Big Week Coming Up!

I am super excited because this week I have a job interview on Wednesday and my mom will be flying in on Friday. Friday we are going to A'Lamour in Barrington IL and Vanessa's Modern Bride in Arlington Heights IL. I have an appointment at Macy's on State Street for Sunday but may cancel since I am really not looking to spend 2,000 bones on a dress.

I am hoping to find the dress, not that I am running out of time by any means but I would just love to have that decision made. Dress shopping hasn't been my favorite so far, it is just such a bummer the dresses are so teeny and there is still too much poof and too much bead/sparkles/lace for my taste. So if anyone has any good Chicago (or surrounding area) experiences to share please let me know since it will be on to round 3 if this weekend doesn't produce a winner.

SO FAR this is the dress I like (BTW this is not me in the dress, I found the pictures on the knot, she is trying to sell her dress, never worn, but in size 4, so if any of you teeny brides need a dress you can buy this one here)


I really like the v-neck style but haven't seen a whole lot out there, it is all strapless, strapless, strapless which I like too but feel the v-neck is more flattering and maybe more unique.

BBQ Invites - Goocofied

Here are some final Gocco pics of our BBQ invites. It was a little difficult at first but I think that had a lot to do with us wanting so many different colors and lining the circles up so they fit into each other. Hope you like them!

Putting ink on screen #1, the grey stuff is supposed to keep the colors from bleeding over.

What the invite looks like after screen #1 is printed.

Once the cards dried, this takes an hour or two, we printed on top of the cards with screen #2

You can see it took us a few tries before we could get the circles to line up exactly right.

TA DA! Finished product.

Gocco Sneak Peak

Last night we finally opened up the Gocco! Here is a sneak peak of our project, I will post more pictures over the weekend.

Pre-Wedding or Pre-Reception Snack?

I was perusing the archives at weddingbee and came across these fun posts. It got me to thinking, maybe we should offer a pre-wedding or maybe pre-reception snack. We are allowed to bring snacks and beverages on the trolley and although it is a short trolley ride it might be fun to offer guests a little snack. It could either be on the ride to the church or on the ride to the reception venue. Any thoughts? If you were a guests would you appreciate a little snacky snack or is it unnecessary? The ceremony would begin around 4:30 which is pretty prime snacking time if you ask me, maybe a pair of cookies, choco covered pretzels, popcorn, crackers?

Images and idea found on weddingbee, check out these two posts, here and here.

Crafty Fun Time!

My Gocco and Xyron came today! I can't quite show you the Gocco yet since I have to design the screen first but here is my first attempt with Xyro (I gave him a nickname, I am SO clever).

Hi Gocco, I will take you out of the box soon I promise

Cut a strip of paper, exciting!

Feed Xyro!

Cut to size, attach to stick, pour yo' self a drink!

I think I want the flags a little skinnier, less square, but it is a start! I also think the repositionable sticky cartridge for Xyro is the way to go, the permanent doesn't work for me, if you don't line it up exactly there is no going back.

Project DIY: Episode 6

I am SO pumped for my Gocco and my Xyron to arrive, I will make sure to post any projects when they happen, but for now (as always) I just have a ton of ideas. One DIY idea I am especially excited about is drink flags and cupcake flags. The Xyron will definitely come in handy for this.

Episode 6 (and 6 1/2): Drink Flags and Cupcake Flags

Unfortunately I do not have images for drink flag inspiration but I am sure you get the picture, same deal just on a drink stirrer and not a toothpick. I actually ordered the stir sticks already from Bar Supplies.com, 500 for just $9! I got clear but they do have a few colors available, buy some here.


Now we just have to decide what to write or what image we want on the flags. We have debated for the drink flags doing trivia questions about my fiance and I. Question on the front, answer on the back, it could be a good conversation starter for those who don't know each other well, but then it could be a total flop and come off cheesy so we have to think about that one. For the cupcake flags we may do stripes, or perhaps the verdana design we like so much:

and maybe a simple J & E printed on there somewhere (our first initials). Or I like how in picture two they used several different decorative papers that are all in the same color family. Just pop some paper into the Xyron, cut a cute flag shape out, (or cut first, then insert into Xyron, I will have to see what works better) wrap around toothpick or stir stick, stick two sides together and viola, instant flag awesome-ness!

What do you think would be a cute design or saying to put on either a drink or cupcake flag?

Images: 1 &2 The Knot, 3 Notepolish, 4 Broadway Paper

To Buy or Not to Buy...

I came across what I think could be the most perfect bridesmaid shoes ever for our wedding. The problem is we haven't even started to look at dresses yet. I have an idea and a color but nothing even close to finalized. So the dilema, to buy or not to buy?

Those shoes, that color, want some? Get them here (but don't buy too many).

Reasons to buy:

1. They are on sale for the bargain price of 25 dollars.

2. They are the most perfect shade of chartreuse green which will be hard to find elsewhere unless I go the dyeable route but those seem to run in the $60-80 range.

3. They are adorable!

Reasons not to buy:

1. As I mentioned before, no dress yet, who buys the shoes before you have the dress?

Please, I need some input, stat!

