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I just found the greatest invention known to man color-obsessed brides. OK, that statement might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but that’s pretty much how I felt when I found Whatsitscolor.
Let me start from the semi-beginning. I was super excited when I chose navy as our primary wedding color because I thought, “That’s so easy! Navy is so simple!” Turns out, there are millions of shades of navy and there is no such thing as just “navy.” I realized this when I started designing things for the wedding and found so many great templates and pictures I could use online that looked like they were the same color, but when put next to each another were very different. I most recently found this baby, and I’m pretty much obsessed:
Image via stock.xchng / Isn’t she a beaut?
And I loved her! I immediately began fidgeting around to see what kind of monogram/date I could fit in, when I realized my standard navy blue shade looked nothing like this one. I’d been trying to match everything I downloaded to one, but seriously it is impossible. There are just too many colors.
When we first started planning our wedding, I had no intention of creating a wedding website. I’d never really heard of them, and had no idea what weddings had to do with websites anyway. (This was clearly before I knew everything that the internet world had to offer me as far as wedding advice was concerned.)
After some planning and time, I decided to create one for a couple of reasons:
I haven’t been to too too many weddings, but in some of the ones I have, the registration information was included with the informal invitations. I hadn’t thought anything about that again until I read on the Weddingbee boards that it’s not really good wedding etiquette. (Who knew?) With that, I then decided pretty much to create a website so that our wedding registry information could be translated appropriately.
After over a year of being engaged, and trying on probably over 50 lace dresses, it finally happened:
I GOT A WEDDING DRESS!!
I didn’t think I’d ever catch Mr. Woodpecker reading Weddingbee, but apparently men are full of surprises and I found out he had already my first two dress posts. That sneaky Woodpecker!
To be totally honest, getting into shape for the wedding was not something that had even crossed my mind until about a month ago (I know, I know). You see, I tried to tell myself that because I didn’t want to lose weight (I don’t), and because I eat healthy (I pretty much do, just out of habit), it was enough. But the truth? Even though I did those things, I wasn’t getting enough exercise, and I had lost touch with one of my favorite hobbies…
I used to love running. I never ran competitively, but running was my outlet. I used to burn stress and calories away and clear my mind. But somewhere between school and work I had let it go, and now I’m at the point where I leave when it’s dark out and and come home when it’s dark out. I’m not comfortable running in the dark, even though we live in a safe neighborhood, so I’m pretty excited about joining a gym!!!
Is anyone else completely intimidated by the gym?
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
Sometimes I have a big wedding fear: will all my crazy ideas go awry and not look coordinated on our wedding day? So I threw together this inspiration board to help myself see the “bigger picture,” and I have to say, I’m excited!!
Sometimes I get worried that this beach wedding style won’t be “formal” enough for a wedding, but I think I really just too need to concentrate on how to incorporate some elegance as well.
1. Image created via The Wedding Chicks 2. Image via Love & Lavender / Photo by Lavender & Twine 3. Image via Love & Lavender / Photo by Lavender & Twine / Design by Paper and Thread Studio 4. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Corey Hendrickson 5. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Gabriel Ryan Photography 6. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Jonathan Wherrett 7. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Andrea Polito 8. Image via Martha Stewart media boards 9. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Lauren Methia Photography 10. Created by me 11. Image via All Women’s Talk 12. Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Corey Hendrickson
Have you made an inspiration board? Have you stuck to your original ideas or has it evolved over time?
I’ve always enjoyed playing around on the computer with graphics and fonts. Most days during wedding planning, I wish I had the educational background of a graphic designer so that I could effortlessly whip out graphics in a matter of minutes. But alas, my training is in psychology, so the best I can do is to try and talk myself down after spending countless hours of unsuccessfully trying to craft graphics of my own.
But, I still have managed to have some success and fun with it. How? GIMP. Don’t get me wrong. Photoshop is the best; it has so many features and actions you can use that it’s hard to top. But at hundreds of dollars, it wasn’t in my budget (only the 30-day free trial was), and by the time my trial was over, I had done enough researching and playing around that I could transfer a bunch of what I knew to GIMP. GIMP is completely free, and while it certainly doesn’t have all that Photoshop does, it has enough to play around with. Today, I’m going to give you an easy demonstration of my wedding frame sign.
There are tons of free image sites out there. My personal favorite is sxu.hu, and I’ve been using that one for years. I found my labels for this particular project by searching for “free vector images” and then searching for “labels” on each of the websites. I downloaded a free PDF of images that looks like this:
All you need to do is search for an image that is the same shape as the one you want. I was searching for weeks for one like this one, and was glad to find it.
So for this project, you’ll need your free GIMP program and an image of your choice.
Once you have downloaded your image, you want to open it up with GIMP.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Deciding to have a cookie bar at the wedding was a no-brainer for us. Mr. Woodpecker loves cookies, and my family loves to bake! My mom was always baking throughout my childhood, so I knew having her and my other family members contribute to a cookie-bar favor would be perfect for us.
A few weeks ago, I got the wooden tongs for our cookie bar in the mail. As I ripped them open and jumped up and down to show Mr. Woodpecker, he gave me the “crazy” look. “You’re really excited about this cookie thing, aren’t you?” he asked.
