Saved!

Last weekend, while visiting wonderful Boston friends, Dave and I spent an afternoon addressing a stack of fresh-off-the-presses save-the-dates. These will be winging their way to people's mailboxes soon, but here's a little preview:


Ta-Dum! Some minor information has been removed, for privacy reasons, but otherwise, here's the winner!

I am thrilled that after months of sketches and designs and research, I finally settled on a Save-the-Date that perfectly reflects me and Dave. What this also means, of course, is that I took the plunge and designed my whole invitation suite! It was a daunting task, but ultimately I am so excited to see the final results--I know they'll be a wonderful intro to our wedding!

For the detail-minded, I drew and painted the invite myself. I used heavyweight watercolor paper, drawing first in pencil, then outlining in waterproof calligraphy ink. I watercolored the drawings, then scanned them in to my computer. I edited the image--some scaling and color correction--with the free image-manipulation program Gimp (because I am both pro-open sourcing and pro-not spending money). The font is Czaristite. We used Vistaprint to print our Save the Dates as postcards. Although I've seen some bad reviews of Vistaprint online, ultimately they were ridiculously reasonable (we printed 200 postcards for less than $30), arrived promptly, and printed beautifully.

I can't wait for our friends and family to find these in their mailboxes!

Kiss and Make Up

Next on the wedding agenda: make up!

I'm planning on going the professional route, seeing as my skill with make up is...putting it on sometimes every six weeks? (True story! One day I wore make up to work, when one of my coworkers stopped me and commented on it. I guess the nice thing to say would have been something like, "You look really pretty today!" Instead she said "Wow, you look SO MUCH BETTER today than you usually do!" .... And I said, "Thank...? You...?")

So, to the salon!

The plan is to schedule my hair and make up trial for my bridal shower, so I can be glammed out for my lovely friends and family. And since the bridal shower is swiftly approaching, I spent an evening wandering around Internet-land picking out some possible make up looks.

I'm thinking soft and romantic, pink cheeks, natural look


Basically: Keira Knightley in every movie ever.


And also real life...
This one I like because it's still soft and romantic, but with a little more oomph


Here she is again in different light.
Love the smoky eyes, although I might want something a little less sultry


Another natural beauty.
Since I never wear make up, I'd like my to be enhancing, but minimal.
Something like this pretty much takes the cake.

In my dream world, I would pull off bright red lips.
Sadly, I am completely incompetent when it comes to this look,
and I always end up looking like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Miss Havisham.

Plus, while I am pale-as-paper white,
my skin tone isn't quite as red-lippy friendly as Ms. Hathaway's.

Pink cheeks, little color on the lips, bright and clear skin--
just enough pretty to be special,
not so dramatic that I still look like me!

Elizabeth Taylor's Weddings Photos

Leaving her first wedding, to hotel barren, Paris-Hilton-great-uncle Nicky Hilton.
Even though I know there are seven more to follow,
and this one resulted in a not-great marriage,
which lasted for less time than most cheeses take to age,
it's hard not to see how happy and swept-away she is.

Style, class, drama--all good things to keep in mind on the wedding day.

How to Be the Perfect Girlfriend/Boyfriend

While Dave and I are vacationing in South Carolina this week, I'm going radio silent on wedding planning. It's wonderful. In the meantime, please be entertained by these two videos, which despite being humor videos, actually contain some good advice on how to maintain a healthy relationship. Happy Friday!

Dating Humor:
How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend



Dating Humor:
How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend


Also, aren't these two actors adorable?
I want to move to Wee Britain and have them be my zany friends.

Bling Ring

Since I've already posted about Dave's future wedding band, I thought it was only fair to post about mine.

It's sort of daunting to pick out your wedding band. I mean, that's the ring you're going to wear for the rest of your life. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIIIIIIFE. Scary, yeah?

I was a little nervous a few months ago, when we started looking around at rings. I knew I didn't want a simple band, but something with a little more flair and personality. I also didn't want something that was only a complement to my engagement ring. I mean, I LOVE my engagement ring, but I wanted my wedding band to stand on its own.

