from djwhelan

Your wedding is meant to be a reflection of you and your fiance’s love for each other, but it is also a time to draw on your creativity to make your wedding special and absolutely like no one else’s. One of the things that lends itself really nicely to your creativity is with your wedding programs.

Wedding programs are certainly not a necessity, but they are wonderful for the guests to have before the wedding begins so they can follow along with what’s going on in the wedding. Fan programs take it a step further by also being useful in a hot church or hot outdoor wedding.

Creating your own wedding fan programs is a nice way to show a touch of your uniqueness. It’s not hard to do, just a little time consuming. You can ask a friend or relative to do it, or have a little get-together with your bridesmaids and get it done quicker while in a fun and relaxing environment.

Just follow these simple steps to make wedding fan programs:

1. Type out your program on your computer using your favorite font. Note – you need to know the exact order of events in your wedding first.

2. Using the same font, type your names and the wedding date on a different page and insert a picture of you and your beloved.

3. Purchase card stock in your wedding colors. This will be for the background and give the fans some “fanning power” as the card stock is thicker and stiffer than paper. Regular paper by itself wouldn’t work for these types of fans.

4. Purchase the flat sticks that will be the handle of each fan. They are much bigger and wider than a popsicle stick and you can purchase them at craft stores or online.

5. Cut the card stock out in a rectangular or heart shape; big enough to fit your program on one side and the name/date/picture on the other side. You can scallop the edges by using special scissors from a scrapbooking store. Cut 2 for each program. You’ll want to create a template out of cardboard so you can trace around it and cut each one uniformly.

6. Print out all the wedding programs, both pages, on regular paper and cut them to fit on the card stock with perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the card stock showing around all edges. Again, make a template to trace around before you cut.

7. Experiment with glue stick or double-sided tape to see which one works best for you and use it to secure the pages to the card stock.

8. The very last step is to glue each stick to the back of one of the card stocked programs, and then glue the other side of the program to that. In other words, you should have the 2 pages back to back with the stick handle sandwiched firmly in-between.

If you want to take it further, you can dust each one with sprinkles or add any decorations such as small ribbons or bows. The idea is to create a unique and useful item for your wedding that also makes a great take home memento for you and your guests.