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Wedding Attire
Brides can sew applique butterflies onto their
dresses. If you have a headpiece that is covered in fabric, sew smaller,
matching butterflies to the headpiece. Many online bridal shops also carry
butterfly tiaras, with and without a veil, which you can purchase.
For your bridesmaids, also sew butterfly
appliques on their dresses, such as at the edge of a sleeve, near the neckline,
or along the hem. If possible, use appliques that are the same color as the
dresses or you could try dying the appliques to match.
Create your own butterfly throwing garter as
well. Simply sew a pretty butterfly applique to an existing garter or create
your own by sewing elastic through the middle length of wide lace.
Wedding Invitations and Wedding Programs
You'd be hard pressed not to find a site online
that doesn't sell butterfly wedding invitations, programs, thank you cards, etc.
However, if you'd like to save some money, try designing your own using
butterfly graphics. There are many good greeting card computer programs
available, plus it's pretty easy to find good quality card stock to use for your
invitations, etc.
Location
Any venue can be decorated to a butterfly theme,
but if you really would like some pizzazz, check with a local zoo or botanical
garden. Many have butterfly enclosures where you could have a small
private ceremony with perhaps immediate family.
Flowers
Use a wildflower bouquet with a few butterfly
picks inserted. Stick with flowers that butterflies would be attracted to such
as: Phlox, Lilacs, Honeysuckle, and Asters.
There are many species of butterflies, so you may
actually want to base your wedding theme colors around a particular butterfly.
If so, find out which flowers that particular butterfly is attracted to and use
it in your bouquets, centerpieces, etc. A good site to visit is The
Butterfly Guide .
For the groom and ushers, you could have
boutonnieres with a single flower and attach a butterfly pin to the flower
stem.
Wedding Decorations
Table decorations could consist of butterfly
confetti, floating butterfly candles, small plant pots with wild flowers with
inserted butterfly picks.
A cute addition is butterfly name card holders.
Many places sell these, but you could easily make your own by decorating a small
2" clay pot, fill with flowers and insert wire butterflies. Take 2 wire
butterflies and wrap wire around the bottom of the wings to attach them together
to make a holder - wrap a long wire stem around the bottom of the butterflies
and insert it into the pot.
Decorate the room with flower garlands and attach
various size colored butterflies which you can print out on photo paper from a
color printer. Hang butterfly or bird cages throughout the room and layer the
bottom with flowers and insert plastic or beaded butterflies.
Use pillar candles as centerpieces. Wrap wide
ribbon around the bottom and attach butterfly appliques to the the ribbon.
Use wide ribbon bows and a single butterfly
applique in the center and attach these to many objects, such as the cake knife
serving pieces, candles, poles, corner of doorways, along green garland, as pew
markers, etc.
Consider devoting each of your guest tables to a
specific butterfly. Decorate the table with that butterflies colors, flowers,
etc. Check out the Butterfly Guide link above to help you match butterflies,
colors and flowers.
Guest Book
A simple and elegant way to create a butterfly
guest book is to stencil butterflies onto a plain white guest book. Or you can
glue on the ribbon bow/butterfly trim mentioned above.
Wedding Favors
Butterfly shaped cookies wrapped in netting or
placed in a small box decorated on the outside with glued on or stenciled
butterflies. You can also do this with butterfly shaped chocolates.
Make or buy candy bar wrappers with butterflies
on them.
Take plain white small envelopes (or make them).
Decorate with butterfly stencils or run them through a color printer. Fill with
wildflower seeds or any type of seeds specifically for flowers that attract
butterflies.
Make your own butterfly bubbles. Buy small jars
of bubble mixture and decorate the outside with ribbon and either glue on a
color printed butterfly or create your own labels and glue to the bottle.
Conclusion
You may have noticed I did not mention having
butterflies released at your wedding. This is because there is much controversy
over this subject. Butterflies are migratory and many companies import these
butterflies from various locations. What this means is that when they are
released, the butterflies become confused as to where they are and where they
are suppose to migrate too...so they end up dying when winter comes.
Another potential problem is how they are
released and how many will be released. If there are too many butterflies and
they are released too close together, you don't end up with a gentle fluttering
of butterflies into the sky, but a mass confusion of these insects flying around
and into all the wedding guests.
These are only two of the problems concerning the
release of butterflies, there are several more that bride's and groom's should
be aware of before choosing this option. Before making such a decision, I would
suggest you read the following article by Jeffrey Glassberg regarding this
practice: http://www.foreverwed1.com/articles/consideringabutterflyrelease.htm
Many ideas abound when creating a theme wedding
around butterflies. You can choose to go with a simple all white butterfly theme
or perhaps choose to have a color scheme related to a specific species of
butterfly. Play around with ideas until you come up with something that is
uniquely suited to your personalities and desires. Any way you look at it, a
butterfly wedding theme can provide an enchanting elegance to any wedding.
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