Today in our Rustic Wedding series with Fabric.com, we move from decorating the wedding environment to decorating the wedding party. Several trends are showing more color for the groom and the groomsmen. Many couples are moving away from the traditional tuxedo towards more casual suit options, and they're injecting other tones besides black and white. Traditional or modern, the classic boutonniere is still the ultimate way to bring a wedding's theme colors onto the groom's side of the aisle. 

Bridesmaids' gowns get a bad rap (see the movie, 27 Dresses for the hysterical proof)! Many of us have a frightening ensemble or two stuffed in the back of our own closets. Overall, wedding styles are evolving in wonderful new (non-closet-hiding) directions, and accessory trends are in the forefront. One of the latest and cutest articles in bridesmaid attire is a coordinated clutch for all the ladies in the wedding party, which we roll-out today, kicking off Week #2 of A Rustic Wedding with Fabric.com. Bridesmaid dresses rarely have any pockets; there's no where to tuck an emergency tube of lipstick or a tissue for those romantic moments. So, a small clutch a certainly functional idea, but it's also a beautiful gift for the bride to bestow on her girlfriends, possibly with a little something extra tucked inside. Not just for weddings, these clutches are perfect for all kinds of special occasions.

What's the Rustic Wedding's answer to the crepe paper streamer? A beautiful and unique garland! While researching the top wedding trends for this series, one of the items that came up again and again was the use of garlands as a decorating component. We saw them as hanging elements, as table decorations, even as accessories on wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses. Our garland is what we'd call a "Low-Sew" project. There's just a little bit of hand sewing involved. We've created a cut flower on a string treatment, using a fabric die-cutting machine. There are many cutters out there on the market; we chose the Sizzix Big Shotto test for our series. Originally developed for the card-making and scrapbooking industry, die cutters made their way into the world of fabric over the last several years. The Sizzix brandis very popular as is the Slice Digital Die Cutter and the AccuQuilt GO. 

The most popular fabric for the Rustic Wedding is burlap. Believe it or not, this coarse fabric, more traditionally known for bagging coffee beans than bedecking wedding finery, is the hottest ticket out there when it comes to adding trendy texture. Part of the reason behind this is how many options there are in burlaps today. Both in density (the coarseness of the weave) as well as color. Yep. Burlap is not just brown anymore. We've come up with a beautiful design for a simple wedding table runner made of two layers of burlap highlighted with a splash of luxurious silk. Burlap, like many of the specialty fabrics we're featuring in this series, comes in wide widths. The burlaps we chose to work with from Fabric.com ranged from 47" to 60" wide with the most common width being 58". This means you can get a number of strips from each yardage cut.