stinkerpants design

If any of you are readers of So You’re Engayged, you may have seen my guest post yesterday about Wedding Invitation Wording.  A lot of the brides and grooms who come to me for their illustrated wedding invitations already have their invitation wording worked out, which is fabulous.  But if you don’t, you might find some of these tips helpful.

Wording for wedding invitations can be a laborious process of answering questions like, “who is paying for this wedding?” and “do we include my ex-step-dad?”  At the end of the day, most of your guests aren’t even going to notice it; in reality, the wording for wedding invitations tends to matter most to people in your immediate family (read: the people who think their names should be on the invitation and may be offended if they’re not).  As you will soon find out (if you haven’t already) weddings are usually end up being about family, so sometimes it’s best to err on the side of honoring your close family members, rather than doing what’s most simple (just because you don’t feel like dealing with it).

If you’re a non-traditional couple, things might be a bit easier for you because you’re not concerned with formalities (ie, whose name goes first, whether you write “two thousand twelve” or “two thousand and twelve”).  In case you’re curious, you can find a full list of the “correct” etiquette for wedding invitation wording from Martha Stewart.

Meanwhile, I’ll share with you guys some of the choices my previous clients have used, and a few of my other favorites:

Short and Sweet:

Together with their parents
The Couple
invite you to celebrate their wedding
Date, Time
Location
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

or

The Couple
invite you to share in their love
as they celebrate their marriage
on Date at Time
at Location
located at Address
Reception to follow

or

The Couple
joyfully request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding celebration
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

A little bit more involved:

Because your love and friendship
have helped us become who we are
we invite you to share in our joy
with a celebration of love and commitment
Please join
The Couple
Date, Time
Location
Address
Reception immediately following

And for something extra cute and personal, list some of your favorite things to do together:

They have been
scrabble opponents and biking buddies
cat parents and business partners
but most of all they have been best friends.
Please join
The Couple
as they come together in marriage
Date, Time
at Location
Address
Dinner and Dancing to Follow

If you’re willing to think outside of the box, you can come up with all sorts of fun and non-cheesy ideas. For a few more ideas, check out:

• the Knot
• My Personal Artist (Michelle is my buddy on Twitter!)
• About.com
• Offbeat Bride

If you would like to include your family members (especially if your family is large or complicated), you might check out this page, which has pretty much every combination you can think of.

Did any of you create wedding invitation wording that you truly loved, or have you come across something creative?  Of so, I’d love it if you would share in the comments!

This post should actually be titled, “Why I don’t recommend postcard Save the Dates, but postcard RSVPs are okay.”  But that was too long (haha).

When I was planning my own wedding, one of my first projects was creating our Save the Dates.   At the time, Save the Date magnets and postcards were super hip.  I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on magnets, so I decided on postcards.  I slaved over the drawing for the postcard, and when I sent them out, I expected at least some comments from our friends and family.

Not a peep, I kid you not.

Rather than admit to myself that my awesome Save the Dates weren’t as cool as I thought they were, I decided to think logically rather than emotionally.  The following are my excuses for the radio silence (which have since been substantiated by the not-so-scientific experiments of mailing myself postcards).

Reasons why Save the Date postcards are a bad idea

• Postcards are easily missed. In the sea of junk mail people receive, they can get lost in the shuffle or accidentally slip into a Penny Saver and get sent straight to the recycling bin.
• Postcards can get absolutely mangled in the mail.  My not-so-scientific experiments involved sending myself 10 postcards.  All of them were scuffed up and torn, and sometimes the postmark was on the wrong side of the postcard, totally smeared and obscuring the image.
• Allegedly, postcards are lost more often than regular envelopes.  I’m not sure if I believe this (we used postcard RSVPs, too, and I received every single one that was sent).  However, other stationers swear by this statement, so I thought it was worth including.
• Save the Dates in envelopes are more formal than postcards.  This may or may not matter to you.
• Getting something in a pretty envelope is just more exciting! I love getting a colorful envelope in the mail.  And with a boatload of awesome envelope colors to choose from with Stinkerpants, your envelope will grab your guests’ attention and will not be boring.
• Postcards will only save you $50 bucks, on average. One of the main arguments for sending postcards instead of cards in envelopes is cost savings.  But think of it this way: if you send 100 postcard Save the Dates, you’ll save $35 on classy A6 envelopes and $16 on postage (because postcards are cheaper to mail than regular envelopes).  That’s $51.  And at the end of the day, what’s $51?  After you’ve spent so much time and money creating the Save the Dates themselves, it would be a shame to have them ruined because of $51.

