4.30.2009
invitation inspiration.
another project.
A 20' long teal taffeta table runner (how's that for alliteration?). One down, twenty more to go. They are kind of a pain to make, but look at how shiny they are! Please excuse the random threads, the fabric frays easily so I need to clean up the edges.
Here's a rough mockup of what they'll look like on our tables. Except the table will be twice as long and all of the chairs will be white. And the flowers will be different, these were just leftovers I had around the house.
What do you think? Are you planning to make your own table runners?
4.28.2009
mmm delizioso.
Here's a sneak peek at our menu! (I will be making the descriptions sound prettier after it's finalized... if anyone has suggestions on wording, I'd love to hear them!)
Appetizer (if we have one) served during cocktail hour:
Thin (as in cracker thin) crust pizza, various kindsSalad (plated):
(not sure exactly what exactly is in the salad yet) with homemade Italian dressingGarlic bread
Main course (served buffet style):
Homemade pasta bar which includes
Pastas
Fettucine
Meat and cheese ravioli
Gnocchi
Sauces
Red sauce (with meat)
Marinara sauce
Alfredo sauce
Meats
Italian sausage
Baked chicken
Meatballs
Dessert:
Cake (flavors yet to be determined)
Pizzelles
Italian knot cookies (I can't remember the real name)
My stomach is growling already. I'm excited to be serving something that is not usually categorized as "wedding food". I've been to a lot of weddings, and none of them have ever served Italian food!
What do you think of our menu? Are you serving something out of the norm at your reception?
4.27.2009
i want them all.
All photos by Stephanie Williams Photography. Flowers by JL Floral Designs.
What's that you say? I can't walk down the aisle carrying six bouquets? How about three? Or at least the purple one? I'd yet to find a picture of my dream bouquet, that is, until I found this one. Sadly, my florist said ranunculus won't be available in our area in September. Sad face :(As soon I get over the fact that the dream bouquet will never be mine, I think I'll bring in the dahlia bouquet photos to my florist. I'm fairly certain I'll be using all dahlias for my bouquet, in different hues of purple. The bouquet in the picture is one of the smaller ones I've found, which is more along the lines of what I've been looking for. I'm not really longing for a bouquet that's twice the size of my head. Call me crazy, but I don't want to lift weights on my wedding day :) That is, of course, unless you'll allow me to carry all six bouquets as previously requested. No? Okay then, this one will suffice. While I'm with the florist, I might as well show her the green bouquet, as it's almost exactly what I've been picturing for the bridesmaids bouquets. Different shades of green with lots of texture. Perfect!
Are you sure I can't just have all six? Pretty please?
Which bouquet is your favorite?
4.26.2009
for the little ones.
4.23.2009
a grey's wedding.
Here's the synopsis (at least for the wedding part of the plot):
Meredith and Derek are getting married and Izzie throws herself into planning the wedding in hopes that it will help her avoid the side effects of chemotherapy. Meredith wants a simple wedding, and her and Derek joke that they want to get married in their scrubs and hold surgical instruments as her bouquet. Izzie tells them a large, traditional wedding is a requirement, and sets up a makeshift bridal boutique in her hospital room, forcing Meredith to try on poofy white dresses against her will. Meredith obliges because she feels bad that Izzie is sick. All in all, it made for a pretty entertaining episode!
I'll admit though, I was a little surprised when Meredith came out in "the" dress. I was envisioning her in a modern gown with no beading or tulle and made of luxurious fabric, like this one from Melissa Sweet.
Instead, she walked out in this dress.
I'm not sure what to think of it. It's a pretty dress, I just don't think it really fits her personality on the show. What do you think?
Whether you think the dress fits her style or not, I don't think anyone can argue that her hair and makeup in this picture are gorgeous! File it away in your inspiration folder!
Thank you Grey's Anatomy for being my unexpected source of wedding inspiration today. I don't know about you, but I hope they are going to show the actual wedding on the show!
4.22.2009
the mail came today.
4.21.2009
something old.
One of the first (of many) photos I had clipped out of a wedding magazine was this bouquet from Modern Bride.
4.20.2009
the bout' test.
