Attendants' accessories

Dan's in the middle of trying to find a tie that he and I both like. I tried to talk him into a gold tie made out of matching gold fabric that I'm using as the waist ties on my dress, but he wasn't into the idea at all. He may end up wearing a gold pocket square...we'll see. He's also not much into the idea of boutonnieres, so we may just skip that entirely as well, unless his groomsmen decide they want something. Nevertheless, here are some ideas that I collected:

A Pomp & Plumage boutonniere, via Creature Comforts

Emersonmade boutonnieres, via Little Dwell, who put together a little tutorial for a boutenniere inspired by these

And not so much for the guys, but a fabric flower tutorial from Colette Patterns.

Photobooth info & chalkboards

Amy has come to my rescue and will be taking over the whole photobooth project, hurrah! It's going to be placed in a corner of the middle terrace outside, where people will see it pretty easily, there's natural light, but it isn't really in the way. There's a door in that corner too that we could try to open up and hang some fabric over if the photobooth backdrop thing doesn't work out.

Overall advice

• APW Photobooth How-to, which used a digital SLR, a sturdy rented tripod, a remote shutter device ($15), and saved the photos to the flash card in the camera
• Lyn of Another Damn Wedding's post on her photo guestbook: I think this is basically I want! Getting physical photos is more fun than saving files to a card, plus I'm rubbish at getting around to making scrapbooks. Key lessons: she used the Fujifilm INSTAX 210 Instant Photo Camera ($65 on Amazon), with film being ~$2/exposure, and pens for people to write messages on the photos themselves. She also had an instructions sheet, which I think is a really good idea.

Backdrop

• Merrilee did a photobooth at a Halloween party that mentioned using an actual photo backdrop stand from a photographer friend of hers, which she has a photo of. Not sure if this is something that can be rented?
• While searching on Etsy, I found this shop Fun on a Stick that has a whole section on photobooth setups that seems pretty neat, actually. $83.95 for a freestanding photobooth backdrop with fabric, plus $22 to ship in the U.S.

Hopefully this isn't too unethical, but I have recruited my handy friend Joe to build us one like this out of PVC pipes based on what we can see of the structure in the photos. He thinks it should be pretty easy and quick. I'll take care of sewing up the fabric backdrop, but I can't decide if it should be a solid color (and if so, what color), or a pattern, or...something that's a hodgepodge.

Our photographer Kelly posted this photo of a wedding at the Fuller Craft Museum. I think that background here might be part of the museum? But at first I thought it was some kind of patchwork quilt of fabrics and I kind of like the effect.

Equipment

• I have a friend at work who has a Polaroid camera he said I could borrow, but film is apparently pretty expensive? Not sure how that works out on a per exposure cost when compared to including the cost of the Fujifilm Instax camera, hopefully Amy will do the math on that one!
• Another option would be to use the point-and-shoot digital camera that we already own and then set up a printer like this Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer ($35). Amy says she thinks it's a pretty good price for pretty decent printed photos, not the best, but does the job. Also apparently sometimes there are streaks in the photos, but you can calibrate it to avoid those. This printer uses Polaroid ZINK Photo Paper which is pretty inexpensive, about $0.20 per sheet. Photo paper needs to be kept in a cool spot, as heat will damage it and affect how it prints. There's also an adhesive on the back of this paper that you can peel off to glue it to something.

Props

• I've posted some other potential props, but Amy also sent me the idea of creating a Polaroid frame out of white cardboard as a prop, kind of like how other people have used an empty picture frame. Set up your digital camera on a tripod and create fake polaroids. By that I mean, cut out a white cardboard frame for people to physically hold and frame themselves in. Like so: 

• Wedding for Two posted about a really simple DIY chalkboard sign that she made for $7. 

While I'm on the topic of chalkboards, I wanted to include this chalkboard program from that same Fuller Craft Museum wedding that Kelly shot:

Pros: a way to display program information without having to make programs, which could be helpful in giving guests a sense of what to expect in the ceremony since it's non-traditional/religious.

Cons: probably only the people sitting in the front would really see them, right? Or is it safe to assume that people would see them when they're milling around before the ceremony starts?

Another chalkboard item are the signs that Lyn also made:

I've been thinking of a way to make signs for things, especially the pies that people will bring, without needing to print things up beforehand. This could be an easy way to do that.

A few paper goods projects

From Maia, I learned about this concept of a "wedding tree."

Basically it's a poster with an image of a tree on it that you set up at the reception with an ink pad, a test notepad of paper, and perhaps some wipes for people to clean their hands, and they put their thumbprint along the tree branches as the "leaves" and sign their names around it. Etsy has a good number of different printable designs. I think this is a pretty neat idea, because you then end up with basically a poster that you can hang in your home.

