hannah + karl play house, round 1

Although I'm still basking in the glory of all things wedding I thought I could manage to break from wedding posts and share a few pics of what Karl & I have been focusing on lately... our first house!  We have been busy here in South Carolina- finding the perfect place for all of our wedding gifts, attempting to part with some of my hard loved on college furniture, and learning to maintain and keep up with a house all by ourselves!  It's fun, definitely an adventure, and totally my thing.  We still have a lot of work to do on this place, and if I had to guess, I would say that by the time we move out of here I still won't be satisfied with the level of decor and furnishing BUT it's fun to continuously hunt for the perfect piece for a specific place in the house.  So, due to demand (believe it or not) and without further ado, I give you our first house, in all of it's incomplete, amateur, tactfully refined glory...

My decoration weak link is walls... we have bare walls EVERYWHERE!  I'm on the hunt for the perfect wall decor for several places in the house

Our coffee table is the cake table from our wedding, Karl just chopped the legs off to make it the appropriate height.  

The aspen log lamp is another Karl creation- it was a vase at our wedding and he turned it into a lamp!

Next to do, paint the table cream colored and distress it.  ANNND  Karl's begging for a big TV... oh Lord.

Obligatory kitchen picture... I'm kind of weird about a non-cluttered kitchen so it's pretty plain with the exception of my ever-loved lantern :)  Karl hates that I won't even let us keep the toaster out.  Sorry 'bout that, hubs.

I have so many decorative pretties from the wedding- an abundance of mason jars, string, raffia, spools, fun chairs (the yellow chairs are the ones that K & I sat on at our reception)... you name it.  It was so fun to decorate the dining room table!  So many gifts to fill it with!  Oh and that's our bedroom back there...

There's our little desk, still on the hunt for the perfect chair for it though.  The display that we used to show all the letters Karl & I have written back and forth to each other at our wedding is now the perfect mail catch!

Our room!  Projects still to do: find Karl the perfect old white/cream side table, NEW HEADBOARD!  Ahh, I'm dying for a new headboard.  Ask Karl, it's all I talk about.  ANNND  I'm trying to find the perfect finish to our bedding (euro pillows, quilt for the end of the bed)... see, what did I say? WORK IN PROGRESS!

This is the wall parallel to the bed.  Another reused aspen vase and the sign that was at the top of our 'Love is...' door

K & I used a chunk of our big Crate & Barrel gift card to outfit our home with lamps!  I didn't realize that we had absolutely NO lamp light until we moved in so we literally ordered like 6 lamps!  I love this one on my side of the bed that sits on my recent bedside table antique store find!

Bathroom!  We used the "Mrs" & "Mr" signs from the backs of our reception chairs above our sinks! 

I love getting to brush my teeth next to Karl every night.  Luckily, he brushes his teeth in a Cuppett-acceptable way. Ha.

So happy to reuse these buckets that our potatoes were served out of at our reception!  Also super obsessed with our ruffled and lace shower curtain... that was an Anthro splurge.

Just to give a reference point... the hallway from the living room/entry down to the guest bedrooms/bathroom/laundry room

Ah the canvas The Chapman's gave us/Amanda made for us.  I love it.  Hung so I see it everytime I come home!  This is a little cut out in the hall way where the laundry closet and craft space is.

The guest bathroom across from the laundry room... the only thing worth looking at is the shower curtain, hence the super tight shot.  Come visit us and maybe you'll have the pleasure of seeing the counter and sink too.

Guest bedroom numero uno.  Ready and waiting on two special guests!  Still needs some finishing touches- candles filling the candle holders, buds for the bud vases... 

So proud of Karl for this pallet bed!!  I told him what I wanted and it turned out better than I could've imagined!  It was super affordable- we had the door left over from the wedding, all the bedding from my dorm days, and the pallets were free (thanks to some creeping behind WalMart).  All we had to buy were the wheels!  It was a breeze job for Karl who is a genius with wood and a power drill and saw.  Come visit and maybe you'll be lucky enough to sleep on this dream.

So, the 2nd guest room isn't done yet... it's currently so messy I won't even reveal it in its entirety on my ever indiscreet blog.  Here is my inspiration for it though... it's a little more glam than the rest of my house but don't worry ( I know you were), I'll keep all the wood elements rustic and distressed, in true Burton fashion.

Because the closet currently looks like this...and that just won't do.

So, make my day and plan your next vacay out to see The Mr. & Mrs. in South Carolina.  I'll treat you like royalty and you'll never want to leave!  I'll expect an email soon with your arrival date and I'll begin to plan our itinerary immediately.

