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When is it too much? Source: Veil Tales
Are you getting married during the holidays? Have you decided whether or not to use holiday decorations? I’ve known only a couple of brides to get married during the holiday season, whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas (New Year’s would be a fun wedding!) and they struggled with whether or not to incorporate the seasonal holiday decorations into their wedding. American Bridal has some tips on planning a holiday wedding. What do you think?
When you’re planning your wedding, it’s helpful to have some of your wedding color samples with you at all times – who knows if that trip to Target to grab some random non-wedding item will result in a super cool find for your wedding, hmm?
A while ago I stumbled across this “color-scheme saving” idea from Createcass on Curbly. I think it’s a *fabulous* way to keep track of the colors you’re using for your wedding, and it’s so easy to just slip it into your wallet so that it’s with you wherever you go.
Here’s a summary of the steps – for more directions, check out the Curbly site.
First, head to your local hardware or paint store and load yourself up with color swatches that match your wedding colors.
Next, cut out the colors from the swatches, and put a hole punch in the corner, tying them together with string or ribbon. Write the names of what each color represents on each leaf.
…and you’re done!
If you’re feeling fancy, you could also punch the color samples with a big decorative punch.
I’d recommend making one of these for yourself, and also one for each of your bridesmaids, and anyone else helping with the decorating in your wedding (e.g, your mom). Createcass also suggests making some for your florist and wedding coordinator.
Paint chips can also help with picking the color scheme of your wedding, though there are always more shades of paint available than fabrics, so try not to get too hung up on that exact shade of aqua, just in case it’s not available in a dress!
Since your wedding invitation is the very first thing that your guests will see, it should set the tone for your wedding. As the expression goes, “nothing beats a good first impression,” the same goes for your invitations. Get your guests excited about your wedding with some beautiful invitations that reflect you and your wedding day.
Real Simple Weddings magazine has a section devoted to wedding invitation styles, wording, and etiquette (it also has a lot of checklists and other helpful tips for planning your wedding and I totally recommend shelling out the $13 for a copy – the 2008 and 2009 editions are pretty similar so see if a recently married friend has a copy you can have!).
Anyway, according to Real Simple, there are four different styles of wedding invitation – formal (or traditional), semiformal, thematic, and whimsical. Here are some invitation examples that work for each of those categories:
Thematic: These beautiful invitations are screen printed using a Gocco. Unfortunately Gocco's are hard to find these days but you could recreate a similar look using photoshop and your printer. Thematic invitations typically reflect a location or an activity (e.g., country & western, music, theater etc).
Semi-Formal: These invitations are typically classic and simple, but with a unique graphic or element.
Whimsical: I'm such a fan of whimsical - it's probably my favorite category because you can be so creative with it! Designs in this category usually include quirky fonts, unique materials (e.g., printing on wood veneer), and unexpected embelishments.
Formal: I typically don't like formal invitations because they're almost always plain white with a traditional typeface that's often letter-pressed. I love this twist on that traditional look! (Oh, and i do love letterpress too...)
I hope these samples inspire you with your invitation design! What type of invitation will you be going with for your wedding, and how will it reflect the style of your wedding day?
I really love wedding invitations and programs that think outside the box. This week I want to share with you some invitations and programs that I’ve found which are machine sewn. Machine sewing your invitations certainly will give them a unique twist, but before you try doing all your invites, make sure your machine is sturdy enough to be up to the task (particularly if you are sewing through multiple sheets of paper), and also have plenty of new needles on hand, as the paper will blunt them pretty quickly. (Click the images for more info on the designs).
I shared these last week, but I thought I'd put them here too. Floral fabric is sewn to the invitations. You can buy unique fabric like this from Fabric.com and Ikea. Also, color trend tip: yellow with gray is an up and coming combo!
I think these floral sewn invites are by the same designer.
And matching programs...
Like the ones above, these programs have been zig zag stitched down the side for a great effect. I also love that the couple wrote a cute phrase on the front rather than the standard names, date and location.
I don't know if the Post Office will like you for this one, but these invitations have been wrapped in hand sewn canvas bags. The addresses have been printed onto iron on-fabric transfer paper and it looks like the stamp has been sewn on. (the invitations were printed on real wood!)
These beautiful invites by Creative Blu have an overlock stitch around the edge. (click image for more info)
This 16 page invitation looks more like a program! It's a combination of metalic, white, and transparent paper.
A simple straight stitch takes these invitations from plain to *wow* (btw, that font is Scriptina, which you can download for free - just Google it)
I love these - they're made from recycled paper and vellum.
These hand sewn invites would also work well as programs. I love how they've used zig zag stitch to attach the couple's name!
And lastly, these invitations are given a bit of pizazz with two rows of straight stitch accross the middle. You could do this with a wide twin needle, but they're really expensive so I'd just take the extra time to do two individual rows.
