Mrs. Lemonade, Austin/San AntonioAge and Occupation: 28, BureaucratFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Music ManagementEngagement Date: December 21, 2007Wedding Date: April, 2009Blogging Since: August 22, 2008Venue: Country Club ceremony, ballroom receptionAbout Me: I’m a total wonkette who is lucky enough to be surrounded by her favorite things on a daily basis – awesome music, the great State of Texas and of course, Mr. Lemonade! I find any excuse I can to craft something and am completely infatuated with the 1950’s, all things Kennedy, and my furbaby Vida.
I’m currently debating the necessity of fancy linens. Our venue will provide ivory or white tablecloths (that do not go all the way to the floor… what is up with that?!) and ivory or white napkins. I’m down with the ivory napkins, but I don’t think I can get behind the shortie tablecloths.
I really like the idea of champagne pintucked satin or ivory dupioni silk.
However, I don’t really like the idea of paying around $30 per table. With 14 guest tables and 2 specialty tables I’d be out over $400 for rentals! Ouch! Read more…
Miss Fondue, NashvilleAge and Occupation: 27, Technical AnalystFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Network Admin Student/Senior Game AdvisorEngagement Date: December 25, 2007Wedding Date: May 2009Blogging Since: September 14, 2008Venue: Ravenwood Golf ClubAbout Me: I’m your average computer geek marrying a gaming geek and trying to find a good balance of elegance and geek chic in our wedding. I adore The Sims, Nintendo, cosplay, (good) music, TiVo, theme parks, and our two crazy felines.
We had our follow-up meeting with our venue, Ravenwood, last weekend to finally get my list of questions answered. So what did we find out?
We can turn the girls’ getting-ready room into a babysitting room for the reception.
They have high chairs, but no booster seats, so I need to rent those.
Waitstaff costs are built into the food price. (Score!)
We can decorate the day before.
They don’t cut cakes, so we need to appoint someone.
They provide white china and white napkins.
They use plastic drinkware.
The last one made me flinch a little. So we can have china plates, but people have to drink out of plastic cups? She said that if we were really, really stuck on having glass that we could rent it and also pay an additional $250 security fee. I calculated how much it would be to rent glasses for dinner and the bar, and estimated about $250-$300. Is $500-$550 worth it to keep the elegance factor?
Mrs. Champagne, DC/Vail/ColoradoAge and Occupation: 26, Eye DoctorFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, AttorneyEngagement Date: March 13, 2006Wedding Date: February 2009Blogging Since: July 30, 2008Venue: Small church ceremony with mountain-view log cabin receptionAbout Me: I'm a small town mountain girl with a city heart. Found my way to the east coast, and Mr. Champagne kept me here so we're planning a wedding from afar in my hometown Vail, Colorado. I'm secretly obsessed with reality TV, Wii games where I can shoot a gun, country music, and Caesar: Dog Whisperer. I also spend time pretending to golf, backseat driving, having one way conversations with our MinPin Maxwell, loving champagne, and wedding perfecting… I mean, planning. I use way too many repeated symbols and letters when I write, and I'll love Mr. Champagne endlessly…
There’s one wedding item that has been surprisingly REALLY difficult to find~ a gold charger that doesn’t cost a fortune. Even more difficult to find than the dress! Sounds silly, I know, but it’s true.We’ll be renting our linens and plates from Alpine Party Rentals in Colorado, and their options for gold chargers are in the typical range for rentals.
Acrylic 13″ gold or silver chargers
Glass with gold trim 13″ charger Read more…
Mrs. Pomegranate, SacramentoAge and Occupation: 27, Technical SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Software EngineerEngagement Date: August 23, 2007Wedding Date: October, 2008Blogging Since: June 5, 2008Venue: R.H. Phillips WineryAbout Me: Hi, I'm Miss Pomegranate and I'm a shopaholic. I have a weak spot for the chic cheap - especially anything I can re-create on the DIY. Shoes are my vice, music is my passion in life and technology is the medium by which I live and work. When I'm not scoping out a sale, I'm spending my quality time training for a marathon, playing Wii with my fiance and snuggling with my Silver Labrador and Teacup Panther - and oh yeah, planning my wedding!
