our little birds have left the nest

Or rather, I booted them out and celebrated once they were gone.



Now you know where I've been for the past few weeks! I've been having anxiety over the fact that these should have gone out weeks ago, but April 1 is still pretty reasonable - especially since our save the dates went out so long ago. Oh, and good thing we took that photo before I went in to the post office! For some reason, I thought the PO didn't close until 3 on Saturdays, so imagine my surprise when I walked in at 2 to see everything all locked up. I was not happy. The future mister saved the day when he went back in to check their hours for Monday and discovered that there was another post office open until 3! We were greeted by a very unhappy postal worker who gave us a hard time (about wanting stamps that added up to $0.81 and the fact that we had something bulky-a wax seal-in our envelopes), but we were able get everything stamped and shoved on their merry way right as she was closing up. What a huge weight off my shoulders!

If I ever again plan a huge party and want to make 130 invitations by hand, by myself, someone please remind me what a stupid idea it is. (They do look pretty, though!)

Keep your eyes out for the big reveal sometime next week!

bride-to-be's little helper

It's just about time for the invitations to go out and I have more work than my two little hands can handle. At the same time, though, I'm too much of a perfectionist-control-freak to let anyone help me because the thought of relinquishing my control gives me more anxiety than actually doing it myself. Wow, I think I just made myself sound quite insane.

Anyway...

Yesterday I was convinced by a very willing future mister to let him help. And help he did. While I traced, he cut out about one hundred or so envelope liners.



Unfortunately, he's not all that comfortable helping me with the remaining invitation tasks (due to their skill level). But every little bit helps!

Did your fiance lend a hand with any wedding crafts?

guestbook prompts

As I mentioned, here is a possible contender for the prompt books that my mom and I found at Hobby Lobby:


It is obviously meant to be used as a photo album, but the pages are blank card stock inside (rather than plastic sleeves). And I LOVE that the future mister and I can incorporate some of our engagement photos if we end up using these.

Now, what are some good prompts?

Here are the questions that MSW provided with their template:

Some good...

1. What's the best marriage advice you've ever gotten?
2. What's your favorite memory of us? What's your funniest memory of us? (one or the other, not both)
3. What should we name our kids? (this one could get some funny responses)
4. What should we do on date nights?
5. What's the most romantic place we should visit? Where should we go for our 10-year anniversary? (these two questions are too similar, don't you think?)
6. What should we do during our first year of marriage?
7. Where do you see us in 25 years?
8. When did you know we were meant for each other?

Some not so good...

1. What's the most romantic movie you've ever seen?
2. What were you really thinking during our vows?

And here are a few others that I found online:

1. Share your favorite moment of the wedding so far....then update later if you have a new favorite moment.
2. What are your predictions for our future? (very similar to "Where do you see us in 25 years?" - I think I like this wording better)
3. Why is Heather perfect for Sam? Why is Sam perfect for Heather?
4. What's the best thing about being married?
5. What are your tips on how to be a great husband/wife?

What are your favorite questions of the ones listed above? Do you have any others to share?

Also, we will have about 20 tables (6 - 30" hi boys, 8 - 36" rounds and 6 - 48" rounds) in total at the reception. Should we have a book for each table or just 10 to 12 scattered throughout?

'tis the season

I cannot believe that we are already almost half way through December! For the past few weeks I have been going back and forth about Christmas cards. Last year, I got super crafty and made these....and well, after the save the dates, I just didn't have it in me to DIY this year. So I wasn't going to send any out at all. But now cards are arriving in our mailbox everyday from friends and family and the thought of not sending out a Christmas card annoys me. Another plus - they are a great excuse to use some more of our engagement photos! Now I could have just gone to TJMaxx and picked up those cards with the photo slot (we've done that in years past). But then I would have had to worry about printing our own photos and, again, I just don't have the time or energy. Enter shutterfly.com - super cute designs and minimal effort. Yes! They have flat photo cards, flat stationery cards and folded greeting cards with hundreds of designs to choose from. Here are some of my favorites:

Christmas 2010

Air Mail Wishes

Dazzle and Sparkle

Snow Globe

Simply Peace

Starlight Joy

Full of Love

Holiday Love Sketch

I love the hand lettering of the last design, but the future mister isn't a huge fan. So we're probably going to go with the first design. It's simple and will let whichever engagement photo we choose take center stage.

Are you sending out holiday cards this year? DIY, store bought or photo cards?

*The opinions above are my own, but I am receiving 50 free holiday cards from shutterfly.com for writing this post.

invitation inspiration

Now that the save the dates are over and done with (believe it or not, I still haven't fully cleaned up the craft explosion they left behind), it's time to start looking at invitation inspiration! With my track record, I'll probably pick something overly ambitious, so I better get started soon. Like our save the dates, we would like our invites to have a vintage feel to them. I also want to include a wax seal - per the future mister's request and maybe some fabric details. Right now, I'm practically overflowing with ideas, so it might be hard to narrow them down.

