What Inspires Me: Books

cubes and I both love to read and we like to cook. We have a bookcase in our living room overflowing with vintage books from my gram and gramp, new and vintage cookbooks, and graphic novels. Our unpacked office is filled with goodies such as James Joyce. My sewing/scrapbooking niche is overflowing with books on photography, color, imaging, type, etc.

With the trend towards more personalized weddings, more and more bibliophiles are going to showcase their love of books. Here are some of my favorite uses of books in weddings and/or decor.

Photography Credit: Mary Kate McKenna Photography via Every Last Detail

Photography Credit: Ashley and Jason of Ashley Maxwell Photography via The Bride's Cafe

Photography Credit: A Wrinkle in Time Photography via Sparkle and Hay
(Check out the blog for more details about the books the bride chose and how she acquired them.)


Photography Credit: Ashley and Jason of Ashley Maxwell Photography via The Bride's Cafe

Photography Credit: Laurie Peacock via Inspirations & Creations

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?

Our Playa Wedding: Wedding Favors

Our project Syzygryd has buttons. We're getting married at Syzygryd.

Idea! We should give our playa guests buttons! (For those who haven't been to Burning Man, people collect and trade buttons.) Once a DIY idea has been born, let's just say it's pretty hard to stop it. So we're off!

First, we need to find a vendor without a minimum order requirement that can get the buttons to us before we leave for the playa. A quick Google search and we have a couple of options: Affordable Buttons (100 1.25" round buttons, one color on white $71), Just Buttons (100 1.25" round buttons in Hot Pink $30), Speedy Buttons (100 1.25" round buttons, unlimited colors $60 with optional $15 proof fee), and Wacky Buttons (100 1.5" round buttons, unlimited colors $30). Based on cost, we only considered Just Buttons, Speedy Buttons, and Wacky Buttons.

First step: Get appropriate design templates for the buttons. (Rename them so you know which template goes to which vendor.)

• Just Buttons: templates are by size and type of file. I designing in Adobe Photoshop so I chose the PSD template.
• Speedy Buttons: templates are by size and type of file. I chose the PSD template again.
• Wacky Buttons: templates are by size and by DPI. I again downloaded the 1200 dpi template for Adobe Photoshop.

Second step: Design buttons.

This is easier said than done. Remember the invitations for our Burning Man Wedding? Well, I thought we could easily create a button from that design. Um yeah. The illustrated figures were designed for a corner cut. Not a circular cut. What was intentional now looks off balance. 

Of course I don't have the original. Design dilemma. Simplify? 

Or just redo the illustration? You'll have to wait for the sneak peek to see what I decided to do.

I created all my designs in Adobe Photoshop for upload. Wacky Buttons had an online tool available for creating buttons - a good option if you don't already own Adobe Photoshop and know what you want your design to look like.

Third step: Upload the finished buttons.

With Speedy Buttons you have the option for a proof - it's $15. When I did a quick check of vendor prices I didn't see this. (It's not on the home page or the Button Pricing page. It is on the Custom Button page.) That fee for a proof makes it more expensive than Affordable Buttons, but you aren't limited to one color. One nice feature with Speedy Buttons is the ability to pick a guaranteed delivery date - at a glance you can see what the rush charges and shipping fees will be. With the requirement to submit images in CMYK, I was hesitant to order without a proof. Total would have been $75 for 100-1.25" full color buttons.

Wacky Buttons, like Speedy Buttons, provided a Time Calculator so you could see if you needed to rush your design. To have a chance at getting the buttons in time for Burning Man, we'd need to select a payment method of Credit Card or PayPal Balance and USPS Priority Mail (2 to 4 days). If you're uploading your own designs, they need to be approved. Approval can take up to two business days and isn't included in the Time Calculator. I like Speedy Buttons' guaranteed delivery date interface better than Wacky Buttons' Time Calculator. Once your design is approved (in our case we submitted our design on Sunday and it was approved by 7:00AM Monday morning), you get a proof of the button. This is very cool. Total cost was $26.63 for 50-1.5" full color buttons.

