Save That Date!

Woo Hoo!!  Not only did I achieve my goals of creating a fun and brightly colored save-the-date, but John loves them too!  I had inspiration from a save-the-date I had come across in my searches a long time ago, but I didn't have the original image.  I had sketched out a rough mock-up and couldn't even remember what the first one looked like.  Anyway...drumroll please....

We are going to use vistaprint to print postcards and then add magnets as well.  The magnet will actuallly be placed over the "Save the Date" section at the bottom.  I have drawn up 2 magnets so far that I like:



I basically looked around on all the sites out there and found pieces of magnet std's that I liked.  Once I got the ideas, I spent some time working in powerpoint to draw out what I was thinking.  I plan on doing a third magnet that will be a bit of "play on words" for our younger, non-traditional friends.  I'll share once I do!!

Has anyone else created their save-the-dates on their own?

Christmas Love

So the Christmas holiday has come and gone and I spent most of mine doing a whole lot of nothin'!  Once we were officially snowed in, it gave me the perfect excuse to get started on DIY tasks.

Since we have FINALLY set the date, it gave me the jump to want to do something productive.  My goal is to get the save-the-dates sent out in Febuary since most of our guests will be travelling.  This means I need to have them drawn up, printed, and addressed by then.  This also means that I have to have the wedding website done and presentable before they are mailed out!  And since I start student teaching on January 3, I would prefer to get these bad boys ready to roll as soon as printable :)

Picking out a site for a website was a little tough for me.  Luckily, I've been perusing the wedding boards for over a year so I had a good idea of what I wanted and exactly what I didn't.  Here lies the criteria I had:

1)  Template--I really didn't have the time or the know-how to create a totally customizable site.
2)  A background that wasn't totally overwhelming/cheesy/lovey-dovey and matched my blue/green colors.  I don't have a theme other than fun, but I know the exact colors.
3)  It needed to have a url that wasn't a mile long.

There.  Pretty Simple.  The end.

Wrong.

I knew I hated TheKnot sites, so that was an easy one to nix.  But I was really torn between mywedding.com and weddingwire.com.  The wedding boards were all supportive of both, so I figured--time to play with both!  After a couple of hours of messing around...I went with weddingwire.

I spent a full day on it.  Like I said, snowed in, so nothing to do because my parents house is so far out in the country that the roads are impasseable.

I tweaked and played and tried to make it close to us.  I wanted it to be honest and a little funny, tongue-in-cheek style.  With that being said, I aldo didn't want it to offend the fiance's more traditional relatives.  So, here it is in all it's, close to done, glory!

www.weddingwire.com/jennyandjohn

Hope you enjoy it!

Setting the Date

John and I have been engaged since Labor Day weekend of 2009.  When we got engaged, we had been together for more than three years.  Even though getting engaged was an extremely exciting and tear worthy moment for me, I knew that our wedding would be sometime off in the future.  Amidst the phone calls letting our loved ones know, we stopped to breathe and immediately started discussing what we thought would happen.  The conversation went something like this:

"So...do you think we'll be doing this next year?"

"Do you think we should even try to do this next year???"

"How can we plan a wedding when we're full time graduate students?"

"How can we plan a wedding when I won't even be working halfway through next year?"

"Are you okay with an engagement longer than a year?"

"I don't think we have a choice..."

I have to be honest, initially I was heartbroken about a long engagement.  I wanted to get married and have a big fancy wedding right then.  I wanted to do it next week!  But reality set in and I knew that the smart choice would be to wait it out.  I was starting grad school in the spring, and it was an intensive program.  It is a program designed so that I get my M. Ed. and teacher's certification in roughly a year and a half.  In fact, at orientation, the Director made this statement:  "If you plan on working full time, having a baby, or getting married during the course of this program, then this program is NOT the one for you."  Little ominous, but yeah, she was being brutally honest about the intensity that laid ahead.

Looking back, I'm so happy we did it this way.  I was able to take my time and really think about what direction I wanted to go in.  I could peruse wedding sites at my leisure and save countless photos, spreadsheets, and ideas for inspiration!  I could really think about what we wanted, and what we could realistically afford.

So, with great pleasure, I am able to announce that we finally SET THE DATE!!!

AUGUST 20, 2011

I'm home for the holidays and on Tuesday I sign the contracts!  I'm really excited.  I can't wait to tell everyone--especially since I've been asked so many times in the past year--"Have you set a date yet?".  Now when I run into people around town over the holidays, I get to say "Why yes we have, you can mark your calendars for August 20!". 

That is why I thought it would be a good moment to start this blog.  I will share my DIY ideas and projects, the trials and tribulations of wedding planning, the excitement and the fears...it will be a bumpy ride, but I hope you all enjoy!