I was visiting my friend’s Etsy store, Noey’s Papers, last night and I was found something that would make a fabulous bridesmaids gift!

Fill with meaningful photos of you and your maids, and voila! - awesome bridesmaid gift!

What I found were mini chip-board photo albums - the perfect way to create a personal and meaningful gift for your bridesmaids (and not too pricey either - $28 each and they are handmade!).

The albums are really neat.  They are created out of thick chipboard so that they have a very sturdy and handcrafted feel.  Each “page” of the album is completely covered in designer paper, ribbons, buttons, trinkets, etc.  Every page is different, making these albums super unique.

The point of the album is to add personal photos as each page has photo corners already built in for holding your favorite pics.  I thought that placing meaningful pictures of you and your bridesmaids would make a *perfect* gift, especially since the album itself is handmade.  You just can’t find albums like these in stores!

The Bride: Ileana, 25, IT and studying to be  a Nurse

The Groom: Evan, 32, IT

The Location: Sayen Gardens, New Jersey

Wedding Colors: Cream, Ivory, Peach, and Orange with a Garden Theme

Budget: $10 - $15k

What made this wedding modern: Ileana says “The modern touch really took shape in the wedding party. The girls had on Jim Hjelm A-Line Tea length Ivory dresses with an orange sash. The dresses were very simple yet had the splash of color that made them pop. The men’s dark chocolate brown tuxes really blended well with the bridesmaids and made the wedding party image very sleek - that is until at any given time one of the 8 wedding party members broke out into horrific party faces - then we were just us!”

Where they splurged: Ileana said hands down, PHOTOGRAPHY. “We felt that 60 years from now as our memories begin to fade it is pictures that will transport us back in time. We wanted to make sure we had a photographer who knew us and knew how to capture key moments. Michelle was amazing. We chose to do a Trash The Dress session with her prior to the big day (with a Forever 21 stand in dress!)* and it really helped build a great friendship with her. We are so pleased with every single picture that the hard part is picking our album shots.”

*We will be doing a post on Ileana’s Trash the Dress session in a few weeks - you can’t miss it, the session was amazing!

Where they saved: Decoration. “Since it was in a garden, we needed limited ceremony decoration and the reception garden house was so cute and antique-y that it need very little to spruce it up. We opted to recycle some decor from my sister’s wedding and replace the flowers with our colors. We also hit up Michael’s for various accents and ALWAYS had our 40% off coupons in hand. The only flowers that were real were the bouquets, lapels & the garden around us.”

*As mentioned in the bio - Ileana and Evan had a budget of only $10k, which to me is pretty unbelievable considering how beautiful everything was!  Recycling decorations from another wedding is a fabulous idea.  Also, making your theme fit the venue rather than vice verse helps too!  Thanks Ileana for your wonderful tips!

Ileana made her theme fit the romantic vintage decor of the Sayen house, rather than the other way around, in order to save on decorations.

Recycling doesn't mean settling for second rate! These centerpieces were used in Ileana's sisters wedding, saved them quite a bit of money on decorations, and looked gorgeous!

How a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e! The gummy bears represented the personalities of the bride and groom - fun loving and silly!

Oranges and whites with hints of pink and yellow made this the perfect bouquet for their garden wedding.

Illeana and Evan wanted to incorporate their three beloved kitties into their wedding day. Since they are housecats, they had to settle for miniature sugar replicas representing them in spirit!

The best part of the wedding:

“The laughter. Everyone was in such a great mood and happy that everywhere you looked people were smiling. We felt so blessed to have such a perfect day with the people we loved. It’s an amazing thing being surrounded by people who are sending you well wishes every moment. When you are immersed in good vibes it is hard not to get on a natural high. We were married and so happy. And that is what it was all about.”

Her Advice:

“Don’t splurge if you are going to feel guilty about it. ENJOY it. Smile and enjoy your man. The day is about the two of you - not just you.”

All photographs are copyright of Michelle King Photography.

Submit you own wedding to the guide…

*Remember the post I did a few days ago on those amazing handmade, scrapbook inspired wedding details?  I got the go ahead from Noaillese to do a post of the entire wedding, so here it is!

