Wedding day

Not the wedding day, but earlier this week the fiance and I took a day off from work and accomplished the following:

1.)  Obtained our marriage license from the Chicago City Clerk.  All things considered, this was much less painful than we imagined.  I've spent hours in that same City Clerk's office before trying to get a copy of a birth certificate or passport or something, so I was expecting a long wait, a lot of form-filling and general unpleasantness.  But I think we were out of there in 10 minutes, and the woman helping us was nice.

2.)  Picked our wedding cake.  Our Blackstone Hotel reception includes a cake from Take the Cake, which I'm even now more excited about since we met with Mary Winslow.  I'll save the details for the post-wedding vendor reviews, but will just say if I had to grade Take the Cake now it would be an A+!  

3.)  Purchased our wedding bands.  We went back to the jeweler that the fiance worked with (secretly) to custom design my engagement ring.  Again, will save the details for review time, but really nice people to work with and produce some beautiful jewelry.  

4.)  Food tasting at the Blackstone.  We asked two friends to accompany us to our tasting, one for her food allergy knowledge and tendency to voice her opinions (and I mean that in the most loving way :) and the other chosen by the fiance for another guy's perspective.  It took us about three hours, but we settled on five passed hors d'oeuvres and the four entrees from which our guests will choose.  

It was a long day, and at the end of it I was completely full and didn't think I'd be able to eat again for a few days (of course I was able to eat two pieces of pizza for lunch the next day just fine, thank you!).  Totally well worth it, and now I can't believe how fast the real wedding day is approaching.

The invitations part II: the outside

I fully intended to create a customized stamp to go along with the airplane/Chicago invitation theme. Actually, I got as far as creating the stamp:

Our would-be Zazzle stamp

but in the end we would have lost a few days, and were already behind in getting the invitations out. I'm actually glad now we went with the good old $.61 USPS wedding cake stamps. A6 size envelopes aren't that big, and between the stamp and calligraphy, the envelope would have gotten pretty crowded.

Speaking of calligraphy, I love the way ours turned out:

Calligraphy by Cristine

Rather than sealing up the envelopes up all the way, we stuck a big label on the back. It was easier, plus I thought it would be more likely that people could see the beautiful envelope lining :)

Copycat Alert!
I saw these Pica Press labels on Brooklyn Bride ages ago:

Here is our version, also designed and printed by Pica Press. I had them made waay before we had even decided on colors, which is why they don't really match anything, but I was at the peak of my just-got-engaged-and-must-buy-things-online phase:


Next up: the RSVP

The invitations part I: the inside

Within the last 48 hours, we have picked up the invitations from our designer, bought $100+ worth of stamps, picked up envelopes from our calligrapher then lined them, stamped, sealed and sent the invites on their way!

The envelopes are from Paper Source (of course!) in Bluebell. I bought their envelope liner template kit ages ago and was glad to put it to good use. I started off lining the envelopes with World Map Wrapping Paper, since the invites have an airplane/map/travel theme to them. Then I found paper with vintage airlines and vintage planes at Paper Studio, which were perfect:


Next up...the outside!

To Do (or, Things that the InStyle Weddings Planner Tells me I Should Have Done by Now)

Soon after I got engaged, I picked up InStyle Weddings, which included a handy-dandy pullout Wedding Planner checklist. I haven't looked at it in months, but pulled it out the other day. Um...

We just passed the two-months-to-go mark and there are many, many things on the to-do list (yes, we actually do have one) that have yet to be done. Prepare to be amazed and horrified. (Fellow brides-to-be with their s**t together, seriously, you may want to avert your eyes.)

10 Things That We Haven't Done Yet That the InStyle Weddings Planner Tells me I Should Have Done by Now:

1. Mail the invitations
   OK, we're a few days away from this still. I miscalculated the timing and so while we have the invites now (yay!), they are still being addressed.
2. Hair and makeup trial
   Don't really have an excuse for why this isn't done yet.
   
3. Get dress altered
   My two dresses (still haven't figured out which one I'm going with yet) have sat, unaltered, on a chair in our dining room for the last few months. I have plans this weekend to take one in to a tailor this weekend, so there's progress on this in that I thought about it.
   
4. Buy shoes and accessories
   I keep going back and forth between buying ridiculously expensive beautiful shoes that I will most likely remove two hours into the night, or just getting pretty practical ones.
   
5. Book hair and makeup appointments
   Don't have an excuse for why this isn't done yet either, except that I don't know what I want to be doing or where I want to be on Wedding Morning (will I want to sleep in? get up early and work out? will I be at the condo or the hotel?).
6. Schedule a rehearsal
   We're doing a non-denominational ceremony, that we expect to last 20 minutes or less. I'm sure we'll rehearse, but at this point scheduling something might be a bit premature.
7. Choose menus
   We've still haven't decided between a sit-down dinner or buffet. But we have scheduled a tasting, so I think we're halfway to this one.
8. Reserve honeymoon flights
   Kind of hard to reserve flights when you don't know where you're going.
9. Finalize all decor for your ceremony and reception
   Yeah, ok. Need to do this.
10. Order and size wedding bands
    We have plans to take care of this next weekend while we're in St. Louis for a wedding, so we can avoid the ridiculous Chicago sales tax.
    

So there you have it. Clearly most of these things aren't done because of indecisiveness...and maybe some laziness. I promise to come back to this post-wedding and either lament or applaud my own tardiness.

Paperless Post

Too late, my invitations have gone to press. But I couldn't do without my fonts and paper, could I?

Shower weekend

I'm off to a bridal shower this weekend for one of my bridesmaids who's getting married later this month. The shower is being thrown by her little sister (and the bridesmaids, so says the invitation). I haven't heard a peep from the sister, however, despite emails and a phone call offering to help. And I'm a bridesmaid! Sigh. This is but one reason why I am not a shower fan, and politely refused any myself.

On a good note, our invitations are just about to hit the (letter)press. I'm having the envelopes calligraphied? Calligraphy-addressed? Well, whatever. They'll look nice!

Speaking of envelopes, I'm sure I've seen these at Paper Source a million times before, but I guess they're just more relevant now, and I love them:

Paper Source envelope liners

Happy weekend all!

DIY Done: bookmarks

I finally finished the photo booth bookmark favors hoo-ray. Since we're not getting anything printed on the photo strips themselves, I printed Paper Source khaki-colored paper and labels (I started with labels, then moved to the paper since it was easier) with info:

then wrapped them around the bookmark:

I now have a stack of 191 ready to go (nine were harmed in the making of the bookmarks):