Wedding stuff from Florida

While we were in Florida in December, we did spend quite a lot of our time shopping; hence the reason that we both had to buy an additional suitcase to bring home. I got money for my birthday while I was there, so I did have a reason to shop, and since everything is cheaper than back here in the UK, we thought we would take advantage of that.

As you can see from the picture below {which shows our room the night before we left!} we definitely took advantage of all the outlet shopping and the brilliant sales at the malls. I did buy quite a few items of clothing, as since losing so much weight, I didn't have many things that still fitted me and I definitely had no clothes for the sun!

Our room before we went out for dinner on the last night, not even nearly packed!

However, it wasn't just all stuff for ourselves, we did buy loads of Christmas presents and we also bought a few things for the wedding. Most of the items we got from Michael's and Jo~Ann's {much to Graham's disgust since he hates craft stores}, using loads of the 40% off vouchers we managed to collect in our short time there. No one must ever pay full price for anything there! I have listed our purchases and what they are going to be used for below.

White Mini Gable Boxes:

Mini Gable Boxes

(Image from here)

I knew before we went that I wanted to order these boxes in the states as it would have cost a lot to get them delivered to the UK. I did have to pay extra to get the UPS 3-day delivery to our villa in Orlando but it was worth it to know exactly when they were coming. Even with the additional delivery they only worked out at around £40 for 100 boxes which I thought was quite good. The white boxes will be filled with purple tissue paper then mini chocolate bunnies & eggs for our wedding favours {since our wedding is on Easter Saturday}.

Polaroid Pogo Instant Printer:

Polaroid Pogo Instant Printer

I had also seen these before we left so thought I would see if they were cheaper over there. We managed to get one in Target for just $40 which was great but you can also get them on Amazon for around the same price. I love this little printer as all you need to do is either plug your camera cable in and choose which pictures to print or send pictures from your mobile phone via bluetooth. The prints are small, just 2" x 3", and they also have sticky backs. We are planning to use it at the reception to print pictures of our guests to put in our guest book. The printer doesn't require ink, just the special printer paper you can buy in sheets of 10, 40 or 70.

Purple Beverage Napkins:

Purple Beverage Napkins

I'm not entirely sure if we are going to use these or not yet but we found them in a little shop in Venice for just $2 a pack so it seemed silly not to get them. We only got 100 so in hindsight we maybe should have got more but they could be used for the welcome drinks / canapes or possibly for the cake. If we need more we could always get some grey ones to coordinate.

Purple Ribbon:

3mm & 6mm Purple Ribbon

I got lots of ribbon in Micheal's, since it was only $0.50 a spool, which I plan to use on the favour boxes and the order of service'.

Stamp-a-ma-jig® Stamp Positioner:

Stamp-a-ma-jig®

(Image from here)

We got this stamp positioner to make it easier for me to stamp the image onto our invites and RSVP cards. It is probably my favourite purchase as it saves so much time when I'm trying to place the stamps and saves wastage.

Fiskars Corner Squeeze Punch Drops:

Fiskars Corner Squeeze Punch Drops

(Image from here)

Although you can buy this in John Lewis here it was much cheaper in the US. I am planning to use this on the order of service' to make them a bit more interesting than just the plain purple card. It will also probably be used on the menu's and maybe the placecards too.

Martha Stewart Holidays Edge Punch Cityscape:

Martha Stewart Holidays Edge Punch Cityscape

(Top image from here)

We are going to use this on the top edge of the table name cards and on the top edge of each table card on the table plan. Since we are naming each table after a building in New York, I thought it would fit quite well. I love this punch and it works really well on card, there are also wings on each side of it which can be folded out to align the pattern on a larger piece of card. I also bought another edge punch from this range which has snowflakes along it as well as the matching corner punch which I plan to use next Christmas.

Rit Liquid Dye - Violet:

Rit Liquid Dye - Violet

I'm planning to use this dye on the ivory sash that came with the flowergirls dress, in the hope that it turns out a similar colour to the bridesmaids dresses. The colour chart looks similar so hopefully it will be ok.

Wide Purple Ribbon & Purple Satin Flowers:

Casa Collection Wide Purple Ribbon & Purple Satin Flowers

If the dye above doesn't work, I also managed to find 3" wide ribbon & matching flowers in Jo~Ann's that is a pretty close match to the colour of the bridesmaids dresses. I also got the same ribbon in 1.5" wide to give to my bridesmaid Lucy so she can make a sash for her baby daughters ivory dress for the wedding, so she will match her mummy!

You can probably see why we ended up with so much stuff, especially when you add all the Christmas presents we bought, which included 6 cuddly toys for all the babies we were buying presents for. I also got a few things that I'm going to take on honeymoon including flip flops; a dress; a top & belt from J Crew and a lovely purple belt from Anthropologie.