lyrebard

Personally, I almost wore red...only changed my mind for a dress with white in it because it's the color of traditional Mayan wedding clothes and I wanted to give a nod to the place we're getting married. Now, the dress I'm looking at uses white as its base, but has gorgeous, hand-dyed, blue-green silk across the bodice, straps, and back. Color all the way! Someone I work with wore a hand-made red dress for her wedding. She had worked in China, and loved the traditional red Chinese wedding garb. And actually, white as a wedding color only came into style in the mid-1800s. (Wedding dress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) I say, wear whatever color makes you comfortable and happy. Traditions need to be reinvented and reinterpreted every once in a while.

If you go in and ask for first-aid kit refills, they'll send you to the right aisle. Sadly, my local Staples didn't have any (their prices are slightly more, but worth not paying shipping). I asked about it, and they told me that it's only the larger stores that stock these. My nearest OfficeMax is about 10 miles away, and in NYC that's a difficult proposition. =) Just depends on what's around you, which was why I thought I'd just post the link for anyone who might be able to use it. *shrug*

Thanks for the nice feedback; we really enjoyed putting them together. As for the date mix-up, well, since there's no way to fix it now, we figure it's much better to laugh than to bemoan what we can't change. =) Besides, this way we can toast all our guests and thank them for coming all the way to Mexico just to celebrate our one-year anniversary.

Oh, I know. Was just saying they have it all. =) Of course, many of our friends are coming with little ones, so I don't imagine that there will be quite as much alcohol consumption as there might have been a few years ago.

In case anyone is looking for these in bulk (i.e. boxes of 25 packets or more), I just stumbled across some of the best prices I've seen for Advil, Tylenol, Benadryl, Imodium, etc.: Welcome to Northern Safety - For All Your Safety & Industrial Supplies / Northern Safety Co. Listed under First Aid --> Tablets

We designed the programs in Photoshop, and sent them to my friend's mom, who runs a printshop. When I discovered that she had the not-most-updated files, I just led her through the corrections on the phone. But we can't run them again...the paper's all gone, and the invitations are all glued and ready to go out. To change that one date would mean new print paper, new cardstock, AND new pocket folders. They'll just have to go out with the wrong year on them. *shrug* Neither of us take this too seriously, so we're just laughing and mailing them anyway!

Quote: Originally Posted by Just Martha OMG....Your date says 2007 on the invitation! Are they all printed? HAH!!!! Yep, all printed. We had some snafus, and the invite file that I sent the printer was not the most updated one. (In the most updated, I'd realized the date screw-up and fixed it.) When we were going through all the update-changes on the phone, we thought we'd fixed all the pieces...obviously, we didn't! I can't believe we forgot to change the year. That's freakin' hilarious. Guess we're getting married in the past!!

If you're still looking, I just found this one, too. 100% cotton, a number of colors (with white as main color and red/blue/black), and under $4 when you order 24 or more. And this, but they're $4.17 each. At this point, I think I'm listing them as much for me, for when I need to buy them in a month or two, LOL. -L

Quote: Originally Posted by mauraw lauren, those are some of the best DIY invites i have EVER seen! amazing job! i love the pocket folders, were they expensive? Thanks, Maura. =) The pocket folders were from a relatively pricey paper, and I think they were probably the most expensive part of the invite, although I'm not sure of the precise breakdown. The entire invite, including all paper, ribbon, starfish, shredded fill for inside the pillow mailers, and the mailers themselves came to something like $3.80 each. More than I might normally want to spend per invite, but it was worth it to us to use recycled papers. We're trying to do everything as green as possible. =)

Thanks, I really enjoyed putting them together. And Mark and I especially liked that, because the invites aren't formal, we could be playful...as we did with the RSVP response: __ Happily accept __ Regretfully decline __ Regretfully accept __ Happily decline I got the ideas for the invite and bought the paper (the pocketfolds and the cardstock bases came pre-cut, the rest were cut by my printer) from Skywriter invitations. The invite we used as inspiration was the "sandpiper," shown here. However, if you're interested in just the paper, it's a handmade paper that you should probably be able to get from high-end paper stores. A quick search led me to paper that looks an awful lot like what I used. See here: Recycled Lokta Paral Paper

