We have a celebrity Photographer....

MISS BUNNY!
http://www.weddingbee.com/author/msbunny/

I logged onto wedding be at least 10 times a day...can we say obsessed? And I was scanning the boards and saw a post about a photographer in Columbus willing to do a free engagement shoots. We already had engagement photos taken in Cincinnati so we did not need that, but we did not have a photog for our wedding. After some emails back and forth she explained that she was sort of new to photography. I checked out her stuff and loved it and we agreed to meet. (I had no idea at this time she was Miss. Bunny from wedding bee).

We met at Starbucks, and I feel like we hit it off. We talked about what we wanted out of her and that we are just going to be really laid back with the photos, just let her do her thang.

Towards the end she asked me if I was a bee and I told her no but I would LOVE TO BE! And she mentioned that she was actually a bee on the site.
hold up...stop the show...did anyone else just hear this?
My FI acted like he had no idea what she was talking about, but I was about to skip, hop, and jump for joy. She said she was Miss Bunny and I knew IMMEDIATELY who she was. SHE HAS MY FAVORITE STORY! I told her all about how it moved me, and that I just loved reading her blog. I even went as far as recapping half of her posts to my FI while we were sitting together at Starbucks.

I am honored to have Mrs. Bunny photograph my wedding and really looking forward to having her spend such a special day with us.

Saying I do on a holiday weekend

Picking the weekend we wanted to get married was easy. Labor Day weekend! We are getting married outside and I did plenty of research on when there would be little rain and when it would not be too hot. I also have a lot of family members coming from out of town, like Cali, Washington, Arizona, Chicago, and even Russia! So we wanted to give everyone an extra day to travel. But recently I have been having doubts about Labor Day weekend.

I began seeing articles in magazines about the dreaded holiday weekends. How brides should not get married on holiday weekends, ESPECIALLY Labor Day weekend. Fact is, most families have plans on that weekend. I started asking people how they felt about it. One of my friends told me "you know, you broke the cardinal rule of wedding planning". My boss told me they go to their lake house every year that weekend and close it up.

After some thought I turned to my one and only...weddingbee! and I found this link
http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/anyone-on-labor-day-weekend
and everyone sharing my same wedding date made me feel much better about choosing the dreaded labor day weekend. And everyone who gave me a little hell for choosing that date...they are all coming to the wedding.

The sound of music....

Music has always played a big part of my life. I played the cello for four years in highschool and fell in love with the sounds of stringed insturments. So when it came to choosing what type of music we wanted at the reception it was easy. A live band. On our second date Eric and I went to see a band named Stoopid Rooster. They are a jazzy/R&B/Classical music type band. There are 4 of them along with a man that plays the saxaphone! They are awesome! If I must say. Eric and I actually are sort of like groupies...we ended up following them arond and watching them play all over cincinnati. They learned to play Save the Last Dance for me! So naturally we asked them to play and they gladly said yes.

For the actual ceremony we are also having live music...a quartet. And picking the song I wanted to walk down the aisle to was easy also. Five years ago my Stepmom passed away. She was very important to me and it is hard to imagine not having her at my wedding. I really wanted to have something in my wedding that was a part of Lisa. So I chose to walk down the aisle to her favorite song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKKU1A5jSxk&feature=related

What a Wonderful Wolrd - Louis Armstrong.

Now...the plan is...to walk without crying!

Make a Wish!

A couple months ago I saw a commercial where a bunch of people are stranded on an island and they throw an improntu party. At the end they let off these amazing lanterns that were so neat looking. About a month ago I stumbled upon these same beautiful lanterns. They are called Asain Wish Lanterns.

A wish lantern is an asian tradition at festivals and celebrations. But slowly they have caught on in the western world. They are totally biodegradable. They come in all sizes. There is a little cell at the bottom that you light. The heat the tiny fire lets off makes the lantern act like a mini hot air balloon. Once they have filled up with heat you can let them off. They will go about a mile up into the air and they will fly for about 12 minutes.

