Free Trust Me You Can Dance - Vodka Sign

UPDATE: Head to the end of this Free Trust Me You Can Dance - Vodka Sign post to get the printable and a code to get a free 8x10 at Walgreens, valid until February 4, 2020.

I dance. A lot. All the time. By myself, around Pete, at our wedding.

I wouldn't ever say I can dance. I remember being at a sweet sixteen in high school and having a few of my friends try really hard to teach me how to swing my hips to the beat. But my beat and the song's beat aren't always the same.

And that's me sober.

I laugh at myself though and have  a good time because life is too fun to take seriously all the time. Especially at weddings. If your guests have trouble loosening up, you're not alone. A lot of guests start stiff. Open bars help ... and that's probably where the "You can dance - Vodka" quote came from.

If you've been on Pinterest, you've definitely seen that quote. It can be expensive to order it, though, s so I actually made a free printable sign for you with that exact quote. You can print it, put it in an 8x10 picture frame, and stand it at the bar at your wedding. It'll make your guests laugh, order vodka, and dance.

It's formatted to be 8x10 so you're gonna want to print it somewhere like Walgreens. Actually, right now, you can get a free 8x10 at Walgreens with the code FREEBIE8X10.

If you want to use this for your wedding, you can crop it after you upload it and cut off my watermark. That's fine with me. You just can't reproduce my design without the watermark for anything but your wedding.

Our watermark doesn't appear on the items we have in our shop on CafePress. You can get the item on shot glasses, flasks, mugs and more. Sounds like the perfect gift for your vodka loving friends. Plus, you can save 15% right now with the code EXTRA15.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you hang this Trust Me You Can Dance - Vodka sign at your wedding?

Love this design?

Purchase our design on shot glasses, flasks, and more here.

Should You Take Engagement Photos?

When we were living in New York, Pete and I went to Wave Hill , a gorgeous park close to his house. We walked around the gardens, through the woods, looked at the bridge and the river, and at the end, we both said this is where we'd take our engagement photos.

That was just wishful thinking at that point because we weren't engaged then. 

We did get engaged (obviously), but we ended up not taking our engagement photos in Wave Hill because we moved to North Carolina before he proposed. We did take them at a beach close to our home in North Carolina.

But they question remains: Should you take engagement photos?

My friend Mallory, who got married in July 2012, got hers done too, and I borrowed some of hers for this post.

Should You Take Engagement Photos? 

The Pros For Taking Engagement Photos:
Engagement photos are a really nice way to capture how you look at the time of your engagement. In ten, twenty, fifty years, it will be so sweet to look back and see how in love and how young you were. Pictures are a great way to capture a moment and for that, I'm always for them.

And there are a lot of fun engagement photo ideas out there now: from a beach to a park to just showing your personalities. So it could actually just be a fun day to spend together.

Even better, taking engagement photos is a good excuse to test out your photographer. It also helps you get comfortable with them, which could do wonders for you being comfortable around them on your wedding day.

Reasons For Not Doing Engagement Photos:
If you take engagement photos, you can then use them for your Save the Date cards. But, realistically, you use one photo for the save the date and that's it. So to spend about a hundred bucks on one photo, that's silly to me, especially if you're planning your wedding on a strict budget.

So, if it doesn't fit into your budget, you should skip them. Or, do what we did. To save, we actually ended up taking them with a new photographer who was looking for photos for her portfolio. She didn't charge us, but we did tip her because I didn't feel right not giving her any money for her time.

We ended up using just one photo from the shoot for our save the dates and on a canvas print to hang in our bedroom. Other than that, I'm not sure what engagement photos are for, to be honest. I made wedding confetti out of a few of them, just to get more use out of our photos. You could put together our DIY photo banner with them. But other than that, you're just pushing it.

When Should You Take Engagement Photos?
There's no strict timeline for when to take engagement photos. We took ours seven months after we got engaged, mostly because we didn't want it to be freezing cold on the beach when we took our photos. That was 14 months before our wedding.