I tried Just Buttons last. I wasn't sure if I wanted white or hot pink paper (additional two cents per button). As there was no proof option, I decided to go with white. We have Magenta in our design and I didn't want the two colors to clash. I didn't like that I had to supply billing information before I uploaded my artwork. You could request a delivery date but they asked that you take production into account. I had to go back to the home page to figure out if we'd get the buttons in time. Total cost was $34.05 for 100-1.25" full color buttons.

Fourth step: Wait for buttons to arrive in the mail.

This DIY project was pretty simple. Took about three hours - would have taken less if I had the design elements ready to go.

Dressing the Bride

Today after work I'm going for my first corset fitting. It's a big deal because I'll also be trying on my dress (which I absolutely love) and getting to share this with another friend. cubes reads and contributes to our blog and as we both agreed to keep the dress a secret until The First Look I can't post sneak peeks as some other brides have.

And... seriously I've been DYING to show off the dress. By now everyone knows I can't keep secrets very well - as evidenced by sneak peeks of our Save the Dates and Invitations before they went in the mail. I also can't show pictures of other dresses I tried on, because I didn't try on any others. I always knew I wanted to wear my mother's dress. I always knew that I wanted Miss Velvet Cream to reconstruct the dress for my silhouette. Well I can show you what's inspiring my getaway look as well as our photo shoot for the cover of our wedding favors.

First let me tell you about (or remind you of) our wedding favors. We're creating a cookbook with our favorite recipes - recipes that we've made and shared with friends and family throughout our relationship. We'd initially thought we use "The Kiss" for the cover. That was quickly abandoned when we saw ourselves kissing on absolutely everybody's refrigerators. Next idea (courtesy of Iris) was a photo shoot of us cooking in the kitchen. We thought we'd ham it up with pots and colanders on our heads for hats and spaghetti boiling over on the stove. Then with all of us gathered in Andy and Mella's kitchen the idea morphed again as we admired their 1950s stove.

I grew up watching Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, and Leave it to Beaver. I always remember the mom smiling and looking beautiful (as if she's ready to step out on the town) as she puts dinner on the table for the family.

(Source)

In junior high and high school I wore 1950s inspired outfits - dresses with the wiggle skirt or a full circle skirt. As we were talking I saw cubes and I standing in front of Andy and Mella's stove pulling a roast or tray of baked cookies from the oven. I was dressed like Donna Reed and cubes was in a smoking jacket looking distinguished.

So here are peeks at the dresses (and aprons) I'm inspired by. I can't wait to begin working with Juicy to bring the look to life.

(Crafty Crow Vintage)

(Planet Claire Vintage)

(Classic Bride)

(Planet Claire Vintage)

(Timeless Vixen Vintage)

(Dear Golden Vintage)

Are you doing a photo shoot before your wedding? Did you decide to style it in the theme of your wedding?

Looking Forward

Almost everything we need to start stuffing envelopes with invitations and assembling the covers for our wedding favors has arrived! We've been working on other DIT projects in the meantime, but are looking forward to our first DIT Project Party. It'll be fun to unveil what we're planning and work with a group of our friends to make it real.

Here's a sneak peek at the treeless or vintage paper we're using to create the wedding favors.

From left to right, the papers shown are: Flower Fossil Textured Lokta Rust Brown, Thai Mango Aubergine, Thai Banana Coffee, Plum Raisin Mulberry Wrapping Paper, and pages from a vintage cookbook. We got the wrapping paper from Nashville Wraps and the handmade paper from Creative Papers Online.

Mathematical precision was used to determine the type (we could splurge as long as the individual favor cost did not exceed $1.60 per favor) and amount of supplies needed.

Let's Recap

This post also serves as a recap, for our friends and family who might be checking in every once in a while. The recap idea started as a way people could catch up on what we've been up to at their pace. We realized that not everyone wanted to have updates hourly (our Twitter feed) or even daily (this blog). And we didn't want to forget something, as with everyone's busy schedules we aren't always able to see/call everyone (and we forget who we've told what).

