Planning a wedding can be lots of fun, but it can also get quite expensive. Garrett and I are both budget minded people, so we didn’t want to spend a fortune on the wedding, but we also wanted it to look elegant and fun for our guests.
Anywhere we could reuse or repurpose things we already had, we did – like the wooden crates used for the DIY Honey Jar Wedding Favours display or this antique mirror we turned into a seating chart for the guests.
This was a last minute wedding project. We had the frame ready, but everything else was done either the day before or the morning of. Yes, I was hot gluing the final pieces just after I’d had my makeup done and before it was my turn to sit with the hairdresser.
As stressful as that may sound, it was actually really nice to have something to do with my hands on the morning of the wedding, when my brain was going a mile a minute worrying about other things (like tripping down the aisle or losing a groomsman). I’m a tactile person, so doing something with my hands is actually calming!
The frame was an antique mirror that my great aunt had for years and when she heard I was looking for old frames for the wedding decor, she happily offered it up. Garrett’s mom painted it with homemade chalk paint awhile back, even before we knew exactly what it would be used for. She painted up a whole bunch of frames like this for various projects at the wedding (you’ll see them come up in future posts!)
Despite the tarnished piece of the mirror I didn’t want to take it out, in case we wanted to use it as a mirror again later on. Instead, I cut a piece of foam core board to fit the inside of the mirror. You can find it at most dollar stores or office supply shops.
My bridesmaid Amy was doing a craft run on the day before the wedding and grabbed this dark grey suit-like material to cover the board. I cut it to the dimensions of the board plus a few extra inches all the way around. I made little “v” cuts at the corners to remove the excess fabric. My dad sprayed the board with spray adhesive and we lay the fabric down on top and pushed all the air bubbles out.
We flipped it over and sprayed the edges of the back too and pressed the excess fabric down, making sure to get the corners fairly square.
I printed the table lists on leftover cardstock from our wedding invitations and cut them all the same size. For the layout, I went with the head table at the top and then three rows of four cards below for the twelve round tables. By printing these out individually, I was able to swap one out if there was a change in the seating – which did happen when couple of guests unexpectedly couldn’t make it.
I arranged the cards, then used simple sewing straight pins pushed straight down into the board at all four corners of the square. When the pins were pressed in, they looked like little finishing nails.
They came through the other side and my dad just snipped them off with wire cutters. They were pretty snug in the foam and stayed in place without any help.
If you were to pull them out, they’d look like cute little nails!
For a little decoration on the front of the board, I used some fake flowers. The white roses were picked off the wrapping that our neighbours did for the painting they gave us. I just took off the plastic stems and used hot glue to attach the petals back together at the base of each flower. By removing the plastic base, this kept the flowers flat on the bottom.
The dusty miller lamb’s ear leaves were some extra pieces that my mom picked up from a craft store in the US. They looked (and felt) like the real stuff!
I arranged the leaves and flowers how I liked them and then used a hot glue gun to hold them in place. Then I attached double sided tape (you can see it in some of the photos above) to the back of the foam board and used it to attach the board right to the mirror. Voila!
At the wedding venue, we propped the frame up on a large wooden easel in the bar area, where guests would see it during cocktail hour. The frame was heavy, so just to make sure that no one knocked it over onto themselves, we secured it to the easel with some extra wire.
After the wedding, we were able to easily remove the board and use the mirror again!
Linked up to: Craftberry Bush · A Glimpse Inside · Liz Marie · The Idea Room · Serenity Now
