All Dressed Up!

I have all kinds of dresses on my mind!  I recently purchased a dress for my friend Stephanie's wedding this fall.  She is giving the bridesmaids free reign, and we can pick whatever cream or beige dress we would like.  She is having a vintage wedding, and she wanted each bridesmaid to find a feminine and flowy dress.  I am very excited about the dress I found, and I am even more excited for their wedding this November.

My cream-colored lace bridesmaid dress.  I will be swapping out the ribbon for the wedding!

I realized I don't think I have yet shared the dress I will be wearing for the rehearsal dinner.  I wanted to wear white for the rehearsal, and I found this dress at JC Penney for $40.  The only problem was the smallest size the dress came in was still way too big for me, so I had to get it altered down to my size.  The alterations did significantly add to the cost (they were more expensive than the dress!), but they were definitely worth it.  The dress now fits like a glove.

My rehearsal dinner dress.  If you look closely you will see the 3 tiers on the skirt and the pearl-beaded neckline!

Speaking of the rehearsal dinner, Lee volunteered me to his family to make invitations for the rehearsal dinner.  I made five different options and I am going to have Lee's mom pick which one she likes best.  I am very curious to see which one she will choose.  I am including all five so you can see them all! 

You are invited!

I had the invitations printed this week, and I am very happy with the final product.  The invitations were printed on a heavy white shimmer cardstock.  I think they look very timeless and classy.  I am just glad all parties involved could finally agree on a design!

Invitation Suite

Up close...

...and personal!

I was slightly nervous about the envelope selection.  I ended up going with the turquoise blue envelope so it would stand out when mailed.  However, the color of the invitation ink ended up looking slightly lighter when printed.  I wasn't sure if they matched closely enough, but the colors clearly look compatible when photographed.  Most people throw the envelope away anyway, right?  Do you think they look like they match?  This was the inspiration for the turquoise envelopes, by the way:

I <3 turquoise!

The next project is to design the wraparound address labels.  Here is my inspiration:

 

Still deciding on how I should style the labels!  Any favorites?  I would prefer to print the labels in black and white only to save money.  As I found with my invitations, color printing is SUPER expensive!

My invitations would be so much better with these laser-cut belly bands.  Alas, they are much too expensive to even fathom purchasing:

Next project will be working on the wedding programs!

Invitations

Starting back at square one and putting it up for a vote...    :(

Invitation Options

Here are the four embellishment options Lee and I are considering for our wedding invitations:

Belly Band

Ribbon

Tulle

Twine

Which is your favorite option, and why?  :)

Wedding Weekend Projects with Lee

Lee visited Salem this weekend, and we were able to complete a few wedding projects.

For our ceremony, we made decisions on songs and readings.  The parents, grandparents, and bridal party will be walking down the aisle Air on the G String by Bach.

I will be walking down the aisle to this version of the wedding march:

This song will be our special music during the lighting of the unity candles:

And we will be walking up the aisle as a married couple to this song!

My brother will be doing our readings.  Here are the readings from the Bible we have chosen:

Jeremiah 29:11-13  

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, 

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, 

but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, 

but do not have love, I am nothing.  

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, 

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. 

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails.

A couple of other fun things.  I got Lee's pocket square in the mail this weekend.  They did not have pocket square in our color at Mens Wearhouse, so I had to order online.  I ended up getting a good deal; the pocket square, with shipping, was under $10!

Lee will wear this in his tuxedo's pocket

I also was able to work on the wedding invitation suite, since I am designing my own.  This picture is kind of blurry, but you can get the general idea.  There will be two pages sent with our invite.  The first will be the invitation and the second will be the information and a detachable RSVP postcard.  The third page you see is the back side of the information/RSVP postcard.  To RSVP, guests will detach the pre-stamped bottom portion of the second page on a perforated line.

We are going to print the invites on white or cream shimmer paper.  I would like to either tie something around the 2 pages or put a belly band around them to keep them together.  The tie or band could be turquoise to introduce our color scheme. 

