Finally, a theme, Part II

My wedding had no focus until about a week ago.  We’d changed our colors several times, but other than that, I really didn’t know where we were going.  Then, we decided that the bright pink was not formal enough for our venues/time, so we thought we would tone down the pink a little, from fuchsia to blush, and drop the orange.  And what we ended up with was the most perfect peony colors ever.  So, I’ve become another peony bride.  That’s ok, I love peonies, I always have, and with the help of my bridesmaid/florist Amber, we will get to have peonies on our very limited budget.

I found this post by Miss. Ladybug over on WeddingBee and fell in love with her peony stamp.

I searched high and low for that stamp.  And I finally found it.  Unfortunatley, the company that makes that stamp does not want to answer their phone.  Plus, the thing is a whopping $25 plus shipping.

So I kept looking.

There’s lots of peony stamps out there.

This is from Addicted to Rubber Stamps.  But not exactly what I was looking for.  I really want just the flower without all that other stuff cluttering everything up.

(source)

This one makes me want to vomit.

(Source)

Are those actually peonies?

(source)

Blech!

Then I found this photo on someone else’s blog

And then I knew that that peony stamp was the one.

I found it at Impress Rubber Stamps

I love this stamp.  I also got it’s baby

I also got

and a self-inking stamp that says

Jennifer and Matt

June, 20, 2009

for our favors.

And yesterday, with my 40% off coupon from Micheal’s, I bought myself an embosser.

Now I’m set for the paper products, but what about the decor?  I can’t really afford that many peonies.  Back to the internet I go….!

Finally…a theme

I’m not really in the mood to write at length tonight, but I just wanted to say what a relief it is to finally have a theme.

It’s just paper, right?

In my last post, I talked in length about the ridiculousness of invitations.  They are expensive.  Most commercial invitations are hideous!!  In the 4 months since our engagement, I’ve looked at gabillions of invitations.  There’s a million different choices, and they are either boring, expensive, or tacky.  I’ve thought long and hard about making them myself.  The panic started to kick in today when I realized how many DIY projects I’ve committed myself to in the next 10 months.

So, I was fiddling around on www.projectwedding.com and was reminded about Costco’s wedding invitation section (here).   Most of these are still boring or tacky.  But not so much expensive.  I even found one design that was tolerable.  But it was still sorta expensive for something I can only tolerate.

I went back to Project Wedding and kept looking at invitations.  There are some truly lovely invitations out there.  Just not in my budget.

Then I followed a link from WeddingBee and landed on Ann’s Bridal Bargains.  Hhmm, discount invitations.  I looked through a few pages, prices were better.

I found one for $38 per 100 invites.  I don’t want to spoil it for my guest, but it’s really really plain and I’m going to embellish them at home with rubber stamps and ribbon.

I’m feeling good about my invitations.  I would go ahead and order them, but it seems a little bit premature to order my invites 10 months before the wedding.  I did order a sample though.

Yay!!

Random Surprise

I think I first started worrying about the invitations, oh, about the day after we got engaged. I was determined to do them myself. I struggled around with MS Word, and was pretty pleased with what I came up with.

Then I discovered Weddingbee.com

Those brides have the most awesome invitations ever!!!

Like these, from Miss. Cupcake

Those are amazing. Granted, it appears Miss. Cupcake works for a stationary company. Lucky girl. Nevertheless,these are amazing.

These are Miss. Shortcake’s. Not exactly my style, but totally amazing anyway.

My own journey to wedding invitation bliss has been thwarted by lack of resources. I’m a nurse for God’s sake. Ok, I sew and knit. I can cook. I am not a graphic designer. I don’t even really get into scrapbooking.

I don’t have PhotoShop, Corel, Illustrator. I am not dropping the money for them.

I downloaded the trial version. Ok, now I have illustrator. How do I use this thing?? No idea. I tried but it frustrated me. So, I gave up on illustrator and went back to MS Word. Word is lame.

I get mad. I go back to hunting for commercial invites. They are really expensive. We have a really tiny budget.

Matt says “try paint.net” I try paint.net. It’s ok, but I’m missing some very crucial functions that Photoshop has. All my creations look like this

Or some variation. Blech.

