If you followed my wedding plans, you know there’s nothing I love more than custom illustrations. They add a level of personal flair and uniqueness that truly befits a wedding. We had custom drawings done for our save the dates, our invitations, and even for our maps and thank you cards (more to come on those later) - but if I could go back and do it again (or run into a future project that could use our cartoon likenesses), I’d have Sara from Stinkerpants Celebrations do something for us, too!

I love her sunny style and rich, colorful backgrounds! All her characters have tons of personality infused with the classic Stinkerpants touch. She makes a point of including little things that help define a couple’s style, and I love how quirky and sweet all of the designs are! Ultrafly!

Check out this cutesypie Venice themed Save the Date

Or this feast for the eyes tri-fold invitation - aren’t the settings the sweetest?

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Oh hello. Could you get any cuter?

I require a few of these delicious creations from Old Soul New Heart. My mom thoughtfully forwarded me this Daily Candy featuring these sweeties, which is extra nice when you consider that the duo behind Old Soul New Heart is a mother-daughter team, who keep it real by mixing vintage notions with modern twists, and make a bad hair day into something fun. Headbands, necklaces, and belts - oh my, I just love them!

I also love the prices - everything is less than $65.  Wouldn’t a row of badass bridesmaids absolutely kill it in a sampling of these?  Maybe they’d dress up your rehearsal look with just the right amount of jazz?  I know my day would be greatly improved with a little headband action….

What about using one of these belts as a wedding dress sash?  I DIE!!!!

The trouble is, of course, deciding between them all!  Which one should I get?  Which is your favorite?

While a good slideshow is always a crowd-pleaser, there are a few new trends that I really love, and one of them we used for our wedding!

A newish service offered by video companies with the right equipment and talent, called Same-Day-Edits, takes the pre-ceremony getting ready footage and the ceremony itself, and quickly cuts them together into a highlight reel of the day to show at dinner.  It’s a great way to share the excitement and prep from earlier in the day, and relive the best moments of the vows, with the guests.  My favorite company who does amazing and moving same-day-edits is Still Motion, out of Canada. Here’s one of my absolute favorites:

Cheryl + Andrew’s SDE - Vancouver from stillmotion on Vimeo.

The adorable Mrs. Eggplant and her hubby made a really sweet music video to show at their reception, just before entering the hall for their grand entrance.  I love how personal and “them” the video is, and it really reflects a lot about their relationship:

Another trend catching speed is the video Love Story, in which the happy couple recounts the early days of their relationship and what has lead them down the aisle after many happy years.  When our videography company (Digital Princess Productions) offered us the opportunity to film a love story, we knew we wanted to shake things up a bit and keep true to our creative, hammy personalities.  So, Hunter whipped up his version of our love story, and together we created The Fresh Hubby of LA.  When we showed this at our reception, the reaction was overwhelming.  The crowd demanded an encore - tears of surprise and delight rolling from their eyes.  It was definitely the last thing anyone expected, but it absolutely set a tone of fun, irreverent and exciting energy that kicked our party off just right!

What other cute slideshow alternatives have you seen at weddings?  Are you doing something unique for yours?

Our wedding photographer, Dan Chen, was featured in last months issue of Utterly Engaged (a droolworthy new e-zine on the block). The article focused on Dan’s big heart, as evidenced by his RENTwedding offerings and volunteerism with the homeless. You may remember that Hunter and I were recipients of one of the 2 free photography packages that he gives away each year to couples who can’t afford his normal rates…. and much to our delight, they used a few of our pictures in the article!

So, have a look-see at a sneak preview of our wedding photos! Whatddya think?

Whew, I’m back!  It actually happened, I am actually married!  I still can’t believe it.  After 6 and 1/2 years together, and 20 months of engagement, a whirlwind of anticipation, preparation, realization, celebration and recuperation, we are husband and wife.  I couldn’t be happier.

I really can’t wait to share all the details and *amazing* photos with you - but hey, you can’t really “come” to my wedding without an invitation, right?!?  Its about time I shared the thing that kicked off the whole parade……. our invites!  Check it out - our very own Rebekah from EAD did consulting on the design and printing, and we recruited a friend to draw an illustration for us.

The first thing the guests saw when they received their mail, was a jupiter stardream envelope (just like we used for our STDs), with the Ganesha image we are using in lieu of a monogram, printed on front.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of one before send-off, but you get the gist!  Printing them was just easier than handwriting, and we don’t have great handwriting, so we picked a funky font to give off the right vibe from the get-go.

First things first: pockets that I made using sari material from ebay, fabric glue, and pinking shears - easy peasy, and they really upped the glamour of our parcel.  The fabric was gorgeous in person.  I even steeped the fabric (and by ’steeped’ I mean stored the fabric with) chai tea bags, so it smelled exotic and warm!

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Le Sigh. This would go so beautifully at our wedding if we had all the monies.

