Category Archives: DIY

Will You Be My Bridesmaid Stamp

Let’s admit it: We’ve all swooned over those sweet “Will You Be My Bridesmaid” kerchiefs. You know the ones I mean: vintage printed hankies with a little message scrawled in the center. But almost $30 a pop, the price can add up pretty fast, especially if you have a lot of bridesmaids. So imagine my surprise and joy when I stumbled on this “Will You Be My Bridesmaid” stamp from Southern Fried Paper! You can DIY as many hankies as you like for the price of one from some other retailers! The stamp is available in a classic cursive and floral motif. Just purchase hankies at the nearest flea market or make your own with a few yards of fabric and some iron-on hemming tape.

Couples Shower: Field Day

I recently saw these images from an amazing pre-wedding field day on Pinterest and they completely inspired me. I think this concept would be perfect for a couples shower!

The photos brought me back to my days as a camp counselor and reminded me of how much fun “adults” (note the quotation marks…) can have revisiting games from our youth. My friend Nicole organized a game of kickball for her rehearsal dinner and we had an amazing time being silly and showing off our skills on the field. Old-school field day events like a three-legged race, egg toss or the fill the bucket game you see pictured above would also be great additions to the event. I love the referee they recruited (and I’m secretly hoping it’s the bride’s dad…wouldn’t that be perfect?). Personalized baseball tees would be the perfect favor for the day.

Fiesta Bridal Shower Inspiration

Everyone loves a fiesta, especially in the summertime. The colors are bright, the food is delicious and the drinks are strong—the perfect inspiration for a fun backyard bridal shower. My advice is to not go too literal on the invitations—in other words, stay away from sombreros, tacos or margaritas. Instead choose color palettes and motifs that evoke the occasion. This Etsy number uses spot-on color combos, but a modern chevron pattern. I also love the mix of fonts, which really gives the invite an personalized look.

The decorative flourishes on the edges of this invite from Wedding Paper Divas evoke a festive fiesta, but white space and typography make it seem a bit more fancy.

I also like this option from Polka Dot Design. It’s a simpler version of the Etsy invite above, but as a bonus they have napkins and Lucite serving trays in the same pattern (and the back is printed in allover chevron).

Now decor. The traditional choice would be Fiesta ware, but if you can’t get your hands on the real stuff, ask around for brightly colored plates and serving bowls and mix and match for an eclectic feel. I love the mix and match feel of this tablescape: bright traditional Mexican textiles as a tablecloth, mix-and-match colored plates and a few quirky pieces in the center.


I also love the chic simplicity of this setting. The colored glassware in particular pops on the table and the sunflowers evoke the perfect summer mood.

Can we talk about how adorable this idea is?? Flowers in limes!

For drinks, I love the look (and taste!) of this strawberry basil sangria, made with chardonnay and a bit of club soda for bubbles. Add don’t forget the margaritas, of course.

A serve-yourself taco stall looks adorable and lets guests regulate the amount of spice they like in their food. Fill small bowls with chopped lettuce, diced jalepenos, halved cherry tomatoes, and slices of red onions and avocados. Then choose your fillings. For a no-hassle option, you can always shred rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, but if you want to fancy it up, try these tequila-glazed chicken thighs (then shred into taco-sized pieces). For a delicious and fresh salsa topping for your tacos, boil sweet corn for about 10 minutes, then use a knife to take the kernels off the cob. Next, mix with chopped avocado and cherry tomatoes. Stir in two tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons sea salt, 1/2 cup chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime.

For a side dish, I love these grilled sweet potato fries with lime cilantro vinaigrette. They’re super easy to make and taste delicious.

And for dessert, you have to go with Mexican wedding cookies! Check out a recipe here.

Additional sources: Hostess with the Mostess Mexican fiesta, Celebrations.com fiesta and The Stir table settings.

This post contains a few affiliate links. All products are selected because we love them—if you love them too, you’re helping support Ultimate Bridesmaid. So thanks! 

A Year of Date Nights

Today on Ultimate Bridesmaid we welcome guest poster Tara from Spotofteadesigns.com. I was totally inspired by Tara’s super-creative shower gift—A Year of Date Nights! See how she pulled it off below.
Hello UB followers! My name is Tara and I’m the T of Spotofteadesigns.com! Since 2010, I will have been involved in 6 weddings as a bridesmaid, maid of honor and a bride-to-be for my upcoming September wedding. Needless to say I’m in full-on wedding mode these days! As a bridesmaid, I’m used to the plan to chip in for an expensive item off the bride’s registry, but in one particular case, all the big ticket items were already taken. We came up with another plan.
As a big Pinterest user, I was very excited to come across this post from Shannon Brown’s Life in General Blog. She gave her husband a Christmas gift that included 12 envelopes of planned dates for the full year. I loved this concept and used it as inspiration for my bride’s group gift, which we nicknamed A Year of Date Nights.
At her shower, Allie, the bride, was only able to open a large box containing all the wrapped gifts you see above, and a descriptive poem explaining the concept. Each month after their wedding, Allie and her hubby, Tim, are allowed to open that month’s gift. Upon reading it, they’ll be able to pick a day on their calendar to enjoy the date. Since the couple only wed in May, as of this post only 2 gifts have been opened that I can share.For June, Allie and Tim opened a mini pizza box containing an empty frozen yogurt container. Inside they received gift cards for dinner and dessert at their local pizza and froyo locations.
For July, they opened a handmade card with a gift card to Wegmans. They were instructed to buy some steaks and trimmings, then enjoy a sunny BBQ for two on their backyard patio.
Not all her gifts had to do with food, but I can’t reveal the rest until they open the gifts as the months pass.
Below are a few suggestions for other bridesmaids who might want to make their own Year of Date Nights gift: Continue reading →

