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Mrs. Waffle, AustinAge and Occupation: 31, Costumer/ArtistFiance's Age and Occupation: 33, AnimatorEngagement Date: July 27, 2010Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Hummingbird HouseAbout Me: My life is pretty much spent in a sea of fabric, paint, sequins and drama. When I’m not working, I play on a trivia team, take Broadway dance classes, read, buy shoes, and occasionally geek out on video games. I am an American girl who loves all things British and Mr. Waffle is a Brit who loves all things American...I guess it was meant to be!
I know I promised a tutorial for the brunchy Invites, and I’m almost through with that post, but I’m gonna do one for this first because I have all the pictures resized and blah, blah, blah already. Seriously, I promise invites will be next. Pinky swear.
Items you may need for this project:
Blank sign
Wood monogram letter
Graphite paper or pencil
Blue painter tape or masking tape
Thick wired ribbon
Fake flowers
Nails and hammer or screws and drill
Acrylic craft paint
Brushes
Fine point Sharpie
Hot glue and gun
Scissors
Patience
First up, I found a blank stand sign and monogram letter at Michaels and painted them the desired colors with acrylic craft paint. Once that was dry, I got out a sheet of graphite paper (also available at craft and art stores) and taped it to the blank sign with blue painter tape. If you don’t have/can’t find graphite paper, you can also color the back of your text print out with a pencil and transfer that way.
Mrs. Bunting, Grand Rapids, MIAge and Occupation: 24, freelance illustrator & print productionFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, graduate of historyEngagement Date: December 3, 2009Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Spring Grove Park & St. George Banquet CenterAbout Me: I am a freelance illustrator and designer with a love of nature and a taste for adventure. Textures and color fuel my world, along with apple cider and noodles. I'll try anything once, especially if it involves heights or food. I've hiked the Grand Canyon, gone sky diving, cuddled a baby wolf, and now my latest venture consists of designing and planning a large wedding involving color, DIY details, love, and marrying my best friend.
Mrs. Cinnamon Bun, Calgary, AlbertaAge and Occupation: 26, Stage ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Theatre TechnicianEngagement Date: June 22, 2010Wedding Date: June 2011Venue: Calgary Opera CentreAbout Me: I'm a life-long crafter and bookworm living in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Some of my loves include Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, knitting, opera, musicals, Etsy, baking, and of course, Mr. Cinnamon Buns. We're keeping our wedding close to home---the venue isn't very far from our house, and we live within walking distance of 6 bridal salons. I'm using the wedding as an excuse to try out every craft project I possibly can, with the endless help and support of my fiance.
I have one tip for everyone who is planning a wedding when their parents/bridal party/best friends are not in the same city. Use photos! In this email age, there is no excuse not to email pictures to your loved ones who are helping you plan (in my case, my parents). I’m not too great with words when I’m just talking (but they run like a river when I’m typing!) so a lot of our misunderstandings stemmed from that, I’m sure. That and the filter effect of trying to describe to a person the picture inside your head. The words you might use to describe something may not be the ones that evoke the right image for your listener. If I’d sent an email with a few photos to explain my ideas before I phoned Cinnamum to talk about X idea, I’m sure some things would have been smoother. Think about how good your ‘audience’ is at visualizing. There is no shame in being on the phone and sitting at your computer collecting photos into an email. Then you can say “I’ve just sent you an example of what we’re talking about!” and if they’ve got a computer handy, you’re immediately on the same page.
Here’s an example of some of the mix-ups we’ve had:
Mrs. High Wire, DallasAge and Occupation: 23, Legal AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Director of CommunicationsEngagement Date: October 9, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Clark GardensAbout Me: My loves include yoga, anything spicy, our eccentric cat, our rambunctious dog, and Mr. High Wire, of course! Like the steadiness act of the tightrope walker, this gal is busy balancing life while planning a wedding to the man of her dreams. We’re hosting a laid-back, vintage-inspired, bird themed wedding with heavy doses of love, good eats (did someone say tacos and margaritas?), and endless Texas charm. Mr. High Wire and I are so happy to have you along for the walk across the tight rope.
