Will you be our Companions?: Whovian wedding party proposal boxes

These wedding party proposal boxes were loosely based off the idea of those cute “Be My Maid” boxes that regularly pop up on Pinterest, as well as the awesome spin-offs I've seen on Offbeat Bride.

Since we are having a Doctor Who wedding, the boxes had to be Whovian. My idea was to give everyone a box with their name on it in Circular Gallifreyan; the boxes would have some goodies as well as important wedding info and expectations.

Here's is how my future husband and I made our “Companion Boxes” … and the few lessons I learned whilst making them.

I started with unfinished cigar boxes.
Two things:

1. If you don't want to paint the hardware, it can be removed with a small screwdriver.
2. If you remove the hardware, give each set of clasps and hinges its own envelope and number the boxes and lids.

I found these boxes are kind of cheaply made, and any old lid will not just line up with any old bottom. Also, having small envelopes for each separate set of hardware meant I didn't lose any of it. Lucky for me, this is one of the few things I thought of mostly beforehand (I did start painting a box before realizing I didn't want to paint over the hinges).

Oh, and those cheap screws strip really easily. I stripped two. Apply lots of straight downward pressure (perpendicular to the box surface) when you're screwing and unscrewing them.

I painted the boxes a nice TARDIS blue. If you get these things, for the love of everything, sand them first. I didn't. I sanded them during later coats, and it probably cost me a whole extra coat of paint at least (I think I did four).

Then I lined them with some fabric! This was just some nice leftover piece I found at the local craft store. I glued it all in with tacky glue, including making edge “seams” so they wouldn't fray. This part sucked, but it turned out nice.

This is the culmination of my favorite step. We are extremely lucky to have access to a freakin' LASER cutter through my future husband's work. So we were able to laser etch my Circular Gallifreyan name designs into the top of each box. I was totally going to paint them on, but this worked like sweet sciencey-magic.

Speaking of Circular Gallifreyan, here is where I got my writing guide.

At this point, I covered each box with two to three coats of a matte clear coat. Painting/sealing these things took a long time; I was saved by the fact that there were only four. When I looked at the tutorial for the “Be My Maid” boxes, they spray painted them. Although we didn't really have a place to spray paint at the time, in hindsight, it would've been a much quicker choice.

Now it was time to fill the boxes!

The boxes were packed with one small bottle of Doctor Who-themed booze: a ginger liqueur (Amy Pond) for the ladies, and scotch (David Tennant) for the gents.

There was also a homemade galaxy shirt in each. I will not go into great detail on those things, but I will say this: those are not as easy to make as the internet made them out to be and RIT dye does not dye poly-blends or… much of anything. Dylon does. End of story.

We also included all of the pertinent info regarding our expectations for our “companions,” including attire. We were very clear on they have to do (show up, be awesome) and what they DON'T have to do (like throw me a shower). I felt that this was super important. I have stood up in two weddings, and I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I really felt like I let my friends down because I didn't know what they had expected from me. I made sure that all of our companions knew what they're signing up for in advance. We also wrote little love notes to everyone, because we do love them all.

So they're you have it! Our wibbly-wobbly proposals to all of our timey-wimey companions.