Sneak Peek: Our Wedding Photos

Everyone's been asking almost nonstop about photos from our wedding. And...

You're going to have to wait just a tad longer so that I can put together my recaps. But in the meantime, here's a teaser.

If you really really need to get a wedding fix, check out Stern Grove Wedding (the first two weddings that cubes and I went to together).

Sneak Peek: Topping it Off

I couldn't wait to share with everyone this sneak peek Esther of E-Star Hats sent me. Here's what my hat looks like so far.

What do you think?

Sneak Peek: Favors for Our Burning Man Wedding

Yesterday's mail brought our wedding favors for our Burning Man Wedding - a box of personalized buttons.

Want to see a sneak peek? (Yes I know I said you'd have to wait, but I love how the design turned out.)

Overall, I was very impressed with Wacky Buttons. I received a proof of the approved design. Then after submitting the order, we received a proof of our buttons. From design to order to delivery, the entire process took just 4 business days. While their Time Calculator could be a little more user friendly (include the estimated time to approve design), everywhere else Wacky Buttons went above and beyond. It was easy to upload your own artwork. (If you didn't have Adobe Photoshop they had an online design tool.) The price was right. The customer service was great. I would definitely order from them again.

So what do you think of the wedding favors? Did you do something untraditional for your favors?

Burning Man: The Bride's Outfit

Two of the three vintage petticoats I ordered for my Burning Man wedding "dress" arrived this week.

And can I just say this? This look is better than what I first planning! I absolutely love the soft contrast between the off-white and cream petticoats and the detailing.

Right now I'm actually thinking of only wearing the two. And when I top them off with my Miss Velvet Cream denim top - wow.

One of the petticoats has a pink stain on the front of the swiss dot ruffle that I wasn't aware of when I ordered. There were (are) a few other stains pictured but as I was layering the slip under others those stains didn't concern me.

So initially the pink stain concerned me. I thought it would be noticeable and was considering dying the slip. But after trying on the outfit I don't think I'll need to.

What do you think? Can you tell where the stain is when I'm wearing the petticoat?

Sneak Peek: Programs

One thing we discovered while putting our programs together is that while wedding blogs show photos of the finished product, many fail to shed light on the contents. (When creating your own program following - or not following - a guide is helpful.)

Some real brides did share their content (see DIY Project: Writing Our Programs post). To those brides who did, Thank You! For future brides, we're also sharing our content.

Without further ado, here's what our programs include and why. In the inside cover we have a quick preview of what's happening when. At dinner we're going to be spread across a couple of locations and this gives everyone a rough idea of where they might want to be.

Opposite the At a Glance, we introduce our Wedding Party and Our Families. This way our guests can identify everyone. (I know I always refer to a program to see who the bride and groom chose for their wedding party.)

With our Rabbi, we customized our ceremony. We took pieces from a couple of his basic ceremonies. Not all of our guests will have been to a Reform Jewish wedding ceremony so we wanted to give everyone an idea of what to expect. (There will be Hebrew in the actual ceremony but I didn't have a way to create it.)

Following the Our Ceremony section, we'll have a Traditions Explained section (not pictured here) where people can read about why we're circling each other and what Yichud is.

Rather than having a menu at each setting, in addition to cards that identify each buffet option, we've included the menu and allergy information in the program. This way people can avoid what they're allergic to. (We tried to choose items that gave everyone a complete meal.)

We'll also be including a rough table chart so that after guests pick up their escort cards they'll know where they'll be sitting - main floor, balcony, or side hall.

On the inside back cover we thank everyone for coming. After these have been printed and assembled, cubes and I will personally sign the Thank You. We also include the ever familiar Colophon for fellow font and paper lovers.

Finally, the back cover includes information about how to post photos to Flickr and tag Tweets so that we can enjoy.

The one thing we haven't finalized is whether our titles should be cooking or food related. For example, The Wedding Party could be Key Ingredients. Although that might get confusing as we're including our buffet menu in our programs. (On a side note, if we were a couple into theater, I had a totally cute program based on a Playbill in mind. Contact me if you'd like the template.)

What did you do for your programs? Did you opt for one guide that included table assignments as well as menu options? Or did you keep your paper projects separate?

Sneak Peek: Wedding Party Survival Bags

I promised everyone this sneak peek yesterday and I know you've all been waiting with baited breath.