DIY: Photobooth

My friend Nicole, master of the DIY wedding, created this fun photobooth wall for the reception.  Here’s what you’ll need:

  • One 4 ft. x 8 ft. piece plywood or other scrap wood large enough for 2-4 people to stand behind
  • Various frames 8″ x 10″ or larger
  • Scrap wallpaper
  • Sawhorse
  • Handheld jigsaw
  • Handheld drill
  • Hammer and nails or hot glue
  • Mod Podge
  • Paintbrush
  • Ruler
  • Exacto knife/scissors

Nicole hunted around at some garage sales for the frames. A few still had old pictures in them and we kept a random fruit still life in its frame to complete the “pictures on the wall” illusion. Ask friends and relatives if they have any wallpaper scraps lying around. Purchasing new paper can be expensive and anyone who has wallpapered is bound to have some bits leftover that they’ve shoved in the attic. You can also find scraps for sale on Etsy or eBay. This one’s really pretty and wedding white. Just make sure you get enough to cover your plywood! I love Nicole’s choice because it’s so old-fashioned and tacky. I absolutely giggle every time I imagine the hypothetical house this existed in (and the hypothetical owners who clearly have an unhealthy obsession with fruit).

Plywood generally comes in 4 x 8 feet sheets, but you really only need 4 x 6 1/2 (unless your wedding guests are really tall), so, wearing protective eyewear, cut off the top 1 1/2 feet with your jigsaw (or ask the hardware store to do this!).  Continue reading →

Bachelorette Party Favor: Mix CD

I entered adolescence in a very specific era: after cassette tapes but before mp3 players. We were the children of the “compact disc,” with our portable CD players and giant binders of CDs. Sure, there was a time when I had to queue up a tape if I wanted to record a song off the radio (God, that was hard! And you always missed the first two or three seconds of the song!), but when the mix CD came along? WOW! Let’s just say that high school was filled with CD exchanges and mixes specifically tailored to long road trips. In homage to the era of the mix CD, I decided to make one as a favor for Marisa’s bachelorette party. I emailed the attendees to ask for songs that reminded them of Marisa and then put together a mix.

I started off with songs that would remind us of specific events—when Justin and Marisa met, when he proposed, our girls’ weekend—and then added songs that I knew Marisa loved from different eras. I wanted to include a lot of “love” songs as well because I know sappy love songs annoy her, so I chose upbeat, peppy ones with the word “love” in the title. It turned into a ridiculous mix of songs, but they are all personal to her.

Then I bought some jewel cases and CDs (man, that took me back) and set about creating a CD cover. I am by no means a graphic designer, but I do know how to use InDesign, so I created my case there. I stuck with polka dots, typography and a color palette of pink, black and white, because I felt like I couldn’t screw that up. I bought some pretty polka-dot ribbon on sale at a local craft store. Ribbon can be expensive, so look out for deals! I needed almost 15 yards for 15 CDs—about a yard a CD. Then once we checked into the hotel, I left a CD on each pillow so the guests would find them when they arrived.

DIY Bridesmaid: Thumbprint Tree

My friend Nicole should be the poster girl for DIY weddings. She arranged a sunset ceremony in her backyard right on the St. John’s River, and we were surrounded by sunflowers while two of her friends strummed guitar and other friends snapped photos. Nicole even made all the food herself, with the help of her aunts and Mom (more on that later). One of my favorite projects from the wedding though was her Thumbprint Tree Guest Book.

You can find lots of trees on Etsy, but they’re a bit expensive. Nicole’s fiance Brenhan is a great artist, so he painted this one himself and I added the calligraphy. Then we set it out on a small table with four different shades of green ink (found at Michael’s) and paper towels and water to clean your finger after leaving your print. We also set out a pen so that guests could sign their name next to their print. At informal receptions, bridesmaids can be a huge help in getting things like this done. I offered to take charge of the guest book, circulated and asked guests if they’d had a chance to “sign” it yet and helped show them what to do.  The result was absolutely gorgeous!