Our First Gift!

On Friday, my fiance and I received our first wedding gift from a sweet friend who is certainly planning ahead. With a little over three months to go before the big day arrives, I am so thankful to know we have people thinking of us as we make wedding plans. Our friend sent us the blender my fiance and I absolutely love! It will be used to make many smoothies in our new apartment!

Our first gift was such a wonderfully unexpected surprise, and I immediately thought about the thank you note. I wanted to created handmade thank you notes for my bridal shower in a few months so I decided to go ahead and create all the cards now.

I kept the design simple by using bright white cardstock as the background, and I pulled out a butterfly hole punch to create the front design. I punched butterflies into different hot pink papers in order to match the wedding colors:

 

I lined the butterflies across the front of the card for a clean look that ties in with the rest of our wedding stationery.

I finished them all last night while watching the AMA’s, and I now have one more item off the to-do list!

When did you receive your first wedding gift? What did you do for thank you notes?

Splitting Holidays

With Thanksgiving coming up in the next week, I began to think about the dreaded splitting of the holidays that occurs when new families are formed. It becomes especially complicated when parents are continuing to split holidays with grandparents. My fiance and I stay casual about the topic, but it will eventually need addressing down the line.

If we spend Christmas with my family in 2010, I will be with my mother’s side of the family. If we spend Christmas with his family in 2011, I will not get to see the relatives on my father’s side of the family. It will be a tough adjustment, but we will work out a plan in the end. I wish all our relatives lived in one place! Maybe one day…

How do you and your significant other split the holidays?

Wedding Invitation Samples

I considered for the longest time hand making each of my wedding invitations. With the upcoming holidays, I knew this would not be an easy task so I made a new plan. I am going to purchase invitations with personalized thermography printing, but I will add a bit of custom details once they reach me. I will make other paper products along the way so that will satisfy my love for Do-It-Yourself projects!

Because I want to add a few of my own personal touches, I need the invitations to be simple and elegant. I have narrowed down my wedding invitation samples to the following choices:

 

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I like the extra dotted line around the border of this invitation. Also, the pearl cardstock gives the invitation a little bit of extra shine.

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This is a beautiful wedding invitation that gets back to basics of formal wedding invitations. I see these as a blank palette to be dress up!

 

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This pocket set is completely different from my other selections, but I still love it. Pockets are such a practical way to send wedding invitations because they keep all the enclosure cards organized. The hot pink is quite bold on this invitation and would make a great impression on wedding guests.

I have placed my order for 3 free samples from 1st Class Wedding Invitations and am awaiting their arrival! Pictures to come once I have them!

Our Save the Date Tree

We sent out our Save the Date postcards in mid-September, but I never revealed the actual inspiration for the design. Behind our reception venue is a beautiful tree, and I loved it from the second I saw it. My mom was able to snap a quick photo:

I can just imagine all the kids at our wedding running around the back patio and playing around the tree (safely of course). When thinking about our Save the Date designs, I immediately thought of the tree. I created a mockup of the postcard in PowerPoint, and I sent it over to my graphic design friend who polished off my design and created this piece:

It is perfect- such a beautiful interpretation of our favorite tree! On the Save the Date postcard we used this image along with our logo (yes we have a logo…that will be for another day). I was quite pleased with our blend of nature and art. They were a hit with the guests.

Did you try to incorporate elements of your wedding venue in your paper products?

Inspiration Pictures Rediscovered

I cleaned out the My Pictures category from my computer this morning in an effort to clear up space. In doing so, I was able to “rediscover” some of the images I have been saving over the past years. It has been fun to go back and realize the aesthetics for my wedding have been shaped by beautiful imagery found online. Although I love to save inspiring pictures off the internet, I wish I had done a better job of documenting where I originally found them.

I am posting a few of my favorite photos here today for you to see. Images like the ones below have really helped me to develop the vision I have for my wedding day style. It was fun for me to go back and reexamine these gorgeous images!

Do you keep your inspiration pictures in files? How do you keep track of where you found them?

Wedding Headband

I have been going back and forth on whether or not to wear a veil for the wedding. Right now I am interested in wedding headbands and am starting to notice them everywhere. In fact just the other night I was watching TV when I saw this one:

 

I love this headband so much! I haven’t found anything like it just yet, but I have been shopping around for other options such as this:

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I am pretty open to what I will wear in my hair on wedding day, and it has been fun to shop around.

What are you planning to wear in your hair when you get married?

 

The Great Tie Search

My fiance and I have been searching high and low for the perfect ties. The groomsmen are wearing black suits so we are looking for gray and pink ties to coordinate with our color scheme. Shopping for ties is more difficult than I expected, most likely because I have never bought them before. We have found some nice pink and gray combos, but haven’t found the perfect one. We are coordinating the ties, bridesmaid accessories, and flower girl dresses together so we have been doing quite a bit of shopping around. Here are some of the ties we’ve considering so far:

We like this one, but think the gray might be a little too washed out.

This tie is pink and white, but does not bring in the color gray.

This tie is beautiful, but it brings in a little too much blue.

Our great tie search will continue, and I will let you know the final selections. Did any of you have trouble finding the perfect menswear for your wedding?

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all have a frightfully fun weekend! I will be spending it with my fiance, and I bet there will be movies and Indian food involved. I wish I was going to a wedding tomorrow- attending a Halloween wedding is one of my dreams! I am excited to enter the month of November- only 4 1/2 months until the wedding!

Dressing the Flower Girls

We have chosen to wear more casual than fancy wedding attire. Our Groomsmen will wear suits and the bridesmaids will be in chic black dresses. This left me wondering what to do about my adorable flower girls. While I want to put them in beautiful “princess” dresses, I don’t want them to look out-of-place with the rest of the wedding party. I have found a few dresses online, but am not 100% about my final decision. Here are a few of my favorite options thus far:

I love the black and white print and the ruffle at the bottom of the dress. I could see replacing the black sash with a pink one or accessorizing with a pink headband.

This dress is a little bit more modern and matches our color palette beautifully. If you need a refresher, here are the colors we are incorporating into the wedding:

The dress is a literal translation of our color scheme! I’m not sure about the sequins around the waist, but I think the girls would love it.

Here is a cute silver sparkle dress! I’m not sure if this dress would fit in with the rest of the wedding party, but it is too cute. If I were a little girl, I would be in love with this sparkly dress!

I am going to show these dresses to my mom to see if she likes any of them, and I will probably venture to the store to see what they look like in person.

Have you had difficulty searching for the perfect flower girl dresses?

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Shopping, I Mean Research

Tomorrow my fiance has to study all day which leaves me with some free time. While I should do something productive like get my life organized, I will most likely end up at my favorite stores shopping around until dinner. Saving money for the wedding has been a priority for me this past month which means I have cut out quite a bit of my usual store hopping. This is difficult for a person who loves to shop!

I have been following the plan of “If you don’t look, you won’t be tempted” which works wonders for my bank account. I have been staying away from my usual shopping spots, but this week I noticed since avoiding the stores, I have built up a list of items needed for the wedding. This includes bridesmaid accessories, groomsmen ties, and flower girl dresses. So now I will go to the stores with those items in mind on an outing I will call “Important Wedding Research.” I will let you know of any findings.