Vacation

Tahoe till Monday! I can't wait! Ski, Gambling and some Relaxing! I will have our Save the Dates to post after I come back along with some more inspiration pictures!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun New Years! I can't wait for 2010!!

Our Toasting Glasses

My dad and his fiance went to Italy for a vacation and for the first time ever I got a gift other than a tshirt!! He got Tony and I these beauitful hand blown Venetian Glasses. They are a deep red with gold designs on them. Granted I will not be able to leave the table with the glass since I am an absolute klutz.

Custom Cake Topper

I ordered my A from Crafty Eddy. He had it delivered within three days of payment. I decided to forgo the normal rhinestones for glitter. Both FI and I like the look a lot better than the rhinestones, it glitters more and looks complete not crafty.

One side affect. When I was applying the glitter I used a box lid to keep it all contained. I threw the lid with the left over glitter in the garbage. The next day my lovely mishevious puppy decided she wanted to play in the glitter and covered our entire room in champagne glitter. It has been two weeks and we still find glitter specs on me.

Directions:

1) Order cake topper from Crafty Eddy

2) For Glitter I purchased Martha Stewart Smokey Quartz. It was $5 per bottle and I didn't even use a 1/4 of the bottle. Much cheaper than rhinestones

3) For the Glue- Original Tacky Glue by Aleene's was also about $5 and worked amazing

4) Grab a box lid to keep the glitter in one spot, make sure it is large enough to fit the whole letter and the spokes

5) Start applying glue to the front and brush with a cheap paint brush to make it even. Do a line at the time

6) Sprinkle glitter over glue, then shake off left over

7) Continue doing this for the back and sides

Easy Peasy. It took less than 15 minutes to finish.

Ignore the Niner Cheerleader calendar. That would be my lovely Fiance's!

Bridesmaid- Gifts, Events, Night before

GIFTS:

So I decided to stop me from charging on my credit cards, I am going to get gifts throughout the year that will all go into a bag to be given to the bridesmaid at the rehearsal dinner.

So far I have purchased the necklaces from herecomesthebride.

I will be getting them champagne shawls to wear after the ceremony in case they get cold, I will be either getting them from kohls, macys or etsy (ClassyWeddingShop picture below is them).

For shower gifts I will be getting the hostesses gifts from philosophy at Sephora or Nordstroms.

I may be getting different earrings for each girl in garnet, I will be contacting herecomesthebride for those once the girls have the dresses picked out.

Everything will be packaged in a tote and I will have a clutch in each for each girl for the day of to hold makeup and other things. I am hoping to get lucky at Marshalls, Kohls, Target or Etsy on good cute clutches.

EVENTS:

The friday before the wedding we will be getting our nails done at EuroNails in burlingame. They rent out to large parties (6 bridesmaids, MOB, MOG, Grandmothers, and friends). I will be paying for my girls nails and taking them out to lunch afterwards.

NIGHT BEFORE:

I will also be getting a cottage suite at the Ritz Carlton the night before the wedding. It will also be our honeymoon suite the night of the wedding. All the girls will be staying with me the night before. We are going old school, board games, movies, wii etc. Just a fun relaxing night before the big day. This also alievates any stress of driving over the hill the day of the wedding and getting ready in time.

Norcal Brides

If there is anyone who would like to be a guest blogger on this site, to update with your wedding projects and vendors, email me at christineandtony2010@gmail.com. I would love to have at least 10 different brides from all over Northern California putting in their input once a week. If you want to post more your more than welcome to, but the minimum would be once a week. The more people the more it will help other brides with their planning process.

In the email answer the following:
Bride and Groom Names:
Budget:
Location:
Venues:
Vendors Booked:
Venders Need to Book:
Wedding Colors:
DIY projects you plan on doing:

Thanks,
Christine

Invitations- DIY

I designed these myself in Corel Draw. We will be getting them letterpressed. I haven't decided what kind of holder I want to do. But I have plenty of time to figure it out!

Coaster Design- Will be printed at ForYourParty.com

Fonts are: Bruges Font, Beautiful, and Centry Gothic

Photographer- Lily Rose Photography

Last Wednesday night I went into panic mode regarding the photographer that I had originally booked. I don't doubt that she can do amazing photos but multiple reviews regarding her being rude at weddings, not seeing proofs in a reasonable amount of time and poor communication, caused me to second guess my choice. The quickest response I ever got from her was cancelling the contract. Don't get me wrong, I understand people are busy but really it takes two minutes to send an email back.

I then went on the hunt for a good photographer and found Lily Rose Photography. Not only did Deborah respond to me within an hour of emailing her and even on thanksgiving. She worked with the price to help offset what we had already paid. Since she is located in Rocklin, I will be paying for her hotel night at HMB Lodge, it was the least I could do for how much she is helping me. She is also willing at no extra cost to meet us in Tahoe for our engagement session. We will be up there for a week for our friends wedding and originally wanted to get married up there. Perfect place for engagement pictures in the summer!

Here is some of her work, all credits are Lily Rose Photography:

Calligraphy

As a designer myself, I always figured I would just print the addresses on the envelopes like I have done for hundreds of clients who wanted to save money. But I thought again. Since I am doing my own invitations, I am saving my parents 100s of dollars. I am also doing letterpress through my FI's family business saving lots of money. SOOOO since I am saving all this money I want to splurge on calligraphy for the invitations. I know a little selfish but I want it!

After doing some research I realized that a lot of calligraphers just used normal fonts and probably just traced it with ink.... not worth $2 an envelope if I could do the same thing. But then I found TrialbyCupcake on etsy. I fell in love with her "Katie-Elongated" it is elegant but fun at the same time, and definitely different! I am booking my deposit (A refreshing $25) to reserve August for her to do them!

Here are some pictures of the calligraphy and check her out on etsy.com

Update- 12/1

So this weekend ended up being a big weekend in planning after a bad week of dealing with a sick puppy. I changed Photographers (from Terra Tabbytosavit to Lily Rose Photography) and I booked a calligrapher. I also made a calendar of when everything is due, booked a date with my bridesmaids to look for their dresses and called about room blocks. I will do a post on each to explain what went down!