Wedding recap: invitations

I was pretty proud of our invitations. Shelby and I designed them (that is to say, Shelby did the work while I loomed over her shoulder being picky) and I had them printed at a letterpress printer called Mercurio Brothers in California. Letterpress was a splurge, but with Mercurio, it was vastly more affordable than even digitally printed invites were with some other companies. I survived a writer's conference I had been dreading and I got a hefty honorarium, so I put that check toward the invites, and I'm glad I did.

Our wedding didn't really have a color scheme (um, "bright"?) but we did wind up repeating marigold (orange-yellow) and charcoal gray in several places (gray for the men's suits; marigold for their ties, for some of the flowers--more on that later--and for the ribbon used to tie the favors and the bar tablecloths). So our invites focused on these colors. I wanted them to look both elegant and countryside-lovely. Shelby chose the two fonts, which were beautiful; we used these everywhere, including on the program and the favors (more on that later).


There were a few pieces enclosed: the invite and response card, both letterpressed; a map that Shelby drew and scanned and I printed (individually, and they were double-sided, which meant each had to be fed through twice. And then I cut them with a paper cutter, and then Shelby neatened those cuts with her exacto blade. If I could do it over again, I would pay the extra whatever to have them printed!); and a brunch invitation (the latter two not letterpressed). Originally the brunch invitation was going to be a white design printed on the marigold background, but the printer expressed reservations about being able to match the yellow, so we wound up just going with gray on white. I was worried this was too funereal but Shelby and I made a gray-and-white sign for the guest book at the wedding, which we matted on a marigold background, so in my head, everything ties together.


I tied the pieces together (erm, literally, in this case) with orange-marigold raffia that I bought at JamPaper on Fifth Ave. You can just see the response card in this photo. Its design was identical to the brunch invite.


I didn't use an inner envelope thinking that by flaunting tradition I was being eco-friendly. Some of our invites, though, arrived at their destination with the ink having bled or smudged. If I could go back in time, I would use inner envelopes after all. I worked so hard on these that it breaks my heart that some of our guests got damaged ones.

I addressed the envelopes using a thin pen nib and white calligraphy ink. This was one of my favorite things to do out of the whole wedding planning process, even when the last pen nib got scratchy and I went through ten envelopes just trying to get my grandparents' envelope to look nice. The response cards were stamped with our address, a stamp I had made by LoveToCreateStamps on Etsy. I also stamped our address on the back flap of the return envelope.


I was kind of sad to mail them, I must admit! In fact, Chris had to take them to the post office for me!

Our love is here to stay

Our first night in Paris we walked from our hotel to the Notre Dame and thence into the outskirts of the Marais, where we had dinner. Along the way we strolled by the Seine.

Peachy keen

I thought I would DIE if I couldn't buy this dress. (We are on a shopping hold at the moment in our household, so even the fact that ModCloth is comparable in cuteness to Anthropologie, but at a quarter of the price, doesn't really fly.)

Then I saw that the lace doesn't continue onto the back, so I guess I won't die, but I WILL have to take to my bed with a hankie and smelling salts.

Moving right along, footloose and fancy free!

I changed my mind; I think I'd like to wait for the official photos to do more wedding recaps, PLUS I think everyone is tired of hearing about weddings. I'm going to make this blog a little more casual, a little more "pretty things" and "books I'm reading" and "funny things that happened to me on the subway" and "what I baked this weekend."

Also, I joined Twitter, so if you are on, follow me at lauralovesbooks.

Wedding recap: site.

I might as well get the wedding recaps out of the way so I can start with the business of the rest of my life :) Since the wedding, I've cut myself off from wedding blogs cold turkey. It's 99% a massive relief, but there's a little part of myself that's kind of wistful about seeing how various other bloggers' weddings turned out. When we landed in Charlotte from Paris, I saw that the new Martha Stewart Weddings was out, so of course I had to look to see if Grace from Design*Sponge's wedding was featured (it was, and it was gorgeous, and confirmed my decision to stop reading wedding blogs: there are an infinite number of perfect weddings, and I'm just going to sit back and be happy with my own) and Chris had a minor fit when he saw that I was reading a wedding magazine.

Wow, how many more times can I type the word "wedding" in one paragraph?

So most of the photos I'm putting up are borrowed from friends' Facebook albums; I'll credit our official photographer when I use hers. We took Chris's laptop to France and our first hotel had free wireless, so of course we had to log on at the end of each day to see what people were posting :) Sometimes the Internet is fun, after all.

I'll start with choosing our location. It's a bit blurry to remember--this was summer 2008--but we decided on Virginia because to do it in New York City meant all our families would have to travel; East Hampton, where Chris's mom lives, was a bit too pricey for us; and northern Maine, where Chris's dad's family lives, is very remote and would be difficult to travel to. Still, it was a tough call because all of those places would make lovely wedding settings. (We didn't consider a destination wedding for one second--it just wasn't something we wanted to do.)

Once we decided upon Virginia, it took us a few months to stumble across Lake Ritchie. We checked out various plantations, manor homes, bed & breakfasts, and other wedding "plug-and-play" sites, as Chris termed them. They all shared whopping price tags and a certain blandness that we weren't crazy about. Then Kristen, our photographer, mentioned Lake Ritchie to my mom. She had shot a wedding there that had been gorgeous even though it had poured rain. We drove out one early fall weekend to check it out, and we were convinced fairly quickly.

All that's there is a lake and a pavilion with a kitchen and two bathrooms, so it's definitely a Bring In The Troops kind of location. It's not something with a website--it's a lady who rents out the family land now and again. But it was gorgeous. It was exactly the unpretentious, naturally beautiful setting we had hoped for, wanting to show all our guests just what we love about Virginia.

We rented a tent, tables and chairs, brought in a caterer, and had our cake delivered. Otherwise, the wedding was put together by me and Chris, our families and bridal party, and run by the amazing Cole & Jeremy, two of our best friends. We couldn't have done it without them. To anyone planning your own wedding: you DO need a Day-Of Coordinator. I resisted that idea too, thinking I could do it all myself, but without Cole there, I would have been a nervous wreck. And so many of our other friends chipped in that day, too, helping to set up and take down. Thanks, guys. I would do the same for you in a heartbeat, even though I wish you hadn't had to lift a finger.

Finally--we were so lucky (blessed, honestly) with the most beautiful weather. It was a sunny, blue-skied day in the mid-70s, not a cloud to be seen. According to the news anchors the days leading into it there was a 0% chance of rain, which would have relieved my mind considerably if I hadn't already made the decision not to worry about it. Hooray for sunny outdoor weddings!

And for ravishing sunsets!

In the meantime...

Before I get back to steadier posting, our photographer posted a sneak peek of our wedding photos on her blog...if you are interested, of course.

Back!*

*Well, in airport purgatory in Charlotte. But back on US soil, that is to say. What an awesome trip. Details soon.