Let’s hope that I can get all my paperwork together…

But before I get into the day… here are the invitations that I created with my little slave laborer Jen.  With gocco, scissors, and a couple of x-acto knives, here they are!

envelopes and paper from Paper Source; popcorn bags from Hey Yo Yo!

Our inspiration for the theme was that our friend, Sarah, was sad to have given up corn dogs during her pregnancy.  We thought, well, we’ll have a mini carnival with all the best carnival foods!  So to set the tone, we came up with there popcorn bag invitations!

Jen and I got together one night and goccoed these invitations, hand-cutting the tops into the popcorn/cloud shapes.   And we printed the tickets out, cutting them out by hand, and ran them through a sewing machine to simulate the perforations.  All I hoped was the effort we put into the invitations didn’t raise expectations from the invitees… there was no room for a bounce house and a ferris wheel.

After we popped these in the mail, I sent Jen to work making all sorts of things… because that’s what she’s for!

photos courtesy of Lydia Chen Photography

So I bought wooden utensils.

via paper+cup design

While we bought ours from Garnish, Paper + Cup Designs offers adorable custom letterpressed utensils. Because I’m not nearly that cool, we didn’t do that. Maybe… we’ll stamp something on there if we can get some waterproof ink…

But we never got a chance to throw a huge party for our other friend, Sarah, for her bachelorette. So to make up for it, we’re throwing her a Baby Release Party. Seriously, it’s like an album – this baby is going to be awesome.

Because I can’t do anything normal, we’re planning an event – although I’m not sure what the whole thing will entail, but we’ll work out THOSE details later. But for now, we’re planning a garden lunch in my friend’s (overgrown) yard that we will have to prune… for mid-June. I say we because this is a joint venture with my Taiwanese slave laborer Jen, who I used during my wedding, and is a fantastic crafter.

I won’t let out the theme just yet because we’re making invitations… but we’re both pretty darn excited!

We’re even setting up a mini place for the husbands and boyfriends at our house, which is only a few blocks away. We figure the men might want to be involved later, but lunch is girls only!

So back to being selfish.

Ash is stopping flights and that’s making it hard to get certain flowers.  Why do I know this? I t’s because I’m still going through post-wedding-depression and keep up with this stuff even after over 2 years of being married.  Rob forgives me, or rather, doesn’t know I’m still doing this and would probably be horrified if he knew.  Thankfully, he doesn’t read my blog because he says I’m horribly cryptic and when I was traveling Europe with my landlord before we were dating, he read it and felt miserable. I’m glad I cut that off early.  This is also why I can tell you really embarrassing stories about him.  Because he doesn’t know.

When I build my time machine, I’m going to go back in time and take this bouquet from Mrs. Cowboy Boot and then go further back in time to my wedding.  It’s a complicated plan, but it just might work…

So what do you do when your dream flowers are unavailable?  You do what I did and just let it go.  My favorite flowers are dahlias, peonies, and ranunculus.  Basically, I like petals and I dislike seeing the… pollen parts.  My floral terminology is WIN.  I got married in October.  Put those together and you have about as sad a face, but not quite, as you get with volcanic ash.

One thing I did, and sometimes this wasn’t the best thing… but we won’t get into that, is trust my vendors completely.  When talking to my floral designer, and just sending her a couple of photos and really very little direction, I let her know that I was fully aware that my favorites were unavailable in October.  I didn’t push it, I figured that if she could magically make them appear, she would, so it was fine if she couldn’t.  I’d just check her off of my list of potential emergency magicians.  Granted, I had the most awesome floral designer on the planet (not biased at all) but I generally feel that if you’re hiring someone, you must love what they have done and you’re not blindly picking people out of the phone book.

I’m still in awe of my bouquet and how in comparison, I look like crap.   No really, that thing outshone me 100 times over.

The first time I saw my bouquet it was sitting in a plastic bucket, on the ground, outside the back door of the cottage.  Talk about presentation.  You know if you see your bouquet in such a flattering way and you still love it, it’s perfect and going to be so much more awesome when it’s not in a crappy bucket.

