Updates and Info

2nd dress fitting:  Yesterday was my 2nd dress fitting and it was WONDERFUL!  I wish I could show you all the pictures, but I can't risk Patrick stumbling across me in the dress.  The difference from the day I met the dress until the first fitting and then today is so significant!  I have gained so much tone in my arms and shoulders and the weight loss to this point makes the dress on me look better than I ever imagined.  My final fitting is May 29th and I'll be picking up my dress on June 11th.

Bachelor/Bachelorette weekends:  So, Patrick and about 8 of his boys are down in Myrtle Beach this weekend.  They are going to play golf everyday and probably get totally hammered and act stupid.  Isn't that what boys do?  ;)  Next week is the girls turn however we will be going to Charleston/Folly Beach.  Our trip will be more low key and relaxing.  There will be six of us and we plan to do a lot of relaxing by the pool, walking the beach, walking around historic Charleston, shopping on Market St and of course enjoy some cocktails.   

Wedding Day Makeup:  This weekend Andi and I are going to check out the new HD makeup line at Sephora.  I want to see how it looks on my face in different environments.  I will post an update after our adventure.

Cocktail Dress:  Still have not found a dress for the rehearsal dinner.  Andi and I are going shopping on the south side of town.  Hopefully I have some luck.  Problem is that I don't want to spend a whole lot of money.  If I find something this weekend I'll post it.  Prom's end down here this coming weekend, so I might be able to catch some great sales after this weekend.  I will post as soon as I find something.

Jewelry:  I've been talking to Dawn Vertrees about the wedding day jewelry for the girls.  Once we make a final decision on the pieces, I will post pictures. 

DIY:  I'm pretty much done w/ all of the DIY projects.  I still need to design and print a timeline card to put int he gift bags so that the guest will have that info handy.  I want to make a meet the guests sort of something, maybe just a one pager with pictures and a sentence or two about how they know us and where they live.  Also thought it would be cute to make some sort of door sign and decorations for each of the guest rooms so it's easier to find each other.  It also makes it easier to find your room when you come back from having a few too many!  ;)

With Elisa's help

Last night Elisa came over. I made dinner (Baked Chicken, rice and veggies)and then we got to work. I showed Elisa a bunch of stuff I had ordered and some of the projects I had already completed. It's always nice to get feedback from people.

Elisa took some pictures to help me decide how to dress up the black one shoulder dress that I bought for the cruise. We attached two of the appliques that I ordered from ETSY. Even w/ those, I still don't love the dress to wear for the rehearsal dinner. I'll have to go shopping this weekend.

We put the program fans together and I'm very happy with the way they turned out. Elisa also stuffed all of the key and money holders with their little cards.

Yay! More tasks accomplished. Woo hoo!

Program Fans

Patrick suggested program fans for the ceremony.  I thought that was an excellent idea, so today I designed the layout and made one.  I am missing the guitarist's name, so I can't complete them yet.  Once I get the guitarist's name it will be easy to make.  I'm guessing maybe 40 min?  The hardest part is always designing the layout!  I think it turned out great!  We found a vendor on E-Bay who sells the fan sticks for a reasonable price so Patrick ordered those a couple weeks ago.  I'm using ivory cardstock that I purchased from Staples, glue dots made by Fiscars and a dot glue runner made by ad tech.  I'll see how the glue holds up and make changes as needed before finishing the rest of the fans. Of course the last names have been dissolved for privacy.

***click on any picture for a larger image.

Guest Book Cards

I posted an entry back in February about an idea for the Guest Books.
As a refresher, this is the plan for the Guest Book:

I will make a coffee table book with pictures and details from our week long cruise vacation, beach wedding, cruise ship reception, Charlotte reception, shower and the Bachelor/Bachelorette gatherings.  Guests for the Shower, Wedding and Charlotte reception will have event specific index cards to fill out.  I just created and printed the final layout for the wedding day guest book card.  I'm very excited about this as I think it's so personal.  There will be a new layout for the at home reception similar to the layout created for the wedding guest book card.  We will scan each card and add it to one of the pages with the guest's picture/s from each event.


I found a couple places online where I can make my own.
Blurb
Picaboo
My Publisher
LuLu

***Click on the pictures to see a larger image

Bride Bling!

I just had to have some bride bling!

I have attached two pics of a tank top and bikini bottoms that I made for the cruise. Now I just need to determine if they can be worn before or only after the wedding!!! The wedding isn't until day 4 of the cruise.

