Update.... 19 days to go!

Wow, can you believe it? I'm not sure that I even can. Today is 19 days from the wedding, we're in the teens!!

We had a super productive Friday/weekend! First, on Friday we got our Marriage License! This is so exciting and it was so easy! Yay, it's official. Then, we met with our reception coordinator at The State Club, Wendy. She has been so helpful and really knows what she's doing. We discussed everything that we could possibly think of! We finalized our reception menu and have almost decided on all of the hors d'oeuvres and drinks for cocktail hour. This is what our menu will most likely look like, although I might make some slight edits before we print:

We met with Sweet Memories (our cake bakery) too on Friday. The last time we had met with them, we had just discussed ideas for the design of the cake. Well, this time we talked specifics and finalized the design. We even picked out a color swatch for them to match the cake to. We picked Bella Pink, which is this lovely, light pink color(simulated color swatch below). This will be the base color of the cake with white/creamy brushed embroidery icing decorations. There will also be silvery-white bands of fondant around each tier, with a beautiful bow tie-like bow on the 3rd tier. LOVE IT!

We met with Joe Bunn, our DJ on Friday afternoon to go over reception music and logistics. We have a few more songs to pick out, but we're close! I'm confident that he'll do an amazing job!

Yesterday, I finally found a cute dress to wear to the Bridesmaid's Luncheon that we're having the day before the wedding. I'm excited about it, it's a white and ivory two-toned dress from J. Crew with this x/petal design. Here's the dress I got, except in the white/ivory color. I liked the pink, but they didn't have it in my size in the store, so I went with the white one.

Now, for things to do this week... we have to submit our final numbers/order to our florist today (or tomorrow at the latest). We've got most of it decided, we're just trying to decide between ordering 18 or 19 tables, we're right on the edge... I don't know what to do!! Today is also the day that we have to drop the rooms in our hotel block that haven't been booked. We're trying to make sure everyone who hasn't done this does it today, so that they can be in our block! I've worked so hard on the OOT bags, I want as many people to be in the block as possible, lol!

This week, we'll finally PRINT the reception menus that will be placed at each persons place setting. I'll probably start printing the ceremony programs, although these will be a pain because they will take so long. I guess I'd better get going, lol!

There's more, I know it. I'll keep posting with more updates! :)

Reception Drink Menu

I've been playing around with the specialty drink menu that we'll have at the bar during the cocktail hour. Here are some pictures of what I came up with. These aren't necessarily the final drink choices, but we're getting closer. I like the idea of having multiple specialty drinks, since not everyone wants a fruity, pink cocktail. ;) The Something Old, New, Borrowed, Blue is a cute way to make it wedding related too! I got the idea and layout from another knottie.

And here's what it looks like in the frame. I got two of these frames for super cheap from AC Moore, they were $3 each!

Rehearsal Dinner Invites = Done!

Last night, I finished printing and putting together the rehearsal dinner invitations. We used an Anna Griffin set that I got a while back from AC Moore. It was really convenient and looks really pretty. They are pocket invitations with silver swirls and we tied a light pink ribbon around each one. Then, the dinner invitation and rehearsal insert are inside. The main piece has info for the rehearsal dinner only, then we will be including the little enclosure for those people who need to be at the church beforehand for the rehearsal.

Woohoo, I love getting all of these things done!

DIY project updates

Tonight I finished making the monogram labels which will go on the outside of our ceremony programs. I printed the monogram squares with our printer and then cut them out with my rotary trimmer. I used double sided tape to put the white squares on the silver squares. It actually didn't take that long to make all 200.

This is what the program will look like once we're done. This weekend, we'll finish the covers by folding all of the pink paper and putting these squares on them.

Other projects I'm working on this weekend: printing rehearsal dinner invitations, reception menu design, and other reception printing stuff.

Invitations are DONE!

I'm sooo, soooo excited about these! My mom picked up the envelopes from the calligrapher on Friday, they are beautiful! I can't even believe how perfect they turned out. I DEFINITELY recommend her to anyone that's looking for a calligrapher or just someone to address your envelopes. Leah was really great and she can copy any font you show her. Click Here to visit her website. Plus, the best part is that she's so affordable, a flat rate of $1.50 per envelope set!

Anyways, so we finally got all of the invitation sets into their envelopes. I put the stamps on them and sealed them up. They are so beautiful. They're almost like miniature works of art! I can't wait for everyone to receive them in the mail. Hopefully our guests will be as amazed as we are. Even my fiance, Kevin, was really impressed by how good everything looks together. Lol, he doesn't usually get into that kind of stuff! I didn't take any pictures tonight, but I'll be sure to post some ASAP.

