Gimme a Head with Hair, Long Beautiful Hair...

I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a friend's wedding over the weekend. The bride asked each of us to have our hair in an up-do, off our faces. We were each able to select our own hairstyles, and I loved how they all came out! They were all so different, yet all so elegant. I think I am going to ask the same of my bridesmaids. I just discovered the Shear Elegance Salon in Cooperstown, NY, and am making it my mission this winter to try them out. Hopefully within the next few weeks I can have an initial consultation with them. My hair is shoulder-length at the moment, and I'd like to know if I need to grow it out in order for the hairstyles I find myself gravitating towards to happen.

The following are wedding hairstyles I find myself looking at, over and over again.

This first is a low, loose bun. I like the classiness of this look, while still being comfortable and less formal. If I decide on an updo, I definitely would like face-framing tendrils.



Here is another low, loose up-do I am loving.



If I went the classic, traditional route, I would choose the french twist. The more I look, the more I realize I am not a traditional bride in the least. While I like the look of this up-do, I am not in love with it, and no matter how I try I cannot picture myself walking down the aisle with this hairstyle.



Here is the one I am truly in love with. This hair looks the most like "me". And more importantly, Matt loves it when my hair is down.



And so, I will take these photos to the salon in a few weeks and try to make a decision. I will keep you informed!

A Touch of Homemade Vintage

I have finally perfected the table names. Of course, this is only the first one, but I am pretty happy with it! We decided to go with vintage postcards of places that hold importance to us as a couple for our table names. At first, we thought it would be easy to find some cool antique postcards online. But, try as I might, the research librarian-in-training was not able to find any! Not even ones of places in Hawaii we had been to!

I finally discovered the perfect place to teach me how to create my own vintage photograph.

http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/photoshop_vintage_effect/

After much trial and error, I have created the postcard you see above. This particular photo is one I took right before Matthew proposed (and so of course this table name is for our sweetheart table). I found a font I loved, and will now use for other aspects of our wedding decor, in order to tie everything together.



In my research, I came across a great website that transforms your photos to look as if they were 100 years old! It is unfortunately entirely in Japanese, so a little confusing to follow, but all you really need to do is upload your photo, click the blue button below, and within a minute....voila!! Automatic old-timey photo!

http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds

While I absolutely adore this website, and could definitely spend all day transforming all my photos, the effect does not work that well on all photos, and therefore isn't usable for this project...but perhaps for the memory table?

A Trip To The Local Post Office

61 cents for one Save the Date? YIKES! I was hoping the thin magnet and greeting card would only add up to the lesser 44cent wedding rings stamp.

While at the post office I learned some interesting wedding invitation facts.

(1) Most invites take two 61cent stamps each (in some cases 3), plus the 44cent stamp for the response card. That's a lot of stamp money!

(2) While hand cancelling your invites do make it look (slightly) more physically appealing, there is still a chance that your precious invites will run through a machine at some point throughout the process, as the mail goes from town to town. While it will not ruin the invites, it will cause the envelopes to look not as pretty as we "detail-oriented" brides would like.

And We're Registered!

We went to the mall this morning to shine up my ring (it had gotten quite dirty during my massage last weekend!) and I was shocked when Matt suggested we start our registry at Pottery Barn! They gave us a free gift for registering (a nice, modern, square vase filled with registry cards to include in the wedding shower invites), handed Matt the "gun" and let us loose in the store.

I must admit, it was LOTS of fun to look around at all the things we could potentially own! Matt had so much fun he suggested hitting up Williams Sonoma in a few weeks as well! It's so cute to see him get excited about wedding planning :)

Now comes the fun of obsessively checking the registries to see what we "own"!!

The Date Is Saved!

Two entire weeks of calligraphy writing/putting cards together with magnets/licking envelopes has finally come to an end! Now it's on to the post office to find out how much one of these little babies weigh!

While I am on the topic of the post office, I have been thinking quite a bit about going through the trouble of hand cancelling not only our saves, but also the invitations. Some of you may ask, what is hand cancelling? "Cancelling" is all the wavy lines the post office puts through a stamp, to tell that it has been previously used. Machine cancelling runs the mail through a machine, which may cause damage to precious invites (and magnets!), whereas hand cancelling is supposed to cut out the machine.

Here is a visual difference (the machine cancelled one is on the top):





I don't notice too much of a difference, with the exception of the bar code on the bottom.

I have heard from other brides that some postal workers are not the most willing to put forth the extra effort to hand stamp 100 invites for you. It is after all, quite the time consuming process. However, I also heard that if you take your invites during slow times (such as 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon) that they are much more accomodating.

