Ms. Stripes, Los AngelesAge and Occupation: 29, Costume Designer/StylistFiancee's Age and Occupation: 29, ChefEngagement Date: June 23, 2009Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: Heritage Square MuseumAbout Me: I’m a type A creative with a messy streak, a loud mouth, and an uncanny knack for combining clashing patterns. I can usually be found with my nose in a book, my feet (or at least my toes) on the ground, my head in the clouds, and my arm around the prettiest girl you ever saw- aka
Fiancee Stripes. Together we’re planning a FUN vintage/modern French carnival wedding extravaganza and rockin’ dance party on a dime. (Say that three times fast!) Good coffee, long lists, Uniball pens, and my iPhone keep me sane, and making art, making trouble, and making out keep me happy! I love urban adventures, bike rides that end with afternoon drinks, breakfast for dinner, beautiful light, photography, travel, my furry family, and of course, my beautiful fiancee! I’m super excited to be here and can’t wait to share all our adventures as we craft a joyful, budget-friendly, design-savvy and all-around AWESOME wedding!
Okay, now that I’ve jumped the proverbial gun and shown you almost all of our STDs’ business, it’s time to slow down, backtrack, and check out the glorious little details that if I’m honest with myself most likely will end up in our guests’ recycling bin. Oh well, I love ‘em anyway and I hope you will too!
First up - The Envelope/Label/Stampy goodness. Yes, I went the Zazzle route and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result! AND I took your advice, stuck with my fabric inspired wrap-around label and tweaked my printer a little bit to achieve a brighter label.
Mrs. Veggie, Raglan, New Zealand/Scranton, PAAge and Occupation: 27, Director of Small Non-ProfitFiance's Age and Occupation: 42, PhD Student & FarmerEngagement Date: June 13, 2009Wedding Date: August 2010Venue: Indian Head Camp, Honesdale Pennsylvania
About Me: I am a tree-huggin' farmer turned enthusiastic wedding-planner. I live in a house truck and wear flip-flops more often than shoes. In my old life I was a high school Spanish teacher in love with a crazy guy who lived off-the grid on a farm in New Hampshire. But, we decided to mix things up a bit, quit our jobs and move to New Zealand. My southern hemisphere lifestyle involves growing veggies, teaching, running our small non-profit, and surfing. I love laughing, singing, playing, and the inspirational Mr. Veggie (of course!). For our wedding, I am committed to throwing a killer party that celebrates our values without breaking the bank. Look forward to an eco-thrifty summer-campy weekend-long extravaganza.
When I last left off I was sitting in a puddle of my own drool admiring the Adele Wechsler EcoCouture collections. Well, it was reality check time. Those gorgeous frocks are way out of my price league. I mean way out. Like half-of-our-total-budget out.
We run a non-profit organization and have dedicated our lives to living simply. While financially it would be possible for me to get one of those dresses with a ton of scrimping and saving, I just cannot justify spending that much money on a dress I will wear for one day. I understand that some brides work really hard to find ways to buy their dream dress, and I appreciate that, but that’s just not me. Honestly (please don’t kick me out of the bride club), its not that important to me. When I walk down the aisle I want to be feeling my absolute best, which means knowing that I am wearing an ethical dress from an ecological standpoint, but also a social one. Spending thousands on a dress is not a responsible decision for me to make right now.
Having said that… I want to look pretty on my big day! Small tantrum over. I promise. Read more…
Mrs. Ribbons, Washington D.C./Bloomington, INAge and Occupation: 23, Research Associate for an international development firmFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Proposal Coordinator for contractor
Engagement Date: May 2, 2008Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: Indiana Memorial UnionAbout Me: I'm an Indiana transplant living in DC with my fiance and our pretty kitty. I enjoy the color pink, I'm obsessed with the Dior New Look and tulle, and I heart my level 80 paladin. I'm a sucker for bad TV, literary theory, and cakes of all persuasion. I also happen to be marrying the cutest closet nerd around! It's all about Bloomington for us because it's where we met -- on the college paper. If there's a theme for our small summertime wedding, it's Dior meets Dorothy Draper on a lark in Bloomington; think poofy, plus graphic prints, bold colors, and a whole lot of prettiness.
When I decided over a year ago that I wanted square invitations, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know they’d cost more to mail and I sure as hell didn’t know I would battle my printer for hours trying to print addresses onto them.
