Cake toppers, unnecessary but cute?

So, I was perusing Etsy the other day (I'm beginning to feel like too many of my posts start out this way, but what can I say? Etsy is addictive!) and found this cake topper:


AHHHHH so cute [cuteness courtesy of Bunny with a Toolbelt over at Etsy]

Now, of all the random things I have thought about in regards to my wedding thus far, a cake topper hadn't really occurred to me yet. It seems like one of those things that probably isn't all that important, so why do I stalk the wedding cake topper section of Etsy like nobody's business? There are so many cute ideas. People are so darn clever. I want to be clever!

There are lots of birds, which I didn't get at first. But, lovebirds, right? I get it now.

I just have a thing for penguins. And now, penguin cake toppers. Penguins mate for life you know ... and they are so cute! And chic, with their black and white and whatnot.

Although, I think I have recently stumbled across something that is even more fitting for us than the cute toppers above. It'll be a surprise for FH, though, so no pictures for now! Although, who am I kidding, the whole wedding is pretty much a surprise for FH. I just tell him to read the blog and let me know if he has any questions or concerns =)

Escort cards: fly me to the moon...

Aaaah, paper. I love it. I found these on the clearance table at Kelly Paper. Two different shades of pink and two of orange - perfect. Since they were standard size, I cut them in half and started to fold my mini planes.

Aren't they cute?? I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. I really did like the lollipop idea, but this is much more practical and much less expensive. And I need to save $$$ whenever and wherever I can.

Once all the RSVPs are in and I finalize my seating chart, I'll write each guest's name and table (named after airports) on one of the wings. They'll be laid out on a table for guests to pick up on their way into the backyard - er - venue.

Hot hot hot

I don't know whose bright idea it was to get married in Bakersfield in the middle of summer. Oh wait, that was me. But I'm already prepared that it is going to be HOT. Historically, June is much more mild than July or August, but still.

I got a little OCD (it's what I do best!) and looked up the historical weather for our wedding date on Weather Underground, FH's go-to source for weather information (and he's a pilot, so you know you can count on this site being accurate).

The average max temperature for our day is 93 (I can handle that) with the historical high being 113, in 1920 (ugh).

All that to say, tremendous heat + my fear/general hatred of flowers = parasols for my bridesmaids?

[from here]

[from here]

What do you think? I like it because it's cute, different, and practical, all in one. I ran the idea past my Mom and sister/MOH this weekend and got weird looks. So now I'm paranoid that the only wedding ideas I come up with are totally stupid ones. But if Darcy Miller says its okay for an outdoor wedding, it must be okay, right??

To DIY or not to DIY?

One of the downsides (really, the only downside) to being an avid wedding blog reader is that there are so many great potential DIY projects out there, it can get a little overwhelming. I mean, how am I supposed to narrow it down? What is realistic and what isn't for someone with my, um, limited crafting skills? I have to confess that I had never even heard of Gocco until a few months ago.

In my head, I want to be this person. Or this person. I see all of these beautiful ideas and I get excited and somehow, I think I can transform myself into the person who hand-fashions 1,000 paper cranes for my wedding day. (Does folding 120+ paper airplanes count?)

Don't get me wrong - I am in total awe of what these women do to make a meaningful wedding day for themselves. I just think it's better to realize my shortcomings now and plan accordingly.

Happy Friday: another Etsy find...

I just bought a pair of earrings for FH's daughter's birthday (technically she is almost my step-daughter, but I hate the term "step") from a fabulous store, Chrys Designs Jewelry on Etsy.

Along with the earrings I'd purchased, Chrys threw in a complimentary pair for me:


Aren't they amazing? Run over and check out her stuff for yourself - she has a big selection of beautiful, gorgeous jewelry. Perfect timing, too - I'm thinking my problem of where to find gifts for my bridesmaids (and other special wedding helpers) has been solved!

Cupcakes!

In addition to the actual wedding cake, I knew all along that I wanted cupcakes. I LOVE cupcakes.


Mmmmm. Doesn't that make your mouth water? Who doesn't enjoy a great cupcake? And one of FH's nicknames for me is Cupcake, so it has a nice thematic touch to it as well.

If we were getting married in LA, we'd be paying $4 a cupcake for major taste but also major attitude. Seriously, people. I used to frequent a cupcake store that shall remained unnamed where the workers would scream at you if you left the door ajar (fresh air dries out cupcakes, apparently.)

Cupcake stores are everywhere you look around here. But Bakersfield, not so much. I did some research and found some good options that my Mom, sister and I promptly proceeded to visit. There's not much we won't undertake for this wedding.

One store didn't have any cupcakes in stock when we visited. "You should have called ahead!" she told us. Um, aren't you a cupcake store? Shouldn't you keep some cupcakes on hand then??

