Actually choosing the mu-zak

Alrighty, two ceremonies, two sets of musicians, two playlists.

Three categories: bridal party entrance, bride entrance, recessional.

After a whole lotta youtubing, here's what I've got.

Ceremony one, the church. More traditional. Probably a single guitar. Or maybe a single pianist, in which case all this changes, but I'm going with the guitarist idea.

Bridal party/parent entrance: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Bach.



Bridal entrance: Wagner's Bridal Chorus. Original, I know. It may be "uncool or untrendy", but what girl doesn't want to walk to "Here comes the bride"?



Recessional: Wedding March, Mendelssohn. Another classic.



Ceremony two, the winery. A little less traditional. Guitarist & Violinist.

Party/parent entrance: Hornpipe from Handel's Water Music.



Option 2: Pachelbel's Canon in D, Mr. SB put in a request for this one (which probably means we'll choose it) and winery entrance seems to fit best.



Bridal entrance: Trumpet Voluntary, by Clarke. Is this striking enough? I do love it...



Recessional: Vivaldi's Spring. Love love love it. And appropriate. And upbeat. I want to hire the guy playing in the video, too. :P



Does that sound like a reasonable play list??

Throwing stuff

I've told Mr. SB that I don't want to have a garter or bouquet toss. We're not having a lot of friends, and even less single friends, at the wedding. And while the bouquet toss seems kind of sad and awkward for the unmarried ladies, I think the garter hunting is just kind of weird and inappropriate. Mr. SB is sad about the no garter thing, so I was thinking about getting one for ... later. It's also a decent place to have your "Something Blue."

So there are about 500,000 options out there: joke ones, themed ones, HUGE ones. I've just listed some reasonable options below.

Option one.
Simple. Inexpensive $12.50. Boring?

Option two.
Realllllly pretty. Probably more than I want to spend on this at $50.00.

Option yeah, right.
But awfully pretty and totally different. Almost like it's jeweled.
Green beaded lace with velvet tie. And $75.00.

Option three.
A little more unexpected? And in the ballpark at $15.00.

Option four.
Kinda like #2, but $15.00. Notice the "something blue" bow on the back/inside.

I'm trying to write my concluding thoughts and I keep thinking, "I like four, or three, or two, and one's ok, and that expensive one is so pretty, but four's good and so is three, and one. Ack!" Basically I'm totally undecided! For my first night of thinking, I've got some options.

Any votes or thoughts on the garter? How do you feel about bouquet/garter tosses?

Still talking about veils

So since I decided that I'll be veil-ing for the first ceremony, I decided I should look for one.

Consideration #1. Bridal stores charge a tonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn for them.
Consideration #2. I'm not going to be attempting (or asking anyone) to make it myself, although the talented women online insist it's a simple undertaking.
Consideration #3. I'm wearing a simple dress (no cathedral length) and don't like the birdcage look.

When I tried on veils at David's Bridal, I liked the elbow length. A tiny bit of googling lead me to the wonderful world of etsy. So many options, highly rated sellers, and SUCH good prices. I decided I like the work (and price) of BellaBridalVeils and searched through her selection.

My two favorites (I'd be ordering in ivory to match the dress. And all her veils come on a plastic comb which can be taken out "easily" for look two):

Option one.
Pretty simple, two tier. Can use as a blusher (pull over your face) or not. I don't want a blusher, but I like the fullness. Finished pencil edge. $24.00.

Option two.
Something I hadn't heard of... a circle cut. If I won't be having a blusher, I think this is exactly what I want it to look like from the back. "Layered" without layers, same pencil edge. $32.00.

If you click on the link for option one or two you can see more views of the veils. Votes? Comments? Other suggestions?

Is buying a veil without trying it on risky?

Who knew weddings required multiple choice tests??

As part of the pre-marital counseling for the Catholic Church, we had to head 45 mins away to a counseling center for the first of three sessions.

