I love the new Once Wed site, and browsing through the DIY project gallery, I saw these great pinwheels:
{via Once Wed}
Now, I would be utterly mad to add yet another DIY project at this point, but I was thinking that they might make a fun project for the kids to work on at the kiddie party (with some kid-friendly tweaks, of course)…
People have been asking us a lot lately where we’re going on our honeymoon, and I realized that I had never shared that little detail on here.
T and I definitely like a variety of things, especially between the two of us — he adores the water, I think it’s pretty, but what really speaks to me are mountains, which he likes, but can take or leave. So when we first started discussing honeymoon locations (which he kindly gave me input on), we had a little bit of a hard time agreeing on one place. We knew we wanted to be away for two weeks, but narrowing it down…
T’s parents surprised us with a week in Florida and the Bahamas, which was very generous of them, especially considering it wasn’t the only — or the smallest! — wedding present they gave us. So that took care of one week. For the other…T has made it his mission to offer me new and exciting experiences, and he loves showing me things I’ve never seen before. Which, location-wise, is hard to do with an Army brat!! But one of the few regions I’ve never seen, and always wanted to, is the Pacific Northwest. So…
What we ended up with was a very eclectic honeymoon, which I think will definitely suit our style.
We’re starting out with a couple of days in Seattle/Vancouver.
Then we’ll spend the bulk of the first week in Portland, Oregon.
I can’t wait!! I told T that I was going to be traditional about this and let him plan it — I’ve got enough to do with the wedding, and he’s been out there before and has a list of things he wants to show me. One thing I do know he’s planning for us to do is go out to Crater Lake, which is supposed to be gorgeous:
We had originally talked about camping while we’re out there, but I think “roughing it” means a cabin with no air conditioning (running water and electricity are assumed, of course!), so T thought maybe I should make my first foray into the world of sleeping in a tent at at time when it wouldn’t ruin our honeymoon!
We’re flying from Portland to Miami for the tropical leg of the trip. We’ll spend two days there, hop on a ship for a two day cruise to the Bahamas, and then back to FL for three more days!!
{via Iho Ohi}
Whew! It’s going to be a whirlwind honeymoon, but I can’t wait!! T and I both love exploring new things and get bored with nothing to see and do, so I think this will suit us perfectly. It’s definitely getting exciting now – in just a month, I’ll be exploring the Pacific Northwest with my HUSBAND!!
So you know how I talked yesterday about editing? First up today, a prime example. The original plan for the favors was to seal them with wax seals. Then I started thinking about all the work involved with sealing every single favor with a wax seal, in addition to all the ceremony programs! And I saw this post on iDiY, which I adore (really, how can you not love that blog?). And I talked to my oh-so-patient fiance, who was on board. So now we have these instead:
Round labels that we’ll use to seal the favors (because my prohibition on personalized things doesn’t extend to labels, after all…) and change the text on to seal the reception booklets. I adore things that do double duty!
That’s been me over this past two weeks, checking things off the wedding to do list. With five weeks to go, productivity is a big daily goal! When I first wrote my “final” list, it was so long and scary that I decided to spare you the details. Especially since I’ve never seen a list that wasn’t a living document. However, now that I’ve knocked a bunch off the list, I’ll go ahead and share — and give you a preview of the rest of the paper products.
I was just talking to mine about the wedding, and she volunteered to do all of the seed packets! Big weight off my shoulders. So I’ll be sending her the glassine bags and packets tags, and she’s going to work her magic with the sewing machine, send me pics of the trial packet, and then start cranking them out! On a related note, planning a wedding with your mother and sister in another state is not the easiest thing ever. Thank goodness for wonderful T and the family (-to-be!) I have here, or I’d really be tearing my hair out!
The wedding factory is really going, and I’ll have more project updates to share later today!
T’s cousin Caleb (so named because he doesn’t share T’s blog-phobia, and besides, he’s a photog — free publicity is always a good thing!) and I like to joke that we share the same brain waves. We see the world, creatively speaking, in the same way — I’ll share a photo concept and he captures it perfectly, he’ll start describing a lighting setup and I know exactly where he’s going, I mention that I want hanging flowers and he understands the random scattering I’m looking for, etc.