You just want to make sure you take your photos after you get engaged, but before you need them. If you are planning on using them for your save the dates (which you mail out a year beforehand for a destination wedding and six months before a local wedding), use that as a factor for when you should take them. Also, double check the photographer's turn around time before booking them because you don't want to wait three months for these, like you can wait for your wedding photos.

Do You Need To Take Engagement Photos?
You don't need to do anything.

We took a selfie the day we got engaged, and that's what I used for our engagement party invites. Good enough for me.


And, if you did take your photos already, you're in luck. Right now, you can get a free 8x10 at Walgreens. You can upload a photo, add it to your cart, and enter the code EIGHT10 at checkout. Choose in store pickup and your photo will be completely free. The code is valid through today, November 18, 2019, so don't miss it.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you get engagement photos professionally taken?

Need help with your engagement photos?

Check out our Engagement Picture Tips post.

Bridal Shower What's In Your Purse Game (plus a free printable)

I love bridal shower games. They're my favorite part of the shower, especially if you don't know anyone besides the bride-to-be. Bridal shower games really help you mingle and talk to strangers because it gives you something to make conversation about after you've already asked about the weather and how they know the bride. Speaking of games, have you played the bridal shower purse game?

Bridal Shower What's In Your Purse Game

It's actually really fun. Everyone gets a printout with a list of items that may be in your purse. For each one you have, you get a certain number of points. More common items have lower point values; less common ones are worth more. The guest with the most points wins.

If you want to play it at your shower (or one you're hosting), but you just don't have the time to make a bridal shower purse game printable, you're in luck. I made one that you can print yourself.

When you get to the bridal shower, leave one copy on each person's plate. Then, put a few pens in the center of the table so that the guests can play.

If you do play, be sure to have a few little gifts on hand to give the winners. And there's a chance that people could tie, so you want to have enough gifts in case that happens. You don't have to give out anything crazy. Maybe a small lotion, a candle, or bath bombs. You could even make our sugar scrub if you wanted to DIY your prizes.

Now, about that printable ...

All you have to do is right click and save the image above to your computer. It's formatted to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, so you're able to print this at home. If it comes out blurry, I can email you the what's in your purse game PDF. Just let me know.

BRIDAL BABBLE: If you went in your purse right now, how many points would you have? (My score was 43.)

Do you want more free printable bridal shower games?

Download our free bridal shower word search printable.

Bridal Shower Word Search Game (Free printable)

If you know me, you know I love bridal shower games. That's why I love bridal showers so much. I just want to go and play the games. So of course, I had to create a game: Bridal Shower Word Search.

Most people think of Bridal Bingo when they think of bridal shower games, mostly because it's the most popular. But it's not the only bridal shower game you can play.

I created a cute Bridal Shower Word Search. It's filled with everything that the bride needs for her big day, which is why it's a bridal shower word search rather than a wedding word search. All you need to do is print it for your guests. The game itself is made for you.

Bridal Shower Word Search

You'll want to print out one copy of the word search per guest. Then, leave it a copy on top of every plate with a pen. Your guests will be able to play while they're waiting for lunch to be served.

If you'd rather play at a specific time during the shower, just keep a stack of copies with you. Then, pass this out to the guests. To make it more fun for them, you can say whoever finds all the words first wins a prize. You can give out one or multiple prizes, whatever works for you. And these never have to be big prizes. Go with cute hand lotions, bath bombs, or homemade sugar scrub.

You'll have to get the prizes on your own, but I made the game itself for you. It's formatted to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper (which is normal-sized printer paper). Just right click the image below and save it to your computer. Print out as many as you need and bring them with you to the bridal shower.

And if you need the answer key, I actually did the word search to make a key.

If you're a little more tech savvy, you can actually tile these to fit two on a page so you don't have to print as many. I wouldn't print more than two on a page, though, because it might start getting too small for your guests.

Be sure to let me know what everyone thinks!

