Bling-fest

Okay, I've been on a quick vacation from wedding-land for the last 10 days dealing with health issues, birthdays, and generally scraping my life back into a more cohesively shaped pile of goo after the whirlwind that had been the past month (or more) of late nights at work. Envision this like the making of scrambled eggs.

So without further ado, if you didn't note my engagement ring from my "inspiration" boards, here it is:
I've had this ring for just shy of a year now, and it far exceeded any hope/expectation I'd had for an engagement ring. Fiance spent months working on the design with one of his Co-Best-Ladies and then having it custom made by a local Philadelphia jeweler. After a few rounds of review, he was able to pick up the finished product while I was away in Australia and presented it to me just a week or two later (of course, I couldn't just have it. I first had to agree to marry him). It's a princess cut stone in the center with a trillian on each side, set in a triple trellis setting. The 2.5mm platinum band is more flat than round and tapers to a knife-edge as it mounts the trellis.

For quite some time, I envisioned this as my wedding band, complete with responsibly mined sapphires and recycled or responsibly mined platinum. This lovely piece is from Brilliant Earth who are a major player in the realm of eco-friendly jewelery. I've had some trouble with loose stones on my e-ring, but a channel setting like this one doesn't rely on prongs, and rarely has any problems. One jeweler I spoke to referred to channel setting as "virtually indestructible." However, this particular ring would leave a significant gap between itself and my e-ring, due to the width of my stones in comparison to the band. It is possible to get a channel setting contoured to curve around the shape of an engagement ring, and I tried on a few with diamonds, today.

The last time I was having my setting tightened, I found this beauty from Hearts on Fire. Hearts on Fire is mostly about their special cut of diamond, which isn't especially relevant to me, since I want sapphires, but this setting really appeals to me. It's called the Felicity Queen Anne band, and it's meant to contour around the matching "solitaire" engagement ring which is shaped very much like my custom ring!

See the contour here. I only wish I weren't so enamored with the idea of a "virtually indestructible" setting. Also unfortunately, my wedding band will need to be platinum, if I plan to wear it with my e-ring, because any other metal would cause the two rings to gnaw at each other.

Fiance, however, has no such restrictions, and will probably wind up with something lighter, harder, and cheaper than gold or platinum. Sapphires were his idea in the first place, so he'll definitely have some as well. The first number on the left is from Absolute Titanium which has a fun selection of tension settings in addition to more traditional settings. Tension settings are actually one of the major benefits of going with a non-precious metal, since it requires a metal much harder than gold or platinum to safely hold a stone that way.


For example, this is a stainless steel ring from Teno which is quite lovely, modern, and still masculine.

My most recent discovery is TitaniumRings.com which has a great selection of - you guessed it - titanium rings. My favorites so far are the Cassandre and the Krystalle for tension settings and the Mars and single stone Facia for simple settings. All four are available with sapphires, though they're pictured with clear stones.

Anyone have any recommendations as we go through our ring search? Time grows short!

The countdown continues

As of today there are only 4 months until the wedding.

Big things still on the to-do list:
My dress alterations
Fiance's tux
Attire for male attendants
The rehearsal dinner
Contract signing for shuttles
Contract signing for ceremony musician
Cocktail hour musician(s)
Finish learning to dance
Honeymoon plans (and Peter's passport)
Wedding bands!
Select readings for the ceremony
Ask readers to participate
Registry
Build wedding website
Finish invitations
Reception decor (centerpieces, guestbook, card box, etc)

All at once it seems like so much and not so bad.

Inspiration

I don't think that I'd ever been familiar with the concept of an "inspiration board" before I started wedding-planning. I'm familiar with the concept of collage, and I've seen what we call "mood boards" in the design industry which are similar, but usually a little bit more literally related to the final product, since the result of that is a design, rather than an event. Anyway, here are my two attempts at inspiration boards in my chosen color palette. I've starred items that are really being used for our wedding or from vendors that we are using.

