blurb wedding album

Happy 2009! We finally got around to designing our wedding album...yeah, almost a full six months after our wedding date. We decided to publish it using blurb again, since we were so pleased with how our guest book turned out. For the second time, blurb passed the test with flying colors, so we thought we should post a couple of images of the finished book in case anyone else is thinking about trying them out. You can see a preview of the first 15 pages here if you're in need of layout inspiration for your own album.

(click to enlarge the photos)

More details about those birds

I've gotten several requests lately for patterns and more detailed instructions for our little fabric birds.


While I'm very flattered that so many brides-to-be liked them, this is also kind of a touchy subject for me. As a self-employed freelance illustrator, I know how hard it is to make a living off of your artwork, and while my birds aren't nearly as cute as Ann Wood's, they were very heavily influenced by hers, so I'm leery of doing anything to cut into her business. That's one reason why it wouldn't sit right with me to make or sell these for a profit.


On the other hand, I also know what it's like to be a bride on a budget and how frustrated I felt when I first started experimenting on mine. So, instead of detailed instructions, I'll post all of the links that I found helpful and add a few more tips. You can also look back at my original bird post for my very general instructions.

mrs. penguin's handmade bird toppers from weddingbee.com - general details and photos of the making-of process.

spool's bird mobile pattern - these birds look a little different, but they offer a free pdf pattern you can download. I actually used a modified version of this pattern to make the bodies for mine. I extended the belly piece further up to form a face, attached wings, and made a separate larger tail. I also found that threading wire through the tail helps make it bendable.

peonies and polaroids hand made bird instructions - detailed instructions with photos. i didn't use these to make mine, but her tips were very helpful.

So, you can see there are quite a few different ways to make the little birds, but they usually require a lot of time and a little bit of experimentation. I hope this is helpful, without stepping on anyone's toes. Good luck!

Up Next: Music (finally)

detail post #6: flowers

I should say up front that flowers were not high on our list of priorities for the wedding. I just couldn't justify plunking down tons of cash for something that would only last for a day. Plus, we knew that we wanted to keep them fun and simple, so we decided to do them ourselves

The Centerpieces

I mentioned our decision earlier to place individual stems in vintage glass bottles. Jesse and I are thrift store fiends and collected most of our bottles for $1 or less. His mother even found a table full of really awesome old ones at a garage sale for $25. I really wanted to fill the bottles with dahlias since they would be in season in July and I love the modern shape of their full-petaled heads.


We ordered the 75 yellow ones wholesale from fiftyflowers.com to be delivered two days before the wedding. They arrived early that Thursday with no problem (I highly recommend their site). I trimmed each flower down and stored them in buckets full of water with plant food until later that evening when some really kind neighbor ladies helped me start arranging them in the jars.


I thought the centerpieces might need some accent colors, so Jesse and I ran to the lawn + garden section of the local grocery store that evening and bought a potted lantana and a couple of small potted kalanchoes in peach, pink, and orange for about $30 total and added their trimmed buds to our smaller jars.

a photo taken by my friend Jen. This was our "chemistry set" inspired centerpiece.

Luckily we were allowed to set up our centerpieces at our reception site the day beforehand which was made even easier by the assistance of several friend and family members. Arranging and storing our centerpiece jar groupings in advance also helped to save time. I was pleased with how they turned out and they weren't terribly hard to do ourselves, especially with so much wonderful help. Plus, now we have a really fantastic collection of vintage bottles!

The Bouquets

Although I'd been collecting clippings for months of tons of different beautful, full bouquets, even a week before the wedding I didn't know what I wanted to do for mine. I seethed with jealousy of brides who got to carry peonies or daffodils, and tried to figure out every possible way to find them in mid-July, but buying them out-of-season would have cost me a small fortune. I finally decided I just didn't really care. I'd only be holding my own bouquet for a few minutes while I walked down the aisle. It wasn't worth worrying about and I really just wanted something small, monochromatic and hand-tied, so I did the unthinkable in bride-land....I bought my bouquet flowers from a grocery store.

We only needed three bouquets - one for me, one for my sister, and one to toss during the reception. So, I bought white, yellow and pink roses, some mixed zinneas and snap dragons, lots of ribbon and called it a day. My mom helped me to arrange the flowers the evening before the wedding and I finished tying their ribbons later that night while hanging out with girlfriends in my hotel room, so it turned into a fun bonding experience. Sure, they were far from perfect and it's obvious that they weren't professionally arranged, but they suited me fantastically for the day.