...for anyone who's interested. A few things: It's hard to tell the colors from these pics, but the printing is brown with navy accents on light blue paper. Oh, and we loved the folder-pocket paper because it made us think of sand. Hee! The invites are 95% post-consumer recycled paper (yes, I'm one of THOSE people, lol), and largely DIY. We bought the paper from someone who designs invitations, decided which colors we liked, which ribbon to combine it with, and then bought the starfish off eBay. Then, I designed the different components in Photoshop: invitation, schedule, RSVP, and accommodations (not shown). My friend's mother runs a small print shop, so I sent the Photoshop files off to her, she calibrated the colors, printed them up, and sent them to me. We spent a few hours gluing them all together, and voila! Warning, the pics are a bit big, but I figured that this way you could actually read what everything says. Hope you like 'em! Outside: Inside view: Response cards:

Quote: Originally Posted by nylalany How long did it take you per invitation out of curiosity? I ended up just going for getting them done professionally, but I'm wondering for any other projects I have, how long it'll take per piece, since I have so many freaking guests... Well, you'll be sending out far more than I will, I think. We put together 50 invites (still have 10 more to do, but those will likely go to people who already said they can't come...I'm sending those more out of courtesy, with a note saying that they'll be missed and that we're sending warm thoughts their way). Once the different pieces had been printed, the DIY project consisted of: gluing printed invite to cardstock, gluing that combo to the pocket folder, gluing the flap of the folder up (it came as one long strip), fastening ribbon cuff around the whole deal, and then gluing starfish to the ribbon. We dedicated one Saturday to it, but I'd say that the whole thing was done in about three bursts of 1.5 hours each. Max 5 hours in total. Took much less time than I'd expected! I'll be posting the finished product on here, or can just send you pics, in case you want to see how they turned out. Hope that helps!

Quote: Originally Posted by nylalany lyrebard - those are polyester - is there an advantage or disadvantage to that? I was also hoping for natural vs. white for the main color . But those seem like a great deal if that is what you're going for! What are you putting on them (if you are putting anything on them)? I know, I know, I was looking for cotton too. But from all I found, the cotton (duck canvas) ones with contrast straps are more expensive, because cotton's more expensive. (The polyester ones did have white contrasted with navy blue, royal blue, black, or red, I believe...) Benefit to the polyester with PVC backing is that they're waterproof. That's really the only benefit I can think of... *sigh* And from everything I could find, the "teacher's tote" was synthetic too, as I saw the exact same bag listed on another website that gave more details on the fabric. If you happen to find good ones, please do post the link! I'm still looking, as I won't be ready to buy until I know exactly how many I need. =) Don't know whether I'm going to put anything on them at all, except perhaps a heat-transfer of the turtle symbol that has accompanied some of our save-the-dates and address labels. We want our guests to remember us when they use the bags, but don't want our names plastered all over them. We're self-conscious like that.

Just to add my $0.02 to the glue debate (late, of course, but thought it might be good for posterity/anyone doing a search): when I made my invites, I asked the woman who sold me the DIY kits and she suggested fabric glue, such as "Fabri-Tac". I have to say, I was surprised by how well it worked! It doesn't get paper wet, like most glues do; it doesn't bubble; it lets you slide the pieces around slightly to readjust orientation (unlike tape); it dries really well, and if you get a bead on something you didn't intend to, you can just wait a couple of minutes and it peels right off. We were duly impressed. =)

That's funny, I've been doing the same searches. Found the teacher's tote, also found this one on Amazon.com for $1 less (@ $3.99): Harriton Contrast Tote

Thanks, everyone. I've been to VerseIt.com, and it's quirky but the casual ones are a bit too cute, if that makes any sense? Quirky is okay, rhyming is not (am afraid the boy isn't a fan of rhymes). Looking for...geez, I dunno...something a little sly, a little wise, a little honest. We've been together for over six years, so although the wedding part feels like just a formality to us, everyone else feels it's "about time!" Despite my fruitless searches, I thought maybe someone on here had posted a link to a collection of invite wordings that matched this, something a little more different than a lot of the sites out there. Ack. Why is this so hard? lol.

Hi everyone, In looking for slightly less formal invite wording for our invitations (we want to set a slightly more informal tone), I stumbled across a site that had smart, humorous, but not "cutesy" options. Now that I'm trying to actually write the darn things up, of course, I can't find anything like it and it's driving me NUTS. So I thought I'd ask the search wizards of BDW whether they had any idea what I was talking about. Perhaps I even found the link on here somewhere...? Anyway, some of the examples were along the lines of, but better than: Sue "Wedding Schmedding" Smith and John "They'll Never Take Me Alive" Doe Gleefully invite you to witness the eating of their words. or Sue Smith and John Doe invite you to be there as they pledge to love, honor, and never go to sleep angry. Normally, I have no problem coming up with this stuff (I'm a writer by trade, for goodness sakes!), but I've been staring at this invitation for days and am totally, thoroughly, ridiculously blocked. Help?!?

