Unique save the dates

I frequent the Canadian Wedding Bells online forum and came across these really cool save the dates submitted by one poster. I'd love to receive something so unique and personalized!

Pictures taken from the poster Egad on this post

Brown paper packages tied up with string

I know that using baker's twine is nothing new but I just love the look of it tied around brown paper packages...I'm happy with how the chocolate bars will look wrapped with Kraft brown paper, but the plain white twine just wasn't doing it for me.

Lots of websites sell the different coloured twine:
Broadway Paper

The Paper Princess
Raffit Ribbons

But nothing came close in price to the Ebay seller wesellcoffee. I bought a 2-pound cone of green and white twine for $16 (shipped to a friend's house in the US). I figure that 2 pounds worth of twine will last quite a while and should be a lot cheaper than ribbon...

Chocolate is heavy...

I got a phone call from the boy at work yesterday. I was worried that something was wrong as he sounded out of breath and rushed. He yelled down the phone "Holland & Barrett [a UK health food store] are having a sale on Green & Black's!". Needless to say he was VERY excited and it always makes me happy when he takes such an interest in wedding-related crap.

I got a phone call later in the day to tell me that he had bought up all of the stock from 2 different stores - buying around 215 35-gram bars (I say around as we both had to sample a few to ensure quality control). He bought dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, mayan spice, and some butterscotch chocolate bars, which I had never had and were absolutely delish. We still need probably another 150 bars so that we provide our guests with 3 bars each.

We made sure to check the expiry date was after the wedding for all of the bars but we failed to consider the weight of the chocolate....I did the math this morning and realized that chocolate is heavy. We will need to lug just over 12kgs of chocolate back to Canada. As we always fly cheapo-air, that is over half of one person's 20kg baggage limit. Oh well...I guess that means the boy will be restricted to fewer pairs of shoes when we're next home.

Around 215 chocolate bars

Get a grip girl

I need to get a grip. I’ve come to realize that I’m spending far too much time over-thinking small details concerning the wedding. I never thought that I would spend so much time (honestly, it’s been hours) agonizing over what fonts to use for the invitations.

And don’t get me started on the amount of time I’ve spent trying to figure out the correct way of writing 3:30 pm on the invitations…

Is it “half past three” (or one of its many variations: half past three in the afternoon, half past three o’clock, half past three o’clock in the afternoon)? Or is it “half after three” (or one of its many variations: half after three in the afternoon, half after three o’clock, half after three o’clock in the afternoon)? Or is it just a simple “three thirty in the afternoon”? I’ve seen it written in so many different ways…

It will be great to add our own personal touches to the wedding, and there really is nothing nicer than pretty stationery or customized table numbers…but in the end they are just things really, just pieces of paper. We want to have a memorable day where our guests (and us as well) have a great time celebrating the beginning of our new life together.

My goal from now on is to keep in mind that it’s just one day. It’s one day that we’ll spend celebrating with our family and friends – all of whom after a few drinks won’t really care or notice that the font colour on the place cards does or does not match the colour on the menu.

Although I probably will… :)

Overkill?

I'm trying to decide whether it would be too much of all things English if we hired a Routemaster bus for the wedding. I've never been a fan of limos - they bring back memories of high school formals, bad dresses, and bad hair.

We could hire Vera (the company names its buses) from the Burlington-based Double Decker Bus Co. I think it would make for some cute photos...


And depending on the cost, we could also provide transport from the reception back to the hotel as the bus fits 68 people!

Hilarious

Maybe we should do something funny like this couple did to greet our guests:

The rest of the pictures from this wedding are fantastic as well.

A winter wedding...

Seeing this girl's wedding makes me think that maybe we should have planned a winter wedding. I love the classic look of her fur jacket.

The rest of the pictures are fabulous as well....they had their wedding at the Fermenting Cellar, a rather unique venue in the Distillery District of Toronto. Gorgeous!

Thanks for coming!

We didn't want to spend too much time stressing about the favours. We just wanted to make sure that our guests left with something little that said thanks for taking the time to celebrate with us.

Luckily we both agreed that food was the way to go. Neither of us are big fans of little trinkets, small picture frames, or other products flogged by the Knot. What do people actually do with these kinds of things?

Again in homage to all things English, we've decided to thank our guests with delicious Green & Black's chocolate bars. They come in little mini-bar sizes (35gms), so I think we will give each guest 2 or 3 bars. Maybe one Maya Gold, one dark chocolate, and one milk chocolate. Unfortunately my favorite, the mint chocolate, doesn't come in a small size. I'm assuming we'll buy them over here and just schlep them back to Canada....although I think they are now actually being sold in North America (which unfortunately will probably decrease the novelty factor, oh well).

The challenge will be to figure out how to package up the bars. The Green and Black's website has some bars wrapped up in single bow, but I'm not sure if I like the look and you would run the risk of them falling apart.


I tried wrapping 3 bars up last night in some Kraft brown paper left over for Christmas and really liked how it looked. Maybe wrapped with some green baker's twine?