So without further ado, here's our recap. This past month was spent mainly ordering supplies and waiting. Boxes arrived almost daily. Many projects are almost ready to be started. The flip side of this progress is that it seems as if our To Do List just keeps growing. For every item we complete, we find something else we didn't think of. Our To Do List and progress since our last update:

1. (Done!) Chose a rabbi.
2. (In progress) Ask friends and family members to carry and hold our chuppah and witness the signing of our ketubah.
3. (In progress) Book a caterer.
4. (Done!) Find and secure a safe deposit box.
5. Retrieve wedding bands from jeweler and put in safe deposit box.
6. (Done!) Find and purchase shoes for cubes to wear.
7. (In progress) Have custom corset made (went for measurements).
8. (In progress) Have hat with birdcage veil designed and made (met with Esther).
9. (Done!) Determine what the women in the wedding party are wearing.
10. (In progress) Find a US-based custom shirt maker and order shirts for the men in the wedding party.
11. (Done!) Secure hotel room for night of the wedding.
12. Secure a block of hotel rooms for out-of-town guests.
13. Plan mini-moon (weekend after our wedding).
14. (In progress) Finish tablescapes (remove stems from flowers; need more bottles!).
15. (In progress) Find paper cutter, glue, etc. and order missing tools (corner punch) and more supplies (deckle and scoring blades, cartridges of ink, etc.) as needed.
16. (Done!) Design and write information inserts.
17. (In progress) Print invitations, information inserts, and reply cards (printed and neatly sorted).
18. Cut invitations and information inserts to size.
19. Assemble invitations.
20. Determine and verify needed postage using scale at post office.
21. Address envelopes.
22. Stuff envelopes.
23. Seal envelopes.
24. Apply postage.
25. Drop completed, addressed invitations in the mail and wait patiently for RSVPs to come in.
26. (In progress) Plan Burning Man ceremony (talked to Josh, set date - just before dusk the day of the False Profit Tuesday Night Party, and secured location - Syzygryd).
27. (In progress) Determine arrangement of tables for dinner and assign seats.
28. (In progress) Make pillows to soften Gothic chairs that guests can sit on during cocktail hour (selected and ordered plush that matches our wedding colors).
29. Figure out music for dinner and reception.
30. Write vows.
31. (In progress) Prepare day-of-survival bags for wedding party (selected and ordered eco-friendly bags).

What are you doing to keep your friends and family up to date? Are you using social media?

It's all in the packaging

The coffee table was strewn with type and layout books this weekend as the final stationery needs were calculated. Card stock was folded (and refolded) and tied for programs (did we want ribbon or clip closures?). Cook booklet covers were mocked up. Layouts and orientation for table settings were considered (should the cook booklets be placed in the same direction as the napkins, should they be tied together with ribbon?).

Decisions were made. We'll keep the details a secret, but here are some of the layouts and packaging that were our inspiration.

Pondering Fonts

Alyson Graves of Unruly Things wrote a guest post on 101 Layer Cakes today. Her story was one only a fellow designer (2010 bride) could truly love and appreciate. She wrote about the inspiration behind their invitations and the search for the perfect font. I for one can't wait to see her invitations, which I think will be revealed in July.

So why do I bring this up? Well today found me thinking about fonts. I thought we'd made our font choice back when we finalized our Save the Dates. We chose ITC Mona Lisa for its formal vintage feel. This font was inspired by a 1930s typeface drawn by Albert Auspurg. As the original drawings were gone and the surviving metal type severely worn, the resulting typeface "melds the flavor of the 1930s with current design standards." In addition to gracing our Save the Dates, you can it at the top of our wedding website as well.

After hand addressing all the Save the Dates (and forgetting the return addresses on a few), we looked into other options. An additional font - Park Avenue - was added to our suite for our response cards and return address. This font was similar to my calligraphy so it would be consistent with the hand addressed envelopes. Park Avenue was designed by an American designer Robert E. Smith in 1933. (A third font was introduced when we selected our Table Numbers scheme: Roman Numerals from a Vintage Timepiece. The font chosen was Universitas Studii Salamantini.)