Of course the iron on Bride bling was messed up on the bikini bottoms but Mom seems to think nobody will notice.  I'm not about to buy another pair of bottoms to fix it.  I agree that they'll be just fine.

Invitations are in the Mail

I sent out majority of the invitations yesterday afternoon. Patrick is still waiting on a few addresses. We will have the rest sent out by the end of the week!!! Woo hoo! Another thing to check off the list.

Pre-departure Mailing Package

I will be sending out a pre-departure package to each of the guests in the next month or two.

The contents include:
1. A brochure or newsletter including a time line, events, guest locator, and our own personal tips and advice about the cruise ship and Bermuda
2. Bermuda Tourism maps and island details.
3. Luggage tags

I'll be making personalized luggage tags that will match the OOT (out of town) bags. More details about the OOT bag to come in a later entry.

I received the package today from Bermuda tourism! Woo hoo! It has the very useful map, a brochure with travel advice about Bermuda, and another booklet with info about what to do and see. Yay! :)

My personalized brochure is almost finished. In the images the dots won't be there when printed, it's just editing stuff from Publisher.  Also, I've disolved some of the private information.

Invitation part 3

I had Andi, Elisa and Josie here this weekend to help me with the invitations.  It took us a LONG time to come up w/ which stamps to use and where but I'm very happy w/ the way they turned out.  Patrick ended up making the final decision b/c I just couldn't decide w/ all the great options we had!  It took a lot of time to stamp and emboss all of those invitations but it was all worth it.  We are not quite done yet, as I'm waiting for the blue paper to come in to finish the rest and we have to create the bands for the pocketfolds.  Oh yeah, and I have to test out the fauxligraphy to address all of them.  As for the stamps I'm thinking about ordering them online where I can add a custom picture, but I need to determine how much the postage will be first.  Guess I should go to the post office today.  So, here is a picture of what we came up with for the final design!  Hope to have these things out w/ in the next 2 weeks.  :)  Yipppppeeeee!

Invitation part 2

Last week Andi and I went to a scrapbook store in South Charlotte called Family Memories.  We came up w/ a lot of great ideas.  The ladies there were so nice and helpful.  The picture below shows the template that I created.  There's some typo's and adjustments I need to make, but you get the idea.  In the blank space on the bottom is where we are going to do the fun part.  I found a starfish stamp online that we are going to use and then emboss.  Then we are going to put this stuff that looks like sand around it to make it look beachy.  Tested it in the store and it really does look great.  It's made by Flower Soft.  Hopefully this weekend we will be able to start on the project and be finished by the following weekend as we are waiting on a shipment of the blue paper. The stamp is supposed to be in this weekend. Going to the printer today to look at their samples and cardstock.  Wish me luck!!

Fauxligraphy

After nearly having a heart attack watching the Syracuse vs. UCONN game tonight, I needed to veg out for a bit.  So, I started surfing my favorite wedding blog sites.  I came across a blog with a great solution for addressing envelopes.  It's called Fauxligraphy.  You print the addresses on the envelopes with a lighter colored ink than you plan to use.  Then you use a pen to trace over those letters!  Genius!  Of course I need to print some randomness and test it out a few times before starting this project.  I hope it's not too time consuming or difficult otherwise I'll have to do some more research around the wrap around labels.

How to get those pocketfolds?

I REALLY love the Pocketfold invites.  Do you know how much these things cost???  Holy wow!  It's outrageous.  Most run around $7 per invite.  I guess it's b/c of all the layers and cuts involved.  I did a lot of searching and found this great website on how to make your own.  http://crafts.peteandkerry.com/invites.htm

I ordered samples from Paper and More and Cards and Pockets.   The quality was similar but my fiance liked the linen paper best.  That worked out great b/c the linen envelopes and pocketfolds were discontinued and had a great discount of only $29.99 for 50 pocketfolds and $7.99 for 50 envelopes.  With shipping for 100 invitations that came out to $79.99.  So far for just the pocketfolds and envelopes I'm at $.80 per card.  I still have to purchase the cardstock and get printing prices for each of the inserts.

I bought a couple paper options at AC Moore to play with.  The pictures below are from the first mock invitation.  Of course the paper wouldn't be white with this one, but it's all I had.  I am going shopping with my dear friend Andi who is crafty with this stuff to help find other colors and options to play with.  We were supposed to go last weekend but we were snowed in!!!