On the one year anniversary of our engagement, Mr. Lemon and I drove up the coast to meet our photographer, Fiona Sarn, for an easy-going afternoon at the beach in Malibu. Nothing fancy and artsy… just some good photographs of us and the ocean. 
And that’s just what we got…
(this is Mr. Lemon’s favorite photo)
Early on the Friday morning of our wedding weekend, Mr. Lemon will be getting ready for the rehearsal here:
He got his two tee times lined up for his boys (groomsmen who want to play and relatives in town) today, so I’m sure he’ll be making another trip to the driving range soon to practice. It definitely the BIG $$$ splurge for their weekend, but I think the chance to get away and have fun will all be worth it… unless Mr. Lemon gets competitive and thinks he can master the championship course. I’m actually trying to think of some way to send a photographer with them (only if their cost is, well, free)… just for some fun memory shots, since they won’t have any “getting ready” photos on the day of. Hmm…
So who else is sending their guys to the links before the wedding?!?
sh eNow I’ve said before that I owe my bargain-hunting skills to my mom… but I have to thank Papa Lemon for the silly craftiness. He’s come up with more clever solutions than one can imagine (we’re still working on getting him patents to a few), but this one was pretty simple. I needed a vessel for my wish tree (p.s. that was his creation too) and somehow he transformed an old somethingorother (sorry… no before pix) into this:
Way to paint it my second favorite color (baby blue) of all time… but does it work?
Yup! It’s perfect! He’s going to secure the branches with a small amount of concrete, and we’ll fill the rest of the vessel with flower petals. I told you my dad was crafty! Can’t wait to see the wedding signs he comes up with!
I needed frames for my various table signs… but I wasn’t about to go spend money to buy some when I had plenty of unused old frames in my apartment. My solution? Just cover up the old ones with something new (and blue and gold)!
All it took was flat paper from Paper Source, my x-acto knife and some scotch tape (it’s not even a permanent makeover!) and here’s what I ended up with:
First the paper: White Gold Royal Blue
flat paper from Paper Source ($3.50/sheet)
I just positioned my frame on the paper, and loosely cut out a larger rectangle of paper to cover the frame.
Then, I cut out an inside rectangle, being careful to leave an inch border inside. I made slits to each corner to help with the folding, and just taped the paper to the inside of the frame.
Time to wrap the outside… just as easy as wrapping a package! More scotch tape please!
And now the finished product!
Not too shabby for $3.50 … and there’s two more to use if I need them!
Who wants to trash their dress for free in Laguna Beach on July 29th?!?!
If you’re ready to be a crazy model for a fun “Trash the Dress” bash, e-mail Nataly Lemus with your name and phone number to express interest in the photo shoot. You can even bring your husband!
Here’s the skinny on the details: you must sign a model release allowing the photos to be posted on their website (as well as the respective photographer’s website), you’ll get a disc with all of the finished images in the mail and you will also have the option of purchasing prints from a professional lab and you can’t be camera shy!
They are also having bashes in Atlantic City (July 10th), San Diego (TBD) and more to come! Check out their listings under “Trash Bashes in Your Area” at TrashTheDress.com.
p.s. If you see a tall crazy blonde girl with her mouth hanging open from laughing so hard…. that’d be me
Before I start to pack up my belongings next week for the big move, I figured it would be best to get some more crafting projects out of the way. Program covers were next on the list, so I busted out Mr. Gocco and had some printing fun. First, I designed the programs in Illustrator. I created a fun little pattern with my rose motif for the top, with a smaller design layered over it in gold. Then, I simply copied the top design, rotated it 180 degrees, and placed it on the bottom (this is crucial since I printed the same design on the top and the bottom). I kept the fonts (Daisy Lau and TrajanPro) consistent as I’ve used them with all the other 
I purchased my program covers (light & medium blue) during the lovely Kate’s Paperie sale a few months back and got all 200 6.25×6.25 squares for $12. Hooray for cheap 
OK…. time to print out the design so I can start the gocco-fun! I isolated the upper part of the design and printed it out, and then did the same for the smaller rose design. In order to save resources, I organized my screen to burn both designs in at once. I registered the larger design to the top of the foam block, and flipped the smaller design to register to the bottom of the block (notice my nifty little pen line that indicates “top” for me).
All ready to flash! (never forget your blue filter!!!)
All burned!
In order to keep the two sides seperate, I used foam blocking tape to mask off the middle of my design. 
I used a wonderful light pearl blue to print the large design on the programs. Here you can see I printed one side, and I’m ready to press the other side.
Now the trick to printing another design AFTER you’ve got ink somewhere else on the screen is simply to cover the screen with something. For smaller designs, I use tape, but for this project I just used a scrap piece of 
I just inked up that side with gold… and continued stamping away overtop the blue ink. I used a third screen (which also has tons of other things on it) it print out the middle text in blue, and here is the finished project:
I wish you could see how shiny they are in person…. my camera just doesn’t capture it very well at all! The colors are fabulous though, and they’re just the personal touch that I was looking for. Now if only we had all of our readings picked out for the ceremony… hmm…..