Moral of this story: don’t worry if your flowers are not going to be available – whether that be due to poor timing (geez, you SHOULD have planned your wedding around seasonal blooms!!!) or flight-stopping-ash.   Have a little faith, things will be ok.  And really, you should be worrying about other things – like boob slippage and falling on your face at a roller skating rink one week before the wedding and being covered in bruises.

*poof* done! like magic!

In general, I request a bunch of photos, just to see what you look like. Some people send wedding photos, engagement photos, just random photos- anything is fine. We’ll go into clothing, if you have an specific outfit in mind or just general – sometimes I get photos from magazines! From there, we talk about how you want to be portrayed. Some people have an idea, others don’t. Some couples are looking for something silly or other want something simple and sweet. After I get a general idea for pose and style, I’ll make a really rough drawing on paper… of which I take an iphone photo to send. I know, it’s really low-tech, but since it’s only a rough, it’s usually enough to get the idea across.

basic rough, lots of notes and poor quality image

Once the design is approved, I’ll outline the image digitally. This takes a long time because I do it manually so that the lines are perfect. I’m sure there are other ways around this, but the lines never look as good as when I go in by hand to make sure everything is exactly the way I want it. I’m anal. But it’s to the benefit of the illustration, I think!

completed outlined image

From there, we go into color. Usually I have enough images by now to get a general idea, but often times exact eye color or changes in hair and skin tone get worked out at this time. Color adjustments can be made at any time in the process.

Every step gets your approval. We’ll work together to make sure you get an adorable illustration!

So, from ugly iphone image to completed illustration, it can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks! As long as it takes to make an image that you’ll love.

ps. thank you to Julia, for the candy in the previous post and for being such an inspiration!

-Stella

Maybe I’m just jealous because I’m maybe 2 inches shorter than Rob, so anytime I wear shoes with even a little heel I’m taller than him. Not that I hate Rob or anything, but when are men’s platforms going to come back in style? If fashion goes in cycles, isn’t it time for disco platforms to come back in style? Or is it already time for no socks and boat shoes?

But… I will say that this is up there for most awesome bride ever.  I’m not sure if she’d read my posts at wedding bee or if she’s just psychic, but one of the girls I recently worked with happens to also work in a candy store!  SCORE!!  The store is called Smeeks and it sells all kinds of sweets… and another bonus point is that it’s associated with Frances Vintage.  Uh, hello?  I’m pretty keen on the name Frances!  This was obviously fate.  Shortly after sending off her inspired illustration, seriously, the inspiration and the people I had to work with was so amazing it was a breeze to come up with something, I received something in the mail…

Hell yea! I don’t go in for cleanings every 3 months for nothing.

If you haven’t been to Off Beat Bride to check out Julia and Bobby’s wedding, GO NOW. It’s beyond adorable! Everything is so creative, seriously, I envy that talent.

More on the illustration later… I am too busy becoming a living gold mine for my dentist!

So the idea of having to wait a very long time to do the kitchen/laundry/pantry remodel is killing me. I spend a lot of time looking at appliances and dreaming about where we will put them… even though chances are by the time I actually buy anything the ones I’m looking at now will no longer be manufactured. Honestly, I don’t know when we’ll be doing the remodel. It’s such a huge expense and we have other things we want to take care of it.

Like… I want to go back to school for a year and it won’t be cheap… since I won’t be doing it locally. Without a job, I need to have saved enough to survive on my own for a year. I don’t mind living like a hobo and eating breadcrumbs for a year, but the living expense alone is a lot to handle.

The problem is, just like wedding planning, the longer you have to plan it – the more elaborate it gets. So although it was originally just an aesthetic gutting of the kitchen without moving any electrical or plumbing, it has become a complete demolition with removal of a wall, complete redos of the heating system, an extra window… basically, we want to start completely over. Yes, a ton of electrical and plumbing will have to be moved in order for this to happen. We’ll have to do some moving of electrical in the living room also if we want to be able to tear down a wall…

I’m ridiculous. By the time we’re ready to remodel, I’m going to have decided to tear down the whole building and start over.