Darling and Babe Seat Signs

I love it when the bride and groom spruce up their seats at the reception with signs that say "bride" and "groom" or "Mr." and "Mrs.".

I came across this picture recently and fell in love with the idea of putting {your} nicknames, such as "Darling" and "Babe", in place of the more traditional options noted above. And the polka dot paper and black ribbon make the signs just that much more adorable, don't you think!?

photo found on the blog of marie labbancz

How I Tied the Knot: Our Invitations

Previously in these posts, I shared a little bit about our invitations. Now, it's time to let you all in the details behind our invitation suite and the lessons that I learned along the way as they were crafted. And, of course, some pretty pictures to display along the way!

After scouring blogs and websites for invitation inspiration, I kept feeling that I was coming up empty-handed. After dozens of invitation drafts, I still didn't have an invitation that was juuuust right. However, once Erin from lucky designs sent over our monogram , I finally had a vision for our invitations {and the rest of our wedding, for that matter}.

Our invitations were wrapped in 1.5 inch raspberry {wine} satin ribbon affixed with our monogram square.

The ribbon slid off easily, revealing our lovely invitation:

The invitation itself was affixed to a plum pocket, which held our four insert cards.

Our four insert cards included an RSVP card, a Reception card, an Accommodations card and a card stating directions to venues on one side and a map of the city on the other.

Our invitations could not have turned out as beautiful without the help of April from April Foster Events. She took our rough drafts and worked with our vision and inspiration and {after a couple of tweaks} produced our lovely invitations. I hope that you all love them as much as we {and our guests} did. If you decided to save any of the above pictures for your personal use, or publish them on your blog, please remember to credit tying the knot and April Foster Events.

Lessons Learned #20: I bought the ribbon at save-on-crafts. 50 yards of 1.5 inch thick ribbon was only $6.99+ shipping. Go here to see their selection of ribbon to see if your colors are available!

Lessons Learned #21: April from April Foster Events is a registered vendor of various paper companies. I was able to purchase the plum pockets thru her for an incredibly affordable price. The pockets are one-sided so I was able to affix the invitation to the flat side of the pocket {with double sided tape} and store our insert cards in the pocket.

Lessons Learned #22: About a foot of ribbon was needed to make the ribbon band that fit around our {5x7} invitation/pocket. I overlapped the ribbon slightly and used double sided tape to adhere the ribbon to itself. Then I attached our monogram 2x2 inch square to the ribbon with double sided tape where the ribbon overlapped, in order to hide the overlap. I then slid on the ribbon over the pocket/invitation so that the monogram square was over the center of the invitation.

Lessons Learned #23: The map was created by taking a screen shot of the map of Indianapolis from mapquest.com. Then, using powerpoint we opened up the map screen shot and traced the map using the powerpoint drawing tools. The mapquest map was then deleted, leaving only our tracings. We used text boxes to add in the text and Chris {somehow} created little interstate signs. I found tutorials on weddingbee extremely helpful. You can find them here and here and here.

Lessons Learned #24: I could not have successfully designed our invitations without the help of April from April Foster Events. I literally would have torn my hair out. April was a dream to work with and I would recommend her to anyone. You can reach her at hello@aprilfosterevents.com and if you choose to work with her, please let her know that I recommended her!

previously in the series, "how i tied the knot": getting ready, our first look, bouquets and boutonnieres, socks and shoes, bubbles and getting away, the cake, thank you cards, blurb guest book, outside the mansion, the dress
all pictures by: tying the knot. please link back to tying the knot when posting any of these pictures.

Poll: Addressing the Envelopes

One of my favorite bloggers, Sarah from classic bride, has launched her own calligraphy shop! Head on over to SD Calligraphy to check out samples of her gorgeous work!

Speaking of calligraphy, I have to admit that I have toyed with opening up shop as well. I have always loved picking up a fresh pen and watching the ink flow onto the paper. Addressing the envelopes for our save the dates, invitations and thank you cards was something that I looked forward to and loved doing. I attempted to learn true calligraphy {as featured by SD Calligraphy and Laura Hooper}, but I just couldn't do it. It didn't look right and it just wasn't "me." Instead, I addressed our envelopes with my own {pretty} handwriting. And the envelope recipients loved the results.

So, dear readers. I created a little poll, just to get a feel for your opinions. How will you address your envelopes? Will you spend a little money and adorn your envelopes with the pretty calligraphy of SD Calligraphy and Laura Hooper? Would you turn your envelopes over to someone like me to address them, for a low price, with simply pretty handwriting? Or are you sending them through the printer/addressing them yourself? Please vote on the poll to the left or simply leave a comment!

p.s. for those interested, please contact me for addresssing services. i'm thinking $20 to address your envelopes + shipping + cost of envelopes {or you may purchase the envelopes yourself and send them to me}. my e-mail/contact info is on the right side of this blog!