My sister's bouquet turned into a wildflower mix of zinneas and snow peas tied with a thicker red and white striped ribbon with a thin salmon-colored ribbon on top. I initially wanted to go monochromatic with all three bouquets, but her dress (although absolutely beautiful) was a little bit darker and more purpl-y than the rest of the wedding colors, so I mixed darker, lighter, and brighter flowers in an effort to tie everything together.

The toss bouquet consisted of large yellow roses tied with a thin yellow and white ribbon. In the photos, the flowers actually almost look a tiny bit like yellow peonies (at least in my imagination) because they were so full.


I ended up using the white roses and the same yellow ribbon for my own bouquet. I used to label roses, and especially white roses, as "boring" for a bridal bouquet, but the day I bought them I decided to re-label them in my mind as "classic". It's amazing what a difference a tiny little mind trick like that can make.

(all photos taken by Mariano Delgado unless specified. Click any of them to enlarge)

Up Next: Music

detail post #5: last minute diy projects

Well, now that we've finally wrapped up our never-ending wedding and honeymoon photo extravaganza, I guess it's time to finish up the detail posts as well. This one chronicles the remaining d.i.y. and design projects we finished right before the wedding - sorry if it's kind of a hodge-podge. After this post, I'll cover our flowers and music and then I think we'll actually be done!

(as always, click each image to enlarge)

Programs

Although The Martha tried to entice me with her ribbon-bound, hand-sewn, double-stuffed booklets of information, by this stage of wedding planning I had finally learned how to "just say no". We kept them simple. So simple that they really don't need any explanation at all. We had white card stock on hand, so that's what we used. We designed them in Photoshop and printed them out with our own ink-jet printer. One particular note of interest, though - it was *Jesse's* idea to use the polka-dot pattern - I've finally won him over to the polka-dotted dark side...mwah ha ha.

Garland of Ancestor Wedding Photos

(the photos from our parents' weddings)

We wanted to do something to honor our parents' and grandparents' weddings and although I loved the images of other weddings with tables filled with framed photos, I'm kind of obsessed with garlands.

To make these, we scanned in each wedding photo (or a photo of each couple from around the time that got married if they didn't have formal wedding photos taken), cropped them, transformed them all into black and white files, and printed them on glossy photo paper. We then designed the frames in Photoshop and added name plates so that all of our guests would know who they were looking at. We printed the frames on cream card stock and cut out ovals with an exacto knife. We folded the frames in half like a top-folding greeting card and taped the photos to the interior with double-sided tape. We made two loops out of thin rectangles of card stock which we glued to the back of each frame and then threaded pink ribbon through. Since we weren't allowed to nail or tape anything to the walls of our reception site, we tied the ribbon ends to two lamps that were jutting out from the wall above our beverage table. See the finished product here.

Paper Circle Garlands

(part of one finished garland laid out on our kitchen floor)

Finally, I was able to unite two of my favorite things - polka-dots and garlands - together at last! We made several long strings of paper circle garlands to hang from both the ceremony gazebo and above the dance floor at our reception site. I got the idea after seeing this website. Colorful garlands always remind me of vintage circus tents and summertime, which is a definite positive in my book, plus they seemed cheap and easy to make.

To make ours, we bought several meters of thick embroidery string and a couple of large sheets of heavy-weight paper in our wedding colors from the local art supply store. Since they didn't sell paper in every color that we wanted, we also painted a couple of sheets of thick bristol paper on both sides with acrylic paint to finish off our color palette. After the painted sheets dried, we attacked each of our papers with a handy 1 3/8" circle punch until we had piles of colored circles covering our living room floor. Then we glued little rectangular tabs in the same color to the top of each circle and folded each tab in regular increments along the embroidery string. We ended up making four really long garlands and sprinkled some of the extra circles without tabs on side tables at the reception. Making the garlands turned out to be a pretty mind-less task that we worked on while watching movies (1 completed garland = about the running length of 1 movie). The supplies for this project probably cost about $8 total - score!

