Strike Up The Band

Finding our band (or DJ) was Mr Frenchie responsibility, so right after we decided to have the wedding at the Bernardo Winery, he went to task. The first email Mr Frenchie sent me was for an awesome "crooner", David Patrone.

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Mr Frenchie and I love Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble and Jamie Cullem (to name a few). (We always joke about whether we could afford to hire Michael Buble if we just got married in a tiny chapel in Vegas). Through David's website and MySpace page we were able to give him a listen and agreed we HAD to have him! Go ahead and pop over to their website, I'll wait... 

Our problem, however, was we weren't sure he'd fit in our budget.* I'm of the belief that it doesn't hurt to ask (in most cases), but after our first conversation with David's rep, Jeff, our answer was no. We had alotted about half of what they normally charge, a bummer, but we understood. David and his Quartet play all over San Diego and at swing competitions. 

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Turns out, it didn't hurt to ask because about 2 weeks later we had a message from Jeff saying they would drop their price. I immediately called them back to make sure we weren't dreaming. I could not believe our luck! They were including everything, the WHOLE DAY! David Patrone, the quartet and a DJ for after dinner dancing. Jeff emailed me a contract, Papa Frenchie looked it over and by the next Friday we had everything booked - Ceremony and cocktail music, David singing during dinner and Jeff DJ'ing after. 

*Since my parents have generously offered to pay for our wedding I don't think it is my place to discuss our budget because it involves my parent's finances and not mine. I will say that I believe our budget is average but flexible, however I am trying my best stay within it as much as possible.

Are you getting any deals because it didn't hurt to ask? Are you having a DJ or a band? or both?

STDIs

I'm sorry I can't bring myself to refer to these as STD (shiver), so if I must abbreviate them, I choose STDI for Save The Date Invitation.

Now that I know the majority of our guests have received our Save The Dates, I am really excited to share them with you. Originally we were going to order postcards from Vista Print with a picture of FH and I in front of the Bernardo Winery sign. This didn't end up happening for a few reasons...
1 - We took HORRIBLE pictures the day we went down there.

2 - MOB still wanted to put them in an envelope because she was affraid some criminal would get ahold of our information and rob our house while we were all in San Diego. At first I thought she was paranoid, but I guess back when my mom and dad got married and it was more common to have your wedding announced in the paper, her neighbor's house was robbed (stealing all the wedding presents) while they were all at the wedding. My grandparents actually had someone watch their house when my mother and father were married.

3 - Our Friendor (and groomsman), Joe, had a much better idea :)

Mr Frenchie and I asked Joe to do our invitations on New Year's Eve this year and Joe hit the ground running, talking about letterpress and all the idea he had; we are all REALLY excited. After bouncing around a the idea of using my new Gocco, we decided to have them printed when Mama Frenchie gave us a 1 week deadline the week before my finals (thanks Mom). I was freaking out about getting them done by Mama Frenchie's deadline and Joe just got it done. So with out furture ado...



and the other side (I have no idea which is the front anad which is the back)...



Joe is my BFF since 4th grade (and BM)'s hubbers. He is an awesome graffic designer, along with being a great friend, husband to my BFF and father to the CUTEST kid EVER. If anyone is interested in hiring his talents you can contact me or go to his website.



Do you have any friendors? Have they saved the day?

Frenchie's Five for Friday

When I started my personal blog I noticed a couple of lovely ladies (StefK & Mrs. Hummingbird) with this great idea for a wedding present. They wrote down reasons why they loved their fiance/husband and presented it to them on their wedding day. Roughly 28 weeks ago I started writing down 5 things I love about Mr Frenchie every Friday. I've decided to share a random 5 with you, every Friday, until our wedding and what better place then to start but with #s 1-5.

1 - You are my Peanut
2 - You don’t like video games
3 - New Thai food Thursdays
4 - You have cute dimples



5 - Even though you aren't a "pets guy", you like my dogs and BM F's dog (and your are even excited about getting our own dog now).

I'm not sure how I'm going to give this to Mr. Frenchie, but I'm thinking I'll copy Mrs Spring Roll and make a book.

What to do you love about your man?

and the Winner is...

Drum roll please... and the winner is...

#4 - SueBeeHB's Vintage Style

I was so excited that FH chose this couple because I LOVE the groom birdie and how much his suit resembles Mr Frenchie's suit.

I know I probably could have custom ordered a similar suit from any of those talented artists, but these two just spoke to us.
Sue is a very nice woman and wonderful to work with. These birds (acutally most of the birds) were too big for our preference, but Sue said it wouldn't be a problem to make them smaller. In fact her daughter is getting married soon and wants smaller birds as well.

And now for a confession... I actually bought another set! I know, I know, I have a problem!
The Small hand painted Love Birds w/ Nest by RedLightStudio (#7) were just to freakin' cute I couldn't pass them up. I think I'm going to put them on our Sweetheart Table.


Have you ordered anything for your wedding from Etsy?

A Shower fit for a "Cherri"

I recieved my first shower invitation in the mail!

