Farewell to Misses.

Earlier this week, the fiance and I trekked down to the clerk’s office for our marriage license! The process was easy and painless, but also a little nerve wracking! (In a good way though!)

I’ll be busy from here on out with last minute errands and hosting family and friends, so this will likely be my last post as a Misses. I feel greatly indebted to everyone who has followed my plans and encouraged my creativity. To the fellow brides-to-be: don’t sweat the small stuff and smile as much as possible.

xoxo,

an Excited bride.

See ya on the flip side!

Our wedding programs!!

When it came time to do our wedding programs, I took the easy way out.  I had Kristen from Twin Ravens Press letterpress the covers which saved a bunch of time.  For the inner pages, I used Microsoft Word to write out the program and printed them on metallic champagne paper using our Canon Pixma.  It’s a pretty basic program, I sort of lost energy to go the distance, but I did stick to my guns when it came to sewing them together.  I had always been inspired by stationery with thread binding, so I hopped on my sewing machine and got to work!

I’ll post pictures of the inner pages after the wedding, please excuse my frankness!

Anyone else take the sewing route with their stationery?!

Bridal Portraits, part deux.

As the wedding is now just days away, I guess it’s poignant to post some additional bridal portraits of myself. I’ve had the most wonderful year and a half, planning this wedding and learning from all of you out there in blog land. Thank you so much for your compassion and creative energy. I’ll do one or two more posts this week!

(All photos by the fabulous Susan Stripling.)

A double bridal session!

Two weeks ago, my sister and I took bridal portraits. I had always wanted to take bridal portraits before the wedding. For one, I’m planning to sell my wedding dress after the big day and wanted plenty (i.e., tons) of pictures of my beloved Vera Wang. Secondly, with my sister and me getting married within a few months, I felt it was an amazing photo opportunity.

As I am located about 4 hours away from my wedding photographer, I asked his permission to break party lines and hire another photographer for my bridal portraits. When it came time to choose a photographer, there was no question in my mind that I wanted to work with Susan Stripling. Her work is impeccable, and at the time, she lived in the same city. She has since relocated to Brooklyn, but was in town the other weekend for a wedding. It was fate!

I’m going to post all of the ones with my sister and me first. I’ll post some singles of myself next week!

(*Photography by the ultra fabulous Susan Stripling.)

Susan told us to look like the two creepy children in The Shining.

My sister’s veil seriously rocks.

I was getting sweaty, so my sister started doing this. Susan loved it. What can I say? We’re cute.

Let’s vote people!

*Don’t worry, this is a totally neutral post.*

As the fiance and I are getting married on November 1st and we’ll be in Costa Rica on the following Tuesday, we’re voting via absentee ballot! I made sure to request ours way ahead of time, and today we mailed them in! So, for those brides getting married around the same time, please don’t forget to vote! Some of our guests are staying the week to take a cruise, so remind them to vote, too!

It’s so important to vote. I mean, if Leonardo DiCaprio says so, then it must be true, right?!?! Actually that video is quite hilarious and even though the voter registration deadline has since passed, the message is still important. VOTE PEOPLE!

(Don’t worry Supervisor of Elections, the ballots aren’t in this picture, this is only the envelope!)

Rehearsal dinner invitations!

For our wedding rehearsal invitations, I took the easy route and ordered some invitations from Wedding Paper Divas. I know, I’m lazy. I did however, Gocco the directions to the rehearsal and the entree choices. Check it.  At this point in the planning process, I needed to take some shortcuts and this was certainly one of them.  But don’t worry, I got back into the game this past weekend with our programs.  You’ll see them soon!

I thought the orange leaves were perfect for a Halloween rehearsal dinner!

Oh, yes more esty stuff!

Pardon the boring post, but with the wedding less than 2 weeks away, you’ll have to be grant me that privilege. Here’s a custom sign we ordered through etsy from SignsByDiane. She did a fantastic job, right?

We wanted something vintage/shabby chic looking to put in our house afterwards. That’s sort of been my go-to excuse for buying things lately. Ya dig?

We also ordered a poster from etsy seller, unlesssomeonelikeyou. It looks similar to this, but I didn’t want to blur out our information, so I’ll post the real thing after the wedding. We were originally going to have all our guests sign it, but we loved the print so much, that we’ll just have our bridal party sign it and hang in our home afterwards.

Anyone else cuckoo for signage?!?

Guess who?

(Portrait by Susan Stripling)

Rockstar Programs!

For Kate and Aaron’s wedding, I offered to make their wedding programs as part of my role as a bridesmaid. Kate really loved Mrs. Penguin’s program design, so I basically stole her idea (thanks, Pengy!) and went to work! Kate shipped the paper of her choice and I spent some quality time with my Gocco. Any time I missed out on with my decision to order invitations, I made up for with this project.

The program was eight pages, which meant 16 lamps were used! In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have used the Gocco for this project, but I think the silver ink looked amazing on Kate’s purple paper, so what’s done is done!

Here is the silver ink on the purple paper.

I used a hole punch to push the eyelets through, and I used zots to secure the Thank You page and cover page.

I used a tiny hammer and an eyelet setter to set the eyelet.  It was easy!

Here is the front cover of the program!  I mixed the colors so that the purple would match the purple paper exactly!

I printed the Thank You pages using my Canon Pixma because I ran out of Gocco lamps!

Here there are in all their glory, ready to get married!

Anyone else put their newly found wedding expertise to work for a fellow bride?!?!

Rockstar Newlyweds!

We’re still getting settled back in from an amazing weekend in Northern Michigan for my dear friends, Kate & Aaron’s gorgeous wedding. I’ll be back tomorrow with a post on the programs I made for the wedding, our great bridesmaid dresses and some other fun/hilarious moments.

For now, I’ll leave you with the moment they were announced husband and wife. I present to you, the Rockstar Newlyweds!