Those are some pretty good arguments against postcard Save the Dates, don’t you think?

Make no mistake, however: I am not opposed to postcards in and of themselves.  Most of the reasons above relate to your guests’ experience of receiving the postcards.  After all, this Save the Date is the first impression they’ll have of your event, and you want it to be a good one.

I have a completely different take on postcard RSVPs, which were also gaining in popularity around the time of my wedding.

Reasons why it’s totally okay to send postcard RSVPs

• When your guests see the postcards, they’re in perfect condition.  And once they get to you, it doesn’t really matter if they’re mangled.  Hopefully you’ve kept a few in perfect condition for your scrapbook.
• They might fit with your invitation design better. Our wedding invitations were tri-fold invitations, and it made more sense to include a postcard, rather than an RSVP in an envelope.  I was able to use a removable glue dot to stick the RSVP to the paper, which worked very well.
• You’re expecting them, so you’re less likely to miss them.  If you’re waiting to receive your RSVPs, you’re going to check inside that Penny Saver to make sure none of them are stuck in there.
• Postcards will save you $50 bucks, on average. Okay, so it’s only $48.50 per 100 RSVPs (for A2 size envelopes and postage), but heck: if it doesn’t matter what they look like when they get to you, why not?

And there you have it: Stinkerpants’ basic list of pros and cons of postcards as both Save the Dates and RSVPs.  As a stationer and semi-newlywed, I’ve had experience both personally and with my clients.  Hope it was helpful!  If you have anything to add below, feel free!

 My handwriting on the computer is pretty slick, don’t you think?  ;)  At least you can read it (for the most part anyway).   If you can’t read it, I’ll translate: “last winner! (for now…).”  That’s right, folks, it’s the winner of the very last bridal book.  The winner is Kathryn, commenter #6:

Kathryn Says:

Another book that I would love to help with the planning!

Yay for Kathryn!

As for the “for now…” comment…I have a big fatty giveaway coming up soon, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, have you seen this?!

from here.  Badass.  I totally want one.

I recently started thinking about how different my wedding would have been if I’d started planning now, rather than in early 2007.  The culture on my local knot board, which is where I got most of my inspiration, is much different now than it was then.

When I started planning, I went on a knot bio bookmarking spree.  I was inspired by almost everything I saw–everyone was so creative and unique, it seemed!  I was blown away by the women who planned weddings for the Summer of 2007, and was constantly amazed my my fellow brides-to-be, who were at the same stage in planning as I was and kept coming up with creative ideas.

I am sure that there are a lot of current bride- and grooms-to-be who would love to be inspired, too.  Maybe you guys have found some awesome bios lately (if so, please share them with me!), but I haven’t really (although I admit, I haven’t really been looking!).  Anyway, here are the bios that I found most inspiring, plus a few of my friends.

2007 knotties who inspired me:

• barnhunter
• mskittie
• kellynaaron
• Chrysallys
• jusloveli
• andreayung23
• calicayman
• graceface
• sakegirls
• SpringChic
• walletpuppy
• LaMaddalena
• bruinchiq
• lisakeiko
• weezermonkey
• academybeldam
• Amber888
• mavie
• sfmaybride
• lzanassi
• kateaudplan
• Mrs.Nerissa
• acopsgirl
• proud-wife
• tanya2s
• abattyref
• avalikelava

A few brides whose bios have disappeared (or their pictures are now too small to see) but I really loved: MrsHoya, lickaflea, blackcurrant, kayrose.

The brides-to-be in 2007 who ended up with awesome weddings:

• purplewedding24 (married bio here)
• charmeng
• sfgirl75 (married bio here)
• bloominautumn
• tenfour (make sure to check out her giant table for all of her friends–what an awesome idea!)
• soon2bwilcox (married photos here)
• mooners
• cathleya
• happysigh
• myfiancesbrave (married bio here)
• californiaborn (married bio here)
• palomahelm (married photos here)
• tmconne (married photos here)

A few brides whose weddings turned out beautifully but didn’t update their bios (or I can’t find their bios)?, pearls&lace and bride2bJG.

Anyone else got any favorites to add?