Well I hope these have inspired you! Will you be attempting to sew your programs or invitations?
No, I didn’t *personally* have a Wii themed wedding, but I’m sure there’s a lot of couples out there who would love to! I’ve recently been stumbling across various Wii themed things that would work really well at a wedding, and I thought I’d share them.
A few months ago, a friend of mine celebrated his birthday and his girlfriend organized a bakery to make a Wii cake – I thought “wow, that would make an awesome groom’s cake!”.
Cool huh? This cake was baked by Tastefully Treated in South Riding, VA, who amazingly, had never seen a Wii remote before. (click image for bakery website)
CustomBobble.com can make Mii Bobble head cake-toppers in your likeness for $185 (click the image to visit their site)
LayerCakeShop have many cute cookie cutters for only $2.50 each (they also have other great stuff!). You could make some Mario inspired home-baked mushroom shaped cookie favors for your guests with these (click the image to visit their site).
OhILikeThat recently posted up these super cute DIY mushroom pencils - also a great favor idea, or could work as the guest book pens. (click the image for instructions)
Are you thinking about having a Wii themed wedding? Have you seen anything else that could be used in a Wii themed wedding? I’d love to hear about it!
Hello from San Francisco! I recently moved here for work (temporarily) to support my current project, and I’m working on getting settled in. For me, a major part of that is watching every single On Demand program available: “Bridezillas,” “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Tori and Dean” are all currently dominating my airwaves. So much wedding stress!
But not every wedding needs to be so full of drama. There’s life after the ceremony, a.k.a. a marriage.
I recently attended a friend’s wedding at a local courthouse, and it was a wonderful ceremony – short, sweet and to the point. The bride looked beautiful in her dress, the groom looked handsome in his suit, and they were surrounded by close family and friends. After the clerk ushered us into the room, the lucky couple signed the register, recited their vows, and received their marriage certificate – they were married! I played photographer before, during and after the ceremony and had great fun dragging them all around the courthouse and nearby parks to get that perfect shot. The reception was an evening garden party with twinkling lanterns, delicious home-cooked and catered food, and a delicious red velvet wedding cake.
It wasn’t an extravagant wedding, but it was them, and that’s what matters. 
Last week I gave you a sneak peak from Jen and Dan’s wedding with their gorgeous cakes, and then we provided you with a discount coupon for cake bee – very cool!
This week I’m going to share the rest of Jen and Dan’s wedding with you, as well as some things I learned along the way. Jen had a lot of ideas for how she wanted her wedding, but with about four months left before her big day there were still a lot of things that weren’t fully organized. Worried that it wouldn’t come together, I offered to give her a hand with her wedding prep. This was the second wedding that I’d coordinated, and while there were a lot of pieces to organize and keep track of, the wedding day resulted with only a couple of small hiccups and I actually had some time to still enjoy myself!
Over the months leading up to the wedding, I spent time with Jen going through the Real Simple Wedding Planner checklist (also available in the RS Wedding magazine). We worked out what still needed to be done, and then divided up the tasks between both Jen and Dan (and members of their wedding party). Check out my previous post to see the programs that I designed for Jen.
I think the number one thing I learned is that whenever you work with any vendor, get *everything* in writing. And help your vendors out too: stick by their deadlines and avoid changing things at the last minute – this causes confusion and may result in things going the wrong way on the wedding day. We had a number of issues with the caterer – while their food was great, a lot of things weren’t put in writing and so for some reason, the contract price got changed (to be higher), one of the tables wasn’t put out (suddenly 10 people approached me at the reception asking, “where is table 21?”), and poor Jen found herself getting more and more stressed the week of the wedding.
Jen chose to have an outdoor wedding at Oxon Hill Manor in Maryland, however rain ended up being forecast for the wedding day (Memorial Day), so at the last minute we scored a tent for a fabulous price. As it happened, the previous day’s wedding was renting a tent. For $500 Jen was able to keep the tent up, including a stage, dance floor, and decorations (these were usually $12,500!!!). The only complaint I heard, was that some people were getting hot because the heat and humidity was getting trapped inside. I didn’t personally find this a problem, but if you are having a spring/summer wedding in an area prone to high humidity (like DC) and you want to use a tent, consider getting some industrial fans installed.
Anyway, to the pictures!
Jen cashed in on a stationery store that was closing down, and bought an assortment of different pink and off-white papers. I helped her out by designing about 5 different variants so she could use up all the paper. Here's one of them.
See that sky? It started to sprinkle part-way through the pastor's message (he actually cut out more than half of what he was going to say - including the "i do" part!! woops!). The aisle runner got stuck part way as it was being rolled out before Jen walked down the aisle. I didn't realize it got stuck, and sent Jen down while they were still rolling it out. My bad 
. It was probably a good thing though, because the rain was looming.