I had been toying with ideas for our table numbers for quite some time and had rested somewhere between letting our pup and kitty handle the task or finding something more stylistically simple. Serving family style platters at dinner will take up a lot of table real estate, so I needed something that wouldn’t use up a lot of space. I wasn’t 100% sold on any particular idea until I discovered these glitter table numbers - they were placed on floral wire and floated above the centerpieces. Pure genius.
Mrs. Flamingo, Montreal, CanadaAge and Occupation: 25, Graphic DesignerFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Nursing StudentEngagement Date: December 2004Wedding Date: June 21, 2008Venue: Imperia Hotel (modern chic hotel)About Me: I am a passionate designer who loves anything pretty. I heart all paper products (eco-friendly of course). My passion revolves around anything considered glamour; vintage and modern. In my free time, I love reading Martha mags, designing jewelry and making a pit-stop at Starbucks for a chai latte. I'm also a chocoholic at heart and my family drools over my homemade truffles.
A while back I was debating what style of escort card we should have. I went with the majority of your suggestions and went the glamour option. Since chandeliers seemed to be a very big part of our theme, I decided to go with something like the left picture below.
I didn’t take any pictures of my escort cards in progress since I had to finish them rather quickly, But this is one of the only pictures I have of the finished product. I think it’s rather good.
Miss Candy Corn, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Freelance Writer, Photographer and IllustratorFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Front End Web DeveloperBlogging Since: May 6, 2008Engagement Date: November 10, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Our backyard!About Me: I’m a 27-year-old photographer, writer and illustrator who enjoys shooting weddings, catching typos in magazines, geeking out with Google Reader, watching Wonder Years marathons with my fiancé, and hanging out with our menagerie of pets. I’m an encore bride planning an intimate, offbeat backyard wedding with my fiancé (known around these parts as “The Ginger”), as we explore our adventures of homeownership.
As some of you may recall, I’m drawing our table number cards to fit in with our bird theme. I haven’t numbered this set yet because I won’t be sure of how many tables we’ll need until we receive our RSVP’s, so some of the drawings that I’m not as fond of will go into a pile of misfit bird drawings that I won’t end up using. I drew the hummingbird at a friend’s house with different lighting than I’m used to, which I hadn’t really considered at the time. It’s much darker and not the same quality as the others, so it’s going to end up in the reject pile since I know I can do better.
Short-tailed Pygmy-tyrant, or as I like to call him, a cute little pudge muffin.
Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los AngelesAge and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy ConsultantFiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident PhysicianEngagement Date: December 29, 2006Wedding Date: May, 2008Blogging Since: August, 2007Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LAAbout Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
Believe it or not, I was never one who had thought too much about my wedding before I had gotten engaged. Never thought about my e-ring, never thought about my dress, never thought about the theme. But there was one random thing I did think about prior to getting engaged. Don’t laugh, but that one aspect was what our table names might be! I know, RANDOM, right?! I’d seen personalized tables done at a wedding before and thought it was such a good idea. Whatever our wedding would be like, I knew I wanted our tables names to reveal to our guests a bit about our journey as a couple.
Miss Candy Corn, PhiladelphiaAge and Occupation: 27, Freelance Writer, Photographer and IllustratorFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Front End Web DeveloperBlogging Since: May 6, 2008Engagement Date: November 10, 2011Wedding Date: September 2012Venue: Our backyard!About Me: I’m a 27-year-old photographer, writer and illustrator who enjoys shooting weddings, catching typos in magazines, geeking out with Google Reader, watching Wonder Years marathons with my fiancé, and hanging out with our menagerie of pets. I’m an encore bride planning an intimate, offbeat backyard wedding with my fiancé (known around these parts as “The Ginger”), as we explore our adventures of homeownership.
For our place cards, we will be designing MOO MiniCards, which, as you may know from Mrs. Onion’s past post, are basically half the size of business cards, but you can have a different image on the back of each card. Images can be uploaded via Flickr (where I upload my pictures) or from your hard drive. 100 cards are $19.99 (plus $5 shipping), which is a pretty darn good deal I do believe. With a simple drag & drop option, you can crop your photos and voila, customized place cards for your guests!