Let’s backtrack, though. I’ve held hand-written envelopes in high esteem ever since I started wedding planning. But very recently, the reality of bad handwriting being anywhere near my lovely invitations started gnawing at me. I even tried using a nib pen to somehow dress my handwriting up, to no avail. I checked various etiquette sources and the preference for hand-written seems to stem from the amount of time and care it takes to write them. Well, that’s easy to solve: Read more…
Mrs. Hamster, New York CityAge and Occupation: 28, Finance GalFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Finance GuyEngagement Date: March 9, 2009Wedding Date: May 2010Venue: The Pierre HotelAbout Me: I'm an original Jersey girl living it up in the big NYC! I love baking for others, hosting brunches, and exploring NYC with my mans. Besides Mr. Hamster (of course), I'm attracted to shiny things, bold colors, snacks, matching and coordination, pork and duck fats, miniature versions of things, corny jokes and puns. We are planning a swanky Spring wedding in the heart of NYC, followed by a second reception in Singapore. From one city that never sleeps to another - I can't imagine a more exciting ride!
It’s an unending saga, this love affair with shoes. First, it was the red-hot passion that wasn’t meant to be. Then, in a fit of rebound-driven frenzy, I sought the affection of eight more pairs; before you get the wrong idea, that is 4 pairs of shoes in 2 different sizes each, a few pied menage-a-trois, if you will. Where did that leave me? Well, with a doorman with a sense of humor, for one:
A note of caution added by Willie the doorman. I could still smell the Sharpie ink when he gave me the box. Gee, THANKS, Willie.
All ribbing from the doormen aside, I was a happy chickadee to be surrounded by so many pair of shoes. Read more…
Mrs. Hot Wings, Chicago/San DiegoAge and Occupation: 28, ProfessorFiance's Age and Occupation: 32, InstructorEngagement Date: December 20, 2008Wedding Date: August 2010Venue: Ocean View Villas/Jasmine Seafood RestaurantAbout Me: I am a psychology grad student living in Chicago and planning my wedding to a fellow psych grad student. I am a Sunny So-Cal bred gal who trudged across the country to follow her love of psychology and ended up finding a partner in the process. I am overly passionate about anything I involve myself with. I am an activist, a foodie, a reality TV watching junkie, an over-analyzer, a photography obsesser, and am utterly cheesy to the core. This is a story of what happens when a boy and a girl meet, fall in love over academic dorkiness, and a shared love for life. We (mostly I) are planning our semi-destination wedding in my hometown of San Diego. We are excited to bring our families and friends together from across our lifespans to celebrate our future in a grand 400+ person culturally blended affair!
Miss Stripes’ post on the blogosphere’s battle and interpretation of “blog-worthy” weddings really compelled me to take a deeper look into my wedding planning fanaticism.
I have openly proclaimed my love for photography and stalker-like behavior that has produced such series as the “So YouWanttobe aModel” and “thePhotoChecklist“. And like most brides, I want my wedding to be pretty. Sitting back and thinking about it, I realized that the sentiment is equally important. And even though we’re including a lot of “us” in our ceremony and throughout… I have realized that I need more.
Mrs. Powder Puff, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 25, Preschool TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Career ServicesEngagement Date: May, 2008Wedding Date: July, 2009Blogging Since: November 12, 2008Venue: Outdoor ceremony, banquet hall receptionAbout Me: I am your typical Midwestern girl attempting to plan a sane, budget-friendly, fun wedding to the man of my dreams. I love shoes, laughing at “Platinum Weddings”, crafts, inspiration boards, candy, and basically anything I can DIY. While weddings can certainly be all-consuming, I honestly can’t wait until the ceremony is over and I can finally call Mr. Powder Puff my husband!
Well, hello again, friends! Remember me? It’s Mrs. Powder Puff, buzzing back in to share a bit of bridal-y goodness with the hive.
This past Sunday, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Chicago Bridal Market with Mrs. Stiletto and two fabulous ladies from Project Wedding, Kate and Catherine. We chatted, attended a few runway shows, and generally had a fabulous time!
Mrs. Hot Dog, Cheyenne, WYAge and Occupation: 23, Health Information SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 23, Personal Trainer
Engagement Date: March 2009Wedding Date: August 2010Venue: Family Ranch outside Glenrock, WYAbout Me: I'm a city girl by birth and rural girl by choice. I'm ready to take on the world with a big heart and a big smile! I love all things crafty and DIY. I live in Cheyenne, WY with Mr. HD and our 2 fur babies, our dachshunds, Ollie and Mia. I love travel, adventure, Finding Nemo, '90s music, animals, and laughing. He is the cheese to my macaroni and together we spend more time watching movies than we probably should! I'm an old soul who is super duper excited to pull off our down home-rustic-chic-country wedding (on the cheap)!
OK, so maybe I gave it to him. Look what I made today.
They are little pins for Mr. Hot Dog and I to wear on the wedding day. They’re totally silly and unnecessary, but adorable, nonetheless.
