Custom envelope liner

I first became to know the beauty of the envelope liner at a Paper Source demonstration earlier this year.

But how sweet would it be to make a custom liner with your names on it? Very sweet. Probably near impossible to line it up like they have here, but possibly a repeating pattern of your names to bring in some typography pattern.

By Mika78 via We Met In A Bar.

Bridal Showers of Yore

Almost one year ago, a very special girl to both Samantha and I, got hitched! With her anniversary just around the corner, I felt it appropriate to trot out the pictures from the super fun shower we hosted at my house last April.

A special chair for the bride!

Floating flower puffs for cheap, impact-ful decor.

My secret source for flowers: Costco. The vase was wrapped in tulle for an extra feminine touch.

Fresh flowers for spring! Also, love the Dwell for Target runner I got just for the occasion. They even used it in this wedding, featured on Style Me Pretty.

Of course, we had to make the bride's favorite recipe: Goat Cheese Tart. It's a delicious concoction of goat cheese, pesto and sun-dried tomato pesto. Just to die for! 

More lovely bridesmaids with the incredible food spread. It was too bad Jolyn didn't mention that she can't eat cheese . . . EVERY single item included some form of the substance, except the cake and some grapes. 

The maid of honor decked out in the winning toilet paper dress.

The beautiful bride! What a great shower dress.

Another classic shower game, but with a technological assist. We had the groom pre-record answers to questions, and had the bride guess what he would say. Hilarity ensued!

And a parting shot of Mr. B in the bridal throne. Thank god he doesn't read this blog.

Fast forward to present day, and now our dear friend is returning the favor by serving as bridesmaid extraordinaire for both of us! Happy Anniversary Laurie!

Maple syrup, here we come!!

Hey party people! So we've decided on favors and I'm really excited! Since Brad is from New Hampshire and we'll be getting married in the Fall, we are going to be doing maple syrup. We are buying little maple leaf glass containers (I think) and then Mr. L's mom will be putting syrup into each bottle in an assembly line with her friends.

I think that we'll make little tags that say our names, wedding date and a note about Mr. Livalittle being from NH, hence the syrup. Any ideas for favor tags? I'm liking the look of this....

Also, any ideas for some witty wording? Victory, do you have ideas for cool-looking DIY tags?

Going it alone: Designing my invites

After very seriously considering purchasing an invites design from Printable Press, I've made the executive decision to forge ahead and design my own. I just couldn't reconcile paying $60+ dollars for a PDF that wasn't 100% what I wanted, knowing that I could whip out my (albeit rusty) graphic design skills to do it myself!

I mean, if I'm going to have to design the RSVP cars, map cards and reception cards in addition to coordinating printing of all pieces, then heck, I might as well just design the invite myself anyway!

So this is the compilation of the inspiration that Mr. B has officially approved. A frame of yellow/mustard colored pattern, with text in the middle. I also LOVE the fake-vintage-postcard-RSVP card, which I will totally steal. Just like the set in the upper left, but in yellow.

As a side note, Meg at A Practical Wedding posted an incredible site today [Invitation Consultants.com] that makes & prints invites for pretty darn cheap. Some are as little as $125 for 100 invites, and for custom printing, that's a deal. If I could get Mr. B to go for it, I'd totally do these kraft paper + feather invites in a mustard envelope. Hotness.

Save the Date

Dearest readers. Ok, so it is officially LESS THAN FIVE MONTHS FROM MY WEDDING! Oh dear lord in heaven. Where has the time gone? I can't believe that Brad and I are over half way done with our engagement. I basically have taken a six week wedding hiatus, but now the pressure is on to get out those save the dates! I really wanted to send them out a while ago, but am thinking that it's not the end of the world as long as they are out by the end of the month.

For the save the date, I am thinking of sending a postcard to relatives and older guests and the knot.com generated save the date for my contemporaries because so many of them do not have firm addresses. Is this terrible if I do the email thing? Does it totally not match the formal wedding that we will have on September 19th? (Um...friends reading the blog: save this date, haha).

