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The Secret Life of Pi(e)

I wrote this post for Wedding Bee, where they are doing a “Secret Life of Bees” in honor of the movie and to reveal the secrets of their “bee” bloggers. My pen name over there is “Mrs. Cherry Pie.”

I even made a PIE CHART to illustrate the four very random “secrets” I’m going to share!

Har har har, I slay me.

Let’s start at the top, shall we?

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Filed under: Uncategorized on November 10th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Brainstorming Wedding Invitations

I’ve started thinking about wedding invitations and I’m absolutely obsessed with letterpress. I normally wouldn’t allow myself to be so entranced with something that’s not remotely cost-effective (I prefer to throw away money on less disposable, more consumable items like food and music) but we know two people who have presses at home. I’m just now figuring out what it will take to put together invitations. I have a whole slew of samples and screenshots that I will post here once I’m in a place where I can edit them together into a collage (maybe later tonight). I am fairly comfortable in what appeals to me:

One, two, or three colors, depending what is feasible (burgundy, sunflower yellow, chocolate brown)
An “organic” detail such as a sunflower, dandelion, wheat, dahlia, raspberries etc, printed or embossed large and off-center
Simple text keeping with minimal use of calligraphy and block serif fonts like zapfino/copperplate
A design that is minimalist with use of a central element (like flower) and text, but not much else
Something that carries over well into other uses like programs, menus, table numbers, guest book, napkins, etc

I’ve already thought a bit about what needs to go INTO the envelopes. As much as I’d like to keep it simple (just the invite), there is a standard set of “other” things that have to go accompany it:

a RSVP card (possibly with space for guests to write a reply, check “accept” or “regret,” list # of guests/children accompanying, select meat/veg meal options, and opt in or out of riding the wedding bus– beep, beep!). Sounds like a “choose your own adventure book,” eh?
A return envelope for the RSVP card, possible pre-posted, with return address
An informational card with a map (letterpressed?) and web addresses for lodging and registry

So, that’s a lot of things to work on. Whoo. I’m glad I have artsy people on my side. And that’s not even it! Then we get to the age-old question of what should the invitation SAY? Are the bride’s parents hosting? The groom’s? In our case, it’s really neither… I think we’re hosting and will head-nod to all the families. Oh man… choices, choices!

Filed under: Uncategorized on February 7th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Wedding Gift Registries

Because Justin is a kitchen god, I put him to work adding cooking things to our registries. After he was done, and because I am the queen of nesting, I went through and added housewares. Truth be told, there just isn’t much that we NEED, but it’s still fun to add spiffy gadgets and nice upgrades to a wishlist.

We registered at Bed Bath and Beyond for a few home things that we can only get (or that are most affordable) there; at Williams Sonoma for spiffy kitchen gadgets; at Crate and Barrel for furniture, furnishings and linens; at REI.com for outdoors equipment, and at Amazon.com for fun things like video games and consoles.

I feel kind of weird having registered in so many locations… like it’s greedy or something. But I guess the issue is that our interests are quite diversified so it didn’t make sense to register at one or two stores. And being as we don’t really need much of anything, we’re reaching as it is. I guess now that I think about it, we could have just registered at Amazon for pretty much everything, but they were a last-minute addition and their interface is completely confusing, so it’s probably better that we didn’t.

In any case, I added a wedding registry page to the sidebar for easy navigation. We’ll update them more as the date draws closer and print the link on the invitations when we design them.

Filed under: Uncategorized on February 5th, 2008 | No Comments »

Sent!

We sent the Save the Date Cards today, after spending a few hours assembling and sealing them while watching a movie last night. With the exception of the international recipients, they should arrive next week.

I had a conference call with Katalin (the wedding planner) yesterday morning to review where we’re at with planning. Hearing back from the people at Polebridge was a relief because it means that we know we’re *actually* moving forward and not just biding our time any more. I sent her our budget spreadsheet and asked a number of questions concerning whether cost and time estimates are on track. They are, so I can relax a little bit now that I’m no longer concerned our venue won’t fall out from under us.

Having the Save the Date Cards (or STD Cards, as we affectionately call them) sent out is another big milestone. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and requested that the person who was making them for us send 200 cards to match the number of invitees. Really, there are more like 170 invitees, but that’s with 2 per invite or more (for families). So all told, we only needed around 80 cards and we have a lot of extras. I think we’ll use the photo cards in the wedding somehow, maybe with favors.

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 29th, 2008 | 6 Comments »