Source

Step one (the only one we've done so far) was to go take a 165 question test. On a Scantron sheet! There were 16 categories to measure our matching-ness. I think most were pretty reasonable questions about children, money, temperament, etc. Some were really weird, like "How flexible are you when you solve a problem?" The faith ones were also difficult, because it was things like "Our faith and spirituality bring us closer." And I was thinking, well no, we're pretty different, so I'd mark "Disagree" but Mr. SB thought well, it doesn't drive us apart and we're pretty similar spiritually/morally though not religiously, and he'd mark "Agree." So we might spend a little time discussing that part.

Overall, it did give us some interesting things to talk about and mostly we felt pretty good that we're a good match. Next step (in three weeks) we talk about the results. We're aiming for 80% agreement! :)

Interestingly, our counselor (therapist? I don't know what to call her) is one of 7 girls married to an only child. We talked about a few things that were so similar between our two situations (her & her husband vs. Mr. SB & I) and were very encouraged that they have been married 34 years. :)

Did you/would you consider pre-marital counseling?

My dress

My dress is in!!

I'm very very excited to take a trip to SF to pick it up, but a little sad that my mom and sis aren't here to go with me. Mr. SB said he'd drive down w/ me and wait outside. I think we're going to turn it into a combo trip to order our bands. Hooray!

So, I've put on a few pounds over the past couple months, and I'm nervous about how the dress will fit. Mr. SB & I have really and truly started in on our "until the wedding healthy eating" phase. I think we'll hold strong, but trying on a dress that I've been waiting on for 5+ months and having it not fit isn't something I'm looking forward to!

More honestly... I'm nervous that I'm having dress regret. When I tried on my dresses w/ my sis, I wasn't in love with any of them despite trying on several that were "everything I was looking for". When I tried on the one I bought I really did love it. It gave me butterflies.

Then I spent too much time reading bridal magazines and searching the internet. :(

First, I read an article about what was just coming into fashion for bridal trends, hot at the moment, and not cool/dated. My skirt style (pick ups) is apparently dated! The comment was "there are much prettier ways to decorate your skirt." Ouch.

Then, on weddingbee, a bride-to-be posted a picture of her in two dresses, one of them was mine! She was deciding between the two. To be fair , she didn't look anything like me, BUT she didn't look good in my dress and alllllll the comments picked the other.

So anyway, I'm going to try and get an appointment to pick it up in a couple weeks (hopefully after I've shed a few pounds!) and will be prepared to love it again.

Does everyone experience dress regret at some point??

Trying a Martha craft

Saturday morning with coffee and the Vh1 countdown is the perfect time to work on wedding crafts! I posted about the napkin poms before and decided to give them a shot. (*Side note: Mr. SB's vote on how to make the table look better was "Both colored napkins and a decorative ring." Thanks honey, double the work.)

The inspiration.
I've never tried a Martha Stewart craft before, I was a little intimidated!!

Required Items:

Floral wire and tissue paper from the dollar store. Sweet.
Ruler and scissors.

I followed the instructions on her site exactly, even though it looked a darn mess in the process.

Finished result #1. Huge, not full, totally wrong.

Around that time, Elliot discovered that mommy was playing with crinkly craft products and got very interested.

I read the comments on the page and one poster noted that she used different sized paper than the instructions suggested. So I gave that a shot.

Too full, too big, just right! (Click to enlarge photo, I think you can see it better that way.)
Next to a coffee mug for size reference.

I'm actually very happy with how it turned out. Provided I get the thumbs up from Mr. SB, I'll go look for some colored tissue paper and craft away. I guess we need to decide if we're having colored or white napkins, but we'll get on that.

How do you think they turned out??

Project of the Day

I attempted a DIY wedding map for my guests a while back and it wasn't good. To say the least.

Here's the most recent attempt, with the hotels & church roughed in. (The map & roads are accurate.) Be kind...

Functional, but don't love it. What is it that needs to be fixed? The fonts? The clip art?

Help! How can I make my map better???

Some place to put our guests

Fortunately or unfortunately, I live in a tourist destination that prides itself on not being strip mall-ish. Most of the time, I really like it, but trying to find to find accessible, affordable housing for our *many* out of town guests has been a pain!

There are few large or chain hotels in this area and the ones that exist (there's a Best Western in Sonoma) are no bargain (rooms starting at $220 group rate!). Bed & breakfasts & spas are super nice and abundant, but can also be extremely expensive. I've found two reasonable options, one in Sonoma & one in Napa but NEITHER take block reservations. And therefore don't give any sort of group discount either.