T and I do that with lots of other things, of course, but we don’t always have the same creative vision — I tend to like quietness and simplicity, and he likes things a little more ornate. But there seem to be a lot of the same brain waves floating around right now. Last night, we were out running errands, and got to talking about the wedding (what else?), and I said, “So…you know how I was going to wear red shoes to the reception, since I love red shoes and they match our colors?” — fully intending to continue to explain my newest idea. However, before I had a chance to continue, he said “And now you’re thinking you want to wear pink?” Which I was, but hadn’t mentioned that to him at all. Same brain waves.
And then I saw Miss Charlottesville’s post this morning on deciding against “bridal” shoes. Five minutes after I decided to maybe just skip the ceremony shoes, and wear the pink shoes the whole time. See? Great minds and all.
So, without further ado, my *new* wedding shoes, which I will be ordering just as soon as the lovely people at DSW get their act together and get the website working again!
Since I do still adore red shoes, I will probably wear the ones I already have to the rehearsal dinner, just for the fun of it. Because I will be in a giddy, red shoe mood “for definite” (to quote a college friend) that night!
Our ring bowl is in! I’ve always found ring pillows about as superfluous as cake cutting sets and guest books — I mean, really, what do you do with them after the day?? But when I first saw ring bowls by Paloma’s Nest, I was totally excited. Finally, something I would actually keep after the wedding!
T quickly disabused me of the notion that a ring bowl was less feminine. Seriously, ladies, did you know guys (at least my guy) felt like that? I thought I was really doing a favor to the ring bearer by not making him carry a frilly pillow. However, apparently this is as bad or worse. In T’s words: “If that’s what you want, definitely get it. But don’t think that a little ceramic bowl that you have to cradle delicately is less girly.” Oh. Ok.
Despite the possible assault on the sensitivities of my poor little ring bearer, we ordered the bowl, and it came it last week!(blurred to protect my blog-shy fiance!!)
{From the author’s personal files}
Almost all of our guests should now have received their invitations, so I decided to go ahead and share my big project for the last couple of weeks!
For those few who haven’t, I’m including most of the pics after the jump, so they can choose to be surprised if they want 
Here’s the last batch, ready to go out the door!
We ended up splurging on custom stamps, since the wedding stamps didn’t really match our color scheme (sorry for the blurry pic, it seems my camera doesn’t like close-ups):
I’ve been working on our invitations tonight, and I feel like I’m starting to see an end in sight. I love our invites, but they certainly are labor-intensive!! I’ve only got 25 more inner envelopes to do — tomorrow I start addressing the outer envelopes, which will go pretty fast, since we’re hand-delivering a lot of them, so they don’t need an address and a stamp. I’ve run out of ink in my calligraphy pen, so I’m finished for the night. Speaking of which, another sneak peek:
{from the author’s private collection}
We’ve decided to be vaguely improper and use a single-letter monogram on our invitation suite. This tab on the back of the inner envelope is the first glimpse our guests will get of our monogram, which will feature as a major motif throughout.
I adore our charcoal-colored envelopes. It was the contrast of the dark inner envelope with the outer envelope and liner that decided me on using double envelopes for everyone. I wasn’t sure what the reaction to the suite would be, since it’s not really the hearts, flowers and pastels invite some people are used to seeing, but so far I’ve gotten rave reviews from the few people who have seen the sample invite. I have to be honest with you, though…as much as my job is making people happy, I love our invitations so much that I almost don’t care if other people do too. Almost.
Tomorrow the custom postage gets here, and hopefully the custom rubber stamp will come in too. We’ll also be picking up the last of the supplies, and then it’s into the final push to weekend mailing!
They say there’s a thin line between bravery and stupidity. Well, I may or may not be walking that line as we “speak.”
I’ve intended all along to “leverage” (to use a little consulting speak) Jenn’s brilliance when I did our envelopes. However, when I started working on the envelopes, trying to find the right color, and see the oh-so-faint lines, and trace them perfectly…ended up stressing me out way more than a shortcut is supposed to. So, I stepped back and took stock of the situation, and decided that I felt confident enough with the fruits of my long-ago calligraphy courses to attempt the names myself. No, they’re not going to be perfect. However, they’re going to my friends and family, and I think they’re more likely to notice the lovely silver ink (which I personally am a BIG fan of) than the fact that my calligraphy isn’t picture perfect. So…I’m taking the plunge, and doing our calligraphy myself.
Did you scrap any shortcuts because they just didn’t work for you?