Thoughts, please!

Lacy inner envelopes

OMG, my all time favorite DIY invite trick. Behold:

Thanks iDIY for bringing attention to this incredible trick. Simple, cheap, stylish. Awesome. Get full instructions on design.mein's Flickr.

Of course, Mr. B immediately shot it down.

:(

Alas, I live to fight on for lacy invites another day.

 

Staying in Shape...

Hey ladies! Just wanted to make a quick post about http://www.thedailyplate.com/ . Has anyone used this website? It is awesome! Here, you can record everything you eat and the website will analyze your intake of calories, fat, sodium, carbs, protein, fiber, sugar, you name it! I have been using the website for the past six weeks in an effort to get healthier and look better for my wedding. You can also input exercise, from walking to sailing to running to "tending to rice crops." Seriously, they have that as a possible activity. Anyway, it's very enlightening to learn about the nutrition information of certain foods.I'm also currently using Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. I am currently on level 2 and liking it! The workout only takes 25 minutes, you can do it in your bedroom and the best part is, it only costs $8 to buy the CD on Amazon! Woohoo!

Quick announcement: Brides Against Breast Cancer in Atlanta!

Just wanted to help get the word out to all my Southern bride ladies that Brides Against Breast Cancer will be here in the ATL selling gowns to benefit a great charity this weekend! 

Not only do you help a fantastic cause, the dresses are a steal! They have a range priced from $99 to $749 [originally up to $3500] and a range that goes up to $2,499 for couture originally priced up to $8000.

But you must make reservations to view the collection, so get to this website today!

It's invitation week!

That's right, I'm really trying to stick to the calendar we created and get some decisions on invites/stationery made this week [or really, just by the end of the month].

It all started when Ten Thousand Only featured this incredible wedding. Months later the bride graduated to start a BRILLIANT wedding business, Printable Press.  She'll typeset your information into one of approximately 60 designs and send you the PDF to print yourself. Do it up as expensive or budget as you want, it's all in your hands [exactly how I prefer it!]. She also provides fantastic tips and instructions for printing your own invites. Hugely valuable.

So my first decision will be whether to go the 100% DIY route [still on the table] or have Printable Press take care of the design work just for the main invitation card. I would ideally be able to make additional cards based on the main Printable Press invite. In theory.

If we go that route, Mr. B and I have narrowed down to our favorite designs. What do you think?? Leave a comment to cast your vote!

Option 1: Love the classic simplicity. Note that all colors can be changed [and would be to dominate mustard yellow].

Option 2: I really don't want to go down the full out damask explosion route, but I do love this pretty pattern. If we only use if as an accent to the invites, but no where else, is that ok? 

Option 3: Love it. But I think I would replace the pattern, perhaps with the above damask?

Option 4: Loooove it. Mr. B is concerned that it is too casual. Our inkjet can't handle this much ink, so it would have to be printed by a real print shop, and therefore more expensive. Yes, I would carry the bulb light theme across ceremony & reception venues!

So help us choose [if I don't haul off and design my own]!

Text art

Who doesn't love stationery that relies on bold typography?

Via Brooklyn Bride

Via Beast Pieces

Etsy seller Lovliday

There are lots of ways to achieve this look, but of course, most of them require hiring a graphic designer. If you're looking to go the DIY route, check out Wordle.net.

You enter in a string of text [your vows, old love note, random words associated with your upcoming wedding] and it automatically generates the text block. The font, colors and orientation are all editable, to create a pretty neat work of art to grace invitations, thank you notes, or program.

Both of these were generated by entering the blog's address. I'm thinking this could make an incredible thank you note card! Opinions?

Makeover!

So I'm sort of obsessed with makeovers. Truly, madly, deeply. Whether it's hair, makeup, body, mind, soul- I LOVE the makeover show, movie or what have you. So imagine my glee when I discovered http://www.taaz.com/, the ultimate makeover website!