OK, here’s the thing: I drool over all of these super-crafty projects that I see online and make all these plans to do at-home projects for the wedding. But while I love to doodle, do crafts, color, etc., my artistic skills aren’t what I would refer to as exemplary. My heart is in the right place, but I have little patience and a short attention span. Those two qualities mean that I don’t generally partake in complicated DIY projects.
However, some projects are just so friggin’ easy that even if you don’t have a crafty bone in your body, you can do them. And if it saves money, it is almost always a good thing. (Except toilet paper. You get what you pay for there, for sure.)
When we ordered our save the dates, we opted to not get the matching envelopes and instead went with the free white ones. After putting them together, they would certainly do the job of getting to our guests, but the envelopes were looking a little…bare.
As a reminder, here’s a snap of our save the dates:
Mrs. Funnel Cake, Zürich, Switzerland/Columbus, OhioAge and Occupation: 24, Visual Communication DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Application EngineerEngagement Date: May 30, 2010Wedding Date: October 2011Venue: Catholic church followed by a botanical conservatoryAbout Me: I'm an American designer who moved to Switzerland for love after a fairytale beginning at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I love travel, photography, museums, learning German so I can speak with my mother-in-law, cooking (eating), cuddling, and I'm not afraid to try something new even if it terrifies me. My Swiss/Brazilian man and I are both down to earth people planning a traditional Catholic wedding in my hometown with some quirky cultural exceptions to reflect our different backgrounds. We look forward to celebrating with friends and family from all over the world in a classic, sophisticated fusion of heritage and love.
I should really be using this time to do my German homework, but now that I’ve updated y’all on whataPolterabendis, I want to share what’s been on my mind as of late:
Mrs. Poodle, Santiago, Chile/San Bernardino, CAAge and Occupation: 27, Industrial & Web DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Firefighter & Mountain PatrolEngagement Date: February 25, 2009Wedding Date: January 2010Venue: Mr. P's Grandparents’ RanchAbout Me: I’m a Chilean girl who's crazy about nature and swimming. I enjoy carving, drawing, reading and sewing; I drool over computers, fabric, pretty paper, purple and patterns. To me, chocolate should be one of the seven wonders, right next to lemon pie. I never thought an exchange work experience program was going to change my life forever, but while working in California, I met Mr. Poodle, and ever since my days are better and brighter. We are two goofy souls that, after finding each other, couldn’t help but want to be together forever. It has being a long and sometimes hard road, since we have to deal with such a long distance between us, but we are now facing the last stage of our Fiancé Visa, and soon we will be together. You know the best part? We will be married! So I’ll be blogging from Chile until just a few months before our “green and purple” wedding.
One of the best things about having a first look before the ceremony was that we got to take lots of pictures, have a good time, and relax before the ceremony.
We took advantage of the ranch’s different areas and here you will see some of the pictures we took in the pond area, caboose, and field. Read more…
Mrs. Pony, Bloomington, ILAge and Occupation: 25, AttorneyFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, AttorneyEngagement Date: March 22, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Mackinaw Valley Vineyard; Bloomington Center for the Performing ArtsAbout Me: I found my Southern counterpart in law school and since he popped the question last March, we have been busy graduating, job searching, bar taking, and wedding planning. My loves include must see TV, magnets, quotes, anything green, my car, fun socks, the Cubs, and my Mr. Together we love wine, playing outside, and exploring the world together. Stay tuned to see our Midwest wedding full of Southern charm, vintage flair, lots of DIY details, and a whole lot o’ wine.
I have shared previously that my parents are going through a very long and ugly divorce. And despite our best efforts, Mr. Pony and I are pretty much in the middle of it all.
The other day, I definitely felt that we were “in the middle of it all.” My parents are trying finalize their divorce, which means they are dividing up their massive amount of stuff, which is conveniently located where we are residing. (Please note the sarcasm.)
Seeing the epicenter of divorce lately reminds me of something I believe has a huge impact on my personal happiness as well as the health of my relationships:
Happiness is more than an emotion, it is a choice. Read more…
Wedding BiosFeature Launched: September 12, 2008About: Wedding bios of real brides.
