The Book Is In!

Well, the engagement/guest book for the wedding has arrived, and it came out GREAT!

I am so excited that we FINALLY have something for the wedding in our possession. For the most part, you write deposit checks to companies and do not see anything from it. Thousands of dollars have been sent to the caterers as a deposit, but we will not see any food until wedding day. A ton of money has already been given to the florist, but we won't smell any bouquets or candelabra'd centerpieces until the wedding day. Same with the rental company, band, and photographer.

So, because this book is something that was actually shipped to us BEFORE the wedding day, I am even extra excited. It almost makes the wedding feel "real" - we've been planning for almost 2 years, and now we have an actual book from our engagement shoot for us to flip through. It is very cool, and I really think it'll be an awesome addition to the wedding and a unique way to gather little messages from guests (they will use sharpie pens to sign in the blank white areas that are scattered through the book along with the pictures).

Our Engagement Book Is On Its Way

We decided a couple years ago that when our wedding day finally came around, we wanted a unique guest book. Personally, I just don't see much of a point of having a book of blank pages where people write their name and address. I already know who's attending... and I obviously have their address if they received an invitation, right?

Mr. Blue and I decided that we wanted to use our engagement session productively as well, so why not incorporate those pictures into the signing? We thought of having a matted frame for people to write messages on, but we didn't believe that we would actually use it. So, we thought that we'd use them to make an engagement album that has some blank pages scattered throughout for signing/messages from guests.

I am soooooo excited because the album was designed extremely well by our photographer. We picked 40 of our favorite pictures from the engagement shoot (I think we ended up with 300-400 pics total from that shoot!) and he made us a 30 page design template. Then the design was sent to graphi studios in Italy to be completed. The book came into the photographer last week and is currently in route to our house. I cannot wait to get it and look through the finished product! I'll post pictures when we get it in!

I hope everyone likes it when wedding day comes around. As an added bonus, we'll have an additional "ahhhh, remember when" coffee table book to look through as we get older!

Here's a peak at graphi (they'll also be making our wedding album, but that will be 60 pages instead of 30 pages):

http://www.graphistudio.com/en/index.html

The Invites Have Arrived

The invitations arrived from William Arthur this week!!! I am so excited, and they look great!!!

I must admit that I was extremely nervous while they were in print. We ordered the invitations and received a set of proofs a few weeks back. There were some errors, so we made corrections and asked for another set of proofs. Those came out nicely. The concern, however, was because the proofs are faxed, and therefore completely in black and white. I was very anxious that lines that were suppose to be printed in black ink would be in wine, and the wine ink lines would be in black. . .

Once they came and we had a chance to sit down and look them over I felt much better. The colors were all correct, and the motifs fit nicely with the font. The only aspect I am not 1oo% in love with is that the ribbon covers some of our names... I wish we picked a different/tighter tie on the ribbon. That's something we really couldn't have visualized through proofs, and is certainly not the end of the world... everyone knows who we are anyway! All-in-all, the invites were a success, and I am very pleased with them and very much hope everyone who receives them likes them as much as we do (or at least as much as anyone who is on the receiving end can enjoy an invitation).

Mr. Blue is a big fan of them as well, so that's a double bonus. I must say he was very helpful (not to mention patient) during the invitation selection process. I cannot even count the number of times I dragged him 35 minute away from home and to the Papyrus store to sift through Crane, Vera Wang, Kate Spade (so not our taste, btw), and William Arthur books. Each trip took at least an hour and almost always gave him a headache, but in the end we came out of the ordeal with high quality, not-too-feminine invitation sets, so he is now peachy keen.

The set we ordered came with our invites plus double envelopes, reception cards, response cards, accommodation cards, and direction cards. Stationary-wise, we still need to return to Papyrus to select our menus, programs (unless we decide to design our own, which is actually very likely), and table/escort cards. Thankfully, we have the calligrapher all set to go now, so I just need to finalize the inner and outer envelopes spreadsheet and decide on blank place cards that will be sent to the calligrapher once the final guest list comes back.

It's amazing how much needs to get done on a daily basis for a big party to take place, but we are slowly but surely getting it all finished. . . phew!

operation: calligrapher

Mission Objective: Locate and Hire a Calligrapher for Envelopes and Escort Cards

I had a calligrapher all set to go when we lived in NY. Wedding planners are great when it comes to having a rolodex full of local vendors, for any aspect of a wedding needed. When we started planning the wedding, we lived in Saratoga Springs, NY, and all I had to do to locate a reputable calligrapher was say, "[wedding planner], what calligrapher should I use?". She responded with, "[calligrapher awesome], of course". That was that. She was hired. 

Then we moved. Far away. 

We needed a new calligrapher.

Even before attempting to settle on a paper company, typestyle, or paper color for the invitations themselves, I was nervous about the calligrapher. For the last five months I have been obsessed with internet searches and attempting to locate the perfect, reputable artists for our invites. Having the invitations hand addressed is a one-time-deal.  It's also expensive and time consuming. No one wants to hand over hundreds of dollars just to realize a so-called "artist" has a shaky hand. 

Needless to say, the internet searches turned up nothing. How could there literally be NO calligraphers in our area? They are all over NY... OH needed to get with the program (or rather, the invitations). I then called the local branch of the company that is handling our (not yet finalized) invitations. Surely they have heard of someone. That was merely another dead end. According to the invite store, they had a calligrapher on file years ago, but she had since gone out of business and they have not found a replacement. I couldn't believe it... why was this process so difficult? How were local brides mailing invitations? As a third resort I started googling and compiling a list of all paper and invitation stores in a 30 mile radius of my home. Then I started calling... and calling.... and calling. I contacted approximately 25 stores, and asked them all if they knew of any local calligraphers that could be outsourced for wedding invitations. THREE of the 25 stores had a name. Two of them had the same name. 

After two weeks of  and countless hours of calls for an aspect of the wedding planning that I initially thought would be a breeze, I had two options for calligraphers. Neither of these people had "official" businesses, websites, or service reviews that could be found online, so I called them and had to go with my gut. I spoke with each woman and asked for samples. One calligrapher asked me to e-mail her a sample of the font style I would like for my invitations so she could send a sample of a style she felt would match nicely. This, of course, put me at ease and made me pleased as punch.

The next week I  received a lovely ecru envelope addressed to me in practically flawless calligraphy. Inside was a sample sheet of all available styles she offered, along with a very nice hand written note and a price sheet. 

After much stress and more work than should have been necessary to hire a calligrapher, she was hired! 

Hopefully not all the final details will be this much work. At least it turned out well in the end, however, and it checks one more thing of my "to-do" list!