I am planning to use this website to help prepare for my wedding- what kind of hairstyle do I want? What shade of lipstick or gloss? Shade of eyeshadow? Should I get highlights? How about lowlights? There are lots of other fun things to try like fake eyelashes, colored contacts and lip-plumping. The plumping made me look like a total crazy lady. Anyway, the list goes on. PLUS, not only can you try different shades, but they are actually linked to real makeup products! Amazing.

Upon hearing about the site (from my dad of all people), I had tons of fun experimenting with different hairstyles, eye colors and hair colors. The technology is actually pretty good and you can adjust everything exactly to the picture you upload. It is super fun to see! Below I have posted pictures of me in different iterations:

Barbie Samantha
Beach Bum Samantha

Glamourous Samantha

Alternative Samantha

And finally, if Mr. L and I have a little Livalittle, this is what I think she would grow up to look like- me, with his coloring:

Has anyone used the site? Thoughts?

Float [I am resisting a boat reference]

I remember when I got my first pedicure. Senior year, the day before Prom.

Now I'm ready to tackle another pampered frontier: I booked my first facial appointment ever. I'm the first to say it seems like an undue luxury, but when I heard about this new spa that just opened down the street in Inman Park, I couldn't pass up the chance.

You know its a good deal when the spa's web address is floatforvalue.com. For their opening, all one hour services are $39 . . . for real. 

But I have a confession: I don't exactly know what a facial is. I mean, are we talking face massage? Steam? I'm so confused. 

I just want to get some help with my huge pores, wacked-out combination skin and random breakouts before our engagement pictures taken in late May. Anyone with experience/advice out there? 

I have friends!

It's quite exciting to know that someone out there likes me enough to come visit from thousands of miles away! Woohoo! My wonderful friend and bridesmaid extraordinaire Anne came this past week and we had a blast. We kayaked out to some islands of the beach near my house, hiked a rainforest waterfall trail, went on a sunset cruise in Honolulu, toured some art galleries late night in Chinatown, went for dinner at my favorite pupu bar, saw the Pearl Harbor memorial, enjoyed rum drinks in pineapples, went to Palm Sunday service (we provided our own palms- it's Hawaii) and in our grand tradition, made a cherry pie.
In the spirit of I hate planning my wedding and others, Anne gave me the book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. This book essentially talks about everything that is wrong with the wedding industry, how much it all costs and tries to get to the root of the hysteria. Has anoyone read it? I've just started and I think it may be the perfect book for when I am feeling in a "if I have to write out one more address of one more distant relative, I'm going to shrivel into the fetal position" kind of mood. Any other bitter bride stuff out there?

eINVITE!

Hey friends! Well tonight I have an exciting feature: eInvite, the ultimate companion for the modern-day bride! When I first heard the company name, I thought to myself, "are these online invitiations? What is left of etiquette in this world?" Fortunately though, I was absolutely mistaken.

E-invite is a company that allows brides and grooms to special order personalized invitations online. The designs are cute, the prices are good and the quality is fantastic! What's more, eInvite has teamed up with WeddingWindow.com to provide coordinated wedding invitations and wedding websites. Style conscious brides can create a streamlined look from the first visit to their website to the thank you notes received weeks after the actual event.

REFINEMENT- $429/100 invitations

similar to this invite, by the same company

The company produces all sorts of invitations- there are literally hundreds to choose from and all are suited to the hip bride, far from boring! eInvite makes stationery specific to all of the events surrounding a wedding including the bridal shower, engagement shower, rehearsal dinner and the big day itself. There are also stationery options for announcements, save-the-dates and thank you notes. Depending on the style you choose, prices range between $99 and $429 per 100 invitations, which includes envelopes. If you are curious about how a particular invite looks in person, ordering a sample is easy.

