Winter Wonderland Wedding!

I was boring and had a summer wedding.

But I really admire those of you who have chosen to have your wedding in the winter. This seemingly, has many benefits:

* If you get cold feet, you can make a bride snowwoman to take your place. Maybe no one will notice!

* You can throw snowballs at annoying guests.

* You can make your Chuppah out of snow (think: igloo).

* You don't have to worry about finding the perfect dress. Just find the perfect winter coat and call it a day!

* You can ask the waitstaff to dress up in penguin outfits to help guests get into the winter spirit.

* You wouldn't have to pay extra for refrigerator space--just tell the caterers to store the food outside.

* You can glue together icicles from outside for a stunning abstract ice sculpture.

* You can refer to your fiancee as a "stupid penguin" if he is wearing a tux and irritating you (my mean side is coming out now).

All jokes aside, I really do think a winter wedding could be even more fabulous than its summer/spring counterpart. And though I don't plan on getting divorced and remarried anytime soon, I can still have ideas, can't I?

Snowflakes. I found this tutorial for a five point snowflake from How About Orange. I made a bunch to put on my door (mainly because I needed something to replace the sagging Halloween skeleton cutout I left on there too long):

I found them a challenge at first, I admit. If you recall, I am the idea person and Jake is the one who actually tends to figure out patterns and technicalities. So he figured out that on step 8, the white part is actually what you cut out. I was having trouble because I thought that the grey lines were what needed to be snipped. Tip: in other words, the correct way to do it is to imagine the white parts as holes and the grey lines as solids, and cut accordingly (and no, I don't feel stupid just because every comment after the tutorial stated how easy and simple this was, thank you). After the folding and cutting was complete, I thought how wonderful it would be to use these snowflakes as a theme in your winter wedding.

They could be used for indicating seat assignments: 1) Assign colors to each table. 2) Cut out the number of seats per table in its assigned color. 3) Creatively write the guest's name on the back of the snowflake. You could even laminate them, punch a hole through a piece of the lamination and hang them up on a display (cork board, branches, etc) and guests could take them home and reuse them as decorations or ornaments. You could also simply lay them out on a table that has white glitter scattered on it.

You could also include these cutouts in your save-the-dates or invitations. If you really want to get crazy, you could make sure the snowflake had relatively thick "arms" and write your save the dates right on them. The snowflake is a super easy theme to accommodate, because there is so much snowflake craft paraphernalia.  You could punch snowflakes in your invites to continue the theme, use snowflake wrapping paper to accentuate the envelopes or paper you use, or use snowflake stamps to decorate your napkins, invites, save-the-dates, paper runners, etc. The best part? All this snowflake schtuff will be on sale after Christmas! Achooo! I mean, yahoo!

Snowman/woman. Take just about everything I mentioned above regarding snowflakes and plug in snowperson. There are just endless variations on this theme for a wedding. Since snowpeople are essentially a couple of white circles, making snowpeople crafts for your wedding would be a cinch. The materials would be cheap, and you could personalize them by printing a bunch of small photos of you and your honey, and cutting out your heads and pasting them onto the snowperson head. You could even print these photos on your home printer to save money.

Snow Globes. Is anyone as obsessed or mesmerized with snowglobes as me? I find the way the little glittery sparkles gently fall to the ground in some idyllic winter scene completely relaxing. Maybe your guests will be like me and be entertained all night by shaking the globes you put out as table centerpieces. Talk about cheap yet creative thrills! Even better, make them yourselves. Good ole' Martha Stewart has a tutorial right here. I have not tried it yet, but do let me know if you have and how hard/easy it was! You know what I am going to suggest for the little figurine in the center right? Yes! A mini wedding couple like the kind you see sold for cake toppers. Those can be pretty pricey, though, so I would search through craigslist or ebay for post-wedding couples looking to get rid of some of their wedding extras. Doesn't have to be a human bride and groom though! How about lego people or smurfs or snowpeople? Get creative--give your guests a good chuckle. Search through the web for similar items for sale and see if you can make them yourself, or find them in thrift stores or flea markets. The nice thing about creating these type of crafts yourself, is that they don't all have to be identical. You could use different figurines for each globe. If you don't want to make a whole bunch of these, how about putting some out as decorations on the food or guest book table?

Find this cutie here.

Pine Cones. I have already blogged about how much I love these here. Need I say more? Now, run along to collect yours!

These are just some initial thoughts but I promise to keep you posted as I think of more, or find tutorials and DIY projects across the blogosphere.

Right now let me see if Jake would be into getting remarried. In winter.