I wasn't sure if I wanted a carved wedding band, like my mom's, or an eternity-style ring with lots of stones. Basically, I was willing to take a look at anything. So, around Christmas time, Dave and I headed to the Diamond District in New York to check out the rings.

Have you ever been to the Diamond District? Those people mean business. You literally cannot stand unattended for more than five seconds before someone shouts at you to check out their jewelry. In fact, that was how we found the jeweler who sold us my ring, when he shouted, "Hey guys, I'm back here!"

I tried on a few things, dismayed as usual that my size-four finger does not fit 99% percent of the rings, when our jeweler pulled out this little baby:


Oooh isn't it lovely? I adored the style, the unique design, the (girly alert!) sparkle. But the icing on the cake? It was a perfect size four.

It took about five minutes for me to decide that this was it, my ring. The ring I'm going to marry Dave with, the ring I'm going to wear forever, the ring that means I'm my kiddo's and he's mine and we're, oh gosh, married!


Here it is with my engagement ring. Complements, but isn't overpowered, subtle but unique--it's my wedding ring! So so so so so so crazy, so crazy wonderful!

Made an Impression

After much deliberation, Dave finally decided to go with the fingerprint ring I noticed last summer (just for his ring: I ended up choosing a different wedding band, which will soon get a blog post of its own). They are so, so beautiful, so much so that I'm willing to lay aside my concerns about giving him a wedding ring in which its main appeal is inside the ring, thereby encouraging him to take it off and (probably) spin it across surfaces like he's the host of a late-night talk show.

Part of the fun of the fingerprint wedding rings is that they send you a kit to get your fingerprints. So, we broke it out last weekend.

Everything came with easy-to-read instructions, although I wouldn't recommend trying to do this on your own. There was a lot of boiling water, running water, moving between hot and cold.

We started with soaking my hand in water for 8 minutes, to raise the fingerprints.

It was very early in the morning, hence my "I am not amused/awake" face and Hello Kitty! bathrobe. Don't judge.

The impression kit came with these three-inch long black strips, which we had to heat up in boiling water so they would be soft enough to take impressions (they sent lots of extras in case of mishaps).

Dave boiled the water, then we poured it into a bowl where we floated one of the black strips.

After a few seconds, I took the black strip off and pressed my finger against it (the strip was warm, but not super hot, thankfully).

Then I had to hold my finger under cold running water for a minute to set the impression. This was, by far, the worst part of the whole experience. I am a wimp when it comes to cold, and I spent the whole minute whining and wishing for time to speed up. Then I did again seven more times.

Meanwhile, as I was incapacitated, my wonderful future husband cooked me breakfast. This was a terrific perk and "Have your fiance cook you food" should be part of the official directions.

By the end, we had a beautiful, perfect impression of my finger, for use in my future husband's wedding ring. Yay!


*Like the ring, too? Check out more designs and ordering info here

Our Wedding Cake Will Be...

...red velvet!

Ooooh man.
This was good.
Wedding guests: you are in for a (literal) treat.

Last weekend, Dave and I finally got to go to our bakery,
Eat Cake Bakery,
to try our cakes.

Confession:
We had already decided on red velvet before the tasting,
but, sensing an opportunity to eat amazing cakes,
we asked to try a variety.

chocolate with vanilla buttercream and filling
and chocolate with peanut butter filling and vanilla buttercream


tiramisu with canoli filling and vanilla buttercream
and...the winner! red velvet amazingness

They were...wow.
We could only eat a few bites of each before we started to feel a little...caked out,
but they were all so amazing,
if I wasn't absolutely settled on red velvet,
I don't know how I could have decided.

I think my favorite, for pure taste,
might have been the chocolate peanut butter--
there's just something special about that combination.

Which is not to say there was anything amiss with the red velvet...
in fact, it might have been one the best I've had:
rich cocoa flavor,
pure red color,
oh-so-light cream cheese buttercream,
and a sweet surprise on the bottom,
a thin layer of white chocolate.

We went for something clean and simple for the outside,
sharp corners,
smooth lines,
slightly rough on the outside for a "homemade" finish,
topped off with some fresh flowers,
and our DIY wooden cake toppers.

Can't wait.