I just found an amazing resource and had to share. There's a bridal boutique in Manhattan that sells couture dresses by almost any designer you can think of — Vera Wang, Monique Lhuillier, Maggie Sottero, Ulla-Maija, etc. — and all profits go to benefit local children's charities. Most of the dresses are overstock that have been donated by the designers themselves; the remaining, small percentage were donated by brides post-wedding. All of the dresses are 50 to 75% off of retail, and I love the idea that the money I spend could go to help out the kids!! They show their huge stock by appointment only. Check them out: The Bridal Garden Just thought I'd throw it out there, as I had no clue the place even existed until last night. -L

One more thing to think about with iPods: sound equalizing. I've been to a few weddings where the couple had pre-loaded their playlists and the one thing that they hadn't thought to do was to make sure that all the songs had been ripped at the same level. Some songs were too quiet, others too loud, and someone had to continually adjust the volume to account for it. Just my $0.02.

Thanks, Tammy. While the travel part doesn't apply to us (we're not having the ceremony/reception at a hotel), the added vendor fee does. Is it really okay for the coordinator at our reception site to tell us that a band has "raised its fee" and is now $100 more per set than the band itself claimed? I'm especially worried that, if we go with other outside vendors who have to coordinate with her, she'll do the same thing and I'm afraid that these little bits will add up and put us over budget. I just don't think it's fair that she should get a cut for something she really had very little to do with, especially when we're already paying her a coordination fee! I'm not quite sure how to bring this up, nor how to request that we pay the vendors separately. What should we do?

mmmmmm....Vegas. Don't tempt me!!! lol. I have thought about postponing, but we'd still have two problems: 1) scheduling his vacation time will still be difficult, but even more importantly 2) we were scheduling it for June because, since we won't know where we're living and I therefore won't have a job for a little bit (until we get settled), I'll need to leech off his health insurance while I freelance.

Well, we won't know who to ask about rearranging his schedule until March, because he won't know which hospital he'll be at. Does that make any sense? Thus the travel insurance seems primo...more money (ugh), but potentially worth every penny. Some of his friends know people who were able to put off their start dates (getting married, it seems, is one of the only viable excuses they take!), but I don't know if he could postpone for as long as two weeks.... That seems as if it might be pushing it. Whee! Elopement, anyone?

Problem is, the residency-matching program is totally random. Applicants apply to all these schools, and then rank their top choices. The schools rank their top applicants. Then the whole thing gets thrown into a computer that spits out the "best match" for each student, assuming they get matched at all. But he won't know which school he's been matched to until March 17. Thus, he doesn't really have a way to determine whether his new hospital will let him start late, because he doesn't know which hospital it's going to be. Ack! That's a good idea about the trip insurance, though. Thanks, Morgan. I'll check into that right now!

Thanks for the input, everyone. I don't *think* people will lose money. We aren't requiring firm reservations until mid-March, so I don't know that anyone's put money down on anything yet. The likelier scenario is that we'll lose people -- the earlier in June we go, the smaller the chance that our friends in school (both those who teach school and those who go to school) will be able to make it. Of course, just heard back from the photog (the fabulous Matt Adcock), and — as I pretty much expected, given the demand for his time — he's totally booked up through June and can't reschedule us for any time that month. Now, I guess, we just have to think really hard about our needs, wants, and things we'd be willing to give up one way or another. Any additional advice always appreciated.

Hope I'm posting in the right place. I just need input, because I can't think of where else to go for advice on this one. My partner is an MD/PhD student who's slated to graduate June 5th (at long last!). To the best of our knowledge, most residency programs start on July 1, so we scheduled our wedding to take place on June 21 in order to give us time between graduation and wedding, and time between wedding and residency start-date. But the more interviews he goes on, the more scared he gets. Some of these places are asking their new residents to start as early as June 12! And since we won't know until mid-March which program he's been accepted to, we're starting to worry a bit. We obviously chose our date very carefully, according to when we though we could do it and when we thought our loved ones' schedules would permit them to come. We put money down on the venue (a lot of money!), gave a photographer his deposit, and reserved a block of rooms at a hotel. We sent out most save-the-date cards a little less than a month ago. So my etiquette question is: If the venue, photographer, and hotel can accommodate switching us to a week earlier, is it too late to ask our guests to change their schedules? Is it crazy to think about changing ours? I don't even know what to think anymore. I just know I'm too close to the situation to view it rationally. Thanks in advance for the advice!!! -L