I need help

My mom helped me make these cards for the wish tree when she was here a few weekends ago. Basically we trimmed the corners off of a few packs of Paper-Source expressions tags, punched holes in them and then tied ribbons on them. The square glass jar I found at the Container Store for about $7.
Here, again for your reference, is the tree I plan on using for the guests to hang the wishes from:
I plan on making a sign in similar style to the table number signs below to put next to the tree to encourage people to participate.

But I need help figuring out what to say on the sign that gets it across to my guests that this is also my guest book and the one and only place to sign if they are planning on doing so. All I can come up with is this (totally stolen from a picture I saw on a knottie bio):

Wish Tree

We invite you to send a special wish to Mrs Corn and Mr Corn as they begin their life together and hang it on their wish tree.

(please don’t forget to sign your name!)

Or perhaps...

Guest Book Wish Tree

Please send a special wish to 'Mrs Corn' and 'Mr Corn' as they begin their life together and hang it on the wish tree.

Don't forget to sign your name!!

Or if I really want to go nuts I could just lay it all out:

Yet another attempt at making our wedding unique

Sign your name on one of these slips of paper and then hang it on the tree. Preferably, we would like you to include words of wisdom or advice for the newly weds. Lastly, please be as creative as possible. Sketches, drawings and unique handwriting styles are especially appreciated.

EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS...IT IS THE GUESTBOOK!! I know you can figure this out, people. Just do it.

Kidding, Bee readers; I am kidding. :)

Here they are...

This morning I took my box of invitations to the 24 hour post office in Boston. I walked up to the desk and my palms were sweating and my hands were shaking. The clerk admired my stamps and the address design, put them in a tray next to her station and said she would personally hand cancel them herself. When each guest receives theirs, here is what they will experience:

The outer envelope (minus the stamps because I took this picture before I had them)

The inner envelope...Mr Corn hand addressed the inner envelopes. Notice our embossed monogram on the flap.

A close up of the monogram on the flap.

Opening up the inner envelope

The invitation

Response card, envelope and map insert on the left, invitation on the right

The back of the invitation also has our monogram embossed on it, just behind the 'Reception to Follow' text on the inside.

Close up of the response card and envelope...notice the embossed return address on the enevelope. That was also on the back flap of the outer envelopes.

Wishire Graphics Press also made us a stamp of our address so I could stamp it on the response envelopes in silver ink, instead of having to write them all out.

I can not even begin to tell you how wonderful it feels to have these out the door. I have been working on them since November!! That is when I first finalized the design and ordered the paper. The save the dates were cut from the same card stock as the pocket folders and they went out January 2, which is part of why I have been working on them for so long.


I can't wait to start getting official responses back!!

Card Basket

**hey Miss Lovebug! I edited this a bit and took out the reference to the post that has already gone up so it makes more sense. --mz**

I went into my neighborhood AC Moore over the weekend looking to quickly pick up some mini-clothes pins for my escort card display and they were having a sale on gift bags, 3 for $1. I had given up on doing bags for out-of-town guests and was just going to do a newsletter...but for $.33 each, I figured I could give my peeps a bag.

While there, I came across this handy item I plan on using for cards on the gift table. Before finding this, I had grand illusions of making something crafty with some beach grass and/or adirondack chairs, but it was very difficult to come up with something that wasn't over the top beach theme-y and quite frankly, I am running out of time and energy for DIY projects. I think this basket is understated enough to get the feeling across without being too arts-and-crafty....and it also means I don't have figure out when/how I am going make something :)

Card Basket

**hey Miss Lovebug! I edited this a bit and took out the reference to the post that has already gone up so it makes more sense. --mz**

I went into my neighborhood AC Moore over the weekend looking to quickly pick up some mini-clothes pins for my escort card display and they were having a sale on gift bags, 3 for $1. I had given up on doing bags for out-of-town guests and was just going to do a newsletter...but for $.33 each, I figured I could give my peeps a bag.

While there, I came across this handy item I plan on using for cards on the gift table. Before finding this, I had grand illusions of making something crafty with some beach grass and/or adirondack chairs, but it was very difficult to come up with something that wasn't over the top beach theme-y and quite frankly, I am running out of time and energy for DIY projects. I think this basket is understated enough to get the feeling across without being too arts-and-crafty....and it also means I don't have figure out when/how I am going make something :)

And now for something completely different

Ok, so we have established that the theme or general feeling of our wedding is New England Coastal. So now I am really going to throw a wrench in the mix.

