Invitations are out!

A few weeks ago, while MOH and I were both visiting home (and each other), we had an addressing party. My mom and I went over the the maid-of-honor's mom's , and the four of us (MOH, MOB, me, and MO-MOH) put the invitations together. MO-MOH owns a business that is largely based on her ability to write beautifully, and MOH has been helping her mom with that for longer than I've known her (and that's more than 10 years now). So they took over the main task of addressing the envelopes (and I did a few, mostly out of guilt over the fact that they were being so sweet!).

My mom pitched in as the official stamper and stuffer. We used forever stamps that I bought right before the prices went up (for both the invitations and the RSVP envelopes). They may not be the most wedding-y, but I am proud of the money I saved by doing it this way.


So I've been patiently waiting to send them out. And I think it's close enough now! Last night, Mr. L and I finished everything up. I re-addressed envelopes to a few people that I know have moved, and to my grandmother (whose husband recently passed away). Mr. L was sweet enough to tackle the unfortunate duty of licking all the envelopes (I do love him). Some of them weren't very sticky, so he actually licked and glue-sticked most of them. It makes me wonder what other DIY projects he could be helping out on!

This morning on my way to work, they all went in the post box! Suddenly, it feels like the wedding is very soon.

Why I love Etsy (so far)

I really do love etsy. I have lost count of how many gifts I've bought from etsy vendors, and I know that the homepage always has great inspiration when I'm at a loss. So it was a logical choice when I started wedding planning. Of course I'd use alchemy/custom to find things when I knew what I wanted but couldn't find it, and of course etsy would be an easy choice when I wanted quality that I shouldn't be able to afford!

First, I went to etsy for invitations. I found an amazing letterpress printer who worked with me (and that's a major accomplishment, considering how many revisions I made!) to design exactly the invitation suite I wanted, and then ran half of the set through the letterpress twice, just to make sure it looked perfect! He was absolutely amazing, and less than half the price of even some of the DIY kits I looked at!

Then I turned to etsy for wedding bands. I am super excited about this one (as I have mentioned before). I love our bands. I love that they were custom-made for us (even though they don't have an inscription). I love that they are titanium, so they feel a little special to me. I love the price (and I'll love the price even more if we ever need to replace one). And I love that the seller has an easy exchange policy in case we change sizes (since titanium can't be re-sized). I sooo couldn't be happier about this purchase!

I also bought Mr. L's wedding present on etsy, but that's a surprise! The seller was, as usual, great to work with, and I got a great deal on something totally personal.

The fabric that I was desperately looking for to cover the cupcake tower? Someone on etsy had some that was perfect (read: exactly what I envisioned), and for a steal! They were uber-responsive, and I had exactly as much as I needed, pronto! I think one of the best things about etsy is that the quality of the items I order consistently surprises me by being even better than I expected. This was a great example of just that. This was wonderful, heavy fabric!

Most recently, I had someone one etsy create the design that I printed on my cookie bags! I put up an alchemy request, and ended up with a design I love for a great price with great customer service. I also discovered the work of a great graphic designer, and I'm convinced that I'll come up with some excuse to buy something from her again in the near future.

The Cupcake Tower

I finally made the cupcake tower. I hope that it'll work out as well when there are actually cupcakes on it!

I used the tutorial here as a guide for making the foam core tiers. I did make each tier shorter so that it wouldn't seem so overwhelming (mine are only 2" each instead of 6" tall).

Then I had to figure out how to stack them/what to use to separate them. I was inspired by round gift boxes used for my mom's mothers' day gift. They were just about the right height, and it seemed like we could attach the lid to one box and the base to the other so that they could be taken apart, but would fit nicely together. There was a little evolution from there, and I ended up with these foam core tubes made from the scraps left over from making the tiers.

There are cross supports that fit snugly in each tube attached to the tiers so that the tubes slide onto the cross on the top of one tier and the bottom of the next. The result is a tower that collapses to a relatively small pile but should be pretty stable when assembled (and should be super-simple to assemble). I think. I even labeled the support tubes on the inside so that it'll be easy to see which one fits best where (because I'm only so exact, and each is a little different from the next).

Finally, I covered it all in pretty striped fabric from etsy.

The fabric (with enough left over that I think I may be able to use it to recover the seats of my dining room chairs), incl shipping, etc.: $16
The glue gun, tons more glue than I'll ever use, and foamboard (with about 3 boards left): $12.22

total cost of project: $28.22

A San Francisco Treat

I will always associate trolleys with San Fran. It was the first place I saw one. And from that first trip on my childhood, I was delighted. It's perhaps the only form of public transportation that I think of as cute and adorable and nostalgic (trains just seem dirty and loud to me). And I LOVE wedding pictures featuring trolleys!

Our reception location is in a historic neighborhood, and the only parking is on the street, so I wanted to make sure to offer some sort of transportation for our guests if at all possible. I was debating exactly what kind of transportation to provide (will a full-sized charter bus fit on those little streets, or should I go with multiple smaller buses), when I discovered that there is a transport company in Richmond that rents out trolleys! They have two, which I think will be just enough for us (hopefully everyone who wants to ride will be able to).