And, if you need the bridal shower word search pdf, just email me and I'll get that emailed to you.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you use this bridal shower word search at your shower?

We have a few free printable bridal shower games. They're listed below:

Famous Couples Bridal Shower Game

Bridal Bingo

Bridal Shower Purse Game

I'm a big fan of word play and puns. I really believe that any time you can work it into your wedding, you should. Now, I'm not saying you need to overdo it, but once a wedding is great. If you haven't used any puns yet, I have a great one for you: Let Love Bloom ... attached to DIY seed bomb wedding favors.

How great of a wedding favor is that? Your guests' flowers will grow simultaneously with your love. I love it!

And you'll love how easy these are to make. You really just put in a few minutes of work, wait 24 hours, and you're ready to package them.

You can make them ahead of time instead of something like edible wedding favors, which you need to make during wedding week.  

DIY "Let Love Bloom" Seed Bomb Wedding Favors

DIY Let Love Bloom Seed Bomb Wedding Favors Supplies:

• Wildflower seed packets
• Old newspaper
• Water
• Molds
• Organza bags
• Scissors
• "Let Love Bloom" printable (see below)

How To Make DIY Let Love Bloom Seed Bomb Wedding Favors:

Tear the newspaper into strips. You can use scissors to do this too, but tearing might be a therapeutic way to get rid of some wedding planning stress.

Soak the newspaper strips in a bowl of water for about 15 minutes.

Pulverize it in a food processor until it becomes mush.

Put the mush in a strainer and squeeze out as much water as possible.

Fill a mold halfway with the mush. You really want to pack it down well. The mold that made these is the Good Cook Sweet Creations Spring Mold.

It's silicone and usually used for chocolate bark. Actually, I used it to make coffee creamer molds before I gave it to my friend Danielle, who used it to make these seed bombs.

What's cute about that specific mold is it has a pattern that really indents itself into your seed bombs. If you'd rather, you can fill something like a heart-shaped silicone mold or, dare I say, a flower-shaped silicone mold?

Generously sprinkle wildflower seeds on top of the mush.

Finish filling the mold with the mush. Again, pack it in there. Set it out, in the molds, for 24 hours to dry.

After they've dried, pop your seed bombs out of the mold.

Place the seed bombs into an organza bag.

The number of seed bombs you place inside will be based on the actual size of your bombs. Place a "Let Love Bloom" tag in the bag, pull the ribbon to close it, and you're done.

Now, speaking of those tags: I made them so you don't have to. I'm all about making your life easier. All you have to do is right click the image below to save it to your desktop and then print it when you're ready.

It's formatted to fit an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, which is standard printer paper.

Now, if you've been around here for a while, you know that I pretty much cut everything with a paper trimmer. I bought it to do our wedding invitations and it has been the greatest investment I've ever made.

This is one of the very few projects I've made where I used the scissors, though. It's a little hard to maneuver around the triangles with a paper trimmer, so go with scissors.

What kind of seeds can you use for DIY seed bomb wedding favors?

Any type of seeds will work in your DIY seed bomb wedding favors. We prefer using wildflower seeds because those grow pretty easily. Your guests can just toss this seed bomb wedding favor in a planter, water it, and it'll grow.

If you really like gardening, you can use something like string bean seeds, but that's a lot of post-wedding effort for your guests to get those to grow. Honestly, I would prefer that over flowers as a wedding favor, but that's because I already have a huge garden and seed propagating. For the sake of your guests, I suggest flower seeds.

How long will DIY seed bomb wedding favors keep?

Honestly, there's not really a shelf life on these. Well, there is and there isn't. If you buy seeds, you'll see an expiration date on them. It's usually about a year. But I was gifted seeds that were over a year past that expiration and they still sprouted.

So you can make these and store them (somewhere dry) for up to a year just fine, longer if the expiration date on your seeds says so.

You can make these when you have time, then store them until whenever your wedding date is. And if you have to push your wedding date back (yay 2020 brides, amirite?), these will keep just fine.