Here is one last wedding project we started but did not finish this weekend: escort cards. We are going to be making wax seals to put on each escort card.  Lee's mom does calligraphy, and we are going to have her write them out for us.  Here is our inspiration and our tester card:

Inspiration

This seal has wedding bells, but we also bought a wax stamp with hearts

We didn't use real wax to make our version.  We used hot glue, a wax stamp, and silver spray paint to achieve the same effect.  We found the cards at the dollar store in packs of 50 for 25 cents a piece.  The back of a card will have a printed off sticker designating which tables the person can sit at.  We will not be having individual seating place cards, but these will serve as a guideline so family can sit closer to the head table. 

Lots of to-do list items were conquered this weekend!  I love crossing things off my list. 

Invitations

Happy.  The wedding is starting to seem so real!

Do you like this?  :)

Weekend, Here We Come!

Today is a good day.  Lee's and my e-pic photo shoot was featured on my all-time favorite wedding blog, Style Me Pretty. It's pretty cool, because over 90% of submissions are turned away, but somehow my submission managed to sneak its way in there! 

In other exciting news, I mailed our save the dates yesterday, and they should be coming soon to a mailbox near you!  You will receive one of two varieties, so be sure to collect them all while supplies last. 

 A surprise I will share with you now: check out the postmark when you get your save the date!  I traveled a short distance to Bridal Veil, Oregon to send out my save the dates and will be doing the same thing for my wedding invitations. 

Bridal Veil, OR Post Office

The only thing keeping this post office open is the thousands of brides who travel here to get there wedding correspondence hand-cancelled by the postmaster.  While I was there, I was able to choose from 3 postmark stamps.  I chose a plain circular postmark because I want to save the special postmarks for my wedding invitations.  When I send out my wedding invitations, I will get to choose between a heart or dove design.  Which do you like better? 

No machine printing on these beautiful invitations!

Getting Around Town - DIY Map

Last night, Lee and I were able to pick up the remaining silk flowers I need to make the bouquets!  Since I'm in Portland for the weekend, I couldn't finish the bouquets just yet.  Instead, I decided to try my hand at designing a map of Grand Forks to include with our invitations.  It's nice to have Lee around to provide feedback on what looks good.  :)  But I would like to have your feedback too!  Is there anything else needed on the map below?

The red route shows the easiest route (with the fewest turns) to take from the church to the reception.  As you can see, there are many ways to get to the reception, though!  Also, this route takes everyone past the three hotels we have made group reservations at.  That way, anyone who needs to stop at the hotel between the ceremony and the reception will be able to.

It was quite simple to make the map.  I Google-Mapped Grand Forks and took a screen shot of the area I wanted to feature.  I then took a screen shot of the map, pasted the shot in to Microsoft Paint, cropped the image, and saved it as a jpeg.  I then opened the image in Microsoft Word.  I drew lines over the major roads and landmarks in the appropriate colors and labelled them with text boxes, clip art, and images from online. 

To finish it all off, I deleted the original Google Maps image from the background. I then took another screen shot of the Word Document, cropped the image again Paint, and saved the image you see above as a jpeg.  I love computers.

I'm not sure what will be next on the DIY agenda.  I feel like I have been going full speed ahead on these projects and may need to slow it down for a little bit.  I don't want to run out of projects to do!  :)

Ode to Invitations

Wedding invitations are expensive little pieces of paper.  Soooo expensive.  When all is said and done, many people spend well over a thousand dollars on the invites, envelopes, RSVPs, save the dates, and postage for all of the above.  I have to admit, I have gotten little caught up in all of the glamorous wedding invitations out there. 

I have heavily debated having pocketfold wedding invitations.  They are aesthetically pleasing and hold each invitation item oh-so-perfectly. 

But they are EXPENSIVE.  I thought if I made the pocketfolds myself, I might save a bit of money.  Sadly, it would still be fairly expensive for the large sizes of card stock and the number of pieces of paper required.  Also, pocketfolds are frequently overweight and need extra postage. 

