Janet & Jack's 50th Anniversary

My dear friend, Krista was helping with the planning of a celebration for her in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary. We were brainstorming some table signage ideas for this travel-themed event when I brought up the idea of making a custom cootie catcher for the party. Janet and Jack have traveled all over the world and visited all of the continents, so creating a travel-themed cootie catcher was a perfect little accessory to add to the tablescape. I used world maps for background images and rather than add fortunes to the inside panels, I found some travel-themed trivia questions. It was so fun to make!! I matched the fonts that Krista used on the invitation that she created and voile!

Thank you so much Krista for the great photos and a heartfelt happy anniversary Janet and Jack!

Bev and Jon

My dear cousin Bev got married to Jon a year ago this week and I was honored to create their wedding invitations. They were planning to use lavender as one of the primary flowers, so we used a lavender design on the printed items for the big day. Here’s their invitation:

They invitations were printed at my local Office Depot and backed with metallic card stock in the color Violette from Cards & Pockets.

Invitations were mailed in metallic envelopes in the Light Amethyst color from Cards & Pockets. As a surprise to Bev and Jon, I had a custom return address stamp made with Kelly from Hello World Stamps. This one got a little smudged, but it was my last of the purple envelopes!

*That’s not their address anymore, which reminds me that I need to have a new stamp made.

We also made a sign for the front door of the wedding venue, it was backed with the same Violette card stock as the invitations:

For favors, they stuck their favorite candies into lavender mesh bags and included mini bottles of liquor, yum! We created a sticker for the tops of the mini mason jars.

Lastly, Bev’s stepdad is a winemaker and bottled a bunch of his Old Vine Zinfandel for the wedding and asked me to design a custom label as a surprise to Bev and Jon. I love how it turned out!

I love how everything turned our for your beautiful wedding, congrats on your first anniversary!!

Ashley & Scott

Ashley and Scott had a beautiful wedding in Alberta, Canada this summer and I was honored to design invitations for the big day. Ashely said her bouquet was going to have a mix of pale pink flowers and a few succulents too, so I reflected that in the graphics on the invitation. One of her bridesmaids, Sarah is a longtime friend of mine and she was gracious enough to send me fantastic photos of the finished invitation. Thank you Sarah!!

To finish everything off, the pocketfold was wrapped with a custom belly band with the couple’s monogram die-cut in the card stock. The monogram isn’t my design, but I wanted to share it anyway because it’s such a beautiful element! Lastly they were mailed in pale pink envelopes.

A heartfelt congrats to the happy couple!!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Yesterday was our 11th wedding anniversary. We ran errands, visited a friend to pick up a bicycle, my oldest had a taekwondo sparring class, we all took a naps…. kind of a typical Saturday for us. Then my husband got on a plane heading to the east coast for a few days of work while I tried not to rage-clean our house since we have family coming to visit this week.

We rarely do much to celebrate our anniversary, it happens to fall during a busy time of year, and a week before our oldest son’s birthday. We don’t take much time to do something special that would likely require a babysitter. Sometimes we’ll go out to dinner, but usually all the celebrating that happens is when we both change our FB profile pictures to a fond memory from our wedding day. As silly as that is, it’s fun to reminisce.

Instead, we try our damnedest to take those dinners out when we DO have the chance, it’s just rarely ON our anniversary. If anything, we have Parent’s Night Out once a month when our kids spend four hours at our taekwondo studio and we go out do dinner and usually do some grocery shopping sans kids.

Yesterday I showed our boys this photo from our wedding and at least they recognized us. We had Chinese lion dancers at our wedding; my husband’s request. They were so awesome!! When my youngest son saw the lion dancer, he thought it was Santa Claus.

I chatted with a friend a while back and we discussed how much has changed in the wedding planning world since we got married 10+ years ago. If we were getting married again (hypothetical, of course), would we do anything different?? For me, not a ton. Although the awesome Chinese restaurant where we had our reception is no longer there. Aside from that, I still love most of what my husband and I planned for our wedding.

• I’d wear more interesting jewelry. I think what I wore barely shows up in photos and I would have liked something with a little more bling. Even more so with the jewelry I wore with my Chinese reception gown. The necklace was an heirloom from my husband’s late grandma (I’d still wear that), but I wish I’d worn some rad, chandelier earrings.

• I’d ditch the veil. It got snagged on a rose bush as my dad and I were walking toward the aisle and popped right off my head. I didn’t wear it at all at the reception, so it was kind of a waste.

• Spend more money on photography and communicate better with the photographer. We have lots of good photos, but also lots that are missing because our photographer insisted on a photojournalistic style (no pics of my mom and me, no pics of my siblings and me, stuff like that). I kept my photography budget very small, but we ended up saving money elsewhere and we could’ve spent more on another photographer.

• Skip the videography.

• Choose different bridesmaids. Two of them are no longer part of my life, so I’d obviously have different ones now. But two would still be there.

