I hope you guys enjoyed checking out the Save the Dates. I used them as the jumping off point for the actual invitations. As I mentioned before I really loved how the mountains turned out and if you've ever been up to the Blue Ridge Mountains I think you'd agree that it really does evoke that feeling of being up there.
So the invitations were going to require more pieces. It was a destination wedding, so we had a lot of information to convey and I didn't want to leave any questions unanswered. I made up a free website on wordpress which I included in the Save the Date to give guests (and those that couldn't make it) a chance to check out what was going on.
So the pieces of the invitation suite that I made are: Invitation, RSVP postcard, envelope liners, maps, and travel & activity cards. I used peacock envelopes and cards (to back the invitations) from Papersource. They also have a template for envelope liners that made the cutting job much easier. I used Persnickety Prints to print the invitations on pearl paper and Overnight Prints for the RSVP postcards. I printed the maps and travel info at home.
I also had a custom stamp made by Etsy seller papersushi that said "Love makes the world go round." Since custom takes time and we were in a time crunch, I used the image proof she sent of the stamp and made stickers for the envelopes. She also made us custom return address stamps that are soooo cute, but again they didn't arrive in time so I wrote out the return addresses on the envelopes and I'll use the stamp for the Thank You cards.
I used expired low charts from the recycle bin at work to line the envelopes. Since Tony and I are both pilots I wanted to include that aspect into the wedding (you'll see it pop up in other areas too). Free charts make great decorations and we love all sorts of maps. We also knew that many of our pilot friends would appreciate it as well. On some I even tried to put a part of the world that they were familiar with.
The Asheville image on the front of the RSVP postcard came from the NCgenWeb online archives.
We used a wedding website and App to share up-to-date info with all of our guests.
Even though it did take a lot of time I really enjoyed handwriting the names and addresses on each envelope. There was so much inspiration on Pinterest and while I don't think I could make a living doing envelope calligraphy, I love the personal touch that it added to my invitations. My friends knew it was from me when they saw it in their mailbox even before seeing the return address on the back. I loved that!
I'm coming up on 7 months of married life this month and it has been crazy.... crazy in a good way of course. As mentined in a recent post 2014 has been full of excitement in life and jobs and this 7 months has flown by. I've been wanting to share our DIY wedding on the blog and with it raining outside and me procrastinating planting some flowers, I've decided to get to it!
When we got engaged in September we knew that we didn't want to do a year or two long engagement. We had purposfully been living apart and doing what we knew in our hearts was the right thing for us before marriage, so after the engagement it just seemed natural that we wouldn't wait forever to have the wedding....we didn't see a point. Not to mention I pretty much knew what I wanted for the wedding already. Being a lover of Pinterest and all things DIY I had already amassed a substiantial wedding Pinterest board. In fact, a few years earlier a wife of a work friend was convinced that I was getting married based on my pins... hahaha.
So we decided on Asheville in about 5 seconds and then we went to the calendar to pick a weekend. We wanted his daughter to be able to participate, so we picked out what weekends worked for her school schedule and that was how we picked January 19th. Which left us with approximately 4 months to plan.
So I know that most people send out their Save the Dates more than 4 months in advance, but I really wanted to design my own invitations, which I knew would take time, but I also wanted to get the word out quickly. This seems counter-intuitive now that I'm explaining it.. why would I spend more time designing Save the Dates instead of invites? Why not just jump to the invites?!?! Well in my brain it made sense at the time!
I wanted all the paper products for the wedding to be modern and playful and to reflect Asheville and the blue ridge mountains that we loved so much!
I used Illustrator and drew up what seemed like a gazillion ideas. Tony and I decided together on this one:
I loved how they turned out and my favorite part is the mountains in the background! It looked even better in print. I had them printed at Persnickety Prints and on a pearl paper. Oh man, the pearl paper just added the best sheen and shimmer to the card. We put them in teal envelopes and I addressed them using a white pen. I'l show more photos of the envelopes when I post the invites. I highly recommend Persnickety Prints. When I printed out invited I used another company because of price, but eneded up going back to Persnickety to have them re-done! I also get photos printed by them. I'll be back soon to share the invitations.
I am so you guys! Nicole's Classes featured my graphic design work along some other talented students' work. My wedding maps are on their blog today and it just puts a big 'ol smile on my face. I loved how those things turned out and I just loved making them. I really can't thank the instructors Alma & Melanie enough for their classes. I've learned so much!
I'm writing up a post for the wedding invitations I made, so you'll see them soon!
Our wedding weekend in Asheville NC was incredible. We had so much fun and enjoyed every minute of the fun with friends and family who came to share in our wonderful day. Tony and I still talk about how fantastic everything turned out. We used StudioWed in Asheville to help select our vendors (their service is FREE) and then we hired a wedding planner for the day of. Brittany from Verge Events helped with the vendors, the rehearsal and helped keep everything on track and worry free for the entire wedding day.
Just recently we received our wedding photos from Oh Darling Photography and I seriously CANNOT stop looking at them. They even surprised us with this video (which I have watched a gazillion times):
They did an amazing job and I'm so so soooo happy with the photos and that video is just so "us".
This post is photo heavy, but I want to send a shout out to all of the amazing professionals that helped make our wedding day so beautiful, carefree, fun and amazing. Also a special shout out to my amigas Kerry & Lisa for helping with all of the decor, you girls rock!