And they go right along with my KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) theme… Read more…
Mrs. Nachos, Chicago/St. ThomasAge and Occupation: 33, Commercial Real Estate & HairstylistFiance's Age and Occupation: 36, Radio ProducerEngagement Date: May 22, 2009Wedding Date: April 2010Venue: Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort, St. ThomasAbout Me: I'm a happy, laid back city girl that can find the silver lining in any situation. An optimist at heart, my motto is to turn your "what ifs?" into "so whats!". My fiance is a radio producer and the biggest Cubs fan you'll meet - our apartment decor definitely shows it. He and I grew up next door to each other and because of it, we have the best home videos and easiest holiday dinners. We are planning an intimate wedding in the Virgin Islands and a cocktail party in June for 150 of our closest friends.
Our invitations were finished. They were printed. They were stamped. They sat in a box for 2 weeks in my kitchen. Then finally, I got a bug up my butt and decided to stamp and stuff them. The last thing I wanted to do was go back and seal them all.
Mrs. Paisley, Orange County, CAAge and Occupation: 25, JournalistFiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Spanish ProfessorEngagement Date: September 2008Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: Family Lake HouseAbout Me: From my earliest days I attracted attention, as much for my intelligence as for beauty. I display an originality, a perspicacity, a certain je ne sais quoi that sets me apart. I posses a mysterious authority which compels people to do my bidding. I am a regal blonde with classic features and the daintiness of Dresden porcelain. I am poised, soft-spoken, and well educated... Okay, now that enough eyebrows have sufficiently shot through the roof, everybody can relax---I kid! I'm just a sarcastic NorCal-turned-SoCal girl who loves outdoor activities, books, letterpress printing and of course, Professor Paisley.
Mrs. Jellyfish, Pleasanton, CAAge and Occupation: 27, Law StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Air Force PilotEngagement Date: February 21, 2009Wedding Date: September 2010Venue: Casa Real at Ruby Hill WineryAbout Me: In a nutshell, I’m the most optimistic worrywart you’ll ever meet. My family emigrated from Romania to San Jose, CA when I was 8, and I've been a Nor Cal girl ever since! My fiancé is also a Bay Area native, so it’s funny that we met at UCLA, as college freshmen living on the same floor (go Bruins!). Between his career as an Air Force pilot and my path to becoming a lawyer, our relationship has been anything but typical. We currently live together in Berkeley with our puppy Stinson. In addition to spending time with the loves of my life, I enjoy crafting, attempting complicated recipes, environmental law and non-law school reading (Us Weekly, anyone?). Follow along as I plan an elegant 200-person winery wedding, graduate law school, take the Bar exam, get married and get used to the always unpredictable but never boring life of a military spouse!
Mrs. Scissors, LaGrange, GAAge and Occupation: 25, Photography & Graphic DesignFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Engineering Grad StudentEngagement Date: January 1, 2009Wedding Date: June 2010Venue: Ceremony - First United Methodist Church; Reception - My parents' house!About Me: I’m a six-foot-three bride with a fifty-foot personality! I love great art, fabulous design, intense color, tons of music, indie photography, watching movies on repeat, and being really awesome. This super-tall, Southern, loud, quirky, neurotic artist is marrying a German, quiet, silly, super-amazing roboticist in an eclectic, funky, fun, snazzy, technicolored June wedding. Anything is game for this shindig, for it is all about us! We’re bringing giant paper cranes, six-foot-tall portraits, fortune cookies, a photo booth, a club-circuit DJ, handcuffs, and possibly a kidnapping to this small Southern town. Watch out, y’all, and try to keep up!
When deciding on colors for our invitation suite, I initially had a bit of a problem. You see, I wanted a few things…
Both of “our colors” Somehow, during this whole wedding planning thing, two colors emerged––a process cyan and magenta. This is very visible in our engagement shoot, as Mr. Scissors rocked socks in his color, the process cyan, and I went nuts in hot pink tights. Therefore, in our invites, I wanted to throw both of those colors in.
Each piece in a different color Since we only have 1-color invites, I wanted to be able to get as much color bang for my buck, so to speak. We’re having a color-fabulous wedding, so the invites should be that way as well.
The whole thing not to look like a big bunch of crayons One thing that I quickly found while messing around with color was that it would be easy to let our more-formal-but-still-funky-invites to go too much in the casual direction. I needed to find a way to have our colors and… eat them too? And to be able to keep things sleek.
I wanted a reason Perhaps this is something that was just beat into me in art-land, or something that was instilled in me long ago by my father, but I don’t like to do things “just cuz”. I always feel the need to be able to back up my decisions and choices, no matter how random they may seem. I view most of the things, decisions, what-have-you as a part of a giant critique. I already had a reason for the pink and blue in our invites, but what would the backing for other colors? I wanted something stronger than, “Oh, ’cause it’s pretty.”
Of course, I obsessed over this while designing everything. I obsess, a lot, if you haven’t noticed. I thought I’d never be able to make a decision.
