Please Don't Do A Plain White Invitation. Please.

BE BOLD, NOT BORING!

I consider myself a wedding expert. Not because I've been married a million times, but I have been to about a million weddings. And about 90% of those had plain white or ecru boring invitations with very generic script type that you could barely read. Oh, and that silly piece of tissue paper (we are not in the olden days of fresh-dipped ink, we don't need that anymore).


Please, just say no. Don't do the boring invites. Again, this is your chance to inject yours and your fiance's personality into your wedding and make another impression on your guests to set the tone.


I once received an invitation from a journalist and her writer fiance. The card was designed so the front of it looked like a newspaper with the headline of "Katie Gets Her Scoop!" So fun, and so them.


It took us a few months of number crunching and passing ideas back and forth over a glass of wine. Since my husband is an amazing videographer and editor, we wanted to include some sort of DVD. A lot of invitees knew either my husband or myself, but not necessarily both of us, so it was a good way for everyone to get to know us a little better.


We finally pulled it all together and ended up with the world's best invitation (yes, I'm biased)! The navy blue envelopes, silver Avery labels with our logo, and "celebrate" stamps on the outside tied it together with the save the date cards.


When it was opened, there was one of our engagement pics on the CD cover. The album title, "Open Doorways" tied in with the pic and was also symbolic for the big life adventure we were venturing into. We tied in our colors of navy and dark red, along with the logo/date that was created for us by the amazing Matt Davis.

The case opened up to reveal the details, another photo, and a DVD that was designed to look like an old record. The RSVP postcard and things to do/places to stay cards were sized to slip inside the case. Behind the DVD is another rockin' retro engagement pic taken at the infamous Jake's in downtown Portland, and there was also a black and white pick on the back cover.

So what was on the DVD, you ask? Well, I'll get back to you when my husband has the link fixed.  :)

Save The Date...And Save Your Budget for Your Wedding

FIRST IMPRESSIONS...

You're engaged, congratulations! So when's the big day? It's only courteous to send your guests, especially those who live out-of-town and have to make travel arrangements, a "save the date" notice. This can be anything, a postcard, magnet, or even a email if you're having a small, casual wedding.

Whatever you do for your save the dates, make sure you think it through because this will be the first thing your guests see and it will set the tone, whether it's casual, formal, indoors or out.

We did double-sided postcards using a photo from our venue on one side, and an engagement photo on the other. A designer friend of ours pulled my idea together graphically and I simply uploaded the files to my new favorite printing site, overnightprints.com. For a relatively small amount of money, I got a stack of "designer" save the date cards! (Tip: search online for a coupon code, sign up for their emails, and friend them on Facebook for extra savings).

I also ordered custom envelopes in one of our colors, navy blue. Check out jampapers.com if you are looking for unique colors, sizes, or styles of envelopes. I also ordered and used "celebrate" stamps from USPS.com (I couldn't handle using the overly mushy lovey dovey ones they normally have at the post office).

Because the envelopes were dark, I used a silver Sharpie to address them (note: be prepared to go through a lot of Sharpies because the rough paper makes the tip of them blunt quickly). For the final touch, I used our wedding logo on silver Avery inkjet labels and ta-da! A beautiful package to send out as a preview of what was to come!

Building a Bigger, Better (and Cheaper) Centerpiece

JUST SAY 'NO' TO FLOATING ROSES AND CANDLES

It's inevitable. Right after being asked about your dress, your colors, and how many bridesmaids you're having, one of your artsy-fartsy friends will ask, "what are your centerpieces going to be?" Wow. You hadn't started thinking about that yet....


While planning, I spent hours thinking about all the weddings I had attended and their centerpieces, looking through magazines, and analyzing my venue and the theme/feel I wanted it to have. I wanted to improve upon centerpieces I had seen at weddings before because some were just way too large and gawdy – those ended up just being visually overwhelming and frankly, got in the way of conversing with the person across the table from you. Some were underwhelming (a few tealights strewn with glitter on a table, which seemed disproportionate). And some were just yawners – another round bowl vase with floating rose petals? Sigh.


When planning your centerpieces, ask yourself these questions: (1) How many will you need? Do you need them for just guest tables, or do you want extras for the guest book table, entry way, cake table? (2) What is your budget? (3) What feeling do you want to come across?


