DIY Fabric Luggage Tags Save the Dates

Okay so one of the projects I have been relatively obsessive about are these luggage tags made by Sarah over at Craftini. I have this total picture in my mind of these nicely mounted on a post card with an insert reading 'We're Heading to a Wedding!' above the normal address lines. Corny? Why, yes! But I love it. :)

So here's the small, itty-bitty hiccup...I've never used a sewing machine. I mean I've sewed all my life. Counted cross stich, embroidery, hemming, hardanger...you name it. Buuut I've never used a machine. And perhaps more importantly, we don't own one.

So today, I dragged E through Jo Anne Fabrics with the promise of coffee and Yogaberry treats. We looked through a lot of fabric but didn't find anything just right in the yellow & green family. (Or sunshine & clover when I'm being particularly bridal lol)

We looked at machines too but I think I'm going to buy a cheapie one for like $80 from Target or Wal-mart. The reality is that any sewing I ever do is going to be beginner projects like draw curtains or an apron. No bridal gowns are coming out of my hands lol.

These are some of the prints I love from fabric.com...

I'm not completely in love with any of these options though. And for as much work as this project is going to take - I need to LOVE the fabric.

The colors are still negotiable at this point. For some reason, I really have yellow stuck in my mind as a prime color choice. This is totally odd because my favorite colors are ALWAYS jewel tones. I like teals, purples, fuchsias, etc. But a sunny yellow & grass green are the two colors that I keep imagining when I picture our day.

I think this would be a really fun option for our Save the Dates. And probably the only project I can be completely OCD about because as we get closer to the date, I just won't have time.

Non-planning

I haven't posted in awhile...

I just got back from Puerto Rico. E was there for a conference and phoned me that she had a room to herself after all. 5 hours later, I was driving to Miami to make my flight the next morning at 6:30. :) Spontaneity like that is why I love E and us.

We had no idea I'd be going to Puerto Rico too or we might have tried for Proposal 3.0 lol. It's coming.

I'm still reading my wedding blogs all the time. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed now about the whole thing. A lot of my wedding planning is stymied by not really knowing how many guests we can expect to attend.

So anywhoo, being that it's a destination wedding, can we expect 20 people or 40? I want to invite my entire family but if only 20 people are going to be able to attend in the end...that's a very different venue option from 40.

We're both really clear on the sort of language semantics we want to use. Wedding. Marriage. You won't see the word 'union' anywhere near us. Which is crazy ironic because if this were a hetero-wedding, I know I'd be all over 'union'. I like the meaning of the word, the imagery...but I want to be crystal clear for everyone. We're having a wedding to celebrate our marriage. A big gay wedding for our big gay marriage. :)

I rented 'First Comes Love' from Netflix. It's a reality wedding planning show on LOGO hosted by Elvira Kurt. Loved the show. Loved some of the one-liners...especially from Mandy & Danika. Our favorite was that they didn't want any bastard children. Also awesome because these couples were like a few weeks out and had very little planned. :) This made me feel slightly ahead of the game lol.

Yeah so anyways, I haven't been posting blogs because for now, they'd be relatively boring 'non-planning' blogs. Where I'm just chatting about my anxieties about trying to plan something for an unknown number of people 1000 miles from my home.

Waiting...

So Weekend 2.0 didn't really work out. We had gone back to Orlando for the weekend (we have disney tickets that are about to expire, that's why we keep going lol) but it turned into a family trip celebrating E's birthday. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." We OWN that statement. :-)

And now it's all turned a bit silly - which is totally who are are as people. For instance, I'll be like toting laundry somewhere and scratching my butt and E will be like: "Now?" hehehe - love it! Or I'll be like "let's go somewhere romantic like Waffle House so I can propose to you..."

I've researched a LOT of bed and breakfast inn's in Connecticut & Vermont...nothing screams out at me. It's either a bit more than we want to spend, a super far drive for guests or really Victorian Burgundy in decor. I've decided Victorian Burgundy is better than Shaker empty though.