Love,

The Burtons

Wedding Pictures!!

www.ninephotography.squarespace.com

So our wedding photographer posted a sneak peek of our wedding last night and I am so excited about the images!  I had such high expectations for what I wanted them to capture and I am so particular about editing and holy cow- they did not disappoint.  I would not only recommend them to another bride but like shove them down the throat of another bride!  They are a "must use" vendor for any bride!!!  Extremely talented, laid back, and 100% focused on the needs & wants of the couple- I can't be any happier!  Super punctual, not particular, affordable, opulent... I'm obsessed with this fun-loving photographer married duo.  Once they send me the CD of all the images, I'll be able to see even more and actually post them on here but for the time being, go check out their blog, leave them an ego-stroking comment, and book them for your next photog sesh.

Love,

HB

Lunch Lunch Luncheon!

So, I'm back in South Carolina after Callie & Jeremy's absolutely fabulous wedding week!  It was total chaos, fun, and sweet southern love with the most amazing outdoor ceremony and farm reception- I cannot wait to post pictures!  It was divine and I officially know that I can plan the final stages of a wedding in my sleep, with my hands tied behind my back, or make a seating chart in under an hour...

So back to my wedding (because it's always about Karl & I)...  I have been wanting to make sure I posted about my bridal luncheon because it was the most special part of my wedding week.  Seriously, 100% that's true.  It was at City Club in Sundance Square in Downtown Fort Worth and my Gammy hosted it and it blew.my.mind.  It was gorgeous and swanky and absolutely perfect.  Two hours of delicious food, perfect decorations, and being surrounded by 35 of the most influential, important, and Godly women in mine & Karl's lives was absolutely priceless, peaceful, and moving in a way that I doubt I will ever experience again.  Cousins, new family, 'mates, and Pi Phis came from so far to be there and that was absolutely humbling and sweeter than pie.  I wish I could live this luncheon over and over- serious perfection!

Thank you, Gammy, for a time that was absolutely dreamy and peaceful and perfect amongst quite a chaotic week!  And my mom gave me my something old, new, borrowed, & blue there- really fun... it was the hanky she carried at her wedding that belonged to my great grandmother, the new garter that my sister Maddie crafted using flowers from my mom's wedding dress (so, so pretty that garter!), a borrowed locket from my Nana that has a picture of my late grandfather in it that she has worn around her neck since high school, and a little blue feathered bird that I had tucked up in my bouquet!  Wonderful!

OK, enjoy some pictures!

The setup was beautiful and the yellow theme fit perfectly into the wedding weekend!

My sassiest flower girl- sweet Kinley!

AHHH I am so in love with these two precious girls!  The best two flower girls I could've ever asked for!

Karl's mom & my mom- I love this picture!

Arkansas girls that came from near and far- what a huge blessing these women are to me!

My gorgeous, GORGEOUS cousins!  I literally cannot imagine what this weekend would've been like without them!

The 8 of us!  Reunited and it feels so good :)

Best friends for more years since I can count on my two hands.  Die for these girls!

New sister-in-law!  YAY!  So grateful and blessed that she came all the way from Washington!  

Sweet Davis women & little Valin boy- what an awesome group!

Wedding Inspiration!

Well, first off I failed and didn't post yesterday!  I am so sorry but for what it's worth, I didn't have internet so there you have it...

So for my own memory, I wanted to post about why I chose what I did for all things wedding related!  I love two very different styles- sparkly/crystals/moss/class and vintage/shabby/rustic... it was so hard to define exactly how the wedding would be because these two styles aren't too easily mixed!  Once I chose shabby/chic and specific elements of that, I really found myself being drawn to things that wouldn't fit that and had to seriously reel myself back in, "no, Hannah!  That will totally not work!"  Ha.

So here are the pictures that I followed and really used to help define the style of the wedding...

So, pretty late in the game I decided that Karl & I would incorporate a map theme!  Our whole relationship has been long distance, we have lived in and been influenced by so many people in so many different states, and it just made so much sense!  So, this picture totally inspired the map theme!  Our invitations, escort cards, kids place settings, programs, thank you notes... we tried to get a lot of map into all of it!

This is the front of our reply postcard.  I knew it would totally set the tone for a fun, vintage, map-y, Texas, yellow wedding!  

I loved this invitation!  The different fonts, funky layout, and bold date and colors inspired me to go a little crazy with our invitation!

This was the first invitation I fell in love with... I saw it super early in our engagement and immediately knew I wanted to use a lot of ampersands (&) and had a big pull in my choosing grey and yellow!

In keeping with my reminiscence of paper... I definitely knew from day 1 that I wanted a non-traditional guest book, less of a guest book and more of any kind of record of who was there.  I found this picture and loved the idea!  I knew that K & I would LOVE advice from our wedding guests and to get a picture of how others perceive love.  I'll share some of the responses we got in another post- they are awesome, funny, wise, smart aleck...good stuff!