I will not be doing this as I don't think there will be that many kids at the reception, but if you were having many younger guests and wanted to set up activities for them, this DIY coloring book using photos project would be pretty fun, I think.

And also, we got our first wedding present the other day (thank you again to the Lius, many-generational family friends on my mom's side)! Which got me to thinking about getting some nice thank you cards. Dan doesn't really get why I want non-everyday thank you cards, but I'm pushing for them anyway. I came up with a photo-based idea to be printed at Overnight Prints that's waiting on the wedding bands arriving, but I also found these letterpressed thank you cards on Etsy with that double happiness character in the background:

$3.50 per individual card, plus shipping

It's quite an elegant design, I think. I contacted the seller about making up an order of 50 cards with design but the Chinese character for thanks in the background instead of the double happiness, and she was really open to the idea, offered to customize the border colors, and also threw in a bulk order discount.

More hanging decorations

I'm trying to clean up my draft posts and saved links as I work on fleshing out my wedding project plan spreadsheet (it's a bit intense). I have quite a list of other things I want to post about, like our invitations, and the wedding website my friend Amy helped me build with Google Sites, but it's crunch time until the wedding now and I should probably put off writing those posts for later.

I love the texture and simplicity of these string chandeliers! I think I actually once got a yarn ball like this as a favor from a birthday party in middle school. That one had multiple yarn colors mixed in, but I quite like these solid colors. Only thing is that it's a rather messy project and takes up a good amount of space.

Tutorial at Ruffled, though I can't remember where I got this link from.

I also really quite like this pom pom garland. I haven't always like previous photos of pom pom garlands that I've come across before, I think, but these appeal to me, plus they'd be really easy to store. Also, I think I do actually have the Clover pom-pom making kit mentioned in the instructions.

Tutorial at Honestly...WTF

There's a really cute shop in Hoboken that I walk by every day on my way to and from the PATH station, and they always have really awesome window displays. I spoke to the owner once, she told me it's her sister-in-law who does them, and they're always really creative and cool but in an accessible way, as opposed to Anthropologie window displays, where lately I walk by and my jaw will drop but I will also think that they're a little crazy while envying their job a little. Anyway, right now this shop has some really pretty tulle pom poms hanging, which led me to look for some tutorials. Martha's got a write-up, of course, but I also found a couple others. Same concept as a regular yarn pom pom, pretty much.

This photo from the Once Wed tutorial.

Invitation development and wording

Just a couple more images:

A simple way to get some colorful artwork onto a card: grid filled in with different mixed colors of acrylic paint (mer mag)

"Los Angeles" invitation suite by KenzieKate (via Oh So Beautiful Paper, of course)

I love this design, enough to even actually try to look what the cost would be to just pick this and get the invitations done. It's the colors, the graphic chevron stripes (I'm not sure whether this trend is just starting up or if it's already fading away, but I don't care), the handwriting font, and the clever placement of red text for emphasis. I appreciate that this business' website gives you a price calculator, but $1250 (about 50% of our venue cost) for invitations that I hope will at least be recycled just isn't going to happen here.

I came across this in my email the other day and realized I'd forgotten to share this poster Amy (she of the save-the-date design) one day when she was "goofing off." I don't know about you, but when I goof off, I generally don't end up with anything out of it, much less an adorable design of some sort:

Does the state of NJ look like a seahorse shape to anyone else?

Lately to try to make my weekday evenings a bit more productive, I try to set myself just one goal for the night, with my laptop down at 10pm to help me get to bed earlier. A couple weeks ago, I set myself the goal of going through my archives of invitation designs I've really liked to try to categorize the different aspects of what I'd like to have. They include:

• Stitching details: fabric overlay with words printed onto fabric, stitch into paper directly, stitch two layers of paper together, broken line border, fabric envelope
• Type as graphic design: modern and bold plus handwriting detail
• Typewriter: as font, on vellum paper
• Circles
• Kraft paper: contrasting the rougher brown texture with something dainty, like a lace doily
• Illustrations/line drawings
• Papercuts
• Other little details: rounded corners, colors in general, fabric tape, pennant stamp, letterpressed text
• Envelopes: templates, Google Maps

Which is a lot to be going on with (I won't do everything all at once), but I'm hoping to get more traction here by giving myself clear next steps for what to research and test. I want to have the invitation ready to be mailed out in mid-April, which gives me about a month to get them all done.

I also need to figure out the wording on the invitation, of course. Robin's post on trying to do so is very funny. I think we're going to go with the suggestions we've received about just saying something like "Join us for hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and pies galore" rather than including the full menu and then posting the full menu to the wedding website. 