Now I'm kinda waiting for a few more weeks until we pull it together and can start announcing to family. Because I so want their thoughts. Is it reasonable to expect people to drive 5 hours? Would it be better to choose a place near an airport? Am I right in thinking summer time would be convenient? I know in the end that it's all up to us and people will try to come no matter what. But I don't really care. It's going to be just as complicated planning a destination in New Haven as Burlington to me.

So I'm just waiting...and doing little bits of research here and there. I recently discovered www.intimateweddings.com which I LOVE. I think it's kinda new because there aren't a plethora of articles but I've had a lot of fun going through the site.

Save the Date...

Okay so I am a little obsessing over our save the dates. Most of our guests will be from out of town so no matter where we hold our wedding - it's a destination wedding. Ideally, I'd like to send out save the dates no later than 9 months before the event.

And I know my limitations. While it would be awesome to DIY everything about our day, I know I'll start to get crazy overwhelmed. A bunch of half-started messes are in my future. But the Save the Dates? That's my chance to DIY. It's the first project and I have 3 months to come up with and execute something we'll love.

Okay and so I might be making this crazy more complicated than neccessary. But I feel the need to 'define' our wedding before making the save the dates. So I can stick to some sort of same vibeness throughout.

Last week, I spent more time than I'm going to admit on here perusing Flickr. I bookmarked all my favorite save the dates. Catagorized them. And printed to show E. She was like "OMG - I do not care."

But she's tricky like that because here's the secret...She DOES care. It's not like other couples who really may have a partner who could care less. So I have to get her on board before beginning any projects. Otherwise, mid-way through, she'll be like 'Wait. You're using that ribbon?' I know these things. So after being reminded of that fact, she sheepishly admitted I was right and pointed to these inspiration options.

Behold! :) I've developed a bit of a faux bois obsession in recent months. And this brings in that element but isn't so overwhelming that I'll look back on it and think 'why?' :)

This photo is just beautiful to me. It makes me want to run out and buy fabric and start stitching a banner. Of course actually having a DATE will help in this exercise! :) Which involves finalizing on a location. Which means choosing a state. Which is a giant big ARGH.

If I thought there was even a small chance of marriage being legal in Florida or Pennsylvania (where I'm from) any time soon...it would be such a huge happiness to me. Not just for civil rights and equality but for the selfish reality that planning would be simpler. I still really like the idea of spending our wedding money in a state that will recognize our wedding. I want to be able to say that $5,000 plus travel/vacation costs for our guests were lost to Florida. Okay -*reeling back in* - kinda went off on a tangent. Back to save the dates...


This is just a plethora of 'stuff we like'. It all looks pretty discordant here but you know - ignore the colors as they'd be personalized. The upper left example is adorable and totally who we are buuuut I want to move in a slighty more traditional direction. I love, love, love the idea of luggage tags. Our wedding is pretty small and I think I could make 50 luggage tags. Having NEVER used a sewing machine lol I may be moving too fast. :)

I'm excited though because after looking at so many examples and printing x-number of possibilities for E...we're definitely on the same page when it comes to this day. What more could I ask for?

The Almost-Proposal

So my ring was due into the shop on Friday BUUT we didn't have a chance to pick it up because the SECOND, I got home we went into whirlwind-mode with packing. We were going to Orlando - Whoohoo!

On Saturday, we went to Lake Eola to rent swan boats which has been a long held dream of mine. Swan Boats! Seriously - I thought they were only in like Vegas and cartoons. Well, we rented our little boat and I pulled out Flat Stanley.

My little cousin's kindergarten class is doing a project with a book character named Flat Stanley. Basically, it's a little boy who was flattened but realizes that isn't so bad because he can travel places in the mail now. They made Flat Stanley's and then sent them to family or friends who are out of town who can show Stanley a good time.

So anyways, I'm pulling out Flat Stanley to take his picture. Like so... When E got all testy and was like 'Would you put Flat Stanley away?' which I did but I was like ???. So we finished our little ride sans Stanley.

Well, I found out that she had run over and secretly picked up my ring on Saturday! On the drive home, I didn't realize she already had it and she asked me a general proposal 'envisionment' question. And I was like "oh I don't know - those swan boats are a cute idea!" She was like 'AHHHH.'

