This is chrisncase08's Blue Wedding!

I wanted to add a little oomf to the invitation envelopes and I'm so happy with how they turned out.

Pieces:
Pool envelopes from Paper Source
Large flourish rubberstamp from Paper Source
Teal colored ink (bought at Michael's)

In order to get the half flourish on each side, I just put the envelopes side to side and stamped (as seen in third photo from left). It may seem obvious to do that, but I'm just glad I thought of it or this look would have been much harder to achieve! Haha.

And I'm not amonogram/initial oriented person, but I do like how the curl on the stamp resembles a letter "C," which is fitting for a couple whose names are Casey and Christie! :)

I'm also using the large flourish on the RSVP and Reception cards- same half print style. And I used the small version of the flourish stamp on the place cards. There are pictures of the place card process included here. I used a huge paper cutter at work (not just for these but for all my cutting!) to cut them to 5 x 2 1/4. The test card will obviously have nicer writing and it wont have a star- that was just to mark which one I liked best out of several lay outs.

My flower ideas have changed a bit. I've stuck to wanting white roses for the bulk of the flowers. However, I've gone from using a mix of spray roses and regular size roses to regular size roses and hydrangea with stephanotis in my bouquet to just regular roses and baby's breath. The final decision is simple, but I love it and think it will be beautiful.

My Mom was visiting this past weekend and we ordered a test bunch of roses from a company called 2G - located at freshroses.com. We've been looking at places to buy flowers from directly and this company grows their own roses right here in the U.S.- across the country from me, but still in the U.S.! Again, my Mom was a little worried about the DIY part, but after receiving and playing with the test bunch, she wasn't worried anymore! The roses were beautiful! They were packaged nicely, they bloomed amazingly, and she ordered as soon as we decided what we needed.

The pictures are of the roses after they arrived- still mostly closed- and three days later when we played with bouquet and centerpiece ideas. I was going to go with all white flowers for everything, but I fell in love with the leonidas colored rose- the reddish orange one- and have decided to do my bouquet in that color and have everything else be white. It's a good choice because it solves the problem of having a white bouquet blend into my dress.

The bouquet is a bridesmaid bouquet test. The test bunch is 25 roses in a wide range of colors, as you can see, but the bridesmaid bouquets will be a total of 15 roses in a combination of vendela and sahara roses (third picture from left). They look a lot more yellow in the picture than they actually are. Vendela is an ivory/cream color and the sahara are a very pale peachy coral color.

The centerpiece is the same roses from the bouquet. The white cloth is actually a napkin, but the tablecloths are exactly the same- just bigger of course. The pool colored square is an iridescent piece of 12X12 scrapbook paper. And of course there are the vase gems. We've also wrapped a strip of the white vellum paper used on the invitations and a strip of pool paper around the vase.

So, my Mom and I went to look at invitations we could order from a store. I had been wanting to do them ourselves, but Mom thought it would be a good idea to look at ordering before we took on that challenge. It turned out that our taste in order-able invitations was more than our budget would allow. With that in mind, Mom agreed that we could make them ourselves. I think that we are both very crafty when itcomes to paper-products, and plus this allows us to get exactly what I want. We searched around online and found the pieces and I put together a sample invite, seen in the photo. The workshop I went to at PaperSource was a big help, especially because I knew that I could go there to get quality papers that still weren't nearly as expensive as ordering pre-made invites.

The pieces of the invite are as follows:

*The back card is from formal-invitations.com. It is the HandmadeTiffany Blue with Silk card. It adds great texture to the invite.

The sash-like paper is from Paper Source. It is Filigree on Ivory vellum cut to around 2.5 inches.

The top paper is also from Paper Source. It is text weight paper in the color pool.

The ribbon which connects the back card and the pool paper together is from favorfrenzy.com. The color is aqua and the width is 1/4 inch. Note of advice from my Mom (who ordered the ribbon)- if you use favorfrenzy, use their Ebay store, not their regular website. She had some trouble with her order, but by using Ebay, you can elimate being taken advantage of.

Things are getting busy! Casey and I are in the process of purchasing our first place and we move in just a month. That is only in addition to the wedding stuff that's becoming necessary to get done. I'm under control, but things are getting more and more real every day in terms of getting things done!

