{Advice} Enroll help

I want to talk about relinquishing control. About giving up the traditional bridezilla "this-is-my-wedding-and-I-will-do-it" type control, and letting some friends and family help you.

Okay. Maybe I'm suffering a bad case of psychological projection. Maybe this is me, not you. Maybe I'm the control freak. I admit it.

But there is one person (aside from my smashing groom) whom I've whole-heartedly allowed to help me in the process of planning the wedding: My mom. And boy has she been amazing.

{Almost} all of the stuff my mom has made for my wedding (in 8 days!!!).

The first thing she made was a bunch of ties for the groomsmen, ushers, and my dad. I'm super anti-shiny things for my own wedding, and prefer the more organic looks of cotton and such. In order to avoid silk ties, my mom made them from cotton.

Next was the junior bridesmaid dresses. One of my junior bridesmaids is my sister, and my mom traditionally makes most of our special occasion dresses. Having her make my sister's dress was a no-brainer.

My sister, Ramie, in her junior maid of honor dress.

This dress did start as 21 pieces of fabric, which my mom told me was an interesting adventure. :)

My mom making the dress for the other junior bridesmaid, my dear fiance's little sister, was a different kind of decision. It was another decision that came out of my frustration for the types of dresses available. I wanted yellow, and everything in yellow wasn't quite formal enough. So my mom made it.

Next was the boutonnieres for the dads and grandpas. We decided to cut costs and to give parents and grandparents a memento to take home by creating fabric flower boutonnieres and corsages instead of the traditional real-bud ones.

My mom, me and a few of my bridesmaids got together for a DIY day and created the buds themselves, then my mom crafted some into boutonnieres and I crafted the rest into corsages.

Boutonnieres and the lovely bow tie for the junior groomsman.

Then, my mom created my garters. This was super important to me because I knew I wanted my garters--especially the keepsake one-- to be made from remnants of my mother's wedding dress, which she made for her own 1990 wedding. This is my "something old." (It might only be 22, but it's older than I am, so I think I can consider it "old.")

My keepsake garter, above, and my toss garter, below. The white flowers on here are from my mom's dress.

My mom also made all of the tablecloths for the reception (again, to avoid a panic attack brought on by my extreme aversion for shiny things like the linens available from rental companies). And she crafted draperies to transform the ugly picnic shelter reception space into a gorgeous, ethereal wedding.

Lovely, non-shiny, tablecloths. Thank you, mom.

Could I have done all of this, plus hire vendors, plus do the DIY project that I've done, plus work and go to school alone? Absolutely not. So, here's the moral: Let people help you. And then say thank you. You'll thank yourself in the end.

Check back in later this week to see some of the DIY projects that I've done! 

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