Both of our stationery fonts are "retro" and rooted in the same period - the 1930s. And until today it seemed as if we were past having to make font decisions. Well most of the pieces for our tablescapes have been ordered and delivered. Initially our wedding favors weren't part of this design. We had Ivory linen tablecloths and Black linen tablecloths, with either Cotton Candy shantung or Amethyst sheer table runners topped with Coffee Paper Table Tents, Real Touch Silk Dahlias and Peonies and Amber or Clear glass bottles and Ivory Palm Wax tapers. Our wedding favors were to be placed in a picnic basket next to our Enjoy - (Please Take One) sign.

It made better sense to place the wedding favors at each place setting. Slight problem. The paper/color of the table numbers and escort cards is different from the paper/color of the wedding favors. Additionally, the banana paper stock tends towards gray while the coffee paper tends towards ivory. Not something that's going to be noticeable but anyone other than a designer. A quick design change - wedding favors will now have Coffee Coverstock and the programs will now have Banana Coverstock.

Ok, back to fonts. We started developing our cookbooks for friends as a gift for the 2010 Holidays. The initial design didn't consider our wedding design as we didn't have a date or theme or font yet. Reconsidering the coverstock made me rethink the layout and font choices. (The 8.5" x 11" cookbook initially used Marker Felt Wide, Marker Felt Thin, and Lucida Grande Regular.) With ITC Mona Lisa there's only a regular typeface, so headings would differ from text only in size not weight. It could be one of the fonts for the cookbook but not the only font. Park Avenue is a more casual font and could possibly be used for a callout or ingredient note.

A great font resource for free fonts that I discovered from Style Me Pretty is Dafont.com. Starting here and moving to AbstractFonts.com, I looked at Deco or 1930s Serif fonts consistent with the theme of our wedding for use in the cookbook:

• Adamant BG Regular
• Andron Freefont LAT Regular
• Bergamo Std Regular
• Bodidota Regular
• Droid Serif Regular
• Medio Regular
• Old Standard TT Regular
• Resavska BG Regular
• Sanford Book
• Temporarium Regular
• Thryomanes Normal

I looked at width of letterforms, terminals, loops, and serifs.

And after careful consideration, the three fonts chosen for the cookbook are: Mona Lisa, Bergamo Std Italic, and Bodidota Regular.

How did you chose your fonts? Did something unexpected influence your choice? Did you use a default font?

DIY Projects: Wedding Favors, Take 2

NOTE: Originally posted on LiveJournal.

Brides should not be allowed to perform math. Yes I have an engineering degree and yes I have taken many advanced mathematics courses - Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations. But I am a bride. That means however rationally I usually approach an event or a tradeshow giveaway, anything wedding-related will be viewed through emotion-colored glasses.

I ran numbers for my dream wedding favor - a personalized cook booklet (see yesterday's post) - last night on the train and inadvertently used a price per bundle instead of the per book price (for example, $11.97 versus $3.99). You can guess what happened - immediate sticker shock ($1800 for 150 cook booklets) and heartbreak. (For 150 books, the bulk price ends up being $527 - 25 bundles or 100 books at the $13.57 bundle price ($339) plus an additional 10 bundles or 40 books at the $14.26 bundle price ($143) plus an additional 3 bundles or 15 books at the $15.16 bundle price ($46).)

I realized my error only after a night of trying not be heartbroken (and slightly - ok more than slightly - freaking out my fiance when I baked a chocolate cake at 10 pm at night). cubes when hearing the wrong costs tried opening my mind to other alternatives - possibly using FedEx Kinko's to copy/bind the booklet. If you hadn't guessed it by now I'm pretty stubborn. Once I get an idea into my head it'll take a force of nature to dissuade me.

