Bridesmaid Gift Idea

This idea is close to my heart because I did something similar for my wedding. To ask each girl to be in my wedding I had vintage handkerchiefs embroidered with their monograms and then wrote little notes. I liked this idea because it gave the girls something useful to use on my wedding day. I only wish I would have asked my photographer to take a photo of all of our hankies!

I also love this idea of tying a cute little stamped note to each hankie and giving them to the bridesmaids (or moms, or even guests) on the day of the wedding. Oh how I love details!

image via elizabeth anne designs

Unity Tree

I saw this picture on the oh so fabulous blog, Green Wedding Shoes, and I thought it was brilliant and appropriate for spring/summer weddings. If you are planning on using a unity candle or unity sand etc in your wedding ceremony you might want to consider a unity tree. You and your fiancé would choose a tree sapling and have watering cans at the ready. A member from each family would fill up the watering cans and then when ready you and your fiancé would each water the tree together. I love this idea b/c after your wedding you can plant the tree in your yard and watch it grow over the years and your children can eventually play under it. Also, I think this idea would work for an indoor or outdoor wedding, just choose an appropriate sized tree:) What a lovely idea!

image via Green Wedding Shoes

Wedding Bands

Here at Something White we don’t think everything for your wedding has to be “matching.” We love the idea of bridesmaids wearing all different dresses in a different shade of your desired color or mixing different table motifs at your reception. And we think the same idea of not matching can be carried through to your wedding bands. Why not have a wedding band that coordinates but doesn’t match your engagement ring. Then if you ever want to just wear your wedding band it will be a more standout piece. I’ve even had a friend wear her engagement ring on her right hand and her amazingly different wedding band on her left. Love that idea!

all images via Martha Stewart Weddings

Rocking the Aisle Runner

If you are thinking about having a runner, why not shake things up a bit and opt for a color other than white? This is a fun and easy way to enhance the decor at your ceremony. All you need to do is measure the width and length of the aisle you will be walking down and buy some pretty patterned fabric accordingly. Most fabrics come in two widths (45" and 60") and are sold by the yard (3 feet to a yard). So if your aisle is about 4 feet wide and 20 feet long, you would want to look for a fabric that comes in the 45" width and buy about 6.5 yards. What makes this project even simpler is that the fabric will already have a finished edge on either side so you will only have to do two small hems - one at the top and bottom of the runner.

Here are some fabrics that I think would be a good fit. I found most of them on the Jo Ann's website in the home decor fabric section:

Ring Bearer Pillow Alternatives

Wedding bands, their circle shape symbolize the bond of marriage for eternity as there is no beginning and no end to a circle. In many wedding ceremony customs, a ring bearer totes the two rings down the aisle and hands them to the bride and groom. But what if your wedding doesn’t include a ring bearer, or what if your wedding décor doesn’t lend itself to a pillow? Here are some cute alternatives to the traditional ring bearer pillow.

This would be perfect for a rustic outdoor wedding.

This book opens to reveal a special spot to hold two rings. To learn how to make your own click here.

My favorite idea! I would have loved to walk down the aisle wearing our wedding rings around my wrist.

Pictures: Ritzy Bee Blog; Once Wed; Blushalicious

Wedding Readings

Having trouble selecting that special reading or poem for your wedding ceremony? Here are Something Borrowed’s top picks:

Religious Readings:

Ruth 1:16-17 (NIV)But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

1 John 4:7-12 (NIV)7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 (NIV)
6 Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
7 Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

And of course, the classic: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8aIf I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Poems:

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) by ee cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Sonnet CXVI, by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.O no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks, within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Looking For Your Face, by Rumi
From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face, but today I have seen it. Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for. Today I have found you, and those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did. I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty, and wish to see you with a hundred eyes. My heart has burned with passion and has searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold. I am ashamed to call this love human, and afraid of God to call it divine. Your fragrant breath, like the morning breeze, has come to the stillness of the garden. You have breathed new life into me. I have become your sunshine, and also your shadow. My soul is screaming in ecstasy. Every fiber of my being is in love with you. Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart, and you have made radiant for me the earth and sky. My arrow of love has arrived at the target. I am in the house of mercy, and my heart is a place of prayer.

Real Weddings - Jennie and Rob

Today we are featuring the wedding of Jennie and Rob. The wedding was traditional in style with a church ceremony and a reception in the ballroom of a local hotel. However the attention to detail and myriad elegant touches helped to make the day special and unique.

The ceremony was enhanced by beautiful flowers and melodic music provided by a string quartet, trumpet, organ and vocalist. Pews filled with family and friends and the ritual that is part of a Catholic wedding mass made the ceremony the best part of the day for the bride and groom.

The reception, held at the Wyndham, Cleveland, reinforced the elegance established during the ceremony. (Please note, the ballroom there has been revamped since this wedding took place).

These chair-shaped place cards doubled as the favor - the bottom was filled with blue and white M&Ms, customized with the couples' names.

White chiavari chairs enhanced the decor of the ballroom

A monogram adorned the wedding cake helping to personalize the day

See more of Jennie and Rob's wedding here:

~Karin

Cleveland Vendors: St. Michael Catholic Church in Independence, The Wyndham Cleveland, The Florist at Petitti's, The Jerry Bruno Band, Wild Flower Bakery.