Our wedding is being held at Fort Adams State Park, a Civil War era fort on a peninsula just off of Newport with gorgeous views of the Narragansett Bay. As you may recall, I was able to get the date I wanted, and a discount on the rental, because it was the same weekend as the Civil War reenactment weekend.

The reenactment takes place all weekend long, the fort is open to visitors until 5:00pm on Saturday but after that the reenactors stay in the fort over night and then the fort re-opens in the morning. Our wedding ceremony starts at 5:00pm on the North Lawn which is outside the fort and on the complete opposite side of the fort from the entrance gates. I am not too worried about noise from the reenactors, because, well, they won't have much to make noise with if they are truly reenacting, which I believe they are based on what my site contact tells me and based on photos from prior years.

So...what is my actual point you ask? Well, on top of the New England Clambake concept, Mr Corn and I have decided to have some of the reenactors participate in the wedding. Specifically, since my father is handicapped and the walk for me from the fort to the wedding ceremony area is about 50 yards, we have decided to have some of the reenactors escort me from the fort to the top of the aisle where my dad will meet me. We are also going to have them act as ushers since Mr Corn only has his BM and 1 groomsman (his brother and father). Lastly, we have decided that at the moment we are announced as husband and wife, we are going to have the reenactors light a cannon.

Yup.

A Cannon. Oh...and to really make the whole thing as circus-esque as possible, we are using Revolutionary war reenactors...you know...because their uniforms are prettier. Here are some pics from a wedding last year at the fort where the bride and groom did the same thing. They actually walked over to the cannon and lit it, but Mr Corn and I are just going to stay where we are and let the professionals deal with the firearms!

**Pictures by Ron Heroux

DIY Cake Topper

The daughter of an internet friend of mine's wedding was this past weekend. My internet friend is pretty crafty so she made the cake topper. I absolutely LOVE the idea and I never realized until now that it could be such an attainable DIY project. (A description of how she made it is below. )






"The base is a wooden oval from Lowes that I spray painted white. The figures, grass, and flowers are made from polymer clay.

"I began with aluminum foil over wire armatures, then covered it with Super Sculpy for the first baking. (I left wire extending from the feet so that I could attach them later to the base with a staple gun.)

"I added colored sculpy for the suit, dress, hat, hair, etc., then baked again. (A pasta press will make the clay flat to use to cover the plain sculpy). I attached them to the base, and baked again. Then I added the grass, flowers, and his arm around her shoulder and baked again. Lastly, I glued on the pearls."

This Bee's Budget

Ok Bees, I have a confession to make. I have no idea what our wedding budget is. Before we were engaged, you know, back when I was trying to figure out what was taking Mr Corn so long to decide I was the one for him, I tried to bribe him by suggesting we could hold a $5,000 wedding. He popped his eyebrow at me and remained quiet.

Once we were engaged we tried to realistically discuss our budget and I think the number $10,000 did come up at some point. Of course, prior to confirming that number we needed to figure out how many people we would be inviting. Originally, we both wanted something small, around 70 guests tops. But soon after getting engaged Mr Corn’s parents took us to a celebratory dinner and before I knew what had happened (and after a bottle of expensive champagne) we somehow had agreed to 120 guests!

Mr Corn and I live in the city of Boston and I attend church in Cambridge. It became apparent very quickly that hosting a wedding in Boston or the immediate area would be very cost prohibitive if we went with our initial desire to host a fun, inviting party for our family and friends so we started looking outside the city. We also thought, erroneously, that by having the wedding ceremony and reception outside we would save big bucks, but I can tell you that tents and rentals add up just as quickly as banquet fees and room rentals. So that didn’t help us save, either.

Finally, because we are a bit older and most of our friends are already married, we felt very strongly that we wanted to provide the best event that we could handle for the people in our lives who have supported us in so many ways throughout the years. But this didn’t solve the issue of figuring out exactly what the budget was.

Once the clambake option was finalized and we determined exactly how much the catering was going to cost, we built our budget around that. But instead of following the many budgets that you see on the Knot or in wedding magazines, we have just let it build itself; spending more in some areas and less in others. We still have a ballpark number in our head, and when it is all over we will sit down and figure out how much it all came out to be...but for us, at this time in our lives, it was more important to provide an event that really represented us.