This is all I want! A basic room for <$150 (it's low season! And isn't the economy crummy?!).

Source

(*Side story. The place in Sonoma told me "Sure, we can block the rooms, but at the time of booking we charge your credit card for the first night. When they check in, we just charge for additional nights so you have to get reimbursed if you don't want to pay for it." What? How is that a good plan for anyone?? I think I said something really elegant like, "Really? Well, I don't think I want to do that, but I'll call you back if I do...")

Unfortunately, this is where I'm at. There just aren't many hotel options in this area. I've listed the two hotels on our wedding website, and people will have to call and reserve them individually. (*I was planning on having a nice out of town bag for them, hopefully there's not too much running around town to distribute them.) I'll try and help trouble shoot as best I can... but hopefully there's not too much of that!

Do you think the guests will have trouble reserving rooms not "in a block"?

Still hate my plate setting

So we got the quote from the caterer/rentals and the rentals were WAY more than we had hoped. Lame. Apparently our tablecloths were expensive, that's what we get for shopping without price tags. So we won't be upgrading to prettier china/silverware, but I've gotta do SOME thing.

Recap:

This is my mock setting. White china, simple flatware. The tablecloth has a pretty sheen to it and is a nice clovery green color. And it's booooring.

Our centerpieces will be similar to this, in colors and shape, but smaller. And surrounded by votives and pillar candles.
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Ideas:

Napkin pom rings. These beauties (introduced to us by Martha and adapted by another blogger) seem easy enough. Tissue paper and floral wire, I can handle. Wouldn't it be pretty to have several color poms to go around the table? Different colors at each place setting around the table... various greens, ivory, yellows?

Source

Source

Different napkin/name card idea. This would be a fun way to add color. I wasn't really planning on assigning seats, but I bet we could find some pretty, cheap ribbon and do this pretty easily. And that name card + belly band looks a lot like my invitations & programs.

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Colored napkins. We planned on having a green tablecloth, white china, and white napkins. But maybe green napkins is all you need? (Ignore the huge seashell centerpiece in the pic below.)

The really simple dishes, flatware and glassware look just right in this picture with the color coordinated linens.
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Do you have a favorite? How else could I spice up the place settings?

A teary evening...

I *had* big plans for my evening, but since my garage door is not cooperating (gr!) I'm at home doing wedding stuff.

Thinking about the Catholic vows and how much I wish we could have them say something a little different (case in point, I don't want to talk about death, in any fashion, on my wedding day. "'Til death do us part" has always sounded SO morbid to me!), I set out into the e-world to find out "how to write your wedding vows".


Here are some of my favorite suggestions.

I love you. You are my best friend.
Today I give myself to you in marriage.
I promise to encourage and inspire you, to laugh with you,
and to comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad,
when life seems easy and when it seems hard,
when our love is simple, and when it is an effort.
I promise to cherish you, and to always hold you in highest regard
These things I give to you today, and all the days of our life.
Source

_______, I love you. You are my best friend and will be forever. Today I give myself to you in marriage to be your wife. I promise to encourage you, to laugh with you and to comfort you in times of sorrow. I promise to love you in good times and bad. I promise to cherish and respect you. Because of you, I laugh, I smile, I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you, caring, loving and being there for you in all life has for us. I will always be the person that you can trust, talk to and the person that will always understand. I will make my home in your heart. These promises I give you today and all of the days of our lives. I vow to be true and faithful for as long as we both shall live. Take this ring as a sign of my faith and commitment.
Source **I changed this one a little bit.

I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to accept you the way you are.
I fell in love with you for the qualities, abilities, and outlook on life that you have,
and won't try to reshape you in a different image.
I promise to respect you as a person with your own interests, desires, and needs,
and to realize that those are sometimes different, but no less important than my own.
I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my personal
world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face change as we both change
in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.
And finally, I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give
and all I feel inside in the only way I know how... completely and forever.
Source

Today I will marry my best friend,
the one I will live with, dream with and love.
I take you to be my husband/wife.
From this day forward I will cherish you,
I will look with joy down the path of our tomorrow's
knowing we will walk it together side by side, hand in hand and
heart to heart.
Source

So they all brought tears to this bawl-baby's eyes. None are perfect and, obviously, I've got some thinking to do on length, style, etc. But it was a fun project. :)

Which of the vows above is your favorite??

