DIY: wedding website

[I meant to post this a few weeks ago and it got lost in the pile of planned posts...]

Pretty much everything I had read about wedding planning made some mention of having a wedding website. They're an easy way to get lots of information across to your guests and also keep you from having to do a ton of inserts in your actual invitation. Plus, you can update it as often as you want.

I'm a novice at this kind of thing. I wish I was more like my brother, who seemed to inherit all of the artistic talent in the family. But give me a template and some instructions, and I'm good to go. There are lots of free wedding website options out there, once you start looking (google "free wedding websites" to get started).

I ultimately decided on Project Wedding, because they had the prettiest templates and a cool map feature. Once you sign up for an account, they walk you through every step of the way. You can upload photos, change the order of pages, delete and add page templates and pretty much completely customize it to your needs.

I also linked our e-save the dates to the website, and although it didn't work out for me, it's a great idea in theory. Hopefully it will be a useful tool for our guests and we get closer to the wedding date, and also cut down on last minute email and phone calls asking for information.

Thank you, internets!

In case it isn't overwhelmingly apparent, I'm a newbie to this whole blogging thing. I tried, and failed, at it about a year ago. I just couldn't come up with enough material to post everyday. But this being-engaged-planning-a-wedding thing has unleashed the floodgates. I have a LOT to say and for some reason, writing it all down helps to keep me on track.

I was introduced to the fabulous world of Google Reader about a year ago by a friend and got hooked. I started reading wedding blogs a few months before I actually got engaged. I'd star posts that I liked - pretty pictures, interesting DIY projects, good advice. Before I knew it, I had hundreds of posts that I regularly turned to for inspiration. Periodically, I'd go through them all and narrow them down as my vision for our wedding became more and more clear.

So a big Thank You to all the great wedding blogs out there - for sharing your stories, triumphs, disasters, wonderful DIY projects, great advice and amazing pictures. I've only bought two wedding magazines to date and count on wedding blogs for almost everything. Mainstream sites are great too - I stalk Weddingbee daily and used Projectwedding for daydreaming (their "Real Weddings" feature is amazing) and for their free wedding website service (more on that later!).

The ring!

Keeping with the theme of getting ahead of myself, I just realized I hadn't posted about my ring yet.

Here she is, with a crab... (messing around with my digital macro setting)




I know its probably shallow and materialistic of me, but I adore my ring. The FH (Future Hubs, as I will refer to him from now on) looked at rings together about three months before we got engaged. He took me to the Jewelry District in downtown LA.

I was a little skeptical at first - downtown LA is a little rough around the edges and finding a ring amidst all of the stores seemed like an unlikely prospect. We tried the California Jewelry Mart on Hill Street first. Eli's was the first and only store we went into. The minute we walked in, all of my nervousness about such a big purchase went away. Family owned and operated, they have been in the same building for thirty five years. They spent almost two hours with us, explaining the four C's, showing me different types of settings and stone cuts, and just generally being awesome. I found my ring that day and knew it was the one for me. In fact, the second thing I said (after YES!) to FH when he proposed was, "it is the ring from Eli's?"

Straight from the horse's mouth...

My absolute favorite quote from class last night (and there were many gems to pick from, trust me):

"Oh forget about the dramatic arc! You don't need to worry about the dramatic arc!"

Cut to half the class looking absolutely crushed, confused or a mixture of both.