Mrs. Prairie Dog, Cincinnati
Age and Occupation: 24, Program CoordinatorFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, PhD/Biomedical EngineerEngagement Date: December 18, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Glendale LyceumAbout Me: I'm a pilgrim soul of a girl with a house full of books and a coffee addiction that could slay Juan Valdez. My life is a whirl of grammar correction, good music, glue-gunning, and two pets named Hazel and Winston Churchill. I'm marrying my high school boyfriend in a formal-ish spring affair, roughly themed: "Elizabeth Bennet crashes a party co-hosted by Jay Gatsby and Cath Kidston, and loves it."
My dad is in the hospital. It’s five days before our wedding, and he’s asleep in a place that, for all of its niceties, smells like sick people. It’s not a life-threatening, but an extremely painful ailment which landed him there. He should be okay for the wedding, but that’s not really the point. My mom keeps track of his medication schedule on lined notebook paper and tries to pretend she’s not stressed, for my sake. Seeing both parents compromised at once is enough to make a lump rise high in my throat.
After leaving the hospital, I drove back to Cincinnati in the most ridiculous onslaught of rain I’ve ever seen- a ceaseless deluge, deafening against the windshield and roof. Like so many around me, I pulled over to the side of the road and turned on my hazards. And I laughed and laughed—or was I crying?—as I looked up at the dark heavens, asking, “Are you done yet?” Because I am. Read more…
Mrs. Lioness, AtlantaAge and Occupation: 25, Physical TherapistFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, AttorneyEngagement Date: August 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: Anthony’s Fine DiningAbout Me: I’m a Southern girl with New England roots. I say "wicked" and "y’all" in the same sentence and I like to drink sweet tea with my lobster. Mr. Lion and I are both former Floridians now living in Atlanta, which fortunately is still SEC country...Go Gators! We both love baseball, coffee, traveling, cooking, and playing Words with Friends with each other on our iPhones all day long. I’m very passionate about the things and the people I love, and I tend to plan things with all of my heart...our wedding, of course, is no different! Oh, and also Mr. Lion is a first generation American of Cuban descent. I may look more like Lucy than Ricky, but I’m doing my best to incorporate some Latin elements into our vintage-garden-Southern wedding!
Before Mr. Lion and I were even close to engaged, I asked Mama Lioness if I could try on her wedding dress…just for fun. It had been sitting in her closet since 1982. It had not been properly preserved, so it had a slightly yellow tint to it, but that just made the lace look all the more antique. The long sleeves and scalloped neckline could have created a stunning vintage look on a more daring bride, but I decided it wasn’t my style. Plus, I couldn’t even zip into it! I’m a big 4 or a small 6…apparently my mom was even smaller!
Mama Lioness wasn’t offended. She had just saved it as an option. No pressure, no worries. She offered it to Sister Lioness, who declined as well. Mama Lioness promptly took it to her nearest thrift store, and we haven’t heard from her dress since.
It was back then that I decided against saving my wedding dress.
It seemed like an awful lot of work to preserve my wedding dress and to have it take up space in my closet, only to have it rejected decades later by my future daughter. What if she wants to wear a sundress? What if she doesn’t want to get married? What if I have boys?! I had made up my mind; I would sell my wedding dress immediately after the wedding. That money could go towards a house, and therefore go towards starting our lives together. It was the logical, practical, thing to do. I felt no remorse.
After our wedding, I posted my dress all over the internet with a reasonable asking price. I was ecstatic when I received an offer for over half of what I had paid. It seemed like a great deal for a used gown, and this bride sounded lovely. I was happy to know that my dress was going to a good home, and happy that I was one step closer to buying my first home.
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!
Even though we had taken dance lessons and practiced a lot for our first dance, the dances our guests were really talking about were the ones we shared with our parents. First up, Papa Jelly and I did the father-daughter dance to Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful.”
Now, if I learned anything from my wedding, it’s that when your dad has a specific song request in mind for the father-daughter dance, you should just let him have his song. When my dad told me that “You Are So Beautiful” was his song choice, I cringed. It’s a beautiful song (no pun intended), but I felt weird about it. Almost like it would be embarrassing or something, the same way you’re embarrassed when your mom kisses you in front of all your friends when you’re in seventh grade. I tried to convince my dad that we should go for another song, but he wouldn’t budge on this one. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, I have to say: he was right.
