Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

Before I go into the detailing our rehearsal dinner and show you the wonderful pictures Chris Hayes Photography captured I want to share with you some of the DIY projects I did.

For the rehearsal dinner invite I used a vintage Philadelphia postcard I bought on Ebay. I found that you can buy vintage postcards as low as a dollar there. I bought quite a few of them because I decided to also use them for my table numbers. (Pssst, I totally stole the idea for using the post card from one of the Elizabeth Anne Design posts.) I scanned the photo in with our home printer (a Canon MP620), used iPhoto to airbrush some of the text off the back, and used IWork Pages to create the text. I thought it was most economical to order through Vistaprint since I had heard so many fab things about it through the blogs and my other bride friends. I winded up upgrading to the linen paper just to give an extra touch of richness. I will say the paper was not as thick as I would have liked, but they were still really great and the price could not be beat.

I decided to also DIY our menus after getting inspiration from a similar idea on the internet. I took childhood photos of Roosevelt and myself from when we were similar ages. Then I imported them into Mac Pages where I overlaid the text (you could also use MS Word or Photoshop). Since they were 5x7 I was able to fit two menus to a page. To save on printer ink I had them printed at Kinko's on 80lb card stock purchased from PaperSource and then cut them out and rounded the corners at home.

Bridal Shower

My two bridesmaids did a wonderful job at hosting my bridal shower. I could not have asked for a more lovely afternoon or for a more fun time.

Since our wedding guest list was 50 people I was not expecting a huge turn out at my bridal shower. In fact leading up to my shower I actually had anxiety over no one coming. In the couple of weeks leading up to the shower there were a lot of cancellations which were understandable but made me begin to think if it would be just be my two bridesmaids, my mother, the photographer I hired, and myself. In the end the count was 8 and I enjoyed myself immensely. It went so well with the whole concept we had for our wedding which was to have a small intimate gathering of close family and friends. The shower was a relaxing afternoon where I got to talk to everyone present at the shower, catch up with friends, and really connect with everyone.

One of the best decisions I made in my wedding planning was investing in a professional photographer for the bridal shower. I knew I wasn't going to remember to capture shots and I am sure others would forgot to do so also in the midst of enjoying themselves. I shopped around and in the end I decided to go with a gentlemen I found on craigslist. Chris Hayes has been a professional photographer for years but is branching out into wedding and events. I saw his portfolio online and thought he did a great job at capturing events in a heartfelt photojournalistic manner. My first time meeting him was at the shower which some may think was me taking a big chance. However, I adored Chris and so did all of the ladies at the shower. He fit right in with a room of 8 women, however, he was very professional, unobtrusive and did a great job capturing the day. He did a photojournalistic style mixed in with a couple of portraits of myself and some of the guests.

All photos are by Chris Hayes Photography.

My bridesmaid hosted the shower at her lovely home and she personalized the kitchen chalkboard with our names.

The mother of Roosevelt's step-dad blessed the food.

My two bridesmaids on the right and one of my good friend on the left whose recent wedding can be seen here.

Roosevelt's mother made one of the most beautiful gestures and had their cousin make me a shower umbrella. I was unfamiliar with the tradition which was something that was prevalent in my mother's generation. The work was very intricate and detailed and I can only imagine the time that went into making it. We placed it up and behind the chair I sat in to open gifts.

You can see the two little lovebirds that graced the top.

My bridesmaids surprised me with a sash and a tiara to wear for the day. Since my bridesmaid's shower two years ago I have been wanting a tiara of my very own. (Can you tell how excited I was?)

A picture of my mother and I. Look how happy I am in my tiara and sash. My dress was an etsy purchase from Femia of porshesplace and was made from a Vintage Vogue pattern. (She specializes in custom vintage dresses) Unfortunately I had it made a couple of months before the shower and lost weight since ordering. At the time it really needed to be taken in a little and I should send it off to the tailor. However, Femia's workmanship was wonderful and I truly felt so lady like and dainty in it.

My bridesmaid's dog George hung out with us the whole time. He is such a sweetie. For most of the games he just laid quietly on my lap. So many of the shower pictures have cameos of George, it was almost as if it was his shower too.

We played the traditional shower games such as famous couples (which I won! but was ineligible for a prize) and the pocketbook game.