THEN! Then. Then. THEN, on the way home from the gym, I had a brilliant idea. Read more…
Mrs. Sewing, San Mateo, CA/Honolulu, HIAge and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Electrical EngineerEngagement Date: June 27, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Anela Garden Chapel & Japanese Cultural Center, HonoluluAbout Me: I'm an easily entertained, compulsive idea-scheming machine who loves good art, good food, and a good engineering challenge. I'm planning a half-destination wedding on the beautiful island of Oahu - imagine a plethora of movies, art and games; savory Hawaiian food; blended Chinese and Japanese cultural details; lush, fragrant tropical flowers and all the air conditioning a NorCal native could want! And once I marry the love of my life, we'll come back to the 'mainland' to party it up all over again in my hometown of Salinas, the salad-bowl capital of the world!
With Mr. Sew’s brother visiting for part of his spring break, I thought it would be a good time to pull out one of the more interesting projects I’ve been wanting to try: cuff links!
A few weeks ago I snatched up this book called DIY Bride at the library.
The customized cuff link idea in particular was very interesting to me, so I started gathering supplies. From Fire Mountain Gems, I ordered a bunch of cuff links (only $1.73 a pair!) with bezel cup settings already attached. Read more…
Mrs. Turtle, Central CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 21, Art Student/TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 22, English StudentEngagement Date: August 16, 2008Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Mr. Turtle's Grandparents' backyard, Arroyo Grande, CAAbout Me: I am a California girl who loves the beach and the mountains, but is quite satisfied living right in the middle where I can enjoy the best of both worlds. I am happiest when traveling to faraway places, wandering through museums, watching old movies, or baking up a storm. Mr. Turtle and I are high school sweethearts and fellow book nerds who both drive Mini Coopers and are most likely to be found browsing in antique stores. We're having so much fun planning our European garden wedding with a vintage twist and can't wait to share more of life's adventures together!
Dress shopping was one of the aspects of the wedding planning that I had looked forward to the most, but being among the first in my group of friends to get engaged, this new kind of shopping was totally foreign to me.
I began by collecting some inspiration pictures, of course! I had no idea what I wanted, but this is what I started out with:
Mrs. Pudding, Greater Toronto Area/VermontAge and Occupation: 26, High School TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Computer EngineerEngagement Date: August 2008Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catholic Ceremony, Cultural Hall ReceptionAbout Me: Quite literally a citizen of the world, I was born in Poland, grew up in Canada, and now live in the beautiful state of Vermont. I love reading historical biographies, multi-tasking, teasing my hair, and, despite my height, wearing high heeled shoes. I am the ultimate klutz with an uncanny ability to put on a graceful front. Mr. Pudding and I have been dating for over six years, and are very excited to finally merge our (very large) families. We are planning a traditional Polish-Catholic wedding that is anything but predictable.
I don’t know about you, but the recent scandal surrounding the marriage of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James has really saddened me. Doesn’t it seem like more and more Hollywood men are cheating on their beautiful, talented, and intelligent wives with women that are less than worthy of their attentions? I mean, has it even been a month since we listened to Tiger Woods publicly apologize for a string of affairs? Before that, we had Reese and Ryan (how perfect were they?). And who can forget Halle Berry and Eric Benet? I mean, why in the world would anyone want to cheat on Halle Berry!?
Still, the Sandra Bullock/Jesse James scandal seems to be particularly vile, simply because this is a time when Sandra should be celebrating all of her success, and not going through such heartbreak.
This recent media outburst has really got me thinking about infidelity. According to some statistics, 30-60% of all marriages will go through some type of infidelity in the course of their relationship. That number seems mighty high to me.
Mrs. Taco, San FranciscoAge and Occupation: 29, writer/editorFiance's Age and Occupation: 37, editorEngagement Date: May 13, 2009Wedding Date: August 2010Venue: The Green Room at the War Memorial Veterans BuildingAbout Me: I like laughing and talking with good friends over good food and good drink, be it wine, cocktail, or brew. I write and edit things for fun and profit, but I rarely "write" these days without a keyboard and high-speed internets. Favorites include Mr. Taco, my Boston terrier, San Francisco, getting out of town, and the Roaring ’20s. I was kind-of planning a wedding since roughly 2006, when I discovered "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?" on the WE channel. I ran and didn't look back with a theme I called "urban vintage," and it culminated in the most magical day a taco could ask for.
Shopping in actual (i.e. not online) stores for something specific (like, say, a birdcage veil or a fascinator) kind of gives me a headache. It involves a lot of traveling around, a lot of touching, head-tilting, then ultimately deciding it’s not exactly what you’re looking for. It also requires patience, which isn’t something I’ve got in spades.
So instead of schlepping around from boutique to boutique trying to find the perfect thing, I’ve been finding some really awesome stuff on Etsy. It’s especially perfecto for the little things: hair accessories, jewelry, veils, and little touches for manageable DIY projects.
“Manageable” DIY projects is key for me throughout this process, too. Read more…
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
Look what I made today.
