{Click to enlarge!}

Love red and orange, and love the idea of bowls of cherries and brightly colored citrus fruits as centerpieces. Lots of patterns in this board, too, from the seating chart by Cheree Berry to the fabric homemade jam jars. Who’s ready for summer?

The Details
First row, left to right: Johnny Miller, Martha Stewart Weddings, 100 Layer Cake

Second: flickr via Creature Comforts, The Knot, The Knot

Third: Minted, ElseaChelsea’s flickr

Fourth: red and orange dresses, ElseaChelsea’s flickr, Martha Stewart Weddings

My buddy M currently has about thirteen girlfriends planning weddings. True story. Several of them got together last week, and one conundrum followed them home:

“Mary and DJ are saying ‘I Do’ at our university chapel, which unfortunately does not permit any thrown celebratory items post-ceremony. (Au revoir rice and confetti!) The bride, however, is attached to the image of walking out of the church doors with her new husband with celebration literally in the air. She and I have been brainstorming other options and she is thinking streamers, however we are struggling with ways this idea can be a. not too feminine for male guests to participate in, and b. not too homemade-seeming. Do you have any inspiring images or ideas for ways we could logistically piece together streamers for waving, or other items that would photograph well in the air –short of being tossed?“

My wheels instantly started turning, because as much as I love the image of streamers waving in the air, I’ve always had a hard time swallowing that men would voluntarily participate in such an activity. After putting some feelers out to friends, here are the best ideas we came up with.

{Kim Box via Southern Weddings}

First, let’s take a moment to pause and mourn the loss of moments like this one. Jenifer and Kenny had a confetti canon. Yep, that’s pretty cool.

{Amy Squires via Style Me Pretty}

{Catana Photography via SMP}

Okay, moving on. The first option is streamers. They do make for lovely photos, and the guests in these photos appear to be participating wholeheartedly. They seem simple to make, too. The bride above suggests buying dowels from a home improvement store and cutting them into thirds (leaving each about 16 inches long). She then cut one inch thick organza ribbons into 20 inch sections, dabbed a bit of hot glue on the top of each rod, tied a loose knot at the end of each ribbon, and then tightened it over the top, over the glue.

{Beaux Arts Photographie via Style Me Pretty}

Fairly similar to streamers are pinwheels. You could do the standard size, or you could go oversize. Certainly whimsical, but depending on the paper used, could also be sophisticated.

Hooray flags! You can purchase them from So Inviting on Etsy, or figure out the DIY. I also like the idea of making triangle flags from colored paper or fabric, like so:

{Feather Love Photography via SMP}

{Kristin Vining}

Wedding signs! Never seen this before, but it looks very cute here!

{Martha Stewart}

And finally, wedding bells. I have to say, this is my favorite option of the bunch, even if it isn’t the most original. I think the sound of hundreds of tinkling bells would be magical, it’s not as girly as waving a ribbon streamer, and your guests will definitely “get it.” (Which they might not with, say, wedding signs.)

What do you think? Which of these options is your favorite? Do you have a better idea? And how about it — are ribbon wands just too girly to be practical, or have you seen them used successfully?

P.S. Of course, there’s always sparklers, but the logistics of getting them all lit at the same time is a little much for me. I also love the idea of kazoos or those party blowers that unroll, but I couldn’t find a good photo to illustrate!

Oh man I love this image so much. I love that it could be from the 20’s or 50’s just as easily as it could be from yesterday. Let’s plan for my wedding reception to look just like this one day, mmmkay?

Image c/o A Bryan Photo

Y’all know K and C are go-o-o-o-o-ing to the chapel this August, which means it’s about time for a bridal shower! After some consideration, we decided to throw an alphabet shower, loosely inspired by Rebecca Thuss’ celebration. The idea is that the details are inspired by the bride’s name, and as Kate is the word-loving sort, we thought this would be appropriate. We have lots of fun deets up our sleeve (which I won’t be showing you until afterwards — sorry!), but I did want to share the invitations we just dropped in the mail.

I designed the labels in Microsoft Publisher, printed them, and then ran them through the Xyron, which turns them into stickers. The plan was to then punch the edges (as you can see above), but that step turned out to be excruciatingly painful…

…so most of them have plain edges, but I like to think they look “clean” this way.

The front, sans stamp.

The invite itself.

And the card explaining the alphabet gift system. I struggled over the wording, because I didn’t want it to seem like we were assuming people would bring gifts, but we also thought it would be fun to include the gift-giving portion of the shower in the theme. What do you think — did I do okay? Would this card make sense to you if you were invited?