My Head Band

Up until the week before the wedding, I had no idea how to accessorize my hair. I'd practiced several up-dos and had a general idea of how I would wear my hair for the wedding, but it looked a little plain without any adornment at all. I'd tossed around all of these ideas for months, but none of them looked quite like what I had in mind. The veils got nixed because they seemed like they'd make my dress look over-formal and fussy. I tried a couple of fake flowers but they ended up looking like frilly tumors blooming out of the side of my head. Finally, during my last hair practice, I played with wrapping one of my silver beaded necklaces around my hair and everything clicked. It was the exact look I was going for - a simple little bit of extra shine.

My headband was EXTREMELY easy and cheap to make. I bought some small silver beads and a spool of thin silver elastic at the craft supply store and used a spool of really thin copper wire and two tiny silver brackets that I already owned from past necklace experiments ( those can also be bought at any craft store for a couple of dollars). First, I attached a bracket to the copper wire and strung enough beads on until it was just short of encircling my head. I tied off the other end of the wire with the second bracket and looped a short amount of elastic between the two brackets and then attached a piece of a third bracket at the center of the elastic to cover the its tied-off ends. You could use only elastic and beads, but the copper seemed stronger than the elastic, and I couldn't find elastic thin enough to fit through the bead holes. I think this project took me all of 5 minutes to make and about $5 worth of supplies. Finished product here.

Stuffed Birds

This was another project I completed in the last week leading up to the wedding. It was one of those projects on my list that I saved for the very end because it wouldn't make or break the look of the reception if I ran out of time. It would just be a nice extra touch if it did work out. I'd fallen in love with Ann Wood's ubiquitous birds like so many other brides before me (they were even part of the first gigantic inspiration board that I made ages ago), but we had absolutely no wiggle room in our budget by this point. If we had, I would have just bought several of hers and called it a day. Instead I figured I'd experiment and see if I could make my own on the cheap.

As you can see, mine are a lot more sloppy and no where near as cute as their inspiration, but they also didn't break the bank, so I'll call this project a success. I raided the local thrift shop for clothing and pillow cases in fabrics that complemented our wedding scheme because that ended up being much cheaper than yards of new fabric. I stuffed each bird with the insides of an old pillow and used wire and hot glue that Jesse already owned for their legs. It took one evening of experimenting with different patterns and several failed attempts to come up with the body shape that I had in mind. I completed the cutting, sewing, and stuffing of each bird's body while watching a movie or a couple of tv shows and tackled about one each night. I attached all of their beaks (felt, sewed or glued together), sewn eyes, and wire legs during one more evening of movie watching and added accessories (felt hat, mesh veil) to the bride and groom bird over the coarse of one morning. So I guess it took about a week of sporadic work to make all of the ones shown above + one extra legless bird that I tied to our card cage. All of the supplies (cloth, stuffing, felt) cost between $10 - $15 total, so this was a project cheap on money but not on time.

Since Jesse doesn't like the look of things plopped on top of a wedding cake, we decided to arrange the bride and groom birds beside our cake instead and add the other three to our sweet heart table centerpiece. A lot of the kids at our reception seemed enthralled by the birds, so I'll take that as a thumbs up on this project.

Getaway Vehicle

(documenting the first practice ride)

This wasn't a d.i.y. project at all, but I thought it could use a little bit of an explanation (if you haven't already fallen asleep from the rest of my over-exposition). I'd heard stories and seen photos of a tandem bike that Jesse's family owned, but had never actually seen it in person. Apparently they'd stuffed it in their attic a decade ago never to ride it again. I was determined to make it our getaway vehicle, especially since it was a vintage red Schwinn, even though it took many months of convincing to get Jesse on board. You see, he knows my clumsiness first hand. He was sure that this idea would end up a folly of skinned knees, torn clothing, broken bones or worse. But we took it out for a spin around the block with no major mishaps and I bought a short 2nd dress so that we wouldn't have to worry about my long train getting tangled in the spokes. After some cleaning and a replacing of the breaks he was convinced and the bike was ready to go.

Our ride was one of my favorite parts of the day. After all of the craziness (although fantastic craziness) of that morning and afternoon, it felt like a little bubble of peaceful bliss to escape for a few minutes and pedal down the wooded paths of the community center all by ourselves. I'm also happy to report that we didn't fall once! Now I just have to figure out a way to steal it and bring it back to our tiny apartment in Philadelphia.

Up Next: Flowers

detail post #4: the guest book

Now on to the one DIY project that heard about the most from our guests - our guestbook.