Happy (early) Birthday to Me!

I am not going to brag but I might have the best mom ever. My birthday is not until June but she got me an early birthday present, it will be coming from Japan in about 5 days.
Can you guess what it is??

For the Boy

This week they are having a big sale at Carson's, I met my guy for lunch and we checked out the suit section to see what was going on. They had some great suits, most $100 or more off the original price and you can get an additional 20% off by donating an item to Goodwill, but there was nothing we really loved. I admit I got a little tear in my eye seeing him in a suit, so handsome, but is it bad luck to see the suit? Or does that only pertain to the bride?

Did you have a hand in picking out the suit/tux for your guy? Did you see him in it beforehand?


Here are some of the suits I am liking that he hasn't tried on yet:


Images found here: Suit 1, Suit 2, Suit 3, Suit 4

Proud Owner

I am the new owner of a Xyron 510 machine! I just ordered one off (don't laugh they had the best price) HSN.com. It was only 30 bucks which included shipping, I tried e-bay but at 30 bucks you can't beat even e-bay prices and now I don't have to wait and bid and whatever. So exciting! Now I don't really have a specific purpose for this but I am thinking labels galore, it does also laminate and make magnets. Woo hooo.

Eye Candy (yummy fonts)

For all you DIY invite folks here are some great yummy fonts. The first two may look familiar to some of you, let me know if you figure out where you have seen them.

Fonts found: 1 & 2 here, all others here

Eye Candy (yummy invitations)

Images (from top to bottom): Milkmaid Press via i love letterpress, Bella Figura, Weddingbee, Bird and Banner (second time posting about these, i must be in love), Swayspace Letterpress.

First BIG Decision!

Apart from picking a date, ceremony and reception site, we have made no other solid decisions - until NOW! We picked our photographer. My fiance very much enjoys photography so naturally I left this one up to him. We both prefer the documentary style of photography so that at least narrowed it down a bit. I have to say it was a somewhat difficult choice, we had two others that we really loved and would recommend to anyone. Studio This Is (thank you Robin for sending me their info) has beautiful, artistic photographs and also Doug McGoldrick, he could not be nicer and I am sad we will not get to work with him.

With that said, we have picked Dan Chen of Chennergy. We love his style and know the photographs are going to be amazing and just what we were looking for. Here are a few examples of his work or visit his website here. I am so excited!

Project DIY: Episode 5

I realize I haven't been keeping my whole 15 day promise but sometimes these DIY projects irk me just thinking about them when I can't actually start doing anything. If it were up to me I would do everything now and then relax the other 9 months or whatever. My fiance has known me long enough (10 years to be exact) to realize I change my mind, a lot. But...I would think if something were completed that would keep me from changing my mind, no? Well in any case, on with the show!

Episode 5: Table Cards

Originally I did not want table cards, I did not want seating cards. I wanted a very casual sit where you like atmosphere, something feels weird to me about you sit here, you sit there, you sit next to this guy you don't know. However, my mom made a good point, certain people are going to want to sit next to certain people, and instead of making my 87 year old grandmother rush to save seats so she can be next to her son, daughter or grandchildren, the assigned seating was born.

I have two thoughts about the table cards, do we go with something meaningful that shows our personality, or just something simple that serves its purpose. I saw this post on Weddingbee that I thought was super cute but I would have no patience for. I found this card via Bklyn Bride and really like the graphic-iness (nice word!) of it.

Or the other route, we were maybe thinking each table would be named after one of our favorite designers, since my fiance and I are all in to that. Probably simple grey and white images, more of a sketch than photograph so they don't stand out too much. Maybe even the back would tell the history or maybe how it relates to us. Some contenders:

*this is a joke, I would not use the picture of Brange at Fallingwater, we have our own Fallingwater pics however we do not look nearly as glam


What do you think, more personal and playful or should table cards just simply be numbers, serve their purpose, no fuss? Ease Level: Medium

Images found: #1, 2, 5 here, #3 here, #4, here. Also, check out this Weddingbee post on table cards-here.

Trolley Troubles....

So I am not having a whole lot of luck with the trolley vendors in the Chicago area, does anyone have any good recommendations?

I won't name names but one vendor I asked if I could see pictures of two trolleys they listed that weren't shown on their website and they responded with simply their address, thanks. Some others have not been too keen on the idea I want of a "shuttle." If I am paying over $1,000 to rent the thing for 3 hours shouldn't I get to have it go to and fro wherever my little heart desires? And others just simply e-mail once and then when you have questions you never hear back. I do not understand companies who don't provide good customer service, I mean these things aren't cheap! I will say Windy City Trolley has been the best so far and they do have a cute trolley (although not green).

UPDATE: As you can see I am very impatient when it comes to this whole trolley business and have decided to go with trolley #1 from Windy City Trolley, my contact there was very helpful and responsive and to me that is worth so much! Granted no, the trolley is not green (#3 was my favorite style) but nonetheless I am happy with #1, very neutral and cute! Thank you Jaime and John for your suggestions.

Trolley 1: Windy City Trolley, Trolley 2: Elegant Trolleys, Trolley 3: Chicago Wedding Transport