My Photoshare cards

So not the greatest pic of them, the card is business size and I just printed these on spare invitation paper and rounded the corners. Not that exciting, but its made to be simple so guests can put it in there wallet or purse!

I did want it bigger originally but I was limited on paper and needed to make 100.
(I've just put it on orange paper for picture purposes to make it stand out a little bit more.)

I found a website called www.irave.com from a blogger on www.weddingbee.com who had used this site for people to upload on the day. So big Kudos to wedding bee!

Biggest plus, no password or id for people to get in and upload! Free and easy to use..

I highly recommend it girls!! This card isn't fancy, but the more piccies of our wedding day the better!! This was an optional DIY, if I had thought it out a bit more. I would've printed them out like a Polaroid with orange window but time is running out!

11 days to go!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Completed Ribbon Wands

Another DIY off the checklist..

Just finished these wands last week these are for the ceremony/reception. Easy to do.. We created 50 of these using leftover ribbon from our ribbon pomander balls and also we purchased the wooden dowel at $1.00 per metre. 1 metre makes 3. bringing the total project to $16.60 :) put them together with a hot glue gun! simplest DIY project so far!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My inexpensive BM Gifts!

Since I have done alot already in our budget for the BMs. I had to come up with a way for an inexpensive DIY gift for the girls. Simple solution.

A Thank you poem. Left over damask print scrapbooking paper as the background and left over frames that I had purchased for signs for the reception. I wasn't going to do these cheery (in reds and oranges) as most of the girls decor on there house is either black white or silver. So went with a little elegance or tried to at least.

Each poem will be different but this is for my BM Aimee.

Hope you like! The paper looks a bit yellow?? I cant figure out why, but it definitely isn't!

Coastal City Bride - Charis x

My new shoes

I should stop buying shoes.. seriously .. this is the third pair of "wedding shoes" that I have bought. These were a bargain of $19.95 so I don't feel so bad!!

My first pair, my witness shoes are very bridal and bling.. also.. they hurt my feet.. :( I tried breaking them in.. and well I ended up with sore feet and only lasted 1hr in them. absolute killer...(i mean like jaws... seriously.. coming to bite me from every angle)

I then found a pair of red chucks (converse) and I bought them for the reception.. I am still going to wear them, but FH reckons they look ridiculous for a wedding.. or maybe they just look ridiculous on my feet, who knows.. FH was amused at first.. then is a bit like what?

These ones.. I found while doing the weekly 'grocery' shop. *cough*
Super comfortable.. worn these babies for 3hrs so far and my feet ain't sore.. Been pacing, sitting... even tried dancing (and I put the word tried, as its true.. we both suck at the dancing bit) and were really comfortable.

And I took my friends motto when buying this 'if it has a bow on it... consider it bought" So it looks like we have a winner girls.. And they match the BM dresses.. how fortunate :P

How hard has your shoe hunt been? success? please tell!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My Hens Party- I got spoilt by my ladies!

So last Saturday afternoon, I was whisked away by my BMs and driven half an hour away to a place called Denmark (small town close to mine). In which i constantly asked where I was going. I got told to pack my bikinis.. and a towel. I was a little bit confused as to why? because the weather for this weekend was raining and hailing. The girls had decorated BM niks car in purple, pink and white ribbon and quite awesome to look at.

We turned into a place called Chimes Spa resort http://www.chimes.com.au/ .. Talk about wow oh wow (sorry have that usher song in my head atm) my excitement hit overload! I was getting spoilt!!

The champagne was quick to arrive and I was separated from the girls and had the following treatments

I nicked the words off the chimes website because I couldn't come up with the wording myself!

"Marine Wrap and Vichy Shower
The Thalassotherapy treatment uses a fresh marine algae (seaweed) body wrap. The marine wrap stimulates both the blood circulation and the lymphatic circulation whilst including detoxification benefits. After removal of the body wrap enjoy a complete body rub, massaging a mix of juniper, rosemary & grapefruit contouring oil. This treatment is recommended to help correct many water retention and hormonal imbalances, speed up the metabolism for those seeking weight loss, fortify the immune system and to help fight off the effects of stress. Excellent for tired aching legs."

