Invitations

The invites were an awesome find and are totally not what I ever would have thought I wanted. Funny how everything in this wedding is turning out to be full of things I never thought I would want but every detail is perfect.

My matron-of-honor and I went to Target to browse their stationary and, low and behold, we discovered a clearance sale. Ladies, I repeat CLEARANCE SALE. I purchased my invites for $4.98/box. Each box came with 25 invitations, envelopes, and response cards with envelopes, so I purchased four boxes. That's a whopping total of $21.12 including tax. When I ran the numbers, the total cost (including postage, mailing envelopes, and direction cards) was well under $100. Unreal.

The invites are:

1. Off-white card stock with a deep ivory toile floral pattern.
2. A vellum overlay tied to the card stock with an ivory ribbon.
3. Sophisticated without being overly formal.
   

Reasons why these qualities are awesome:

1. The reception is in a historic manor home that has a very vintage, very French feel to it.
2. My dress is ivory with an organza overlay and ivory ribbons.
3. Our wedding is semi-formal.
   

Seriously, perfect. We budgeted about $400 for invitations but since I have a design background, I can do all of the layout, text, and printing myself. Another added bonus is that I can spend the saved money on a car service!

Matron of Honor and Natty Boh

My matron of honor, Tess, is going to be in town on Tuesday. Yippie! We are going to drink coffee and stay up all night talking about invitations and parties and other sappy wedding things. I can't wait to try on my dress while she is here. I'm been itching to put it on since I brought it home!

I designed our save-the-date magnet, which is a cleaned up version of this with the appropriate text. If you are from Baltimore, or have ever lived in Baltimore, you are laughing right now and saying "awesome." If you aren't here's a little history:

The one-eyed, moustached man is the Natty Boh icon. Natty Boh is Baltimore's beloved beer. We plan to serve it as one of our four beers. The girl is the UTZ potato chip icon. Matt and I grew up on UTZ potato chips and they are only distributed locally. What can I say, Matt and I are Baltimorons through and through.

In addition, I am planning to use (as close to as I can) the Natty Boh fonts for all of our printed materials. I love the look of modern and vintage, which is pretty much what our wedding style is. Tess and I will go shopping for materials and ideas while she's in town. Yippie!

It's nice having a year to plan this thing. I'm really enjoying the process and am hoping this will be an event where even the old people totally rock out and everyone leaves holding a good happy feeling and crying out, "We don't want it to end!"

Just Cut It

I tried growing my hair out. I really did. I tried for like two months. Please don’t tell me I just needed to get past the awkward phase. It was all awkward and heavy and YUCK and it was only just below my chin. Now it’s all neat and trim and rockin’ and Cindy.

Folks were recommending I grow my hair out for the wedding. You know, so I had more options for hairstyles. I figured it was worth a shot and I could always cut it off if I decided I wanted to. Well, I decided I wanted to and I think I’ll still have options. For example, look how EXCITED this chick is!

Honeymoon

Matt wanted to go to an all-inclusive resort Mexico.

BORING!

He could not be swayed. I mentioned, "We've been there before. Let's go somewhere new. We are getting married! New chapter in life. New adventure! Let's celebrate it that way." Whine, whine, whine. More whining, incessant whining.

He said, "Okay, how about Iceland? It's either Iceland or Mexico. You pick."

I cocked my head and looked at him funny for a minute before bursting out into a huge smile and throwing my arms around him. "Iceland! Awesome! They have northern lights and hot springs and snow mobiles in the highlands! YES! Oooooo, we should totally do that!"

"I was joking. Are you serious? You really want to go to Iceland?"

"Abso-freaking-lutely."

Matt saw the excitement in my eyes and said, "Alright, let's do it."

So it looks like we are going on an Arctic adventure in January and we are totally jazzed. If things work out, we'll be heading over to Stockholm for a couple of days as well.