Mrs. Tartlet, Rochester, MIAge and Occupation: Age & Occupation: 27, Post-Doctoral Research FellowFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Medical StudentEngagement Date: May 2, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: The Royal Park HotelAbout Me: I'm an exuberant gal from the Midwest with a penchant for Neuroscience and anything sparkly. I'm not afraid to poke fun at myself, and I'm a believer that given the right pair of shoes, a girl can conquer the world. While an interest in the sciences threw Mr. Tartlet and me together (again, and again, until it finally stuck), we share a love for many things---food, video games, car dancing, food, bad puns, travel, did I mention food?---that ultimately led us to where we are now, less than five months from becoming Mr. and Mrs. We're planning a laid-back, romantic, garden-inspired affair with organic and quirky touches that reflect our love for the unexpected!
There was serious cause for celebration at chez Tartlet last week because our RSVP list is finally complete! Oh, memories *cue hazy flashback*: our save the dates were sent a year before the wedding. We mailed ourinvitations in February, and set our RSVP deadline a month before the wedding. Our guaranteed numbers are due 2 weeks before the wedding, which allowed us 2 weeks to hunt down and conquer any delinquent invitees. I’m a gal who appreciates data sets, so it’s no surprise that I looked for statistics while I was in the throes of weighing how many guests to invite vs. how many to expect. Following in the footsteps of Miss Sloth, here’s the statistical breakdown for our wedding:
Total guests invited: 86; 13 of which were +1s (we gave this option to those who were in long-term relationships or who would otherwise not know anyone else at the wedding)
Ms. Sloth, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 35, Account Manager and Fashion BloggerFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Design AdminEngagement Date: December 25, 2009Wedding Date: May 2011Venue: Bartram's GardenAbout Me: I'm an internet junkie and music snob with a good eye for a bargain. I couldn't live without thrift store shopping, cheeseburgers, sushi, Coke Zero, websites devoted to silly photos of baby animals, Photoshop, and Mr. Sloth. Speaking of which, he and I are a pair of goofball homebody nerds who love our beagle (the most ridiculously adorable dog EVER) to an embarrassing degree. We're planning a low-key and intimate yet festive and quirky outdoor wedding with DIY details and deeply personal touches, and it's all taking place in the city where we fell in love and call home: Philadelphia.
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!
Remember when we invited the president, the pope, and Mickey Mouse to our wedding? And we heard back from both Walt Disney World and Disneyland? Six months later, I had begun to give up hope on the president, when I found this in our mailbox the other day:
Not sure if you can tell by the photo, but the return address is printed via thermography. The text is beautiful and raised. Read more…
Mrs. Elephant, Dallas, TXAge and Occupation: 27, Financial Operations AnalystFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, IT Student/Store ManagerEngagement Date: March 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: The Tribute Golf ClubAbout Me: I'm a Philly native creating roots deep in the heart of Texas. I might be a little obsessed capturing those Kodak moments of anything and everything (mainly on vacations). I've become more of a gamer thanks to Mr. Elephant, who I met online and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with. We are planning a wedding based on our favorite colors, blue and green, with a travel theme for 150 of our closest friends and family. Hopefully our long (2-year) engagement won't kill me!
We all go through it. We send out our invites and then patiently wait every day to check the mail and see those RSVPs come in. At first it’s exciting because you get several cards a day from guests that are so excited to share the day with you. Then the responses go from a flow to a trickle, some days not receiving even one card.
The due date comes and goes, and there are still some slackers that you have yet to hear from. You and your family start making calls, sending emails, texts, and Facebook messages—anything just to get a response. Is it really that hard to put a self addressed and stamped card back in the mail??
Mrs. Eggs Benedict, SeattleAge and Occupation: 29, AttorneyFiance's Age and Occupation: 35, AttorneyEngagement Date: December 5, 2009Wedding Date: February 2011Venue: IslandWoodAbout Me: I'm a Northwest girl who spends my time goofing around with Mr. Eggs Benedict and our dog, hiking, traveling, drinking wine and planning a wedding that will showcase the best of what the Pacific Northwest has to offer. I also love photography, beating Mr. Eggs Bene at Mario Kart, and watching the most ridiculous natural disaster flicks you can think of (seriously, how can you deny the awesomeness that is The Core or 2012?? That's right, you can't). We are planning our weekend wedding adventure at an environmental educational center, and I can't wait for the fun to begin!
