YAY!!

The final pieces of the Save-the-dates arrived :)  So guess what we'll be doing all weekend!!!  I was really excited to crack the box open and see how the edited versions turned out.  Not to mention all of the other fun goodies that were in the  box, all practically free!

This is a big ol' thumbs up to vistaprint and their awesomeness!  Anyone else feel super excited when they finally had something to hold in relation to their wedding?  I haven't seen my dress since the day I purchased it, so these little magnets and postcards makes me feel like it's actually finally happening.  Feels all tingly!

My Inspiration!

I know my colors.  I do :)  The problem is that my idea of "turquoise" doesn't seem to match everyone else's.  So, after skimming through my collections of photos and googling some additional images, I put together my inspiration board.  The colors I have chosen are turquoise, lime green, and a hint of yellow.  I know there are two pictures that don't match--one has a bit of orange in it, but the driftwood number is exactly what I am doing; the other has the navy lanterns in it, not using those, but using turquoise and lime green ones!  Now, typical disclaimer, I have no idea where most of these photos came from.  Some are from theknot, some etsy, some I just googled "turquoise".  I do know that the dress is a J. Crew dress.

Second save the date magnet!

Whoops :)  I really didn't mean to let the time slip by since my last post.  I actually just started back to school right after the new year and the time vanished.  This is probably a really bad sign for my wedding planning!!! 

Anyway, as promised, here is my other save the date magnet!  I actually decided not to do the plain white one with the calendar.  I ordered mostly the blue and green one from the previous post and then only enough for our friends of this one:

I decided that this one is best for those that know us well, and not for the "more traditional" older family members.  This is one of those really old pictures from a few years into our relationship, but I've always felt like it really shows us (even if I am a little tipsy!).  Plus, I just think it's funny :)

A note about vistaprint:  I actually ordered a set of magnets and postcards and received them.  When I got the magnets, the last letter on our website was cut off on several of them.  I "chatted" with a customer service rep online to find out what the deal was and to look into the "100% guarantee".  The conversation was very pleasant, and it was discovered that when I uploaded my picture, it was "outside of the dotted line".  Now, I had no idea that the dotted line was where it would cut the image.  There wasn't any note about that anywhere.  It appears that the area outside of the dotted line is the "bleed area".  This is where there is flexibility.  Whatever is inside the dotted line will be on the magnet no matter what.  Anything outside is the cutting area. 

Now, I kind of thought, crap, that's my fault, so now I am going to be out money and time and effort, etc. etc.  In actuality, they not only fixed the problem, they fixed my pending orders, AND they are sending me another batch of the first ones and corrected versions of my other ones.  Pretty sweet.  Now, I spent quite a lot of time on the phone for this, and they will be arriving later than I hoped....which stinks for getting them out by Feb 1 as originally intended, but they will be right.  Also, they let me tweak some of the issues that I noticed on the first print (such as the writing being a little smaller than I wanted) before "reordering them".  Plus, I still have the original batch, with more than half of them perfectly fine!  Good job VP!

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!