Weddingbee Blog

According to my wedding checklist, we need to start thinking about invitations. I’ve been thinking about invitations for a while now, but I haven’t found anything that fits the bill. Here is what I want: letterpress invitations on ivory paper with some kind of vine motif, in autumn colors (I tend to like brown or plum the best). Here is what I’ve found so far, starting with some designs from Wedding Paper Divas:

“Vibrant Vineyard” invite from WeddingPaperDivas

PROs: I love the color, the vineyard motif and the writing. They’re also affordable, which is always a plus!

CONs: I prefer a vertical layout, and this is horizontal. Also these are digital offset printing (so, they’re not letterpress), and they seem a little informal to me.

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Finding a venue was one of the most challenging parts of planning the wedding. I really wanted a vineyard setting, and with a guest list of about 200 people, it limited us a lot. My dream would have been a Napa wedding, but Napa comes with a hefty price tag. It’s also very hard to find a winery setting with enough space for an indoor reception for 200, and I wanted an indoor reception in case the weather didn’t cooperate. After hours of searching on herecomestheguide.com and Yelp, we narrowed it down to 5 possible venues. Three of them were wineries, and they all happened to be in the Pleasanton/Livermore area, which is conveniently located in between our parents’ houses. Apparently, it’s the new up-and-coming wine country, and it’s much more affordable than Napa. Here were the wineries we checked out:

• Palm Event Center (Pleasanton): Palm Event Center is located right next to Mitchell Katz winery, and it features rustic wine barrel decor and a beautiful palm lined entrance. One thing that struck me about the place is how all-inclusive everything was – it comes with catering, linens, an in-house DOC (for a small charge)… it sounded great to our overwhelmed Jelly ears! This was the first venue we visited, and Mr. Jelly fell in love with it right away. I loved it too, but needed to shop around more before committing to a venue.

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About a month after we got engaged, my parents threw us an engagement party at their house in Gilroy. The party was absolutely perfect and brimming with love. We had so many family friends helping out in different ways that it made it really special and unique. For example, my mom’s friend H did the flower centerpieces for all the tables. She is so talented!

Then each of my mom’s friends brought a different dish, so it was potluck-style! Who needs catering when you have a dozen Romanian ladies who know their cookin’? My mouth starts watering just thinking about it.
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A few days before the proposal day, Mr. Jelly told me that he was going to take me whale watching at Stinson Beach. He said his friend Ryan had a coworker who knew all about whale watching and we would go with them. I was a little suspicious (OK – a lot suspicious) because Stinson Beach is a special place for us—we had one of our first dates there and also celebrated our 5 year anniversary there. The few days before the proposal, I kept looking for clues and hints but I really wasn’t sure. Then, the morning of, Mr. Jelly said we were meeting Ryan for donuts in San Rafael before we headed to Stinson Beach. That’s when I figured the proposal wasn’t going to happen after all, since his friend coming with us was now a reality.

Little did I know, this was all part of Mr. Jelly’s plan to throw me off.
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No, silly, not that jelly.

THIS Jelly!

Hello, I’m Miss Jellyfish, but you can call me Jelly! I’ve been a devoted Weddingbee reader since shortly after Mr. Jelly and I got engaged a year ago, and I even started blogging with the hopes that I might one day apply to be a bee myself. I feel so honored to be part of this amazing community and I’m excited to share my wedding plans with all of you! But before we get into the nitty-gritty wedding stuff, here’s some background on the Jellies:
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