Paper

Being in the graphic design biz, it just made sense for me to make own invites. I didn't get too crazy, just kept it to a simple, one sided card:


The RSVP card...





All in a Tiffany blue envelope.




And our Save-the-Date cards, which I should've sent out about 2 months ago.... *gulp*

I'll also being doing menu cards, place cards, signs, etc, etc.... :)

Note: these are not our real names, and we don't have that many tattoos.

Shopping Therapy

As I alluded to in my last post, I've been a little stressed about this whole thing. But there's one thing always guaranteed to lift my spirits: shopping! (ok, the real answer is "my fiancee!" but for the purpose of this blog, we'll say it's shopping)

Sooooo...... I finally got something I've had my eye on for a while. I present to you, my wedding day, getting ready attire!


Just the hoodie of course, I intend to wear something other than just panties on my bottom half.

I *heart* it. I feel a bit obnoxious buying something for myself that claims I am "sexy," (yes, quotes are necessary) so if anyone asks... umm... the wedding fairy brought it to me.

Dear Faithful Readers,

(yes, all 2 of you) if you've noticed, I haven't written anything in a while. I bet you thought it was because I was soooo busy planning and finding great deals on cute votive holders, right? Actually, I haven't been planning at all. And I haven't found a single votive holder to use. I actually had a bit of a mental setback with this whole thing, and stopped thinking about wedding stuff completely. But I'm here to tell you that I'm back in the saddle and will be updating soon.

The Maid of Honor's Ensemble

The weekend of shopping was a success! Here is what we found:


Impression Bridal gown, Style 1568. Shown in Platinum above, but will be black and have spaghetti straps for the wedding.

She also found these Sam and Libby's Sedalia heels to go with it:

The Rings

A funny thing about me having a diamond ring... Yes, I am using "Tiffany" Blue, but no, I am not really into Tiffany & Co. And while they are beautiful, but I'm not really into diamonds, especially spending that much money on something so small and seemingly impractical. Not to mention that I figured I'd probably snag it on something, or lose it, etc etc. And when people get engaged, I'm not normally the type of person who asks to see the ring. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. I'm actually not really into fine jewelry at all, and if you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I would've told you that I would be perfectly happy with a plain silver band as my wedding ring.

But here I am, a couple of years later, with a diamond ring on my finger and I have to admit, I absolutely adore it. There's nothing "impractical" about how I feel when I glance down at it and see it sparkling back up at me. Maybe there's a Tiffany girl lurking inside of me afterall. ;)


1. My beautiful engagement ring - 4mm comfort band
2. The wedding band - matching 4mm comfort band
3. The way they will look together - hawt. There was no 4+4mm picture, so the one shown is 3+3mm. In other words, the real deal will be slightly thicker than what is shown.

Naturally, I want to get my honey something he loves just as much. He has talked about wanting some sort of non-traditional ring, maybe something in wood, so I've got my eye out for something that screams: "________!" (<--- insert his name there).

Then I saw someone post this on indiebride.com:


when I saw it, it totally screamed "________!" This is from 22DesignsStudio, based out of Taiwan, and is their 7 Days ring.

Big Weekend...

My best friend and Maid of Honor is coming into town this weekend. I haven't seen in forever and am really excited. On tap for this weekend: find her a dress and shoes, attend a cake tasting, first meeting with a florist, and majorly catch up on eachother lives. :)

Update on the centerpieces: I want to wait to meet with the florist to make any decisions, but I'm pretty sure that the centerpieces are going to be DIY. I'll be using the floating bowls pictures below, filling them with aqua gems and water and floating a large white flower (of a few small flowers) in them. around the bowls, i'll probably sprinkle some gems, and surround the bowls with votives in these holders i found at efavormart.com:


Now the real issue is what do about the bouquet. I HAVE NO CLUE. I was originally going to do ALL of the flowers white, but the more I see white bridal bouquets, the more I think they blend into the dress too much. And there is no such thing as a Tiffany Blue flower, which makes me sad, so that's not really an option. There has been talk of dyeing some white flowers blue, but I've heard mixed reviews on that. We'll see. Hopefully the florist will have some good ideas.


PS. Here's another picture of theeee dress:

Reception Decor

It's easy to find things in black and white. Finding accents in Tiffany Blue/Aqua hasn't been as easy. I'd like to bring as much aqua into the reception as possible, without overkill.

Here are some things I've been looking at:



1. Tiffany Blue silk carnations: ebay
2. Squared aqua votive holders at: www.modernvaseandgift.com
3. Aqua/White striped votive holders at idealfavors.com
4. Frosted glass bowl at www.greengreen.com
5. Vase Jewels www.colormewedding.com

I have no clue what I am doing for the centerpieces yet. I have access to 20 FREE floating candle bowls, so while they probably wouldn't be my first choice, I'm going to try and use those.
They are double walled, so you can fill the inner wall with whatever you want, and then put something else in the actual bowl. For example, I could fill the inner wall with those silk carnations, and float some white candles in the bowl. Then I could surround the bowl with those aqua votive holders... something like that.

I'd like the head table to have a different centerpiece, maybe that Blue frosted bowl above, filled with water and some floating flowers in it...? I really have no idea yet :( This is probably the area I need the most work on.

Eeeeee!!!!

This deserves a post of it's own:



This would be perfect for the Groom's cake that I am surprising my honey with. Shhh, don't tell him! ;)

Glass Damask Cake Stand, available at Horchow.com
or at Nieman Marcus

by the way, this is the inspiration for the grooms cake:

Don't Laugh But...

...this is really tempting:

(The itty bitty top hat, not the hair style.)

