The great invite endeavor….

When i first thought about invites…i wanted something fancier…and multilayered.  But knowing that it was just going to be my very good friend and I working on them….the invites got simpler and simpler the more we discussed it.  I loved what we ended up with…and was better than any of the ideas I started out with.  A quick thanks to april for working with me to design it….and putting up with my anal pickiness…”can we make that bigger?”….”can we make the bird face the other way?”…”can we try another font?”.  SORRY!!!!  hahaahaha.   All pharmacists are like this…it’s in our nature!

So here’s the invite and all it’s components.  The main invite was letterpressed (I  letterpress) by this awesome printer in Cali, who offered amazing rates for custom work.  The design on the invite was born first…then everything else was extrapolated from that.

Close up of the design…you can sort of see the letterpress…

Then the direction card and the RSVP postcard (this saved us SOOOO much on postage!).  We printed this stuff on Neenah Paper at a local copy shop….after a failed attempt at Kinko’s.  KINKO’S SUCKS.

I had problems with how to tie all the pieces together with the velvet ribbon I had bought earlier.  The knot made by the ribbon was too thick to go through the post office machines without shredding the envelope.  So I just wrapped the ribbon all around the invite and tucked the other pieces into the diagonals.  Hemming tape was a lifesaver for getting the ribbon to stay together.

All done!

Here is my little helper working hard….

This is how he really feels…..

Just kidding…he actually enjoyed it…and was more anal than I was about the ribbons being on there symmetrically.  Check out the ruler, which was used for EVERY invite he worked on.  PUAHAHAHA.

Then some stamping and sealing….and we’re done!!!!!

I know it’s been a while….will start blogging again on Monday….after my boards.  I am totally not prepared yet and still have about 200 pages to read.  But i keep telling myself, i just need to pass….some people focus on how well they can do so they can tell other people how high they scored.  But  all I need to do is pass…the score doesn’t matter.  But it feels like I’m studying for a huge cumulative final (which is sort of what it is)…where the stuff looks familiar…and you sort of know it….but if you get asked a super detailed question, you won’t know it.  But at the same time, you can’t possibly memorize EVERY little detail.  Yeah.  it’s not fun.  I hope I get a lot of math questions…hahahaha….those have definite answers.

But as of now, my count is up to yes: 35, no: 4.  About 90% acceptance…not TOO bad…hahahaha although 40 responses out of 350+ isn’t exactly accurate.  Even though it’s still early, it is pretty unlikely that the head count will drop under 300, like we had hoped.  hahahaha. 

My next post will be about……..the whole process of making my invites (pictures included…since I’m guessing everyone already got theirs).  Stay tuned.

Oh…in the meantime,  help me think of “things to do in New York” for my wedding webiste for my out of town guests.  Remember, it’s winter…so things like laying out in the park or going to the botanical gardens is probably out.

So far I have:

*Rockefeller Center (the tree is still up on January 5 right?)

*Ice skating at Wollman Rink

*I will be adding shopping to the list…..help me think of good places to go since i haven’t shopped in new york for quite a number of years

Oh…and places to eat…..like reasonably priced for families and groups of friends…..I want to provide options that won’t clean out their wallets since some of them are staying in New York for about a week).   And I’d prefer places that are VERY New York…..i’ll be putting Opa Opa on the list

Uh oh….

I found 2 videographers that I like…that kind of throws the no-videography plan askew.  Originally, i didn’t want one because I hated all wedding videos.  Most of them were so cheesy.  There was one that I loved…but they are REALLY artsy…I wanted something cleaner…like a documentary.

The other one shoots only super 8 film, which is AWESOME….and so vintage looking…and no badly priced.  Oh, and their webpage song is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. 

I’ll have to email them to see if this is possible.

We originally asked a friend to videotape the ceremony and stuff, but I feel bad asking a guest to work during the wedding.  I want him to have a good time and hang out with his friends.

RIP my friend.

yes: 7

no: 0

As much as I would like everyone to be there, if that no stays at 0, i will freak out!

The count begins….

