftovers. So you do the math.

Votives

For our tablescapes, I got some shortish wine glasses, I will fill them with AquaGems and a floating candle. Around the glass on the table will be some votive candle holders, and maybe some glass rocks.

I got 11 votives from a past pink/orange bride on craigslist she had them decorated like this:

With help from my DIY fairies, (MOH and Aunt of the Bride) we gently ripped the pink flowers and black ribbon off of the orange paper.

Then we covered the little tear spot with a white scrapbook daisy sticker. the middle of the daisies were green/yellow so we popped little blue rhinestone stickers in the middle of them. (seen on the left, below) I had also found some blue and orange paper daisies as well so some of the votives have stickers and some have the paper flowers and some have both. (shown also with rhinestone sticker, on the right, below)

Because I need quite a few more than I got from her, I bought very similar votives in glass jars at Walmart.

While looking for some decorative blue paper, I thought about how I had to cut strips off the edge of the invitation cards to make them fit better with the invitations. And I had not yet recycled the scraps. Having precut strips of paper made the decorating process go faster. I just dabbed the end with hot glue, wrapped it around, ripped the paper to fit and glued the other end, I hid the seam with the flowers. on some, you can see that we added a contrasting ribbon as well. To bring some purple into the tablescapes, we did some with purple ribbon instead of paper. (shown at the right end, below)

Price breakdown:

votives from craigslist: $5.50 for 11

votives from Walmart: $12 for 24

blue paper from recycling: free

hot glue from craft supplies: already owned and who knows when i would have used it again

daisy stickers: used less than 3 sheets, each was $1

blue rhinestone stickers: used way less than 1 sheet which was $3

paper daisies from Party Depot: used less than 2 packs, each was 3.99

leftover ribbon from other projects: already included in other items price breakdown

grand total of $31.48 / for 35 votives = $0.90 each (a little more than I would have hoped, the paper flowers were the biggest splurge) and I have bunches more paper flowers, daisy stickers and rhinestone stickers to use on other things.

Afterthought: I really hope to be able to sell the votives to another bride (or someone) after the wedding. I would hate for them to clutter up my home or be in a landfill somewhere.

ETA
I have used these same votive holders multiple times since. I undecorated them and redecorated them for my brother's wedding, and for a bridal shower too!

before i found some rainbow stickers 

shown on corner of table with rainbow sticker. That is the cupcake tree from my wedding repurposed too! more about that here. 

some had simple pink ribbons and some had just a butterfly sticker, 

Have our cake and eat it too!

In liu of favors, which in my opinion are often a waste of money, time, energy, and resources, we are offering the option for our guests to take home the extra cupcakes in little to-go cups.

(all you need is LOVE... and cake! )

I designed 5 different lables so they wouldn't all be the same. Kinda like the hot sauce packets at Taco Bell

(have our cake.... and eat it too) (thanks for making our day sweeter)

(how SWEET it to be loved by you...) and my fave: (you take the cake! No really, take it.)

(the colors on these images arent quite right, the orange is more orange)

The cups and lids came from a local fastfood restraunt supply store Cash N Carry

I had the lables printed on sticker paper (also known as full sheet lables) at Staples. They werent going to print them for me, they said that the machine gets too hot and it can make the stickers peel and jam in the machine, but had had such a bad time with Staples, the girl took pity on me and offered to try it. between each sheet, it took a moment to get them ready for printing, so the machine had a chance to cool down. So my tip would be to either print at home, or find out ahead of time if the printing place you go to can handle sticker paper.

My wedding craft fairies cut them out using a Fiscars shape cutter and the circle template.

(photo courtesy of google images and vickie)

the price breakdown:

the cups came in a package of 50 for 5.95
the lids were 50 for 3.99

I already had some full page sticker/lable sheets. If I didnt have them, I would have printed on regular paper and used my xyron, because sticker paper is expensive, I had gotten the paper years ago from my employer for a project where I didnt end up using them, so free to me.

I was able to fit 15 lables per page and printing was only $0.49/page at Staples. I printed 5 pages, so 2.45 total.

for all they cost $12.39 for 50 cups, less than 0.25 each.

Afterthough: Since we are hosting Thanksgiving the month after the wedding, any of the cups that arent used can be repurposed for Thankgiving leftovers rather than using ziplock bags or paper plates. In fact I like that idea so much, I might pick up another package of the containers just for leftovers.