Bridesmaid dress*: Bari Jay, New York Public Library: Fête, Wire and crystal branches*: White Aisle, Cake: Rebecca Thuss
Purse: via Style Me Pretty, Non-floral bouquet*: me, Gown: via Style Me Pretty, Aisle decor: Fête
Sweets: via Style Me Pretty, Invitations*: me, Engagement ring*: Fiance, Cathedral and lighting: via Brides Cafe, Eco-friendly wedding band*: Brilliant Earth, Necklace: Museum of Modern Art via Brooklyn Bride
Candles: via Brides Cafe, Glassware: Pottery Barn, Winter scene: Three Winks Studio, Dresses: via Brides Cafe

The first one is more silver-focused, while the second one allows for much more brown.

Glen Foerd Mansion*: Conroy Catering via me, Cotton puffs: via Style Me Pretty, Gown: Maggie Sottero, Fiddlehead fern bouquet: via Brides Cafe
Bridesmaid dress: via Rebecca Thuss, Photo: via Brides Cafe, Blue Satin Chanel nail polish: via Nitrolicious, Men's wedding band: Etsy seller ShadeJewelery
Comb tiara: White Aisle, Jacket: Wilsons Leather, Engagement ring*: Fiance, Blue Mica Prius: Toyota
Shoes: Kenneth Cole via Zappos, Photography*: Tiffany Atlas, Sapphire earrings: Unknown, but similar to these.

How'd I do?

Hardcore DIY Invites (Part 3)

Okay, at long last the great invite caper. For previous posts on invitations, try this. This was phase one of construction, which centered around the core structural component. After this will come the vellum overlay and inserts.

Here we go:

This is my sister and the table covered with our initial crafting equipment. You can see the bone scorer, precut stardream-type cardstock, the first folded invites, the slicer, and my special archival bookbinding glue. The cardstock was custom cut by my dear friends at paperandmore.com who took my exact specifications and, for $5, saved me the headache of having to cut all those straight lines for myself. Sadly, they do not die-cut.



The slicer was used to die-cut the slits in which the inserts would sit. I got this, somehow, at Pearl Arts and Crafts on South Street for like 7 dollars. It's big enough to cut 8.5x11 paper, and has an extending arm for measuring, if you need it. I didn't, for this.



Here is a closeup of what I did with the slicer. I carefully calculated the length of the slits and their distance from each side of the final folded piece, did a little addition, and marked off the ends of the die-cuts with little slivers of post-it paper tacked to the underside of the clear slicing guard. This way, I knew just where to start and stop my cut. Whether I actually did start and stop is another matter.



After being die-cut, each piece was scored, using a template I originally intended to use to make the die-cuts. We found that the straightest template was the one I stopped in the middle of. Little sister did most of the scoring, marking two folds creating two card-sized panels and one roughly quarter inch flap for gluing.

You may wonder why the flap is important at all. Well, there are two reasons: first, the look of two naked edges glued flat together seems significantly less elegant and finished than a naked edge to a fold. Second and more importantly, the inside of the piece needs to have lots of open room for the inserts to slide into, and the folded tube shape is less likely to glue itself flat than the edge-to-edge shape.

This is an above view of several nested pieces of cardstock before gluing. A note on folding this stardream-style cardstock: score well and fold slowly. This will give you nice shiny folded edges. Unfortunately, I learned this too late, so mine are a little rough and cracked, but I've resigned myself to hoping no one notices. I'm sure not redoing them with fresh paper just for that.

Using a rubber stamp I got at AC Moore, and a clear embossing ink, I stamped a standard distance from the top corner of the non-die-cut side of the card. I generally just "eyeballed" this, getting a feel for the placement with my fingertips in relation to the edges of the cardstock.

Then I used a silver embossing powder to cover the still-wet ink.



After lifting the cardstock to tap off the un-stuck powder (and gently brushing off some reluctant powder with a brush), sometimes it would be perfect, as above.



Other times, I'd get little mutant lines or missed spots and need to add more dust. You can see both problems in the image above.



Either of these situations could be handled with a fine brush.



Once that was all taken care of, we had to melt the powder. Yes, this is a straightening iron. You can see that the left side is shiny and melted while the right is powdery, as before. This takes a few seconds, but is very very cool to watch.



Here you can see a finished embossing.



Here, a bunch of embossed cardstock, folded and waiting to be glued.



These were glued on three sides...the long side with the flap and the two short sides to keep people from tearing them open like greeting cards.