With that said, I would like to point out that our not-really-having-a-budget does NOT mean that we are throwing all caution to the wind and ordering up everything we can think of. Mr Corn and I are fairly low key people (in our eyes…my sister will tell you otherwise ;)) so our non-budgeted wedding is going to come in significantly lower than a big budget, crazy-go-nuts wedding.

Anyway, once the dust has settled and the numbers finally come in, I have no issues with sharing with the Bee what it all works out to. For now, you will have to be satisfied with our ballpark number; $30K. If we were to take bets on this…I think we may end up coming in around $32.5K. I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flatterypissing me off

******Hi Miss Lovebug...is there any way to have a strike through the title where it says "sincerest form of flattery"? If not, can you just make the title..."Imitation is... ...pissing me off".

Thanks. --mz******

Stupid Pottery Barn. I walked into a store the other day to return something from my registry, and what should I see, right. there. in. the. WINDOW???


MY centerpiece idea!! The idea that I am so ridiculously proud of. The idea I have shared with everyone I know because it is the craftiest thing I have ever mustered from my imagination. See that clear cylinder vase in the middle there with the sea grass and the sand and shells?? That. idea. belongs. to. me!!
And now everyone is going to think I just copied off of them.

Beh.

Oh, and to add insult to injury...look what showed up in their latest catalogue.


You can't TELL me other people out there besides me think having a clambake is a fresh idea!

I should sue.

The Mrs.

Mr Corn is involved with a program here at our firm for people at his level who have been identified as future leaders of the firm. It is a year long program and they have quarterly meetings where they do all sorts of fun things and then get down to business and do what ever it is that they do.

The last meeting they will have for this group is in October and I will actually be going to it.

Why?

Because spouses are invited.

Yup.

Spouses.

:) yay :)

(Excuse me while I get 'officially' excited!!!)

Out of my hands

For most of the beginning of the wedding planning process, I figured I would just buy a bunch of hydrangeas from Costco, slap them together the day before and call it a wedding.

But I have started having doubts about my ability to do all the flowers in the days before the wedding and I can’t seem to find ANY feedback on the Costco flowers. I mentioned this to a colleague of mine who is also getting married in September and she said that I should give her florist a ring.

Apparently my colleague is the last of 6 or 7 of her friends to get married in the Rhode Island area and they all have used the same florist, Jeremy at Check the Florist in Providence, RI. My colleague kept telling me how reasonable he was and what a great job he had done in every wedding she had seen.

So I called him up…and he was so, so nice, so we set a date to meet and go over what my needs are. I explained that I was thinking of just getting my bouquet done and then ordering the rest of the flowers from Costco and he said that he would match the price of the heads for me.

Mr Corn and I aren’t using flowers for the centerpieces, so we really have saved there. I really only needed bouquets for me and my bridesmaids, something special for my mom (who if she is reading this should erase that from her memory), boutonnieres for the three guys and some heads for cones that we are hanging from the chairs on the aisles for the ceremony.

I am so. glad. to have that off my plate. And really, to be honest, I just don’t actually care that much about the flowers, so he could give us anything and I will be happy.

too much, too late

So it dawned on me after a comment on one of my recent posts that I have an awful lot of graphics that we are incorporating into the wedding. I think there are four specific designs we are using, six if you count the two fonts that have found their way onto everything.

The lobster, clam, hydrangea and monogram seem a bit much to me when I think about it and now I am worried that it won’t all look cohesive in the end, but rather like a hodge-podge of mismatched, icon overkill.
The lobster is on our save-the-date, the response cards, the stamps on the envelopes for the response cards and the table place cards.

The clam is on the outer invitation envelope, the out-of-towner newsletter, the escort cards and the table tents.


The hydrangea is on the escort card envelopes, the front of the programs and the wedding thank-you cards.


The monogram is on the back of the save-the-dates, the back of the invitations, the inner invitation envelope flaps, the stamps for the invitations, the favor tags and on the cake!

I realize it is too late to change it now, but do you think people will just be confused by the mess of different graphics we are using?

And I fancied myself a designer! HA!

wow what a year!

So today is my 32nd birthday. I can hardly believe all that has happened in a year. A year ago, Mr Corn and I were still having awkward conversations about our future based on the fact that he had wanted to buy a house for years and was finally in the financial situation to do so and he was focused on that rather than the future of our relationship.