Ceremony A: the easy one

So, putting together a wedding ceremony. Not something many people do on a regular basis. One thing you can say for the Catholics, they're organized! At our meeting, the priest gave me a book.

In this book are sections where you choose one reading from the "B" category and assign some one to read it, one from the "C" category, a Gospel reading from "D", etc.

Mr. SB, as a non-Christian, isn't really that invested in the readings, but has some interest. Especially that we choose readings more focused on moral codes/lifestyle than direct religion or religious figures. Our conversation actually went something like this.

"Mr. SB, do you care about the readings I choose?"
"Can we pick the readings that aren't too churchy?"
"You do realize they're all from the Bible...?"

I'm going to read through the book and choose two options for each category and then have Mr. SB put in his two cents. (Ok, I'll be honest, I hope he chooses the "Love is patient, love is kind" passage from 1 Corinthians.)

We're both a little disappointed that the Catholic vows are the priest talking then you say "I do." But let's be honest, I'm sure I'll be crying and "I do" will be plenty for me to try and squeak out. And later we can share our more personal statements. Hooray for benefits of two ceremonies!

Honestly, I'm pretty excited to have the opportunity to include more people in the ceremony because I have a few people who will be in attendance (my godmother, godfather, dad who's studying to be a deacon, godbaby) that it would be nice to be able to include. Unfortunately, I also need a vocalist & musician and don't really have those in the family. So we'll be looking for another set of them (we have the reserved for the winery).

Coming up with a "free form" ceremony will be a little more challenging, and will be a soon-to-do project.

Did you have trouble selecting readings for your ceremony or did they seem to fall into place?

Two look bride

I had read how some ladies are choosing to be "two dress brides," a more formal gown for the ceremony followed by a more dance friendly version for the party. And I thought that was crazy. You're spending all that money! Wear the dress all night!

Until...

I know Mr. SB was really looking forward to our "first look" at the winery with my fancy dress and the beautiful back drop (and our photographers present to capture the moment..). I have to say, I was/am too. But now with us having a little ceremony first, 3+ hours before we see the rest of our guests, with our photographers not yet present, isn't the set up for a "Wow" moment. So... I did a little thinking/online shopping and have decided I'll be a two dress (and completely different look) bride.

Look one: To be worn at the winery (first look, ceremony, and all night). The dress has a full skirt, strapless, sweetheart neckline, trumpet shape. Sparkly hair clip, no veil.

Source

Look two: To be worn at the church. Simple, more formal material, but simpler silhouette. And a steal. :) And I'm going to wear a veil. So I'll actually have seen him in this look first, hopefully get some of my cry out of the way, and then come out for a Wow! moment in the dress above.

Source

Dress two isn't his favorite style, but I think it's totally acceptable and works well with our funny ceremony set up. I'll be recycling shoes, possibly jewelry. I'll talk about jewelry another time.

Do the two dresses/styles seem to work with what I've got planned?

Two ceremony bride

So after MUCH deliberation (and I can't believe I'm saying this), I'm going to be a two ceremony bride. And as much as I am overwhelmed by planning two ceremonies, I'm relieved to have reached a decision and feel pretty good about it.

Backing up.....

Getting married in a Catholic Church is important to my family. Mr. SB isn't Catholic, and while I would like the blessing of the Church on our union, our vision (outdoor wedding, writing our own vows) isn't consistent with a Catholic ceremony.

Source 1 & 2.

The priest at the local parish was very nice. Whereas all guides online say you MUST contact them 6 months in advance, he wasn't stressed about the time line at all (so long as neither of us had been married before). He's not making us go to a couples' weekend or anything.. in fact the whole procedure seems painless.

He mentioned that there is a lot of "wrong" information regarding Catholic weddings. Per him, they can be said "off site," but not outdoors. I was stumbling through a description of our day when he realized I was trying to ask for something besides a church wedding.