My first thought, after Ahhh! This is getting real, was, "How frickin' cute is this invitation?" The answer: "SO CUTE!"
My invitation was made especially for me and my love of Cherries. 

Front

Back

How cute is the the fruit themidness (what? that's a word)! Apparently the other guests received invites featuring other fruits. My mom and sister's was strawberry, one friend's was citrus and another sent be a picture of her watermelon invite.


I am blown away with the amount of work she put into this shower already. BM F (the door watcher) went all out on these and rumor has it the fruity goodness doesn't stop there. All the food and favors will be fruit themed as well! I CAN'T WAIT! 

Okay, so here's the question... What are you giving your shower throwers (technical term)? I wandtthe get a gift that shows how grateful I am for all the time and effort she (and the others) put into throwing me this shower. Suggestions PLEASE!

I Want Birdies on My Cake too!

Ever since I saw The Penguins' cake topper, made by her friend Jenny Louwheeeeze, I've wanted birds on top of our cake!

The Frenchie's LOVE birds! Really what doggies don't? Mr Frenchie calls me his birdie and we quote that line from The Notebook all the time - "I'm a bird, if you're a bird."

I stalked several etsy shops, eyeing their birdie goodness and I decided recently it was probably about time I made a decision and ordered one because if I was going to custom order some birds I needed to give the artist enough time for her (or his) creative process.

Since, the best way to get the Mr's opinion on something is to send him my research. I put together a word document of all my favorites his choices and emailed it off.
Here are the birds it included...
1 - Karingrow's Mr & Mrs Lemondrop (we could get this one or order a custom one like it)

2 - Rain's End Custom Wedding Topper (Option 1)

3 - Rain's End Custom Wedding Topper (Option 2)


4 - SueBeeHB's Vintage Style (also one we could order or request a custom one)


5 - CornFlakeGirl Custom Wedding Topper

6 - CottonBirdDesigns Linen and Satin Love Birds (can also do a custom order)

7 - RedLightStudio Small hand painted Love Birds w/ Nest

Can you guess which one we chose? Which one would you choose?

My Groom

Okay, now that you know what I'm wearing, it is time to show you what FH will be wearing.
We decided a while ago that because of our more casual venue, Mr Frenchie and his dudes are going to wear suits, instead of tuxes. Also, this way we could buy Mr Frenchie's suit and he can wear it again. We bounced around the idea of light colored suits, like khaki or light tan.

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But, then I was told that "khaki is tacky"* and rather than fight it we decided to look at gray... and the more I thought about it the more I liked gray, especially with my dress.
Mr Frenchie went on the hunt for a gray suit and, all on his own, ended up on the ever popular J Crew Weddings site. Even though my parents gave him a gift card to Men's Warehouse for Christmas, we found the perfect suit at J Crew, so we'll probably end up buying him a nice shirt from MW and other work clothes. Here is the suit he found...

The Mr  is especially fond of the tie clip and tie square because it reminds him of the suits the guys on Mad Men wear, and he loves the style of their suits.

Notice the tie squares and tie clips.

*I don't think khaki is tacky, Mama Frenchie doesn't like the idea and there are somethings I choose not to fight her on. It just makes my life easier.

What will your groom be wearing? Did he go with a suit or a tux?

How to make an Inspiration Board

or how I made my Inspiration Board :)
I wish I owned Photoshop or something like that. I don't even own anything more than a trial version of Power Point, which I'm sure you could use make an Inspiration Board on as well. So, because I don't own these fancy programs I used to they two I do have Microsoft Word and InfranView. *
Infranview is a free and easy to use graphic view and editor I downloaded years ago to easily edit my photos for MySpace. I use it almost daily to email FH or a friend pictures I've seen on a website because most of their work emails block images you just copy and paste.

Step 1 - Collecting the photos - If your anything like me you've collected a ton of inspiration photos. The hardest part of this step for me was deciding which photos to use; forcing me to decide on a set theme.
*Note: for this step I HIGHLY recommend bookmarking websites instead of just saving the pictures to a file, this is make sourcing your photos MUCH easier and in most cases actually enable you to source your photos.

Step 2 - Editing photos - I've found the easiest way for me to edit my photos was to "Print Screen" and paste into InfranView. The "Print Screen" button basically copies whatever is in view on your screen to your clip board, in order to see what you've "copied" you have to "paste" it into a new document or in our case program.

What my screen looks like in Infranview...

Now I want to just have a pic of the Cookbook, to do that I'll click and drag a box over the desired area

and select the Crop feature under Edit (ctrl + Y).

Now just Save the file and repeat.

Step 3 - Inserting files - In Microsoft Word you'll go to Insert > Picture > From File...

and select a photo and it will appear on your paper. It may show up bigger than you want, so just scale it down.
Next "Right Click" on the photo and choose "Format Picture".

Under the Layout tab select "Tight".

This will allow you to move and manipulate the photos easier. When an image is set on the Tight Layout it will look like this.