If you're on a budget, look around your house at what you already have, or what your friends have already used and have in storage. Chances are one of you has a box of unique candle holders, vases, or something else. I happened to have a couple of cake stands.


As I looked through magazines and collected ideas, I loved how elegant cake stands looked in various settings. And since my husband is a musician and we both love a variety of music genres, we combined those things. I gathered old vinyl records from our collection, Goodwill, and eBay. They all had fun love/wedding themed titles to them. We also gathered mismatched crystal cake stands and plates (for these, I used Super Glue for glass and put an upside down crystal candle holder on the bottom for the stand part), then placed the records on top. I found some great long-burning tealights at IKEA in clear cups (these are larger than normal tealights and burn longer and brighter). Fortunately, they had red ones on the clearance rack so I cleared out their stock!

Once the ballroom was converted for the reception, the cake stands were placed on top of colored napkins, topped with the tealights, and sprinkled with red and white crystal stones from Michael's (this took several visits, one package & 50% off coupon at a time...). Very unique, retro, personal and cheap. For our table, we did a double-decker stand with two vinyl records...one was from my husband's former band and the other was Elvis.

Here are a couple of close up shots to give you a better look.
 
I've also seen some simply beautiful centerpieces made out of unique natural materials, such as curly willow spray painted white for a winter wedding, moss-covered bird nests with eggs for outdoor weddings, floating corks at a vineyard wedding, and simple large glass vases filled with bright colored fruit such as lemons, limes or pears. All beautiful, and most of all, simple. The pictures below are from my friends Scott & Julie's wedding at a lovely winery here in Oregon.
 
In short, do what you want! Do what you can afford. And do something no one will forget.

New Year's Resolutions...

IT'S MARCH, BUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!

I've been saying for awhile that I'm going to continue our blog as sort of a "how to" guide for other couples to plan a fabulous wedding, on a budget, but with a little creativity. I'll share some photos from our wedding, some advice on where to look for inspiration, and also how to just enjoy the planning and creating as much as you will enjoy your actual event!

Everyone tells you to start out the wedding planning with a budget, which is great. But I'll be your only honest friend who will tell you that the budget will pretty much get tossed out the window about a month in. Anything with the word "wedding" or "bride" in front of it is priced twice as much as it's worth, and as soon as you refine your "A" guest list, it will expand twicefold out of guilt! Just keep things within reason, try to pay for as much as you can as you go along, and let your gut be your guide.

So now...where to start...flowers? That's what every bride stresses about and they are expensive! No kidding. Some florist is going to hate me for saying this but really? You hold your bouquets for photos and the ceremony, then you toss them aside. They have to look good for 1-2 hours max. When looking at my budget and deciding where to cut in lieu of having to spend more $$ on my dress than I had planned, I nixed this category first. Here's some advice: if your venue is charming and pretty on it's own, don't bother with flowers! Use other things for centerpieces (I used cake platters, vinyl records, tealights and crystals, but I'll describe those more in an upcoming piece). Don't worry about big 'ol poufy flower-towers by the alter – less is more!

Here's my one word for you when it comes to flowers: Costco. Seriously. They have gorgeous roses, I think about $15.99 for 2 dozen. You can get a cheap bunch ahead of time to practice with, but I recommend getting them 2 days before your wedding. I bought mine Friday, kept them in a big bucket with water in the cool, dark garage until working on them Saturday morning, and they were the perfect amount of open! My bridal bouquet was 15 roses. My amazing friend Kerensa and my mom practiced and finessed taping wired crystal cubes that I got from JoAnn's (going multiple times and using a coupon every time) to some of the rose stems. Then we bundled those together, taped all the stems together, and wrapped the bouquet in silver satin ribbon to match my dress (the instructions for the pearl pins and twisty knots are in a fabulous book, I'll get the name of it later). We topped it off with a tulle ribbon bow and rose-shaped crystal jewelry charm from Michael's. Leave the bottom of the stems clear for several inches (or don't wrap the ribbon until the day of the ceremony) as you'll need to keep the bouquet in water and/or a refrigerator.

Ta-da! Ahhh...mazing! The extra sparklies against the dark red just popped in the photos.