I got my first two RSVP’s today!  yay!!!!!!!  !  Yach, I LOVED what you did with yours…and it was SOOO appropriate since that flowers you made on the front part is exactly what I’m using for my bouquet (shhhhh…now it’s our little secret).  When I saw that, I was like, “woah…how did she know!!!”.  (wait, i didn’t already tell you, did I?) What kind of glue did you use for that?  Only one flower got ripped off…everything else came through the machines okay.

This is so exciting.  I love getting mail and this makes every trip to the post office so fun!  Mail them back!!!!  Or believe me, I will be hunting you down by the RSVP date.

But I scheduled my final appointment with my reception hall to go over my menu choices, ceremony and reception details.  It’s kind of scary since we haven’t had time to discuss a lot of the little details, like set up….or like place cards and “favors”.  We really believe in doing donation favors just because there are so many people we know affected by the disease to which we are donating towards.  But the parents are so emphatic about people having something to bring home.  They said that other parents will make snide comments about doing donation favors.  Really?  How can you make a snide comment about donating money to a charitable cause?  Doesn’t that just make you a horrible person? 

If there were other areas of the wedding where things are take-home-able….is that good enough?  Do we really need to add actual favors….like do you guys really want a picture of us to take home with you?! (which is what was suggested) hahahaha.

*see protected*

Did anyone get my invite yet?!!!  I’m curious to see what state they showed up in…mangled, stained, torn, etc….

*edit*  YAY! seems like everyone got their’s okay (April, yours went out in the mail today…hahahaha…you should’ve come to church!).  We were so worried that the ribbon would still be too thick and would get snagged somewhere.

Were they hand cancelled?  My very good friend brought them to our local post office and asked them to hand cancel each one individually…

SEND BACK THE RSVP’S!!!!!

oh yeah…the ribbon is supposed to come off.  I think my mom thought they were supposed to stay on and was telling me how it doesn’t stick together anymore.  That’s the point!!!! it was just used to hold everything together!

Home Sweet Home?

I went home to NYC this weekend…and I think for the first time ever, I felt like a tourist for a split second.  I walked out of Penn Station…looked around and thought to myself, ‘why are there so many freaking people here?’  I crossed the street to walk over to 6th Ave to catch the F train, and there were like a million people trying to cross at the same time.  I was so annoyed.  And then, on the way home, since it was rush hour, the train was packed and I had to stand the whole way home.  Even more annoying.  I was like I ALWAYS get a seat on the train in philly hahaha. 

And then i was like OH NO…am I losing my New York-ness?  I used to love the hustle and bustle, but I find it so annoying now.  I don’t remember that area being THAT crowded….is that just a recent thing?!

I had my hair trial with Stacy Pitt this past weekend..and i love her already hahaha.  I had no idea what i wanted…so she said okay…let’s try one thing and go from there.  She  literally tried over 10 different styles and variations of different styles.  She did each style really quickly just so I could see the shape…and what I liked, she kept and would take eveyrthing down and work on other parts.  So first, we worked on the back of the head….and then the front.  But each time, my hair would be pinned up…then let down, re-curled and re-teased.  It was a HUGE bird’s nest mess by the time we were half way through…it was totally a ‘fro. 

But two hours later (yep, two hours) we finally settled on a style that we both loved.  Unfortunately, by then, my hair was such a mess that it didn’t look that great…therefore there will be no pictures posted of it.  hahahaha.  But she liked what we came up with so much that she is going to do it full out on a mannequin head sometime this week and send me pics of that.  I am also going to go back to her for a trim right before the wedding and she’ll do it for real on me then.

oh….Stacy works out of her apartment in the lower east side. I went with my mom and hte whole time we were walking there, she was like “tzeh tzeh, are you sure we are in the right area?” HAHAHAHA.  Then she sees stacy and stacy has some rather large tatoos on her arms and chest and i think my mom almost had a heart attack (for those of you who know my mom, this will totally make sense hahaha).   But Stacy was the sweetest girl and was really soft spoken.  And afterwards, my mom was like “oh…she is such a nice, soft spoken girl…..how come she has all those tatoos?”…hahahahaha as if only loud, mean girls could have tats.

oh yeah…i came home (to philly) to find this sitting in the living room:

A new bike!!!! (the silver one).  My very good friend had returned the target bike since the gears kept slipping when I was riding it….and we’ve been looking around for another bike for me.    It’s actually a guy’s bike…but a small guy’s bike (the frame and wheels are the same height as my target bike).  the only difference is that the bar on top goes straight across instead of coming down.  But i like it!!!  And it fits..and has killer suspensions in the front.  I can’t wait to test it out!  This is so much better looking that my purple barney bike!

