…our electronic save the dates: a virtual reality…

We sent our Save the Dates back in December, so I'm a little behind in blogging about them... but what else is new???

I originally talked about our decision to go green/cheap/digital with our STD's and invitations here. This is a decision I absolutely do not regret. The amount of money we saved and the waste we managed to avoid by making this choice was well worth the very few complaints we received from guests who felt confused or inconvenienced by our email delivery. More often, we heard rave reviews from fellow tech-savvy and/or environmentally conscious friends.

All that being said, let me point out that this option is not necessarily a good fit for every couple. There is some somewhat meticulous maintenance and follow-up to do in order to pull it off, but thanks to a post on Elizabeth Anne Designs Weddings, I found a great resource which made all of that work pretty easy. My fellow type-A personalities will appreciate this. {Hypothetically speaking, does one classify as type-A if they manage the entire process of planning a wedding in a 13 (and counting!) sheet Excel workbook complete with pivot tables, color coding, and complex formulas?} Anyway, back to my story. I used MailChimp, a free email marketing service (up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails per month), to send and track all of our STD's. This website is genius. First of all, these people are clever, from the branding down to the instructions, it's all very tongue-in-cheek. Makes you feel like you're talking to your socially-awkward, yet adorable, IT guy-friend. I was won over from the start. We had been collecting email addresses for a while, which I obviously kept track of in my trusty spreadsheet...uh, hypothetically, I mean, I could have. Importing the guest list was as simple as a little copy and paste action.

Once the list was set up, I created our "campaign" in which we basically just designed the email and pushed send. Simple as that. As soon as guests began opening and reading and clicking, MailChimp was reporting open statistics and bounces and all sorts of helpful things, which gave us the ability to make sure no one got left out.

So enough of the technical stuff. Here's what we did….

Inspired by the amazing invitation I'd found so long ago, I wrote up the story of me and DG from way back when in a short and sweet little format. Once again our generous and talented groomsman/graphic designer worked it out. (Click the image to see it up close.)

Then I created my email campaign in MailChimp which lead our guests to our wedding website, where the PDF of our Save the Date was hosted.

(Photos by Will Knowles)

We learned a couple lessons about the process along the way, which came in handy when we got ready to send out our invitations. If, by chance, you're considering sending your STD's or invitations via email and you'd like to know more, leave me a comment or shoot me an email and I'd be happy to answer questions or give you some tips. All in all, this worked out really well for us and saved a LOT of money. J

More on our website and invitations coming soon!

...ok, real quick...

My one displaced bridesmaid was able to fly in for the weekend, so EV, my dear MOH, planned an extra special lingerie shower/bachelorette party for tonight.  We didn't want to try to squeeze it into the craziness of wedding week, and tonight was the only time we could get everyone together...so it may be a little early, but tonight we're celebrating.  And I have just one thing to say.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

Now.  What to wear???

…reception-part three: the tables…

I keep thinking I'm going to be a good little blogger and blog some more….but I find myself spending my free time doing the most random of things. Scouring the internet for printing labels. Researching cardstock. Buying paint. You know…important things. I've been meaning to write more about our reception for quite some time, but I've been stalling because there are a handful of things I really need to take/find pictures of. However, in an effort to get at least one post in this week, we'll throw a little something together for now.
On to our reception… (If you'd like to catch up, parts one and two are here and here, respectively.)
So obviously, the tablescapes will make up much of the décor at our reception. We're starting with big long linear tables. (Lines make my heart so happy. J) You get the idea here in DG's rendering of the space. (Don't you love him?)

Next let's talk about linens. Or should I say lack thereof. It seems that renting linen is just one thing you can't easily get around. Because of the cleaning and all that's involved, it's pricey. We'd budgeted something like $400 for this purpose alone. I think that's a terribly large chunk of the $9,000 we're aspiring to overall. Seems foolish to spend almost 5% of the budget on glorified tablecloths. So, true to form, we're rebelling. One evening when we were sitting in the arena, dreaming up all these ideas, we got stumped by linens. Frustrated, DG looked at me and said, "You wanna just cover the tables in paper and pull out the crayons?" "Why, yes. Actually, I do," I said.

SO! Brown kraft paper will cover our tables. And thanks to Crayola, I was able to order a custom box of colors. I have four boxes of crayons at home full of a wide array of greens, purples, browns, and white. My mom tells me we need to learn to write our names upside-down, a la the wait staff at Macaroni Grill so that we can go around to each table and introduce ourselves. "Hi, I'm Racheal. I'll be your bride this evening." In keeping with the theme, our place cards and table numbers will be written/drawn in crayon. Just try not to be jealous.