When I found these my aunt bought some to test out. We are having the wedding at her house and in the front they have a large yard where we are parking cars and where we will set off the lanterns. Over christmas the family went out and set 10 lanterns off and they worked perfectly! and looked beautiful! They are called wish lanterns because people can write their wishes for the bride and groom before they set the lanterns off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcGP0hdq13w

here is a video of a lot of them being set off at once.

We will have a table set up with lots of long lighters, lanters, pens, and something explaining the meaning of the lanterns. We want to set them off right after dark.

Wrap around address labels! DIY

Initially I wanted to print the addresses right onto my envelopes. I had searched the internet for hours for the perfect font, researched how to print them out. But when I met with Dara she explained that you could not print on metallic envelopes without a laser printer. So..............there went that idea! I was not writing out 80 addresses. Number 1 my handwriting is horrible, not fun and pretty like most women, and number 2, I am too much of a perfectionist. I would waste too many envelopes. So I opted to make wrap around address labels. I researched PDF's for ones already made but ended up doing my own. It was pretty easy. I went to onlinelabels.com and then picked one that fit my envelopes. I downloaded the template into word and got to work!

Here are some tips for making your own wrap around labels.

#1... use a thicker paper. I purchased 8x11 cardstock off white.

#2...since they do not really make actual sticky labels the size you need, buy cement glue for the labels and stick glue to close the envelopes.

#4. Do not cut them by hand!!! It will take you forever and you will never cut them right. I bought a little paper slicer at michaels for $15.00. It worked perfectly! Once you print our your labels on cardstock slice the sides first and then slice each out apart.

After you have everything cut out, put your STD into the evelope first and glue it shut because you will put the back of the wrap label onto the flap of the envelope. Once you have closed your envelope, creased each of your labels about 1.5 in.

Important!! Fold the label before you apply the glue to it. Once I applied the glue I let it set for a few second before I placed it on the envelope so it would not smear all over when I pushed it down.

There you go! They are very very easy! And very inexpensive.

wrap around label

My first DIY of the wedding...went amazingly well. Over christmas our oh so talanted Dara (who is desinging out invites and did our STD's) sent out christmas cards with wrap label addresses. I fell inlove with them, and knew I had to have them for myself! I asked her how she did it and decided it could be done on my own. So I researched a lot...first I want to share some sites that have templates for them:









http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Bluebell-Papaya-Dots-Decorative-Strip/2505.153/37199927.html





http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Kraft-Flourish-Decorative-Strip/2505.153/37199925.html








http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.0e0eb51a2e6b5ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=7fa6d4228b0e4110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=labels&rsc=header_2

So I looked at the different types of wrap around labels and how they were made. I asked a few questions on Wedding Bee and felt like I had a pretty good idea! So... Here is what I ended up with! Just a teaser...next post I will show you how I made them!

Save The Dates!

Anyone else blush when they write STD? I find myself wanting to use this shortened version of save the date mid conversation but can never bring myself to do it. That is sort of how picking out the envelope for our STD went. We are lucky enough to have a very talented graphic desinger in the family who happens to have a side job making invites for weddings! So I didn't have to go far when it came to picking who I wanted to make our invitation suit. She presented 3 or 4 save the dates she had done and this one caught my eye!

Eric even thinks this one would be great because his friends wont have any questions on when the wedding is! That was the easy part! Dara called me 2 weeks later and said they were done! I was so excited. This was the first thing I had really accomplished...We agreed to meet Dara at starbucks down the street to see the final STD and pick envelopes...

WOW! I COULD NOT DO IT! Green, blue, gold, silver, grey.......she had way too many colors and I had way too little experience with picking colors. So....after an hour I chose a very boring champagne color. As you see in the picture. I wanted a metallic color so that is what I ended up with...BUT...

Now I could really make the envelopes look pretty....that is to come!