It had the magic word weight loss which had me stoked!!

"Jamu Tropical Nut Facial
This facial is fresh from the market and good enough to eat with ingredients from almonds, honey, macadamia nuts, cucumber, rolled oats, olive oil and lemongrass. Enjoy a wonderful massage of face, neck and décolletage with steam, ozone and hot towels. "

The facial was up there as awesome.

I met up with the girls at about 6pm and they had a spa. We were greeted by more champagne.. and spent a good 3hrs in the spa and didn't leave until 9pm. The owners said we could stay as long as we wanted and even bought us dinner.

We drove back to our hometown and by then it was safe to say I was well and truly relaxed and then went I was given a task to go on a photo mission... I had been given a list of things that I had to have a photo of, things included me in front of a whale.. in a middle of a busy roundabout.. and various landmarks as also photos with certain friends of ours who were located at different locations

It was a great day and a great night!! Feeling so much relaxed.. and it was well needed!!

Anyway Ill post incriminating pictures soon...

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Im having a nerdy book shower.

So instead of having a normal shower.. We decided something a bit alternate and have a book shower. I didn't know about this until the 5th hour when Mum said that I had to do the invite design. I found out I had to do this last Sunday and my mum wanted these by the Tuesday. I found the design as a template on a blog somewhere. Just literally typed "Library themed wedding" in google and it lead me straight to a template.

I used photoshop and put the typewriter font in with details. Not bad?

I don't know if I could have done a book theme for a wedding but I'm glad it was just for invites for the shower!

Anyway, mum wouldn't let me put names on them, but I think she was going to write on the back of them the persons name in a calligraphy font. My mum has mad skills in this area but she wouldn't calligraphy my wedding invitations, wish she did! but I understand.

Are you doing something alternate for your shower?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

So I finished my rehearsal invitations about a week ago but I just keep on forgetting to blog about them!! and a whole heap of other stuff.

Had to blank out stuff for Internet.. But they turned out okies (well.. I like them)

Anyway another thing off the list! We will have 22 people invited to the rehearsal BBQ. Ill post some clearer pictures soon. It looks a little blurry here.

What are you doing for your rehearsal?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

2nd Dress fitting success!

So had my second last dress fitting today. Next one is the 31st of July.

Here's a sneak peak of the dress girls!! Those straps are at the moment not attached to the dress and well there a pins everywhere! and it needs to be taken up! It was a straight neckline and we have just made it sweetheart. (with a lovely safety pin)

I decided that I'm not having a veil and sticking to my Alannah Hill headband that I purchased. Hoping for kinda a ballet look? and I don't have the slim fitting stuff on for this trial. Hope you like it, cause its right up my ally :)

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Thanks a lot. My thanks are ready to go!

I have been working on my thank you card design the last few days. And this one that won out with the design.(courtesy of Nonpareil Magazine)

They look so cute in real life. I really wanted the Thank You cards to be fun!

So I think I achieved that ! Super happy with them. I was going to do envelope liners and just thought meh, to much work! I have done address tags with the same flags but I wont print them out just yet..

Also if you would like the design. It's free to download here:
http://www.nonpareilmag.com/downloads/issue-02-free-diy-printable-bold-bunting-invitations/

Font: That I used is Sunshine in my Soul and you can find it at www.dafont.com

Nonpareilmag have some awesome downloads!! You should bookmark it!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Wedding Transport. Im organised.

I have managed to get 3 of our friends to lend us their cars for the day! I know right.. how good am I! well more like them actually!

And there all the same make, The colors we are able to get are. Black, Purple and hyper green. I know its not all color coordinated and not the typical wedding car.

See? Kinda cool.
(this picture isn't one of the cars, its just to give you an idea of what it looks like!)

But we really cant afford it in our budget at the moment. Its enough to fit all of the GMs, BMs and FH and I in the cars.

