Reminder: Book A Room!

Just wanted to put up a reminder about hotel rooms for our wedding. The deadline to book a room at the reserved rate is TOMORROW (9/29). If you do not book by then, you may not get a room, and if you do get a room, you'll likely pay a lot more.

The wedding is open bar, so a hotel room may be a great option for those traveling any distance. We will also have cab numbers available at the bar (cars may be left at the venue until the morning following the wedding). The hotel is also green line accessible from the Chestnut Hill T stop (about .25 of a mile from the reception).

Click here to visit the hotel's website, and remember to mention our names when booking!

Rehearsal Dinner Attire

So I had been stalking this BCBG dress at Macy's for quite some time. I'm at the Natick Collection far more often then I should be, so I'd stop by and visit the dress, think about buying it, look at the price tag, make pained expressions, and leave empty-handed.

Thankfully, Macy's has sales all the time (the number one reason it was the only store we registered at). My mother forwarded me the "big sale" email and we made a date to go last Saturday after my 1,278 dress fitting.

To my complete dismay - my adorable little petal dress was no where to be found! I panicked. Really. Deer in headlights. It was just such a perfect dress with the organza layering and bubbled satin skirt - exactly what I was looking for (and the skirt even has hidden pockets!). The sales lady was no help, throwing out "we get new things in all the time."

To my amazement, we found ONE dress on the clearance rack - AND it was in my size! If that's not fate I don't know what is! To top it off, we got the dress at around 60% off! (Macy's is all out, but you can still find the dress at Nordstroms).

We then headed to DSW to find MOB and MOH shoes - had great success on the MOH front! And I found these adorable Bandolino heels with leather flowers on the toes - a perfect mate for the dress! Of course, they were also on sale - I think I got an additional 30% off the clearance rack price. I can't find the shoes anywhere online, but if you are looking for them, the name is "Heartbreak" - too cute :).

Something Orange!

Here are my orange shoes! Don't they look great? I'm so excited to wear them!

If you recall, shoes were a tough decision for me. Mostly because I'd prefer to run barefoot every day if possible :). My original shoes were adorable little lace slides from Coloriffics. It became apparent to me that they were just a little too adorable. As in, delicate, as in, I will break them.

So - what to do? I had already spent the most I've EVER spent on a pair of shoes in my life on my "second" pair of shoes for the reception (details coming soon) - so I really didn't want to throw away MORE money on yet another pair.

Well, thankfully - I had an option already in play. For my sister's wedding, we all got dyeable shoes. And I really liked the shoes I got - they were comfortable, I wore them all night without complaints. She picked a great blush pink color that was easy to re-dye. So I had them dyed orange!

I got the shoes from Shoes To Dye For in Natick - can't say enough good things about them. The girl actually dyed them on the spot for me, so I took them home that day!

I know no one will be able to see these unless I lift up my dress, but I just love them!

Lucky Find: Pajamas!

So my brother and I were at the mall last week, picking up his tux for our sister's wedding, when we took a stroll through Old Navy. Admittedly, we were there to look at super hero t-shirts (which, they only have for guys, boo!). They always have fun Halloween stuff, and my brother spied these great pajama pants! Skulls AND hearts? How perfect! I grabbed a pink tank to make a set - I'm going to wear them the night before the wedding to sleep in (If I get any sleep that is, ha! I don't know if I can get my brain to slow down the day before the wedding!).

I've heard they also have skull boxer shorts - I HAVE to get FI a pair to wear on the wedding day! Especially since the groomsmen are in skull ties, but he's wearing ivory! He won't be left out of the fun!

DIY: Invitations

They are finally done and in the mail! These invitations took forever - but I'm happy with how they came out.

Everything was designed in InDesign and Photoshop. The damask pattern is from fotolia. The custom pocketfolds were printed at Braintree Printing. Then I hand embossed our monogram on the inside flap using a custom stamp from Simon's Stamps, embossing powder, and a heat gun.

Next, I folded everything up and glued together the flap making a pocket. I printed the insert cards (RSVPs are personalized with every guests' name) and envelopes at home, and round-corner punched every insert. The paper and envelopes came from the Paper Mill Store. All of this went into the pocket, then I folded everything together and tied the package with a double-faced satin ribbon (pre-cut and finished from A.C. Moore) in a simple knot. This can easily be slipped on and off.

Then I printed A8 stardream metallic orange inner envelopes with our names and date, and we lined them in black paper. Orange envelopes are from Cordenons Fullfillment, envelope liners are from Mountiancow (I think these were the biggest pain of all!).

Last, all of the pieces were slipped into a larger black mailing envelope, A9 size from Paper-Source. The outside were hand calligraphered by A Fine Letter (In the interest of privacy, I don't have a photo of this, but they did an amazing job, great service, fantastic prices and quick turnaround - I highly recommend them!). We finished the invites with seals on the back with our names and return address, labels also from Paper-Source, and a .61 cent wedding cake stamp!

I can't wait to start getting RSVPs back in the mail!

*Side-note, the invite pictured is FI's grandmother who passed away a few weeks ago. I'm keeping it as a treasured keepsake in her memory.

A Beautiful Day for a Wedding

And what a beautiful bride!

My younger sister (aka, Shushka, read her yummy food blog here!) got married this past Friday. It was a gorgeous day - sunny and mild with barely a cloud in the sky.

It was a wonderful wedding, and she was the most beautiful bride I've ever seen in my life. She was glowing!

I was honored to participate as a bridesmaid. FI and I clean up nicely :)

One of the coolest things about the wedding was the cake! They took the invitation I designed, which used a traditional khokhloma design that I had modified and added birds to, and developed it into a cake design. Very rarely do graphic designers get to see their creations come to life like that! So cool! The cake was done by Konditor Meister - who is also doing our cake!

I also framed an invitation as one of our gifts to the couple:

I still can't believe my little sister is married! And I can't believe we're next! 53 days and counting!