It works, but I think it needs some more color. I tried adding a fuchsia feather. Still not loving it, but it proves that more color is better!
I think I'll do another trial, next time with purple button mums. Possibly two mums and less hydrangea, with some hypericum berries if I can find some. I'll leave out the feathers.
What would you do to improve the bouts'? Do you think they have potential?
4.15.2009
cake-spiration.
At first I was afraid that my mom (aka the cake baker) would be overwhelmed with having to make three cakes instead of one. But after she saw the gorgeous cake display, complete with cake pedestals and gum paste flowers, she agreed that they would make a beautiful display at our reception. With the baker on board, we set out to find the cake stands.
This proved to be a more difficult task than I had imagined! I looked on eBay, other online shops, Macy's, and a lot of other stores, but none of them had what we were looking for: white cake pedestals (two 12" and one 14"), preferably more modern looking, for under $25 a piece. The only ones I could find were from Macy's Martha Stewart collection, and while I liked them, they didn't seem to be of the best quality. In fact, we were ready to pay for two of them at the store when my very observant fiance noticed that the plate surface on one of them was crooked. As in, so crooked the cake might slide off. That would NOT be good.
Not giving up so easily, Mr. M stopped at a few more stores on Monday night on his way home from work (since he works an hour away, there are plenty to choose from along the route) and still, no luck. He stopped at one final store on Tuesday after work (probably the only one left in the northwest Chicagoland area) and FINALLY found one more 12" cake stand. He proudly pulled it out of the bag when he got home. I never thought I'd see my future husband be so excited about a cake pedestal! In fact, he didn't even know what one was before our little search! It was pretty cute.
Here are the cake pedestals in all of their glory, just waiting to hold some fondant-covered goodness on our wedding day.
Did anyone else have trouble finding cake stands? Where did you end up finding them?
4.14.2009
one musical selection down, many more to go.
Before getting engaged, I had always imagined my dad and I dancing to "Daughters" by John Mayer. I've always loved John Mayer, and I think that the song is perfect for a wedding dance with daddy. Bonus points are in order as well for it not being overdone and overplayed. I thought for sure this was the song that we'd be playing for the father-daughter dance.
That is, until my dad mentioned that he'd really like to dance to "It's a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. At first, I didn't know what to think. Of course it's a classic song for the occasion, but this song has some history for my family.
When I was about 13 years old, my very favorite aunt, who was pretty much the coolest person I had ever known, passed away from breast cancer. I don't even think she was 50 years old. It was really hard on my family, especially my dad. He and his sister were always very close, and they even shared the same birthday (but they weren't twins!). My aunt's favorite song in the entire world was...you guessed it....It's a Wonderful World. It was played at her funeral and every time it's played at a family event, you'll see tears in people's eyes.
I had never even considered playing this song at our wedding, mainly because I didn't want people to be sad during an occasion that is supposed to be happy and fun. But after my dad asked about it, it made sense to me. Weddings are a time to celebrate the marriage between two people, but they are also about joining two families together. This song has an immense amount of meaning to our family. Also, we'd like to somehow honor my aunt at the wedding, since we wish more than anything that she could be there with us. What better way to honor a person than to play a song that will remind everyone of her?
So it's been decided. My dad and I will be dancing to It's a Wonderful World, and my aunt will be looking down on us, happy to be a part of such a special day.
Which song would you choose?
4.13.2009
my first DIY donation.
You see, we've been searching for green ties for the groomsmen for a long time now. The tuxes for the boys have pinstripes, so I don't want anything crazy going on with the ties. Just a plain tie in a mossy green color will do. Finding plain green ties is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be! We're looking to give the ties to the groomsmen as a gift, along with some green socks and another rather large surprise (that will be the topic of another post), so while we want them to be nice, we do not want to spend a ton of money on them. As you can imagine, finding nice quality, inexpensive, plain mossy green satin ties is an even more difficult task!