Holy moly, it’s the last wedding post.  Sad!!  It also happens to be one of my favorites, though: the DIY (do-it-yourself) details.  I slaved my butt off working on all the details for our wedding, and I’m thrilled with how they came out.  The reception was perfectly executed by our wonderful caterers, and every last thing was photographed by our awesome photographer, Kim.

At least one or two guests commented on every single detail, which really made all of the work worth it.  It made our wedding really personal and fun, which was exactly what I was going for.  The reason I’m telling you all of this is because I think the DIY projects are worth it, for sure, as long as they add something unique to your day.  I don’t think it’s worth the effort to slave over a centerpiece if no one will notice how unique it is, or how it tells a story about you and your fiancé, though.  Enough blabbering, how about some photos?

Kim did a great job photographing our invitations (don’t forget to add this to your list of things to bring on the day of!):

And our programs (the one project I did not think was worth it, but it made for a funny story, so whatever!).  This photo shows all of the colors I used, but it has the shoe-shop stitching:

One of very few “perfect” programs (with the zig zag stitch):

This is our head table at the reception.  We had one small rectangular table that seated us and our parents.  Ah!  The colors of the favors so perfectly match the napkins!!  LOVE!

One of the mini menus:

One of the table number sandwich boards with a placecard:

Our friend JD had a good time in the photobooth:

The cropped drawings that were hanging from the tall centerpieces:

One of the low-centerpiece tables:

The inside of the favor boxes:

And, just to recap some of the details you’ve seen before…

the bar menu:

The signs I made for the back of our chairs (there were also signs for our parents):

Actually, here’s a non-pro pic of Y’s dad with his sign (how funny is he?!):

The “random fact” napkins:

The memory boxes:

The guestbook table:

The ceremony signs (well, one of them at least!):

The handmade-by-my-mom-and-my-aunt chuppah:

The Ketubah:

Holy moly.  Looking back on this, I did a LOT.   Whew!!  No wonder I’m wedding-ed out!!

I don’t usually ask questions at the end of my blog entries, but I am really curious: what DIY projects did you do (or are you doing) that truly reflect you and your fiancé?

After I changed into my cheongsam (chinese dress) and we ate our cupcakes, our band leader approached me and asked if we’d like to start the Hora.  For those of you not familiar with Jewish weddings (or Bar/Bat Mitzvahs) the Hora is a circular dance we do at our parties.  It ends with the person/people of honor sitting in chairs lifted by the strongest people at the party.

I was really excited to see that the non-Jewish guests (including my FIL on the right!) joined the dancing even though most of them had never even heard of the Hora.  My FIL keeps talking about how much fun he had during the Hora.  “Such a nice tradition!” he keeps saying.

Here we are, sitting in the chairs.  Y is already starting to go up, and I’m next.  He looks terrified mostly because only two of the people responsible for holding him up have any idea what they’re doing.  Also, one of his cousins is notorious for dropping things, so Y was understandably a bit concerned!!

Totally terrifying.  Seriously.  I thought this part would be way more fun that it actually was (haha).

Y actually looks relatively content, doesn’t he?!

Thrilled that we survived.

The Hora was the last event of the night.  Sadly, things were winding down…

We’re almost done with the wedding recaps, sadly.  The only thing we’ve got left are the details!

After a long hiatus (sorry), I am back!   I have been SO BUSY for the past week that I haven’t even had time to catch up on my favorite blogs!  But busy is a good thing.  :)  There are only two more posts (after this one) in my wedding recap!  Sad!  This one is about our cupcakes, which were DELICIOUS.As you might recall, my mom and I made the cake stands for the wedding.  I was totally thrilled with how they turned out; the display was delicious and quirky and totally perfect.

OMG how delicious do these look?!  We got our cupcakes through Sibby’s Cupcakery in San Mateo.  We did VERY extensive research before deciding on them (more on that below).  The folks at Sibby’s are super professional, and they definitely the most delicious cupcakes in the bay area. AND they’re the cutest.  I told them that I wanted the cupcakes to “look like a candy store, with lots of bright colors” and they really delivered.   So. cute.

We weren’t really attached to the idea of a traditional cake cutting, so we decided to feed one another cupcakes instead.  Lucky for us, Sibby’s makes an amazing GIANT cupcake.  Y ordered vanilla and I ordered chocolate (of course), and I made these little “his” and “hers” flags for them.  These giant cupcakes were on taller, smaller stands, so they stood out.