It worked!!!

Finally we worked out the knot/bumpy envelope situation.  We realized we couldn’t tie the ribbons because there was no way to avoid that bump.  So we started thinking of ways to adhere the ends ot the ribbon together so that it would lie flat (or at least flatter).  People suggested glue dots…but we couldn’t get our hands on any unless we drove out deep into the ‘burbs.  Plus, my very good friend was appalled at the price.

So we scoured Staples and came out with permanent doubled sided tape and a pack of red staples (in case the tape didn’t hold).

Then on the way back home, we made a spontaneous pitstop at Target.  We looked at more double sided tape.  And then i thought to myself, well, i can just quickly stitch the two ends together really quickly.  So off to the sewing section i went.  And then I came across “Instant Hems -N- Cuffs Tape”.  It’s basically like double sided tape, but for a quick hem job.  I thought if it was strong enough to hem pants, it must be strong enough to hold the ribbons together.  So we bought that…and a bottle of “Instant Thread”…which was like a clothing glue (as our backup…although I really really did not want to deal with glue).

We raced home and the the hems-n-cuffs tape worked like a charm!  It didn’t feel that sticky, but it held the ribbon together SOOO well….even with one side of the tape being stuck to the nappy side of the velvet.

We love Tar-jay!! 

Oh….for those who are DIY pocketfolds and stuff like that…i would imagine this stuff would work just as well on paper.  The down side is that it doesn’t come in a large spool.  I’m actually being super stingy and cutting the width of the ribbon into thirds, so i actually have 3 times the length.

No word on the Instant hem glue since we didn’t end up openning that…since the tape worked!

P.S. Hey April, how do you like this font?! 

Post office….strike one…

I went to get my invites weighed for postage.  Our invites came out to 1 oz on the dot, so technically, we could get away with a 41 cent stamp.  But i didn’t want to risk weighing variables.  So we are debating between bumping that up to 58 cents…or using a 41 cent with an additional 10 cents or something (i like the 41 cent stamp choices better).  But either way, i asked to see their 58 cent stamps.  They said they ran out.  UGH.  how do you run out of stamps at a post office?!  And they also ran out of the cooler 41 cent stamps.  They showed me a stamp with some old lady on it (although I’m sure she is a very important and well respected figure…if I could only figure out who she is)…i was like…do I look like I want that stamp on my wedding invitations.

I did compromise on their postcard stamps since I know from looking online that there are basically only two designs…so I picked the one with an animal on it…since I love animals.  I think it’s a panther hahaha.  how romantic!

They also said that the knot in the invite may cause problems when they’re running it throught the machines.  They suggested doing something else with the ribbon.  They’re afraid that the knot will snag on the machinery and then rip the envelopes.  They said even if they hand cancel the envelopes, along the line, they will be thrown back into sorting machines.  So my very good friend will be on a mission to find glue dots tomorrow…and hopefully we can just glue the ribbon ends together. 

But i must say that they were very nice about everything.  My person even called everyone else in the post office over for their advice hahaha.  And then one lady started yelling at him for selling me postcard stamps for my response cards because she thought he had sold me the wrong thing (i guess she was used to seeing them in envelopes).  And then when she finally realized that my response cards were postcards she looked at me and went, “oooooh…they are postcards.  That is very smart!”.  hahaha.

And 1/2 of my non-traditional centerpieces are now in the mail! woohoo!  I would also love to do the non-traditional aisle runner idea floating around in my head…but I don’t think i’ll have the time to do it.