Another store was, well, flat out rude. No thank you. If I wanted cupcakes + rude, I could have just stayed in LA.

Then someone suggested Sweet Surrender. Not only was it the most adorable store ever, they were super helpful and had great cupcakes on top of that. We tested nine (yes, nine!) different flavors last weekend and they were all fantastic. I'll be placing my order with them shortly and I'm thinking of something like this to give it all an elegant little oomph:

[find them at buttercreambee]

Umm, do I have to have wedding colors?

Wedding colors. Put those two words together and I'm automatically having visions of matchy matchy matchy and cookie cutter and ugh and NO.

I've noticed that literally, every time people start to ask me about the wedding, one of the first things they ask is "what are your colors?" Like I should have some swatchboard on hand to whip out and show them.

But I just couldn't commit - I love too many things. I had starred so many inspirations boards from Snippet & Ink that my Google Reader was on overload. I had to narrow it down.

I was never the pink girly-girl type, so I don't know why I leaned towards pink bridesmaid dresses. But I love them and there you are. Pink is a good color for almost everyone. It's nice and summery and would look great for a garden wedding. How about pink and orange, my Mom asked. Sure! I just want lots of colors. Happy, summery colors.

Pink dresses and blue shoes? I think it'll work, actually. Or am I crazy? I'm thinking something along the lines of this beautiful board, again courtesy of the always wonderful Snippet & Ink:

I've got mail!

The RSVPs are starting to trickle in - five yesterday alone! - and I'm not gonna lie, it's super exciting to see those little green envelopes in my mailbox. So far, it's mostly people that I already knew were coming (or not) but it's still exciting.

We had a designated space on the bottom of our RSVP card for people to add advice/thoughts/song requests. No advice so far, but some really great song requests, which is fun. I'm getting lots of good ideas for my reception playlist!

Change of heart: escort cards

Remember my fun lollipop escort cards? Well, they're out. And here's whats in:

[found here]

Paper airplane escort cards! Cute, right?

Although I loved the lollipop idea, they were fairly pricey (as candy goes) and at the end of the day, I didn't think anyone would really eat them. Paper planes will be cheaper (although a tad labor-intensive, but I don't mind obsessively folding paper while watching TV) and pack the same sort of visual punch that I am going for.

Now I just have to find great paper and review the paper plane tutorial I found online. No, I'm not kidding.

Happy Friday

[Wyoming, May 2008. Taken by moi. A little moody for a "happy friday" post, but oh well.]

0 to 1650 + 30 Day Shred = Fit Meglette

I mentioned yesterday that I'm getting organized. Along with that comes a concrete workout plan. I'm not looking to lose weight, but I want to feel good and look toned on my wedding day (and forever). I used to be really dedicated when it came to working out, but things have definitely fell by the wayside lately.

I came across the 0 to 1650 swim plan, which is perfect because I hate doing cardio but I love to swim. I bought a rec pass last week so I can swim on campus after work and I just completed my first workout on Monday.

The plan calls for swimming three days a week, and at the end of six weeks, you'll be swimming a mile (1,650 yards). It felt great to be back in the water, albeit a bit awkward. Lots of hitting the lane lines while doing backstroke. But swimming is one of those things that once you start doing regularly, you'll see a lot of results right away.

I'm going to combine the swimming with Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred workout.


Yes, I would like abs like that, please. And arms, and shoulders, and well, everything.

I'm thinking I'll do the Shred twice a week, on the non-swimming days. That will be five days of workouts a week, which seems reasonable for the first month or so. Once I get closer to the wedding, I'll kick everything up a few notches.

I tried the first Shred workout on Tuesday morning and well, it kicked my butt. It's only a twenty minute circuit (3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of ab work, repeat) but Jillian keeps you going the whole time so it gets pretty tough by the end. I would definitely recommend it to anybody looking to tone up. It's not annoying, like most workout videos, and she keeps it pretty simple and old-school (jumping jacks, squats, etc) which in the end, is always the most effective way to exercise.

Time to get organized...

Although, it's not like I'm currently unorganized. After all, I am the girl that hangs her clothes up in rainbow order.

See what I mean? ROYGBIV, baby. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

But lately, people have been asking me, with breathless anticipation, "what are you working on right now for the wedding?"

And my answer is something along the lines of ... "meh, not much. I felt like I got a lot done up front, now there is kind of a lull, I'm sure they'll be a rush on stuff when it gets closer to the date."

Then they nod sympathetically with an alarmed look in their eyes.

Hmmm. I suppose I could get cracking on certain things. For starters, a fitness routine. No more messing around. I printed out monthly calendars that count down to the big day and will track my workouts, wedding projects and other such goings-on.

