Love is in the Air

I might be posting today because I'm working on my friend's wedding invitations and I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, but it also might be because I'm seeing a lot of bridal parties doing photo shoots downtown lately. Nonetheless, in the spirit of the wedding season, today I am sharing the invitations that I designed for Justin and myself. A few weeks ago I announced that they were featured on The Snap Flower Girls blog, but even at two years old, I still love them.

Our guests were first informed of the occasion by this lovely save the date. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the item on the far right was a pocket that the save the date card slid into from the top and all you saw when opening the envelope was our names and save the date in the bottom right corner. Since the pocket was a great catchall, we included a copy of our engagement picture too.

A few months later, our guests received the formal invitation

The patterned belly band held the interior cards in place and the front flap closed. To open the package, guests slid the belly band unclasping the front flap, opening up to this.

The last piece of the puzzle were the thank you cards that we sent promptly after our big day. Similar to the save the date, these also featured a pocket but this one was on the end rather than the top, and along with the handwritten gracias, we popped in one of our favorite photos from the wedding.

Has anyone else tackled their own wedding invitations? It seems to be a popular wedding item that brides are DIY-ing these days. Do you have photos of your invitations? I would love to see your handiwork, so email them to me!

Blog Love: The Snap Flower Girls

The lovely ladies at The Snap Flower Girls introduced me on their blog yesterday as a featured vendor!

The co-owners of the blog are Natalie from ZuZu's Petals (my wedding florist) and Gina from Gina Cristine Photography. I answered a few questions and supplied them some never-before-seen photos of my wedding invitations. Visit their blog to check it out!

Kurt & Jacky Sitting in a Tree

Not too long ago I posted the DIY gift that I gave to my cousin at her wedding and I also wrote about her sweet wedding cake (pun intended). I finally photographed her wedding invites that I designed and here they are.

Jacky picked out the Brides ivory and chocolate invitation kit from Michaels and asked me to work my typography magic to lay out the details and other inserts. I also created the ceremony program (farthest on the left).

Now you can see how the wine bottle gift that I made matched her invitation design.

Have cake and eat it too!

Of all of the DIY elements at my cousin's wedding, a few weeks ago, in my opinion (aside from the things I designed) the homemade wedding cake took the - er - cake... When I rounded the corner at the reception all I could say was wow. My cousin's sister (I guess that makes her my cousin too) flew up from Florida for the celebration and was the mastermind behind the dangerously delicious dessert. If my taste buds' memories serve me correct, the cake was not only frosted, but the fondant was super yummy (not at all what I expected since I had been told not to eat fondant because it was gross), there was a layer of caramel, and a layer of brownie. Talk about sinful!

I think the use of decorative fringe pinned in by pearl-ended corsage needles was a super fast and easy, not to mention cool, way to tie in the color palette and add visual interest to the smooth fondant.

The other part that had me at hello were the cake stands. My other cousin, the bride's brother, cut up some wood to make perfectly sized pedestals for the multi-tiered cake. It completely incorporated the autumn theme and everything came full circle with the leaf motif.

DIY Wedding Gift

This past weekend Justin and I had the pleasure of attending my cousin's wedding in a little town west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While the weather was cooperative, it was a fabulous affair with an autumn inspired color palette and chock full of family and friends. The men wore dark chocolate brown tuxes with a bronze vest and tie and the bridesmaids wore milk chocolate strapless dresses with custom made jewelry. Rust and burgundy flowers made up the bouquets and boutonnieres and white flowers filled the church.

Leading up to the wedding, my schedule was crazy-busy, so when it dawned on me that it was less than a week away, I became frantic to figure out what to give them. On a whim, a couple years ago, Justin decided he was going to be a vintner and whipped up a couple batches of wine that yielded about four dozen bottles. If he would have known at the time that we would still be drinking it two years later, he probably would have stopped after the first batch, but surprisingly it has aged beautifully and inspired this DIY wedding gift. My cousin and her husband have anything and everything needed for a full home and unlike most newlyweds (who scramble to find a matching spoon, fork, and knife), they are charged with consolidating two homes into one. Armed with the knowledge that they love anything wine related I grabbed a bottle from our cellar (a.k.a. cardboard boxes filled with wine bottles in our basement), an empty basket, a pair of wine glasses, and got to work.

In addition to joining in their celebration, I was recruited for the job of invitation designer. I abused this privilege and swiped the custom logo and leaf motif I created to design labels for the naked wine bottle. I stuck one on the front with their motif prominently displayed for all to see...

one on the back crediting us for the creation of the wine and the year it was made...

and one striped over the top of the cork. This took all of an hour or two and my materials consisted of a page of Avery full-sheet crack-and-peel label paper, printer, x-acto knife, and my design wits.

For those of you who don't have access to a cellar box full of homemade wine, you could easily remove the labels from a store bought bottle and relabel it with your own (crediting the original maker, of course).

After I branded the bottle, I washed the store bought wine glasses and wrapped the wine bottle stopper that I included in the basket as well. When it came to assembling the basket, I realized too late that I didn't have any filler to prop up the items. However, I did have white and silver wrapping paper and a paper shredder. Yup, I shredded the paper to create coordinating filler for the basket.

So, in anticipation that my cousin and her hubby have already opened up their gift and are on a plane to Jamaica at the moment, I hope my quick and easy DIY wedding gift gave you an idea of how to customize the next gift you give.

Congratulations Jacky and Kurt!