First some housekeeping. I promised I won't keep you waiting much longer. If you're in our wedding party, please stop reading now. We've spent a lot of time putting this bags/gifts together and we want you to be surprised. Honestly, goody bags are so much better if you're surprised at what's in them. Just ask my parents who one year after I snuck into their closet and opened (and resealed) all of the hidden gifts, returned them and got different ones!

Members of Our Wedding Party
Members of Dan's Immediate Family 

(Image Source)

PLEASE STOP READING NOW

Are all members of our wedding party and members of Dan's immediate family gone now? This includes a certain SIL who's as bad as me with surprises. To all, I do promise this is the last sneak peek post I'll bar you from.

Okay, now we're ready to tell you what we have planned for our gals and guys. First off, let me say that a lot of thought has gone into these bags and their contents. This DIY project took over four months from start to finish.

We've intentionally spared everyone customization - I mean who wants to carry a bag around with them that has someone else's name on it? Besides avoiding any telltale "I got this cuz I was in a wedding" marks (we wanted to insure that if our guys and gals don't like the bags they can totally regift them - it goes with our greener choices approach), we also wanted each item to support our crew's "We Must be Ready" mantra.

So in the theme of "We Must be Ready" our bags are truly not traditional. Drum roll please.

Our goodie bags are coolers! Coolers that are neatly sized for a spur-of-the-moment picnic in Mission Dolores Park. The coolers were one of my green choices as the material is made from recycled water bottles (even purchased them on Earth Day from eBags and took advantage of a eco-friendly coupon). But, they're not truly green (this was sincerely disappointing to me) as they're Made in China.

The boys' bags differ slightly from the girls' bags. And out-of-town members of the wedding party have some additional goodies. (We're going to wait to give a sneak peek of these extra goodies, just in case someone is still reading along.)

Here's the general contents - the Day-Of-Survival contents - for everyone:

So what do you think? How did you choose your Day-of Survival Bags? Did you combine wedding party gifts with Day-of Survival bags?

Sneak Peek: Out-of-Town Bags

When you plan a wedding it's easy to get swept up in "Me Too." To avoid this, for every DIY project or item we look at whether it reflects "Us."

As you've surmised by now, food is very important to us. As you're also aware, we're on a budget. A budget means we need to make decisions as to how much we do.

For our out-of-town bags (OOT bags), we wanted to spend no more than $500. That means our OOT bags are a DIY project where quantity versus quality came in to play. Here we opted for quality over quantity. 

Before we reveal what we're doing, I need some of our readers to stop reading here.

Members of Dan's Family

(Image Source)

PLEASE STOP READING NOW

Okay, is everyone who's in Dan's family gone? Yep? Yay! I hate keep secrets, but at the same time I want people to be surprised. 

We didn't want to skimp on food that represents San Francisco. We also didn't want to stock our bags with items that our guests were just going to toss. With these two goals in mind, we decided to limit the OOT bags to just cubes' immediate family (Mom, Dad, Nan, and sister Jamie will receive an OOT bag). cubes' brother is in our wedding party and will be getting a Day-of Survival Bag. Don't worry, there will be some additional goodies in his bag for cubes' Sister-in-Law.

Besides a Wedding VIP Contact card, customized Google Map, and Weekend Guide, here's what we're going to be including in our OOT bags.

The Goodies ($420 - less than our $500 budget)

1. Canvas Maptote from at the WeddingChannel. On sale for $13.99 (regularly $15.00).
2. San Francisco Food Lover's Pocket Guide, Second Edition from BettyCrocker Store. $8.15.
3. Tickets for Anchor Steam Brewery Tour. Free.
4. Tylenol, Advil, and Pepto-Bismol packets from Minimus.biz. $0.39 to $0.95 each.
5. Columbus Italian Dry Salame. $8.50.
6. Tcho Hot Chocolate and Chocolate Bars. $21.50.
7. Ritual Coffee Beans, 12 oz. $15.95.
8. Boudin 8 oz Sourdough Round. $2.83.
9. Re:newal Premium Spring Water. $1.29 each. (This bottled water is eco-friendly. The BPA-free, biodegradable bottle and label are made entirely from plants not crude oil.) 
10. Bi-Rite Creamery Gift Certificate. $10.00.
11. Portable Wine and Cheese Set from Picnic Fun for picnicking in the park or at the vineyards. $18.00.

What did you do for your OOT bags? Did you go for quantity over quality?

Check back next Wednesday for a Sneak Peek at the Survival Bags we put together for our wedding party.

