Inspiration from a random place

I haven't mentioned anything about my dress yet.  That's a story in itself.  For now, I'll say this - before I knew my dress, I wanted our wedding color scheme to have bright, bold, beautiful colors.  I had five months worth of idea sketches, and had even interviewed four florists based on that color scheme.  I wanted fun, wild, fresh-from-the-garden COLOR!  Colors like this:

Style me Pretty

Enter The Dress.  After eleven shops and a lot of budget stress that I'll go into later, I fell in love with a very soft, romantic gown in a very soft, ivory color.  It has delicate pearl and crystal detailing.  And it totally does not go with bold, wild colors.

Image Source

Ever-stressed about the whole gown situation, after the dress was purchased I was tossing and turning about how it completely didn't go with our original vision (FI was really into the colorful look too).  It seems silly now that I look back on it, but it really was keeping me up at night.  On one such night, I made a trip to the bathroom and was staring at, of all things, my shower curtain.  And it all came together.

My muse, aka my shower curtain

I began a brand-new Pinterest board with new bridesmaid dresses, flowers, table settings, etc.  And I was excited again!

BHLDN

BHLDN

Style me Pretty

Style me Pretty

Who else made a drastic change to their color scheme well into the planning process?  What caused the change, and how did it / is it working out for you?

Pinterest = Everyone Knowing My Plans!

I love love love Pinterest, especially now that I'm planning a wedding.  I have 8 boards going on right now organizing my wedding ideas:

1.  Our Wedding Style, which was my first board, holding decor, bridesmaids dresses, flowers, pretty much everything!  I like to have all images side by side to make sure colors and concepts look good together.

2.  'Maids & 'Men, which holds attire ideas for the bridesmaids and the groomsmen.

3.  For the Moms - because as I was looking for bridesmaids dresses, I kept seeing dresses I thought my mother would look fabulous in.

4.  Wedding DIY, which contains things I'm interested in making for the wedding.

5.  Invitations (self-explanatory)

6.  Wedding Etc, for wedding-related items that aren't necessarily part of the ceremony and reception.

7.  Wedding Photos - when I see a shot of someone's wedding that I love, I save it to show my photographer.

8.  Honeymoon - lots and lots of dream trips/hotels/excursions I'd love to do with my FI.

I am the type of creative person who loves to bounce ideas off of other people, or shall I say, select people... by that I mean, not my entire Facebook friend roster.

If writers can have pen names to conceal their identity, why can't I have a Pinterest account that conceals the identity of my wedding? 

So I do.  And it's awesome.  And I never even use the account linked to my Facebook page anymore.

If you are planning your wedding and are computer-savvy enough (and obsessed with your wedding enough) that you are reading this blog, and other wedding blogs, and you do not have a Pinterest account to keep track of your findings... WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???  Get on that sh*t!

DIY Invitation Progress!

I'd been collecting invitation ideas for days, but yesterday FI and I agreed that this style was our favorite:

From Golden Rectangle Press

It's vintage, it has garden elements, it's perfect for our wedding.

So I spent a few hours today on Adobe Illustrator working on my own version!  The current plan is to have this made into a rubber stamp via JL Mould and then use it to emboss invitations ourselves.

Made by me!  Info changed for privacy purposes.

The font I used is called FontleroyBrown, which was a free font from webdesignledger.com.  I drew some of the elements myself, and others I pieced together using some free floral clip art from freevectordownload.com.

Color and paper are TBD.  I'm concerned about some of the smaller elements when it comes to embossing.  I'm going to try super fine transparent embossing powder first.  I also read that you can apply the powder directly to prints still wet from your inkjet printer, so I'll try that before I spend the moolah to order the 5x7 stamp.

If anyone has DIY embossing tips, please share!

Improv Bridal Shower Game

Of course I'm not going to plan games for my own shower.  But yesterday I responded to a board asking for a fun game, so I submitted one that I kind of made up once for a friend's shower (it's based on other games I've played).  Thought others might appreciate it too!

ONE TRUTH, TWO LIES

If you have a crowd of witty and creative people I highly recommend this improv game:

Step 1.  Set up three chairs at the front of the room

Step 2.  Have everyone write their names on index cards along with a vague 1-2 sentence funny story they know about the bride, it could be some kind of an inside joke or just something random (example: "the time Jennifer made Kool Aid without sugar")

Step 3.  You have to be the moderator here.  Scan through the cards and pick one you like.  You know who's story it is, but the rest of the crowd doesn't.  So for example, the Kool Aid story is by Aunt Sharon.  You put Aunt Sharon and two other random guests in the chairs at the front of the room.

