I’ve had guestbooks on the brain for a while, and I knew I wanted something that would become a keepsake after the day, not just sit in a box and gather dust for 50 years. Maybe I’m weird in this, but signing a “traditional” guestbook, where guests just sign their name on the next available line, has always reminded me of signing a funeral register.

NO FUN ALLOWED / Photo via Carter Funeral Home

Not exactly a vibe I want at the wedding. Plus, why would we just want to read our guests’ names line by line? We wouldn’t, is the answer. If we want a list of who was there we can keep a copy of our finalized guest list. No, I wanted a guestbook with a bit more personality and meaning than that.

I actually got my idea for the guestbook in December of 2010, way before we were even engaged. (I told you that happened a lot.) We were at Jason’s cousin’s wedding, and they had a giant photo mat for everyone to sign. I thought it was the cutest idea — guests could write messages, draw little pictures, and whatever else, and then the couple could hang it with a wedding photo in their home to always have their guests’ well wishes there on display. I loved it! Much better than writing your name on a line in a book.

So when it came time to decide on our own guestbook, I knew I wanted to do a photo mat. Jason liked the idea as well. All I had to do was wait for a good sale, which happened to be this past weekend. I found a framed 16×20″ mat, with space for an 8×10″ photo, for 55% off — it came to $13.49. Score! I also picked up a little easel for it to sit on, to make it more of a display and less of a…thing-laying-on-the-table. I got it in gold, to match with our wedding colors. (The photo frame will stay black because that matches our home decor better, which is, of course, where this will eventually end up.)

I ran home excitedly and assembled the mockup. When our guests walk into the reception, this is what they’ll see:

Personal photo

Except imagine it with our photo (I didn’t want to take the plastic off in case the mat were to get dirty, so I couldn’t put our photo in it yet), plus a pretty cup full of pens and a little sign that says “Please sign our photo mat!” Actually, you don’t have to imagine it, because I Photoshopped it for you:

Personal photo / Pens / Cup / Frame / Photoshopped by me

Ooooh, blog, this makes me so freakin’ excited! This is our very first “complete” project with all the pieces (well, we don’t actually have them all, but they’ll look nearly identical to the Photoshopped version — I’m even buying that exact pen cup!) and it is SO exciting to see it all coming together, instead of just having bits and pieces and having to imagine the final product. I’m relieved to say that this came out exactly how I had pictured it in my head. Here’s hoping the rest of the wedding turns out that way…

What kind of guestbook are you having? Were you excited when things started coming together?

As you know, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my nails. I originally wanted to grow my own nails out and get them Shellac’d into a French manicure, but that clearly wasn’t going to work out because they kept breaking off. So I finally swallowed my pride, faced my fear, and last week I went to get my first set of gel nails put on.

And blog? I love them.

No more nail breaks. No more fingernails-on-a-chalkboard feeling when I touch certain fabrics the wrong way (does that happen to anyone else?). No more chipped nail polish. No more peeling, gross, yucky nails. I seriously think these are going to become a permanent addition to my beauty routine. All my fears of pain, ruined natural nails, infection, stupid nail techs, and everything else, were all for naught. I don’t know what I was so afraid of. The whole day leading up to my appointment I felt as though I was waiting for a root canal rather than a nail appointment. That’s how nervous I was. I almost chickened out when I got there, but I figured, I’ve wanted to try these for years, I’m here, sitting in the chair, so when will there be a better time?

I’m so glad I went through with it. Plus, not only do my nails look beautiful and strong, but the nail tech and I got along so well that my appointment took three hours rather than her typical 90 minutes, because we were chatting and laughing so much. We got into discussions about religion, relationships, cats, drinking, careers, art, and everything in between. She also listened to my concerns about ruining my natural nails and was very gentle, and didn’t use the drill at all until the gels were on (and thus she was filing the gel, not my own nails). The process went a little something like this (I may have a few steps wrong or be missing something, but this is the general gist):

1. She sanitized my hands and hers with alcohol spray.
2. Clipped my natural nails down as far as she could comfortably get them, then filed the edges smooth with a 180 grit file.
3. Sanitized again, and then lightly buffed the tops of my nails with the same 180 grit file, just enough to remove the shine.
4. Applied a nail dehydrator, to temporarily suck the oils from my nails so that the gels would adhere better.
5. Matched tips to each of my fingers, glued them on, and clipped/filed/blended them with my natural nails.
6. Sanitized yet again, then applied the first layer of gel, curing each finger under the UV light for 3 seconds.
7. Applied second layer of gel and cured each for 3 seconds again.
8. Cured each hand for 2 full minutes.
9. Shaped the nails (this is the part where she used the drill, but she was nowhere near my natural nails, so it was fine) and smoothed the free edges.
10. Applied gel top coat, cured, then applied the French manicure with regular OPI polish.

She said she uses regular polish on her clients as opposed to colored gel or gel polish because that way they can change the polish themselves at home if they want to. Since nail polish remover doesn’t harm the gels (even if it has acetone in it), you can remove and repolish them as many times as you want, and the gels will still be unharmed.

