Weddingbee

When I brought up the photo booth idea to my mom early in the wedding planning process, I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be, but she thought it was a great idea. However, she felt very strongly that if we were going to get a photo booth, we should stick with a traditional, old-school style booth with strips of 4 black & white photos. Although I LOVE the looks of these photos, I was also torn because I wanted the photos to be favors for our guests and I wanted to somehow leave our “mark” on them, like the digital photo booth photos from Mrs. Hibiscus’ wedding:

However, for the sake of authenticity, I decided I could do without having our “branding” on the photos like those from a digital photo booth, and knew I could find another way to make these a unique favor. After doing my research, I found a local photo booth vendor who rents classic photo booths, and after a lot of price comparisons, this was definitely the best deal I could find. I found other more affordable booths, but they were in NYC and would charge higher delivery fees, so I decided that staying local was best. They were also prompt to respond to my inquiry and the many questions I had, which is always a good sign.

We will have our photo booth for 4 hours, from the beginning of cocktail hour until an hour before the reception ends, and our guests can take unlimited photos during this time. There will also be an attendant nearby to help guests if there are problems. We paid a little extra to be able to have all of the images burned onto a disc for us to take home, since we want our guests to be able to take their photos home with them. And, bonus — they gave me the dimensions of the frame that is on the outside of the booth so I can design and print my own large-scale poster to insert. I haven’t gotten there quite yet, but I plan to design something that still looks like the retro photo booth signs we’re all used to seeing, while making it personalized for Mr. Cupcake and me (and letting our guests know that the photos are free and available until 10 p.m.!).

Since we can’t brand the actual photo strips with our names and wedding date, I came up with the idea of creating little photo mats for our guests to place their photo strips on. This makes them a little bit more of an interesting favor and gives it that personalized touch that I’m always trying to infuse into the wedding details.

I got out my handy Gocco and printed a little design at the bottom of a 2″ x 9.5″ piece of cardstock. (To make the most out of my Gocco and my time, I printed 2-up, which means I actually printed 2 designs side-by-side on a 4″ x 9.5″ inch piece of card stock that I later cut in half to be only 2″ wide). The silver ink on the teal and green card stock really came out beautifully (we’ll have two different types of mats to choose from, hence the two different colors):

Once the printing was all done and everything had time to dry, I cut the pieces down to 2″ wide by 9.5″ tall, and mounted them (with double-faced tape) to 2.5″ x 10″ pieces of card stock in an alternating color to create a pretty border. I am also going to add little strips of adhesive with tabs that guests can remove to expose the adhesive and place their photo strips to the mats. To illustrate how their photo mats will look in the end, I used an old photo strip that Mr. Cupcake and I had from a trip to HersheyPark a few years ago:

This project didn’t take long at all, and I love the way it will spruce up our favors. I will have these sitting in a basket directly next to the photo booth with a sign instructing guests what to do with their mats, so hopefully they’ll take advantage and these memories will last on fridges for years to come!

Are you getting a photo booth, creating your own makeshift booth, or foregoing this trend altogether?
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I printed all of the layouts on one page on a laser printer, and cut them down to size.

I decided to try to get two fun fact layouts out of each Gocco screen to get more bang for my buck, and planned out how I would register each napkin before I flashed the first screen.

Once the screen was flashed, I blocked off the first fun fact layout and inked up, then taped the second layout to the screen for use later on.

I set up the layout so that if I placed the napkin flush left and hanging off the top of the sticky mat, the layout would be centered.

This also proved useful, because enough of the napkin was hanging off the right side of the machine that I could hold it while lifting up the top of the Gocco unit so the multi-layered napkin didn’t stick to the ink.

This is what happened if I didn’t hold down the right side of the napkin after inking, risking a little smearing

Once I finished the first batch of napkins, I blocked off the second design with my ink blocking material at the bottom of the screen, and scraped the ink from my first design onto my second (as to not waste ink), then added a bit more ink for full coverage. I then taped a scrap piece of card stock over the screen-side of the first design so that no ink would come through the screen when I was printing the second design.

It worked like a charm, so I was able to utilize only 3 Gocco screens for 6 layouts.

Even Mr. Cupcake was excited at how great the napkins were turning out!

Alright, not so much, but he had had a long, tiring day….

After a few (okay, several) hours of hard work, all 600 napkins were done, and covering just about every surface of our apartment.