It all depends how detail-oriented you are as a bride. Would you notice the bar code on the bottom of an invitation that reached your door, or would you simply tear open the envelope and throw it away without looking at it all?

Weekday Wedding Inspiration

After almost four months of searching for hot pink and chocolate brown inspired wedding photos, I was beginning to think that I was the only out there with this sort of vision. Trust me, I have spent the summer searching high and low for ideas of what past brides have accomplished with this color pallette. It was not until today that I stumbled across this little gem. I feel so much better knowing that someone else had the same sort of vision that I have!



And she even had cupcakes!

Calligraphy Frustrations

Before you painstakingly write out 20 addresses in calligraphy, be sure you know your own zip code!! It took two days for me to realize I was mixing the place of two numbers :-/

Grrrr.....

I Can Write!

Success has finally hit in the calligraphy department! At this very moment I am holding in my hand one perfectly addressed Save the Date envelope! Only 70-some to go....

13 Months To Go!!

I just received my 13 month email from The Knot! How exciting!

According to The Knot, on my checklist this month should be the bridal party and the guest list! With the bridal party almost complete (Matt has just a couple more phone calls to make!), I am focusing on the guest list this month. And actually, that is almost finished too! I have one more address to get for my guests, Matt has a few for his, and then our parents will hopefully send along their lists in the next couple of weeks!

I've been practicing my calligraphy skills for the addressing of the Save the Dates (my order of those are being processed as we speak!) and trying to get things ready in general for that. They are quite the DIY project and require A LOT of stamping skills (as well as handwriting). I find myself at Michael's weekly picking up more stamping kits and cardstock! Thank goodness for those 50% coupons!!

I hope to have them completely finished by mid-October, and in the mail by the end of that month. It feels like a lot of time, but I know how quickly weeks can sneak by! I am starting to feel like this is not quite as realistic of a goal as I thought it was...

Do You Feel It?

I am in love with a font. This deliciously delectable morsel came across my screen this afternoon as I was sifting through page upon page of calligraphy fonts for Save the Date addresses. It is called "Feel Script". Doesn't it just make you feel like you're in small-town America, back in the early 1900's? It has a very vintage feel to it, while still remaining classic and stylish. It is my goal this month to become a pro at writing in this style.

I bought the envelopes for the Saves this past weekend, and am just about to begin addressing them. I tried one today using our address as a trial run, and boy is calligraphy ever hard! Whoever thought of using it for weddings was a nut! But I will prevail! I will write my own addresses out! I will not be outdone by a font!

Which Save to Date?

I never would have imagined there to be so many Save the Date options out there! Assuming I do not want to take the time to make this a full-on DIY project, and I do not want to spend $200-$800 on them from boutique websites such as The Green Kangaroo, Invitations by Dawn, or Weddingpaperdivas (although I had fun drooling over their designs, and if price were no option I would definitely order from them, the quality looks amazing), this still leaves four good and complicated options.

(1) magnetstreet.com

The average price for 100 Saves from this site is $169 (with free shipping). They have over 500 fully editable options for magnets, making them the option to go to if you have less popular color options (such as mine, as I'm finding out).

However, even Emily Post claims that Save the Dates are the bride's time to have fun with the wedding, and to play around with other colors. She claims that there will be plenty of time to see your wedding colors later on. However, I would at least like to stay in the same color family.

But I digress. Magnetstreet offers users the capability to create just the right shade of pink (or whatever your color may be) for all aspects of the Save (including the background and other decorations). I love this option, as I can make the Save completely ours. Users can also purchase coordinating mailing labels for an extra $20.

But is all this worth the extra cost?

(2) Vistaprint

An ever-popular option for the budget bride, vistaprint offers 100 magnets for $50. However, they do not include envelopes, or labels, users cannot edit the colors (with the exception of the font colors, which is not helpful if they do not coordinate with the background), and the place for the photo only accepts vertical photos, meaning we would need to choose a different photo, or face looking squished.

Vistaprint is out for our Saves, but it seems like a good option for the photoshare business cards. They are fully editable (even allowing users to upload their own design) and many coupons can be found online for 100 free business cards from this site! A definite save!

(3) savethedatemagnet.com

From the title alone, this seems like the obvious choice. For 100 magnets, the cost is $99. The site offers free shipping, the addition of backing cards for only $10, and free envelopes. Another feature which I love is that for an additional $39 they will print your return address on each envelope. Or, if you really want, for an additional $99 they will print all your outgoing addresses as well. However, I just purchased a calligraphy pen and am quite looking forward to writing these out myself.

The downside: these are smaller (business-card sized) and may be difficult for older guests to read. Also, users must use the design they see (no color editing here, folks), and the designs are not editable online, so in order to see your completed design requires a weeks wait for the proof to come.

