Placecards A La Carte

When thinking of the placecards, we wanted them in our wedding colors and simple yet unique. I found this great butterfly stamp which made things very simple. We began with cutting out stamps of butterflies and saving the background.

I began by buying precut and folded cards and created strips of colors and butterfly cut outs with cardstock. Instead of tossing the outer rim to the butterfly cut outs, i used them as a background.

Then I created small strips with cardstock to be able to create more of a specific design on the premade cards.

Here were the pre-made place cards. They were already pre-folded and ready to bend.



This was the basic set up above. I used the one stip below and different colored butterflies and outlines to make an accent above each guest's name for the escort cards. On the other side are table names, but more on that to come...

How to Make Your Own Sea Glass

For table decorations, John & I envisioned drift wood and sea glass to accompany floral arrangements. The blue and green colors were somewhat representative of the ocean I love and the mountains that hold John's heart. With the large supply of bottles from the winery, we decided to go ahead and try and tumble the glass pieces ourselves. John had a large tumbler at his warehouse, and so we just tossed a whole bunch of bottles in. It was tricky finding blue bottles, but we were able to come across the beautiful blue bottles of water here and there. The pieces were tumbled overnight, but then were covered with a glass silt that John had to wash off. He fashioned a shifter from green chicken wire and used a hose to clean off the pieces that we were after. Alfie liked to help a lot during this process.
Afterwards came the sorting and drying, which involved leaving them out on cookie sheets until they were no longer wet. We just gave them to our wonderful florist who is going to use them along with drift wood we collected at the cabin and our amazing bachelor (ette) party weekend. I can't wait to see the final product.

Locale

The situation will set the scene, and I have yet to elaborate on where John and I are planning our occasion.

When I asked John if he preferred to have our ceremony where we were planning our reception versus where we had discussed previously (picture left) he gave it a few days thought.

What it came down to was when John envisioned what he wanted our ceremony photographs to look like. Lo and behold, we settled to have the ceremony at what John often refers to as the cathedral of nature.

However, we really fell in love with the beautiful

building up in Tilden park, just minutes away from the Redwood grove for our reception site.

As pictured to the right, we have chosen the Brazilian Room to host our reception. It's an incredibly lovely wood and brick building with a gorgeous fireplace (perhaps not required in the midst of June).

The biggest downside was that due to the policy of the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, we were only able to rent their redwood grove from 2-4P. However, the rental appointments for the Brazilian Room are either 1-5P or 6-12A. Because it didn't' entirely make sense to have a reception before the wedding, we were ultimately left with the choice to have an intermission for our wedding day. It does feed our theatrical sides, but we wanted to make sure that people had a variety of options during this time. We do have family members and photographs which would potentially take an hour an half to both pose and leisurely climb up the hill. However, we were sure to include activities in our invitations that the more mobile of our guest could participate in. Berkeley is lovely! Just don't fill up on Cheeseboard pizza during your break...

Wedding shoes

So these are my wedding shoes! They finally arrived - I was able to buy them on Amazon for $22. I wanted something elegant but more like a sandal. I love the heel height because I don't feel like I'll be aerating the lawn in the redwood grove, but I also have a little more height which helps close the gap between John & I. With the lower heel I also think I'll be more comfortable and able to wear them all night long! My original plan was for blue ballet slippers, but I just really loved these and perhaps I can show off my toes.

How to Make Your Own Wedding Invitations

Here is a guide to creating your own invitations and attempt to not lose your mind. It was quite an undertaking but John and I are incredibly happy with how they turned out. No better way to get exactly what you want, however it was a lot of cutting and pasting.

1. DDIY

DIY Do-It-Yourself! What's that extra D for? Oh, that's a typo...

To begin, the majority of the preplanning work and the set-up that made everything possible actually took John hours upon hours of intense labor. He really began to see why professionally made invitations cost what they do - it was an obscene amount of work to make sure that everything would print with the correct alignment.

2. Paper Selection

After they were finally able to be printed, the manual labor began. We searched for just the right paper that would have the rustic antique feel that we had envisioned.

Unfortunately, there were many battles with getting the alignment to print out correctly front to back each time as it didn't' seem consistent between each page. It eventually came down to checking each one individually - kinda nuts, be we do what it takes.