The trickier item item of invitation wording is going to be designating the dress code, I think. Amid Privilege posted her mother's advice for wedding invitation dress codes, which includes not saying what's not allowed and recommends using standard dress code wording if possible (Cocktail, not Semi-Formal), leaving it up to guests to figure out the rest given the style of the invitation, what they know of the couple, and the time and location of the wedding. I probably might give more examples in the FAQ of the wedding website for those that want more guidance. Handwringing over what's appropriate to wear to a certain event and fears about being over- or under-dressed waste enough of everyone's energy everywhere else already.

Ribbon wands

For a quick hit of pretty, these ribbon wands seem easy to make and a nice way to inject color into the ceremony setup:

Engagement photos!!

Thank you everyone who commented and clamored for the engagement photos in the last post. I'm really touched that people I know only through the internet caring. I've delayed on this a bit because I had some emotions to work through, which I decided to just put into another post about body image and self-esteem entirely. So here are my top picks, with a slideshow of the full set available here.

We started out in our 'formal' outfits, which for me was a mod acid yellow and gray 60s shift from Empire Vintage Clothing and for Dan was his light gray suit that I talked him into getting tailored. Man, the amount of excess fabric they took out!

This is the Hoboken train terminal waiting room, which is gorgeous and looks a bit like Grand Central Station but with fewer people. Sadly an NJTransit cop shooed us away pretty quickly (Kelly was awesomely quick on her feet and told the guy she was Dan's sister) because apparently you need a permit? But I searched and searched afterwards and didn't find anything on their website about applying for one, so in my mind that means it can't be true. I'm still a little peeved that we missed out on the grand shots of the big staircase, but you get a bit of the idea from here.

Kelly was so great about constantly directing us to move closer to each other and to show some affection, just like Amy had told us we should try to do more of.

Mmm vintage-y post-processing effect.

Fie on ugly but necessary signs marring the frame.

I like this one a lot because because I think I look like I feel a bit sassy here. Hellz yeah bright blue dress that's also from Empire Vintage Clothing. Can you guess what that is behind us?

It's the outside of a parking garage in Hoboken! We were walking from the train station to the park at 4th and Hudson and chatting as we went along and then Kelly stops in the middle of a sentence and just says something along the lines of, "Oh my god what is that I love it we are going there to take photos now." Ok!

There was a guy sitting on a bench towards that right that kept telling Kelly she was doing it wrong because the sun was behind us. She showed admirable restraint there, I think.

This is the same park, we just ducked into a small clump of trees and Kelly managed to make it seem like we were in a forest, which was one of the settings that I wanted all along but thought we couldn't make it work with the urban thing together.

Joint effort from Dan, Kelly, and myself. 

I love, love the concept for a save-the-date card (which I think we are going to end up doing after all) but may want to re-do it with a vintage Scrabble board instead so that the board isn't as distractingly colorful, or maybe use some Photoshop effect so that the tiles look illustrated somehow, or do just the tiles and overlay it on another image, like a vintage map of Princeton or NJ. Dan's preference is for something like this from the battles of Princeton and Trenton. Ugh history. Anyway, that'd be on one half of a postcard and another one of these images on the other half. Gets the point across, hopefully, and people can put it on their fridge if they want.

By this point we were already running over on Kelly's time but she never said a word and got this bubble shot that I really wanted in.

So overall, Kelly is basically the most energetic and enthusiastic person I've ever met. She really was wonderful about directing us into poses and making us laugh. I think you can tell that we definitely relaxed into it as the shoot went on, which is the whole point of doing an engagement shoot after all.

Given that, I kind of overprepared for the shoot in terms of props and such. I made a list, checked it twice, and packed everything into my granny cart which was useful for hauling things around but I really didn't need 3 different belts options and more earrings/necklaces/shoes/books etc. As Kelly pointed out when we talked over the phone a few weeks beforehand, the shots of her other couples that I liked the best were the ones where the couples were doing some activity together and yet I clung to having many prop options as a safety line, I suppose. Ah well, so it goes.

For makeup this time around, I scheduled a makeup trial with Jennifer Kang at Mona's in Englewood Cliffs. She was really nice and in a happy coincidence, she happened to be doing these trials for free on the day of our shoot anyway. I regret that I didn't leave her a small tip of some kind just for her time. She applied some fantastically long false lashes that felt pretty weird at first but that I got used to eventually. They weren't too hard to remove at the end of the day, though I needn't have worried at all about them falling out. I'm surprise that they didn't show up more in the photos because they looked enormous to me in the mirror. I also learned from her that you can apparently buy these stickers at Asian grocery stores to put on single-fold eyelids at night to have a double fold in the morning. Weird! And yet, intriguing!

Dan, again, thought there was too much makeup on but I think you can't really tell that there's very much in the photos. I almost want a bit more eye makeup and a stronger lip color, and definitely for my eyebrows to be filled in a bit more, I think. Still, I remain undecided as to whether the minimalistic makeup look I want is worth paying a professional to do. I can buy the makeup and practice myself...but I probably won't do the practicing part of it. I think my sister also wants to the use the occasion to really go for all the beautifying things, since she never went to prom.