I went back and forth, but I decided pocketfolds are not worth the time with the number of invitations I need to make.  I'd rather spend my time making much less monotonous wedding DIY projects.  Plus, there is too much room for variation in the final product: an uneven fold/cut, pockets that won't stay glued down, or inserts that get stuck in the pocket tape or glue. 

So as of now, no pocketfolds.  However, there is still room for changing my mind if I fall in love with them all over again.  :)

Instead of pocketfolds, I am leaning toward a much simpler approach: a simple black and white 5x7 invitation on white shimmer paper, with the inserts and the invitation tied together using a turquoise ribbon.

Here are some of my inspiration examples:

Love how classy this invitation set is!  I'm in love.  :)

Above is an example of a thin ribbon tying the invitation pieces together. 

I also found this image, and I could imagine a thicker turquoise ribbon surrounding the invitations (horizontally, not vertically) with a small square of card stock with our monogram hiding the ribbon ends.  I also like the damask surrounding the monogram. 

No matter what invitation ideas I end up using, I for sure will be addressing the invitations with wraparound address sticker labels.  I have found a few DIY tutorials on the web for these, and I am so excited to make my own labels!  I think they look great and are a good way to quickly and easily address envelopes. 

Monograms!

I just got internet/tv at my apartment for the first time in a month.  Thank goodness!  ;)  In some of my free time without internet and tv, I decided to take a stab at creating my own monogram.  My first attempt was pretty, but kind of boring:

My next attempt was much more to my liking:

 

I really like how it turned out, and I think it might be something I want to incorporate into the wedding.  Perhaps on things like invitations, wedding programs, thank you notes, and beverage napkins.  Any other paper products I missed?

I also made a black and white inverse of the monogram.  Looking at it now, I realize it is kind of squished compared to the original.  But you get the idea:

A Needless Burst of Creativity?

First off, I've been sick for the past couple of days.  All I have really done is lay around.  And when I have nothing else on my mind, I tend to think about wedding-related things.

So, that led me to look at invitations online.  I was inspired by some themed invitations for NYC and Chicago, and I took a stab at making my own (although North Dakota doesn't have nearly as fun of skyline as a big city does).

Here was the result:

It would probably  be perfect if I was having a rustic, barn-themed wedding.  Oh well.  I guess this is just what you come up with when you have too much time on your hands!

Invitations!

I made up some mock invitations tonight while Lee was studying.  Which ones are your favorites?  My favorite is the turquoise invitation with the black filigree on it.

Bits and Pieces

I still am not any closer to choosing a color.  I made a trip to David's Bridal to look at some of the colors in person, and I decided not to make my choice until this summer.  One of the sales associates told me the colors change every quarter based on fashion trends, so if I picked a color now, it might not be around by the time my bridesmaids order their dresses.

I talked to a few more djs, and the best-priced dj around Grand Forks is XL93 (the main popular radio station).  They were the dj for Becca and Tyrone's wedding, so I know they would do a good job. 

Lee sent an email to our first choice for a photographer, Shawna Noel Photography.  Lee's brother Neil is a commercial photographer, and Neil worked at UND's student newspaper with Shawna.  We have yet to hear back from her, but I am hopeful our wedding date is not taken yet!

I have been perusing the internet looking at invitation ideas.  I really like the invitations with pocket folder envelopes, but the pocket envelopes are expensive (average $1.50 per envelope). 

 

I also like the modern invitations.  Here's a design I personalized on FedEx.com.  I was surprised to find FedEx/Kinkos has really great prices (the invitations average 65 cents for the quantity I would be purchasing) and a wide variety of wedding invitations to choose from!  They also have coordinating save the dates, rsvp cards, wedding programs, menus, etc.  The invitations are easy to customize. 

 

I also like this simple, elegant invitation:

If I were to go a more elegant route, I have always liked damask patterns:

Here's another FedEx invitation in white on black damask:

Finally, here's a save the date magnet from FedEx.  I'm not sure if we would do magnets, cards, or postcards, but I would like to personalize the save the dates with an engagement picture.  These magnets would be 34 cents each!