So in an attempt to convince myself that booklets weren't feasible (after all if they couldn't be done the way I wanted, then they shouldn't be done at all!), I decided to look into what it would cost to create a booklet at FedEx Kinko's. After a quick (well not so quick) look at card stocks, specialty papers, and ribbons, I came up with another DIY project. It's also a cook booklet. But... unlike the Mini Photobook this DIY project matches the look and feel of our Save the Date Postcards and soon-to-be designed Wedding Invitations. This DIY project incorporates our wedding colors - purple/navy/ivory/silver. It requires less design expertise than the Photo Minibook approach (for the Photo Minibook, each individual recipe or page is laid out in Photoshop and saved as a JPG).

Equipment

• 2-hole paper punch
• Paper cutter
• Scissors

Raw materials needed

• Half of a sheet of 8.5"x11" Metallic Speckled Plum Vellum (http://www.paperandmore.com/vellum_paper_metallic_purple_plum_27.html)
• Half of a sheet of 8.5"x11" Natural Cream Linen Card Stock Cover (http://www.paperandmore.com/linen_card_stock_natural_cream.html)
• Either a 2"x2" or 3.25"x4.75" Photo Sticker with Our Names and Wedding Date (http://www.qoop.com/products/productPricing.php)
• 5-8.5"x11" Sheets of #70 Sand Paper cut in half for 10-4.25"x 5.5" 2-page spreads or 40 individual pages (http://www.paperandmore.com/plain_text_paper_sand_70.html)
• 5" of Navy Wraffia Ribbon (http://www.papermart.com/Product%20Pages/Product.aspx?GroupID=8700&SubGroupID=8701&ParentGroupID=19072#8701)

Raw materials for 150 cook booklets (not including tax or shipping) is approximately $211. Double-sided copying costs at FedEx Kinko's for this project are approximately $120 ($0.14 for 750 pages).

This DIY project is much more labor intensive than the Mini Photobook. Realistically your fiance and you (and any crafty volunteers) are cutting 1,050 pieces of vellum, card stock, and paper in half; punching 3,600 holes; adhering 150 stickers to the card stock covers; assembling vellum, card stock and 10 pieces of paper into a booklet 150 times; and tying 150 knots.

Now... on the plus side, you have 150-4.25"x5.5" cook booklets in your wedding colors with 40 individual pages of recipes/photos for roughly half the cost of a 3.75"x2.5" Mini Photobook with a glossy white cover and 18 individual pages of recipes/photos. As usual cubes has taken an idea and improved upon it - mending my heart in the process.

Have you found ways to make something you really want work within your budget? Has your FH helped you get perspective?

DIY Projects: Ideas for Wedding Favors

NOTE: Originally posted on LiveJournal.

I'm addicted to all things wedding or DIY at the moment. So of course our wedding favors would be a DIY project. We've had two different ideas - at two different points in time - about what they should be. First we thought a cellophane pouch with two fortune cookies (the art piece at Burning Man on which cubes worked last year and at which he proposed had a fortune cookie dispenser).

Then we thought a booklet with some of our favorite recipes as cooking and eating out are two activities that have been and are central to our life. My inspiration for our cook booklet came from my background as an events photographer. One of the services I offered clients was a Mini Photobook that included shots or collages from an event with quotes or well wishes from the guests. In "small" quantities these albums were cost effective. For example, 20-3.75" x 2.5" 20-page, softcover, stapled booklets was roughly $61 (http://www.qoop.com/photobooks/photofront/bulk_pricing.php?product=minibook&photosite_id=QPPS).

Our guest list - like most couple's - is going to drive many decisions. Right now it looks as if it's going to be somewhere between 100 and 150. So, not thinking about the longevity of the item and only looking at budget, this makes fortune cookies the clear choice. 350 fortune cookies with 4 personalized messages run $67 - $54 for the cookies (http://www.fortunecookiestore.com/mall/c100/s2935/cookie_custom.asp) and $13 for the cellophane bags (http://www.theboxdepot.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?search=action&keywords=clearbags&template=Templates/clearbags.html). The cook booklet is more attractive for a keepsake but possibly too much for our budget - for 100 guests we'd be looking at $339 and for 150 guests we'd be looking at just under $600.

How are you choosing favors? Cost, relevance to you, something else?