How is it?

I guess it's about how you'd expect, with 8 days to go. People who accepted are canceling, bridesmaids are attempting to get themselves kicked out of the wedding, but overall we're very excited. I have just one significantly outstanding project, which is...pretty much anything that would sit on a table, other than consumables. Centerpieces, table numbers, card box. In theory, those were to have been resolved tomorrow, but now that fiance is sick, I'm not entirely sure what their fate will be.

In other news, I've finished up the bare minimum of boutonnières required:


though I'll see if I can get some more in for any of our gazillion parents & helpers.

I also eliminated a major stressor for no additional monetary investment. I had been planning to get frosted candle holders for my 144 LED tealights. I may or may not have raved about these things previously, but they're little battery-operated plastic tealights that flicker a rather flame-like yellow. I got them because the venue doesn't permit real candles to be lit anywhere but the dinner tables, and it seemed like it would be fun to have candlelight elsewhere. They're great because there's no smoke, no heat, no melted wax, they require no oxygen, and they last longer than your average tealight. (While careful testing has shown that they do last the 120 hours suggested on the package, they start to get noticeably dim after 10 hours or so.) But, they still last a good long while, and that means you can turn them on in advance of the event and have one less thing to do.

The problem is that while they are candle-shaped and they give off realistic candle light, they don't actually look like candles, head on. So the trick is to put them in frosted candle holders, obscuring their appearance, but emitting their light. Well, I don't have a good party supply outlet nearby, and shipping on crates of glass is rather expensive, so this was looking to be a rather pricy decor choice. And after months of stalling only to decide that I really did want to use them as decor for the mansion, it finally struck me yesterday morning, well before I was properly awake. Paper. I had a whole bunch of extra vellum (platinum, from the invite fronts) with no particular destiny. Since these are not actual candles, there's no problem with surrounding them with paper.

So, using a runner full of permanent adhesive tape that was not invisible enough for the vellum fronts of the invites, I made 144 vellum candle shades. Some careful math and less-careful trimming yielded 144 slips of paper from 24 sheets producing an assortment of 2", 2.5", and 3" tall shades. Using one LED candle as a template, I ran the tape down one short edge and wrapped the paper around the candle into a cylinder, sticking it back down to itself, then slid the candle out. At the end of the night, all of the cylinders were packed in layers in a cardboard box, ready to be easily slid onto the LED candles by my conscripted helpers on the day of the wedding.



Supplies I already had lying around and a few hours of labor yielded the solution to a bothersome and potentially expensive problem. I spent at least an entire day patting myself on the back for this one.

What's been your most brilliant DIY solution?

Up next: hair and makeup trials.