Here's the tent with the vinyl lanterns. There was an extra charge to change the colors from the previous wedding to Jen's wedding colors, so we decided to just leave them be.
I loved these centerpieces! The vases were from the Dollar Store and one of Jen's friends spray painted them white. Because she used regular spray paint rather than paint specially for glass, they had to carefully transport them so they didn't scratch. Also, to keep with the "games" theme, the favors were candy in little board game box packaging (you can see them just behind the vase).
And here we have table 21, seated! On their heads are the super cute escort cards that Jen printed (using a template she found online) with everyone's name as a Monopoly Title card. Each of the tables was a different color. (Photo by LauraKayPhoto.com)
And just for fun, here's my husband - as a groomsman he got to wear a pink vest. I like to remind him that "real men wear pink"
So there you have it – Jen and Dan’s wedding! I spent a good part of the night running around like a mad woman, but all in all, it was fun. The other two near-dramas that occurred included: Dan forgetting to bring the marriage license (note to any one coordinating a wedding – remind the couple to bring their license to the rehearsal!); and the lighting company guy not bringing a ladder (thankfully I located one in a closet at the manor)! I did get to work with some excellent vendors though – the DJ was great at working with me to get things back on schedule, the management at Oxon Hill were also really accommodating in helping us get extra time, and Laura from LauraKayPhoto.com was also a dream to work with (it was also fun to see her again as she did the photography at my wedding too!). As for Jen, her favorite things were the cake, the tent, and a gorgeous wreath created by one of her friends (unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of it).
I definitely learned a lot of lessons about wedding coordinating at this wedding! Have you coordinated a wedding? What lessons have you learned?
I have to share this with everyone – I just came across the second coolest wedding invitations I’ve ever seen! If you’re wondering, first place belongs to Nat and her awesome DIY invites (parts one and two), thank-you notes and programs.
This super creative approach to wedding invitations is a light-hearted take on one couple’s unorthodox courtship over seven years, and literally tells their story from the beginning. I’m going to let you read the invite, then show you the corresponding direction and RSVP cards.
Courtesy Metal Mother blog
One of the reasons that I love this idea is because everyone at the wedding showed up knowing the bride and groom’s full story. After seven years of dating, I’m sure there were plenty of questions and speculation about when the big day would finally come. This answered any questions anyone may have had and allowed the focus to shine on the couple’s big day without any awkward jokes from weird Uncle Bud.
The RSVP and direction cards kept in step with the theme, and were funny and simple.
RSVP: Metal Mother blog
RSVP and Directions: Metal Mother blog
Directions: Metal Mother blog
This type of invitation isn’t for everyone, but it should be recognized as a funny, creative and different way to invite people to your big day. While I love this, I know that I probably wouldn’t do something so plain – mine will have to have swirls, bold colors and possibly a flower or two. What about you?
"pencil us in" save the date
I was asked what our “theme” was for our wedding. We don’t really have a theme. At the end of the day, we just want people to say that the wedding reflected who we are. So, I guess the theme is us!
Last week I shared our invitation prototypes with you. Thanks to the wonderful assistance of some great girls, we got our invitations done really quickly (I love production lines!).
Here’s how we did them:
*I bought 4 different types of fixing methods – a glue stick (didn’t try it, but I think things would have fallen apart with it), glue dots (these worked well, but they were expensive and we ran out of them), double sided skinny tape on a stick thing (this also worked well and was easy to use but super expensive and it didn’t last long), double sided scotch tape – the cheapest option, and it actually worked better than everything else. It was also the last thing I tried :-/.
Here’s the edited Photoshop version of the inside (it was about 1/4″ from each side of the brown cardstock):
(Note that it’s not a good idea putting the rsvp date on the invite itself – we staggered our invite send dates, and changed some of the rsvp dates for people added later on, but I forgot that I’d printed in on the invite already! Woops!)
Secondly, we decided to line the envelopes. My mathematician friend announced, “let me go get my protractor from my car!” and proceeded to trace out the shape. Who carries a protractor around with them??! I think she could have also had success by tracing out the shape of the envelope and making it a little smaller, but anyway, they worked out. So:
.
the template
the brandy paperweight
lined envelope
Then, inspired by Martha Stewart (and other wedding bloggers) I printed the names and addresses onto extra wrapping paper, sliced them, and attached them to the envelopes using double sided tape. Printing them was the most difficult and frustrating thing. An easier way is to print directly onto 8 1/2 x 11 sticker sheets (that’s what I did for my thank you cards). Anyway, here’s how I successfully did it:
Note: I had all my guest names and addresses in Excel and did a mail merge with Word. Here’s the labels I created and here’s Microsoft’s mail merge instructions (just make sure you use the code <<next record>> on the first line of each label after the first label). Unlike Martha’s labels, my sender address was sideways .
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