Mrs. Toucan, BostonAge and Occupation: 25, Full-time Research Assistant, Part-time Graduate StudentFiance's Age and Occupation: 25, ActuaryEngagement Date: February 18, 2007Wedding Date: June 7, 2008Blogging Since: November 07, 2007Venue: St. Catherine of Genoa, Jin Asian Cuisine RestaurantAbout Me: I’m a Gemini to the extreme. On one side, I’m a girly girl. I read countless bridal and fashion magazines, and have an obsession with keeping up with the latest Hollywood gossip. On the other side, I’m a sports fanatic. Despite being a full-time bride-to be, full-time research assistant, and part-time student, I’m also a full-time Red Sox fan from spring training to October, and a full-time Patriots fan from mini-camp to February. I devote almost as much time researching my for fantasy football team as researching for our wedding!
Miss Toucan’s been a busy busy bird, so I’m lumping some of my paper projects together in one post!
First - Table cards:
Since poor Mr. Toucan hasn’t had very much say in some of the wedding details, so he named all the tables. And wouldn’t you know it - Nintendo characters! The table cards themselves aren’t that exciting - I just printed out pictures of each character and made a little table tent. Read more…
Mrs. Sundae, Chicago/Lake Geneva, WIAge and Occupation: 28, Knowledge ManagerFiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Investment AdvisorEngagement Date: July 20, 2007Wedding Date: September 2008Blogging Since: February 5, 2008Venue: The Abbey ResortAbout Me: It’s hard to believe that by the time Mr. Sundae and I get married we will have been together for almost ten years. When we first met in college we split dollar pitchers and now we share the mortgage payments. Despite our love for the city we are looking forward to tying the knot in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
As I mentioned before, Mama Sundae and I decided to make the table runners she’s making look more “finished” with something black around the edges. She tested a few different types of ribbon as well as some bias tape, and the bias tape won out in both look and convenience. I didn’t know anything about this when I started out, so I thought I would pass along some of what I’ve learned!
Our tables are the relatively standard 72″ rounds, which seat 8-10 people. We figured out that in order to get the runners to go almost all of the way to the floor (they’re about 3 inches off the floor on each side) they needed to be 120″ long. We originally thought that we would also be able to pick the width, but looking at the fabric we ordered we quickly realized that to have the pattern centered we had to each runner as wide as the biggest part of the pattern:
Miss Cherry Pie, Seattle/Polebridge, MontanaAge and Occupation: 25, Marketing Communications SpecialistFiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Nurse PractitionerEngagement Date: August 26, 2006Wedding Date: September 2008Blogging Since: April 1, 2008Venue: A tiny town just outside of Glacier National ParkAbout Me: I think of life as a journey and I love the places it's taking me! I went to school to study Magazine Journalism, ended up with a second major in Japanese language, and now work at a company that makes software for libraries. I love writing, computers, photography, and the great outdoors. I spend most of my time playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band or geeking out online with Mr. Cherry Pie. I'm happiest when I'm on the road, especially traveling abroad, or just nesting quietly at home with my sweetie, who is a fabulous cook and bakes a delicious rendition of a certain cherry-filled dessert!
I apologize for my looooong hiatus. Two shortened work weeks coupled with weekend travel made me one very busy Bee!
Last you heard from me, I was headed out to Montana for my Super Wedding Weekend. As I wrote, I didn’t get to take the train because I couldn’t take my bike on board, which I would have needed to get into the Park before it opened for the season. Instead, I drove with my mom and we had to walk 1/2 mile from the car to the cabin on the first night because the road was still closed at Lake McDonald Lodge. Read more…
Mrs. Cherry Blossom, San FranciscoAge and Occupation: 27, Administrative Asst.Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, District Sales ManagerEngagement Date: December 23, 2006Wedding Date: May 3, 2008Venue: Zen Garden in the East Bay w/ reception in a floor-to-ceiling window Atrium with views of the Zen GardenAbout Me: After 5 years of dating, we're finally ready to get hitched! I am a lovah of all things wedding, creative, crafty, and definitely DIY bc I love to add a personal touch to everything I gift or make. In my free time, I like to bake, spend time with our family, friends, and my doggies, read my guilty pleasure celebrity gossip and catch up on TV shows.
