Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
I realize that my last post was also about cake… but really, I can just never get enough of pretty cakes, no matter how long ago our wedding was! The cake design was one of those details that had me stumped for the longest time throughout our planning process, so I still enjoy finding unique designs that may inspire some of you.
This cake immediately made me think, now why didn’t I think of that?
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
The other day I discovered inchmark, a ridiculously and wonderfully pretty blog written by a former senior art director of Martha Stewart Kids and Martha Stewart Living. Her name is Brooke, just like mine, so naturally, I love her. (We Brookes gotta stick together, ya know?) This blog is chock full of beautiful visuals and lots of yummy wedding ideas (even if they’re not all specifically intended for weddings).
After looking at so many wedding cakes over the last year and a half and thinking that fondant was the only solution to making a cake look pretty, reading this inchmark post was a refreshing reminder that plain old icing can still look really pretty (and not necessarily like a weird store-bought cake wreck). This cake for Brooke’s 3-year-old daughter, Bee (yes, Bee!) is absolutely darling and lovely, but totally simple, and it could absolutely be translated to a wedding cake.
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
In designing our wedding invitations, I was definitely at a huge advantage over other DIY brides, and for that I know I am very, very lucky. I design wedding invitations and stationery for a living, and have been a graphic designer for six years, so there wasn’t a lot of guessing about how to begin or what to include. But thinking back to when I first designed wedding invitations for a friend over four years ago, I remember how overwhelming it was, which is what a lot of you may be going through. I thought I’d share some of my knowledge with you all, since it seems like a lot of brides go the DIY route for their invitations. I am certainly not claiming to be the end-all, be-all authority of wedding invitations… but I hope this can help a few of you out who may be struggling.
1. Make sure you give yourself enough time.
Designing, printing, assembling, addressing, and mailing your invitations will take a very long time… I’m not going to lie. It may be one of the most time-consuming tasks you will encounter while wedding planning. I’m not trying to scare you — just prepare you! If you think you can complete the task from start to finish in a month, give yourself two months. Everyone works at their own pace but it is better to err on the side of caution and give yourself plenty of time to account for your learning curve. A good rule of thumb is to mail your invitations 6-8 weeks before your wedding date, leaving your guests at least a month to reply before your response date, so try to plan things out so everything is completed several weeks ahead of this timeline in the event that you run into roadblocks along the way. I mailed our invitations on July 22 and our reply by date was September 1 (for our September 20 wedding), so our guests had ample time to let us know whether or not they would be attending.
2. Think carefully about your “reply by” date. Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
I professed my vendor crush on Twigs & Honey a while back, and had such a great experience working with Myra, who created the beautiful flower for my hair that you see above. Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Since I bought my wedding dress a full year before our wedding, I had plenty of time to search for the perfect accessories. The only problem was that I’m not so great at accessorizing on a day-to-day basis… it did take me a bit of time to decide what I was looking for, but I managed to achieve just the look I wanted.
On the wedding day, I was so pleased with how all of my jewelry and accessories came together; I decided to continue my ring photo shoot to capture some great jewelry shots to show you all. First up: my earrings from Lunessa.
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
{ Sidenote: sorry I’ve been so late following up with this video series! We had some technical difficulties over here at Cupcake headquarters, but we’re back in business now… so, as we are still patiently awaiting our pro wedding pics, I’ll get back to sharing a few moments of our day in film! }
If you’re not from the Philadelphia area, chances are you’ve never heard of the Mummers. Basically, the Mummer’s Parade is a New Year’s Day tradition here in Philadelphia, one that I attended every year as a kid. The Mummers consist of elaborately costumed Philadelphians who perform up Broad Street; there are different “clubs” in four different categories, the best of which (in my humble opinion) is the String Bands category. There is just nothing like hearing the music of banjos, saxophones, accordians, and strings and seeing men in gaudy, sequined costumes dancing their hearts out amidst thousands of drunk Philadelphian spectators on a freezing January day. My mom’s second-cousin is the captain of Fralinger, the string band that has taken home the first place prize for their performance for a record SEVEN years in a row, so we take our Mummers pretty seriously in my family. There was no way I couldn’t include the Mummers somehow in our wedding day. Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Can you believe I have been blogging on Weddingbee for over a year and I have yet to show you my ring? What kind of poor excuse for a bride am I, right? Well, since everyone else is doing it (and yes, if they were going to jump off of a bridge, I would do that, too), I figured there was no better time than now to show you my bling. With the help of Anne Ruthman’s amazing tutorial and my beloved new Panasonic Lumix TZ-5 point-and-shoot (by far the best purchase we made for our honeymoon), I went to town.
