Why did you choose to hand make so many aspects of your wedding decor?

I love to craft, and hand making things just always gives me such a feeling of pride and accomplishment. Plus, for the ideas I had and the look I wanted, the items aren’t sold anywhere so creating them myself was literally my only option!
 
I always knew I wanted to have a Harry Potter themed wedding. That story has meant so much to me, so I thought– what better way to bring those pages to life than through paper flowers. I started looking for paper bouquets, but it seemed like everything I found was just a single flower type made out of pages. I wanted to take it a little further and create something that appeared real from far away. It wasn’t until my mother-in-law Mary told me about liagriffith.com and I saw her DIY Rustic Paper Bridal Bouquet did I say to myself– that’s it, that’s the one. I knew exactly which flower type was going to be the book pages, and I immediately downloaded all of the files and ordered the paper in my wedding colors. Mary crafts for a living, and she had a Cricut that she let me use. I was initially just going to do the bouquets, but I loved them so much I decided to do the whole wedding in paper flowers. You should have seen my husband’s face when I told him! I couldn’t imagine destroying books though, so I got the PDF of the first book and printed the first page out over and over again on beautiful pearl metallic paper. They came out amazing, I still can’t believe it. 

What other components did you make for your wedding?

As far as the paper crafts go, I made all of the centerpieces, my bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets, my husbands and his groomsmen’s boutonnieres, the flowers for the isle and garland for the head table. I decorated the card bin with flowers and a paper “cards” banner also and guests found their seats by finding their winged keys that were paper wings glued to antique key keychains. My wonderful maid-of-honor Katrina made the “mischief managed” sign that we used as for our thank-you cards. 
 
For the non-paper crafts, I made the gold centerpiece vases using a bowl and a candlestick holder from the Dollar Store, gluing them together and spray-painting them to mimic mercury glass. I made our save-the-date sign and all of the signs for drinks and things at the wedding. I created a “Sorting Hat” flow-chart that ended in a number one through four. When guests picked a cupcake with their number on it, they bit into it and got their Harry Potter house color. A hundred paper numbers glued to toothpicks– THAT was fun, let me tell you! 
 
One of my favorite aspects of Harry Potter is that the pictures move, so we hired a videographer to film us by a castle in northern Massachusetts (we live close to Boston). We walked in and out of frame doing various things like dancing, waving wands to make table numbers appear, etc. Then I put them into digital photo frames with HD video capability and they were the table numbers for each table!
 
I didn’t personally make it, but we also had cornhole boards made to look like Quidditch and I had our cake topper made to be figures of Michael and I holding wands. We also had a chocolate frog box made out of clay that we used as a ring box!

Tell us about your bridal bouquet?

I’m absolutely obsessed with my bouquet. I started with the flowers from the DIY Rustic Paper Bridal Bouquet and modified from there. I added anemones and roses and some of the ferns from the Paper Greenery Chandelier. Nobody could believe it (or anything else) was paper.

Tell us about those amazing Bridesmaid bouquets!

They are essentially just smaller versions of mine. The best part was that the girls got to keep them afterwards. One of my friends even asked me ahead of time, and told me she had a special vase waiting at home for her bouquet!

Have you made paper flowers before? If not, how did you learn and how difficult did you find it?

I had never made paper flowers before. When I first got the idea, I downloaded the Classic Paper Rose PDF and hand cut that out and attempted to make it. It did not come out well! But I was determined, so I used the Cricut and started cutting out different flowers (MUCH easier). For the most part I followed Lia’s tutorials on each page, but honestly it was just trial and error. I made each flower about a dozen times, learning each time how to fold and glue to achieve the look I wanted in the easiest way possible. I didn’t find them difficult at all, just time-consuming. Some of the flowers like the chrysanthemums I could make in minutes, but others, like the freesias and dahlias, took much longer. Absolutely worth it though! 

So, did your husband get involved, we’re always looking for man-crafters!?

He did! Well– he did to the extent that I would let him, haha. I’m very particular, so I had him do things that didn’t exactly require artistic skill. He made all the wire bases for the hydrangeas, and helped me curl petals. My friends even got involved. Every month or so we’d have what I called a “petal party”; they’d come over, I’d make food, and we’d all sit around and curl or glue petals (usually the hydrangeas). My mother-in-law even made several trips up from New Jersey on weekends to help make flowers too. 

What would be your top tip for anyone wanting to hand make aspects of their wedding decor?

Have patience and a REALLY good glue gun!
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Congratulations to Mandy and Michael, and thank you for sharing your special day with us!
 
Got a great crafting story to share? Drop us a note at hello@liagriffith.com with your pictures! Follow us on Instagram & Facebook to see other member makes. See you there! ~ Lia & team

 Photos courtesy of noelperrone.com
 

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