I've Been M.I.A.

So no, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth. I've been here:

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Unfortunately, not in the literal sense :(

I was scheduled to have four glorious days off work and we had nothing to do with them. Andrew suggested we do something that we have never done before: take a road trip. His sister lives in Atlanta, and it is "only" a 12 hour drive, so we decided to do it on a Wednesday and left on Thursday morning. His sister had no internet at her apartment (long story), so I wasn't able to read any wedding blogs. Of course I didn't bring mod podge or a paper cutter with me, so there was no wedding crafting going on. It was just five days (after my boss heard my plans, she encouraged me to take another day!) of doing nothing- including wedding planning! As excited as I am about the wedding and the marriage, it was nice not to think about favors, invitations, menus, or vendors for a few days. Now I am back and ready to reenter the blogging world! We did lots of wedding crafting today, so I am excited to share that sometime really soon!

Did you need a wedding break? What did you do to give yourself a vacation from the stress?

Like a Fat Kid Loves Cake...

Or, like I love cake. I confess to having quite the sweet tooth. Needless to say, choosing a wedding cake baker was among my favorite duties. Although the big day is still more than nine months away, are you surprised to hear that we have ours booked?

As is my custom, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted...

But this definitely wasn't it!

I used ProjectWedding as my guide and went nuts. I found this one and I liked the design for the most part, but rather than what they used, I wanted to incorporate the pattern on my invitations (that I have yet to reveal!).

 

After reading many reviews online, it seemed to me that Houston's top cake baker is Who Made the Cake? However, after looking into her prices and comparing it to our budget, I didn't think SHE would make OUR cake. I would have loved to use her, but I knew we couldn't afford it. Her work is extremely beautiful; she was even featured on an episode of Platinum Weddings!

More research led me to Cakes by Gina. She was recommended by many of the venues we visited. Andrew really liked her because one of her promotional flyers featured a Beatles LOVE cake (their Vegas show- we have seen it three times and love it!) that he was hoping we could recreate. We tasted some cakes at an Open House and liked them a lot.

We arrived at the appointment and met with a consultant, who told us to choose six flavors out of about twelve or so to sample. I'll be honest: I wasn't super impressed with the selection. They were pretty run of the mill. However, we were given some truffles to sample, which were awesome! I gave our consultant the above picture for inspiration with an invitation sample, and she gave me what I wanted.

Andrew wants a groom's cake that is LOST themed.

 

(Hopefully it comes out a little better than this one!)

But, neither our consultant nor Gina herself knew a thing about Lost to help us create it. I give them credit for trying, though. They came up with a very rough outline of what they could try to do, but I worried it would lose authenticity coming from non-Lost fans.

So, we were given a quote that we felt was a little high. The cake was good, the designs were nice, and we even considered adding truffles as favors (something that definitely had not had a spot in our budget before). We were walking out when Gina approached us and gave us a hard line, "What will it take for us to get you to sign today?" I was pretty irritated at that. I mean, this was our first cake baker, and tasting cakes is F-U-N. I told her that. Andrew and I both walked out with a pretty bad taste in our mouths. I mean, there are other means of aggressive selling without coming off as a used car salesman.

We were both really put off by the whole thing. We didn't want to give them our business anymore. If they were the bottom line-lowest price, then maybe. But Houston had tons of other bakers to try, and we were ready to go after them. Luckily, we ended up finding our perfect fit. More on that another time...

Did you have any wedding vendors completely turn you off?

Engagement Pic Inspiration

Convincing Andrew that engagement pictures are a necessity is hard work! He knows he is taking them, but he is pretty convinced he will be miserable. While I have yet to figure out a location, I know I want to go outdoors. I was inspired by this from our lovely photographer, Lindsay Perry.

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Andrew is not a Texans fan, but he IS a football fan. A lifelong (raised in Brooklyn) New York Giants fan. So, I thought incorporating his love into our pics might be some nice motivation. Plus, I promised him that if our photographer says the pictures will be okay, he can wear a baseball hat for them. Without even trying, I found this perfect Giants shirt at Old Navy a few weeks ago.

Did I mention it was only 20 bucks? They have other teams, too.

I had to find a cute, vintage-y Giants shirt for myself. Luckily, we ordered a Giants jersey for Andrew's dad last Christmas, so the NFL Shop catalog comes to my house. On or around September 18th, I will have this to sport every Sunday.

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I found a coupon code, so Andrew took it upon himself to order a new Giants hat :). I hope the blues coordinate well- I hate red Giants merchandise, and I thought G-Men blue was a must for the pics. Andrew told his dad about this, and he fully supports his future daughter-in-law trying hard to become a fan. I only hope Andrew is as supportive when I insist on a new, cute outfit for the pics!

What will you do to get your groom interested in e-pics? Did you buy anything special for the occasion?