As for my maid of honor, flower girl, and the groom's girls (my husband's daughters), we did smaller versions of my bouquet. My maid of honor had 10 roses in her bouquet (with 5 crystals and darker silver ribbon), the younger ladies each had 5 flowers & a crystal in the middle. We also taped a folded over piece of ribbon to floral wire, and inserted those into the bouquets to add a little visual interest.


Our mothers had small wristlets with a piece of ribbon, an antique-looking crystal charm, and one rose that had a pearl pin in the center of the bloom. You can buy cool beaded bracelets with a plastic flower holder clip at Michaels to use as a base for these corsages.

The guys had bouttonieres with a rose, folded over pieces of ribbon, contrasting bow and one rosebud. We only did them for the groom, our fathers, and Rev Kev. I figured the ring bearer really didn't care if he had one or not....

We did all this with three bundles of roses from Costco. This allowed a few extras, just in case, which was good because some stems broke easily.

Here's a photo of my chief floral designer and wedding MVP, Kerensa. She had the nimble fingers & patience to coordinate all of the ideas in my head into actuality. And best of all, she made sure they got to the venue without me having to worry!

Thank You!

SO MUCH FUN!

Wow, hard to believe that the wedding has come and gone, as did the honeymoon, and now we're back to normal (whatever that is).

We are still so ecstatic about the wedding, how much fun we had, and all of the amazing people that came to share our special day with us. We are truly lucky to be surrounded by so many friends and family.

If you were at the reception, you know that my super-talented husband Dan produced a couple of amazing videos to show. Because that's what he does...great shows! In conjunction with Brett Eichenberger and an amazing team including Rick Terletzky (who played Dan) and Sophia Brown (who played Kristy), this movie trailer kicked off the show. Please click here to watch and enjoy!

After that came "The Story of Dan & Kristy," a project that was years in the making. Dan worked so hard coordinating not only photos and video of us, but many of our friends and family (which is no easy task). He wouldn't let me see either of these videos until the reception, and I loved watching it for the first time there. The end product was nearly 20 minutes and with so much edited out, I can't wait for him to get time to pull bloopers from our shots and yours, too. Click here to watch "The Story of Dan & Kristy."

To see some amazing photos from the wedding by Holland Studios, click here.

More to come soon!

Game On!

2.5 DAYS TO GO!

Keep thinking that we're forgetting something. We're making lists and checking them twice...but all is well and on track for the wedding of the year!

News flash: wedding parking will be available at The Portland Clinic, directly across the street from the West End Theater. There will be a sign, but parking is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis. There is also street parking, a lot behind the theater, and other nearby parking garages that are reasonably priced.

The address again is:
West End Theater
1220 SW Taylor Street
Portland OR

We're so excited to see you there!

2 WEEKS TO GO!

Hard to believe that in 14 days, the wedding thing is going down! I think that's what I'm most excited about (besides marrying Dan, of course). But I can't wait to see all our friends and family and to celebrate with you. We have a fun night planned and look forward to just having a great time. Everything else has fallen into place and I keep re-checking my lists, so I feel like I'm forgetting to do something?!? Guess I'll know soon enough.

See you real soon!

But Why Can't I?!?!

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS
With a little over a month left to go, it's the small things in life that make me laugh. And this Converse ad did it for me. And since I'm the bride, there is only one time in my life that I CAN pick our people's shoes! Right, Heather?

Thank You, Thank You Very Much!

HAPPY ELVIS-VERSARY!

Can you believe it's been one year since that crazy day in Vegas when a Giant Elvis came strolling down the Strip singing and Dan proposed to me at the base of the Eiffel Tower? "Only in Vegas!" took on new meaning for us that day.

We are just a little more than a month out from the big day. It seemed so far away when we first started talking about it, but now I'm more excited than ever to say "I Do!" to my best friend.

My dress is in (it was originally scheduled to arrive a mere two weeks before the wedding), the marriage license & certificate are in hand, and the final walk-through of the venue is scheduled. Dan is working away on his "epic wedding video" and although I can't wait to see it, I also can't wait to have the paparazzi following me around 24/7...!

Stay tuned, while more details are being finalized, we are saving the best ones to surprise all of you.

Remembering Our Friend Chris Hanson

I found this awesome sketch that our friend Chris Hanson did right after our engagement. Coincidentally, Chris and his wife Lili got married in Vegas by the same Giant Elvis that helped Dan & I get engaged. We miss you, Chris!

