Meal Choice Escort Cards

photo by A Girl In Love

A very popular question that I get asked a lot is, how do I indicate what meals my guests are to be served? I came across this lovely idea that is super easy to carry out. Once you've got all of your rsvp's returned with your guests marking their beef/chicken/fish/veggie entreé,  divide them up by choice and assign a ribbon color to each category. Then simply take a folded escort card and punch a hole in the front. Then glue a strip of ribbon to the inside, covering the hole. This will make a simplistic color coordinated statement to your guests, while making a food choice statement to your wait staff. Fabulous and easy!

Bridal Guilt

So I saw a fabulous post on Weddingbee that I felt like I must share with you. If you are planning your upcoming nuptials, you may be wrestling with many of the below right now:


1. I feel guilty that my parents are paying for the majority of our wedding and are just so freaking nice about it. Never once have they made me feel guilty about it…and so, I feel guilty about it.
2. I feel guilty that I let myself get stressed about wedding-related minutia. 99% of my concerns are petty, first-world problems.
3. I feel guilty that bridesmaids are supposed to pay for dresses, presents for shower / wedding, bachelorette stuff, etc. I should pay THEM- a lot- for keeping me sane(ish) since my pre-teens.
4. I feel guilty that my fiance is like, seriously, the sweetest man on the planet, and I am just a biotch sometimes.
5. I feel guilty that we decided to have the wedding in (X)-city because it’s more convenient for us.
6. I feel guilty interviewing multiple vendors and having to reject all but one.
7. I feel guilty about getting legally married, period, because it’s not fair that we can and others can’t.
8. I feel guilty that my wedding dress was expensive, yet I’m still considering a reception dress.
9. I feel guilty that I’m only inviting family and close friends.
10. I feel guilty that the parking around our church is not great.
.
You may feel like a total headcase right now, but please know that you are not alone. What are you feeling guilty about right now?

Cute Shoes!

Must have these shoes. Talk about a fabulous DIY project!

Pretty Boutonnieres

While  browsing thru Etsy, I found some great not-so-traditional boutonnieres that I just had to share with you today.

Where to find them:
1) pompandplumage  2) hairbowswonderworld  3) littleyellowbirdie   4) TheBlossomShop
5) frittsrosenow 6) PeacockPixys 7) PixelandHank  8) iDoWeddingWares
9) rule42 10) magartspartycrafts  11) SurroundingsOnline  12) mosey

White House Greetings

Did you know that The White House will send greeting cards signed by the President of the United States to commemorate special events, accomplishments or milestones free of charge to U.S. citizens? We always tell our brides to send an extra invitation to The White House to get one of these special greeting cards in honor of their wedding day. However, The White House sends out greeting for lots of special occasions. To request a greeting card from the President, just follow these guidelines from the White House Greetings Office:

U.S. CITIZENS ONLY. The White House will send greetings to United States citizens only, for special occasions as outlined below.

ADVANCE NOTICE REQUIRED. Your request should be received at least six (6) weeks in advance of the event date. (Greetings are generally not sent after the event date, except for wedding congratulations and newborn acknowledgments.)
ANNIVERSARY GREETINGS. Anniversary greetings will be sent to couples who are celebrating a 50th, 60th, 70th or later wedding anniversary.
BIRTHDAY GREETINGS. Birthday greetings will be sent only to people turning 80 or older or veterans turning 70 or older.
OTHER GREETINGS. A limited number of special occasions other than birthdays and anniversaries exist for which the Greetings Office will send appropriate recognition to United States citizens. These occasions include important life events such as:

• Wedding (send your request after the event)
• Baby's birth or adoption of a child
• Retirement after at least 30 years on the same job
• Eagle Scout Award
• Girl Scout Gold Award
• Bar/Bat Mitzvah or equivalent religious occasion

REQUIRED INFORMATION. Please include the following in your reqeust:

• name and home address of honoree(s)
• form of address (Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Miss, etc.)
• exact date of occasion (month, day, year)
• age (birthdays) or number of years of marriage
• your (the requestor's) name and daytime phone number
• any specific mailing instructions if other than to honoree's address
• Wedding (Include couple's married names and current or new address)

The way that we tell our brides to address their wedding invitation is such:

The Honorable & Mrs. Barack Obama
The White House, Greetings Office
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Inspiration

via Samuel Lippke

What We're Working On: Jessica & Daniel's Save The Dates

These lovely little Save The Date postcards shipped last week of to Jessica & Daniel. Postcard Save the dates are a great way send out save the date to your guests with out breaking the budget. You can even use postcard postage from the USPS. If only they would come out with something a little more pretty than those polar bear postcard stamps! We are excited to started working on Jessica & Daniel's matching invitations.