But I really do love their designs.

(4) 123print.com

These are $95 for 100 magnets (I've seen a 10% off coupon online, bringing the price down to only $86). I was put off by these at first, since all the Saves did not include the phrase "Save the Date". However, just in the past hour, I discovered users can add their own text, in different fonts, colors, and sizes. So, problem solved.

Shipping is $18 (the highest I've seen), and the magnets do not include backing cards or envelopes. However, I discovered that Office Depot offers a set of 100 ivory greeting card envelopes for only $5. Problem #2 solved, and the backing card problem was solved in the previous post.

The only issue I have with this company is that they do not offer users the capability to customize the background colors. However, problem solved again as they have many options in our color family.

I have multiple designs chosen at this point, from each of these websites. Hopefully hubby can help me narrow them down!

Packaging Ideas for Saving the Date

I've just spent an entire hour on google searching for ideas for packaging our save the dates (mind you I have yet to pick a style of save the date I like...I'm always two steps ahead of myself!) I am becoming quite discouraged that the only "helpful" websites I can find offer advice such as: remember to place the magnets in an envelops and take them to the post office. Really? Who doesn't know how to do that?

What I am looking for, are ideas on for backing the Saves prior to putting them in envelopes. I found one girl who had created pocket folders for her Saves so that she could include an insert with all her pertinent wedding information. I got excited. Then I realized that that defeated the purpose of using a magnet as the Save, as most people will throw away or lose the insert and there goes all your carefully placed information.

The only thing I have been able to find is the following:



I actually really like the idea. It's cute, vintage-looking, and relatively inexpensive. I have plenty of time to find a nice type-writer looking font to write the sentiment we choose on the front, and then figure out how to put it through the printer.

Another idea is to glue a liner inside the envelopes to make them prettier. I did this for the bridesmaid "get to know you" packets, and it was relatively simple to do. However, it was time-consuming and probably not worth the additional cost for the Saves. They would look something like this:



This idea is going to require a LOT of additional research! I never would have thought something as simple as this would require so much extra work!

Vintage Leaf Holders

Today I did a test-run of my DIY leaf cones for the ceremony recessional toss. It is quite the ordeal! I think prior to doing any of these for real, I should contact the wedding coordinator at the Otesaga and be sure that the leaf toss is even a possibility. After all, someone is going to have to clean all this up!

Anyway, here is how I did it:

I placed a doily on a cookie sheet, and made a pot of tea. Taking the tea bag, I ran it back and forth over the doily, coating it in tea. Here is how it looked:



I then let the doily dry. It came out looking like this:



I'm quite happy with the outcome. They look very vintage, and the tea-color coordinates with the rich fall leaves much better than the stark white. While this is a very time-consuming project (especially for someone in a one-bedroom apartment who can only make 2 doilies at a time), I think in the end the look will make it well worth the effort.

One important thing to remember for fellow DIY-er brides out there wanting to take this project on: stick with the 10" doilies! The 8" ones are too snug and hold onto the leaves quite well, making it impossible for them to fall out when they are tossed.

Some Assembly Required: Part 2

I spent this morning putting all my DIY projects through the flowchart test. Here is my list (thus far) of projects to be completed in the next 402 days. (The ones with an asterick next to them I have completed already)

STATIONARY ITEMS:

Save the Date envelopes (calligraphy)
Invites
Invite envelope calligraphy
Programs
Menus
Escort Cards
Timeline for bridal party
Bookmark favors
Signs for reception (bathroom basket, escort cards, guest book, etc)
*Bridesmaid packets
Maps
Scavenger Hunt cards for disposable cameras
Out of Town gift bag cards
Photoshare Cards
Vendor Tipping Envelopes

RECEPTION DECOR:

Table Names
Lace Surrounding Votive Candles for Centerpieces
Vintage Frames for Centerpieces
Cakestands for Centerpieces
Bride and Groom Chair Sashes
Cupcake wrappers
Guest book
Bathroom Baskets
Wooden Initials (for getting ready doors)

CEREMONY:

Leaf Cones

EXTRAS:

Out of Town gift bags

**YIKES!!** This list seems really long right now!! Good thing I still have 13 months to get it all done!

Vintage Findings

I found these coasters at an antique shop this past weekend. I spent an hour in the store debating whether to buy them. I love them. I love how they look. But how could I use them?

I want them as some sort of decoration at the reception. They fit so well with our vintage-meets-modern theme. Plus, they have the postcard theme going for them as well. How could I just leave them there? And so, they found their way to our apartment.

If anyone has any ideas of how I could use these, please feel free to leave me a comment! I'm at a total loss, but am determined to use them!