"Miss SB, let me ask you this. What is your dream for the day?"
"A priest will come to Nicholson Ranch to say the wedding."
He laughs (literally, laughs) and says "What is your second dream?"

Hear that? That was my bubble bursting...
Source

Well, I suppose the second dream is a ceremony at ~2p for anyone who wants to come and then the "real" wedding at 5p as planned. So we're getting married twice. On the same day. There is basically no point to the second one, except it's more "us." It's for "us." The whole first one is for me and my family, not at all for Mr. SB who is a little irritated by it, I think. He even suggested canceling the second ceremony as it'll be a big farce. :(

I don't think it's ideal. I also don't think it's a farce. But it IS more money and more work.

Time to get started.

Is two ceremonies overkill? Would you cancel the second one?

Furry babies, part II

One random discussion lead to another... and Mr. SB & I came up with the perfect way to incorporate our furry babies into the big day.

They are pretty small-ish cats, short haired and about 10 lbs each. We have threatened to dress them up before in small dog clothes (because they'd be cute), but as far as we got was a Santa hat last year.

Look how thrilled Olivia is with this idea...

BUT! What if we dressed them up like a tiny bride and tiny groom (one is a boy and one a girl, after all) and took the pictures for the table numbers! (If you remember, I loved the pics w/ the pets + the cake topper... but I don't want a cake topper.) A quick search online found very reasonably priced options.

Including a veil!!

We didn't actually get this one, but that hat is cute!
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We busted out the tape measure and found our (chubby?!) babies are actually a size medium! (XXS, XS, S available too. Man, some dogs are tiny!)

So, one cold winter day, Mr. SB & I will have a little kitty photo shoot. We need ~8 good shots for the tables... we'll see!!

How do you feel about pet clothes? (And aren't these adorable!)

Updates soon...

I've been down on the blogging lately.... BUT I've had several breakthroughs in the past 24 hours and can't wait to share them with you soon!

Mr. SB has to work tomorrow (Saturday) night, perfect time to blog!

Yay for wedding progress!!

Monogram

As I referenced before, I all-of-a-sudden have a need for a monogram! (To use as the "sealer" on the bellyband on the wedding program, if you had forgotten. :)

I have two fonts that I've been working with and love: ChopinScript & Caramella (from dafont.com) so I wanted to work with them (and green of course) to see if I could create something.

Crummy quality image for some reason, but you get the idea.

I think this is pretty acceptable. Simple, but effective. And matches the other stationery we've had - same font/colors/proportions. Now to wait and see how it works in the mock up.

Did you have a monogram? How was it incorporated into your big day?

Programs

I thought I had saved a wedding program template/design from early in my planning, but alas, it's no where to be found. When I think back on it, the design actually doesn't make any sense, so let's start again, shall we?

What I want to include:
Wedding party
Ceremony details
Information about the winery/wine making since we will be walking through all those functional areas

I don't want anything too elaborate or work intensive (as this will be another DIY project) so here's what I worked through.

Types of programs (info and images from source):Booklet. Not sure I have enough info to really fill a booklet. Or that people would actually care.

Z-fold. Not bad. Something about the look of it isn't great for me though.

Gatefold. Now we're talking. I plan on having the main program be in cream cardstock, with the same patterned belly band from the invitations. (Tying it all together, get it?? :) But now I'll need a little "closer" sticker for them. Monogram anyone??

The layout will be:
Right inner fold - Wedding party
Center - Our names/ceremony information
Left inner fold - Information regarding Nicholson Ranch
Back - Dedication (possibly)

I did a mock up of the layout and am really happy with it (as far as having the appropriate amount of space for the information). I don't have a ton of extra paper, so I'm waiting until I have all the info before doing a real mock-up. Which I'll post here of course. :)

Did you have a program? Is it necessary? What all did it include??

An "easy" topic

Our site director told us that if you get married on the winery lawn, you can stick two wine barrels with flowers on them at the "altar" site (if we're not having a Chuppah or anything, which we're not. See the previous post on Catholicism).

Our meeting with our florist was really quite good; I feel like she totally "got me" as far as bouquets, boutonnieres, aisle flowers, and centerpieces (more on all that later). But with regards to ceremony/wine barrel flowers, I didn't have a good example, nor did she have one to show us. So I tried to explain "Not too big, not too flashy, compliments the natural site but isn't lost in the size." She emailed me some not great examples, so I set out to find some on my own.

