Hey That’s A Nice Life

The RSVP date has come and gone allowing me to finish up the seating charts and table cards. 

I have to say, making the seating chart was the hardest task of wedding planning yet.  Thankfully, I used this great tool on the Martha Stewart web site (I think they are actually the same tools used on the Wedding Channel) to map out the tables.  Don thinks it would have been easier to make index cards and map it out in that way first … and I can see the logic.  BUT, since I was tracking our guest list and responses with the other tools on Martha’s site, SHE organized everything for me and that made it as simple as possible.  Of course, by SHE I mean that Martha herself - not a team of 25 Web developers - helped out.  Right?

Turns out, as simple as possible is not all that simple.  Some tables were really easy - people from work, my closest local friends, Don’s group of friends from Miami.  But there were some people who just won’t know that many people there besides the two of us and I wanted to be sure to put everyone at tables where they would have fun.  Meeting new people is fun, right?

Here’s a sneak peek at a few table cards (you’ll notice there are no duplicate tables below, so you can’t figure out who you’re sitting with yet!):

In the top left corner, you’ll see the table name the guest(s) is seated at, and in the lower right hand corner is the guest’s name.  The cards are held in place by shell magnets (these were made by gluing a rare earth (very strong) magnet onto a sea shell - a lot harder than it sounds, much to my surprise).  The table names are beaches where Don and I have vacationed / visited.  There are 13 tables in total, with 105 guests expected at this time.

I decided many months ago that I would not be ordering flowers for the wedding.  I wanted to try my hand my making my own bouquet and Nice Mama missed her calling in life as a florist.

That left a question about what the men would wear for boutonnieres and the women as corsages.  As I started researching coastal weddings on the Knot and Martha Stewart I found lots of great choices made from shells.

I loved the concept, but it was hard for me to figure out how to put them together and I tried a few concepts. I finally figured out the best way and was able to make three completely different kinds of options.

First, there is very simple version for those who will serve an official role at the wedding or reception - our readers, toasters and the mistress of ceremonies. 

Then there are the boutonnieres for Don (the starfish pictured below) and my dad, his dad, his brother and his brother’s partner (all different types of shells).

Finally, I used very small white shells to make the corsages for my mom and Don’s mom (this picture is a little blurry).

I really like how they turned out.  What do you think?  Will anyone miss the flowers?

The problem with writing this wedding blog is that I never know how much people who are attending the wedding want to know in advance.  Do you like that you’ve basically seen the invitations even though they have not yet arrived in the mail?

Today I’m going to let you decide if you want to keep the centerpieces a surprise or if you’re ready to see them now.  If you want to be surprised, come back another day.  If you want to see them keep reading. Read more…

The invitations are nearly assembled and I love how they turned out. Sure I would have liked gorgeous letterpress invitations on creamy thick paper … but the price was too dear. My favorite part about these invitations is that my fabulous friends / wedding elves helped me make them over a few evenings, some wine, some beer and lots of chatter. My second favorite part is how much money we saved. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have an almost vendor-free wedding planning process?

Here’s what we did:

1. The invitation is crafted from two pieces of 80lb cardstock (cut in half so that one piece of paper made two invitations) tied together with raffia. The background is metallic lagoon and the text overlay is aquamarine metallic. Both pieces have just a bit of shimmer. The text was laser printed two per page onto a regular sheet of printer paper and then photocopied (!) onto the invitation. We used a paper cutter we already owned to cut the darker blue sheets in half and then trim a quarter inch all around and cut in half the lighter blue. Two small holes punched into each piece allowed us to thread a thin piece of natural-colored raffia through and make a simple bow. Just below the bow we glued a tiny starfish.
2. The response card was designed as a self mailing postcard. On the front is a color photocopy of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. We used Photoshop to change the text from “Greetings from” Ocean City to “A Wedding In” Ocean City. The vintage image was printed four per page on some leftover cardstock from some long-forgotten craft project. The back is the actual response portion. There are three events that require responses for our wedding and we decided to include all three events on the same response cards without issuing separate invitations for each event. We added “Number attending” to the Welcome Dinner and Bagel Brunch events because children are invited to attend those events, but not the actual wedding and reception. Again, I printed the response cards four per page on the darker blue cardstock. Everything was trimmed on the paper cutter.
3. The insert is a half sheet of the lighter blue cardstock printed and photocopied like the invitation and response card.
4. The envelope is the same aquamarine metallic. The paper and the envelopes were ordered from www.actionenvelope.com which has a lovely assortment of colors and decent prices.
5. I ordered an address embosser from www.expressionery.com to stamp the return address onto the envelope flap. It has not come yet – I selected the 10 day free shipping method and had a 40 percent off coupon. Wahoo!
6. I am going to make address labels that coordinate with the colors and design of the invitation for the outside of the envelope – we aren’t actually addressing for another 6 weeks, though (in case anyone moves, etc.).

As I mentioned, the cost of these DIY invitations is pretty hard to beat. We made 76 invitations for the following costs:

• Lagoon invitation paper - $15.96
• Aquamarine invitation paper - $11.36
• Lagoon response card - $7.96
• Aquamarine insert card - $11.36
• Envelopes - $15.92
• Starfish - $12

I already had the raffia and the plain white cardstock used for the vintage postcard image. That brings the total cost for the invitation to $74.50 – or about $.98 per invitation.

That’s right – less than $1 per piece for custom-designed, handmade invitations.

The labels will increase the cost a little (not significantly), and of course there is the postage that has to be accounted for ($.59 per invitation and $.27 per response card). We could save money by hand addressing all the invitations, but I love the idea of creating a label that works with the overall theme and design elements. Miss Sushi, one of the WeddingBee bloggers, made some that I just loved and I decided it would work well for us, too. I plan to use the address embosser for the Thank You cards and next year’s Christmas cards as well (provided we do not move I’ll emboss every item we send in the mail!) – so the $16 I spent on the embosser can be shared across multiple projects. I had to order the paper and envelopes in quantities of 50, but I have other projects that require the same paper, so it will not be wasted.