Semi-DIY: Wooden Signs

So much for thrice a week blogging, eh? While there are no excuses, I have been quite busy in semi-DIY land. One Sunday evening, I found a whopping THREE projects that I just had to try. Two of them are definite keepers and the other is on the back burner for now. I was cruising etsy when I came across this lovely:

via etsy seller thebackporchshoppe

I loved the sentiment expressed, and we needed something like this because the reception room is in the front of our venue and the ceremony will be held in the back. I want to give my guests some direction. Unfortunately, this style of sign neither fits in with my wedding design, nor does its price tag ($42.95). So, I decided to do it myself! (I confess, I googled for some tips on how to make pretty writing, and I found a good tutorial, which I did not bookmark. I also didn't use it step by step.) At first, I was going to use scrapbooking stamps for the type, but the ones I already had weren't big enough. So, I did it the long way. You will need:

• One wooden sign (I got mine premade at Michael's- originally $13.99 but I used a 40% off coupon)
• Two colors of paint (We bought two ivory bottles that were .59 each and one sparkly teal bottle that was $2)
• Foam brushes (I bought a 10 pack at the dollar store for my many projects :))
• A teeny, tiny paintbrush (Called a dotter- $1.49 at Michael's)
• One piece of white tissue paper giftwrap
• Scissors
• Tape
• Sharpie (preferably close to the color that you want your sign's writing to be)

Beginning with a good design is a must. I had already downloaded Freebooter Script from dafont.com to address our invitations with, so I went into Word, made the font bigger, typed what I wanted the sign to say, and printed it out. Then I cut the words out individually. So far, it's super easy, right? While I did all of this, Andrew painted the sign with the ivory paint for me. I love an involved fiance! After that, I arranged the words on the sign to make sure everything fit well.

I was pretty happy with this arrangement. After that, I cut the tissue paper into small pieces about the size of each word. I taped the tissue to the printout, then traced the outline of each letter onto the tissue paper with a pencil. I smoothed out some of the awkward lines between certain letters. Still with me? Then it was time for the challenge. I put the tissue paper onto the sign just as I had laid out the typing paper and taped it down (the ceiling fan in my living room necessitated the tape- if you don't have that problem, you may be able to live without it!). Slowly and carefully, I traced each letter's outline with my teal-ish sharpie until I had this-

I took off the tissue and I was left with a near-perfect outline! (I freehanded the parts in pencil because they didn't show up as well.)

I took the tiny paintbrush and filled in my outlines. I DO NOT have the steadiest hand, but I was pretty happy with the outcome. Andrew stepped in and painted the trim on the sign. Up close, you can see the imperfections, but from far away, no one will notice.

What do you think?

I left plenty of room at the bottom so I can get a sheet of sticky vinyl to make an arrow. That way, I can take the arrow off after the wedding and we can hand the sign in our house above our entry way! I think it will be great to see a reminder of our wedding when I walk in every day. This project went so well, we are making another one to direct our guests to another area of our wedding that I'm not sure I want to divulge just yet. We are either going to set it in a small easel or attach picture hangers and ribbon to the top. How did you direct guests to your wedding attractions?

Invitation Frustration

People need to know about this big, fat, expensive party we're throwing, right? Invitations are definitely something you can't do without. While my practical, wanting to be green self would love to send out an evite, I am pretty sure that is frowned upon. So, the search began. Ohhh Letterpress, how I love thee. In my perfect world with unlimited funds, you would announce the pending nuptuals. Letterpress, pockets, and layers!

Project Wedding

I also completely lusted over the detail on these beauties- the envelopes, the bellyband- LOVE IT:

Hammerpress

I also thought these were cute, especially with the vellum map.

Project Wedding

I love the simplicity of these two. They make me imagine a very contemporary wedding and the second feels really industrial.

Source via Source Project Wedding

But these babies are all pretty pricey. I realize that my invitation will hang on a refrigerator for eight months at best and then be unceremoniously dropped into the trash by everyone but my mom and me. I can't justify $3.50 plus postage per invite. So, I gave myself a limit $1 per invitation plus postage, and I do not want to spend more than $.44 per invitation. That kind of thing adds up! I thought I would use some serious DIY here. We live really close to Archiver's, so I got a ton of ideas from them. This was my favorite because it looked easy, but still nice. All it takes is two types of cardstock, an inkjet printer, and a stamp.

In the end, though, Andrew convinced me that it would be WAAYYYY too frustrating and I would hate myself for it. So, the search continued. In all of my research (and there has been a lot!), I found that The American Wedding is probably the best value for your money. We ordered from them, had a minor issue, and are working at getting it resolved with only having to pay a minimal additional fee (we had to pay to mail something back to them, but it was less than $5). They provide samples, have good customer service, and are really affordable! I'm not ready to divulge my choice just yet, but here are the invites that almost were, courtesy of Wedding Paper Divas (also affordable, but I didn't love the lack of customization, and the invites were just plain printing, whereas TAW invites had raised printing).