Nothing fancy schmancy but we needed table numbers for the Chinese banquet and wanted one that could give us space to write each guest’s name at each table, stood on its own, and showed the number. But I couldn’t find a simple tri-fold template online that I could use and make easily, so I created my own and it’s shared here for you all!!
I kept mine really really simple but you can use the template and dress it up in so many different ways! Here’s how it looked prior to printing it on Staples Cover Letter stock paper. Read more…
Mrs. Cream Puff, San Francisco Bay AreaAge and Occupation: 25, IllustratorFiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Merchandise PlannerEngagement Date: May 27, 2007Wedding Date: August, 2008Blogging Since: February 7, 2008Venue: Ceremony at Crissy Field and Reception at the Green RoomAbout Me: I never dreamed about my wedding as a little girl because I was too busy playing in the mud or pretending to be Martha Stewart–but now that it's here, I'm having a fabulous time DIYing everything in sight! We’re planning a very fun multicultural wedding (I'm Jewish and Mr. Cream Puff is Chinese), filled with as many personal details as I can muster.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a bit of a conundrum: I couldn’t figure out whether or not to have menus. After reading everyone’s comments, I decided that I would do menus, but only if it were as simple as humanly possible, didn’t stress me out, and didn’t disrupt my very simple looking place setting. Here’s what I came up with:
You might be wondering where the circle of dots come from. I promise that I didn’t just throw them in there for the heck of it–these match our invitations, which you will be seeing in a couple of weeks. Read more…
Mrs. Penguin, Northern CaliforniaAge and Occupation: 27, Weddingbee Editor in ChiefFiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Doctor of Physical TherapyEngagement Date: January 29, 2007Wedding Date: June 7, 2008Blogging Since: September 14, 2007Venue: Winery in the Gold CountryAbout Me: I love the Spice Girls, dogs with underbites, bean burritos, making messes, high fives, avoiding showers, crossword puzzles, blogs, weddings, and blogs about weddings!
Time consuming unnecessary DIY project #428: Menus
I bought all the materials I was going to need for some cute little menus to fold in each of our guests’ napkins. I took inspiration from my friend Andrea over at Studio Ayt, who made these incredible “cutout” menus for her own wedding last year.
Mrs. Hydrangea, DallasAge and Occupation: 26, Administrative AssistantFiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Network AnalystEngagement Date: June 2007Wedding Date: September 2008Blogging Since: January 14, 2008Venue: Catholic Church and Reception at The W HotelAbout Me: Mr. H and I come from very different cultures and backgrounds so I'm excited to plan our wedding with a balance of both traditions. My mom has always been a DIY queen, and I'm just now starting to get into it with a new house and a wedding to plan!
While we won’t be assigning each guest to a specific seat, we will be assigning guests to specific tables. Because Mr. H and I come from very different families and cultures, we didn’t want his side of the family on one side of the room and mine on the other. We are having a buffet/stationed dinner so assigning a specific seat wasn’t necessary (phew! I know that takes a lot of work)!
I decided that Memorial Day Weekend would also partly become my wedding prep weekend. I got quite a few tasks checked off my list, and the great sales around town definitely helped this. My first task was to make the table numbers. I designed the numbers in Illustrator. Because I think that we will be using 6″ stands, my original idea for 5×7 cards seemed too big, so I shortened them to 5×5. Then, I decided that I wanted them double sided, so I bought some black card stock to attach the numbers to.
After my design was complete, I took the document to Kinko’s because I wanted to be sure that the print quality was better then just my printer at home (plus I am running out of ink and was too lazy to buy a new cartridge). While the cards printed, I used their paper cutter to cut the black cardstock to 5.5×5.5 pieces. Read more…
Glitter table numbers via glittergoods.
All-Inclusion Invitation Suites
Since poor Mr. Toucan hasn’t had very much say in some of the wedding details, so he named all the tables. And wouldn’t you know it - Nintendo characters! The table cards themselves aren’t that exciting - I just printed out pictures of each character and made a little table tent.