It's hard! Way harder than I expected!! All attempts at googling some combination of "Wine barrel flowers arrangement ceremony winery" are a big fat fail. I also tried looking at all wineries I could think of, any wine country photographers blogs, project wedding/theknot/etc and got about three examples to send back to the florist. Am I really that difficult/unique? Or are ceremony flowers so unimportant and so exciting that no one takes pictures of them??

Not bad, a little... voluminous? and too green? Not quite right, but not terrible either.

Small pic, but a good over all feel.
Source

Totally wrong color, but good look. Some height and some down draping green tendrils.

I like the texture, the coloring, the shape. Maybe too small for a barrel (you can adjust for that of course)? And we probably can't have a vase (for safety in the wind).

I'll be honest, I got so frustrated looking for arrangements, Mr. SB took over and found these photos. I don't have credits for them. So don't steal them, and I apologize for not crediting them properly.

Ack. I'm tired of looking at barrel arrangements! I want to find the perfect one and just say "Hey, do this!" :) But for now, I'll send Sally the florist our ideas and see what she can do.

What aspects of wedding planning were unexpectedly difficult?

The real stuff

Who's gonna say the wedding? A big question I've been avoiding.

Mr. SB is not religious. My family is very Catholic. We don't really want to get married in a church, and logistically for our guests, it would be easier to have ceremony/reception in one place. But Catholics don't get married outside. And you've gotta plan for 6 months ahead of time. Today was our 4 month pre-anniversary. Cool.

About a month ago, I called our local Catholic church (where I've been going on Sundays) and the pastor was on vacation for a month. The mean lady on the phone told me that you can't get married when I had requested because it was Lent (the season before Easter, a time of reflection, not celebration) and that I needed to "rethink my date." Well, I finally got the courage to call the priest today and he was really quite kind and told me that our timeline was ok and we can get everything done by March. Although he wasn't having anything but a wedding in the church. On a Saturday afternoon. With no flowers, because it's Lent. Fine, whatever.

So what's a girl to do? We are pretty set on the idea of an outdoor wedding at the winery and a reception immediately following. We could certainly have a smaller ceremony in the afternoon prior to the "big wedding" for those who would care about the Catholic aspect. I wouldn't want to wear my dress... but I think it could work and we'd be able to incorporate some of my family members in a nice way.

This sensitive subject is still very much a work in progress. We're meeting with the priest next week. I'll let ya know how it goes.

How big/small of an adventure was finding the person to officiate your ceremony? Would you consider two ceremonies to keep everyone happy?

The Catering Un-Saga

Since catering takes up such a huge portion of any bridal budget, I was prepared for finding a vendor to be a difficult process. Mr. SB & I are not picky foodies; we like pretty basic flavors and simple meals and I was hoping to use local, seasonal items as much as possible. (Mr. SB said "Red meat" as his input on the catering topic.)

Our site director gave us a list of her three favorite caterers and one had an extra gold star as her personal fave. I asked the three of them for quotes and the gold star company was very pleasant to communicate with and far and away the most affordable. Full speed ahead.

The catering business is a husband/wife team with years of experience in the area and a great reputation; the husband acts as head chef at the event and the wife acts as a DOC. We met with them in person (their store is literally across the street from my office) and really liked the examples of their work. They are very familiar with the winery and the local rental company and had some great suggestions on how to work with the space.

They were very on board with the "seasonal" idea. So our tasting wasn't any thing that we'll actually be eating on our wedding day, but more representative of their work (and "fall" type foods) instead of the "spring" foods we'll be eating. The food was delicious and the presentation was exactly right, not too fussy but still beautiful. (Yeah, no camera. Gonna have to trust me on this one.)

So pretty much, that's that. We love working with Tom & Linda. The menu is ~95% settled, but they are flexible if we come up with other ideas and will work with what is seasonally available.

Did you get to try your wedding meal at the tasting? Or did you just "trust" your caterer?