This is the interior of the trolley we'll be getting! I am a little worried about the fact that they don't have A/C - it will still be earlier September. I'm hoping that a cooler filled with ice-cold drinks will make up for it.

So far, it seems like Winn Transportation is really easy to work with. I can't wait to see the trolley on The Day!

Rings!

We went ring shopping this weekend, and I ordered our wedding bands this morning!

We checked out all the options - titanium, gold, platinum, tungsten, and even black ceramic. Gold and platinum are pretty standard, but it was neat to look into the less-standard options too. Ceramic and tungsten are great, economical options, but both can shatter, which scares me a little (and Mr. L didn't like the look of the black - he preferred more of a traditional metal look.

Titanium was by far the most economical. Although it can't be re-sized (neither can ceramic or tungsten), we found a great, creative etsian who has a policy of allowing exchanges for a different size as long as there is no custom engraving. Perfect! I perused mostly etsy sellers (WAY cheaper than the jewelry store we checked out, and more variety... not to mention the awesomeness of getting a custom/handmade item direct from an American crafter), and really feel in love with the highly polished stuff. TitaniumKnights was our guy! Here's what we ended up getting (mine will be a little thinner than Mr. L's):

I can't help but boast; we're getting BOTH for a total of $94!!! I think this is the budget move I'm most proud of right now. I would have been willing to pay gold or platinum prices if there was a ring that we liked better, but we are both really excited about this ring! The price is just a wonderful bonus!

Save the Dates!

Yes, these went out a while ago. But, I did take a bunch of pictures, and I finally got them all uploaded. I ordered all of our invitation stuff from smallprinter. He was so easy to work with, and his prices are unbeatable (especially for letterpress!). In spite of all the time I spent working on the design with him, the final design is incredibly simple. I love every bit of it!

The invitations and save-the-dates all came the same day (I'm just waiting for printing of the directions and RSVP cards). They are beautiful!

While I was at the post office, picking them up, I went ahead and opened them up and had the nice postal employees weigh them for me, so I could go ahead and buy stamps. As it turns out, I won't need extra postage for any of it! YAY! So, I went ahead and got Frank Sinatra and Bette Davis stamps for the save the dates, and forever stamps for the invitations and RSVPs (they'll be after the postage rates increase, and I am that stingy). Don't the Frank stamps match nicely?!

My mom was awesome enough to turn my scattered pieces of paper with addresses into an easy-to-use mail merge document, already formatted to the perfect size envelopes. And yes, I printed out the addresses. Straight to the envelopes, with no regrets. Because of that, I was able to get them all addressed, stamped and stuffed in one night! That's my kind of project.

Cupcake presentation

Generally, I've been pretty laid-back about wedding stuff lately. I feel like the pressure is off.

I've finalized or near-finalized:

catering,

locations (ceremony and reception),

flowers,

hotel,

invitations (and sent out the StDs),

flowers,

bought my dress, and

decided on rings! (more to come on many of these things soon)

I feel good. I feel like I've got the major stuff taken care of. What's left seems manageable, and doesn't seem too urgent. And the stuff that I know I was procrastinating on because I didn't want to deal with it, I've delegated to my mom. Perfect.

So now, I feel like I should be tackling the stuff that isn't urgent, but can be done ahead of time. Since I'll be baking cookies (more on this to comme, too) and cupcakes for the wedding, I would like to only have to worry about those two things (and the unexpected things that I'm sure will come up) for the last couple of weeks before the wedding. So I've been trying to figure out what I can go ahead and take care of.

And so began the cupcake tower project. I found a great tutorial online for making a tower out of foamcore. Sounded prefectly budget-friendly, and like something that my limited craft skills could handle. Right? Well, it actually is. However, after building two of the levels, I'm not sure that it's really the scale that I had in mind. I mean, it's GIANT. I guess that's OK. It just isn't what I was expecting. I read the directions and didn't think anything of 6" high sides on each level - but in person... that's really high! So, I guess I could just cut the sides shorter. I can figure that out, right?

And the way it's designed, so that the sides of each level are the supports, doesn't actually leave a lot of area for the cupcakes. But I'm sure I could modify that too, right? Maybe do an x-shaped support that leaves the whole bottom open for cupcakes, like a friend of mine did. Or just move the sides in, so that there is a partial overhang above each level. Or use regular wedding cake pillars for support at each corner. There are definitely options.

Maybe some pillars like these guys?

But then I started thinking about other options, and came across an old copy of Martha Stewart Weddings.

How cute would the cupcakes be in their own little boxes, just stacked into a tower shape? And even though it would mean that I'd have to individually box them, it would also mean that I wouldn't have to build a tower. Not a bad trade-off. But then the questions becomes whether to use clear boxes and show off the cupcakes, or cute boxes like Martha's favor boxes, that are their own display, and have the pretty cupcakes as a nice surprise when people open them? Or round boxes? And will boxes discourage people from digging in? Or make it too hard to tell what kind of cupcake is in each (I plan to have 3 different flavors)?

So many choices.