Choosing: Adding Sprite to Our Cake Topper

We decided that we wanted our cake topper to include everyone in our family - us as well as Sprite. We have the pieces and now it's time to determine where we want to place Sprite.

Should Sprite be:

1. In front of the Groom and Bride looking forward (Option 1)?
2. In front of the Groom looking off to the left (Option 2)?
3. To the right of the Groom (Option 3)?
4. In front of the Groom looking up at the Bride (Option 4)?

What's your favorite arrangement?

Dressing the Groom: The Suit Redux

After some rescheduling hijinks, we finally managed to sync up with Scatha for my final suit fitting on the Saturday before last.

As I expected, Miss Velvet Cream worked her magic, and the suit, much like our cake, is made of awesome.

The suit has an edgier look to it featuring D-ring closures, a Mandarin collar, and Scatha's signature patchwork effect, but fits like a classically tailored suit, which is to say, very well.

The suit is complemented by a vest, which features more aggressive patchwork texturing and, possibly my favorite touch, a ring pocket!

As a finishing touch Scatha sewed on the innards of a pocket watch, and two keys (not pictured).

I'm so looking forward to the chance to wear my suit down the aisle, probably the only thing that I'm anticipating more is finally getting to see Eden in her dress. A fine suit is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Sneak Peek: The Dress That Started It All

Today's post was supposed to be about registries. I can't stop thinking about my dress though, and realized that while I'd talked about my mother's dress, I'd never shown you a photo of the dress. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photo - my scanner didn't want to work this morning so I took a picture with my iPhone.

Here's my mom and my gram on my parents' wedding day, 10/21/1967.

If you want a sneak peek at how Miss Velvet Cream altered the dress, visit our wedsite. (cubes please don't follow the link.)

Sneak Peek: Invitations

Please forgive the quality of the images - it was early and I was a little overcaffeinated. But without further ado, here's a sneak peek at our wedding invitations and inserts.

The Front

The Back (Did you notice how the backs of the gift tags are purple?)

So what do you think? It took all of my willpower not to go bouncing down the hall to show off these beauties this morning.

Where We Got the Look

• Invitation and Gift Tag: Banana Paper Card Stock from EcoPaper.com
• Inserts: Banana Paper Printer Paper from EcoPaper.com
• RSVP Postcard: Canon Selphy CP760 photo postcard paper
• Ribbon: Paper Raffia from Nashville Wraps
• Postage: $0.22 stamp on the RSVP postcard (not visible) from PhotoStamps.com
• Lace Rose Design: iStockPhoto

Sneak Peek: Our Guestbook

One of my favorite stores is The Container Store. You see I love having stuff neatly organized.

(Source: Decor8)

And the thing I loved best about our guestbook is that it presented me with an organization challenge. It's part scrapbook and part recipe clipping book.

Here's why. We're asking guests to share with us their favorite recipe or recipes. The idea came to me as I was scouring Etsy and eBay for vintage cookbooks and came across an old recipe clipping book.

(Source)

I just knew that instead of a traditional guestbook we needed to have a scrapbooking station with glue sticks, pens, and other accessories for guests to add their recipes and well wishes. We have about 130 guests so we needed a book with at least 200 pages.

Initially we were going to DIY the entire project (as I fell in love with coptic stitch binding). I'd wanted to source everything locally but in this case a local vendor couldn't be found. But after months of lurking on Etsy, we found a journal from Creating (Latvia) that was us. Before deciding to purchase the journal, I referred to a DIY Reality Check Flowchart (pdf) posted by Rachel from Heart of Light on 1000 Layer Cake (via WeddingChannel). For this project, going DIY didn't save us money and it wasn't something that I absolutely had do to myself. So we decided we'd get the journal from Creating.

The journal is made of upcycled materials (burlap, leather, and kraft paper) and has the vintage look we were going for. Here's a sneak peek of our guestbook.

Are you doing something non-traditional for your guestbook? Did you have a DIY Project that you decided to source instead?

Sneak Peek: Save the Dates are Ready!

Sneak Peek: Postage has been ordered!

One of the products I loved when I was working event photography was custom stamps. So it was inevitable that yes we too - like many couples - would use a photograph for our postage. I've included a sneak peek of our stamps.

Creating stamps is pretty easy with Stamps.com. You just upload a photo that satisfies their content guidelines. You position the image where you want it by dragging and dropping. If you want you can add a variety of borders. I opted for borderless. It's as simple as that!