Of course, I’m excited…they’re cookies! I am also excited, however, to finally have a project done. I finally gathered all of the supplies for our cookie bar and decided to create a mock-up so that I could put this project to rest until right before the wedding, when I would put everything together and make all of the labels.
It, of course, did not come our exactly as planned, but I am happy with my final results:
Personal image
I had initially purchased paper to do a wrap-around label on the bottom of the inside of the jar. After scouring several craft stores, however, I could not find any patterned paper to match our colors, so I decided to try ribbon. I think I like this idea better—it’s simpler. And I like simplicity. I am going for a similar look to this for our cookie bar:
Since my thoughts for the wedding have been coming together, I’ve been trying to spend a little less time on the wedding/events board of Pinterest. It’s so hard, though, because there are just sooo many amazing ideas. I’d say about 50% of my wedding-planning designs originated from this site. It. is. incredible.
Recently, I’ve been trying to pick out a guestbook idea. Simple enough, right? Not with Pinterest. There are so many ideas! I really want the guestbook to be something that we can display and reflect upon in our home far after the wedding, so I’m putting a good deal of thought into this. Some ideas:
A fabulous new idea is the guestbook puzzle, where you have guests sign their names/ write well wishes on something that you can have fun doing with your new love for the rest of your life!! This is just so sweet.
Image via Etsy by Bella Puzzles Too
After scouring Weddingbee, The Knot, and Pinterest for months, I was super excited to get started on my first DIY project:
Personal photo
Monogrammed cocktail napkins!
You might have noticed that throughout my wedding planning, there has been one (pretty huge, if I do say so myself) thing missing:
We are not going on a honeymoon. Not now, anyway. 
For some reason, this doesn’t bother me at all, and I am still super excited about our day. So why no tropical sun? There are a couple reasons, but this is the main one:
My wedding shoes were literally the very first decision I made about the wedding. Before I knew when it was, where it was, and who was coming, I had my shoes…and here is our story…
I have always been a shoe girl. I love pretty shoes. And I insist on a good heel. I’m short at 5’2″, but not too short, so wearing heels allows me some great height. I have no problem walking in heels and have been wearing them for years to work, to go out, and for everyday activities. So, it’s not surprising that wedding shoes to me were very important. Not only did they need to make for some fabulous photographs, but I wanted to feel pretty in them, and nothing less than a four-inch heel would do that for me.
As soon as I saw these Badgley Mischka shoes on a blog (I can’t remember where now!!), I knew they were it. They were gorgeous—freaking beautiful—and they came in gold.
Image via heels.com
Plus, they share a resemblance to Carrie Bradshaw’s pink Louboutin’s that she wore in the episode where where she has a big romantic sendoff with Big, and Miranda later has a baby.
They’re dooooooone!!!
And sent!
In the end, our save the dates weren’t bad at all. Sure, I wanted to be able to DIY every little thing myself, but in the end I decided that semi-designing them and saving most of my creative juices was just as good.
One of my most used wedding documents is the one I have called “wedding fonts.” I’ve been doing lots of little stationery projects…
Personal image
…and realized again how much I love me some beautiful font. Of course, because I am obsessive and crazy, I decided that I couldn’t use all of them, so I picked my two favorites and am using those for our wedding stationery, with perhaps a few more supporting fonts here and there.
Recently, we hit the eight-month mark for our wedding. On the day I realized this, I had a quick panic attack about all that we had to get done and quickly hopped on my laptop to get something done.
I was skimming over all of the amazing inspiration on files I had on my computer, as well as my Pinterest images, when I started to get overwhelmed thinking about all of the projects I could and couldn’t do. When Mr. Woodpecker saw me hyperventilating over yet another guestbook pin, he reminded me again that I needed to stop picking out ideas and start DOING things. He’s so smart!
I decided to get things together. I needed to start with our colors, and ended up with these:
Image created via Colourlovers
Navy and golden yellow/gold will be the main colors. Initially, I felt like I needed to have green as one of our colors because of the decor of our venue. But in the end I think these colors match our venue, so I’m happy.
Here’s some of my inspiration for this color scheme:
Our save the dates marked the beginning of my on-the-edge-of-Bridezilla-ness.
But once they arrived in the mail, I couldn’t have been happier.
Personal photo
Back when we first got engaged and I found out about The Wedding Chicks (they have fabulous free templates over there), I instantly fell in love with these save the dates:
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Miss Woodpecker, Branford, CT Age and Occupation: 27, Graduate Student/School Psych Intern Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Glazier Engagement Date: Christmas Eve 2010 Wedding Date: September 2012 Venue: Owenego Beach Club About Me: I’m a Connecticut native planning a coastal beach wedding in our hometown. My loves in life include: food, family and the fiance. I’m a planner/organization fiend, by nature and by addiction, and am obsessed with all things wedding and design. We're trying to put personal touches on everything we can in our wedding, to really make it personal to us, our family, and friends. In the middle of wedding planning, I’m also finishing up grad school, and will be starting a brand new career within weeks of our wedding. It’s going to be an adventure!
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