Next, the glued cards were pressed between Deathly Hallows, Half-Blood Prince, Women in Rock, Mists of Avalon, Infinite Jest, and Billboard's Top 40. This is to keep them folded flat while the glue bonds. You may see the blank card in the stack to the upper left...that's because I originally forgot that the cards should be embossed before gluing! Not a big deal, and we were able to emboss them after gluing, but the glue tended to melt a bit and need to be redone. Plus the stardream-style cardstock tends to warp a bit when you heat it for embossing, so the pressing is needed to flatten that out, as well.



Here, you can just see the difference between the freshly glued cards (left) and the pressed ones on the right which are much flatter.



After a night spent between heavy books, I have a good number of invite base pieces!

In the end, I sorted them into four piles: Use these first, Not great but okay, Might be salvageable, and No way - For experimenting only. The first stack covers the A-list plus a little bit. If we get too far into the B-list, I will get nervous. I had a lot more in the last pile than I expected to have, so if you tackle something like this for yourself, definitely prepare for a high "spoilage" rate. Overall, I had about 80% in the first two stacks and 20% in the others. But, each time I start a new step of the process, I can experiment on some of the duds until I get the hang of it, which should hopefully save me from much additional spoilage. Besides, the worst is over. I did these in installments over a few nights and, as mentioned, had some help from Little Sister.

This was not quite as nerve-wracking as I'd expected, and a lot easier than I thought it would be to handle without hordes of sweatshop workers.

Ever embarked on a mass hand-crafting adventure? How did it go?

The joys of delegation

It's been an insane week, around here. Insane. My sister sure picked a great week to stay with us, as I have practiced probably the worst hostessing of my entire life. At least I hope it doesn't get any worse.

In any event, she helped me get started on the mass-production of our invitations (which I will get into in another post, soon!), and shouldered the responsibility for MoB-wrangling, which includes helping my mother find a dress (and possibly other accessories) and keeping my stepmother as calm as possible. She can get a bit rabbity.

So, without further ado, the dress my mom will wear for the wedding:

c/o Jasmine Bridal. I recently used my internet juju to identify the Jade collection by Jasmine Bridal as a tasteful but not frumpy line of dresses that my mom would probably look good in. She's about 5'1" and works at Home Depot, so this was a bit more challenging than it would be for my stepmother, who, I hate to say, is a bit of a social x-ray, for such an awesome lady.

So, they put in their order for the dress, on sale, and my sister and I will be subsidizing it to keep it within a reasonable budget for mom. However, they didn't choose a color yet, and swatches of their top two choices (some kind of teal and "cranberry") will be sent to me for the final decision.

Moral of the story: Little Sister = Secret Weapon.

Who's yours?

Project Planning the Wedding

I've recently said that if I were exposed to solar radiation and one of my existing abilities were enhanced into a super-power, I would have amazing spacial perception and be able to judge sizes and distances and to fit most anything into most anything else. What this means in real life is that I love all kinds of puzzles, I'm very visual, and I can pack a car trunk like nobody's business.

Even being able to pack things efficiently has kept my DIY projects from totally taking over the house, but it's really the other two aspects that inform the wedding project plan. For those of you who don't know what I mean by "project plan," a project plan is typically a process document that includes a list of tasks, how long each is expected to take, any dependencies between tasks, what resources (including people) are required for each task to be completed, and budget associated with each.

To be honest, I don't have a project plan for the entire planning process, but I have a few sketched-in plans for specific things. For the invitation assembly process, which is rather involved, I started with an excel sheet listing all the details of each step.


But, as mentioned, I'm a visual person, so I wanted to graphically see how they all fit together (like a puzzle, no?), so the spreadsheet became something more like a project plan.


Now, this isn't a real project plan by any means, as I don't really know who or how many people will be helping make the invitations nor just how long things will take. But I can see from the project plan that there are a few groups of related tasks (which could help me split helpers into teams), there will need to be at least two separate sessions of assembly, and that I have plenty of time in which to address envelopes.

My second plan grew out of the realization that I have only 20 weeks left until the wedding and more than a dozen DIY things to finish up. So the plan is really a to-do list that tells me when I'm supposed to have finished things. None of the tasks are really dependent on each other.


What special tools and processes do you use to keep organized?