New Wedding Party Newsletter

I just finished the next wedding party newsletter. I'm hoping to mail them to everyone this weekend. In this issue, I included information about:

-Wedding day logistics

-Hotel accommodations

-Groomsmen's tux rentals

-Bridesmaids' hair and makeup

-Bridesmaids shoes

-Important dates to remember

Stamps!

Yes, you read that correctly. This post is devoted to postage stamps. I am wayyy more excited about our invitations' stamps than any normal person would ever get over stamps. I am the proud owner of 240 stamps that we'll use to mail our invitations out very soon!

I took our complete invitation to the post office today to be weighed and measured. I was very excited to learn that we can use the $0.61 stamps for the invitation. Our invites are printed on 220 lb letterpress paper by Crane, so I thought we might have to pay even more than that for postage. We decided not to do the ribbon around the invite set because it was going to make it too bulky. Plus, it's already a snug fit with all of the enclosures!

So, I bought 120 of the $0.60 wedding cake stamps for the outer envelopes... they are so pretty! I also bought 120 of the $0.44 wedding ring stamps for the response envelopes. :) I had looked at making custom stamps on Zazzle or somewhere like that, but I just didn't like having to pay more than the face value of the stamps. So, for the exact minimum postage needed, we were able to get wedding related stamps and I think it's great!

Can't wait to mail these out, hopefully, NEXT WEEK!!

Invites are IN!!!!

YAY! We're so excited that our invitations came in this week. It only took Crane & Co. 2 weeks to get them to us after our proofs! I picked them up from Swoozies yesterday and they look BEAUTIFUL! I think they're even better than I expected!

Here are some pictures... I can't wait to send them out in March!!

Project Updates!

Time is flying by! I can't believe there are only 4 months and 12 days until the wedding, eeek! This weekend I finished a couple projects and I've been getting ready to start others. I found really cute labels at AC Moore to put on the soap for the OOT bags. I love these!!

Then, I found wooden letters of our initials to put inside the wreaths. I hung these with silver ribbon. What do you think?? Letters or no letters? The doors at the church are dark brown, so I think the white will show up nicely (they're kind of hard to see

hanging on our white doors). As of right now I think they're cute and I like the personalization, but the letters are easy to take out if we want to.

I also started a mock up of our ceremony programs. Although we haven't actually written the ceremony yet, I wanted to get an idea of what kind of supplies I'll need. Since we didn't do DIY invites, I kind of took the design I had for the invites and turned them into programs. More on this project later. But, I do like the idea of including a map to the reception in the program (if you have enough room). Our reception location's address isn't on most GPS or google maps, so I wanted to make it easier for our guests to find their way. So, we'll probably put the map and directions on the back page, facing the cardstock cover, like in this example.

Wedding Party Newsletter!

I made a newsletter for my wedding party and mailed it out to everyone this weekend. This what it looked like. So far everyone has loved it. I'll use these to keep everyone updated on the planning progress.

Invitation Mock Up

Tonight I decided to play around with invitation design and make a mock up of my 'ideal' invitation... with lots of enclosures! So, I went to AC Moore and got some paper and made my own pocketfold, invite and enclosures.... If we do decide to go with something like this for invitations, I will buy pocketfolds and and other materials to make it quicker!

Here's what I came up with: a light pink pocket fold with silver belly band and monogram. Inside is a sheet of pink swirled vellum over panel invitation with silver mat. Pocket holds four enclosures: Reception card, RSVP, Accommodations card, and Directions and Map card.

What do you think??

Save the Date's are OUT!

Woohoo! Save the Dates are being mailed tomorrow! They'll be arriving in everyone's mailbox early next week. Of course, our new puppy Darcy had to help us get them out.

We ordered these large magnets through Vistaprint and got silver envelopes from envelopemall.com. I also designed custom Save the Date return address labels and ordered them from Vistaprint.

Monogram Update

Here's the latest version of our wedding monogram. I think this might be *the one!*

... Now to think about all of the fun DIY ways I can use this!

I might be addicted to Vistaprint

Soo, i've been taking advantage of all of vistaprint's sales recently... Yesterday I ordered:

- 100 save the date magnets for 50% off

- 10 additional save the date magnets for FREE

- 250 photoshare cards (with free upgrade to glossy!) for FREE

- 3 pens with our names/date on them for FREE

- 50 rehearsal dinner menus for FREE

** I'm testing this out to see how it will look on the oversized postcard. If it does work, I'll use these for the menus for the RD (if we don't change the menu) and maybe for different cheap menus for the reception! yay for free stuff!

All of this = AMAZING! I'm so excited to get it in the mail and see what I can do with all of the free stuff!

I definitely recommend trying vistaprint and seeing if you can use their free products creatively to add personality to your event! However, I'd recommend if you're doing magnets or anything else important, using the 10 for free initially to make sure your colors and everything are correct. Then you can wait til a huge sale and order everything and save so much!! That's what I did and I saved a total of: $105.93 haha!