We went around the room and each lady gave words of advice and encouragement to me in my marriage. What you don't see here is my ugly cry face after everyone was done and I said my word of thanks.

Opening gifts was extremely fun (but isn't always). There was an abundance of gifts since even people who were unable to attend sent their well wishes. Here I just opened the Crate and Barrel pitcher my husband had been lusting after. It sits in our refrigerator now and he uses it every day for his apple juice.

Roosevelt's step-dad's mother makes the most wonderful ceramic pieces. She gave me a shoe, a handbag, and mail basket. The shoe and purse are decorating my walk in closet and the mail basket is on our mail center in the living room.

My bridesmaid put together a slide shoe of pictures of Roosevelt and I . Here you can see one of my baby pics.

This was a great shot of all us together at the end of the day.

So how did we come up with that?

The first thing we did once we got engaged was to hire a wedding planner. It was imperative that 1) I not drive myself crazy during the planning process, 2) I not drive my fiance crazy during the planning process, and 3) we not drive ourselves, family or wedding party crazy the day of the wedding. I started my search probably where most newly engaged clueless bride to be's go which is The Knot. And ding-ding-ding I hit jackpot in finding Kathy Bado of The Wedding Factor. My fiance and I both LOVE Kathy and I don't think it would have been half as nice without her assistance along the way.

From our first meeting Kathy immediately started to put structure to our wedding and one of our first projects with her was in devising a theme for our wedding. Now at first I just poo-poo'd the whole idea of a theme, we didn't need no stinking theme. I already knew I wanted my wedding to be a small yet elegant intimate affair and that was enough. (Oh how naive I was!) But Kathy insisted we come up with something that would help establish a guidepost in making decisions about the look, feel, and decor of our wedding. She followed the rule that if you have common design threads that run through the wedding it makes for a more cohesive and put together affair. Looking back it's so obvious now but at the time I was inwardly saying "Huh?".

She had us list out things we like and words we would used to describe the look and feel of our wedding. From this list she came up with a theme and also pulled out 4-5 elements that we could use as design elements for the overall look of the weddings.

Here is what our original brainstorm list was:

Casual-Elegance Black & White Films/Photographs

Calm Rain

Intimate Jazz Music

Serenity Laughter

Romantic Ballet (Giselle) Apples

Animals Fragrance/Cologne

Tea Brown Sugar

The South Simple Art

Clothes Baking

Mirrors Candles

Warmth Books/Reading

Clouds Peonies

Inviting Flowers/Garden Clay

Silver Metal Chocolate

Architecture Cookies

Roses Diamonds

Leaves (Autumn) Impressionist Art

Watches Italian

Spring Fun

And from this Kathy came up with Old City Elegance with Soft Romance. She also pulled out Diamonds/Crystals, Silver, Wrought Iron (Inspired by Architecture), Romantic Flowers (Roses, Peonies, etc), Candlelight as our thematic elements.

Looking back on this its surprising what elements stayed and what elements changed, but through it all we kept the same theme. We also incorporated more elements that played on our both being native Philadelphians (also playing on the fact that historical Philadelphia is known as Old City).

I leave you with some of the inspiration pics that I collected after this exercise and that I kept in my wedding binder as reference for all my vendor meetings to keep me focused and on track.

(Sorry at the time I didn't know proper blog etiquette so I don't really have any of the sources. The most I remember is a lot are from Style Me Pretty.)

Old City Elegance

Old City Elegance came to fruition September 12, 2009 after almost 16 months of ideation, planning, revisions, and re-revisions. It was by far the best experience I have had so far in my life. My mother said she has never seen me so excited or as happy as I was on my wedding day. I smiled from the beginning of the day to the very end.

But my wedding was not only great because I married a wonderful, loving, caring, patient and sensitive man but also because I learned a lot about myself in the process of our engagement and wedding planning. I learned how to be a better partner, how to believe in myself a little more than I did, and the courage to get out there and try new things even if it means not always succeeding.

Here I will recap the day (i.e hopefully with gratuitious wedding porn once my professional pictures come in) and some of the planning that went into making our day special.

I leave you with one of our teaser pictures supplied by our incredible photographer Edmund Moon of Daily Thousand Words.