Since I like to sew, I decided I'd find a pattern and make the ties myself. I deconstructed an old tie to use as a pattern, found green fabric at JoAnn's along with the rest of the supplies and went to work. Sadly, the my first tie did not look at great as I'd wanted it to. So I tried again. That one didn't turn out either. It was stiff (which I could fix by changing the interfacing) but I also couldn't get the lining to look like I wanted it to, which bothered me even though no one would know by looking at them from the front. Plus, making the ties was not fun AT ALL. I don't have a long enough cutting mat, which made the tedious task of cutting the fabric even more annoying. The fabric was nearly impossible to fold in a straight line to make nice lines along the sides of the tie. The entire length of the inside of the tie had to be hand sewn. Did I mention yet how much I hate hand-sewing? I hate it! Overall, the ties were a huge pain in the you-know-what to make, and in the end they didn't even look very nice.
My future mother-in-law was visiting this past weekend for Easter, and asked how the ties were coming along. I showed her the two that I had made, and expressed to her how much I did not enjoy making them. Then she suggested we talk to a friend of hers, who is a retired seamstress and is also doing my dress alterations. She called her up and asked if she would have time to make the ties for us. Luckily for our groomsmen (and for my sanity), she said YES! I am so happy to have this project off my plate! And I can't wait to see how they turn out when made by a real professional!
Did anyone else struggle with a DIY project and ultimately give it up to a professional?
4.12.2009
shoes for the girls.
Did you opt for matching shoes for your 'maids?
saving the date part 5: adding it all up.
$35.00 - 200 sheets of text weight paper in Lake from PaperSource
$11.50 - large flourish stamp from PaperSource
$7.95 - small flourish stamp from PaperSource
$15.00 - envelope template kit from PaperSource
$5.50 - Colorbox stamp pad in Eggplant from PaperSource
$1.50 - Clear embossing powder (on clearance at JoAnn's)
$3.00 - Double stick adhesive ( 2 rolls - using 50% off coupon at JoAnn's)
$3.00 - Two packs of metal brads (using 50% off coupon at JoAnn's)
$3.59 - 1/16" circle punch (on sale)
$5.00 - Corner rounder (using 50% off coupon at JoAnn's)
$14.40 - 90 sheets of linen textured cardstock (12 x 12) from JoAnn's (6 for $0.96)
$38.16 - Printing costs for 90 full color 12 x 12 sheets*
$143.60
*Note: The printing company we used had quoted us $.40 per color sheet when I sent them our design. Later we found out that they had quoted us wrong (it should cost more like $.99 per sheet) but they still honored the original quote. We got lucky!
We'll also be using the large and small flourish stamps and the envelope template kit for other projects. I still added them into the cost of the save-the-dates, but they'll be freebies for our invites and other paper goods.
Final price per invite: for 150 save-the-dates, it works out to about $0.96 per save-the-date (not including postage). Not too bad!
Now, onto the lessons learned.
1. Even though making envelopes with PaperSource paper rather than buying PaperSource envelopes is cheaper, I'm not sure it would be worth it for everyone. It is a pain cutting out 150 envelopes. I spread out the work over a week or so, cutting about 20-30 envelopes everyday. Cutting anymore than 30 per day is just torture, don't do it!
2. Sign up for emails from craft stores like JoAnn's and Michaels. You will get coupons pretty much every week for 40-50% off one item. Use these to buy your supplies. You'll save a ton of money!
3. This is an important one. JoAnn's has great sales on 12x12 paper. You can get 6 sheets for $0.96, while one sheet usually costs $0.50. Ask your printing company if they can print on 12x12 paper before you buy it. If they can't print on it, you'll have to find another printer or cut the paper down to 8.5x11. We found out that none of the common printers in our area (FedEx Kinko's, OfficeMax, etc.) knew how to print on 12x12 paper. We ended up using a place in the UP to print all of our save-the-dates to avoid cutting the paper down.
4. It's quickest to make the envelopes and save-the-date cards one step at a time, preferably with help. Get someone (your fiance!) to cut out all of the printed cards (or envelopes) while you stamp them. Put the embossing powder on each stamped surface immediately, but you do not have to heat up the embossing powder right away if you don't want to. It would probably be best to have three people for this process. One to cut, one to stamp, one to emboss. You can round all of the corners and insert the bosses on the save-the-date cards at the end.
