save the date

I am on a roll! Here is my newly designed save the date postcard. I decided to go ahead and design the back as well, as per USPS regulations (thus the non symmetrical look). Grayscale printing from Vistaprint is free, so I decided to do that route, rather than pay $7.49 for color. Overall, for 100 postcards, it will be about $15 shipped! Now that's a bargain.

front:

back:

I got the calendar from The Wedding Chicks (here). They offer a lot of fantastic, beautiful DIY freebies and I'm loving everything I've seen so far!

I designed my invitation!

Okay I think it's time for me to start keeping a design portfolio. I nailed down my invitation design (created it myself, down to my very own background pattern in photoshop thank you very much) today! I'll probably go back and redo my Save the Dates to fit into this same style too. But I'm saving those other save the dates I made. I like them.

I got my inspiration for these invites from the nostalgic, old-fashioned labels I'll be using for the candy at the reception, so it's already more appropriate to what theme I'm going with!

The picture doesn't show the colors well but the polka dots and the text are the same color, so it's a 2-color invitation. I'm not sure if I'm going to build my own letterpress or not yet, but just in case I want to go that route I can do this in black and white too. I'm in love with it. I may tweak it in the next few months, but for a single day's work building this and getting the wording down from scratch, I'm thinking not bad. If anyone wants to use this design for their own wedding, please message me, I'd love to see my designs get out into the world.

Okay, I think I have the basic timing of the wedding day worked out. Obviously, this will change as we get closer to the wedding, but I do like to have a general idea of things!

4pm-4:30: guests arrive, appetizers provided in "social hour" area

4:45: guests begin to take their seats

5:00: Flower girl walks down aisle to start ceremony

5:30: merge to reception (appetizers, movement to reception area, barbecue fires up)

6-6:30: Dinner starts to be served

7:00: Toasting, cake cutting

7:30: First dance (and dancing to continue until people head out)

How does that sound?

Food is an entirely different story. I have the candy shop and soda bar done, but as for "dinner" we are doing a barbecue with Kim, Calvin's brother-in-law, cooking. Since this is a Native wedding, I've been informed that we are having fry bread and indian tacos as well (yum!). It'll be interesting doing all this food, but since it's not fancy and pricey, I'm confident it will be within the budget. The challenge will just be getting it all cooked and eaten!

Main course choices:

steak

chicken

hot dog

indian tacos (fry bread and chili)

And I'm trying to figure out how to estimate who will be having steaks/chicken/hot dogs. According to Calvin, there's no such thing as too many steaks, so I guess we'll just buy as many as the budget allows for and freeze the extras (to his delight) , but on the day of the ceremony, I'm thinking perhaps request cards on a table near the entrance might be a good idea, so Kim knows how many of each to cook.

Side dishes, I haven't even gotten to think about yet, but I'm thinking plain potato chips or baked potatoes or something. Definitely need ideas here.

For many brides, appetizers turn out to be the most expensive part of the budget because of the variety needed. Hopefully with a bit of creativity, I'll be able to avoid that problem. I'm still brainstorming here as well but my first thought is turkey pieces wrapped in bacon. They are easy to make and can stay on a warmer until pierced with toothpicks and placed on a tray. I'd like to do more similar appetizers, so I'll be hitting the recipe books!

Any ideas, please for heaven's sake, share them!

bottoms up

I was thinking about chair sashes today. I've always thought they looked bulky and tacky, but my MOH Rachell pointed out that they do go a long way to dress a place up (blue plastic folding chairs do not scream elegance). So I've been thinking about maybe doing something lightweight, like a couple layers of tulle (Fabric.com has it very reasonably priced) with a polka dot ribbon bow at the back. That way it's not too formal but still keeps things a bit more wedding-y. Thoughts?

squee!

once more: I HAVE MY DRESS!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I'm such a graphic design geek. I was ordering our save the date postcards on Vistaprint.com (first 100 free, shipping is only $6. Heck yes) when I realized I really was not thrilled about the ONLY image available for the save the dates. This was it:

boring

So I decided I would take advantage of their offer to upload your own image for only $3.74 (again, a major deal). So I made up the image below (sized to their postcard proportions) altering Photoshop shapes and using my own text. I uploaded it to Vistaprint, but it was too low quality so I actually redid the whole thing at 300 pixels per inch because I was having so much fun (I know I know NERD ALERT).

still plain but I like it!

And on the other side, it's just a standard free grayscale postcard. I'm pretty pleased with it! Overall, the damage is still going to be something like 15 cents per postcard! I've ordered Vistaprint postcards before, so I can tell you, they are very good quality. I'm excited! I may even revamp these because after I made them, I discovered a bunch of DIY (do it yourself) wedding blogs, many of whom offered free templates and images for my use! Yay! So I played around with those a bit. I now have something like 4-5 half finished save the date postcards, which I'll revisit later when my mind is fresher. I love graphic design and I love Photoshop!

I'm getting my dress!!!!!

Karen at Bellina Bridal contacted me today with a quote to make my Maggie Sottero Rasharna dress for $900 shipped! She said it will be nearly identical. Anyway, I'll pay for it in May when Calvin's tribal money comes in and it will be ready right around the end of July! I'm super excited because it will be custom-made for me AND it's my dream dress!! I also get to eliminate the train from the dress because, let's face it, after the 5-second walk down the aisle, the train is just a big messy bundle of expensive, cumbersome fabric. After all, I'm also refusing to wear heels with the dress (which, luckily I can now do, because I won't have to get it tailored shorter!), so I might as well make the most beautiful dress of my life as comfortable as I can get away with!

Did I mention...I'm so excited!!!