I'm really grateful for my friends generosity and there contribution to our wedding day. It's awesome

What are you having for transport?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Change my wedding colors please, Just to have these!

I want to change my wedding colors now! How cute are these floral print tags!!!

Amy Moss from Eat Drink Chic has provided these tags as a freebie!

Here's the link:

http://www.eatdrinkchic.com/post.cfm/summer-floral-gift-tags

Scroll down on that page to get the download. So cute, so fresh!

Coastal City Bride - Charis x

Cant a Girl Have everything?

I just sneeked this Inspiration from Snippet and Ink.

Talk about divine!!! wedding envyyyyyyyyy...

Want to hear more about this wedding?

http://snippetandink.blogspot.com/2010/05/board-480-poppy-and-field.html

Coastal City Bride - Charis x

Its the freebie template post!

Sorry ladies... Kinda been MIA recently with my blogging. But that's just been pure laziness!.

So its been awhile since I posted a freebie, but I stumbled upon free invitations and talk about SCORE!!!

So these are some of the invitations you can download at. http://www.loveandlavender.com/

How cute! I think also if you already have your invitation design how bout you use them for bridal shower invites? hens night?

Awww anyway if you want the downloads.. head to there website cause there's more and its free!! (how am i doing on the sales pitch here?) in all seriousness its just worth your while just dropping by!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Makeup trial! All happy, but one problem

Notice on my pics that my foundation doesn't match my skin tone? That's all the things we have to fix! I love the look tho!! total awesomeness with the eye makeup!

I am going with a girl called Karlee at Glow Experience in Albany ! She is super talented!! and very reasonably priced! Sorry also for my lack of usual posts. I haven't really done anything wedding related much in the last two weeks, so I'm trying to make up for it!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

p.s. forgot to mention

MY FIRST RSVPS CAME IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and I only sent them out three days ago! Joy!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

We finished our lantern centrepieces and

TADAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Looking good or what!!

I had purchased lanterns for a bargain awhile ago and needed 6 shepherds hooks for them to sit on tables but I couldnt find any that would sit stable!! I showed FH my inspiration and he said he could do this for me! FH finished creating the last one tonight (he is a professional boilermaker/welder)

What a champ!

What you think? Reckon it will work? Need something more?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My inviations are gone! I...

So I posted all the out of town invitations today and will try to do alot of running around tonight and post some of the local ones, well hand deliver.

Whats been happening this last week? We had relationship counselling this week, my videographer and DJ both cancelled on me... and umm well I needed a break. So I need to find a new DJ. Videographer I can do without!

That's it for now!!

I'm going to try get better pictures of the wedding programs in the next week. The pic I uploaded before is pretty dodgy.

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Road testing my lanterns

I HEART MY LANTERNS!! Loving how the orange and red are standing out! Scuse me, had to type that in caps because .. I'M EXCITED!! (err yes over lanterns, sorry!)

I found my Cheap lanterns (3.00ea) from a discount warehouse that already have lights in them. just needed to buy batteries! I cleaned them out of red and orange.. :)
oops. Hopefully they will order more. I'm watching the shelf where they are like a hawk! Here they are!

Next pic is the orange up lighting inspiration I ordered 12 up lights to give the same affect in our venue. So I think the lanterns will complement the lighting. Well I hope so.

What you think, you like??

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My wedding progams DONE.

After several mock ups.. trial and error and alot more trials. I decided my folded programs were craptastic and too much time to put together.

So i made new ones and alot quicker too!

Love them! Hope you do to. They are just printed out on A4 Sheets 2 per page and cut in half. It looks a little blurry on the photo but you get the idea

Even managed to squeeze in the thank you down the bottom.

If you want to know what it says, the thank you is a few posts down!

:) i rubbed out our last names for Internet sake!

What are you doing for your programs? How long did it take? It took me 4 mock ups!!

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

The whole look so far for the girls.

Lets hope we can pull this off!! I just pulled this together to see how the overall look is turning out. So far Im pretty okay with it. I think I would feel better if I could see it all together on, but its not going to happen to the wedding day and it all comes together.