5. Embossing allows you to use pigment ink without waiting for it to dry. This is one of the primary reasons we've been embossing all of our paper goods (aside from the fact that it looks good!). The only type of ink I've found in our wedding colors are ColorBox pigment inkpads. The problem with this ink is that it takes forever to dry unless you emboss it. Once you emboss it, it's dry in about 30 seconds.
6. These save-the-dates take time. Make sure you have time to spare before taking on a project like this one! We were working on these for about a month (not everyday of course). Now we know how much time our invites will probably take, so we can plan accordingly.
Hope this helps some of you that are planning to make your own save-the-dates or invites! Happy crafting :)
4.08.2009
if we could go back and do it again...
Photo by Joel Flory
a very helpful fiance.
He has helped me book vendors. I give him a phone number, he calls and gets quotes. We decide together which vendor to go with, he calls and takes care of it.
He researched and booked our honeymoon. I am ever so grateful for this one! Planning trips overwhelms me a bit because there are so many options!
He pretends to care about things that no guy should ever care about. Flowergirl dresses, centerpieces, you name it, he knows what we're doing.
He comes with me on all of the wedding shopping trips. What to know where to look for cake pedestals? He is your guy.
He has helped me with the crafty projects. He manned the paper cutter while we made our save the dates. He helped me make our mossy initials. And his latest project... bathroom signs! Check them out! He came up with these all by himself, with the exception of the paint colors and the little dots, which were my contributions. Aren't they cute?
I'm so glad I'm marrying him. And not just because he's good with a saw.
Does anyone else have a very helpful fiance when it comes to wedding planning? Was he always that way, or not so much at first?
4.07.2009
motherofthebridestyle.
I hate to brag, but my mom is a pretty cute little lady. She is short (like 5'1") and skinny and I have always been jealous of her for that (somehow, I got stuck with the taller and wider genes...no fair!). That being said, my mom is way too young, hip, and beautiful to be stuck in one of those stereotypical mother-of-the-bride dresses!
Did anyone else help their moms pick out their dress for the wedding? Where did you look?
so excited.
4.06.2009
the great debate: renting vs. buying.
A couple months later, I found out there were some circumstances which were preventing us from using the dishes for our wedding. We would have to rent or buy our own, or borrow them from somewhere else. Not knowing where else to borrow them from, we starting weighing the pros and cons of the two remaining options, renting and buying. Here's what we came up with:
RENTING
Pros
-Generally cheaper
-Don't need to wash the dishes after use (just scrape off food)
-Don't need to figure out what to do with the dishes after the wedding
Cons
-Waste of money (nothing to show for it after)
BUYING
Pros
-You can get some of your money back by selling them afterwards
Cons
-Generally more expensive
-Need to wash the dishes after use
-Need to do something with the dishes after (sell or give away)
As you can see, there are more pros for renting than buying. But I couldn't help but think that it is such a waste of money. After the wedding we'd have nothing to show for all the money we'd spent.
So I began pricing out some dishes. I found dishes and flatware for a decent price at Sam's Club. Plain white 10.5" dinner plates would cost about $2.40 per plate. I liked that they were plain white, as we are going for a simple, modern look. But multiply $2.40 times 360 and you get $864, and that's just for one plate. Then we'd need to add salad plates, bread plates, dessert plates, coffee cups, saucers, beer glasses, wine glasses, and mixed drink glasses. Needless to say, the numbers got a quite high, and the prices didn't even include shipping.
So what did it cost to rent 10" dinner plates? At $0.33 per plate times 360, it would cost $118.80. Muuuuuch better. I would even settle for the ivory plates with gold trim for the extra $745.20 we'd be saving.
Believe it or not, I actually considered buying for a lot longer than I'd like to admit. I just couldn't get past the fact that we would have nothing to show for the money we spent on rentals after the wedding. Plus some of the other items (the bread plates, for example) had less of a price differential between renting and buying ($0.75 to buy vs. $0.33 to rent).
After figuring out that it would cost us more than double to buy all of the dishes (and we still hadn't negotiated shipping) I finally caved and signed the contract with the rental company. That is, for everything except the flatware. During my analysis, I found that buying flatware from Sam's Club was actually cheaper than renting. So we went to Sam's and bought the Bakers & Chefs forks, spoons, and knives, and saved about $60 compared to renting at $0.37 per piece.