Or would that be too labour-intensive? It would be fairly easy to shove the bars into some small Kraft boxes but the paper is so much cheaper...

My dress

I knew from the start that I did not want a poofy dress - they just were not me. The majority of the dresses at the local bridal shops over here were massive dresses with pick-up skirts (not to my taste). Again - thank goodness for the internet!

I fell in love with lace dresses, and one in particular: the Melissa Sweet Hallie.



It was this girl's Knot bio that really did it for me: djrs. When I was back in Toronto for a visit we went dress shopping and I tried on over 30 dresses but could not get the Melissa Sweet dress out of my head. We went to Pearl Bridal House in Missisauga, which stock Melissa Sweet dresses and other high-end designers, "just to see" as it wasn't too far out of the way. I knew it was a rather high-end store and was worried that they would be a bit snobby but the assistant was very warm and funny (thank goodness). She brought me lots of non-poofy dresses to try on, which were all lovely. At the end of the visit, I asked if I could just try on the Hallie dress, just to see how it looked, as she hadn't brought it out. I tried it, loved it, and so too did my Mom, sister and one BM.

So the torture began. I knew that I couldn't afford the dress, even with the discount at the trunk show a week later. I cursed myself for even having gone in to try it on. We kept looking at dresses around Toronto but nothing clicked. When I got back to England my stalking of Ebay, pre-owned wedding dress websites and the Knot dress message board began.

I found a girl on the Knot who was selling her used dress and matching the veil. We emailed back and forth regarding price, shipping, dry cleaning, etc. She was very helpful and sent over lots of pictures of the dress and veil from multiple angles. She also agreed to ship the items via the US postal service instead of UPS or FedEx, as their brokerage/duty fees are significantly greater. After a lot of back and forth with myself, I decided just to do it. When I pushed the button to pay her through PayPal, I felt so excited but so sick. This girl could completely take my money and run...

But she didn't. The dress arrived to my parents' in a large box, the dress wrapped up safely in bubble wrap. My Mom called me at work and I got kind of veklemp during her call I was so relieved. My all-male team at work didn't really seem to understand the excitement...:) My sister (who is pretty much the same size as me) tried it on and says it's pretty near perfect on her. She said the dress may need some taking in around the waist but I can deal with that...

It was a rather big leap of faith for someone as risk averse as I am...but I'm so glad it worked out in the end. I guess there are honest, nice people still left in the world.

I cannot wait to see it in a few weeks' time when we're back to Canada for a visit...

Saying it like it is!

I just came across Monica's blog from J Cricket Events (via with this ring) and this post just summarized everything I'm trying desperately to do:

http://jcricketevents.blogspot.com/2008/01/stop-decorating-your-wedding.html

I hope to take it all to heart! :) Well written!

Woosta

We're having the wedding near my hometown in Canada, so I want to inject a bit of Englishness into the day to acknowledge Lee's family and heritage (who thankfully are all geared up for the big trip over the pond). I don't want to get too carried away and make things look tacky, but hopefully we can do little things that will reflect both cultures.

Maybe something like a few flags around the reception in our colours?

I specifically want to recognize the city in which we now live: Worcester. The city is famous for its Lee & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, the Cathedral and Sir Edward Elgar (the composer of Pomp & Circumstance). I really like one of Elgar's works called Salut d'Amour. I think it would be a subtle nod to Lee's hometown and would work well during the signing of the register.

I also really like I Vow to Thee, My country, which is a British hymn set to music from a section of Gustav Holst's Jupiter (also a British composer). I'm just not sure where best it would fit during the wedding and the song itself is seen as more of a rugby song these days as it was played during the Rugby world cup.

As an aside, the Brits are constantly are in stitches whenever my friends or family try to pronouce the words Worcester or Worcestershire*. I may try to put a pronounciation guide into the invitations or programs...

**Worcester is pronounced Woosta and Worcestershire as Wustasure.

Save the dates

In order to save money and to give our English friends and family lots of advance notice, we sent out our STDs with our Christmas cards. I ordered all of the paper (Luxe White 210g) and envelopes from Paper Source. I had them deliver to my parents' as I would be back for a visit in the summer. The products themselves were great, I just was really peeved by the brokerage and duty charges (25 Cdn dollars on a $60 order) that arrived almost 3 months later! We learned our lesson and have arranged to have some friends in Seattle act as our paper 'dealer' should we order from Paper Source again.

We designed and printed 2 different STDs on our sometimes temperamental home printer. Our older family members and friends received this more formal STD:

This second one was inspired from Mrs. Gummi Bear on Wedding Bee and was sent out to our friends.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially given our general lack of design prowess. They were fairly easy to make and it turns out that Lee is a whizz on the paper cutter (I was demoted to chief printer after a few skewed cuts).

Because I am that kind of nerd, I made envelope liners with a modified 'SarahLee' logo.

Sorry about the crummy pictures, but I've needed to rely on my camera phone as our digital camera has died...