For a long time, we just assumed that we would go to craft store, pick out a cute, relatively inexpensive guest book and say "done". No fuss, no mess, no hours spent on another project. But, then we got to thinking about it....we wanted to have something that wouldn't end up dusty and stored away in a closet or a box somewhere. We wanted it to actually tell the story of our six year relationship and feel like "us". All of this of course meant that another project had to be added to our list. So we made this:

(click any of the photos to enlarge)

Actually, Blurb made this, we just designed and formatted it all. Our book was the smallest (7x7 inches), cheapest ($25 with the help of an online coupon) hard bound option they offered. We were happy with their print quality, the thickness and glossiness of the interior pages, and their easy design and formatting options. If I were to grade them, I'd give them an A, and we'll probably use them again for future projects.

Jesse has probably never thrown anything away in his life. It's a personality quirk that I usually curse but came to treasure during the making of this book. It meant that we still had school ID cards from the year we met, receipts from our first date, notes and letters that we'd written each other, and ticket stubs to nearly every movie, concert and play we'd attended together. And we packed all of that stuff in, surrounded by years of photo booth strips and short written descriptions to give our guests a handy 40 page synopsis of our relationship. We were happy with how it turned out, but even happier with the well-wishes and nice notes that our guests wrote inside (these photos were taken weeks before the wedding - the lined pages are now covered with awesome-ness).

next detail post: misc. last minute design projects

detail post #3: the table cards

We decided to keep our tables organized by numbers, rather than naming them after significant landmarks or species of wildlife or something else just as esoteric, because Jesse and I are rather simple people and numbers are easy to follow. But, because I just can't seem to leave any project without some sort of unnecessary work, we designed them as folding stand up cards with the numbers on the front acting as age numbers and corresponding photos of us at that age on the inside. Why am I even describing this - the photos explain it all:

(click to enlarge)

Front view. We had nine guest tables and put table zero (our newborn photos) at our sweet heart table.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

My favorite of the interior photos. Unknowingly, and from different states, our mothers dressed us in matching outfits for our kindergarten photos. You can see more examples of the rest of the cards here.

They were pretty easy to make. Scanning and cleaning up all the photos took a little time, but gave us a great excuse to dig through our parents' old albums again. We designed them using Adobe Illustrator and printed them out on white card stock with out ink jet printer. These also helped to persuade us not to make any sort of video to show during the wedding reception. We figured between these photos and our guest book (which I'll post about next), our guests would have their fill of our shiny mugs. Also, we completely ran out of time.

next detail post: the guest book

detail post #2: the favors

Jesse and I knew from the start that we didn't want to go the tchotchke route with our wedding favors. I wouldn't have much use for a picture frame or mug engraved with another couples' name and wedding date, so why would our guests? We did want our favors to be fun and kinda silly, but also include something edible, because not everyone likes "silly", but who doesn't like free eats?

We fell in love with the carnival grab-bag feel of the favors used at these two weddings, and decided to completely steal their ideas and pass them off as our own.

our inspiration

L: martha stewart's weddings winter 2006 via oh happy day R: knottie academy beldam

(click to enlarge)


our favors

(click to enlarge)

And a breakdown of what's inside and where they came from for anyone else who wants to be "inspired" as well:

1. The zip lock bags were ordered in bulk from lemelange.com.

2. We used a free online generator to make a personalized crossword puzzle and then I redesigned a prettier version using Adobe Illustrator. We printed them out with our trusty ink jet printer on cream card stock with the answers on the back.

3. #2 pencil from staples (for filling out the crossword). Jesse was awesome and sharpened at least 75 pencils beforehand.

4. The Wilbur chocolate factory is right next door to our ceremony site in Lititz, so we had to include a bag of Wilbur buds (like larger versions of Hershey kisses).

5. Two swirly candy sticks in complementary colors bought from the local penny candy store in bulk because they're pretty and not everyone likes chocolate.

6. The boys got fake moustaches* (ordered from www.dealextreme.com) and the girls got see-through paper glasses (ordered from oriental trading). We would have included both in everyone's bag, but we were determined to stick to our favor budget and figured people would trade with their friends if they wanted to.

*A note about the moustaches - their original backing was kind of ugly, so Jesse designed new cards to stick them to - I think he did a super fantastic job. Also, I heard from a few guests that not all of their sticky backs came off. They were really, really cheap, so it was to be expected, but I saw enough guests wearing one to know that most did work.