Here’s the working idea I have for label right now. I am going to keep playing around a little, but I like the way it’s looking so far.

As I mentioned back in October, I have a pretty extensive list of DIY projects for the wedding.

Among the most important of these projects is the invitations.

As you know, I’m trying to stay way ahead of schedule since I have very busy spring. Thankfully, several of my friends offered to help with some of the DIY projects. My awesome wedding elves started helping me assemble the wedding invitations last week and we’re moving much faster than I ever imagined. Last week, Don cut all the invitation pieces, Katy hole punched them, and I tied them together. This week, Jaimie started adhering the starfish while Katy and I started (and finished!) the response cards. I am very pleased with the results.

The response cards were printed four per page and trimmed to be the size of postcards. Onto the front of the postcard we adhered a reproduction of a vintage postcard from Ocean City. It originally said “Greetings from Ocean City,” but Jaimie had the great idea to change it to “A Wedding in Ocean City” and I think it turned out great! I even had to time to stamp them tonight (after triple checking the USPS Web site to make sure postcards rates are not increasing in 2009). The only thing left to do on the response cards is to write a very small number on each one so that I can figure out who sent it in the event someone forgets to write their name on the response (which, I understand, happens more frequently than you might imagine).

Now I just have to print out and trim the information card (hotel and travel information, etc.), finish adhering the starfish and stuff the invitations. Oh, and address them.

Don’t worry little wedding elves, there are a lot more DIY projects ahead. We have to make the program fans, and the favors, the escort cards and the menu cards. Plus, I’m sure I’ll come up with a few more projects for us in the next 130 days!

They’re here. Our save the date cards arrived … for the second time.

The first time they arrived, last week, there was a big black box over most of the informational side. I was on my way to New York so Don took care of it (yay! good and helpful fiance!) and the replacements were sent out. There’s still a small printing issue (everything is just a bit too high on on the back of the card so that the line touches the top, but doesn’t touch the bottom), but I think I’m using these anyway because the mistake is likely ours and it’s a pretty small detail.

Here are the cards:

See how “Please save the date …” is closer to the top of the card than “Love, Don and Susan” is to the bottom? Maybe I could trim the bottom on the paper cutter and make it more even? Or maybe I should I shrug the whole thing off and forget about the small error?

When we were in Ocean City for the food tasting, we took a bunch of pictures on the beach including the image used on the front of the postcard above. We took those two starfish with us (it’s a recurring theme for the wedding) and started off down the beach. I wrote the various text items that we needed and Don plopped the starfish down and took the pictures. We went straight down the beach for about a block.

Assuming that the centering issue doesn’t make me change my mind above using this version, the next step is to get them addressed. Ack!

I ordered the invitation paper and the envelopes from Action Envelope. The colors are great - exactly what I wanted:

Aquamarine Metallic for the envelopes and the printed portion of the invitation and Lagoon Metallic for the accent color. They have a little sparkle, but not a lot. The other materials necessary for my DIY invitations - like tiny little starfish - have already arrived.
I’m going to assemble and test mail myself an invitation from Ocean City this weekend so I can make sure they hold up well in the shipping.

This week I got a couple of great ideas from Martha and Brides.com. To get to our ceremony site, guests will have to cross a beach dune. I saw photos from a wedding where the dune fence was lined with torches. It will be light out when our guests arrive, but it’s a nice touch. Also - enter the cheapskate bride - it should be easy to score a bunch at the end of summer for a major discount.

I’ve been debating about whether or not to have a candy bar / buffet. It’s a nice touch and we have yet to attend wedding with one, but is it weird to mix my professional life into my wedding? If we do, I’d really like to focus on our wedding colors - blues, white, silver … but that should give us plenty of choices. Don says that unless we get all the candy gratis, we won’t have it … but I think he’s bluffing.

Weddings blogs are a dime a dozen these days. Mine is probably not going to be much different than most you read except that, you know, it’s about me. And Don. And Don and me.

And maybe you know us, so you think it’s mildly interesting.

First things first. We’re getting married. The tentative date is May 2, 2009 in Ocean City, Md. (my hometown). I say tentative because while we have a hold on a venue, we have yet to get a solid answer about ANYTHING from the caterer and so I’m still afraid it’s all going to go to hell.

I’m kinda a DIY bride, and also we’re kinda cheap. Not in the “if you come to our wedding the food will be lousy and you’ll have a terrible time” kinda way, but more in the “hey, I could do that this other way and save a lot of money” kinda way. We’ve selected a very rustic and bare bones venue and we’re doing a lot of stuff ourselves. In the coming months I may come to you to ask for help choosing music, or making invitations, or hanging up paper lanterns - so be prepared.

Considering that the wedding is 280-some days away, I have made a lot of decisions about color and themes and so forth … and if you’re interested, you can read all about it right here.

To start, I created my first style board. Yeah, I didn’t know what they were either. BUT apparently all the cool brides make them. *snort* When you find images that appeal to you for your wedding, you place them on style boards. I guess they help your vendors create exactly what you want … but since I’m replacing most of my vendors, I guess they will just help me stay focused.

Images here include: paper lanterns in our wedding colors for the ceiling on the reception venue, sea-themed cake and cake toppers, crab cakes (one of my very few must haves!), the idea that inspired my table decor idea, the sunset over the bay in Ocean City (the indoor / outdoor reception venue shares this view), very simple flowers, starfish wine cork, the top of the first dress I saw that I fell in love with.