Can you purchase seed bomb wedding favors?

Weddings are stressful. There's so much to do and plan and make and think about. I get it. So maybe you just don't want to make your wedding favors. No worries.

You can purchase seed bomb wedding favors online. They're a little different than these, though. Instead of being large, clunky seed bombs, you can actually buy a thinner, plantable seed paper. Those take up a lot less space in your guests' pockets and purse, too, guaranteeing they're take them home.

• Plant Me Seed Paper Hearts
• Butterfly Seed Paper
• Handmade Heart-Shaped Seed Paper

And don't forget to purchase cute bags to put that seed paper in. If not, you risk it breaking in someone's purse or pocket and making a huge mess. Our favorites is this Let Love Grow Brown Packet Envelope. 

But you could go with any small envelope. If you bought a cute wedding brand stamp (like the one we used here), you could use that to stamp the outside of a plane envelope to make these personalized for your big day.

And, if you don't even want to bother with any assembly at all (and at this point, no one would blame you), you can just straight up buy cute seeds in an envelope like this Love Is All You Seed Envelope. Set one at each person's seat at the wedding, and you're done.

Want more spring wedding favors?  

These seed bomb wedding favors are perfect spring wedding favors, especially if your wedding is right before or during planting season. If you are planning a spring wedding, you might like these other spring wedding favor ideas:

• Live Succulent Favors
• Homemade Meringue Cookie Wedding Favors
• Teapot Favor Box
• Sugar Scrub Favor
• The Perfect Pair Soap Favor

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you make these DIY seed bomb wedding favors?

DIY Bridesmaids Cards (Plus a free printable for flat and folded cards)

Asking your friends to be your bridesmaids is getting out of hand. It used to be just a phone call and now it's super elaborate. Sort of like a promposal. When it was my prom, I called my then-boyfriend and invited him to my prom. That's it. It wasn't prom spelled out in tea lights, I didn't dress up like a zombie, and it had nothing to do with involving other people. Honestly, some promposals are a lot more thought out than some of the wedding proposals I've heard about.

Finding bridesmaids is getting to be that way too. I mean, I can't say I haven't bought into the culture of that. I did propose to my bridesmaids. But maybe you're looking for something in-between, something that's a little more than a phone call but less than a full out gift.

A card is the way to go. You could buy one at the store ... or you could make one yourself. But don't worry. You don't really have to put too much effort into these DIY bridesmaids cards. I've already designed them for you. All you have to do is print and cut if you make the folded cards and print, cut, and glue if you make the flat cards.

DIY Bridesmaids Cards

These cards are completely made by me and available free to you. I designed the cards myself (not using a template, so they're absolutely unique and exclusive DIY bridesmaids cards only found here). I picked the fonts and I even made up the bridesmaids poem. Yup, completely created off the top of my head. I haven't even used these (since my wedding is long over), so if you are the first to print, you'll be giving out bridesmaids cards that were never given out before. Pretty cool, huh?

What You'll Need:

• Paper trimmer
• Glue
• Card stock (if you're making the flat cards)
• Free bridesmaids cards printable (grab those at the end of the post)

What You'll Do:

Print the free bridesmaids cards printable. There's one for flat cards and another for folded cards. We'll go through the steps of the folded bridesmaids cards first.

Align the edge of the card at the edge of the paper trimmer and print. Cut out the whole card (and that will cut off the link to A Bride On A Budget in the middle. Don't worry. It won't appear anywhere on your card).

The cards are designed to have a small bit of white around the magenta edge because I think it looks better than way. If you cut too wide an edge, no worries. You can just use a pair of scissors to trim the edge.

Fold along the center line and you're done. The front and back of the cards both have the maroon rectangle design, making them look just like cards from a card store.The inside is blank so you can write a heartfelt not to your bridesmaid-to-be.

If you want a card but not a space to write a note, the flat bridesmaids cards are for you.