What's We're Working On: Angela & Brian's Wedding Invitations

We just received the most lovely note from our bride Angela & her parent and wanted to share with you:

Elaine,

The invitations came and are absolutely beautiful! You really do an amazing job--I now understand what your other customers meant when they wrote in their reviews about not wanting to send them out because they'd rather just stare at them. Thank you so so much. [My parent and I] are 100% satisfied. Thanks again! You have truly helped make our wedding all the more special with the beautiful invitations.
Angela, Ann & Jim

We started when Angela shared her inspiration board with me:

Isn't it so pretty? I LOVE it. So I suggested the Blush Pink Repossee Pattern from Anna Griffin created for Envelopements. We put it together with Tourmaline Pink, & Chanpagnium to create the most beautifully stunning invitation suite complete with Toumaline-lined Champagnium envelopes. We printed each of her 299 guests' addresses on the outer envelopes to give them that special touch. These pictures really don't do the justice at all. They are very sparkly and are just breathtaking.

What We're Working On: Jennifer & Jason's Wedding Invitations

We just shipped out Jennifer & Jason's Wedding invitations. We were sorry we had to send them away ---- because we love looking at them so much! They were too cute. Jennifer chose our Island Getaway wedding invitation suite and loved the colors so much, she didn't change a thing. After a nail-biting adventure of trying to get her back-ordered envelope liners shipped into the studio, we were able to finish them finished up and sent along their merry way to Jennifer. I am sure her guests will absolutely love them! Samples of this invitation style are also available for purchase in here.

Amy & Ben's Wedding Invitations

I'm doing a little backtracking because we have many invitation suites that we have done over the last few weeks that we haven't had time yet to share with you. One such stunning example is this suite we created for Amy & Ben. Amy ended up being very torn between 2 of our designs: the ever-so-popular Tree of Love design and our Flirty Flourished design. To help her decision, we created 2 mockups for her using these designs in her colors. They both turned out great but the Flirty Flourished stood out as the clear winner in my eyes. Amy & Ben agreed and we went forward. They turned out so beautiful.

We were so thankful that Amy chose to have us take part in her special day. We also recently shipped her Thank You notes and are in the proofing stages of her programs. Of course, we'll share both with you.  Amy was so sweet in her feedback she left us:

"Elaine was absolutely great to work with! My invitations turned out absolutely beautiful, I didn't want to mail them for staring at them! :) I love them so much, I'm having thank you notes and programs made by Sugared Ink in the same theme/colors."

What we're Working On: Christy and Dennis' Wedding Invitations

We shipped out Christy & Dennis' wedding invitations today. They are a great example of taking one of our designs and making it your own. She started with our very popular Tree of Love wedding invitation set. We took the pocketfold off, changed the colors & changed the fonts. They turned out really pretty. Because we make each invitation suite to order, brides have the freedom to change anything they want! I love this because each suite we do is totally unique!

Contest: Win Bridesmaid Dresses from Moonlight!

As seen on Wedding Bee, there is a super fun new contest sponsored by Moonlight Bridal for brides-to-be & their maids. Moonlight is known for creating some of the most heavenly bridal wear out there!


The Moonlight Who Wore It Best Contest — where you have the opportunity to win up to 5 bridesmaid dresses from Moonlight’s 2009 Me Too or Val Stefani collections — valued up to $800!

To Enter:

1. Visit a store which carries Moonlight bridal wear, and put together a look from any of their bridal or bridesmaid collection. Find the dress that best flatters your figure and don't forget to accessorize!

2. Upload the photo of your completed look to the Gallery here, and link to it on the Wedding Bee thread here.

The winner will be chosen based upon the overall style and fit of the dress by the Sponsors.

You have until February 8, 2010 at 12:00 PM PST to enter ~good luck!

See all the official mumbo jumbo here.