Ice Cream Social via Elizabeth Anne Designs

Linda & Harriet via Style Me Pretty

Mrs. Gloss on Weddingbee

Two Brunettes via mint

100 Layer Cake

String Calligraphy - Bella Figura

Florentine - Minted

Love Letter Inspired Invitations - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vintage Airmail Inspired Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Vellum Invites - Oh So Beautiful Paper

Which do you like best? Where did you go to look for invitation inspiration?

for your tears of joy: stds part 4 (one more detail)

One last detail that was a pain in my butt were these home reception tags that I put only on the stds being sent to my side of the family and those local to the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area.


It was one problem after another with these things. I decided to get a circle cutter rather than a circle punch so that I would be able to cut different sized circles with just one tool. Well, if you're thinking about buying the Fiskars circle cutter (because it is the best rated) - don't do it. It has issues (or maybe I'm the one with issues) cutting circles under 2 inches in diameter. No matter how hard I tried, it gave my circles rat tails.



I ended up returning it for the Martha Stewart circle cutter and the Fiskars 2 inch squeeze punch, which is what I ended up using. Even though I told myself that I would return the Martha Stewart cutter if I didn't use it, I kept it anyway. It's a Michael's/craft store curse, I tell you. Anything I ever buy with the intent to return it if it's not used never happens because I tell myself that there will always be another craft project. Luckily, I already have some ideas.


So after purchasing my circle cutters, I made a quick stop at the office supply store to see if they had any circle labels. My original plan was to use the circle cutter to cut a 2 inch circle out of craft paper and then a 1.5 inch circle out of the full page label paper I already have. Circle labels sounded much easier, though. And what do you know? The only size they had was the exact size I needed. I went home, downloaded the template, made my design and pressed print. And this happened.


After fussing with it for an hour or so and wasting a few pages of (expensive) label paper, I decided to just delete the black outline from my design. Not ideal, but doable. Again, no one would notice or care but me.


It all turned out okay in the end. And even though I have more supplies than I know what to do with, I'm sure Michael's hasn't seen the last of me.

Did you accumulate a lot of extra craft supplies during wedding planning?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 2 (envelope liners)
Part 3 (handkerchiefs)

for your tears of joy: stds part 3 (the full reveal)

I am so very excited to finally show you our save the dates in all their glory!





These were just a few of my favorites. And, yes, I took a photograph of every single hankie. It eased my separation anxiety. Whatever works, right?

My mom found this one in the parking lot of her doctor's office

I told you all about how I almost freaked out when my dad told me he was going to use a letter opener. Well my possessiveness didn't stop there. I was thisclose to including some sort of instructions with our stds. It would have told guests how to open the envelope, some of the things they could do with the hankie (bring to the wedding for their tears of joy, wear as a pocket square, etc.) and, most importantly, that if they didn't want to keep the hankie to give it back to me instead of throwing it away. AHH, can you even imagine?! The thought of one of these at the bottom of a landfill makes me want to cry. But, I'm a reasonable (and somewhat sane) person and I know that including something like that would have been inexcusably rude. So I didn't. But I thought about it. And now they're out there and I have no more control. The good thing, though, is that we've received some great feedback from a few of our guests!

Did you become possessive of (or obsessed with) any of your wedding projects?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 2 (envelope liners)
Part 4 (reception tags)

for your tears of joy: stds part 2

See part 1 here. I think just about everyone should have received their save the dates by this point. Except for my uncle, so I guess that one got lost in the mail somewhere? Anywho. This is the view that most of our guests saw once they opened up their stds:


I say most because, unfortunately, Michael's didn't have enough paper doilies for me to make liners for all 100+ envelopes. Which brings me back to tip #1 - Figure out your entire project before mass producing! If I would have done this, I would have had plenty of time to gather all of my materials and order anything, if necessary.

After casually looking through the scrapbook paper at Michael's and Hobby Lobby early on and not seeing anything that would work as a liner, I resigned myself to not having them. Then inspiration struck in the decoupage aisle the weekend before my "due date" and I found these square paper doilies that fit perfectly in my envelopes! It was fate, I tell you. Not to mention, another thing added on to my list of last-second-things-to-accomplish-before-getting-these-in-the-mail. Luckily they were pretty easy and I got it done the Friday night before while hanging out with my good friends Stacy and Clinton.








These liners really ended up being that extra little something that our stds needed. And, of course, it made me hate sending out the "naked" envelopes - even though I know our guests wouldn't miss what they didn't know anything about. Then, when my dad told me that he almost opened theirs with a letter opener....aaak! I freaked out a tiny, little bit. I need to work on not being such a control freak/perfectionist.

Are you a follower of tip #1 when working on projects? Or do you just create and gather supplies as you go along?

Read all about our save the dates here:

Part 1 (envelopes)
Part 3 (handkerchiefs)
Part 4 (reception tags)