I hope im heading on the right track!

Coastal City Bride- Charis xx

My florist.. is the shizzle.

My artificial flowers for my Bridesmaids and my bouquet were ready to be picked up yesterday. Talk about ABSOLUTELY STOKED! with how they turned out.

Without much more blabbering on my behalf. Here they are: Group shot!!

The Girls bouquets! (I put the BMs dresses next to it so you can see the contrast)

Here's mine!!

What are you doing for your bouquets?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Thank you..

Awhile ago doing the first mock up of the programs I had come up with a cute thank you. With the new program.. I decided the poem wasn't going to cut it. And I wanted something more meaningful. I found this online. AMEN for the Internet!!

(I just cant remember where I sourced it tho. Sorry!)

We are going to use this, its heartfelt.. and it really is ...well us! :D

"Marriage is not a culmination. It is a beginning. A beginning of a life that will grow and change in ways more wonderful than we can imagine.

Many years from now when we look back on our life. Love and this day, we will remember that flowers, music and food were not what made this day so special. It will be our memories of sharing the beginning of our life as husband and wife with you - our friends and family.

Having you here with us today has made our wedding truly wonderful. Understanding that life holds many momentous commitments. We thank you for sharing in one of our happiest."

I wanted to show you a picture of it on the program BUT my camera disagreed otherwise.. it ran out of batteries!

What are you using on your programs?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Favor baskets.. My ninja

Scratch Ninja cat.. maybe thats where my motivation is hiding.......

So I'm running a little out of steam and instead of lining these baskets like I wanted to.. I mainly just wanted them out of my way ha ha.

I did two of them. Which should hold all our favors.

These baskets were cane and light brown in color originally. For some reason the week I went looking for baskets I couldn't find them in black. So I decided I would I spray paint them. With spraying them with a 'flat black'. I waited for them to dry. Printed small signs, rounded the corners. Punched holes in them and threaded red ribbon through and secured it with a glue gun

Pretty simple.... not much work involved.. While they are not what I originally planned. The attitude for this project is that 'that will do'. I cant be bothered.

I'm sure you have some DIY projects that you put off, will this was one of them and I don't know why. :)

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

Guest Book... ha your like a merry-go-round.

So instead of a traditional guestbook I was going to have a mazanita guest tree... epic fail, scrapped that and went to a wishing guest board I posted it a few months ago and I thought that was the end of that..

Not! The more I looked at the board.. the more I didn't like it! So back to the drawing board and I saw guest books like this! and decided I wanted the same....

Photos courtesy of amariem25 off http://www.weddingbee.com/



So I started my search for templates... and one of the brides from weddingbee.com posted this and was sharing this as a template, so this is what I'm using, the only difference is that ours is orange and has our name up the top of each page.



I printed out the guestbook sheets and I love it. However it isn't photographing that well. All to do now is finish decorating the album but I wont start that for another week or so. My friend Susie is going to help me :) So I'll post it up when that's done too, so you get the full affect.

In addition to our non traditional guest book I made these direction signs to sit on the table.

They are framed using black plastic frames from a discount store for two dollars each,and the mini easels I used were a dollar each. Thought they were pretty cute once completed!!

Total cost $9.00


and Yes I am aware that I used the wrong 'Your' in the last frame and it has been fixed since taking the photos! oops!

Simple! (however, its taken me 10 months to get here!) What are you doing as your guest book?

Coastal City Bride - Charis xx

My cute little pail buckets for my buttons...

or rather large button balls!
Last week for $5.00 a pop I found these little buckets... I was looking for white ones, but I couldn't find any!! I found these that blend together quite well with my button balls.

So for 5.00 I couldn't refuse. So the button balls will sit on top like pictured, and be located in the garden (if you look a few posts down you will see what I mean lining the aisle...) Group shot!!

I will remove the handles as it makes the button balls sit kinda awkward. :)

Even tho they aren't white like I pictured in my head, I'm very happy with these as the alternates.

Anything you really wanted get changed? and your happy with the alternative?

Coasta City Bride - Charis xx