PRETTY POPPY- $98.99/100 invitations

FLOATING FLOWERS- $98.99/100 invitations

The online possibilities with eInvite are what make the company unique. Since a bride can choose to coordinate her invitations and her website, there are many other related options that are not only different but cost-effective and green-friendly. First of all, brides can choose to print only what is necessary- save the dates and announcements are available in attractive email format through the website. Also, once you have made your order, you can do your invitation proofs online, which is definitely faster than a standard stationery company. Finally, if you choose, you can have guests respond online rather than sending in response cards. While I wouldn't choose to do that for my actual wedding day, it's definitely a great option for the rehearsal dinner, bridal shower, engagement party and other pre-wedding events.

NIGHTIE NIGHTIE- $234/100 invitations

D FLAWLESS- $234/100 invitations

I was excited about all of the hype, but when I actually saw the invitations in person, I was quite impressed. The paper is heavy-weight, the designs are detailed and the raised thermography is attractive. When I received them in the mail, I was so excited that I went out in the garden to take some pictures to share! My apologies if the quality isn't perfect!

MIX & MINGLE- $198/100 invitations

MOVING BOX- $234/100 invitations

Which ones do you like? If not any of these, how about the ones on the Bridal Shower page? Has anyone used this company? Do you like the idea?

Bridal Event #1: It pays to complement fellow brides

Last Wednesday the Piedmont Park weddings cartel [cute southern ladies who rule the most coveted Atlanta wedding locations with an iron fist] held an exclusive event for couples getting married at a Park venue. Really, we're just holding our ceremony there, so no need for a caterer. Thus, Mr. B and I reverted to our college roots and decided to go for the free food. 

But lo and behold, there was a lovely tall blonde wearing a gorgeous grey dress! So after working up the courage, I approached her to get its make and model with the bridal brigade in mind. "Oh, you're in luck," she said. "Just got it at H&M!"

So I popped over there this past weekend to see if it was true, not expecting to find it buried among the cheap & uber trendy. But it does exist!

Behold: The Holy Grail of Bridesmaids' Dresses!

Buttons, sash, pocket, Oh my!

At $40, these dresses are a mega steal! When I proposed my original idea to have the lovely bridal brigade supply their own dresses and top it off with the same jacket, most voiced that they would need to get a gray dress anyway.

Matching the dress would in theory make the jacket idea optional. But could be nice to have in the potentially cool late October weather. We'll figure it out if we can actually get five of these dresses in the right size, which I'm not entirely sure we'll be able to pull off.

Our long-awaited in-town H&M location only had a few sizes. I'm actively trying to track down the rest. The four Atlanta "area" stores [how on earth is the Mall of GA in the Atlanta area?] get shipments every single day and are likely to get more of these dresses at some point. Guess what that means? Calling four stores a day like a crazy lady. Yes, it's worth it.

And yeah, I bought one in my size for me to keep. This way I get a fantastic dress I like, and one of the bridal brigade ladies can just borrow it instead of purchasing. Win-win if you ask me.

Wedding Event Hangover

Why hello!

Yes, posting has been light lately. Mainly for two reason:

1. Mr. B is now officially stationed in Atlanta for work for the rest of the year, meaning we are readjusting to him being around every night [read: fighting for the couch and control of the TV. Why is he suddenly interested in this basketball business?? There is GREAT historical programming on! I mean, it's the week before Easter and every channel is running a biblical archeology special.]

2. I packed in two wedding/bridal events in one week [enough to kill a horse is the fitting expression, I believe]

So, I've got a bit of a wedding event hangover. Though, there were some seriously great discoveries, and I can honestly say the NotWedding was NotFabulous [haha, that means it was fab, get it?]. Recaps, discoveries, wedding awesomeness to be chronicled soon. 

Fooled

Wow, I was really bummed to find out this was an April Fool's Day joke from Daily Candy. . . for obvious reasons. Hey, we don't call Mr. B 'Toot's for nothing!