When I got home, I couldn’t stop staring at them, and immediately had a photo shoot (as an excuse to take gratuitous ring pictures, of course).

Personal photo

Personal photo

My nails were a little achy for the first couple of days, and I was constantly afraid I was going to bang them on something and rip them off. She said both things were totally normal in first-timers, and to give it a week before I decided I hated them. Well, it’s been a week, and I can honestly say that after a few days to adjust, I barely even notice them anymore. They just feel like my own nails, but even better. I can’t wait to try all sorts of fun polish colors — now that I don’t have to worry about my polish chipping (did I mention that polish doesn’t chip off AT ALL when it’s applied over gels? Another awesome benefit) I don’t feel guilty buying expensive nail polish, because I know my manicure won’t be ruined the next day. The only thing I’m still nervous about is the cost of maintaining them (I have to go back every 2-3 weeks to get the new growth filled), but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Honestly, I was so impressed with this salon that I scheduled MOH Emily’s and my wedding-week nail appointments there already — she’s getting Shellac polish, I’m getting my gels filled/touched up/whatever they need, and we’re both getting pedicures. The nail tech said we could bring mimosas and snacks and we’d make a day of it — how cool is that? I’m so excited to have a girly day of relaxation right before the wedding day, and I’m especially relieved that my nail woes are over. All’s well that ends well in nail land.

Did you have a “trial run” of your nails before the wedding day? Did you like them more than you expected you would?

There’s been a change of plans, blog. I originally had decided that I wanted to wear my hair in a half-up style for the wedding. However, thanks to the great wide world of Pinterest, I’ve changed my tune a bit.

One day at work night while innocently browsing hair and beauty pins, I came across an image of the perfect wedding hairstyle. It was simple and chic, and it had the perfect place to stick a veil. And since my hair should be touching my shoulders by the time the big day rolls around, I should be able to recreate it. Pinterest called it “the gibson tuck”.

Image via The Question Club

I continued looking and found tutorials and a ton more images — including Mrs. Buttons from Weddingbee!

Image via Ruffles and Truffles…hey Mrs. Buttons!

Image via Wedding Plans

Everything about this look was totally perfect. It was sleek and simple (and totally easy to do!), and it provided the absolute perfect place to tuck my veil into. It will keep my hair out of my face and off my neck — good thing because my baby-fine hair tends to get stringy and tangled about five seconds after brushing it anyway. This way I can just hide that all away in an updo and fool people into thinking I actually have cooperative hair. Shhh, they don’t need to know the truth.

But with this change of hairstyle came a change of plans on my hair clip. I had originally made this barrette out of my mama’s shoe clips from her wedding:

Personal photo

That style clip worked really well with my pixie cut, but I didn’t think it would do with an updo. Plus, why would I put my hair accessory in the front when the gibson tuck is practically made for tucking a pretty hair comb into? Well, I wouldn’t. But I still wanted to use my mom’s shoe clips, so it was time to get in touch with my crafty side again.

I got out a plain hair comb, some feathers, mom’s wedding earrings (the pearl sprays you’ll see below), and took the shoe clips off the barrette, and made a few mockups. My first trial included feathers, one earring, and both shoe clips:

Photographic evidence of baby ponytail! / Personal photo

But I thought that looked a little too…busy. So I took the feathers off and added the second earring, and this time we were getting somewhere. I tried it on without gluing anything first, and when I had it all adjusted exactly where I wanted it, I broke out the hot glue gun and made it permanent. Blog, I’ll admit I was a little (or a lot) commitment-phobic at this point — all I could think was that I would never be able to get her earrings or shoe clips off of here again, and I felt like I was ruining them in some way. But I had to remind myself that I’d never wear the earrings or the shoe clips themselves, and making them into a pretty hair comb was the best possible thing to do with them. If my mom were here I’m sure she’d love it.

After the glue dried I tried it on and made Jason take pictures. My regret over “ruining” her earrings and shoe clips disappeared — I was in love with what I saw!

Personal photo

Personal photo

It matches my simple-elegant wedding day look perfectly, and it’s another great way to carry a piece of my favorite lady with me on the wedding day. Of course the final test was how it looked with my veil, and I’d say it passed with flying colors. What do you think? :)

Trying and failing to aim the camera at the back of my head / Personal photo

Self-timer to the rescue…and my veil is crooked. / Personal photo

Here’s hoping my hair actually grows out enough to achieve this look. Coming soon: a tutorial on how to do this, just in case there is another person out there in the niche audience of “making a hair comb out of earrings and shoe clips”. :P

Have you ever made your own hair comb? Did you use any pieces of jewelry to make it?

Despite my desire to do everything extremely early, we didn’t plan to start invitations for another month at least, so we had thrown them to the back burner. But with the postage stamp price hike happening this week, our groove was thrown off and we needed a change of plan.