Repeat this step for all your photos and arrange how you like.
Here is a quick one I did with items from our registry.

When you are finished you can do another Screen Print

and Crop out your board.

Ta Da!

Top: Kate Spade Larabee Dot, Spode Baking Days Deep Dish, Crate and Barrel Duo Salad Servers
Middle:KitchenAid Mixer, Crate and Barrel "The Newlywed's Cookbook, Crate and Barrel Madison Dinnerware
Bottom: XOX Crock with tools, Target Canary Print Armless Chair, Target Preps Mixing Bowls

*For some odd reason Polyvore doesn't work for me, but if that works for you, I imagine this could be even easier.

Have you created an Inspiration Board? I'd love to see them.

Frenchie Inspiration

Now that you know what I'm wearing and what my ladies are wearing, here's a little peek at the inspiration I've collected for our wedding.



First Row:Paigely Maggie Sottero Dress, FH's J Crew Suit, Cake Buffet
Second Row: boutonnieres from Martha Stewart Weddings, Daisy Centerpiece by Amanda Auer & WeddingbeePRO The Treasured Petal
Third Row: Mrs. Cupcake's Twigs and Honey flower, Bernardo Winery Gazebo, Blue Bird from Urban Outfitters, Yellow Cupcake with Flag
Bottom Row: Bernardo Winery Wine Bottles, Yellow After Six BM Dress, J Crew Shoes, Herbs, Bouquet

Rays of Sunshine (Part 2)

You may recall on my first visit to Jinny's, Sister Frenchie and BM F looked at BM dresses while I looked at wedding dresses. While I was in my tiny changing room with Lynn, they were able to try on (and show me) a number of BM dresses.
Unfortunately, since Jinny's doesn't allow photos unless you have already purchases something, I don't have pictures of all the dress they tried on, but I was able to find a couple of them on the Dessy website.

Dessy Style 2721

Dessy After Six Style 6524 

and something similar to this but with spaghetti straps

Dessy After Six Style 6273

There were two similar dresses to the After Six Style 6273 that look nice on both Sister Frenchie and BM F, but we thought the second one, After Six Style 6524, was really cute with the ruffle at the bottom. All I had to do was come back later in the week with BM J to see how it looked on her and we were set! I could not believe we were already finished choosing a bridesmaid dress.

What aspect of your wedding did you find surprisingly easy?

Rays of Sunshine

I knew from wedding planning day 1 that I wanted my ladies to wear yellow. Especially after our venue was chosen, I wanted to put them in a color that would POP against the green background of the winery's gazebo.


This was also about the time I nixed the color green from our color scheme. There was already so much green surrounding our venue, why would I add more?

So, with my yellow dress mission I hit the internet and started searching for tea-length, flowy, yellow dresses. Oh and I like it to be something they could wear again... I don't want too much.
My first stop was Watters...

Wtoo Style 512 - Sadly this one didn't come in yellow.


Wtoo Style 336 - Comes in yellow and a strong contender.


Watters Style 4331 - Perfect, comes in yellow, flowy, tea length and I would totally wear this again!


Watters Style 4417 - I even fell in love with this one and it wasn't light and flowy.

Next I looked at the very popular J Crew, but oddly they didn't have anything the piqued my interest, so I moved on.... to Jim Helm, more specifically this Spring 2009 collection.

Jim Helm Style JH5908 - Unfortunately doesn't come in yellow.


Jim Helm Style JH5909 - Also not in yellow :(

This is when I realized Jim didn't get my memo and he didn't have a much yellow to select from, especially not in any fabric I'd want my ladies to wear in August. So where did I go next?

Did you have trouble finding Bridesmaid dresses in the color you imagined?

Shower Us With Love

For awhile I've been thinking about when we could have our guest throw stuff at us... I guess toss is a better word. We're not getting married in a church so we can't to the classic toss outside the church. Plus, I always wondered how the logistics worked on that one. I guess in the past the happy couple walks down the aisle before everyone else, then hangs out in a room until the guest have emptied the church and then they leave showered with rice (or whatever).

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But now (or back then) do the guests just chill outside and wait for all the family pictures in the church?
An option for us is to have the send off at the end of the evening, with the ever popular Sparklers. I just love those pictures.

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However, I've been to too many weddings where most the guests have left before "Sparkler time" and I want as many people there as we can. Also, our venue closes at 9 and we'd (the Mr and I) like to stay as long as possible and enjoy our party.
With those options out the window I thought, well would it be weird if they tosses stuff at us as we come back down the aisle? I've never done it, but I know it's been done, right? RIGHT!

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Now, I have no idea what they are throwing here, as I cannot read that teeny tiny print in the bottom corner, but I love it! I just love the way wider confetti like this falls, especially when they flutter in the air *swoon*. So far the only ecofriendly confetti I've found it much smaller, like this.

Which, I'll admit looks pretty cool.

So, that isn't a bad backup.

But, can you help a doggie out? Do you know where I can get wider ecofriendly confetti?
Are your guest tossing stuff? When and what?