MY 'BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S' BRIDAL SHOWER

I HAVE THE BEST FRIENDS & FAMILY!

I loved my bridal shower! Of course it was a fun theme (my favorite movie, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), but I loved seeing everyone dressed up in their gloves and pearls and best Audrey Hepburn outfits! For several of the young ladies, this was their first bridal shower. One of them even told her mom that she wants a shower just like it when she gets married someday.

Thank you to everyone who came, it was truly unforgettable. And special thanks to my best friend Heather, my Mom, and Heather's mom Sharon who put it all together...from long distance. I love you all and can't wait to have more fun at the wedding. 51 days and counting!

Dan Weighs In..Finally

LET'S MAKE THIS QUICK

Hello...I'm not good at this. This is like that movie "Throw Momma From a Train," where Billy Crystal starts to write a book and all he can manage is "The night was..." and then writer's block sets in. Where should I start?

So, sorry that I haven't blogged as of yet. My beautiful bride-to-be asked me to blog and I thought she said "frog" so I just spaced out and let it go, not knowing what the Hell she was talking about. This happens often.

As we get closer to the big day ahead, I just want you all to know that I'm jittery, nervous, and mostly anxious and happy all at once. I have to admit that it actually seems like this event is still worlds away even though it's right around the corner. I suppose the fact that Kristy is doing all the heavy lifting is the reason why I am going about my day-to-day activities as though nothing will go wrong.

So much for blogging, I'll try to write something with a little more depth down the road. Then again, maybe I won't. Either way, I will write something but until then, thanks for reading and I'll look forward to seeing you at the wedding. –Dan

The Countdown Is On!

By now, you should have received your invitation and have hopefully enjoyed the Dan Pred Special Production (DVD). We had a lot of fun planning and producing it, and we'll never look at lime green or think of Donny & Marie the same ever again....If you want to view the invitation video online, click here.

I am so excited about seeing my BFF Heather, family, and friends next weekend for my shower. So much to do before then, like finishing up the wedding favors so that I can clean off the dining room table. I'm halfway there ("living on a prayer!"). The garage is piling up quickly with boxes of centerpieces, cake platters, favors, etc. And our closet is filling up with the girls' dresses, shoes, and accessories. And yes, somehow, the Vegas Chapel of Elvis is sounding more appealing by the minute! Just kidding. As much fun as that would be, it wouldn't be the same without all of you to enjoy the moment with us and to dance the night away.

"The Checks Are in the Mail!"

PLEASE EXCUSE THE DELAY

You know what they say about best-laid plans...our first wedding "detail derailment" has happened, so please be patient with us. The invitations were all signed, sealed and ready to deliver this morning, but then we discovered that the best part – the DVDs that Dan worked so hard on – were blank! So the duplication company is making good, reprinting and re-doing them all, new envelopes and stamps are ordered, and they should make it in the mail later this week if all goes well!

We can assume that if you're visiting this website, then you already know most of the details about when and where to show up for the wedding anyway, right?

Rolling Right Along

UPDATES

Well, wedding plans are humming right along. We (by that I mean me, Kristy!) managed to procrastinate right on through the holidays into the new year. I had good excuses, though...moving, trying to sell my Tigard house, my grandmother passing away, and the crazy holidays while working in retail, of course.

Once the new year hit, sheer panic kicked in and I've been spending all of my spare moments working on wedding stuff. I was reprimanded by the bridal store ladies in January for not dress shopping 6 months earlier. They informed me that I would "probably have to settle for something off the rack." My response was that if we had a bridal dress outlet at Woodburn, I would have much rather shopped there, so "off the rack" didn't bother me. And I did continually check the BCBG & White House | Black Market outlet for months, but I didn't find exactly what I was looking for in my original price range. FYI, I did end up ordering my gown and with the rush fee, it should arrive exactly two weeks before the wedding!

We are currently working on all the pieces to the invitations and in true Kristy & Dan form, they will be one-of-a-kind, hence why they will probably not get assembled and mailed until the first week of March if all goes well. The favors, decor, catering, event script, music, and all that other coordination is under control. And I've realized that if I run out of time to get something done that I originally planned...well, it's likely that no one will notice except me. The most important thing is that we'll have all our family and friends there to share our wedding with us. Ok, who am I kidding, you're really all coming for the beer, wine and Hit Machine, right?