Hello Sparrows! My name is Claudia & I’ve been working with Sun & Sparrow for over a year, helping at weddings and building my portfolio.  I’m very excited to be part of the Sun & Sparrow team! One of the best perks to working with Sun & Sparrow is that I am able to share one of my favorite pastimes…. DIY crafts for parties and weddings. In this first edition of my SIMPLE DIY IDEAS, I wanted to share a little bit about my upcoming wedding and how I asked my friends to be my bridesmaids. With that, I’d love to share how to ask your friend to be your bridesmaid.

My fiancé and I have been dating for 6 years and engaged for about a year and a half. That being said, I have had alot of time to plan my wedding in my head. That may sound like an advatage, but it has left lots of room for changing my mind about it very often! It wasn’t until I decided to stop trying to copy every idea that’s out there on Pinterest or wedding blogs (and changing my mind after anything new came out) that I finally came to a design idea that was totally ME and US.

We are both simple people that love to hang out with family and friends. This is how we decided that casual and easy-going was the best style for our upcoming wedding. I love crafts, both doing them and the final outcome. I have titled the style of my wedding “Sweet, Crafty Romance” because it sums up the girly touches, the DIY approach, and the love between us both and our loved ones. I chose to mainly DIY my wedding so that my fiancé and I could have fun selecting and working on projects, as well as getting my fairly large bridal party involved in the process! So far, we have had a couple projects where we’ve worked together and it has been so fun reminiscing on old times and getting excited for our big day.

The majority of my guests speak Spanish (in fact, many of our family members speak ONLY spanish), so we decided to use strictly Spanish in both our stationary and our wedding day activities. I wanted to give my guests a little peek at what’s to come with my Save the Dates. I had a quick shoot with my sister with some outfits coordinated to our wedding colors for our cards (pink, blue, ivory and a hint of gold). The card itself was something quick and simple that I came up with on Photoshop, ordered it as a postcard from www vistaprint.com, and put it together with a little heart-shaped confetti and sparkly ribbon. I also added our favorite bible verse to the back of my card, as we are dedicating our marriage to God, even starting from the planning. It was so simple, inexpensive, and it has really made an impact. My guests are so excited to get a first glimpse at our wedding and plans.

I mentioned that I have a large bridal party, 13 girls that are so special and dear to me. I wanted to make something extra special for them as a way to ask them to be my bridesmaids. I looked around on Pinterest for some inspiration and decided on a goodie box for each girl (see my inspiration board here: http://pinterest.com/claudiaandalex/the-girls/). I purchased some inexpensive boxes from Joanne’s and used the same materials I used for the save the dates to dress them up. I made some quick cards on photoshop and had them printed at Costco as 4X6 and trimmed them down to the size I needed and included information about their dresses, our wedding day, and their roles in the wedding. Everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE nail polish. It’s a serious addiction! So I thougth it would be so fitting to gift them each their own shade of pink polish to wear at the wedding (my MOH’s got a shade of blue). I also included some gold candies in the box, first of all because they are my favorite, and second because they matched our wedding colors! I enjoyed giving each bridesmaid their gift as a small thank you for being such great friends, and a plus was that I got to explain alot of questions they may have had for me after I asked them to be part of my day.

Thanks for reading about my projects! I look forward to working with Sun & Sparrow and bringing you more how to’s on simple projects that are cute and budget friendly. I’m so excited to marry my best friend, and to spend time with those that I love so dearly getting ready for my magical day!

©2013 Sun & Sparrow Photography //  photos by Claudia Navarette {a Sun & Sparrow associate photographer}