At the end, this was the result - the flowers really help to add to ambience and make sure that you don't begin the process with too much stress on board.

3. Trimming

There was a considerable amount of cutting and trimming to make sure that everything was the right size and would align appropriately when we created the booklets we had pictured.

We used a combination of both a paper cutter for the long edges and scissors to trip the flaps of the envelopes because, yes, we made those ourselves as well...

4. Folding

After each page was carefully aligned, printed, and trimmed came the folding for the booklet. It was many, many, many pages of folding section after section.

Each one we aligned differently so that they would create divisions for ease of access.

I recommend staying extremely caffeinated at this point.

Ready to assemble!

5. Booklet assembly

We arranged all the pages and completed booklets with all the information for our guests including directions, accommodations, and activities to do in the area. While they were all aligned, we used a large rounded needle to sew embroidery floss and keep the seams of the booklets together.

We used two strands of embroidery floss in green and blue, the colors of our wedding and turned each little packet into books.

Protein & wine at this point greatly decrease any frustration associated with assembly

6. RSVP cards

We used double-stick removable tape to attach the cards on the last page.

This made sure they were easily detachable for the ease of responding for our guests. Each card had a spot for names and check boxes which we asked to fill out and respond for us.

7. Return envelopes

On the last page we attached our return envelopes across from the RSVP card. To make them easy to ship and seal, we used scrapbook double sided tape. This came with one side covered so that we could mail them protected and then it's just an easy tear to seal the envelopes! They were pre-addressed to come straight back to us.

On the exposed side for the last page, we were bummed that it was blank.

To give it a little more color, I made a butterfly stamp which is a theme of our wedding and stamped each one with the symbol in our colors.

I used a linoleum block to carve out a butterfly design that I based loosely off a monarch picture I found.

Note the wine helps to assist with the artistic process, as well as decreasing frustation associated with cats tracking paint all over the table...

Each one had a different array of coloration of blue and green as well as slight variation in the print itself which we hoped would give them all a homemade feel.

Ta-dah! And so we have our completed project. We were just able to mail them all out today, and believe me it was a great relief to have them finished. Each one had a section with the schedule and locations for the ceremony and receptions, directions to both were on the second page, and accomodations & activities were on the last. RSVP cards with easy return envelopes adorned the back, and there you have it.

As I told John, we are only doing this once...

Catchin' Up is Hard to Do

Wow - It's been a while since I've managed this here site. Unfortunately, time is still of the essence and I'm so incredibly glad that I was able to get as much done as I was way back when!

Not only did we have our pick of the litter from all the vendors, but we are also much less stressed out now. Rather ideal given the hodge podge that is our combined schedules. As for catching up with all we've done, hopefully this will at least be a little start...

Catering

Our big splurge item we decided would be food, so we searched high and low and my wonderful aunt accompany us so that she could give her chef's thumbs up. Ann Walker Catering came highly approved, and I have also worked with the chef once before when I was working with my aunt coincidently. We adored our tasting and think the menu will fit John's wines beautifully...

We dont' want to ruin the surprise of all the delicacies that we have chosen - but just as a teaser, we will have 3 stations all paired with their own John Evan wine...

Photography

Through a prize my mom had won at a wedding fair, we were able to afford some incredible engagement photographs. While we were head over heels in love with the results, we unfortunately weren't able to afford them for the big shebang! Finding a photographer we

both loved and could afford was pretty tricky, but one of my mom's old friends now works for a studio that does fantastic and lovely work. John and I loved all the samples and know they will be able to document our day without words. Check them out at www.see360studios.com!

Flowers

What says a wedding like an incredible arrangement? We found Fantasia Blooms at a wedding faire in Livermore, and were happy to stay local for our flowers.

Tracy's work is really incredible, and she did lots of outside research in order to make sure to find exactly what we wanted.

This was even with John's plea for this incredible looking flower that he could only describe, and she found it! It apparently is the white parrot tulip here which will grace John's suit as his boutonniere.

She found some incredible choices to make our blue & green color theme work, which we are really excited about and know will make our pictures pop.

Check her out at http://www.fantasiablooms.com/

So, that at least covers our vendors. My incredible group of women who have been supporting me and helping plan this event and I are working hard on bridesmaid dress choices - more details to come...