Name calling

I've always liked how the outer envelope of wedding invitations has the guests' formal names while the inner envelope is more familiar. With our pocketfold invites, obviously we won't be having an inner envelope, but I wanted to find a way to include their "real" names.

Alot of people put their monogram or a stamp of some sort on the connector on the belly band. I used that space as a place to write the informal names. I printed the names on cream cardstock and is mounted on clover cardstock and the custom designed paper used in the rest of the invitation suite.

The color is a little funny because the label isn't tacked down yet, so it's partially open with a shadow on the flap.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and am glad I got to insert the guests' "real" names on the cards.

Did you "double label" the guests names in an unusual way?

Getting there.....

Last night we put together the envelopes.. both addressing them & lining them.

I thought that once I decided to type (not hand write) the envelopes and typed all the addresses into an Excel sheet, that printing them would be a piece of cake. Yeah, it's not that easy. All the prep work in the world will still leave you with an annoying and time consuming project.

First of all, our envelopes were just *slightly* an unusual size, so I cut several en-faux-lopes out of regular paper to get the orientation/spacing/centering right with practice runs on our printer. (*Side note, our low toner light was blinking all night... thankfully it lasted through the project!)

Step one: Return addresses. Printed on the back. After figuring out the orientation, it was pretty easy, but we hand fed them one at a time, just to be safe.


Step two: The fronts. Unfortunately, my Excel spreadsheet did me no good and I hand typed in the addresses. I found it easiest to format them by going into MSWord "Mailings" then "Envelopes" then "Add to Document." You get a little text box and can center, space, preview, and print. One at a time. Thank heavens for small guest lists!


Another aside: Oh. Em. Gee. How hard is the etiquette on addressing envelopes! I called both my mom AND dad for advice on honorifics. Then I found this great website. I know there are lots of books, etc. but I thought the website covered most of my bases.

Mr. SB was a trooper until about 50% through step two. Then he got bored and turned on a video game "while I was formatting." Alright fine, it was a boring process. Especially with me freaking out about Ms./Miss/Mrs. every third invite.

Step three: Lining the envelopes (with the liners we pre-cut and folded a few weeks ago). I didn't like how the glue had turned out in my trial run, so I used a two sided tape runner and only put tape on the upper flap. I used about 5 pieces, you can see them in the pic below. We then lined up the inserts and pressed firmly.

Our work station.

I grabbed a pocketfold to make sure you could get the invitation in and out without hurting the liner (in case I needed to add more sticky tape to the bottom half). And low & behold, one of the furry babies had nibbled on the corner!! I have my suspicions, but they're both in trouble! I think they only got this one, but lesson learned... don't leave precious paper projects laying around!

Final product (for this stage).
All envelopes are addressed and lined.

I think taking this project in several steps over a few weeks (and months ahead of time) is making it go alot more smoothly. Neither Mr. SB or I get burned out and we're making progress. Both are good things.

Did you prefer to tackle DIY in large clumps? Or were smaller, drawn out projects your style?

Furry babies

Mr. SB and I have two furry babies. I love them lots. But, they're not so much "trainable" (Though we've tried! We had big plans of teaching them to walk on leashes, we even brought them to the beach once and Mr. SB makes them "Sit! Sit! Speak!" before getting their wet food, which they accomplish with varying degrees of success on a given day) or appropriate for wedding attendance.

Aren't they so precious??
Olivia & Elliot as tiny babies.

Helping Mommy blog.

While I am a self proclaimed "crazy cat lady", I'm not actually crazy enough to try and incorporate them into my wedding day in a big way. But a little way would be fun. People have suggested pictures in lockets on your bouquet, cake toppers, naming your signature cocktails after them (cute! The Elliot & The Olivia, though? Kinda lame...) but my faaaaave are these pictures from Miss Stiletto on weddingbee.

All the pictures she took for her table numbers were aDORable, but the cat ones really got me. It doesn't seem too crazy cat lady, right?

She's re-purposing her little wooden fellas (which are pretty darn cutely amazing) as cake toppers. I'm not sold on the idea of cake toppers, but they are cute "just to have." Maybe they could sit NEXT to the cake? Or just on our mantel at home. Whatev.

One last picture for cute-ness.

How have you seen pets incorporating into weddings, that weren't over the top?