When I first thought about using our unconventional RSVP cards, I was a little bit nervous to see how people would respond to them. Would people understand my quirky sense of humor? Would they realize that I was trying to set the tone for the wedding as lighthearted and fun? Or would they just think I was crazy?
Luckily, everyone loved them! And we ended up getting some pretty great responses back. Several people said I should make a graph out of all of the responses, but I thought it would be more fun to show you a few of my favorites.
Like this one, which cracked me up as soon as I pulled it out of the envelope:
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.
It’s funny how you can be thinking about one thing in your own little corner of weddingland, and other people can be thinking the same thing at the same time, and you aren’t aware of it!
We want our invites to be fun. You’ve seen some preliminary sketches (more to come on that saga later this week!) so you know we haven’t gone totally formal. We decided that fun options were very “us.” While Googling “Funny RSVP wording” I found this post on the Weddingbee Boards (everything comes back to the ‘bee!). Pay special attention to post #5 by SpaceC06: she posted RSVP options for various themes, ie “Ready for My Close-Up / I’ll Never Work in this Town Again” for a Hollywood or theatre-themed wedding.
It made me wonder… could we figure out cute options that are related to books and reading? We had been hoping to have about 5 or 6 options, a few yeses, a few nos, and at least one “Will express my joy through art on the back of this card.” Neither of us will die if we go with “Joyfully Accept/Regretfully Decline/Regretfully Accept” etc., but it’d be fun to bring the books in yet again.
Mrs. Meerkat, Kalamazoo, MI/Riviera MayaAge and Occupation: 30, Application EngineerFiance's Age and Occupation: 23, IT ConsultantEngagement Date: July 26, 2008Wedding Date: December 2010Venue: Al Cielo / La LagunaAbout Me: I’m a tech-savvy tomboy with an affinity for hot tea and good sushi. Us Meerkats are just a couple fun lovin’ geeks from Michigan. We love anything having to do with movies, books, video games or technology and we hold a special place in our hearts for our two very spoiled shih-tzus, Wicket and Bravo. We also LOVE to travel. We love it so much it only took us 12 hours after we got engaged to decide to have a destination wedding. We are working our little Meerkat tails off planning a rustic-chic, travel themed destination wedding in the Riviera Maya with a semi-formal, vintage-turned-modern, outdoor at home reception back here in Michigan.
In my last post I showed you our at home reception invitations I have started working on. They are coming along great (wait until you see them!) but I am stuck on the RSVP wording. The traditional styles of wordings are just not the fun atmosphere we want this party to be. I have seen a few really fun styles that I L-O-V-E!
One of the first ones I fell for was Mrs. Nacho’s:
When I read her post I LOLed. I love the personalized nature of the choices. “Better than a Saturday night at Denny’s”—awesome.
Of course there is also the ever popular Mad Libs wording: 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!
Obviously, our wedding has a bit of a whimsical theme interlaced throughout the vintage and Southern and garden decor. We tried to get the guests on board with the whimsy with a little message in our invitations. You see, the bottom of the response card read, “Please use the reverse side of this card to provide marriage advice, whimsical doodles, flattering caricatures and/or well wishes!” The back of the card was blank. We have now received about a third of our RSVPs, and the entertainment only continues!