The bridesmaids have all chosen dresses and most have ordered. It made me really excited to see them all in what they've chosen- almost more excited than I was in my own dress! Haha. They all chose a different dress- well, two chose the same dress, but one is the MOH and she is wearing a different color so it's kind of like it's different.

Casey and I went and he picked out which tux the boys will be renting. We went with Men's Warehouse because they do accessories that match David's Bridal, plus they aren't too pricey.

This is a picture I created on David's Bridal that shows all the bridesmaids' dresses. The one long dress will be shortened before the big day. She is actually going to be around 8 months pregnant, so she chose a dress with flowy fabric that fits over her belly, but that can be altered to a length more consistent with the other girls. I'm so glad everyone found something they really like!

This is approximately what my wedding party will look like. My dress is not from David's Bridal, but the dress shown is similar. The maid of honor/best woman and the bridesmaids are wearing one each of the four styles I've chosen, with the best woman in oasis with a pool sash and the rest in pool with oasis sashes.

I like the groom in a black tux with ivory shirt and tie and the groomsman in black tuxes with ivory shirts and pool ties.

I've finished the save-the-dates and I'm sending them today... all 85 of them! Woo! At left are some pictures of the final product. Inside reads:

Casey bought the ring
Christie said yes
There's going to be a wedding
We hope you'll be our guest!

I bought the magnet sheets at Walmart in the office supply section, so you can probably also get them at Staples and stores likethat. I got the cards at Michaels, color aqua. The stamp at the top and bottom of the magnet on the front is just one I had on hand.

My Mom paid for me to go to an invitation workshop at Paper Source and I highly recommend it! I would really like to do my own invitations, and this workshop gave me an idea of what I like and what I really don't like in terms of invitation styles. It also gave some good tips on how to keep from being overwhelmed when creating your own invitations- especially when you are making 100 or more! I look forward to this project because I really like paper projects and the idea of creating something with my own hands to invite the people I love to an event I'll remember forever.

I really like the idea of choosing a pretty stamp and creating that look you see on so many custom invitations. At left is an example we created at the workshop.

I also like the folded card with a pocket, although at this time I'm sure what I'll need the pocket for besides the RSVP card.

This workshop not only gave invitation ideas, a lot of the projects could work for other paper items for a wedding- such as programs and menus.

I really want to do magnet save the dates, but have found that to order them can get rather pricey- plus, I can't have them look exactly the way I want them. So, I've decided to make my own! I've drafted what they will look like (at left) and will be printing them on magnet sheets, which I will then cut out and prepare for sending. Let's hope this project turns out as nicely as I'd like!

So, I had some ideas before about favors. We were looking to use small buckets, a subtle beach touch, and fill them with Swedish fish. However, we bought some of the fish for the engagement party and they were not very pretty, so we discarded that idea. Then we thought maybe we'd replace the fish with coconut Jelly Bellies and aqua/turquoise M&Ms. After looking up the prices and thinking about the work that would take, and the likelihood of the buckets- and even the candy- being wasted, we've decided not to do favors. However, I will certainly try to think of something to provide my guests as a thank you for attending.

I had hoped to use a beautiful morpho butterfly wing necklace my Grama had given me, but when I tried it on with my dress, it didn't work well. Instead I will hopefully wear a pearl necklace my Godfather gave me a long time ago that gets a new pearl for each birthday. It doesn't get updated every year, but I've given it to him to allow time to get it caught up to date so that I can wear it on my big day! I will also be looking for pearl earrings to go with the necklace and dress, which will hopefully also have a turquoise/aqua element.

When working on the centerpiece project below, Mom and I decided that those flowers are pretty much what we will use throughout. For the flower girl bouquet, we would like to pretty much take the centerpiece and cut down the amount a bit and tie that with a ribbon. For bridemaids we will likely keep it simple with a cluster of white spray roses and baby's breath. For my bouquet, we would like to use regular white roses bunched together with baby's breath and tied with handkerchiefs that belonged to grandmothers from each side of my family.

I spent a week at home (VT) between jobs and spent some time working on DIY projects for the wedding.

