Our Invitations are in the Mail!

A HUGE weight has lifted off my shoulders, because our wedding invitations are finally in the mail!

 

 

Look how happy I look to be putting those babies in the mail slot!

I'll reveal the whole gorgeous invitation suite later this week. Here's a sneak peek from our stationer's blog, Studio SloMo. Sarah Wymer did an amazing job on the letterpress work and coordinating all the rest of our printing!

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Costa Rica Here We Come!

After months and months of debating, we finally chose Costa Rica as our honeymoon spot!  We both wanted lots of luxury relaxation, but also lots of activities and wildlife.  Caribbean resorts seemed a bit too touristy, and we would have to rough it too much in the Galapagos Islands (a lifelong dream trip!) on our budget.  Goal #1 for the trip is to hang out with some monkeys!  Goal #2: catch some rays on the beach.

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We're currently making our way through some guide books and TripAdvisor, so I'll let you know when we pick our exact destination.

Frommer's Costa Rica 2010 (Frommer's Color Complete Guides)

Costa Rica (Country Guide)

Custom Sticker Giveaway from UPrinting.com!

UPrinting.com is giving away custom stickers to one lucky reader! UPrinting.com is your one-stop online shop for a ton of your wedding printing needs: besides Custom Stickers and Label Printing, they've got note cards and postcards for your Save-The-Date, posters for a creative "guestbook", wall graphics to decorate your venue, and canvas prints to make your bridal portrait into a work of art.

Here's all the giveaway details:
250 Stickers/Labels for One (1) lucky winner
Sizes: 2” x 3.5”, 2” x 4”, or 3” x 3”
Paper: 70lb Label Matte
Specifications: Full color front, blank back; 6 Business Day printing
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only

To enter this giveaway:
Leave a comment telling me how you would use your custom stickers. You have until Thursday, February 11 11:59 pm CST. The winner will be chosen at random. Only one entry per person!

If you post a comment anonymously, make sure to check back on February 12 to see if you've won. Otherwise, I'll email you.

Turtle Cake Toppers Update

I've written before about our idea to have turtles on top of our wedding cake.  I found these cutie-patooties, where else but on Etsy!  I contacted the seller, qtiff, and this March she'll be hard at work on our custom turtle cake toppers!!

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Here's an example of a custom cake topper, clearly for a fellow reptile-loving couple.  The figures are made from polymer clay.

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Affordable Flower Girl Dresses for a Purple Spring Wedding

I have to confess: I really thought finding a flower girl dress would be easy.  No way!  I wanted an affordable (read: $50 or less) dress that would fit in with the rest of the bridal party.  I thought "How much can a dress for small child cost? It can't be near what the bridesmaid dresses cost, right?" Wrong!

I started out at David's Bridal, where we got the bridesmaid dresses. Why are the dresses for a person only 4 feet tall so expensive?  Most of the dresses I saw were $80 to $130. These are a few options in our main color (purple) and ivory (my dress color).

Style H1256 in Lapis ($79)

Style FG9406 with Lapis sash ($129)

They have lots of "mini bridal" styles to match your own wedding gown.  These wierd me out a bit. No, I don't want a mini-me walking around at my wedding.

Apparently "sale" for JCrew means $125 down from $165. I feel like I could get this same simple dress in my size for even less. With a white or ivory dress, I'm concerned that the girl could never wear it again (and/or will spill grape juice on it within 5 minutes). While I'm OK with that for bridesmaids, I feel bad making the parents spend that amount of money, since the flower girl is really only involved in the wedding for about 5 minutes.

Lucienne dress in ivory ($125)

Having struck out at stores with established wedding attire, I started looking online. This is an adorable flower girl dress (just look at all that tulle!), but was a little bit above my price range. I was wary of buying the dress online, since I couldn't really tell what the quality would be of something labeled as an "affordable flower girl dress".

The Briar Patch Button Back Satin & Tulle Dress ($58)

I struck out yet again with online stores, so I started checking department stores. Finally, success! With Easter being right before my wedding, lots of white "Easter" dresses are out in the stores at affordable prices. Plus, lots of them have some sort of color detail, making them wearable again for the girl.

Laura Ashley Burnout Chiffon Dress at Macy's ($52)

These dresses are almost never labeled as a "flower girl dress". The easiest thing to do is go to each store's website, and scroll through all the dresses to find the white ones or the dresses in your wedding colors. This one's description says "for preschool or kindergarten graduation". Ummm, or for a flower girl gig?

Bonnie Jean Crepe Dress at JCPenney (sale $30, originally $50)

Cinderella Floral Dress at JCPenney (sale $40, originally $70)

Cinderella Floral Embroidered Dress at JCPenney (sale $35, originally $60)

This is the final dress I chose, from Dillards. The purple dots are perfect for my purple wedding! The dress was $45 in the store, but I found it for even less at Sophia's Style online ($41 including shipping). I can't wait to see a little girl walking down the aisle in this cute dress!

Bonnie Jean Embroidered Dot Dress at Dillards ($45)

Inspirations for our Dotted Wedding Invitations

It seems like I've been thinking about, dreaming about, and feverishly working on our wedding invitations for MONTHS!  I got word from the stationer that they're almost finished and ready to be delivered, so I can finally share some of my inspirations for the design.

I was surprised at how different the final design turned out from my original vision.  Originally, I had wanted to base everything off Martha Stewart's Doily Lace edge:

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But honestly, it turned out to be too much of a hassle to design these scalloped edges in different sizes and have them look consistent.  I still liked the idea of dots (maybe because it's ridiculously easy to make a dotted line in Illustrator?).

I started out looking at dotted invitations with some swirly lines, which are GORGEOUS but I didn't feel like I could attain that myself with my limited Illustrator experience.

(Bella Figura Marie Suite)

(Bell Figura Cartoccio Suite)

(Laura Hooper Calligraphy via Style Me Pretty)

I checked out some fun and spunky dot designs:

(Gourmet Invitations Amy and Ryan Suite)

(WeddingBee Mrs. Taffy's Suite)

 I ended up liking designs with more straight lines of dots, which dominates our own invitation suite design.  They look cleaner and somehow more elegant to me.

(Smock Paper Sabion Suite)

(Aerialist Press Catie+Ryan Suite)

(Dolce Press Jina Dots Suite)

New Jersey Winery Wedding Shower

This month, Anthony's family threw us an amazing wedding shower at the Renault Winery in New Jersey.  Remember my ideas for a chilly January bridal shower outfit? This is basically what I wore.  The sweater dress worked out well: this Texas girl was freezing!  And I know I know: tan purse + black shoes = Clare's fashion faux pas.

January Wedding Shower Outfit by clarerichardson featuring Calvin Klein clothing

The Renault Winery had amazing character in every room. We were in the Burgundy Room. Going into the room (a former wine cellar), you walk through a huge wine cask.

The room was *gorgeous* decorated with more wine casks, grapevines, centerpieces made a future sister-in-law, and yummy chocolate favors made by a future niece!

Another of Anthony's sisters spent the whole previous evening working on the cake, making sure to incorporate our wedding colors.  I was blown away that she made it herself!  It looked like it belonged on the Martha Stewart Show!

While we were opening gifts, I was a given a throne, while Anthony just scooted next to me on a smaller chair.

Anthony has a HUGE family, so there were lots of new faces and new names of learn. But, we were so thrilled that lots of them will making the trek down to Texas for our wedding. I'll have make flash cards to remember all the names and faces again in April!