We received a special response card in the mail today…from none other than Sister Lioness, who designed the invitations in the first place! Sister Lioness lives in NYC, and her boyfriend lives in Florida. I sent one invitation addressed to both of them, and Sister Lioness informed me that they planned to open it “together” via Skype. Read more…
Mrs. Hippo, New York City/Dallas, TXAge and Occupation: 34, Event Planner for a Non-Profit Fiance's Age and Occupation: 35, Finance ITEngagement Date: August 8, 2009Wedding Date: March 2011Venue: Samuel Lynne Galleries and Marc EventsAbout Me: I’m a thirty-something bride living in New York City and planning a modern-ish wedding in Dallas, Texas. I love trashy reality television (Jersey Shore, anyone?), online shopping, Sunday brunch, Central Park, and random celebrity spottings on the streets of Manhattan. While I love NYC, I miss good Tex-Mex, my college friends, central A/C, and being in close proximity to a Target. I’m thrilled to finally be planning an event that’s not work-related and to be marrying my best friend in what I hope will be a unique and personal ceremony followed by a reception with plenty of good food, good drinks, and dancing (regardless if it’s good or not).
With a little more than a month until the wedding, our RSVPs are coming in steadily, but I have to admit…I’m a little disappointed. Even though we are still awaiting a ton of RSVPs, we’ve gotten more of these than I would have liked:
Drat! What’s funny (OK, it’s not really funny) is that the people I had in my head as automatic yeses, haven’t necessarily been yeses. Read more…
Mrs. Ostrich, San Francisco/HawaiiAge and Occupation: 30, Fashion Buyer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 38, CopywriterEngagement Date: October 4, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: Sweet ceremony by the sea and sunset celebration on the North Shore of HawaiiAbout Me: Born in the city of angels and residing in the city by the bay, I’m a fearless fashion buyer by day, a passionate blog author by night and a dreamy bride-to-be in between. I thank my lucky stars to live in such a stunning city that gives me gifts like organic honey lavender ice cream, movie nights in the park, tucked away beaches, legendary record stores, '80s dance parties, awesome sports teams, stellar flea markets, and vintage bookshops. Oh, and I love to dance! We always find every excuse to escape to the beach, and decided a little seaside wedding in Hawaii is our idea of bliss. Full of our favorite people, music, food and sparkly lights, this is one sunset celebration we will always remember.
I’m officially on the hunt for the last of our RSVP cards.
All in all, Mr. O and I are super impressed with the response rate of our fam and friends. Look at how they did! 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!
Mrs. Hamster recently explained the importance of numbering your response cards. Apparently it’s quite common for guests to send in their RSVP and simply forget to put their name on it. I’m sure we will have our fair share of RSVP errors, so if there’s something we can do on our end to minimize the number of mishaps, I’m all for it! I am definitely in favor of a little extra work to save my sanity in the long run. Basically, I’m just trying to prevent this kind of a situation:
Mrs. Earrings, Fresno, CA/ Nelson, New ZealandAge and Occupation: 20, Student, Wannabe Writer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 19, Photography StudentEngagement Date: February 14, 2010Wedding Date: January 2011Venue: Gardens of the WorldAbout Me: I'm a girl from down under who grew up in Indonesia and I'm marrying a California boy. I'm addicted to all things sweet, have never met a chocolate silk pie than can get the better of me, and have dreams of one day being a fulltime novelist. I go weak in the knees for lace, tea cups, and a beautifully crafted sentence. When I get excited about something (whether it is historical linguistics or the Beatles) I tend to go overboard in research, and planning this wedding is no different. Mr. Earrings is my high school sweetheart, my best friend, and somehow we combine all our quirks into one big happy mess.
As the last of the RSVPs trickled in recently I couldn’t help feeling a little…sad. Because there are always going to be some people that can’t make it and, in our case, that number of people is fairly high. I guess that is what happens when the majority of your friends and family are spread around the world.