Just like the folded bridesmaid cards, cut these using the paper trimmer. After you do, they're a 4.5x3.125 rectangle. You need to know this for the next step.

Cut the card stock to make a backing for the flat card. You'll want to make this 5x3.75 to give it a quarter inch border around it.

I used purple card stock because I love purple, but you can use whatever color you like best.

Apply a light line of glue around the edge of the printable's backside. The thinner you can apply it, the better if you print these onto printer paper. If you print straight onto a white card stock, it's thicker so it can handle a thicker line of glue (and won't show it through the paper as easily as thin printer paper).

Stick it onto the card stock.

I actually used the lines on the paper trimmer to measure it evenly.

If you wanted to jazz these up, you could use glitter or rhinestones. Maybe make a belt of rhinestones on the dress?

DIY Bridesmaids Cards Free Printables

The free printables for the flat and folded cards are labeled below. To save them to your computer, just right click the image and save it. Then, you can just print as normal on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. On my laptop, the default option of "print picture to frame" is selected. I unchecked it for these printables because it looked like keeping it checked would cut off the edge of the cards.

DIY Bridesmaids Cards Folded Card Free Printable

DIY Bridesmaids Cards Flat Card Free Printable

BRIDAL BABBLE: Which type of these bridesmaids cards would you use?

He Popped The Question Engagement Party Favors

I'm a big fan of puns. I've been that way since I was in elementary school and we read a story about Ben Dover. Oh Ben. I laughed and laughed ... and I still laugh. So any time I have a chance to use a play on words, you better believe I'll take it. That's a huge reason why our engagement party favors were peppermint patties that said "Lisa & Pete: Mint To Be" on them. 

Oh, it's just the best.

If you agree, you'll love these He Popped The Question engagement party favors ... made with popcorn because, really, that's fantastic.

He Popped The Question Engagement Party Favors

These were super easy to make, and they'll be even easier for you. I created the "He Popped The Question" favor tags for you. They're at the end of the post, so you don't have to make your own. All you have to do is cut them out and attach them to your popcorn.

Like I said, easy.

What You'll Need:

• Popcorn (I used microwave popcorn for this post because it was easier, but I usually pop from kernels. If you do use bagged, one normal sized bag made four favors.)
• Curling ribbon
• Sandwich bags
• One-hole punch
• Paper trimmer
• "He Popped The Question" favor tags

What You'll Do:

Print out the tags and cut them with your paper trimmer. They end up being about 2.5x1.25.

If you want to dress them up a little, you could use a corner rounder to, as its name implies, round the corners. I'm obsessed with my corner rounders and use them all the time (like on our soap bridal shower favors). I didn't use them this time, just because I do use them a lot, but I would highly recommend you grab one and use it as often as possible.

Use the one-hole punch to make a hole in the upper corner. I did it in the upper left, but you could do it in the upper right if you prefer. There's space on both sides.

Stuff a sandwich bag with popcorn. Don't fill it completely, though, because you'll need a bit of room to be able to gather at the top.

Tie the bag with ribbon.

Curl the ribbon and you're done. Simple.

The favor tags are formatted to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper (so standard printer size). All you need to do is right click the image above, save it, and print it when you need it.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you make these He Popped The Question engagement party favors?

Bridal Shower Word Scramble Game

I love bridal shower games. I've said that quite a few times on the blog. But it's true. They're a really great way for your guests to stay engaged.

But don't worry. You don't have to come up with any party games yourself. I made a new bridal shower word scramble game.

Fun, right?

All you need to do is right click the image above and save it to your computer. When you need it, just open it and print. This is formatted to fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, so you can print it at home.

Also, if you need the answer key:
Bride
Cake
Photographer
First Dance
Aisle
Church
Maid of Honor
Rings
Groom
Honeymoon
Dress
Vows
Kiss
Best Man

For more bridal shower games, check out our famous couples bridal shower game, bridal shower purse game, and bridal shower word search.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you play this Bridal Shower Word Scramble Game?