There are so many options! What was your ideal invitation price? Where did you end up finding that piece of stationary that can set the tone for your whole wedding?

Who on Earth do I think I am?

No, really. Who am I? What makes me and my little bitty wedding blog unique? Hell, what is going to make my wedding unique? Things I think I need to address before this blog and this wedding can feel like me. I'm 24. A college graduate. A victim of the unfortunate job market we are in now and working a job I don't terribly love to attempt to scrape by. I like to be different and I definitely do things my own way. You can tell what I'm thinking by the look on my face. Ever since I was young, I wanted to get married. I still don't know if I want to have kids, and I don't know what I want to "be," but marriage was always there. So, the wedding. Me doing my own thing is definitely a factor. All etiquette is going out the window, unless it's something I'll like. Then, we'll keep it! I want our wedding to feel romantic. We are not overly outwardly lovey people, but I want everyone there who is in love to feel in love and those who aren't to wish they were. I think our venue is gorgeous, but it lends itself to many opportunities to add our own special touches. That is where I get to shine (at least, I hope...) My goal for this wedding is to develop something I will refer to as Lazy Girl DIY. With crafting, either you've got it, or you don't. Unless you're me. I have all the ambition and tons of ideas, but I am not the best at making my ideas come to fruition. I will be the Sandra Lee, the "Semi-Homemade" of DIY wedding projects. That way, there will still be my spin on invitations, placecards, centerpieces, and the rest, but I won't be completely bogged down by DIY-ing. Case in point: tonight we worked on invitations (more on that to come!) for about 30 minutes and I was done. What did you want your wedding to say? How are you making it your own?

Deciding who will document the big day!

In late July, I drug the unsuspecting fiance to the Houston Bridal Extravaganza with a clear agenda in mind: 1) Find a photographer and 2) Find a linen vendor. Other things, like a limo company and a cake baker, we thought we would just find later. We spent a mere 2.5 hours going from booth to booth, talking only to the vendors we deemed worthy. (Sidenote: I attended this same show in January with my mom a few weeks after being engaged when I had no idea what I wanted and visited nearly every booth. Then, a sheet of stickers with your name, address, wedding date, etc. cost $1 per sheet. At the most recent show, the price was up to $5 a sheet! Print your own at home, ladies! You want to enter your name for every prize available, not scrimp and limit yourself like I did the second time around!) Surprisingly, Andrew didn't hate the show as much as I thought. We met several photographers and got TONS of information. At the show, we already had our venue booked and therefore were nearly forced to commit to one of five caterers (or else incur a huge fee- a story for another post). I thought I knew which videographer I wanted and I had a tentative DJ contract that included another vendor that I want to keep a secret. So, we tried to make this short and sweet. My main focus was photography. That really is the thing that will last forever and could potentially be my biggest regret. The show made me completely obsessed with magazine-style albums. Who wouldn't want to display their wedding day in all its glory for all eternity? I knew a photographer who offered these treasures was a must. I was also adamant on limiting the "cheese" factor in a wedding photographer. "Cheese" photos include, but are not limited to, the following: 1) groom laying across bridesmaids' laps 2) bride being held up by groomsmen 3) bride being intentionally dipped by groom (if that happens during the kiss, awesome. Otherwise, let's leave it out, k?) 4) pictures taken at awkward angles claiming to be artistic. These are definitely not my favorite things. I wanted to find someone who would take a fly-on-the-wall approach and capture what was happening. The little things I would never be able to remember. At the show, we narrowed our choices down to about six photographers, plus one who wasn't able to attend the show that I fell in love with online. I bookmarked all 7 sites and then asked for the groom's opinion. Each site was given a rating on a scale of 1 - 10 for its gallery quality by each of us. Being in either person's bottom 2 was an immediate kiss of death. We were able to easily narrow the range down to three. Unfortunately for one of the three, his prices were only in our budget if we booked him that day, and I wasn't comfortable with that kind of pressure (at the show we told him where we were getting married, and he said since he loved it so much, he would give us $500 off if we booked that day). So, we were down to 2 and we emailed each for quotes. They were both very, very similar. Andrew took a last look at both photographers and decided that he liked Lindsay Perry better than the other. I, in my typical indecisiveness, didn't know who to pick, but I was leaning slightly more towards Lindsay as well. Coincidentally, she and I attended high school together and are the same age: she is facebook friends with my cousin (yes, I stalked), so I think that being younger, she will be in alignment with what we want. We met with her, she sent us a contract, and the rest is history! How did you make your important wedding decisions? What are you looking for (or not looking for) in a photographer?