When it came time to eat the cupcakes, we were both very excited.  Actually, I think Y was more excited than I was (as a side note, I changed into my Chinese dress right before the Eating of the Cupcakes.  MAN I love that dress)!

He appears to have enjoyed his more than I did, too!

We’re a little weird:

The day of our wedding was also my cousin’s birthday.  He’s rather shy, but we decided that we HAD to humiliate him by singing him “Happy Birthday” and giving him a special cupcake.   His cupcake said “Happy Birthday Peter.”

Here we are, telling Peter he has no choice but to come up and get his cupcake:

And here he is telling us never to do this again!  He probably still hates me to this day (haha–I hope not!):

After the singing, it was time for people to enjoy their cupcakes!

We anticipated that people would eat a LOT of cupcakes, so we ordered a TON extra.  We had three boxes left over, and the next morning we shared them with the hotel staff and some of our guests while we waited for valet to bring our cars.  We gave my cousins Jeff and Peggie a box to take home, and they gave a cupcake to the lady who checked them in at the airport.  Apparently it was the best cupcake she’d ever had!  Here’s a (clearly non-pro) photo of Peggie and Jeff eating cupcakes at 9am the next morning!  So fun.

If you live in the bay area and happen to be interested in cupcakes, here’s a general overview from our cupcake tasting:

Sibby’s Cupcakery (San Mateo)–Easily the best cupcake I’ve ever had.  She doesn’t mark up her prices for weddings, which I appreciate.  However, they’re still really expensive at $39/dozen, $150 delivery and setup.  Sibby says that setup takes about 2 hours, which we decided to do because we wanted to make sure it actually got done!  She has really cute stands, if you want to go the rental route. 

Citizen Cupcake (San Francisco)–these cupcakes were so bad (dry and nasty) that we didn’t even make it to the cost part of the equation.  NOT recommended AT ALL.

Teacake Bakeshop (Emeryville)–we found these cupcakes to be a little on the dry side, but our main issue was the frosting, which was really waxy.  The cupcakes are $36/dozen, and as far as delivery…they apparently contract out for that, so they charge an unknown amount for delivery and don’t do any setup.

Kara’s Cupcakes (San Francisco)–I’m not going to lie, her cupcakes are good.  We enjoyed them very much.  When we tasted them, her cupcakes were marked up simply because it was a wedding–$45/dozen.  Now I see on their website that the cupcakes are back to $36/dozen (the normal cupcake price).  Delivery is about $30, but no setup.

That Takes the Cake (San Francisco)–I really liked Sara Lynn a lot when I talked to her on the phone.  She was super generous, giving us 8 full-sized cupcakes for our tasting, for free.  However, the frosting was way too sweet for me.  The red velvet was AWESOME, though.  Best red velvet ever.

Love at First Bite (Berkeley)–Their cupcakes were pretty tasty, for sure.  However, I’m not too wild about the fact that they charge $10 for a tasting, and at first I didn’t even want to try them because that irritated me so much.  $36/dozen, about $50 for delivery to the city.   Their customer service was the main reason we didn’t choose them.

American Cupcakes  (San Francisco)–I really liked these cupcakes a lot.  They aren’t quite as cute as Sibby’s, but they were very good–not too sweet.  We almost went with them, but at the end of the day, they weren’t very responsive to my emails or phone calls, which made me kind of nervous.  It probably would have been fine, but I don’t want to be worrying about that, you know?

Sprinkles Cupcakes (Palo Alto)–this place actually opened recently, so they weren’t an option for us.  We did, however, taste their cupcakes recently.  I thought I’d add my two cents!  I wasn’t a fan of Sprinkles, which is a famous cupcake shop in LA.  Their frosting was way too sweet, the cake itself was kind of dry and heavy, and it just wasn’t that great.  I do like their color-coding system, though!

I am getting really, really excited about my new website.  I’ve been creating all sorts of new drawings to put all over it, and Bob, the wonderful Brother Bee from Weddingbee, has been helping me for months.  I’m excited.

What?  Back to the wedding?

Our caterer created an amazing outdoor bar by stacking martini glasses, glass blocks and sheets of glass.  It was amazing.  The bartenders made AMAZING drinks.  Seriously the best lemon drop (or shall I call it a “Dr. Miles”?) I’ve ever had.  The signature drinks were so popular that we ran out of vodka.  The bartenders were nice enough to run to a liquor store and get us more!