So, recently I’ve been back on my kick for the perfect invite. It’s completely illogical. It’s paper. I can’t remember what a single one of the invites I’ve received over the years looks like. Most people will throw them away. Why am I so worried about these damn invitations?

I think it’s because second to our Save The Dates, this is the first impression of our wedding our guests will get. I want to set the feel for the wedding.  And, since we sent out our save the date’s approximately 315 days before the wedding, I’m thinking the invitations will make a much larger impression than the save the date’s did.

We are looking for something traditional (he insists) with something that entertains me. Elegant and Modern. Preferably with some little element I can carry through the rest of the stationary. I really would rather do them myself. But again. I’m frustrated. They all look the same.

It doesn’t seem to matter what my thoughts are about the invitation surroundings.  I hate them all.

I have spent hours looking at old posts on WeddingBee and on LiveJournal.  I’ve looked at hundreds of invitations online.

There are some invitations that catch my eye.

Like these from White Aisle, Botanical

Or these

Fern, from Wedding Paper Divas

but then the price makes me want to vomit.  $365 dollars for 50 invitations!!!  The ones from WPD are $451 for 50, not including response cards or anything!  Are you kidding me?!  It’s paper for God’s sake!!

So, yesterday, Matt sent me a text while I was at work that said, “I got you a present.”

My response was “why?”

“cause it’s something you want”

cool!

So he brought home…  Adobe Photoshop Elements!!!

Yay! Maybe I really can do my own invitations now!!

OMG, what is that?

Tuesday, the Bridal shop called to tell me my dress had arrived.  Early!!  It wasn’t even supposed to ship until August 30th.  Yay!!

Poo, I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday.

So today I went to go pick it up.  My child is “sick,” as in she threw up last night and is fine now but can’t go to school.  So she had to go with me.

It looks so much better with the crinoline on underneath.

OMG, what is that??

What you can’t see in these pictures is that there is make-up or something on my dress.  A great big blob of it.  Not a smudge from my face or something.

Right about there.

the bridal shop freaks.  I’m ok, they will take care of it.

And they did, Alfred Angelo is sending me a brand-new dress.  In 3 weeks.  Yay!

Color Palette

I forgot to post this in my post about our color change… New color palette via colourlovers.com

Guest Book

I’ve been thinking about guestbooks lately. I guess this all started at my Grandma’s funeral. It was like, “here, sign the book.” No one is ever going to look at that book again. It was a waste of time and paper. I do not want to bother with a guest book if it’s going to get shoved in a closet somewhere. I’ll end up throwing it away. I’m not a big enough pack rat to keep crap like that laying around my house.

So, alternative guest books…

I always wanted to do a big photo mat when I was younger.

(source)

What a great idea. I thought I could leave that on my wall and it would stay and make me happy.

I look at that now and think, no way. Not happening, no going on my wall. I guess my style of interior decorating has changed.

Ok, so what about these signed ceramic platters?

(source)

That looks a mess. It’s cluttered and yucky. And there’s no way I’m displaying that sucker anywhere in my house!!

Back to square one.

I could make a photo book from Blurb. I could leave it on our coffee table. It would probably get ruined. We already have a four year old in the house. There’s definitely more children on the way. This is not going to work! Plus, would we really look at it?  Maybe, But I’d rather use our wedding pictures for a coffee table book anyway.

A photo booth isn’t going to happen, we live in a rinky-dink town in Georgia.

Has anyone actually bought a polaroid lately?  We don’t have one.  It’s a pretty cool idea.  I still don’t think we’d look at it.

So.. what is the point anyway?  Shouldn’t this thing be something that Matt and I can look at and have fond memories of our wedding day and all the friends and family that came?  Shouldn’t it be something that is kinda “us”?

So then one night, I was reading my favorite wedding blog, weddingbee.com.  Btw, I greatly desire to be a member of the hive in my next life.  Anyway, Miss Pinot Noir posted about her quilt guestbook.  Brilliant!!  I can totally do that!!  I make corsets, I can quilt.  And believe it or not, Matt actually liked the idea too.

