My Southern I'Dos - Dessert Time

I am not sure if it is because I ate so many sweets yesterday, or the fact that I am craving them now that I decided to write a post about my dessert table at my wedding.

A few years ago we went to a wedding and instead of doing traditional cake, they passed around mini milkshakes, cake pops and ice cream sandwiches. Both my husband and I thought that it was the best idea ever. Not to mention you can always find me on the dance floor by the time the cake is being served and I always miss out.

Here are some of my pins I used for inspiration for my dessert table!!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204889071134/

 Even though we were having a dessert table we wanted to make sure we did have a cake to cut.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204889002335/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204887205903/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204890337826/

 The dessert table from Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively's wedding! I guess good minds think alike!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204889319750/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204887579722/

Of course we had to put our own spin on the dessert table. So we went with miniature pies for guests since we wanted to have a backyard bbq feel to our wedding. Then we ordered mini canolis since my husband and I met and lived in the North End of Boston. If you aren't familiar with Boston that is the little Italy section of the city. My husband is from Ohio so of course we had to have buckeyes on the table, and last but not least we had a cookie jar full of Oreos!! My husband and I met at The Sail Loft on Boston's waterfront and at the bar they always have a cookie jar full of Oreos! So of course we needed to incorporate that detail into our dessert table. We also had our caterer make us a small cake that we could cut for the cake cutting!! Here are some pictures from our dessert table!

I found these great signs at Paper Source that I used all over the wedding. You can't see in the picture but it says Love Is Sweet. Also, my caterer had farm table toppers made. We were able to use these at our wedding and save lots of money!! 

We also used the bridesmaid bouquets to add more flowers to the table. In the framed picture is my husband and I in front of the The Sail Loft. Where we met!

 I would have loved to ship canoli's down from the North End in Boston, but since our wedding was on a Sunday we weren't sure how they would have held up. Instead we went to the next best thing! The Whole Foods in Mount Pleasant! That is our little secret!

Ohio Buckeys from Malleys in Ohio. Malleys has the best chocolates! Not to mention my sister-in-law worked there in high school. I actually have a HUGE Malley's chocolate bunny that is calling me right now!

Hamby's Catering created all of the mini-pies and tarts for our wedding. 

 Picture of our cake! It was extremely simple and exactly what we wanted. We had a few flowers decorating the sides, and then a burlap flower on top. The flower was actually a decoration on a Christmas present from my mother-in-law!!

 I saw these forks on Etsy and had to have! I put them on my Christmas list and my sister-in-law ordered them for me! I was so excited. They were engraved with Mr and Mrs on them too! My friend Lauren made us the pink napkin which she gave to me as a shower present. The cake plate we used was a pink depression glass that we had. And my mother-in-law bought us the Kate Spade cake serving knives as well!

 We received Kate Spade champagne glasses as a wedding present. Obviously this is a before picture because all night I had a glass of bubbly in my hands!!

 I found these small chalkboard signs at World Market and used them ALL over our wedding! You can also get a glimpse of the chevron bags we had for guests to take home food at the end of the night. The bags had our monogram on them as well!

 You may ask what is this? Well this is the Groom's cake. We are slightly obsessed with our cat and since he couldn't be at the wedding (even though he owns a bow tie) we had to incorporate him somehow! My Mother-in-Law ordered this cake for the rehearsal dinner but it was way too fabulous to cut into. So our Armondo cake also made an appearance at our wedding. Not only do we have a cat we love, my husband is slightly obsessed with his salt water fish tank.

 This is the original picture that my mother-in-law gave the bakery to base the cake off of. This is one of the many Halloween costumes we have for Armondo. He is such a natural in front of the camera!

 Last but not least a picture of my husband and I cutting our wedding cake!!

All right I am off to eat some of my Malley's chocolate bunny!

Happy Pinning!!
By Jennifer Shelton

My Southern I Do's - Table Numbers and Escort Cards

The day after Christmas my Mother and I were at Michael's craft store and we found these adorable antique keys on clearance for $.25.  Of course we found the first 75 with no problem but need about another 50 keys. We managed to look at every single basket, and even had a few fellow customers helping us when they heard my idea. I also had some additional coupons to make them even cheaper. If you don't have it already I highly suggest downloading the Michaels iPhone application, just open the coupons tab and you are ready to go (no more clipping!!).

As soon as I saw these keys I remembered a few Pinterest posts I had seen using antique keys as escort cards, and these adorable table numbers from Wedding Chicks (side note I can't tell you how many ideas I pinned from this site!)

Table Number Inspiration:

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204887798496/

Escort Card Inspiration:

Charleston wedding - Magnolia Plantation via amelia + dan photography: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204889252989/

And here are our final results! My step-father found these glass door knobs at an antique store and then made the table numbers. He used crackle paint to give them the antique look. Photo credits to Ricki Ford Photography. 

My father-in-law made the screen doors from Lowes. He repainted them and even made the custom scroll work to give it the authentic flair. To make the escort cards I simply printed everyone names and table number out and used a tag hole punch I bought at Michaels. 

Everything came together so easily! And not to mention for such a unique touch we didn't spend more than $150 to put everything. Pinterest dreams coming true!!! 

By Jennifer Shelton

My Southern I Do's - Boone Hall Plantation

I just recently got married this past September at Boone Hall Plantation. Boone Hall Plantation is located in Mount Pleasant, SC and is beautiful. We wanted to have a backyard BBQ feel for our wedding and this location is perfect. Of course I pretended the whole time that this was my plantation house we were getting married at.

Shortly after we decided on the location, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds got married at the same location. I was counting down the days until the Martha Stewart Wedding magazine came out with pictures of their wedding. Not to mention local vendors and ideas that I could use for my own wedding.

The next wonderful thing I discovered was Pinterest for my wedding! I tell every new bride forget about buying all those pricey wedding magazines (except Martha Stewart Weddings!) and get on Pinterest. I can't tell you how many great ideas I got for my wedding from pinning from other websites and Pinterest. All of my vendors were so impressed that I was able to come to the meetings with pictures of exactly what I wanted. Check out some of my Pinterest boards that include wedding dress ideas, wedding hair, reception decorations, wedding ideas, bridesmaid inspiration, DIY wedding ideas, and so I didn't totally overwhelm all my vendors with all my Pinterest boards I created one board for my vendors to refer to called Southern I Do's. This board consisted of all of the stuff that I was going to attempt to recreate for my wedding. I also found it helpful to create a Powerpoint deck that showed the wedding venue, reception, etc and where I wanted everything. It helped me focus on what I really needed to have and what was a nice to have.

Over the next few blog posts I will make sure to call out some of my favorite ideas from Pinterest that I was able to recreate for my very own wedding! Until then Happy Pinning!!

By Jennifer Shelton