So it may be a small thing that ends up being worth throwing money at, but I'm still not quite sure. Plus, a hair person would be separate, and yet there's not much I want done except for it to be blown out nicely. Mama G suggested finding a salon in the Princeton area that I would go to on the morning of to get the blowout and a makeup application but I want to minimize the amount of running around needed that morning. Maybe a place like this La Jolie Hair Salon which has full face regular makeup starting at $45 and a shampoo and blow-dry at $36. The fine print says wedding day work starts at $100 but I'm not too fussed about going in there and not telling them that it's for a wedding.

In conclusion:

1. I heart Kelly.
2. I remain unsure about the makeup thing.
3. I have body image and self-esteem issues to work on that I didn't know I had. More to come on this.

Tissue paper pom poms

Just got the engagement photos from Kelly today (whee!), which were taken over 3 weeks ago, so I thought I'd best get my butt back on this blogging wagon. Traveled, painted furniture, worked, end of quarter craziness, blah blah fishcakes. I did read Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding and even went through it a second time to mark up all the things I wanted to blog about. Oh, and I also started the intermediate skirt sewing at Sew Fast Sew Easy so that I can take their advanced dressmaking class.

The traveling was to Michigan, to visit Mama G!! I'm pretty sure this was my first time to the Midwest ever, though my knowledge of geography is so hazy that that might be wrong. I had such a fun and relaxing time; Mama G is the best hostess ever, she had this adorable welcome basket all ready for me, which include an ornament in the shape of Michigan among other lovely smelling soaps and lotions. We went through two watermelons, visited Zingerman's and found foodie heaven, found an awesome curated and cheap vintage shop and...made the test wedding crafty project!

These were made based on the instructions from Martha Stewart. Here's what we learned:

1. The rectangle of tissue paper you fold up should be proportionally longer than it is wide. This is because you'll fit in more folds for the same width, which will result in a thicker cluster of paper.
2. Cutting the edges to be sharper triangles rather than rounded scallops looked better, in our opinion. Not too sharp, though, otherwise the points will flop too much.
3. Again, fluffiness and thickness were important to the point where we thought it looked better to tie together two halves rather try to one big pom pom sphere from the same sheets of paper.
4. Having a gradient of colors really gives the whole thing more depth.
5. Without cutting down the tissue paper, the pom pom ends up looking huge but once you're outside, the big ones look better hanging in the tree. 

This was our favorite one. There are 3-4 different colors here and see how the shape is a bit oval because it's 2 halves stuck together?

I need to scope out how these pom poms will be hung at the venue. I know there's at least one big tree in the yard that's close to the house...but I can't remember others. I also don't know whether we can hang things inside the house itself. As for colors, I think we'll stick to the red-orange-yellow colors. The blue is a bit too hard to find and as Mama G said, I have to be a bit careful that the colors don't veer too much into primary color mode. If I can find tablecloths that are the right blue, that would pull it all together.

More table decorations

"Coral" table decor out of drinking straws at design*sponge.

Individual cupcake stands at hello hanna, via not martha.

I think putting together a template for these shouldn't be too difficult, it's the cutting them out with the curves that would take awhile.

Hanging decorations roundup

I really need to either post these more quickly instead of letting everything sit for a whole summer or stop collecting quite so many.

Puffy paper lanterns from not martha. I really like the texture of these, a bit like those soft fabric flower poms.

Cupcake liners as tiny little paper shades on twinkle lights at ikea hacker.

Loopy-Loo simple paper garland is IS.LY

Flower pom tutorial from Jen at Me, Myself, and Bride.

And how to store all these lovely garlands? Roll them around a toilet paper roll with slits cut at each end to catch the ends of the garland.

Flower project roundup

Coffee filter flower tutorial at design*sponge.

Fabric flowers roundup at Giver's log, via not martha.

Crepe paper bouquet tutorial, via Creature Comforts.

Bonus! Little roses from straw wrappers (I hope no one actually does this on a massive scale, that would be a bit sick, but cool party trick to learn, perhaps), via not martha.

Ok not projects but other flower ideas: centerpieces of flowers in water, from the Blooms By the Box blog.

I'm still all over that apothecary chic look but I like the simplicity of these.

Apparently this is just a flower wallpaper but it'd be pretty as strands of real flowers against a wall, wouldn't it? From A Cup of Jo.

Cupcake centerpieces! From This Little Journey. I don't think we're doing the cupcake thing in full but these are so cute.

Ok this is just to remind myself--we have these single serving Martinelli's apple juice jars at work and I could potentially collect them and use Goo Gone to get rid of the labels and clean them up to use as bud vases.