Now then, we have decided on a quilt guest book.  There’s 250 people on our guest list.  That’s a lot of signatures.  We need a big quilt.

Cool, perfect for the guest bedroom or something.

Now to find a pattern I might be able to handle as a first (second? maybe? more on that to come) quilt.

Being a knitter, I know where to find the free patterns!  FreePatterns.com of course!

First up, This flowered quilt

(source)

Easy enough right?  I think so.  Matt’s not crazy about this one.

What about this one with squished looking hearts.

(source)

He liked this one better.  But those hearts look like butt prints.  Ew. Keep looking, lady!

The quilt on our bed now has a double wedding ring pattern.  That seems reasonable, I wondered if I could find a pattern for that?

YAY!!

(source)

Perfect!!  The pattern has you build big circles and then put them together.  So, I’ll make the circles and then have the guests sign in the white part.  I’ll try to find fat quarters in shades of our wedding colors.

cute, huh?

Shoes

Ok, so these

are hitting the return pile today. I’m not crazy about them. I don’t really even like them.

So I’m back on the hunt. I’ve looked at so many shoes that they are all blending together right now.

But I keep coming back to these.

Stuart Weitzman Solitaire

Problems with these shoes: They are $360!!! Almost as much as I paid for my dress. Not happening. And they have a 3.5 inch heel. Also a little steep, especially since it’s so little.

So, thanks to like.com, I can search for shoes that look like the Solitaire. Although apparently, that shoe is solitary in it’s look, for I found nothing that was similar and any less expensive.

Kate Spade Gali courtesy Zappos

Cute, still really expensive

Luichiny Tarah courtesy Zappos

hideous, although reasonably priced!

rsvp Daina courtesy Zappos

patent leather… blech. I really would rather have satin or silk.

NaNa Pepe Pump courtesy endless.com

What about green?  Maybe not this shoe, I want an open toe.

Chinese Laundry Jemmy Sandal courtesy Chineselaundry.com

I like this one too.  It’s just about the right “mature pink” I’m looking for.

I’ve fallen in love with these shoes too.

Liz Rene Couture Melissa Sandal

They are a much more reasonable price. They are silk, not satin. And dyeable. But then they’re dyed. And the first drop of water that hits them and they are ruined. The wedding is in June in the south, there will be rain. I just can’t make up my mind about them. I love them, I think they’d look great with my dress. I’m just not sure how I feel about dyed shoes.

Save the Dates and Shoes

Well, here we are 319 days away from the wedding, and the save the date’s are ready to put in the mail.  We decided that the magnets definitely needed a little card to go in with them with all the good details in black and white (or ivory rather) since the details were a little hard to read on the magnet itself.  In the midst of all our changing colors, we ended up with 175 pocketfold invitations from Gartner Studios that needed a use… and so they became the little carriers for our STD’s (haha, that’s funny stuff right there!)  Last week, I dropped the inserts off at the printer’s and Matt picked them up yesterday.  They look great!!  This morning we sat around and played cut and paste.  Ok, not so much cutting.  But we pasted.  I glued the inserts to the pocketfolds and Matt stuffed the magnets in and put them in the envelope.  Then we printed our guest list to clear mailing labels from Avery and stuck those on.

Here they are, sealed and ready to send.

And here’s the inside

Pretty, huh?

Here’s the magnet

Except for the fact that the text is a little hard to read.

Yay!

Oh yeah, and new shoes came today.  I’m not sure about the color of them, but they are super cute.  We’ll have to see how they look with my dress.  But here they are on my feet.

They’re cute and comfy…always a bonus.

Other news, I’ve chosen an invitation design… I’m just looking for the right paper.  Here’s my inspiration photos

These lovelies are by Scribble and Script on Etsy.

Instead of using paper for the belly bands, I’ve ordered silk brocade from ThaiSilks.com.  My plan is to photo copy the fabric and then put the belly bands from the paper.  Matt wants to line the envelopes too, so we’ll do the same for those as well.  Here’s a swatch of the fabric.

I love, love, love, lurve it!!  I bought enough to make a corset out of, so I can put it to good use when we are done using it for paper purposes.  If only I can figure out how to match the pattern.