So, instead of paper squares we had our guests write what 'Love is' on paint chips (maybe borrowed from several trips to Home Depot...) in several shades of yellow.  We hung them on strands of jute along an old wooden door and I just loved how it looked!  I can't wait to find some creative way to use the sweet notes our guests left us!

So I saw this and knew I wanted the tables set.  Like, walk into the room and everything looks complete.  I just loved how finished this table looked; simple and finished, despite the fact that I wouldn't be decorating at all like this picture.

This picture gave me confidence that my choices would work- yellow, cloth napkins... it also inspired me to tie something to my cloth napkins!  I ended up assigning each table a state that was meaningful to Karl and I so to each napkin we tied a card that described why that specific state was significant to us (who lived there, what we had done there, our plans for that state...).  It ended up being one of my favorite details about the wedding!

I loved this picture and immediately fell in love with the idea of baby's breath.  It's a super affordable flower, its full, a little goes a super long way, and it has a huge impact when used by itself!  Baby's breath also just has this whimsical, rustic feel that I fell in love with!  I knew it would be my main flower for the ceremony and bouquets so now I just had to find creative ways to use it!

I loved the baby's breath bouquets that these bridesmaids carried but I knew I wanted mine to have a center of something else, which led me to...

COTTON!!  I love, love, love the use of cotton in bouquets so I ordered cotton in the boll from the cotton man and was so, so pleased with what we got!  It was a super affordable addition to every bouquet (including mine) and it was the only component of the boutonnieres!  

I loved the vintage feel of this bouquet but already had the baby's breath and cotton components to incorporate.  All I had left to figure out was where color would come from for bouquets and the reception... I have loved craspedia (or "Billy Balls") for a really long time!  It is that deep, mustard yellow so it was the perfect fit!  

This picture was definitely inspiration for my reception flowers- I wanted an airy, wildflower feel that carried over from the ceremony that the bouquets would fit perfectly into.  I LOVE this picture... like blow it up, gallery wrap it, and put it on my wall!

So, what to put the flowers in? I wanted eclectic!!  Wood, glass, old, new...

I loved this picture of the wood vases and thought that it mixed so well with glass.  When my sister & her fiance went to Colorado with his family they brought me back lots of Aspen wood that my sweet friend/officiant/mentor/mayaswellbefamily Shane made into vases for me!  

I love the feel of this picture and always have.  I really wanted my decor to feel like this picture does.  I used a lot of medicine bottles and old spice jars.  A lot were gathered from family and friends but a lot were bought from Canton- like the hugest most wonderful flea market in the world!

In keeping with my desire to have lots of wood, I was dying for Karl to make us this wooden cake stand!  I also knew that I didn't have a strong interest in a traditional wedding cake, which led me to the idea of bundt cakes for my cake!

Like, is this bundt cake display not incredible?  Totally my inspiration!  Sentimental value was added by using one cake stand from my dad's mom, one made by Karl, one from my mom, and one from my mom's mom!  

I loved the use of the window pane in this picture... which made me remember that I had 2 old window panes that I bought at a Catholic High's junktique sale in Little Rock last year.  I thought a good way to repurpose them would be to put table legs on them and use them as our dessert tables!  It ended up being absolutely perfect, precious, and wonderful!  Thanks to Shane for making that happen!  Once we got to South Carolina, Karl chopped some of the height off the legs and now one of the window pane tables is our coffee table!

This inspiration board is wonderful and totally perfect.  It's where I got my inspiration for the guys boutonnieres and also what inspired me to make lots of signs!  I knew I wanted everything labeled... that's where a lot of the detail comes from.  People like to know what things are and you can make it a lot more interesting by putting time into making those labels cute and fun!  BUT  to put fun words, phrases, things onto wood- I fell in love with that idea!  I used old cabinet fronts to label rows of seats at the ceremony, the escort card display, the 'Love is,' display, and "Mr" and "Mrs" chairs.

How food was displayed and served was a really big deal to me.  I was probably really annoying to my wedding coordinator and my caterer on what to use and what to not use... I love drink decanters, food with height, using different textures on food tables, the list goes on!

So, although I didn't have a candy apple bar, I was obsessed with this picture through my whole planning process.  The wood, the display, the different heights, the labels... its perfect.

Well, there you have it people.  Some of my ideas and how I got them.  Kind of a boring post but I wanted to remember why I wanted things the way they were in 50 years when I look back and am confused by my choices :)  I can't wait until I have pictures to post from the wedding!

Oh, I should say that all of these ideas and pictures came from...

The Knot

Style Me Pretty

Southern Weddings Magazine

and random google searches :)

Until later today (because I'm making up for my lack of post yesterday),

Hannah BURTON