Category Archives: DIY Projects

Wedding Trend: Burlap

With over 2 million weddings in the US every year, it can get tricky to find a way to make your big day special. At Tradesy Weddings, we not only want to help make your wedding dream fit your budget, but we also want to inspire you to show your personality through the details of your wedding. With this in mind, every week, we will be showcasing a variety of trends and ideas, all of which can be found in items on our site. We hope these posts can help you find a way to make your wedding day uniquely your own!

While typically linked to cowboys and farmers, this week’s focus is on something that has recently been making its mark on the wedding scene- burlap! More and more, brides have been ditching their classic, white silk in exchange for burlap’s rustic chic look.

Burlap can be used in several ways, from the ceremony to the reception. Draping burlap sashes on the backs of chairs, using burlap-covered wooden table numbers, hanging burlap bunting throughout your venue, and using candles and mason jars wrapped in burlap as centerpieces are all ways to incorporate this cool look into your wedding. You can also have a burlap guest book, a burlap-lined ring bearer pillow, and burlap-wrapped flower bouquets to add to this rustic feel. Want to keep it simple? Use burlap by itself as an aisle runner, tablecloth, table overlay, or table runner. No matter how you spin it, burlap is a versatile material that will definitely add some charm to your wedding.

Do you know anyone that has used burlap in their wedding decor? Let us know what you think of this trend in a comment below. Or if you used the trend in your own wedding and would like to have it featured, email lauren@tradesy.com!

xLauren

Erin & Mark’s Glam-tastic Atlantic City Wedding

Welcome to Tradesy Weddings Wedding Porn Wednesday! I’m super excited to introduce this new feature, which will bring you tantalizing, luscious, drool-worthy wedding images taken by some of the most talented wedding photogs in the world, right here every Wednesday.

“What’s wedding porn,” you ask? Wedding porn is photography that captures, in explicit, lingering detail, all of the spectacular visual beauty of a wedding. It’s not baum-chikka-wow-wow porn, though it’s been known to get certain brides-to-be all hot and bothered. Good wedding porn inspires, stimulates desire, quickens the heartbeat, and leaves you wanting more. Kind of like regular porn, but you can look at it at work, and even more like food porn, but not as fattening. (What?? You’ve never seen food porn? Oh my. Go to Food Porn Daily. I’ll wait here.)

Want to submit your photos for publication on Wedding Porn Wednesdays? Here’s how.

And now, without further ado, our first featured wedding, photographed by the super-talented Pat Furey, and first posted on The Wedding Chicks (with thanks to the gracious gals at Wedding Chicks for their republishing blessings).

Erin and Mark’s Glamtastic Atlantic City Wedding Adventure

They got married at the Showboat Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. It’s all velvet walls and Persian rugs and faux-17th century sculptures. Watch Erin and Mark make it modern and cool.

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Love her style. Love.

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Erin made her bouquet, the guys boutonnieres, and the centerpieces from — get this — the pages of Homer’s The Odyssey. Just take a moment to soak that in. It kind of makes me want to marry her.

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This photo, the one right here below, is one of the most beautiful wedding pics I’ve ever seen. It is perfection. Be sure to check out photographer Pat Furey’s blog to see more of his work, which is more art than wedding photography. Thanks for sharing, Pat!

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5 Ways to Make Your Wedding Greener

Tuesday Treat

1. The Ring

Whether it be a family heirloom, a vintage piece, or another gemstone, the ring is one of the most important parts of your engagement. It is the delicate piece that is with you as a daily reminder of the love you have found. There are many options for green rings. We love this delicate vintage piece we found on Tradesy Weddings.

2. The Dress

Equally as important as the ring, your wedding dress is what makes you feel the most beautiful on your special day. Finding the perfect dress to make you feel beautiful can be a challenge. Instead of fighting the mass markets to find that overpriced, over worn piece, try a vintage or gently used option. There are so many beautiful dresses and not only is it a green option, it leaves a ton of green in your wallet!