The girls

I think I gave Lee's nana a heart attack the other night when I told her that the bridesmaids were wearing black. By the look of her face (and that of his younger sister and mother), they had never heard of such a thing.

A month or so ago I asked the girls to pick their own matte black, knee-length dress. This was done mainly because I am a lazy arse and could not be asked to organize dress measurements and fittings from abroad. Moreover, I'm an absolute sucker for the LBD. I own far too many of them really, but they just go with everything and I always feel so good in one...I kind of wish I was a bridesmaid in my own wedding as it would give me an excuse to buy one. There are tons of great ones in the shops right now (and on sale to boot!).

So I really hope I don't cause my girls too much stress by asking them to pick out their own dresses...Hopefully they can find something in their budget that fits their own body type (or just re-use something in their closet).

Some of my inspiration pics...

{from Wedding Bells}

{Mrs. Killian from The Knot}

{Katy and Mark from the Knot}

Maybe I should show them to Lee's family to illustrate that black dresses won't scream funeral... ;)

Paper angst

England is a pretty amazing country in which to live, but it definitely is a barren wasteland in terms of stationery-related products! Both Lee and I want to DIY our invitations - hopefully we can save a bit of cash and inject a bit of our own style into the process. We tried our hand at some homemade Christmas cards and save-the-dates this year using supplies from Paper Source (more on that later) and were quite happy with the final result.

We've found some paper over here but it's so much more expensive! And don't get me started on envelopes...I've only been able to find squares ones, massive 6.4x9 ones, and smaller 4.5x6.4 ones. There is nothing close to 5x7 size that we both like the best. How I long for a Paper Source or a decent Michaels over here...Maybe a city like London has speciality stores but I'm out in the burbs.

As the pound is still strong, we're strongly leaning towards ordering from Paper Source again. But this time we will definitely have them shipped to our friends in Seattle (who have kindly agreed to ship the paper/envelopes to my parents in Canada and thus saving us the crazy UPS duty charges).

The other thing I'm worried about with invitations is that there is a different style of doing things over here...Last year we received 2 invitations to friends' weddings where they had hand written our names on the invitation. I thought that was really strange looking but have later found that this is considered proper etiquette.

"The names of the guests should be handwritten in full in the top left-hand corner of the invitation"

{from Brides Magazine UK}

I don't like the look really, and can't afford to hire a calligrapher, so I hope all of our British guests won't be offended. Yikes!

The boys

Lee and his groomsmen managed to cross another thing of the to-do list recently by buying their tuxes for the wedding. We figured that there were 3 options for the boys: (1) rent tuxes in England and schlep them over to Canada; (2) measure up the boys and rent them from a shop in Canada; (3) bite the bullet and buy them.

I'm glad that the boys decided on the last choice (mainly because it saves me having to organize getting all of their measurements). The tux is from Next and is reasonably priced, a fairly classic style, and the boys do look quite dapper in it! :)

We've bought Lee and his groomsmen a slim-fit shirt from TM Lewin and a skinny (but not too skinny) black tie.

We're also on the look out for some Union Jack cufflinks...

{pic from Studio This Is}

Lee also made his first wedding-related purchase the other day: some Union Jack socks for the whole bridal party and his Dad from Topman. They are completely tackorific but I think we need to inject some bits of cheesiness into the wedding day....and at least we won't have any groomsmen in white socks!

My list of nos

My Mom has been extremely helpful and supportive throughout all of this wedding planning from afar business...

I have, however, given her a small list of things that I do NOT want to see at our wedding:

1. tulle - can't stand the stuff
2. mirrors under the centrepieces
3. balloons (unless they are the really cool massive ones)
4. carnations
5. those things that you sprinkle on top of tables...hard to explain but my Mom loves them and always uses them - e.g. sprinkles hearts on the table at Valentine's day
6. any wedding-related crap that the industry tries to get you to pay through the nose for (i.e. anything featured on the blog Godawful Wedding Crap - see below)

I hope I'm not being mean or offensive with the list, but those things just don't fit into my vision of our day... :)

The logo

I'm not overly computer savvy or design-orientated but I wanted to create something that we used throughout the wedding design. I liked the look of a lot of people's monograms but they just didn't scream 'us'.

So I tried my hand at creating a bit of a logo...

It is meant to represent an English rose for Woody and a Canadian maple leaf for me. I'm pretty happy with the final look and hope to use it in a fair amount of the wedding...(although not going as far as plastering it on every single piece of paper, loo roll, napkin or water bottle going..)

Let's give this a try

Hello!

I thought I would give this blogging thing a try...If only to have a place to record all of my random thoughts and ideas...

Woody and I are planning our October 2008 wedding in Canada from our home (sorry, our flat) in England. The internet and email have been incredible and invaluable resources during the planning process so far. Hopefully this will be a way of organizing my thoughts and inspirations a bit more cohesively.

We hope to have a relaxed, classic, vintagey, wedding using green and white as our main colours, with black thrown into the mix. Here is an inspiration board that helps me to visualise things...