• I’d design my invitations only a little differently… not the pocketfold construction or the Chinese portion, but I’d use different fonts and make it less wordy on the English side. I still love the Chinese brocade pattern I created for the paper and the colors.

That’s it. I wouldn’t change anything else. I still love the colors, I still love both of my wedding gowns (although, I’m certain that my post-baby boobs won’t rock my JCrew wedding gown again). I love what my bridesmaids and the dudes wore. I love that we had an American ceremony and a Chinese banquet; allowing lots of our American friends and family to try Chinese banquet food for the first time. I love that we got to share the day with so many friends and family; many of whom had flown in from different states and different countries.

If you were getting married again, would you do anything differently?

Last year we did do more celebrating than usual for our 10th anniversary. We spent a weekend in Las Vegas and renewed our wedding vows at the Graceland Wedding Chapel. Elvis himself preformed the ceremony. It was cheesy and silly, but also lots of fun. You can see the invitation I created for the little event here. After the short ceremony (that included a few songs sung by Elvis), we all had dinner at The Wicked Spoon at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. We only had a few friends there, but it was seriously so much fun. It’s so rare for my husband and me to do something that’s just for us.

Photo by Cari Hollis

Any ideas on what we should do for our 20th anniversary?? Our boys will be 17 and 13 (oh geez, that’s terrifying to consider). By then maybe we can leave them home without a babysitter, right??

Cecile & Francis

Cecile and I have been friends for just over 20 years. She grew up in southern France and we met when she stayed with my family through an exchange student program when we were teenagers. The following year, my brother and I saved our summer job money and spent a couple of weeks exploring France with her family hosting us. It happened to be the same summer that France was hosting the World Cup and while we didn't have the funds to attend any games, we got to watch from bars and public venues as France made their way through the quarter and semifinals and eventually won the World Cup. It was an amazing trip, and one I still have very fond memories of. 

Cecile went on to attend college in the United States and fell in love with Francis; an expat from Uganda. They settled in Minneapolis with their kids and this past summer, I was honored to work with both of them on the printed items for their long-awaited wedding. 

Their wedding invitation paid homage to their backgrounds with a world map marking Uganda, France, and their home in Minnesota using their wedding colors in teal, navy blue, coral, and copper. I absolutely LOVE how this turned out.

They went with Panel Pockets from Cards and Pockets in Imperial Blue with matching envelopes. These are an awesome solution for wedding inserts if you don't want the pomp and circumstance of a traditional pocketfold. The 5x7 panel simply has a pocket on the back for any inserts.

The two inserts included R.S.V.P. information along with maps and directions to each of the two venues.

A fun detail that I have been doing more and more for clients is a custom return address stamp. I created what we later named their "family logo" and had it made into a 2" rubber stamp with Hello World Stamps.

Don't stress, the magic of Photoshop allowed me to change their home address.

Kelly with Hello World Stamps is amazing to work with and HIGHLY recommended. Cecile went so far as to emboss the stamps for all 200 envelopes that were mailed out. They look wonderful with the metallic copper finish!

My oldest son and I had the privilege of attending Cecile and Francis' wedding this past August. My son is eight and had never attended a Catholic wedding ceremony before. He was confused about why we kept standing up and sitting down, and why he couldn't use the rail for kneeling as a foot rest. But he made it through and had fun dancing with new friends he made at the reception, including Cecile's oldest son.

When guests arrived to the reception there was a red carpet and this step and repeat backdrop that Francis had printed with their "logo" and their wedding hashtag. It was so fun to take photos!

Cecile sent me a few photos from their wedding photographer: 

For wedding favors, Cecile was originally planning to use traditional Ugandan kikoy fabric and sew it into small bags to hold Jordan almonds. But the fabric connection fell through. Then I suggested we create our own kikoy print and have fabric custom printed. She sent me a few photos of different kikoy stripes and I created one that used their wedding colors. Cecile ordered the fabric from SpoonFlower and it tuned out really beautiful! 

In this process, I also learned that Jordan almonds are originally from France! I will try and find my favor and take a closeup photo.

There were also a handful of Reserved signs for family.

These little signs were scattered throughout the reception too, reminding guests to share photos with their wedding hashtag. 

They printed this giant map in lieu of a traditional guest book. Everyone was encouraged to sign with well wishes and love. It will look wonderful in their home with messages from their guests!

Finally, a few weeks after the big day, we created this thank you card that they sent out to guests.

We continued the travel theme with the map and turned it into a mock postcard with two of their wedding photos. I really love how this turned out. The back was left with empty space so they could handwrite a thank you message.

Cecile and Francis, thank you so much for thinking of me when it was time to create beautiful printed items for your wedding. It was truly an honor to get to play a tiny part in your big day and to actually be there too was just the icing on the cake! Congratulations and I wish you many, many years of joy. XOXO!