Add Some Fun to Your Photos With Smitten Sticks!

After yesterday's post about photo and smile booths, I thought I would continue it a little by sharing these amazing Smitten Sticks!

Photo via Smitten Sticks

Smitten Sticks are handmade paper expressions, mustaches and the like, mounted on a stick for easy handholding. They’re simple, playful and perfect for creating those fun moments just begging to be captured, whether it’s during a wedding, birthday party or any other celebration rife with photo ops.

Photo via Smitten Sticks

Smitten Sticks are the collaboration of Edyta, a wedding photographer, and Vana of Le Papier Studio. Edyta was forever on the hunt for creative, quirky and clever props for her brides and grooms to incorporate into their wedding photos. It dawned on her that in order to get the quality and aesthetic that she and her clients demand, she’d just have to make them herself! She had the inspiration and Vana was the perfect partner to make her vision come to life. Together they created these great props that are showing up all over weddings and parties!

Photo via Smitten Sticks

You can get your hands on some of these Smitten Sticks by going to their Etsy store and purchasing a Smitten Stick package! And lucky you, Smitten Sticks has teamed up with Southern Weddings Magazine for a giveaway! It ends today at 11PM, and all you have to do is make a comment about what makes you the happiest in life!

Who wants to use some of these Smitten Sticks in their photos?

Wedding Photo Booth Options

Photo booths have been popping up at weddings all over lately! It's a great way to provide something to entertain your guests, and it's a great ice breaker too! And of course you can capture some of the memories of your wedding with the photos. There are several different ways that photo booths can be done, but no matter which one you choose, they're all incredibly fun and everyone loves them!

Rental: Renting an actual photo booth is one of the options you have if you want a photo booth at your wedding. Your guests just press a button to take 4 poses of pictures, and they take the photos home with them as a reminder of how much fun they had at your wedding! You can also get a guest book of all of the photos that your guests take- a great alternative to the traditional guest book!

Photo via Tampa Shutterbooth

Photographer: If you don't have it in your budget to rent a photo booth, you can always have your photographer set one up! Talk to your photographer about having an assistant man the "smile booth" station and take photos of your guests! You can make a cool backdrop for the booth, or just use a pretty corner at your reception. To add even more fun to the photo booth concept, you can add props or a sign for guests to write a message to you and your new husband!

Photo by Pure Photography by Lindsey


Photo by Our Labor of Love


Via Swanky Tables, by Studio Booth
(This can be rented from Studio Booth, or if you're ambitious, I'm sure it could be made!)

DIY: If none of the above options are viable, you can always create a DIY photo booth! It may not be a "photo booth", more like a photo station, but your guests will still have fun! There a few ways to do a DIY Photo Station. You can provide a few cameras for guests to take photos of each other. You can even go so far as to buy a remote for the camera and set up a camera stand. Another option would be to buy a Polariod so guests can just take the photos home, or you can have them paste the photos into a guestbook!

Via The Bride's Cafe

No matter which way you choose to do a photo booth, guests will have a blast with it, and you will have great memories from your wedding! Who's planning on doing a photo or smile booth at their wedding?

Using Balloons in Photography? Oh Yes!

Something that I thought never belonged at a wedding is now incredibly stylish and chic- when used in the right way. Balloons have been popping up all over weddings and engagement photos, and I'm loving it! These balloons aren't used exclusively for decor, they're used more as props. And of course bigger and rounder is better!

Via C is for...Charmed, by Boutwell Studio

Sarah Maren Photography

Tammi Nowak Photography

Via Green Wedding Shoes, by Bella Grace Studios


Via Green Wedding Shoes, by Caroline Tran

Via The Knot, by Erin Hearts Court

Via A Cup of Jo, by Max Wanger

Do these photos make you want to get a giant, brightly colored balloon and take pictures or what? Is anyone thinking of using balloons or any other prop for their engagement or wedding photographs?

DIY Decor: Pom-Poms

I'm still in wedding decor mode from the amazing wedding I helped with this past weekend, so it seemed fitting to share one of the trends in wedding decor I've been seeing!

You may have recently seen a lot more tissue paper pom-poms being used as decor at weddings. These fun and whimsical decorations are also perfect for a bridal shower or baby shower! Thanks to Martha Stewart and her tutorial on how to make them, tissue paper pom-poms are becoming a common decor item! It's a wonderful DIY piece of decor to add a pop of color to an event and it's also such a fun element!

Photo from Martha Stewart Weddings


Photo from Style Me Pretty


Photo from Style Me Pretty, by Katie Anderson Photography


Photo from Rock, Paper, Scissors

You can also get a pom-pom DIY kit from the Prost to the Host Etsy Shop! You can save yourself the time of cutting and measuring, but still put the poms together!

Photo from Prost to the Host

Are any of you planning on using tissue paper pom-poms for an upcoming event, or have you? I can't wait to have an excuse to make them!

New Wedding Trend: Cake Truffles

I'm about to attempt making cake truffles for the first time. Cake truffles are the new dessert fad in the wedding world. I had never even heard of them until a few weeks ago, when Kathy from KB's Kake Kreations was kind enough to bring samples to the wedding planner certification course I was attending. I was in heaven. I'm pretty sure I ate more of them than anyone else did. I haven't stopped daydreaming about them...so now I'm trying to make them for my husband's birthday treat.

Cake truffles are a great alternative to a wedding cake, or a wonderful addition to the wedding cake! They are also great as wedding favors.

{Update: They are a lot harder to make than I thought! I don't know how Kathy makes SO many and gets them looking so beautiful!}