Handmade wedding invitations
One of the biggest projects I undertook for our wedding was making the invitations. I had a crazy idea that this would somehow be simple, despite a multi-step binding process, even though I’d never actually bound a book before. I just knew I could do it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Every book started as a sheet of board precisely measured and cut.
Then each piece was placed and glued to an assortment of colored papers.
At this point I got some help from my friend’s Jannatha and Kyle.
For the inside pages, Shawn and I bought a few vintage book plates with images of animals, which we scanned and laid out in our book. We chose a lot of owls and birds. I wrote small stories about us and wove it into the information about the actual wedding.
We had them printed at a local print shop and then I sewed the insides into the books.
Mochi also helped.
Shawn helped me stamp return envelopes for our reply cards. We were able to use the same envelopes from our save the dates.
I made about 90 of these books. All told it was probably 60 hours of work, but then again I wasn’t exactly keeping track.
Are you ready to see inside?
While it was quite a long and arduous process, the responses that we received from guests made it all worth it. That being said, I would never do anything like it on that scale again. I wouldn’t have been able to complete them all in time without help from my friends, Shawn and my mom who helped me stamp and seal all the envelopes.
p.s. Of course I left out a few pages, so you all don’t show up at the wedding, since it hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll be sure to show them off in the end.
Camera strap cover
Amidst all my crazy projects at the moment, I managed to pull off one quick little DIY for myself. I put a cute cover on my new camera strap. For awhile now I’ve been carting around this camera without a strap at all, but thought it would actually be useful to have one. Luckily I got my hands on a spare, but it had a lot of text on it from the fancy camera
I didn’t follow any instructions (but here’s a good tutorial) I just measured the strap and added a little extra for seam allowance. It was quick and easy, taking less than 20 minutes. The most difficult part was slipping the cover over the original strap, since it has that fancy grip fabric on the bottom.
I should probably iron it so it looks a little more pro, but I’m quite happy with it. I like the contrast of the light fabric and the black camera and all the hidden details in the print.
DIY wedding cake
Onto a rather controversial topic…wedding cake.
From the start, I’ve said that I’m going to make it myself. At some point I made a concession that we’d order a small wedding cake from someone and then I’d make a few additional cakes. Let’s be honest though, I really just want to do it myself. Generally speaking, don’t people hate wedding cakes anyway? If we’re gonna serve cake, it better be a good cake, and I make a damn good cake.
My plan is to make a handful of cakes rather than one giant one. Then we’ll have a bunch of different flavors and I don’t have to worry about tiers. Here is some of the inspiration I’ve found.
I totally fell for these art deco cakes courtesy of Martha Stewart (of course!). Simple but varied designs with limited color palate. I love that all the cakes are different sizes.
Seriously, who doesn’t like a choice in cake? Check out this pound cake table from Once Wed. Gorgeous!
I was also thinking something like these rustic cakes. The idea of not having to pipe anything seems pretty appealing. I’m also into the fact that they’re kind of tall. Kind of into the idea of tall cakes.
I’m really excited about the whole project. I am looking forward to spending a day baking without having to worry about all the other wedding stuff (although I’m sure I will anyway).
Now we just need to decide what flavors…and how many…
Wedding dress details
First I just have to get one thing out of the way…
Shawn Bannon, if you are reading this, please stop.
Just scoot on over to another website please and thank you. We made a deal.
The turtles are just a distraction.
Now that that’s done with…for those of you still here…I want to share some details of my wedding dress. Woah!
It’s still not complete, but I’m bad at keeping secrets. So here are a few little hints of what it will be. Feel free to let your imagination run a little wild.
There’s lots of lace. More than you see here even though it’s strewn about the floor.
I have to say, with all the things that need to be done and projects that need to be worked on, looking at these photos make me feel oh so much better. Pretty pretty pretty.
You want to see what the dress looks like?
Yep, there it is.
It’s pinned on me. The lace is on it’s way. Needless to say, I’m rather excited.
This is probably the last peek you’ll see until after the wedding.
66 days and counting…
Vintage Postcard Save the Dates
The first thing on our big to do list of wedding planning was making our save the dates. Shawn and I both really liked the idea of using vintage post cards. We went to the infamous Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market and bought up a bunch.
It was super fun to browse through the booths and find cards we liked. I really liked reading the ones with original writing on the back. People sure did talk about their sick relatives a lot back in the day.
The best part about getting the postcards at the flea market, rather than ordering online and just getting a lot of unknown cards, we were able to hand pick each one. We chose ones that were all from California and if possible, from Los Angeles.
We hand stamped each postcard with a stamp set our friends had given us. I can’t tell you how handy that stamp set is. It’s really just a box full of individual letters so we’ve used it for our return addresses, postcards for our movie screening, cupcake boxes, you name it.
We also chose one of the photos that Shawn took of us to send along to personalize each announcement.
We hand addressed all the envelopes with some help from my mom and sent them out!
I think they look rather sweet and definitely capture that vintage feeling that will be present throughout our wedding. Next up…invitations!
p.s. we didn’t really send one to the president…but wouldn’t it be cool if we did?
