Wedding Crafts

Thursday, A and I departed for Prague to participate in the wedding of two of our dear friends. The groom is originally from Prague, but has lived in Helsinki for the majority of his lifetime, and the bride to be is Swiss. The two met on a volunteer project in S. Africa. It's a great story.

Anyway, as the wedding is a destination wedding for most of the party, coming from Finland or Switzerland or elsewhere in Europe, the bride and groom have asked a few small favors and money instead of gifts, which otherwise would have to be shipped or flown back to Helsinki. This can be an expensive hassle.

Instead, we will decorate mini-bottles of alcohol, bring pass-port photos of ourselves for a guest book, and prepare to have a hat to wear whilst on a boat ride from the vineyards and the ceremony, to the park near the historic zoo in Prague. Fun and funny, our friends like to keep it light.

I made a trip to our local Tiimari, the Joanne Fabrics of Finland, to pick up some odds and ends to decorate the mini-bottles. (Mine in picture is the one with the angel wings, and A's next to it has the tux on) On the way, I stopped into a Salvation Army to see if there was anything I could scrounge up for a hat. I was hoping to find some cheap fedora for A, but this seems out of the question so last minute and on a budget. Instead, I got the idea to make either a pillbox or a bird-cage hat with a small veil for myself. Since I have matching accessories and ribbon to match A's blue dress shirt, I was looking for something baby blue.

What I bought:

Now what?

I looked throughout the internet for pictures of pillbox and birdcage hats and found some great bloggers out there into vintage fashion, from the Vintage Style Files. This site shows vintage fashion divas all about DIY, from retrofitting earrings to Christmas decorations. I wanted to remember this site, it's a real gem.

The end result:And how it looked on me at the Wedding:

No one could tell I used a bra for this hat!

All in all, we had a great time, as always, in Prague. Congratulations T and G!