Andrea and I had our makeup done by Wendy Ballance from Blush. She was great and we both loved our makeup and false eyelashes... they make you feel so glamorous!
Andrea's maid of honor dress by LulaKate. Thanks Christy & Laura at Bella Bridesmaid in Raleigh for helping us find the exact dress Andrea wanted. They were super helpful in tracking down another LulaKate sample dress that coordinated for my 13 year old niece.
My dress was purchased at Maggi Bridal in Raleigh and the shopping experience there was great. I had a short, 4 month engagement, which apparently doesn't work so well with most wedding gown designers (esp those large designers that manufacture their gowns in China). However, my gown comes from a small family team who create and produce their gowns in Canada (Mikaella style 1406). Tony bought his suit at Men's Warehouse and his awesome tie was from Nordstrom. Let me just say that you can tell the difference between a nice tie from Nordstrom and a cheapy from Kohls!!!
The ceremony and reception took place in downtown Asheville at On Broadway. Chef Kim & Celine (Celine & Company) were so great to work with and the food was delicious. YUM! I love old buildings and this place was so cool. The vibe of downtown and the proximity to the hotel were just perfect for us.
We picked out five different flavors of cakes from Short Street Cakes without even doing a tasting and they were ALL delicious. I ordered the customized cake toppers from Etsy by ReadyGo. Working with Nadia on the customized toppers was super fun and easy, and Reese even made an appearance. Yes, I love my dog that much. She would have been in the wedding if we could have worked it logistically to get her back to the hotel after the ceremony.
ahhhhh... the flowers. They were delivered by Flora to my hotel room in this amazing arrangement. I worked with Tyler at Flora and she was great at helping me figure out what I wanted and keeping within my limited budget. I didn't think that the flowers mattered that much to me... until I saw them. I mean seriously, aren't they stunning?!
Flora used my mason jars and I dipped over 100 pine cones in paint that they placed with the arrangements. The dipped pine cones were easily the most time consuming DIY of the wedding. I quickly realized why they were going to charge so much to do it for me.
The Business ROCKED it out. They made the reception so much fun. People were definitely on the dance floor all night. Their energy and their talent were appreciated by ALL of our guests. Every single person remarked on how great they were.
A few other places deserve shout-outs that I don't have photos for. We spent the weekend at Aloft Asheville Downtown. It is such a fun hotel and really a great place to have as wedding HQ. They are super pet friendly, which Reese appreciated, and don't charge a pet fee! We had a suite with an awesome view and gorgeous light that made getting ready really fun. It was also a great place to spend the wedding night :)
The rehearsal dinner was at Sunny Point Cafe. Yes, we had breakfast for dinner and this place was amazing. Our family and wedding party were talking about the Huevos Rancheros for weeks after... and I can personally that they are more than worthy of all the talk! The staff there were so nice and I can't wait to go back next time we are in town.
We also booked Shutterbooth for our photobooth. They were much more affordable than I had anticipated and it was a huge hit with all of our guests. Tony and I had a blast looking through the album when we returned from our honeymoon. Not only did all of our guests get to take home photo strips, but they created an album at the reception where guest placed copies of the photo strip and wrote us a note.
Thank you again to everyone that helped make the day so lovely and special. Tony and I cannot express how much we enjoyed working with you all!
Last night a bunch of my girlfiends came over and we had a fun night just hanging out, drinking wine, laughing and making some wedding crafts!
Andrea, my maid of honor & best friend, hosted the party at her house and we had so much fun. Andrea created a cute heart banner and I made little welcome bags for all the gals that came. After some fun wedding mad-libs we made tissue paper flowers that I'm plannign to use at the reception. Most of my friends say they aren't very crafty, but they ROCKED it and we made about 75 flowers! Whoohoo! I think that should be enough. They even got creative and started mixing the colors of tissue paper, which I hadn't thought of... you ladies can no longer claim that you're not crafty!
Here are a couple shots from the evening. I'm so thankful to call these gals my friends. I missed my long distance amigas, but I can't wait to see them at the wedding.
Andrea made such a cute banner
goodie bags for all the gals
I included a small mason jar, paper straw, post-it-notes, a thank you card, and some bling!
The stamp I used on the mitten card was custom made for me by Jennifer at Paper Sushi. She also made some return address stamps that turned out great. I can't wait to use them.
pretty paper flowers!
While the adults were having our party upstairs, there was a kid party going on downstairs with 5 kids and poor ol Reese. She did manage to escape their "games" a few times, but by the end of the night she was so tired she didn't even move when I wrapped her up.
You may have noticed that I am very into DIY projects (see my multiple DIY boards on Pinterest, if you doubt). Knowing that I am DIY fanatic you will not be surprised when I tell you that I am DIY-ing many things for my wedding.
I've designed my invitations, my RSVPs, a website, and even the cutest maps.
I used some maps from Romantic Asheville as my inspiration and then drew in Illustrator my own version, customized with my wedding colors and fonts. I think they turned out so stinking cute!
I made this LOVE graphic in the wedding colors too. I'm not sure how I'm going to use it, but I was practicing some recently learned Illustrator skills and I am super pleased with how it turned out. Speaking of Illustrator skills, I've learned SO MUCH from Melanie Burke & Alma Loveland. These two awesome ladies are instructors at Nicole's Classes and I have taken 5 (I think) classes from them so far. They are so sweet and kind and they know what they are doing... just check out their personal sites and their joint business Caravan. I can't recommend their classes enough.
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