Look at this entire section on Vera Wang on Tradesy Weddings!

3. The Venue

There are so many beautiful and extravagant venues across the globe, but equally as many beaches, state parks, local parks, and lakes. With the fees from these site rentals going right back into the community, it is a win-win for a beautiful and literally green wedding! We loved these venues!

Sunset Cliffs, San Diego

Yosemite National Park

Central Park, New York

4. The Memories

Rather than have those cheesy throw away cameras at every table and then have to actually find somewhere, most likely expensive, to get the film processed… (Where can you even do that these days?) Why not opt for a social wedding!

With each persons email RSVP, you can add them to a Flickr account where they can share their own images from their camera phones, everyone has one, even Grandpa! This is great because every guest can see what was going on across the room while they were drinking champagne! This is also a great way for your brides friends and grooms friends to interact and form an entire network of new friends all thanks to your beautiful wedding!

5. The Gifts

With so much excess involved with weddings, why not take a moment to give back to a local charity or when registering for your gifts, opt for a greener option. There are so many possibilities and some of our favorites include: a local produce subscription, eco friendly products from stores you are registered at, or this foundation we found that donates a portion of all gift purchases to your chosen cause, I Do Foundation.

We hope these tips were helpful to you earth conscious brides and we wish you the best on your wonderful wedding day!

EJ & Alex’s Eco-Chic DIY Wedding

EJ and Alex wanted their wedding to reflect their eco-conscious ideals, so they incorporated lots of sweet handmade and recycled details into the ceremony and reception. The couple collected and hand painted rocks for their seating charts and table numbers, which were displayed alongside small bunches of fresh lavender and wildflowers.

Family and friends gathered at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco for the celebration. The Center’s original cluster of nine historic, 1907-era military buildings featured beautiful vaulted ceilings, large windows and maple floors. They also grow and harvest their own organic food for catering such events like EJ & Alex’s wedding!

This simple and elegant green wedding was sent to us from Janet Moscarello + Lisa Lefringhouse of JL Photografia. Enjoy the beautiful photos!

Zombie Apocalypse Engagement Shoot

When Los Angeles photographer Amanda Rynda took engagement photos of couple Juliana Park and Ben Lee, a few things were different from the typical engagement shoot. Instead of the typical scene for two, this shoot included Juliana, Ben…and a flesh-eating zombie.

For more zombie engagement photos, check out Amanda Rynda’s blog.

Recycled Film Canister Wedding Invitations

Creative and eco-friendly wedding invitations from a married team of wedding photogs

Trevor and Larissa of Ambient Studios didn’t want run-of-the-mill paper wedding invitations for their big day. So they incorporated their passion for photography into a fun DIY project that resulted in these fabulously unique invites.

The invitations were printed on small rolls of paper, which were then packed inside of reusable film canisters and wrapped in unbleached paper packaging.

When guests received the invites, they were prompted to pull the roll of paper out to reveal a creative wedding invitation that Trevor and Larissa designed themselves.

Trevor and Larissa are partners in work and in life, and their artistic spirit and mutual love of photography made their vintage photography wedding theme an easy choice.

For more details about these super-cool invites, check out Treehugger >>

DIY Wedding Cakes

Martha Martha Martha! The DIY Queen shows you how to make your own wedding cake

These sweet DIY wedding cakes and other creative confections are from Martha Stewart Weddings. Yes, you really can make these yourself (or pass the job on to a crafty bridesmaid or relative!) My favorites are the frozen sorbet bombe cakes below. They’re so elegant and pretty, and prefect for a hot summer wedding. Also pictured, a white chocolate panel cake with golden raspberries.

For a green wedding, I’d make these cakes with organic ingredients and fruit from our local farmer’s market. Below, a crushed candy cake that’s super easy and fun to make, and mini chocolate cakes.

Learn how to make these and other fabulous DIY wedding cakes from Martha.