Now it's my Turn to Pop the Question...

I think it's pretty safe to say that I was planning who my bridesmaids were going to be long before I even knew who my groom was going to be. I also think it's safe to assume that most of them knew that I would be asking them to be a part of my wedding. But I still wanted to do something a little more creative than. "Hey, I know it's going to cost an arm and a leg, and I know you're gonna have to pose for like a gazillion and twelve pictures, and I know you will be the first person I come to when I'm stressed out of my mind and shamefully acting like a bridezilla, buuuutt how's about being my bridesmaid??"

Which, truth be told, had I done it in that exact same fashion, they probably would have still said yes because they're that awesome, but when I stumbled upon this adorable bridesmaid box from Bethany at Rinse, Repeat,  I just knew I had to recreate it!

So I added my own personal flare and completed it with wedding-inspired details and Viola! I am so happy with the way they turned out!

I started by buying six unfinished cigar boxes from Michael's and spray painting them ivory.

I then used masking tape to create a striped pattern by painting the exposed stripes with a golden yellow acrylic paint (also purchased as Michael's). 

Drying them was a bit tricky since I didn't want to get acrylic paint everywhere, but I also didn't want to hold each box until it was dry, so what I did was stand them on their side with the excess tape that was hanging  off the edge of each box.

After they were completely dried I hand-stamped each of my bridesmaids' names on the box.

I used this box as an opportunity for the girls to get a better feel for the styles of both the wedding and the bridesmaid dresses, the color palette of the wedding, the inspiration behind the wedding decor, and as a chance for them to learn a little bit more about each other.

I included a postcard-sized paper sharing a little bit about each individual bridesmaid that included their name, their role in the wedding party, their favorite color, their favorite ice cream, their favorite romantic-comedy, my favorite memory with them, and the qualities I admire most about them.

I wanted them to have a lot of say in the bridesmaids' dresses, they're the ones that are going to be wearing them after-all, so I offered up some of my ideas and left the floor wide open for suggestions. Whether they wanted to go matching dresses or mismatched, whether they wanted to go gray or yellow for the dress, what accessories they wanted to do and so on.

After describing our day, the dresses, and asking them to RSVP for the first fitting of their dresses, I finished off the box by including paint swatches of the color scheme and inspiration pictures for the wedding. I wrapped the letters with a lace ribbon and tied off the paint swatches and pictures with some twine and labeled each section of the box with a yellow tag.

After it was all done I tied off the box with baker's twine and attached a printed tag that read, "Now it's my turn to pop the question..." and sent them off.

This project was sooo fun! A little time consuming, but so worth it. My favorite part was seeing the face of my bridesmaids as they opened it. Worth every minute I spent on them.