Inspiration

August 13, 2015Alexandria Mavis

I am a lover of all things handmade and “Do It Yourself.” We got married on a island so it was a bit tricky to find everything you needed there. And with the boat ride over and the only mode of transportation on the island being bycicle or horse carriage DIY was the best fit for us. Below are some ideas, inspiration and tutorials of what we did for our special day.

I bought all the flowers locally a few days before the wedding and my mother-in-law put them together on the island (we used mainly seeded eucalyptus, babies breathe and my bouquet had succulents).

For the stationery, one of the groomsmen and bridesmaid helped me put my ideas into an actual design and we had them printed at Office Max. With the stationary I wanted to incorporate all things Mackinac Island such as bicycles, horse carriages and the Mackinac Island Bridge.

Our ceremony decor was quite simple because we didn’t want to take way from the beauty of the Woodland Grotto. I bought a pine tree Christmas wreathe, bent the wire into a heart shape, and covered it with seeded eucalyptus and white berries. I am obsessed with all things wood and it played a big part in our wedding decor.

I really wanted each guest to have a cutting board as a place mat and take-home wedding favour, but on our budget we didn’t know if we could afford it. While still in Australia I found some at IKEA for $4 each! I was on the phone with different US IKEA’s to see if they carried them and turns out only the Asia/Pacific stores did. So what did I do? I bought 40 cutting boards and filled one of my checked bags weighting over 50 pounds and brought them home!

Living in Australia and being from two different states we had guests come from all over the world. We wanted our guestbook to reflect that, so we bought a scratch map and asked our guest to scratch and sign where they were from. It was so cool to see it fill up all over different places in the world. One of my favourite things about the wedding was our dessert table and all the goodies. We wanted to support Michigan locals so we had fresh Michigan cherries, blackberries and fudge – all delicious things Northern Michigan and Mackinac Island are known for!

If you have any questions about a DIY project please feel free to comment and ask below! These first 2 years have been exciting, fun, challenging and wonderful! I hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me!