With the Oscars last night I got to thinking about the other dresses I will "need" for wedding celebrations. With showers, parties and our rehearsal dinner approaching there our lots of excuses to buy more than one white dress.
Source: Alice & Olivia
Source: BLHDN
Did you wear a white dress to your other wedding festivities? Where did you shop?
This week I am happy to report that we can cross our Save the Dates (or STD's as we like to call them) off our list! What I thought would be a simple project somehow turned into a 2 + month project. When we mailed these out on Valentine's day, I finally started to feel like we are making some progress.
We wanted to do something original so we asked a family friend to draw an illustration for us. We couldn't be happier with the way they turned out!
Now onto the other half of my dress!
Did you design your own Save the Date? How did they turn out?
Last July I semi-impulsively bought half of my wedding dress. After months of trying on wedding dresses and not falling in love with any of them, I purchased a gorgeous Monique Lhullier corset top and decided to design my own skirt. Six months have flown by, so it's time to start to seriously thinking about my other half. I love these simple silhouettes below but want something with a little more poof for the big day.
So cool that the skirt below comes in 26 colors as I have been playing around with the idea of having a non-white (peach or gray colored) skirt.
I'm leaning towards a skirt design that marries the two silhouettes below.
How did you decide? Did you dare to try designing your own?
As we get close to sending out our Save the Dates, I have been looking for ways to jazz up our mailing (and cut some corners). An address stamp seems to be a must these days and luckily Etsy has so many wonderful customized options to choose from.
Of course cool postage is also on my mind. I found tons of amazing vintage postage on Ebay, Champion Stamp, Kenmore Stamp Co. and Invites by Jen. I am usually great at finding deals, so the though of paying double the price just for a pretty stamps if hard to justify.
Luckily and surprisingly to me the United States Post Office actually has quite a few unique stamps to choose from, so I think I will probably end up going with one of the following options.
Source: USPS.COM
How did you get creative with your mailings? Do you know a great resource for reasonably priced vintage stamps?
This past week we worked on finalizing our stationary for the wedding. We used a stationary and wedding boutique in Tempe, Arizona for our invitations and LOVED working with the owner! Plus we loved the way our invitations turned out, so we knew we had to go back for the day of details!
If you live in the Arizona area, make sure to check out Definitely Debra.
Picking out our wedding invitations was actually quite simple! Once we started looking at the options, we loved the pocket invitations! We went with an invitation suite that is similar to these beauties below!
This week we designed our programs, place cards and other fun miscellaneous stationary for the big day! Here are some inspiration photos!
This is not our style but I LOVED the idea of showing the wedding party in the order they will stand. How clever!
I can't wait to see the finished project and to share it all with you!
Feel free to share with me your favorite wedding invitations and stationary!
Until Next Week!
Jessica
Follow me on Twitter @jessdawnd and my wedding inspiration board on Pinterest
When it comes to wedding decor, I plan to keep it simple, mixing vintage and recycled items. I really love the look of mismatched vases.
Over the last year, I have been collecting potential wedding decor from thrift stores, flea market and estate sales. I am gradually building my collection of vases.
I have also been saving interesting bottles which I may dye or paint.
I came across the following how-to articles if you are interested in a DIY bottle coloring project:
Tinting Spray painting Painting
I plan to try these out and will report back on what worked the best for me.
Did you mix match vases or bottles for you wedding? Know any great pointers on dying or painting bottles?
My fiance, Mark, and I have a long-running joke about me walking down the aisle carrying a live white peacock instead of a bouquet. I'll take the flowers, please and thank you. The last thing I need is a frantic animal in my arms during our wedding. Needless to say, I have a strong and deep love of all things feathered, which I've inherited primarily from my mother, who is about as obsessed as they come. Feathers are popping up all over the place in wedding decor, bridal attire, accessories, even invitations. Here are a few of my favorite iterations:
Surely, I wouldn't look this glamorous carrying a bird.
Feathers as decorative details...
Feathers in your hair...
How will you be incorporating your feathered friends?
P.S. If you've seen my Pinterest, you know I have much, much more feather inspiration, so just wait for shoes and dress posts!
I would highly recommend to any bride meeting your florist for a trial of the flower arrangements if you can. It totally put me at ease!
Here are some of the inspiration photos I used when first meeting with Jan to design the centerpieces and bouquets:
Next item on our detail to-do list is all the paper! Programs, place cards and miscellaneous signs. We fell in love with our vendor who did our invitations so we plan on going there in the next few weeks.
Follow my wedding inspiration board on Pinterest!
Tweet me @jessdawnd
I wanted to ask my bridesmaids to be a part of our wedding in a very special way. That was something I thought of for a very long time. I didn't want to just ask them verbally or give them a simple card, I wanted something more, something special that they would remember. Of course I scoured Etsy for different ideas, but nothing seemed just right. I found a variety of ideas on how to word the question. But how to ask?
Source (from top left):Trimmings Shop, The Inspired Note, PaperEtiquette,Caffeine Colour
Bubbly, to me, always signifies celebration and is exactly what I like to drink with my girls.
Source (from top left): Daily Cup of Couture, Classy & Style, Zoie loves, Classy in the City, Everything Fab, Global Good Group, The Glitter Guide, Riches for Rags
So, I decided to make the bubbly the way to ask them to be a part of the wedding! I found different ideas of how to include champagne or wine in an invitation.
Source (from left): maddiegdesigns, Southern Fried Paper, Letter Love Designs, Pepper Lindsey & Co.
As a do-it-yourself girl {and bride}, I wanted to design the tags myself rather than outsourcing the project. I'm new to photoshop & illustrator, but it was fun learning when you have a thoughtful gift in mind. I had to go with my go-to pattern {polka dots} and my main wedding color {yellow}.
Source: me!
They turned out great & I couldn't have been happier! Best of all, it really screamed me! cheers.
In July, my mother threw us a beautiful engagement party. Every detail was perfect, and she and I had so much fun together creating personalized, detailed touches. Engagement parties are a fun time to begin thinking about all of the little details that will take over (your every waking moment for...) the next twelve months or so. In the weeks leading up to our party, I scoured Pinterest and Etsy for fun ideas. Here are a few of my favorites:
And here are a few favorites from my own engagement party, last July:
Source: my mom
We had a blast making this fun banner. My mom is a ninja with scissors, let me tell you!
Source: my mom
These little flags look beautiful, but the petit fours were so delicious that they disappeared in about a minute. They were fun to make though--toothpicks, silver permanent marker, and scrapbooking paper. Easy! I will definitely recreate these in the future.
Have you had an engagement party yet? Did you incorporate any fun little details? I would love to hear about them!