The Bride: Noaillese, 25, Software Engineer

The Groom: Warren, 25, Computer Science PhD Student

The Location: The Villa Antonia in Austin, Texas

Wedding Colors: Apple Green and Eggplant Purple

What made this wedding modern: A modern color combination mixed with squares, bold flowers, and the use of hand made paper projects made Noaillase and Warren’s big day stand out.

Where they splurged: Once Noaillese and Warren saw the Villa Antonia in Austin, they couldn’t say no, and their biggest splurge automatically became the venue and the food.

Where they saved: Noaillese made all of the stationery herself, including invitations, programs, menus, and table numbers (yes, she’s a crafty gal - complete with her own etsy store!).  She also priced out doing the flowers herself and then found a florist willing to match her calculated price.  This is a bit of wedding vendor negotiation we could all learn from - great idea!

The outdoor ceremony - no wonder they fell in love with the venue!

The best part of the wedding:

“My favorite part of the wedding was sitting down at the sweetheart table with my new husband and just taking a deep breath.” It’s these quiet moments that we remember the most about a wedding.

Looking back, what they would have changed:

Noaillese and Warren had a no regrets wedding -  When asked what she would change Noaillese replied “Nothing really.  I remember spending the whole day smiling and that’s all I could ask for.”

Some of the "negotiated" flowers - wait till you see the rest!

Cymbidium orchids decorated the cake

Told you they were amazing!

Her Advice:

” Enjoy the planning process but don’t worry about it too much.  And on the day of the wedding don’t let anything bother you.  Just enjoy the time spent with family, friends, and your new husband.“

A flower embellishment on one of the many paper projects

To see more of the handmade goodies Noaillese used in her wedding, check out this previous post which mentions quite a few of them.  Also, definitely check out her esty store, Noeys Papers, her stuff is amazing!

Submit you own wedding to the guide…

Hello modern brides.  Today I would like to discuss addressing your wedding invitations.  There is much debate on whether wedding invitations should be addressed by hand, and whether or not it’s “tacky” to run the envelopes through your home printer.

Printed Addresses - sure beats my chicken scratch handwriting (image from www.letterperfectdesigns.com)

I mainly wanted to write this post for all brides who are considering using printed addresses for their wedding invitations but are worried that they might come off as “tacky” or “not personal”.  I would like to go on record saying that there is nothing to worry about!   This is a totally acceptable thing to do!  Addressing your wedding invitations by printing directly on the envelopes or using a label is completely fine (and in 99% of cases it looks fabulous too!).

I personally love the idea of printing out the addresses on your wedding invitation envelopes and I did it for my own wedding.  It looks neat and clean and you can often use the font that matches your invites for a cohesive look.  Did I mention that it’s a huge time saver and remedy for deadly hand cramps!?!  The US postal service will probably thank you too.  In this day and age of technology, why NOT take advantage of something that will make your life 10 times easier and look great to boot?

Some argue that by *not* addressing your invitations by hand it looks as if you don’t care.  As if you can’t be bothered by the time it takes for a gesture as personal as handwriting an address.  I can understand this sentiment to some degree, but why does using a computer to address an envelope mean that you don’t care?  Just because you can take advantage of a convenient way to print on envelopes that didn’t exist 30 years ago doesn’t mean you aren’t sentimental or that your guests aren’t important to you.  I don’t see anyone “hand-writing” invitations - could you imagine?!?  Inviting your guests to the wedding itself and showing your gratitude that they were able to attend is what really conveys sentimentality and personal gesture, not the way in which you put ink on a card.

How my wedding invitations *would have* looked.

So the message here is that if you’re considering printing the addresses on your envelopes and are on the fence, don’t be.  Just go for it!  If you are really in love with hand addressing and want to do it that way, that’s fine too!  Just do what works best for you and don’t worry too much about this one.

For those of you who have decided to actually attemp to print the addresses themselves, stay tuned.  I had a few *kinks* to work out when I did mine, so in the next few weeks I plan to post a “how to” guide on getting this DIY task done!