Ms. Gazelle, Calgary/VancouverAge and Occupation: 32, EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Technology AnalystEngagement Date: September 3, 2010Wedding Date: July 2011Venue: Brock House Restaurant, VancouverAbout Me: I am a marathon runner, cyclist, Ironman triathlete and beautiful shoe fiend who also loves kicking back and watching Glee. I grew up a bit of a nomad as I traveled around the world with my family, living everywhere from Australia to England to South America and Indonesia. I finally settled in Calgary a few years ago and met Mr. Gazelle who loves me even though we cheer for different hockey teams. We are planning a bit of a destination wedding in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia and we can’t wait to share the day with our close family and friends.
The Gazelles ticked another big item off the to-do list—we got our wedding bands! With less than two months to go I think we cut things a bit close but we managed to luck out.
See, the thing is, we put off buying our wedding bands for so long because we were waiting for the Tiffany & Co. jewellery store to open up here in Calgary. I was pretty sure I wanted a simple platinum band that matched the band on my engagement ring.
Well…I trotted on down to the new store within the first week of opening, tried on the wedding band and I just didn’t love it. Instead I fell in love with a circle of thin diamonds that was way out of our price range. Read more…
Mrs. Bacon, ChicagoAge and Occupation: 26, Digital Advertising ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, IT Client ServicesEngagement Date: June 17, 2010Wedding Date: September 2011Venue: Ravenswood Billboard FactoryAbout Me: I'm a Midwestern girl that can't seem to commit to staying in one place for too long and is constantly daydreaming about my next adventure. I am an aspiring foodie with a weak spot for the unusual and I love semi-reality food television. My other loves easily include laughing as a form of exercise, a book that I can't put down, summer baseball games, espresso with whipped cream, couch potato days and nights with the ridiculous Mr. Bacon, and our two kitties, Lincoln and Sawyer. We're planning a faux-destination wedding for 150 of our closest friends and family in the city we've both adopted as home that has a modern, yet whimsical twist and as many personal touches as we can manage.
We like to call ourselves “Aspiring Foodies,” (a term that pretty much means that we can recognize more celebrity chefs than performers on DWTS and go to schmancy dinners as often as we can find in the budget), so the fact that we booked our caterer out of convenience without ever tasting their food sounds pretty nuts. I actually said as much to the catering manager when we showed up last week for our tasting (10 months after we signed a contract!). The words “I mean, wedding food is known for being terrible” even came out of my mouth. Thankfully he rolled his eyes at me and said “Not our food,” then he brought us out our first round of appetizers.
The first two rounds were so good I forgot to take pictures, but I’m convinced that our caprese salad on a stick and BACON wrapped scallop are going to be a big hit. The little cherry tomato and mini buffalo mozzarella ball make a perfect mouthful, while the bacon wrapped scallop was a glazed piece of heaven. Really. I’m a sucker for grilled cheese and tomato soup, so the bite-sized sandwich and soup shooter were right up my alley. Next up in our round of passed apps were a buffalo chicken tender and shredded pork carnitas on grilled plantain chips. Can you say yum? Last up was a langostino taco in a homemade mini taco shell and a slider with tater tots in a martini glass.
Mrs. Pretzel, SeattleAge and Occupation: 32 Learning, Training, and Development SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 28 Manufacturing EngineerEngagement Date: September 2, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catholic Church & The Engine Room at Georgetown StudiosAbout Me: I’m just a thirty-something girl who never dreamed of weddings, poofy dresses, or ritzy receptions. I am a rabid knitter, except recently, wedding projects have replaced my yarn and needles. I’ve been fiercely independent since the age of 2 and 30 years later I think my family and friends had given up on me settling down and getting married.
Ironically, I had to go all the way to Seattle to find a boy from Purdue. We fell in love over Seattle Beers and cooking together. I love NASCAR, he loves Legos. I can talk like a Muppet and he can fit a whole McDonald’s cheeseburger in his mouth. We are a two reception couple, currently planning a brewery inspired bash.
Mr Pretzel and I were so happy to have our reception at Georgetown Studios. We loved our venue in the original Rainier Beer brewery building in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. I am not sure which we loved more, the building or the neighborhood. The best description that we have heard for this neighborhood is “post-squat, industrial Bohemian chic.” The building and the area aren’t exactly what most people think of when they imagine a wedding reception but for us it was perfect and we consider ourselves lucky. Read more…
