save the dates

Along with our engagement invites, I have been making our Save the Dates. Save the Dates don't seem to be a big thing here in Australia, unless you are having a wedding overseas and need to give a decent amount of notice for planning reasons. But since there are a number of people getting married around the same time as us, who run in the same circles (or family!), we decided to include a Save The Date for those invited to the wedding, with their engagement invite. I'm also going to make sure that none of our wedding related things, conflict with anyone else's wedding related things - I don't want to have to put our guests in that position and I want to make sure that each of the other ladies is Queen of her own day and events as well :)

So I was looking at a lot of Save The Dates along with invites to get some ideas. I managed to find one that I loved (and have since created, minus the picture) but these are a few of the ones I saved because I thought they were cute. I seem to really like the carnival-style ones!!! I guess because I would want something more formal for our wedding invites, I liked the idea of something a little more fun for our engagement invites and our STD! The first one is from The Wedding Chicks and I love it, it's very cute...I was very tempted by it...

photo of the day

This was taken by my MoH last weekend - we caught up with some lovely lady friends we haven't had a chance to see in a while. Both Amy and I have gotten engaged since we last saw each other, and this was the first time to have a squiz at each other's rings and share stories!

extract from Sonnet XVII

...I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I know no other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

a couple of stamps for my MoH

Title says it all :)


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engagement news

Ok well I promised Save The Dates next buuuuuut I haven't had a chance to do that yet. I've been a busy little engagement bumble bee today and thought I would take a minute to write up a quick note about it!

So, as promised, I started focusing more on our engagement party today. I'm off work today thanks to my crazy head (long story - could probably have a whole blog to itself!), as I was yesterday (hence the reason there were a few posts!). When I got up this morning, first thing I did was add the future hubby's now completed guest list for the engagement party to the guest list I'd already started typing. And BOY is it long! We are doing some "sending an invite to let you know we're thinking of you even though we know you can't come" invites though, so the list will be a little smaller. But still. It's going to be a big party! Luckily, the hall we are having it in is lovely and spacious!

Second, I started contacting people to get their addresses - there are a lot of people we don't actually have addresses for! I plan on keeping this list for my siblings so that when their turn comes around, all they have to do is update the family addresses! Phew. At least we will have all the addresses for the wedding invites ready this way.

I also emailed a friend from school's wife, to see if she is still available to do our engagement cake for the party, and downloaded a bunch of templates for the dessert table at our party...but more on that later!!!

The most exciting thing about today is that we are hoping to get some shots done for our engagement invites, so I can start printing them off and getting them organised to be sent!!! I figured that our weekends are so busy lately, and we are running out of time, that this afternoon would be a great time to get some shots taken. It's sunny for once (it's been raining here a lot lately!), I have the afternoon off, as does future hubby, and my little brother will finish school with a couple of hours of sunlight left! So I've been looking up ideas for our photos (other then our sign props) and have got some that should be fun. I went and bought some sidewalk chalk today, so that should give you some ideas!

If it all goes through this afternoon, I'll post up some sneak peeks in the next couple of days...after we decide which ones we will use for our invites and STDs. Hopefully they turn out well!!! xx

a few cute things

Going through all the bazillion saved wedding-related book marks on my computer (deleting those I've already posted or no longer interested in) and found these. How cute!


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Second, I LOVE this engagement shoot. It's stunning. Everything about it is gorgeous.

I hope we get to have an engagement shoot, but really the reason we need one would be to include on our engagement invites, etc. and we won't be able to get one done in time to make the invites. Besides, my lovely brother is doing the shots for that for us. But it would still be nice...we'll see how we go!

engagement invites!

Well, since we have now got a set date for our engagement party, I suppose I should start focusing on that, instead of the wedding...and least for a little while! I have actually been playing around with invites for some time now and have made a few different ones. It's a lot of fun! I'm not going to post our actual invite until it's sent out (and it's not quite finished yet) but I thought I would show you a few samples I looked at for ideas, as well as a couple I played around with.

First up, the ones I was looking at before I started playing around on Photoshop - to get an idea! I was looking for styles that would be easy to create myself, but still elegant and these were a few of the ones I saved...(apologies because I haven't saved sources for a few. if you are aware of any, please contact me!)


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This is one I played around with on Wedding Chicks:


And finally...two I made myself. The date has changed so it doesn't really matter one the Birdie one. It's more to show you how the writing would have continued! There was actually another one that I made first, and I can't seem to find it. If I do I'll post it :)




Edit: (09/05/2011) FOUND IT!


Like I said, after the invites have been sent, I'll post what we decide to send out. Next post - Save The Dates!

fonts and more monograms

See that font up there in our banner? Yep, that one there ^ ? That's our wedding font! So far it's been used in all the stationary I've been creating for the wedding (engagement invites, STD, etc.) except for the bridesmaids/groomsmen cards (it was used on the flower girl envelopes!). I saw it and fell in love with it :) It's a gorgeous font by tart workshop, based on the calligraphy of Crystal Kluge. It's called "Nelly Script Flourish" and an example of it can be found here. It is a paid font, which can also be bought in a set with the simple Nelly Script, as well as Nelly Frames - I don't have the frames yet and am considering getting them...will let you know if I do!

Anyway, Crystal Kluge does some AMAZING fonts and the monograms I'm about to show you are a mixture between Nelly Script fonts, Crystal's Darling Monograms and Crystal's Barocca Monograms. I'm trying to not only find a monogram for us to use on stationary, but one to create a little sticker out of, to close our engagement invite envelopes. Since I finally got the go-ahead with our date last night, I can start to print out our invites and organise sending them out. So, a monogram is needed soon!

There's one or two from my previous monogram post (found here) that I am considering also (although the rest were just for fun!) but what do you think is best out of these? I'd love some opinions! Border vs. No Border? Darling vs. Barocca?


Barocca mixed with Nelly and Barocca on it's own


Darling frame with Barocca fonts


Darling Monogram

...the dress...

As I've probably mentioned before, I have no idea what kind of wedding dress I want. I'm actually not a big wedding dress person...I have yet to find a dress that really jumps out at me. Whenever I get the question (and you know you get it a lot once you're engaged!), "What kinda of dress do you want?" my answer has always been, "I have no idea!" I've had numerous discussions with my ladies about what it could possibly look like...and other then the fact it will probably be strapless, I had no idea...

Until now. Now I have a little bit of an idea. Because I saw these pictures, and COMPLETELY fell in love with the bottom of this dress:


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Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the old world charm to it...I think it's stunning. The top I'm not a huge fan of (sorry if this is your wedding dress! It's just not me!) but I love love love the bottom...

Of course, in saying that, I could try something similar on and it could look terrible...so the world is still wide open, wedding dress wise. I think I will happily try on a million styles to get an idea of what suits me and what I like. But I will definitely be looking for something similar to this to try on :)

Did anyone else find an inspiration image (or two, or three?) before they knew what they wanted out of a wedding dress?

flowergirl project is finished!!

After a busy, BUSY weekend, catching up with a lot of gorgeous ladies (it really was an AWESOME weekend), I finally got a chance to sit down and finish the books for the girls. I can give them out this weekend and I'm quite excited. So, without further ado - the finished project!

(warning: there may be a lot of pictures of the envelopes...the amount of hassle we, and specifically my dad, had trying to get the damn things printed definitely requires some pictures of the end result haha)






Last night I also started the insert for my nephew's Page Boy book (on order) and designing something for the future hubby to put with whatever he decides to do for his groomsmen...when he finally decides to ask them...

Taking forever to ask the groomsmen seems to be a common theme with the men-folk! Did anyone else find their future hubby took a while to get around to it?