I even sacrificed my entire fridge-front to the cause:

[before]

[after]

Even seemingly tiny things like cleaning up my messy fridge and writing down a concrete plan of action makes me feel much better. So, onward and upwards!

More about my fitness plan tomorrow. I'm on day two and already feeling like semi-rock-hard abs are within my reach.

The invite's in the mail. No, really.

Whew! The invites are officially in the mail and on their way as of yesterday.

A special shoutout to my little brother for the incredible design and his magic work with getting the printer to work when no one else could (it might have something to do with the dinosaur noises, but who knows?) and to his girlfriend, for staying up until one in the morning with me, sorting, stuffing and stamping away.

Here is our little assembly line:


And the stamps on the RSVP envelope turned out great:

I always see "invite cost breakdowns" on other wedding sites, so I just thought I would recap the total cost per invite ...

Invites - 40 per box at $25/box =
$0.62 per invite (outer envelope, invite, invite sleeve, RSVP card and RSVP envelope)

+

Printing - free, although after a lot of stress and dinosaur noises (don't ask)

+

Postage - $0.42 for the outer envelope + $0.44 for the RSVP envelope =
$0.86 (that means that my postage expense was more the the actual invitations themselves...)

=

Total per invite: $1.48
(!!!!!!!!!)

A new last name

I love my current signature. I don't write in cursive at all, except for my signature. I worked for years to perfect it. It's swooshy and kind of awesome looking, if I do say so myself.



See? I love making those L's.

Problem: I am an L no longer. My new almost-last name begins with S. I am bad at making cursive S's. Like, super bad.


Look at that pathetic cursive S in the lower right hand corner. Sad, I tell you. I like to blame my lack of cursive skills on skipping second grade, since that is the time that everyone else I know learned cursive. But I'm probably just lazy.

So I practiced:


I know, am I fifth grade or something? I made FH sign too, to see how he does his S's. I even practiced signing my new signature at stores over the weekend (no one seemed to notice or care that I was signing a different last name that what was on the credit card) and it just doesn't feel natural yet. But if you think about it, I've been writing the same combination of first and last names for roughly 25 years. That's one heck of a habit to break.

Happy Weekend: An L.A. Landmark

[taken December 2008 by moi, on the L.A. Conservancy Theatre District walking tour]

Invitation Postage

My stamps have arrived! Yes, it's the little things that keep me excited around here.

You probably already know, but just a word of advice for all of you early summer brides out there: the cost of sending a first class envelope will go up two cents (from 0.42 to 0.44) on May 11. Learn more about it here.

Since May 11 is a good two weeks before my RSVP deadline and I can't bear the thought of using the "forever" stamp (c'mon Post Office, if you wanted us to use a stamp for forever, you should have made it more attractive!), I've decided to put two stamps (totaling 0.44) on my RSVP envelopes. That will cover anyone who decides to mail their RSVP back after May 11, while also still looking pretty.

These:

with

I think the flowers with the coffeepot (I actually thought it was a teapot when I was purchasing them, but whatever) is really going to look cute against the bright green of our envelopes.

And I'll be using these on our outer envelope (I didn't care for the standard wedding stamp that they have right now - a little too flowery for my taste):
The blurb on the USPS website says: "Entitled All Heart, the design focuses on a large, bright red heart that is transporting its owner to an unseen beloved who will be gifted with this heart full of love."

Awwwww. Who can resist that?

Just another day in Etsyland...

Even if you aren't a fellow book nerd, you have to admit that this is pretty gosh darn amazing:



Found at Etsy seller Quitesparkly's shop. She uses the pages of old romance novels to hand craft these beautiful paper roses.

One, I am in AWE of people that are this crafty.

And two, my mind is whirring with all of the possible ways we could incorporate these into our wedding...

Problem Solved: Cake

My wonderful fabulous cousin (who I am still in awe of, as when I was young, because she can french-braid her own hair - how awesome is that??) bakes wedding cakes as a side business. When I first got engaged, I asked her if she would make our cake for us, if she was able to make the trip out. I just found out that she will be able to come out for the wedding and I couldn't be more excited.

It's also perfect, since one of my goals was to incorporate people we knew and love and the fantastic skills they possess into our wedding day. FH's gregarious older brother is going to be our officiant, his talented niece is going to play our ceremony music, and my insanely creative little brother is designing our wedding invitations.

But back to cake. We still have to talk it over but I'm thinking yumminess is way more important that a big fancy cake. I like the simplicity of this:

[from The Knot via The Pissed Off Bride]

Fun with ink and paper

Remember my amazing, deal-of-the-century invites? Well, I decided to snazz them up a little (*note to self: is snazz an actual word?) with a custom made address stamp from the aptly named Love To Create Stamps on Etsy.