The first project was creating a way to use these awesome lanterns my Mom bought at Christmas Tree Shop. I decided to create a mock-up entryway for the tent. The actual ones for the wedding day will have more branches and will be more full, but these first-tries give the basic idea. I'll make two, one for each side of the front entryway into the tent.

While I was home, we had an engagement party. Mom and I had been discussing flowers for the wedding and she ended up getting a few bunches of flowers she thought would fit well with what I was looking for. We used them for the party and then after used a vase we had, which is actually like the ones we were thinking about using (seen below) for centerpieces, and put together a mock-up centerpiece. It was exactly what I was looking for! And the best part, it was made from flower bunches found at a grocery store- meaning, not too expensive. The flowers are baby's breath, white spray roses, and white snapdragons.

These dresses are similar to what I'd like my flower girl dress to look like. I had found one I really liked (with the green sash), but my wedding consultants (Mom and Grama, haha) and I decided it was too young for my flower girl. So, I think we will go with something like the other dress, but without the detailing on the top... although we've thought about finding a similar lace to that of my dress to add somehow. Either my Mom or my Grama will be making the dress, so we've been checking out patterns.

I had some ideas for bridesmaids dresses and I've looked around a bit, but I really want to choose something that is inexpensive and also nice enough to wear again (yes, the typical bride's desire). Unfortunately, bridemaids dresses are pricey! In addition, this time of year is bad for the color I'd like, so the woman who helped me with my wedding dress told me to wait until spring, when the new designs come out and spring/summer colors are back. So, I am waiting until spring to start a thorough search for the dresses, while also keeping an eye out for possibilities. On the left are some of the styles I'm interested in. The two together are separates from Davids Bridal, which I really like the idea of because the girls can choose their tops based on what they like and are comfortable in. However, those are little more than I'd like to see them have to spend. The other dress is Bari Jay 427 and I really like it, especially the color. It's less expensive, but I hate to have the girls all have to wear the same thing- especially because this may not fit nicely across all the body types of my attendants.

I have chosen Watters 1048B for my wedding dress. I tried on a few others, including Amy by Maggie Sottero- which was second choice, but found that the Watters dress fit best with my typical style. My Mom says, you've always been known to wear halters, so a halter dress was a good pick for me. And after looking at dresses, I found that lace overlay was something I really liked and wanted. However, I didn't want anything over-the-top, like sparkly beading. This Watters dress is perfect- it fits my body shape wonderfully and has a lace overlay that is simple, not fussy. Plus, I can dance in it! Now the hard part is waiting for it to get here so I can wear it again! :)

For a long time I've dreamed of having my wedding reception under a big white tent with twinkle lights, so we are going to make that happen! I'm hoping the reception will be very intimate, casual, and fun- a big party with people who mean a lot to us celebrating our love and new union. For pre-dinner food we will have a snack table with sweet, salty, and savory snacks- items to be determined. The dinner food will be picnic/barbeque inspired. In terms of music, I'm hoping the wide variety played will include something for everyone.

The tables will be simple, with white tablecloths and napkins accented with turquoise ribbons and placemats. The centerpieces will sit on another turquoise accent (possibly a patterned turquoise fabric) and will consist of assorted white flowers and greenery.

The ceremony will be held at "the church with the red door." My mother is a member at this church and having a ceremony conducted by a minister is very important to both of our families. We hope to keep the ceremony on the short side, but also have it be meaningful with specially selected readings and music. I'm hoping to be less traditional with processional and recessional music, but we'll see if that works out.

The photographer is towards the top of my priority list for the wedding and reception. Photographs play a big part in my life and if I can't be the one taking the pictures, I wanted to make sure I got someone who would do a good job capturing everything- or at least as much as possible. So, I booked a full coverage package from Janet Osha Miller- which will give me hundreds of pictures to keep and to choose from for larger prints. My Mom looks at her wedding album every year, and has for 25 years now, so I know that the money I'm spending wont be wasted!

He took me out onto his parents' porch, which kind of looks down the valley. The sun was just starting to go down and the weather was beautiful. His mother told us through the window that dinner was ready, but he didn't make any move to go in. Then he put his arms around me and said "I'm not very good at being romantic, and this may not be very romantic, but I have something to give you." Then he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I said "YES!" The sweet part is that the proposal was a play on the way his Dad proposed to his Mom on his parent's front steps.