:O) I guess it just hadn't felt like the right moment since I was being goofy and not really picking up on any cues. In retrospect, we were naming our favorite memories together and everything. I totally get it!

But since it didn't feel right for her yet, I'm very glad she waited. I feel so happy that she secretly went and got the ring for me. It would have been a total surprise since I didn't even know she had it! It was such a sweet idea. I can't wait to see 'Proposal 2.0: Mission Accomplished'. :)

Accident

So today, I was all excited to go to work with my little cake from cake class. (It turned out muy pretty if you ignore my malformed ribbon.) On my way there, I go to change into the left lane and hit a car in my blind spot. Total shocker. I've never been in an accident before. I immediately burst into tears. Seriously for the next 45 minutes, I just sobbed. Bizarre. The cop was practically rolling his eyes at me.

It's relatively minor. We'll need to get a new rear driver's side door but that's about it. And it's totally my fault so no insurance assistance. *Poof* $500. Could have been worse though. No one was injured and it only affected one panel (the door) instead of multiple ones.

This part was kinda hilarious though. So both drivers (me & Big Jeep Guy) immediately pulled over after we collided. I'm sitting there in the car, sobbing, trying to collect myself. I realized I didn't even have a cell phone because E left hers in her dad's car and took mine to work. I realized I didn't have a copy of our insurance card in the car because we had changed companies recently. And at that moment as I'm like 'FUCK. What now?' - the ding sounds and the light for having no gas comes on. The universe was all like 'challenge issued & accepted.'

Argh. This post isn't really wedding related but as I was staring at the damage, I kept seeing different ridiculous elements of a wedding floating away. Like custom ostrich feather fans for all my guests. *Poof* gone! Or a bounce house...just gone. I love this picture. I found it here. Doesn't that look crazy fun? E would say 'just crazy'. She's a bit of the traditionalist...but that's good because it it were just me planning it, we'd have cotton candy favors (in our colors of course!) ...funnel cakes, karaoke, funky colors everywhere, banners...etc. etc. etc. And all of those things are completely cool but I could not pull it off. It would just look like a mess. Or a family day picnic in a church parking lot. So we're going to focus on timeless...with a few funky things thrown in. Like cotton candy. I'm still of the opinion that that's kick ass. :)

Money, Money, MON-NAY!

Hmmm well it's a bummer about California...luckily, my expectations were pretty low. Here's to 2010...

Anywho, I'm waiting on a cake to cool so that I can ice it for my class tonight. I have to say cake decorating is not as much fun as I imagined. I'm usually really into crafts of all sorts but I'm just flat out too lazy for this. All these different consistancies, tips and arm positions. I think I'd rather color.

So in short, whatever insane dreams I had of being able to make my own cake are *Poof!* out the window. Luckily, a cake was never really a big deal for me. I suppose we'll have one. I'd rather eat a Lemon Tart personally. Mmmmm or lemon squares. We have a really nice Publix bakery with example cakes that to my untrained eye are gorgeous. Works for me!

Here's what I wanted: a simple, elegant but casual wedding. Ceremony in a garden. Reception either in tent or inside small bed & breakfast type deal. Around 25-35 guests - mainly just our closest family & friends. I hoped to spend about $5,000. Seems reasonable, right? We are talking MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. I feel ridiculous saying that but there you have it. My vision is more than 5K.

At this point, I just want to find a situation where the venue, food & music are around 5K. Everything else, I can start getting here and there. Like E's suit doesn't really count toward expenses because I know she'll rewear it. Or at least that's how I'm beginning to arrange things in my mind lol. Soon I'm going to be like: "Weeell, the DJ doesn't really count because we'd probably be listening to music this weekend aaanywaays. Sooo really it's like going to a club with a slightly more expensive cover." Yeah. Watch me do it. :-P

But in seriousness, there are a lot of things we want in the next 5 years. A house, new car for E, going back to school, babies...a really elegant garden party wasn't on that list 6 months ago.

I wish I lived in the same town as everyone. Part of the problem is that I feel pressure to have an event 'worthy' of everyone having to drive or buy plane tickets. Money saving tips like 'Have a brunch!' don't really feel right for that reason. ARGH.