P.S. Save the Date

As I talked about here, we are doing postcards for our Save the Dates (unfortunately we don't get to save on postage because we chose over-sized postcards - reduced postage only applies to standard sized postcards).

As a reminder, here is the back side of our postcard.  Our return address was also printed in the upper left-hand corner (I just cropped it off, so I could post it on here).

The challenge was addressing the post-cards.  We were considering two options: (1) hand-writing the addresses or (2) buying the clear stick-on address labels that we could print the addresses on.  Looking for the easy way out, we had settled on option 2, but weren't sure if the labels would look tacky.

Then, my fiance came to the rescue with his brilliant idea.  Why don't we just print directly onto the postcards.  Why didn't we think of it sooner?  However, the postcards were too thick (we ordered the heaviest cardstock option so that it wouldn't get destroyed in the mail) and we couldn't get them to run through our printer.  Even better idea - have someone do it for us.  We took our Save the Dates and our list of addresses over to Office Max and told them what they wanted.  They said it wasn't a problem at all and that they would have them done in 1 day.  All we had to do was provide the addresses in an excel document and they did the rest.

And is was surprisingly inexpensive.  (Drumroll please....) It cost us $3.57 to have addresses printed on all 50 of our Save the Dates!  Maybe this will also work for the wedding invitations.  Fingers- crossed.

Testing, 1,2,3, Testing

Our wedding website is up and running.  We started our project by looking through all of the wedding sites:  weddingwire.com, theknot.com, etc.  However, we discovered that nothing was really customizable, it was all too "cookie cutter" for us.  So after about a weeks worth of work, we were able to design our own site using Google Sites and we are so glad that we did.  The site turned out just how we wanted it to and we have received so many compliments on it.

Feel free to check out our site here!  Anything I should add or change?  Let me know what you think.

What we've included on our site so far:

• Welcome
• Ceremony & Reception (grouped together because they are at the same venue and immediately follow each other)
• Our Proposal Story
• Engagement Pictures (I wanted to do a slideshow, but am still in the process of figuring it out.  For now it's just a bunch of inserted pictures)
• Information for our Guests: directions, hotels, transportation, parking, and things to do
• Also inlcuded a Thank You to our guests along with a map of the U.S. with a pin for each guest to show where everyone would be traveling from!
• Music Requests
• Our Registries
• Guest Book

What about you?  What does your site look like?  What did you include.  I would love to check it out!    If you'd like to share feel free to post the link to your site below!  

CHA-CHING

So, I finally made the decision on the dress.  I am buying the one that I found online from preownedweddingdresses.com.  The dress itself is only going to cost me $800 (literally half of the original price).  I am so excited about this great deal!

AND I am ecstatic about the corset back.  If you recall my previous post about this dress, I was worried that it had a corset back because I had only tried on the dress with the zipper back.  However, I was able to find someone that had tried the dress on with the corset back and they sent me the picture below.

I LOVE the corset back, I think it just adds the the "princess-y" feel of the dress.  I can't wait to get my dress and try it on.



And now that I have a dress with a corset back, I MUST have this picture of the rings on the day of the wedding.  I saw it before, but completely discounted it because I had no plans of getting a dress with a corset back. I am so glad that I changed my mind.  :-)

I Do (Want You to Marry Us)

My fiance and I are beyond relieved to have found a reverend to marry us.  I am Catholic and he is Jewish, so we knew that we wanted to do an interfaith ceremony, but didn't know how to find someone willing to do it.  Thankfully, we discovered A Beautiful Affair of the Heart.  They are a group of ministers and officiants that all work together and conduct Celebrant weddings.  From the research I've done, this means that they conduct civil-secular, non-denominational  religious, spiritual, and multicultural ceremonies.  Loosely translated, they will basically do whatever you want done in the ceremony and incorporate aspects from whatever religion(s), culture(s), etc. that you want.   

This is exactly what we were looking for.  We've gone from being stressed about the ceremony, to being extremely excited.  We can't wait to work with our reverend to design our ceremony.  We will receive a survey that we need to fill out individually to help the reverend get to know us better and to provide him with a starting point for the ceremony. 

Are you having a non-traditional wedding ceremony?  Let's hear about it!

Something old, something new, something pre-owned?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am considering buying a wedding dress from preownedweddingdresses.com.  The store price for my dress is $1600 after taxes.  The seller on the site is asking for $800, so I could get my dress for literally half the price!!  According to the information on the dress it is a sample dress that the seller had bought, but ended up finding another dress.  It is new with tags and still in the bag that she got it in.  No alterations have been made to it.  I also e-mailed the seller to ask about any stains, tears, etc. (especially make-up stains near the top of the dress).  She responded back and said that the dress is in, "pristine condition" and that she couldn't find a single mark or tear, etc.  Everything sounds great, but you still never know.  What do you think?  Any other ladies out there that have gone pre-owned?  Tell me about your experience!

To Buy or Not to Buy?

So here's the deal.  You already know that I found THE dress: Alfred Angelo Style 217 (the premium Belle dress).   When I tried the dress on in the store it had a zipper back, so I didn't even consider any other option.  However, I found THE dress, new with tags and in the bag, on sale on preownedweddingdresses.com for exactly half of the price of buying it in store.  I can get the dress for only $800!!  The only problem is that it has a corset back instead of the zipper and I don't know how I feel about it.  Time to make a decision....any thoughts?