Step 4.  You read what the card says out loud (other than the storyteller's name, of course). 

Step 5.  One by one, each of the ladies tells the story.  Obviously two of them don't know the story, so they have to make one up on the spot.  Aunt Sharon is telling a true story about how 8-year old Jennifer accidentally made Kool Aid with salt instead of sugar.  But college friend Tiffany makes up a story about how Jennifer made Kool Aid with bubblegum vodka, got really wasted, and ended up dancing on the hood of some frat guy's car shouting OHHH YEAHHH (like the Kool Aid guy).

Step 6.  The audience votes on which of the 3 they think is the real story.

Step 7.  Jennifer reveals which one is the real story.

Step 8.  Repeat as desired.

It's KIND OF complicated but it's fun because it brings up a lot of old stories that may have been (or should have been) long forgotten (friends, use discretion in selecting your "true" stories!).  When we played this at my friend's shower we laughed so hard we cried - mostly at the fake stories.


Anyone else make up an awesome bridal shower game? 

To bead or not to bead?

I just fell in love with this bracelet from BHLDN:

Lattice Bracelet, $180

I think it could be perfect for my wedding day.  But not $180 perfect!  And that's marked down from $380!

I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking, once I get the right beads, I could totally make this myself.  It can't be THAT hard, can it?

Vintage-style watercolor invitations

Yes, I'm still thinking about making my own invitations.  But today I stumbled upon these on weddingpaperdivas.com, when I haphazardly clicked on an ad while on Facebook:

Washed Floral

Rustic Garden

Painterly Passion

I probably should clarify that although my wedding is on an island, it will take place within a garden from the 1800's.  I feel like the watercolors really go with what I've been envisioning as far as bridesmaid dress colors and other decor.  I especially love the handrawn elements in the third invitation.

These lovelies are actually in my budget.  Even though I like to DIY everything, these are tempting... it would be a lot easier... what do you think?

Lost in Paper

It dawned on me yesterday that I need to figure out our wedding invitations.  I set a goal with my mom to have them in the mail by December 1st, before everyone gets really busy with the holidays.

Now, I absolutely LOVE paper.  Letterpress, oh, yes please... I've just spent the morning pouring over beautiful work on Etsy by shops like Print and Promise and Elf Letterpress.

"Jubilee" by Print and Promise on Etsy

"Swag" by Elf Letterpress on Etsy

Interjection of the "B" word.  For better or worse, we've been pretty flexible with our budget thus far - we increased our original allowances for our videographer and for our band because our original estimates just weren't going to get us the quality we want.  Videography, very important, documenting our wedding day so we can share it with our children and grandchildren years in the future... band, very important, sets the mood for the whole wedding...  invitations, vital ONLY for the information they contain... 

Here's the thing:  All Uncle Melvin and Aunt Joan need is to know they are invited to my wedding at such-and-such place at such-and-such time.  I don't need to spend fifteen dollars to tell them that.  And anyway, Aunt Joan is going to lose my fifteen-dollar invitation in a stack of People magazines, and my mom is going to have to call Aunt Joan a month before the wedding to ask why she didn't RSVP, and Uncle Melvin is going to answer the phone and say, "What wedding?  Which niece?"

To be fair, the sites I mentioned above are ALMOST in my price range.  The Print & Promise invites are $6 each once you add in the shipping, and the Elf Letterpress invites look to be a little over $7 each when all is said and done.  Both suites include the RSVP cards.  But they don't include the little extras, like lined envelopes, map inserts, and web address inserts.  And my budget for 100 invitations is a mere $500, (thankfully) not including postage.

I'm pretty design-oriented, and pretty crafty, so I think I am going to make the invitations myself... but I have a lot of techniques running through my mind.  Like rubber stamping:

DIY Rubber Stamp Invitations
Stamps by Antiquaria

I also came across JL Mould on Etsy as a source for custom rubber stamps.

Next I started to wonder about embossing:

DIY Embossing
Source: Weddingbee

And while we're at it, hey, how about some water colors?

From oncewed

Aren't these bridesmaid cards gorgeous?

From glamourandgraceblog

I want awesome invitations because I love them, and I know there are others who will appreciate them too.  But I'm not going to spend a fortune on them because of all the Uncle Melvins I have.

Who else made their own invitations?  I'd love to see pictures and hear about the techniques you used.