Wedding Weekend - Giving Back to Your Maids!

Hello blogosphere!  Happy wedding weekend.  It's been a while since my first wedding weekend post and I swear I wasn't just procrastinating and being lazy.  I only have so much wedding stuff to post about because, well, I only had one wedding.  So I'll be spreading out my wedding weekends a bit to make my material last for a while.

This week I'll be talking about a little surprise I lined up for my bridesmaids that was easy, quick, inexpensive and fun for my most favorite girls in the world.  Your bridesmaids give so much of their time, money and effort to be apart of your big day.  I truly didn't realize this until I was a bridesmaid, but it's a ton of work.  Who knew? And your girls will do it for you without complaint because they want you to be happy and because they love you.

Attendants Gift Part I: Hand Made Clutch

My bridesmaids did so much for me it would be hard to name it all.  They were there for me on every little detail and every time I needed them, they threw me a kick-ass shower and a damn good bachelorette weekend.  I felt like I couldn't say thank you enough and there wasn't anything I could get that was good enough to repay them for everything they did for me.

Attendants Gift Part II: Converse for dancing!

In the end, I ended up doing a couple things for my girls to say thank you, including some awesome attendants gifts (we splurged a little on these, but again, I just felt like they deserved so much) and a tiny little surprise for the wedding day.



To personalize each of my girls bouquets I added a small picture frame charm with a picture of her and me.  I didn't tell my girls about this, I just arranged it with my florist and when they opened up their box of flowers that afternoon they had a cute little surprise waiting for them.

This project was super easy.  I purchased the picture frame charms at JoAnn Fabrics.  They come two to a bag and they cost me $6 for all six charms.  I'm pretty sure they were having a 50% off sale on these charms which is part of the reason they were so inexpensive, but if you plan accordingly you can definitely get a great deal on them. And they're nice charms too!  They are a nice hefty material, not dinky and cheap.

I originally planned to have the pictures printed through Walgreens or CVS but I realized that it was completely unnecessary.  The pictures were so teeny that I hardly used any ink and just one piece of photo paper (this included a couple of extra prints when I screwed up the sizes).

Picking the pictures was the fun part.  I picked pictures that highlighted how long I had known each girl.  My sisters picture was one of us when I was about 6 months old, a couple of my friends got pictures from high school dances, and some had pictures from college or even later.  My frame had a picture of me with all my bridesmaids from my bridal shower.  It was kinda cool to see the timeline of pictures.

After I had all my pictures printed and ready to go I just cut them down to size and placed them in the frame.  I used a small drop of glue for extra security but they didn't need them.  The first one I assembled I didn't use glue and I had to pry the picture out with a toothpick so I could add the glue in after.  Finally, I dropped them off at my florist and they took care of the rest!

This was something I considered for a while before I did it and I'm so happy that I decided to go for it.  Quick, simple, fun and a surprise for my girls!  Win!

Did you do anything fun for your girls on your wedding day?