We were lucky to spend our Saturday at the beautiful garden party wedding of our friends Rob (one of Mr. Lemon’s groomsman) and Victoria on Saturday evening here in LA. The event was held in the valley in her mother’s lush and expansive backyard, with greens elements and garden themes throughout.
Now since we got engaged only six days apart, our wedding plans have been intricately linked throughout the last year. If I had to pick one little pet project of hers, I’d pick her amazing seating cards and display:
That’s real grass in there!!
Detailed picture of the painted rocks. Your table number was on the back of each rock (as shown by #12).
Everyone was “ooh-ing & aww-ing” over them, as they were set-up on an upper deck near the appetizers and the bar. It fit perfectly into the decor and looked like it just belonged there.
Victoria also had wonderful green touches on her dress (Carolina Herrera) and since she bought it at a trunk show, they custom-made a veil for her with the same green ribbon edging on the dress. Their cake also had the ribbon wrapped on it… and everything just seemed to flow perfectly together.
Instead of favors, they opted for the popular RedCheese photobooth which they set-up in the driveway of the house. There was a constant line for photos all night, and we only got to take a couple strips…but I saw people walking around with tons of them so I know they got their money’s worth. The quality of the photos was really great, however, and they even included a little link at the bottom to download your strip online.
The lovely couple (seriously… how cute is this?)
The ring bearer
We opted for black and white
My camera was acting up so I didn’t get many more photos before the sun went down, but the scene was lit with tiki torches in the foliage and floating candles in the landscaped stream and in the pool (which only two people ended up in by the end of the night). It was hard to realize that it was just her mom’s backyard when we left (since it underwent drastic transformations from ceremony time to cocktail hour to dinner hour to dessert), which means they pulled off the perfect backyard wedding. Congrats you two and enjoy Greece!!!
Look what we got….
That big yellow envelope contains our super boring (but very legal) marriage license, and on Monday it’ll be shipped up to Monterey to the diocese to wait more signatures in July. I must say that our trip to the Beverly Hills courthouse was very uneventful. We parked on the street only steps away from the door, went through security, waited until the clerks ended their lunchbreak, jumped in line for the first open window, handed over our IDs, gave an oath, signed our names, handed them $70 and left with our package. It seriously took no more than ten minutes of our time, and we were done.
Now, I will say that the couple next to us had some issues, and they definitely had to wait a bit more for everything to get processed and completed…. and they were far from done when we went on our merry way. So, if you’re in Los Angeles County (or somewhere else that has it), I highly suggest you complete the application online. Our clerk told us we were extra “smart” for doing so and that it saved us at least 30-60 minutes… but I just don’t think that many people know it’s an option. It saves the hassle of waiting for someone to enter your information in the computer, and it also assures that you get all of the names and facts right the first time.
Wowzers… one more big step taken care of…. now I can really feel the time creeping up on me!
Alright people… you may not be as excited about this as I am (since I’m a font geek and have little font posters up around my computer and subscribe to font newsletters) BUT nevertheless this is by far the coolest [wedding] font that has ever been created:
Burgues Script is an ode to the late 19th century American calligrapher
Louis Madarasz, whose legendary pen has inspired schools of penmanship
for over 100 years. His talent has caused some people to call him “the
most skillful penman the world has ever known.” –cpluv
There are more than 500 characters, including swashes, titling, and alternates….. which means that you can pretty much create your own gorgeous calligraphy script at home complete with all the fanciness that only the best in the biz have in their repertoire.
The only drawback…. the price of $99. Now… if I had to go back to the drawing board and redesign my invitations…. I think I might consider working completely around this gorgeous typeface. *sigh*
With 1/3 of the results in… I can proudly declare that the time I spent designing our RSVP card was well worth it! You see, I’ve heard the horror stories and seen the scanned pictures of “responses gone wild” and I vowed to try my best to completely avoid it… and I think I can safely say that I succeeded! (You know, I spent a lot of time in graduate level statistics courses analyzing the error rates attributed to confusing forms and questionnaires, so I’m hoping this one nabs me an A in the end!)
So, what does a good RSVP have on it? For me, it needed to have room for the full names for all guests, their personal meal choices (since our place cards must indicate their meal choice), as well as their hotel information if they were coming from out of town. So, when I ran across this design from Good on Paper Design, I knew it was the perfect choice! None of the invited parties had more than 5 guests, so the number of lines excluded some sort of crazy “I’m bringing 22 people” response… and I think that my psuedo-inner envelope helped out by indicating exactly “who” was invited by making it very obvious.
Each guest had their own line with two questions to answer: Are you coming and what are you eating? Now, keep in mind that I did not fill in any of the lines for my guests and each returned card has had a clearly written first and last name for each guest, as well as their meal choice, arrival date and hotel information clearly stated. I didn’t include a kids meal choice, since only a few kids are coming, but all of the moms clearly stated (KID) on the form and asked if another meal was available.
So… I’ve got an easy meal count, the correct names for everyone, and the right spot to drop off OOT goodies! Success!
Did anyone come across RSVP successes or failures due to the format they used???
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