Isn’t it gorg?!?

(via StyleMePretty)

We’re hoping to keep the head count to 105, per our arrangement with The Bungalow Club. Family is all included by default, but deciding who to invite and who to leave off among friends is a decidedly un-fun yet sadly necessary part of wedding planning. Initially our invite list consists of about 180 folks. I’d heard tell of creating a ‘likelihood to attend report’, in which you rate each guest’s likelihood to attend by assigning them a percentage, and then you average those percentages out by dividing by the number of invitees. When we tried, it said we can expect a 60% attendance rate, probably due to the large amount of out-of-town guests on our list. Hmmm. But judging from the amount of “no” RSVP’s we’ve been receiving, due to economic constraints and travel woes, we may need to invite more people, yo!

What’s disappointing us the most is that the majority of the “can’t make it”s are family who we’ll really miss on the big day.  But I know they’d be there if they could, and there’s nothing we can do about it.  So, we started a “stand-by list” of friends we’d love to have come, but for one reason or another didn’t make the initial “boarding pass list”. Not that we love them any less, but a contingency plan seems to be in order considering that if we fall under 105 guests, we still have to pay for them. Better to have seats filled than empty, right?

How did you evaluate your guest list? Were you surprised by the number of RSVP’s? How so?

Finding my mom a dress was surprisingly easy.  When I saw it, I just knew it was the one.  All other dresses were dead to me.  She just looked radiant in it.  But what was truly awesome, was what a steal it was!

It was being sold on sale for $130… a good deal, sure. My mom has the purple color which you can sort of see in that small picture, but I included the larger picture so you can see the detail.  Adrianna Pappell, you are a goddess:

Le Sigh.  Oh, how I love the iridescent shimmer for our magic carpet ride wedding!  When we went to check out, the chatty cathy of a saleswoman a Lord & Taylor told us the evening length version was on sale for $85, and she had a special coupon she could use to get it for $65!

“Um, we like the shorter one much better” we objected, gazing at the rack of long gowns.

“But nay!” She exclaimed, “You can cut it off and make it short!  Its the same exact dress, just longer.”

We had her try on both, and lo and behold, they are the exact.same.dress.  Ch-ch-ch-check it out, yo.

(photos source)

We took this sucker, counted 11 pleats down (the amount on the shorter dress), and snipped away at the very top of the next pleat, across the spandex-y material that connects them all and holds the dress in such a lovely shape.  And behold!  My mom got a name brand, department store dress that she looks fly as hell in, for a SONG!

How did you find your mother’s dress?

Neither Hunter nor I are huge cake people.  But there’s one thing we do love to splurge our sweet teeth on!

Meet my 2nd love, the Beard Papa.

Oh, yeah…. the puffs.  Beard Papa makes the cream puffs that all puffs should aspire to emulate…. Each day, several times a day, they bake fresh puffs, and then (and this is key) they only fill them per order, so there’s no time for the cream to soggify your perfectly buttery and crunchy puff!  And the cream, oh fuggedaboutit.  Its divine.  They’re the perfect confection. Fresh, puffy goodness, filled with succulent, velvety vanilla cream, and sprinkled with powdered sugar…. these puppies are the best cream puff in all of creampuffdom.

guh.

We really wanted these puffs to be our dessert because they are more “us” than anything else.  But, how could we get them to be just as fresh and crisp as if you just bought one in the store?  No sireee, I was not having any soggy, mushy creampuffs!  So I inquired with the management, and they offered to supply 2 staff members to fill the puffs onsite, just before serving them - and all at a really fair price.  We were sold.  Delicious dessert and a hint of theatricality?  Yeah, that’s just our kind of treat!

Are you having an unusual dessert choice?

We’ve been having just a devil of a time finding a DJ for our wedding! During the wedding planning, it has come to our attention that we are pretty picky and specific in our tastes, which sometimes makes for long drawn out decisions…. like this one.

We don’t want a typical “wedding DJ” because our musical tastes range from reggae to rock, world music to funk, hip hop to 80s beats - and everything in between. We didn’t want any risk of chicken dancing at our party :) We don’t want just a straight up club DJ because we need to have someone who’s comfortable as emcee, and who is familiar with that natural progression from PG to PG-13/R that should occur (in my opinion) in order to keep the dance floor packed all night.

Now we find ourselves 49 days from the wedding with nobody booked in one of the most important roles of the night!

This week we’ll be meeting with a few companies to try and bear down and get this one nailed…. but its so different from interviewing other vendors. Normally you can see a portfolio, or look through a site full of examples. Only one of our 3 perspective DJs has samples on his site, and another is “making us a mixtape”. I just wish we could attend a wedding hosted by each and feel it out that way. It feels like a real leap of faith, but I am just so excited to get this major “To Do” done!

How did you find your wedding DJ? Did you hear him/her spin before your day, or was it a leap of faith for you, too?