Our final guest breakdown is as follows:
143 people were invited
97 people will be attending
3 of those people are “his” guests
73 are “my” guests
21 are “our” guests
Almost every single person not attending is either a mutual friend from overseas or from Mr E’s side of the family. Including his brother—who was going to be his best man, but then had to cancel his flight because of personal reasons. Which just sucks on so many levels. Read more…
Mrs. Cardigan, AustinAge and Occupation: 21, Student/Soon-to-be Special Education TeacherFiance's Age and Occupation: 20, Student/Soon-to-be Accounting Systems AnalystEngagement Date: August 16, 2009Wedding Date: January 2011Venue: Vintage VillasAbout Me: I'm a native Austinite who was raised as a die-hard Aggie. Luckily, I'm a pretty persuasive girl because I managed to convince my high school boyfriend (now fiance!), Mr. Cardigan, to ditch his hardcore Longhorn ways and join me up at A&M, where we currently reside with our adorable dogs, Cullen & Ranger. We're currently planning a bright, cheery wedding with a ridiculous amount of DIY projects that I can't wait to tackle! I love crafting in any form, reading, and margaritas (I think I love them the most!). Organization is what keeps me sane and I love helping others, which is probably why I ended up as an education major. It gets a little chaotic sometimes when you're planning a wedding among all of the papers, projects, finals, and certification exams, but we're having the time of our lives and we can't wait to get started on our journey as husband and wife - and we're so excited to share our wedding with the hive!
Well, we’re officially less than three weeks out from our wedding and we just now have a final head count for our guest list. I swear, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get people to commit whether or not they’re coming—people can be so wishy-washy!
But, it’s over and done and I lived to tell the tale (I wasn’t sure I would for a while there!). I remember that when we were first making the guest list, I was really curious about general acceptance rates for our time of the year. Typically you hear between 50-75% acceptance, but that’s a pretty wide margin and is pretty much completely useless. Plus, I figured ours might be a bit different since our wedding is so close to the holidays! So, I’m here to share what our numbers ended up being, in hopes that it might help some of you out who are planning your guest list now!
Total guests invited: 154 Guests who weren’t actually invited but managed to worm their way into the final count anyways: 3 (note: I’m not including these three guests in the percentages since they technically weren’t originally included in our guest count) Total “yes” RSVPs: 58 Total “no” RSVPs: 8 Number of guests we had to track down by phone: 88, or 57% (OMG! SERIOUSLY?!) Total guests attending: 104, or 68% Read more…
Mrs. Pashmina, NYC/Catalina Island, CAAge and Occupation: 28, Arts EducationFiance's Age and Occupation: 34, IT AdministratorEngagement Date: April 26th, 2009Wedding Date: July 2010Venue: Catalina Country Club, Catalina Island, CaliforniaAbout Me: I'm a laid-back Cali girl who moved to NYC for school, and ended up staying for love. My fiance is a quick-witted Jersey boy, a self-proclaimed Foodie and the funniest man I've ever met. Together we love exploring the city streets embarking on our next misadventure---and yes, this often involves eating off food carts and trying "the next big thing". I'm the girl in the sundress, snapping photos and collecting trinkets of memorabilia along the way. As a girly girl at heart, I am excited about our romantic natural island wedding incorporating our American & Filipino traditions.
A few months before we ordered our invitations we finalized our invite list. Initially you might think this would be a quick task since we were hoping to only have 75 people. But think again! It wasn’t at all.
We really had to pare down and limit the invites. This was fine with me and my groom since we really wanted a small, intimate wedding but the parents were a little tricky. Each of the parents had different ideas about who had to be invited. My parents are divorced and have small families on each side, while Mr. P’s parents are married and come from large families. Our unequal family size complicated things because it had to be “fair” in terms of number of invites, but it also had to be fair in the degree of the relationship. My parents couldn’t be inviting their co-workers while Mr. P’s family wasn’t able to invite his aunts! Read more…
Mrs. Elephant, Dallas, TXAge and Occupation: 27, Financial Operations AnalystFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, IT Student/Store ManagerEngagement Date: March 29, 2009Wedding Date: April 2011Venue: The Tribute Golf ClubAbout Me: I'm a Philly native creating roots deep in the heart of Texas. I might be a little obsessed capturing those Kodak moments of anything and everything (mainly on vacations). I've become more of a gamer thanks to Mr. Elephant, who I met online and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with. We are planning a wedding based on our favorite colors, blue and green, with a travel theme for 150 of our closest friends and family. Hopefully our long (2-year) engagement won't kill me!
I get so excited when I head to the mailbox and see a package! I shouldn’t be that surprised because I have been ordering things left and right for this wedding, but it’s so exciting to see something other than bills and junk mail.
The latest package came all the way from Hong Kong!