I also like these:

Erica Koesler designs, available at AdvantageBridal.com

Bridesmaid Dresses

Or, more accurately, Maid of Honor dresses. My best friend is the bridal party. ;)

I am looking at either a tiffany blue/aqua dress, or a classic black dress.

I am a fan of Jasmine Bridal's B2 collection:


Here are some black dresses from Dillards.com:

Right now, the one in the upper right is my favorite. It's classic, elegant, and I think it will suit my maid of honor perfectly, and still be comfortable enough for her to get her groove on. And she WILL be getting her groove on. Oh yes.

David's Bridal: (Dresses shown are in "Pool")

FYI - that last one really has nothing to do with bridesmaids dresses, I just happened to see it and really like it. For me. ;)
I like David's because they have the most options in my color. Well, sort of. "Pool" isn't exactly Tiffany Blue, but it'll do.

It's in the Details

I bought my dress yesterday. I went with the David's Bridal one - I love it! Unfortunately by "bought" I mean "ordered," so I won't get it till the end of May.

So, now that I have the dress, I need other stuff. I already have the shoes, which I am just wild about. From Nine West (Via Zappos.com):

...I guess they technically fall more in the Turquoise category than Tiffany Blue. They are hot hot hot! The heel is a little taller than I would've liked, but still definitely doable. I'll probably need to bring some backup shoes, just in case. (tiffany blue flip flops maybe?)

I had also looked at these (I am all about the peep toe):


...which were $99 somewhere, but are only $19.99 at Payless! A budget bride's dream!

Since I won't have a pocket in my dress to hold my chapstick and keys, I guess I should get some sort of bag. I'm thinking a satin, blue, clutch type of thing. David's Bridal has some cute little purses, nothing too fancy, but they'll do the trick:


or something like these, from MadieDeluxe:

Damask

[DAM-uhsk]
noun
1. a table linen made from linen with a damask pattern
2. a fabric of linen or cotton or silk or wool with a reversible pattern woven into it
adjective
1. having a woven pattern; "damask table linens"
2. made of or resembling damask
[Origin: 1200–50; ME damaske < ML damascus, named after Damascus where fabrics were first made]

I've always loved this pattern, but the more things I find with it, the more I love it. Lucky for me, Damask is experiencing quite a revival right now, so finding things with this print has been easier than I thought. Wedding aside, it is popping up on all sorts of practical things and household objects:

1. Storage cubes from roomitup.com
2. Dishes from Target
3. Lapdesk from roomitup.com
4. I'm not going to lie. If had scads of money and wasn't thinking about a budget, I would buy a couple these sofas and make a little lounge for people to hang out in during the cocktail hour. how sweet would that be? From Urban Outfitters.
5. Laptop bag from Kailo Chic (they also have lots of other Damask bags and even *gasp* earrings!)

ok, here are the earrings ;)


BUT, back to the topic at hand.

Here are some Wedding invitations that fit into the theme:

And there are more where that came from, but you really have to dig. I've gotten some samples from some of these companies, but haven't found the one that is quite right yet. I want the damask AND the tiffany blue on the invite. I've technically already designed my own invitations, but am having trouble printing them, so I decided to see if I could find some reasonably priced ones out there. So far, the blue one in the picture (from www.weddingpaperdivas.com) seems to be the winner. Still waiting on more samples though....

There is a great little collection by Two's Company (www.twoscompany.com), that has some elements I could use:

If they were cheaper, I'd love to get those votive holders for every table, but as it is, I may have to just use them as an accent by the guestbook or something. I'd really wanted to incorporate something with old black and white photos too (ie. our parents and grandparents wedding portraits) so that frame would be pretty hot. Even if I don't use get those, I am, at the very least, getting that album.

Albums and Frames: JZ Rose
Votive Holders: Elizabeth's Emebellishments

Now comes the fun stuff...

So here's where I start posting pictures and getting giddy. BUT, before I do, I need to mention that I started bookmarking things and pulling images off the web for my own personal reference way before I ever thought I'd be making this page, so some of these may be breaking some sort of privacy or copyright rules. I hope that is not the case, but if I am using an image of yours PLEASE let me know and I will remove or give you credit, whichever you prefer. Apologies in advance if that happens.

Now, giddy time.

Oh wait.... I guess the other thing I should do is set the stage, so that these images make sense.

I am recently engaged (a month), and am planning on getting married in November of this year. I've had an odd obssession with bridal shows for the past few years, so seeing all of them has given me some ideas if the time ever came for me. Now that it has, I am trying to sort through all of the things I like to see what would work best for my wedding.

The first thing to figure out (once we nailed the date down and got a venue and all that) was colors. The venue we've chosen already has a black and white thing going on, so I decided to just go along with that. As for an accent color, I love teal so I thought about that, but it seemed a bit to strong for an accent. So I am going with a lighter, toned down version of something in the same family - Tiffany Blue. I cringe a little inside everytime I say the name "Tiffany Blue," but that really is the easiest, most universal way to say "You know, like a light aqua, pale turqouise-y color...?" or, for those of us that are design nerds, "My wedding is going to be Black, White and Pantone 318."

To add to the color scheme, I am going to try and incorporate black and white damask where ever I can. The more I think about the colors and the pattern, the more I love it. Seriously, I LOVE IT.

Pictures next time. Really.

First Post

Huh! Well look at me, starting a blog. I never thought I'd keep a blog, much less one about my wedding planning, but I keep finding that I need to refer to one of my millions of saved links or images that I've pulled off the web, and this seemed like a good way to organize all of my e-info. Plus, there are things that people have been asking me about, or things that I want to share, and again, this seemed like a good way to do it. So here I am. Hi.