While in Brooklyn visiting Brother and SIL Cupcake in November, we went to Brooklyn Flea and picked up this amazing vintage letterpress type drawer. It was a great prop to showcase my rings! We are planning on somehow making it into a table of some sort one day. I’ll leave that up to Mr. C to figure out…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
I didn’t have the time to create any then, but I kept the idea in the back of my mind, and with the hopes of having a semi-homemade Christmas, I decided to make some wreaths as gifts for some family members. I am really excited at how they turned out and everyone seemed to like their gifts (at least I hope so!). This is an easy project that could possibly spruce up a ceremony or reception space, bridal shower, or newlywed nest, or perhaps it would be a nice hostess gift for someone who hosted a shower for you… so I thought I’d share the how-to with the hive!
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Lots of bees have done the “post-wedding chop” — after growing their hair out for the big day, they got out the scissors after the honeymoon to don a new (easier) look. Me? Well, I have straightened my naturally curly hair for about the last 7 years, and in doing so I have always kept it shorter so it was easier to straighten (but I no longer liked it curly while it was short — it created an unattractive triangle-head effect). Since growing my hair out a bit longer for the wedding, it became more time consuming to flat iron, so I started wearing it curly again and I’ve been getting lots of compliments. I’m still getting used to it and trying to decide if I like it, but since it’s a little longer at least I don’t look too much like a triangle-head.
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Mr. Cupcake and I have always been pretty realistic with our Christmas gifts for each other — we don’t go overboard buying each other frivolous items that we don’t need, and we always have a modest spending limit for each other (I think our highest ever was $150). This year, due to the suffering economy, we decided to cap things off at just $50 each; times are tight and neither of us really needs anything, and, as we all know, it’s the thought that counts. We were trying to figure out lots of ways to simplify the holidays this year and not go broke. We had many discussions about buying a tree this year, wondering if it was worth spending the extra money when we won’t even be home on Christmas day. And then, the unthinkable (but frighteningly possible) happened:
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Every bride knows the rule of thumb that about 20% of invited guests will decline your wedding invitation. I’m not going to say that we weren’t a little relieved that all 227 of our invited guests couldn’t attend our wedding — we were very pleased when our final count came in at 182, just about exactly the number of people we had hoped for. However, having now had some time to reflect on those who were there to share in such an important day in our lives (and those who weren’t), it’s hard not to take some people’s absence a little personally.
It’s funny how we “hope” for a certain number of “will not attend”s, but don’t realize how much some declines can hurt until faced with them head on. I mentioned in my Post-Wedding Vows that I now vow to never send a response card back with a decline without including a personal note. There’s something about receiving a decline with no explanation that makes a couple wonder if the guest has a reason… or do they just not want to come? There’s a point where you stop looking at the numbers (of guests and dollars) and you start to realize that no dollar amount or extra room at a table can take the place of the people you wish were there for you on such an important day. Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Now that I’ve been a bride, I feel as if I have peered into the world that only brides truly know. You know the world I mean: the world in which you feel the frustration of waiting for those last few late RSVPers… where you wish people would stop asking you questions that they could figure out for themselves if they would just look at the wedding website you spent weeks making… the world in which you curse the day that you slaved over making 200 ceremony programs, when in the end only half of them were ever used. If you have not experienced these frustrations yourself, you have surely heard other brides express them at some point or another.
Since I can now tuck the role of “bride” under my cap and I’ve experienced the many tribulations that come along with the title, I am vowing to do my best to be the least high-maintenance and most generous wedding guest I can possibly be. Ladies, if you’d like to join me in my quest to make the lives of brides everywhere just a little easier, please, repeat after me:
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
Our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner made everything feel really real. After all of the planning and coordinating and nitpicking of details, the first “official” events of our wedding weekend were upon us, and I was completely excited. Our rehearsal at the church went smoothly (and was actually really fun, I thought!), and afterwards everyone made it to the Ship Inn in time for a delicious dinner and a lovely time with our families and bridal party, hosted by Mr. Cupcake’s parents. Read more…
Mrs. Cupcake, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Construction Project ManagerEngagement Date: February 10, 2007Wedding Date: September, 2008Blogging Since: December 7, 2007Venue: The Desmond Hotel in Malvern, PAAbout Me: Mr. Cupcake and I hit it off at a Halloween party and immediately began a long-distance relationship. After two years, he moved to my neck of the woods, and a year and a half after that, he proposed at the “place we fell in love.” I am a true perfectionist who enjoys designing and creating more work for myself, so wedding planning is my perfect outlet. Mr. Cupcake and I are both old souls, and we hope to weave that aspect of our personalities into our wedding day.