I'm a tad afraid that our invitations will be the most confusing wedding invitations ever because the return address on the outer envelope is our new Arizona address (which is also technically going against etiquette, I believe, but I decided I don't care and I want people to have our new address) but the RSVP return address will be my current L.A. address. And our wedding is in neither of those places.

But, I digress. Here is the stamp:


Obviously not all of it but you get the idea. I was really pleased with how they turned out. The owner of the shop where I got it was most helpful with ink advice. He recommended an ink brand called StazOn and boy did it ever.

I was worried because the envelopes are a mottled sort of paper and it was hard to even find a pen that would work for addressing them (I used a Sharpie, or rather a Sharpie-esque marker from Target that was waaaay cheaper than the actual Sharpie).

But they turned out great and are currently sitting, alphabetized, in a box on my kitchen table. Just waiting for their guts to be printed so everything can be stuffed and sent.

I just got invite proofs from my insanely talented little brother yesterday and I can't wait to show them off!!


*For the curious among you...
snazzy: "stylish, flashy," 1932, U.S. colloquial, perhaps a blend of snappy and jazzy.
(Sadly, it is not a verb.)

Problem Solved: The Dress

Finally, after much laying around on the couch and flipping through wedding magazines and obsessing over THE dress, I looked it up on CSIS's website. I never would have picked it out in a million years based on the picture and styling they used online. But I'm glad I looked it up, because it was fifty dollars cheaper than the store price, which had already been marked down. Sign me up for that!

To recap, not only did I buy my dress from a fairly ridiculous place that represents the wedding industry that I have come to loathe, I bought it from their website. And I love it. I can't wait to turn the corner and have FH see me for the very first time.

I don't dare post a picture, or even a picture of something similar, since FH reads this blog. But here's what it doesn't look like:

Happy weekend...

I'm a little bitter because I have to work an event on Sunday. But enjoy your weekend, people...all two days of it.

[taken by moi. Santa Cruz, February 2008.]

Stressful Wedding Things: The Dress

Going into this, I had some pretty definitive opinions about what I wanted in a dress and I figured it would be hard to find the type of dress I wanted while also staying within my budget.

I took some great advice from a good friend, who told me to pay a visit to "[Chain Store I Scorn - CSIS from now on] and just try different things on, to get an idea of what looks good on you and what you like". Okay, cool, great advice.

I walked into CSIS on a Saturday morning and they promptly assigned me to an associate who showed me to my dressing room, complete with gold framed mirrors and frayed teal carpet. She started bringing me things to try on and you know what? It was kind of ... fun. My Mom and sister were with me and I felt so pretty and special - it was kind of nice to have someone basically wait on me. And don't even get me started on how fun it was to stand on the pedestal thing and stare at myself all dressed up.

The dresses were all pretty, but I didn't come to CSIS to buy, I came to try on. Then, she brought THE dress out. I actually didn't know it was THE dress until I tried it on. But once I did, I didn't want to take it off. I twirled on the pedestal, my sister took a million pictures of me, I looked at myself from every conceivable angle. It was THE dress.

I didn't want to buy it right then and there, despite the grave warnings from the store associate that "it could be gone tomorrow". I went home and thought about it, and thought about it some more until I was basically obsessing.

[to be continued]

But if I had the luxury of time...

...I would have used these for our Save the Dates. LOVE the Giving Tree. LOVE these. Sigh.

[Design and template by Merriment Design. Posted here on the absolutely indispensable Intimate Weddings.]

DIY: E-Save the Date

Venue? Check. Date? Check. Save the dates? Um, no.

I thought I didn't have time - or money - to do save the dates. After all, our engagement was only going to be about four months long and everything I'd read recommended sending out save the dates 9 to 12 months in advance.

Then I stumbled across this gem of a post on Weddingbee. I did some more research and apparently, electronic save the dates are not only easy and free, but acceptable by etiquette standards, too. I decided I didn't care if it was only four months out, I still wanted to ask our guests to set aside that particular day for us.

I took a favorite picture of FH and myself and doctored it up in InDesign to include our date information and also to request that they respond to the email with their mailing addresses. (Which, while a great idea, most of them didn't bother. But that is another post!)

I exported the file as a JPEG and used Microsoft Outlook to link the image with our wedding website and then sent it to my Gmail account, so I could send it out to everyone on our invitation list from there. I had a few bouncebacks and only about half of the group responded. But all of the responses that did come back were really positive and encouraging (both about the Save the Date and our upcoming marriage in general).

All in all, I thought it worked really well and we were both happy with how it turned out. I was a bit rushed at the end, so the image didn't link correctly to our website. I wish I would have tested it a few more times to make sure it was working correctly. I will probably end up doing a small insert in the invite with the URL to our website, so people know it exists and can check it out on their own time. Ah, technology...