As it was, we ended up looking at houses together and choosing the home we now both live in over the course of last summer. Shortly after Mr Corn moved in, he proposed to me over dinner.** It was our first non-macaroni-out-of-a-box dinner at the new house and it will forever be special to me that we shared that moment at our dining room table in our first home.


I moved in not long after the proposal and the wedding planning began. In the meantime, Mr Corn was promoted at his job, his brother got married in December and I got a really great new job in January.


What a wonderful, wonderful year it has been.


I am forever thankful for my family and friends and especially for Mr Corn and for the joy he and his family have brought into my life.


Thanks for letting me gush.


--Miss Corn



**and now for a completely gratuitous display of bling...solely for the purpose of showing it off (it's my birthday, please don't be a critic ;)

Table tents and Escort Cards

Do you think I can find the inspiration page of the escort cards hung by mini-clothespins that I saved for months so I could post it on Weddingbee?

NO!

And do you think I can find the beautiful digital images I took of the process of making my table tents?

NO!

I blame the heat.

Instead, please accept this photo of my mom stamping the envelopes for the escort cards 'randomly' with a hydrangea stamp when she was here a few weekends ago.

Here are the escort cards (front and back - prior to cutting) down to size.

And the table tents that I made last night to match the escort cards.

Escort Cards:

• #1 Baby envelopes in Stardream from Paper Source
• Hydrangea stamp from Anna Griffen (purchased on sale from AC Moore)
  
  


• Luxe cream 8.5x11" 210g weight paper from Paper Source
• Platinum Planet Brilliance Pigment Inkpad (also purchased on sale from AC Moore)
  
  

Table Tents:

• 12x12" Stardream blue cover paper from Paper Source cut into 5"x12" strips and folded into 5"x6" tents
• 1.5" sheer chocolate brown 'organdy' ribbon cut in 18" strips
• 8.5x11 luxe cream paper from Paper Source with text printed on it and cut into quarter
  

All text is printed with my ink jet printer using RGB code 89-47-26

Originally, I wasn't planning on doing anything more than just table numbers, but after a night with a bottle of wine, Mr Corn and I decided to use places where we have both dipped our toes in the water.

Flowers

The grape Hyacinth is the favorite spring flower of my garden - but no! I thought a minute ago the Scilla was! and what place has the Violet? the Flower de Luce? I cannot decide, but this I know - it is some blue flower. - Alice Morse Earle

Actually, I can decide. It is the luscious, blue hydrangea.

As long as I can remember I have wanted to carry blue hydrangeas as my bouquet for the wedding and have my attendants carry smaller bouquets in white. Here are some examples of flowers that I have hoarded over the years. I have had them so long, I have no idea who to credit, so please accept my apologies if these are yours.

Scientific Experiment

A few months ago I ordered 60 votive candle holders from http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ for $.45 each along with some tea lights. I figured I could put sand in the holder and drop the tea light in with some of the extra mini-shells I have sitting around from the ornaments I made.

Last night I conducted a highly scientific expirament where I made one of the candles, lit it, and placed it in a fairly breezy area of my house (you know, because the wedding will be outside). I am pleased to say that the candles were lit for 5 hours flat. That means they can light the candles during the cocktail hour and they will stay lit for the entire reception.

Woot woot!!

Final make-up decision

Having to choose between Mary at Studio 505 and Jennifer at Wedding Tresses was very difficult.

Mary was considerably out of my price range, but I loved how at ease she made me feel and I really liked how natural the make-up looked; however I thought my eyes were a little dark and small.

Jennifer at Wedding Tresses was also incredibly nice and she made my eyes do things that I didn’t even know were possible; by the time she was done they were huge, and she gave me that ‘ethereal bridal’ look that is so popular now. But I somehow felt like a clown with all the make-up on and even after 4 different applications of lipstick, she still hadn’t figured out what I meant by a nude lip.

I mulled over the decision for quite a while, but in the end, I decided to go with Mary. I knew if I asked her to, she could also make my eyes look a bit bigger and less dark. I also highly appreciated her professionalism and customer service.

Additionally, just out of coincidence, after each trial I had to go into a public venue to do something specific. After my trial with Mary, I didn’t think anything of the fact that I was wearing make-up when I walked into a crowded restaurant but after my trial with Jennifer I was mildly embarrassed to go into the mall because of all the make-up I had on.

Lastly, Mr Corn had a chance to see both in person and his quote from when I came back from Wedding Tresses was “it’s pretty…but you don’t look like you”.