Double Duty on Wedding Purchases

Getting married is hard.

There are so many decisions, so much research, and so many opinions.

While making decisions on physical purchases, I have been keeping one question in mind:

What purpose will this serve after the wedding is over?

For example:

What purpose will this shirt that says “Future Mrs. X” serve after the wedding is over? 

The answer is none. Please, no one ever buy me this.

What purpose will these gold lanterns we scoured multiple Targets for serve after the wedding is over?

I plan on keeping a few and then selling the rest!

What purpose will these koozie favors serve after the wedding is over?

None because there will be no koozies.

Don’t hate me for hating on the koozies. I have a million of them. They get tossed into a cabinet, and I never use them. So no they serve no purpose for me.

I want my purchases to serve double duty, so I am trying to avoid anything that blatantly says Mr. and Mrs, or is obviously wedding related. I want to wear my wedding shoes again! I want to be able to use the bulk thank you cards I bought on Amazon for any other situation post-wedding!

Some people might say, “But it’s your wedding! You only get married once!”

Yes, and because of that I want to be able to have a regular use for anything from that day, so I can always be reminded of it.

Doesn’t that make more sense?

 

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If you are interested in more, I’ve previously posted about renting versus buying wedding decor and buying wedding decor secondhand.

 

How To: Completely Wing A Gallery Wall

I have never hung anything like a gallery wall before, but since we have so many Indiana University related framed pictures, we figured it would be best to clump them all together in one space. After a quick (2 minute) overview of “gallery wall tips” on Pinterest, I set to work doing a mock up of what the wall would look like.

Materials Needed:

• Scissors
• Paper
• Pen/marker
• Tape
• Nails/picture hanging supplies
• Hammer
• Level
• Measuring tape

1.) Find Some Paper and Do Some Cutting

Since K had just gone grocery shopping, I opted to use the paper bags he just brought home. I traced each frame, cut it out, and labeled it.

2.) Figure Out Where They are Going to Go

First I played with their locations on the floor a bit before taping them on the wall. Since we lacked painter’s tape,  I used regular scotch tape and nothing happened to the paint.  I started with the biggest pictures and then worked around them with the smaller ones. I made sure to focus on which color the frames were so all of my black frames did not end up in one corner.

3.) Do Some Measuring And Take A Step Back

Using my handy dandy measuring tape, I attempted to keep 3 inches between each frame so that all the spacing was the same. It took a couple tries of moving pieces around and each time you moved one, you had to adjust them all! We looked at it from across the room and made sure we liked where everything was before moving on.

4. Hang Pictures (Repeat this step over and over)

I chose to hang the largest pieces first before moving on to the smaller ones. After hanging one picture, I had to make sure the frame was decently level before measuring and hanging the next one. If not, the whole thing could end up off.

Here is the final product! It is not perfect, but I do not care. Looks good from afar to me!