We'll use a smaller 12" roll of white butcher paper down the center to serve as our runner and add a little contrast. And I'm pretty sure that will bring the grand total for "linen" to like $75. Yes, please. I've looked in a million places to find examples of where someone may have done this before, but to no avail. This was the best I could do, and I can't even remember where it came from. Lovely, no?

Finally, to tie into our lock and key theme, we're doing a sort of "vintage-metal-chic" kind of thing with the rest of the décor. We found these great little metal planters at Old Time Pottery for $3.00 each. We're painting them a dark metallic bronze. These will hold our flowers (which I have no idea about just yet, it's fine) and sit in the center of each table. I think they'll work well considering they're narrow enough to leave plenty of room for the place settings.

On each side of said centerpiece we'll display one of our smaller homemade tin can lanterns. (At some point when I can take some progressive pictures, there's a whole post coming on these.) Ours are way pretty and will be painted in the same bronze, but this at least gives you the idea.

That's all I've got for now. Details to come later. What do you think?

…trend setting…

Ok, maybe this makes me a total snob. I don't know. But I'm frustrated. Here's the thing. I don't really like to be a follower. Granted, I care about things like what's in fashion and keeping up with the times. Whatever. But I generally try to steer away from trends and aim for something more classic. Timeless. Usually with my own spin. I like to be creative. Do something different. Even if it's only subtly different. I don't like status quo or cookie cutter. If nothing else, I think we've made that clear.

So here's my problem. Apparently, in my attempt to be creative, I am really just two steps ahead of the crowd. I'm not trying to brag here. I find this to be terribly annoying.

It started with the lock and key thing. (I wrote all about why this idea inspired me here.) To me, this idea was not just a trend or some pretty motif. We chose it because it carried some symbolism for us. I can't really claim that the idea was completely my own. Vintage keys had already come in fashion thanks to Tiffany and Co...though now all the jewelry stores have manufactured their own version.  But still. Do a Google search for antique keys and weddings, or any incarnation thereof, and you will find a veritable smorgasbord of wedding images using this theme. Do I regret that we've chosen this theme? No. Am I slightly irritated that it has not proven to be as unique as I'd hoped? YES.

Next was our color scheme. I fell in love with this sangria color at David's Bridal back in July when I first spotted my dress. Loved it. Changed our entire approach to color because of it. Not quite purple, not quite pink, not quite red. Rich and bold and not one of your typical wedding colors. The girls would look like perfection dressed in this vibrant shade, and I was sold. Little did I know that every department store God ever made would be carrying umpteen-million dresses in the same color. Ultimately I guess this worked in our favor, as each of our ladies got a fantastic dress in a version of this color for a fantastic price. (An idea I completely and totally stole from the wedding blogosphere. I'll admit it.)

This was the thing to take the cake, though. Of all the things I wanted to be all my own….something no one else would really want to recreate…it was my ring. DG knew I didn't care about a sparkly, too-expensive diamond. They're lovely. They really are. And to all of you ladies who have a giant, glowing diamond on your left hand, congrats! I mean it. I'm really happy for you. I'm sure your ring is exactly what you always dreamed of. You've got the highest symbol of his affections for you sitting right there on your finger. It's great. I just wanted mine to stand out. Not for being the clearest or the biggest or the heaviest….just for being mine. So we looked at stones in my favorite color and DG purchased the most perfect ring I could have hoped for. It is completely and perfectly me. And come May 1^st, it will be accompanied by these two other bands to complete what DG calls "the diamond sandwich." Really, who doesn't love a diamond sandwich?

Be with me here... Imagine my dismay when I opened up the latest Brides magazine (which, by the way, I did not subscribe to on purpose but inadvertently have received every issue since I went to that crazy bridal show…along with a post card from every wedding vendor known to man), to discover this feature…

Seriously, people? I'm just gonna need everyone to get out of my head.

...our monogram...

So one might think that with three consecutive days of being snowed in, I may have written a post or two.  Yeah, not so much...but DG and I did accomplish quite a bit on our wedding to do list.  I have lots more to write about our various weekend projects, but I just thought I'd share our newest achievement.  Utilizing the talent of our dear friend/graphic designer/groomsman, we designed this little guy.  It is exactly what I had in mind...so I am quite pleased. 

Lots more to tell about how we plan to use this monogram, including our invites, which are pretty much done and hopefully going out this week...but that's a story for another time.