7. Jesse also designed some cards with different retro cameras on the front and instructions on the back for uploading digital photos to our flickr site. We printed those with a laser printer and included one in each bag.

So, that's it. Jesse designed the tags that we stapled to the tops of the bags. They served double-duty as escort cards as well as favor tags, so that when the guests entered the reception, they could pick up their favors and figure out which table they were assigned to at the same time. I love combining two projects into one.

Jesse picked up so much design slack the last two weeks before the wedding because I got swamped with illustration assignments. I was so happy with everything that he created for this project that I wish I had given him all of the design duties from the get go.

Even if our guests didn't notice his killer design and typography skills, I think some of them still enjoyed the contents.

(various guests' photos - click to enlarge)

next detail post: the table cards

Paper Goodness

Our RSVPs have started arriving in the mailbox (!!), so I think it's finally safe for me to post about our invitations. I should warn you, Jesse already thinks I'm completely crazy to take so many photos of pieces of paper, but what can I say, these were my babies for the last few months. He already knows he's going to be marrying a very crazy lady.

(click any of the photos to enlarge)

Our save-the-date postcard, which we mailed a few months back

Jesse and I discussed the imagery and he kindly let me be the one to do the drawing. I *heart* the stamps we used (and you guys know my love for stamps).

Invitation envelope

After a mix-up with some envelopes we ordered, we just decided to make our own out of card stock and use the others for thank you card envelopes. Jesse was less than thrilled to add another home-made project to our plate, but I think it was worth it. The calligraphy was an experiment for me, but turned out to actually be very relaxing (after some horrendous first attempts).

The whole invitation suite

Of course I had to lay it out like a fake Martha Stewart magazine spread

A detail of the invitation and RSVP card

Yep, they're drawings of us drawing each other........cause we're illustrators. I did the one on the top left and he did the one on the top right (but made himself look so much less attractive than he really is, shame on him).

All lined up and ready to leave the nest


.......and pretending to be synchronized swimmers.


But this post wouldn't be complete without the obligatory photos of Jesse and I looking completely disgruntled while we put these together.


It wasn't really that bad, we just have our "concentrating" faces on. Notice how messy the rest of the room is while our supplies are so neatly stacked - house cleaning unfortunately took a back seat during this stage of wedding planning. And before I end this post, I must give a shout out to my beloved paper trimmer and corner rounder, the c0- MVPs of our crafting tools. They made the process so much smoother...along with a very patient fiance.

**update: larger images and more detail shots can be found here on my flickr wedding planning site.

Hey, mister postman bring me a dream....

I should give you fair warning.....this is a post about stamps. Yep, stamps. A microscopic detail of wedding invitation planning that really shouldn't warrant a blog post. I certainly have never given them much thought before. I knew from working on my sister's invitations that the USPS makes wedding-themed stamps, so I just automatically thought "good enough - done". Until the devil, Martha Stewart, and her extreme obsessive compulsive disorder sunk her teeth into me.


Exhibit A in my defense: a spread from her Spring 2007 issue showing the "art" of arranging stamps on an invitation envelope. The Martha even suggests buying vintage stamps off of eBay to coordinate with your colors if the current offerings don't match. Thankfully, my perfectionism has never reached those sisyphean limits. As much as I love all things vintage, I wasn't even tempted...well, maybe a little, but not enough to start looking or anything.....

Other brides use services like zazzle.com to custom design their own stamps that are actually certified by the USPS. But, that costs extra money and my cheapskate tendencies override my perfectionist tendencies every time.

A month ago, though, all the stars aligned for me. On an otherwise average day, as Jesse tossed me a stack of letters, my eyes immediately darted to the top right corner of the top envelope. There rested a beautiful 1 inch x 1 inch square of perfection. Drum roll please! I give you the post office's crowning achievement - the "Beautiful Blooms" collection!

Yeah, I know, completely not worth the hype. But, they fit the exact fun, summery mood of our wedding and coordinate perfectly with our colors! Jesse can't understand my enthusiasm for a detail so microscopic. I think it's just that this one tiny detail fell into my lap perfectly without me having to lift a finger, whereas the rest of the wedding planning has been so complicated. So, to the dear USPS, who I usually curse, I now salute you. Next, we just have to design our invitations....