The signature cocktail bar menu…

SIL clearly enjoyed the drinks:

Do you see how the sugar is yellow?  The caterer brought that!  How special!

Our caterers did a very fancy thing with the soup: they presented the contents of the soup in a bowl, and then poured the broth on top of it.  Fancy.  I’d never heard of anything like it (although admittedly I am not one to dine out at fancy restaurants).

The bride and groom signs I made for the back of our chairs.  I also made some for our parents.

After dinner, my dad and I had our father-daughter dance.  We took lessons and learned how to waltz, and we were very proud of how it turned out!

The photobooth was a huge hit:

I am sooooo glad we got the photobooth.  It was worth every. penny.  If you have a photobooth at your wedding, make sure to go in multiple times with your new husband!  We only went in once together, and although it was a good photo, I want more!!

Up next!  Cupcakes!

Whew!  It’s getting late in the day to be posting, but heck!  I’ve been working feverishly since 8am and haven’t really come up for air!

I’m not sure how interested in these photos you guys will be, but I thought I’d share them anyway–they’re the toasts.  We fed people the first course, and then the toasts began.  My dad did a magnificent job.  My friends asked to “rent” him for their own weddings!

The toasts are the #1 reason why I’m glad we got a videographer.  I can’t remember a darn thing anyone said, but I remember I was really touched and I cried.  I am excited to hear what they had to say (again).

Up next…the more interesting parts of the reception (haha!)

Hi!  After a four-day hiatus from posting, I’m back!  With photos from our cocktail hour!  I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. And now, back to the wedding.

Because we missed the cocktail hour, I had no idea if people looked through our memory boxes, appreciated our custom napkins or started playing with the photobooth.  Getting those photos back was so fun!  There were a lot of photos of people appreciating my hard-DIY-work.  :)

Guests looking through the memory boxes:

At the guestbook table…as you may recall, I put our photo reminder cards in envelopes for people to store their photobooth photos in.  Here, one of our guests opens an envelope and reads the flickr photo upload instructions.

And a guest appreciates our random facts cocktail napkins (more on that in a second)!!

The memory boxes, closed (note the empty glasses–people were clearly appreciating the signature cocktails):

and open…

Signing the guestbook:

My SIL and one of our groomsmen.  She was clearly quite a good salesperson with the photo reminder cards!

Overall, I think every single one of my DIY projects was worth it (besides maybe the programs: I’m not sure the pain was worth the product in that case!). They were really fun to make, and it was totally gratifying to see people appreciate them.

When I first posted about our Random Fact cocktail napkins on Weddingbee, people wanted to know what all of our facts were!  At the time, I didn’t want to share because I wanted our guests to be surprised.  Now that it’s over (and we’re using the leftover napkins every night with dinner!), I’ll share the facts with you guys.  :)

1. Growing up, Sara happily quit the following activities: Soccer, Violin, Recorder, Art, Golf, and Tennis.
2. Yorkey once walked on 1200° hot coals wearing a kilt.
3. When Sara was in elementary school, she wrote a newsletter for her neighbors called “Neighborhood News” and distributed it exactly 3 times.
4. Yorkey starred in a television commercial for Chabot College…but because he didn’t get the local cable access channel, he’s never seen it.
5. Sara makes $20/year selling advertisements on her website about rats.
6. Yorkey once ran out of gas in the Nevada desert…in his Prius.
7. Yorkey and Sara once convinced themselves that they had bed bugs.  They strapped their box spring to the roof of Yorkey’s car and drove it to the dump…only to realize two days later that it was most likely a mosquito.
8. When Sara was a little kid, her beloved Aunt Maggie gave her a copy of “the Velveteen Rabbit.”  It scared her so much that she threw it in the closet, slammed the door shut, and refused to go anywhere near it.

I had a few people come up to me at the wedding and comment on the random facts.  For example, I grew up in a very small town, and one of our next-door neighbors was my P.E. instructor at school, and also my soccer coach.  When he saw random fact #1, he felt the need to remind me that I had, in fact, once scored a goal in soccer, so I couldn’t have been that bad.  I reminded him that I only scored the goal because everyone was distracted by an injured teammate, and otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten near the ball!

One of my goals for the cocktial hour DIY projects was to include our guests.  Obviously you can only include people in the random facts to a limited extent, but the memory boxes were another story.  We included photos of neighbors from many years ago, old family pictures and dorky photos with friends.  I think people really enjoyed seeing themselves!

Next up?  The reception!