For your entertainment, here are the 6 facts I printed:

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 1:
The new Mr. and Mrs. first met at a Halloween costume party in 2003. They struck up a conversation while waiting in line for the rest room… and the rest is history.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 2:
The first two years of Brooke and Nick’s relationship were long-distance. Over those two years, approximately 23,296 miles were traveled between Lewisberry and Manayunk/Media to see each other.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 3:
The first movie Brooke and Nick went to see together was “Elf,” starring Will Ferrell. It was their second official date.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 4:
Early in their relationship while discussing books that they loved as kids, Brooke and Nick discovered that they shared the same favorite: “Big Dog, Little Dog” by P.D. Eastman.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 5:
Nick proposed to Brooke on February 10, 2007, while sitting amidst the life-sized game pieces outside of the Municipal Building in Center City, Philadelphia.

Brooke & Nick Fun Fact No. 6:
Nick’s love of history and Brooke’s knowledge of useless pop culture facts have led them to be a successful Quizzo duo. They go by the team name “Incredicouple.”

Are you “borrowing” most of your wedding detail ideas, or have you been able to come up with anything completely unique?
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The large clothespin table card holders were purchased at Michael’s and painted blue. I plan to punch subtle floral designs along the sides of the cards (the floral hole puncher thingamabob that I purchased is also by Martha), which I was going to do before taking these photos, but I spotted a centipede crawling in my general direction and ran for the hills (aka our bedroom). Anyway, enough rambling. Here is a sneak peek of what our table numbers will look like, minus a few last minute details (I have only finished four of them, and I plan to do at least twelve).

What types of table number ideas have you guys come up with?

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Space is limited to 30 guests (we could maybe squeeze in around 35, max) so please comment below with your e-mail address so that I can send you the evite!

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So, I gathered a majority of them (except the REALLY good ones), spent one last somber moment with them, and said my goodbyes.

It may sound silly, but it actually felt pretty good to get rid of these. We’re getting much closer to the wedding now, and it’s time that I stop looking for ideas and just focus on sticking with the ideas I have already come up with and getting things completed. Having so many bridal magazines in the apartment was just making me feel pressured to leave no stone unturned to ensure every detail of our wedding is absolutely perfect, but I have to realize that perfection is just not a reasonable expectation (nor is it necessary!). Getting the magazines out of our apartment feels like I have unloaded a lot of unnecessary wedding baggage, and now it’s time to just move forward and be happy with all of my decisions.

Has wedding planning started to clutter your living space…. and conscience?
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The vases are filled with coffee beans, which was inspired by Miss Cookie’s coffee addict post. I’m not a coffee drinker, but Mr. CC can’t start his day off without it, so it’s my ode to his daily obsession.

Speaking of our guestbook table, here are photos of our guestbook made by K&Company, which I bought at Michael’s with my 40% off coupon (I must’ve used one of those suckers every day last week bwahah). I just threw the first photo I could find of us in there, but I plan on swapping it out with another photo of us. I’m just not sure which one yet.

Materials used:One bag of coffee from Costco
Two cylinder vases from Michael’s
Set of birdseed eggs originally from Smith & Hawken (no longer for sale there)
Two faux manzanita branches originally from Smith & Hawken (I snagged the last two on the online shop)
Set of adorable birdies from the insanely talented Miss Shortcake

What decoration ideas have you guys come up with for your placecard and guestbook tables?

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This morning I was working on our budget and I was all proud of myself for figuring out ways we could cut costs, and then I got that voicemail, which kind of dampened my yay-everything-is-going-to-be-ok mood. I have a potential job lined up that I’ve been waiting to hear back from, so cross your fingers for me that it will work out soon so I can go back to obsessing about our wedding instead of my employment status! It’s weird not having to go to work in the morning and I’m actually looking forward to having time to devote to wedding craftiness. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise…preferably a bunny disguise.

So my question is, if I sent all of my co-workers (our company was only made up of 8 or so employees) STDs several months back and I won’t be remaining friendly with them after this whole situation went down, does it make me a horrible person if I decide to not invite them afterall? Should I just let them get the message once they don’t see an invite in the mail, or should I send them an e-mail/note saying we decided we had to cut the amount of guests because of our budget, etc. I just can’t justify inviting them after they’ve been lying to me and won’t even give me the time of day when I call or e-mail them, which hurts my feelings a lot since when we worked together they were always saying how lucky they were to have me and that we were like “family.”I just want to say thanks to all of the readers and bees on here. Without you guys, I’m not sure how I’d remain sane.

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