A Quaint Little Church

We got married in a gorgeous Catholic cathedral. It's beauty was just breathtaking. But if I could have tied the knot in a quaint little church like this, I would have. In a heart beat. Aren't the wreaths combined with the draping of fabric just beautiful?!

photo found on the blog feelin' lucky with photo credit to kim box photography.

How I Tied the Knot: The Dress

Tonight, I received the sweetest e-mail from a reader of this little bloggity blog. It's the little things, like that e-mail and your comments, that remind me that this blog of mine isn't just something that only I enjoy. To know that pictures/ideas/details from my wedding or other pretty pictures from my blog have inspired even one person means so much. So thank you, for the time that you all spend reading this blog, for your comments and for your feedback! It is much appreciated and I hope that you keep coming back to visit. In her e-mail, MaryAnn {hi MaryAnn!} wanted to know a little bit more about my dress. I had previously posted about my dress in these posts, but I didn't really divulge all the details surrounding it. So here is my little recap of my dress search, where my dress is from and the lessons I learned while I hunted for the perfect dress. Shopping for my wedding dress wasn't too high up on my priority list. I'm not sure if it was because I was nervous I wouldn't be able to find one I liked or if it was because I wasn't thrilled by the idea of having to sift through racks and racks of dresses in multiple stores. To be honest, dress shopping didn't go too well. My first stop was David's Bridal {lest we forget I was on a budget!}. I found a dress I liked, but I wasn't in love with it. I went to every other bridal store around town, but all the dresses were either too expensive or didn't have what I was looking for. For about a month I searched and searched and wore myself out. I thought I would never find the dress. One day, I went back to the David's Bridal website and saw that the Spring line had arrived. I saw a couple dresses that I liked, so I went back to try them on. None of them were right. But my "bridal consultant" listened to all that I wanted in a dress and told me that she had "the perfect dress" from the new line that I hadn't already tried on. She brought it over, I tried it on and I was in love. It was the one. {note: this was when we couldn't find the top clasp to close my dress. i jumped on my blackberry and read a couple of my favorite wedding blogs to pass the time and distract myself from the fact that my dress wasn't clasping. Once again, I refer you to Lesson Learned #5. } The picture above really shows the detail of the dress and how beautiful it was. The picture below shows one of my favorite parts of the dress, the bustle. It was divine. The best part about the dress? It's price. $499 {after a coupon from a bridal show}. You can pick your jaw up now and wipe away the drool. So there you have it, the dress is from Davids Bridal and was quite affordable. Would you have guessed?!

Lesson Learned #15: Don't be scared to go to a "discount" shop like David's Bridal. Gorgeous dresses aren't only sold at boutiques.

Lesson Learned #16: Don't judge a dress before you try it on. This is what my dress looks like on-line, which is totally different from how it looks "for real." Since I didn't like the on-line image, I hadn't bothered to request to try it on at the store. Once I saw it on me, I was in love and couldn't believe I had overlooked it.

Lesson Learned #17: When I first started looking at dresses, I was convinced that I wanted a puffy princess-y dress. When I actually tried them on, that style looked horrible on me and I was lost inside a mound of tulle. Be willing to change the visions you have of your wedding dress once you really start to try them on since different dress styles look different on different body types.

Lesson Learned #18: Go back to stores that you have already visited to see if new lines/dresses have arrived since your last visit.

Lesson Learned #19: For most brides, alterations will cost about half as much the dress itself. Accept it. Find a different location for alterations, if possible. The store/boutique will cost substantially more than the women that your friends {or women on the knot local message boards} can suggest that performs alterations out of her home.

previously in the series, "how i tied the knot": getting ready, our first look, bouquets and boutonnieres, socks and shoes, bubbles and getting away, the cake, thank you cards, blurb guest book, outside the mansion

all pictures by: nicole green. please link back to tying the knot when posting any of these pictures.

Find Me Some Boots

Below, is one of my all time favorite "shoe & sock shot", found here . I love the groom's purple and blue argyle socks paired with brown shoes and how the bride traded her heels for cowboy boots.
And then I saw these remarkable pictures from matthew morgan where the bridesmaids, wore the most adorable brown cowboy boots.

And then there was this engagement shoot where the bride-to-be brought out her boots. The dog's cute too.

Long story short, I am in need of boots like these for the summer's upcoming country concerts. Suggestions as to where I can find boots like the ones above {specifically ones like the bridesmaid on the far right, above} would be much appreciated as I would like to get my grubby little hands on them as soon as possible. The sooner I have them then the sooner summer will be here, right?

last two pictures found at: megan w photography

Slipping It On

So, in the post below I stated how much I love the shot of the bride slipping on the grooms wedding band while she states her vows. My love for that shot started when I saw this picture:

mrs. lovebug from weddingbee

So I sifted through our wedding photos, did a little cropping, little editing with the help of picnik and came up with this:

It's a new "favorite" of mine, for sure.