Bewaaare, the groooooove… / Image via StarPulse.com

Even though the price is only going up 1¢, the penny-pincher in me still wanted to make sure we got the “old” price for all of our invite stamps. Even though it will probably only save us $1 or less in the long run, you know what they say: A penny saved is a penny earned and all that good stuff. With that extra dollar, one of us can go to the vending machine at work! Hooray!

Anyway. Our new plan of attack was to make one mockup invitation, unprinted, ugly, and completely disregarding colors, just as long as it had all the right pieces in it, so that we could take it to get it weighed and buy enough Forever stamps to cover all the invitations. But to do that, we needed to determine exactly what would go into our invitations — pocketfolds? Belly bands? Registry cards? Maps?

We already had our invitations, having purchased them in box kits from Michael’s last summer, but they only had the basics — invite + envelope, RSVP card + envelope, and thank you card + envelope. I knew I wanted pocketfolds, and I knew I wanted to DIY them. I had some craft paper laying around, so I referenced this tutorial. I went out and purchased a scoring board and some extra paper just in case, and then set to work.

I first followed the tutorial exactly, but what I didn’t consider is that not all invites are a standard size. The invitations that came in our kit were slightly wider and longer than the measurements in that tutorial. So I tried again, adding 1/4″ on each side — still too small. Okay, another 1/4″. Still too small. After quite a few tries, this is what I had:

Personal photo

Oh, you were excited to see a perfected finished product? Womp womp. All I had was a giant friggin’ mess of failed pocketfolds. But if I’ve learned anything from wedding crafting thus far, it’s that you fail a lot at first but then you try again and suddenly you get it perfect. I grabbed my very last sheet of paper and tried one last time, this time measuring extra-carefully and triple-checking everything before I cut or scored. And what do you know, I got it right.

The next step was making the inner pocket of the pocketfold — this would hold our RSVP card and envelope, and a card directing people to our wedding website for directions, registry info, etc. I followed the tutorial again, this time only using it as a guideline and making sure to measure for my own invitation size before cutting and scoring. Surprisingly I got this right on the first try, and from there everything was gravy: assemble all the pieces and slap a sticker (included in our invitation kit) on it, and voilà. I won’t show you any detail pictures because quite a few of our guests read this blog and I want the first time they see the invites to be when they open theirs in the mail, but I’ll show you the outside because this is nothing like what the real things will look like; wrong colors, messy folds, generally ugly, but it’s the fruit of my two hours of labor and I have to show it off:

Personal photo

I was a little nervous about it fitting into the included envelopes, but it actually fit perfectly. It’s like it was meant to be.

So with all of our invitation pieces decided upon, we will take our little mockup to get weighed at the post office this week, and hopefully not break the bank in postage stamps. And after we buy the stamps there will be no changing our invitations (other than, y’know, actually printing them and putting them together more neatly and in the right colors) — we are committed to this design and these elements because adding or subtracting anything significant will change the weight, and thus the postage price. I’m not worried though, because I’m happy with what we have here.

Did you have to change your plans for invitations or save-the-dates because of the postage hike, or are you just not worrying about the tiny 1¢ increase?

One of the things that I’ve always dreamt of having at my wedding is icicle lights on the non-guest tables: head table, buffet table, cake table, etc.

Image via Designs by Lisa

Image via Justin & Chelsea’s Planning Bio

Image via The Knot

It’s just one of those things that makes a wedding feel Like A Wedding for me. It all started when I was a young girl at a family friend’s wedding — the bland, stark white church basement was decked out in twinkly, sparkly lights and it cast the most beautiful glow around the room. Since then I have known that I’ve wanted to have the same thing at my wedding. Unfortunately our venue strictly disallows hanging things from the ceiling or walls, so I had to pare down my dream slightly, but I could still have my fairy lights on our long tables. Our long tables will have plain white linens, because to get colored 8′ linens you had to pay an arm and a leg extra. No thanks. If I’m honest I wasn’t really interested in colored 8′ linens anyway because I knew I wanted the icicle lights + white linens look.

To pull this off we needed to figure out exactly how much table we would be covering, and how many feet of lights we’d need to buy. Our long tables will be as follows:

Head table: 8′
Buffet table: 24′
Cookie table: 16′
Gift table: 8′
TOTAL: 56′

56 feet of lights, preferably in 8′ segments. Seemed like a tall order, but my hopes were high.

My girlhood dream came true on the day after Christmas, when we took advantage of after-Christmas sales after the failed suit shopping trip. And these dang lights were almost a failure too — it seemed that everyone and their brother had gone out at approximately 9:01 AM to buy every single box of icicle lights in the Pittsburgh area. Suit shopping was our priority that day, so we didn’t get out to look for our lights until after dinnertime, and by that time the only things that were left were weird things that no one wanted, like chili pepper lights:

Sorry, this is not the theme of our wedding / Photo via Sexy Bloomers

We finally hit the jackpot at the very last store we tried. When we entered the store we didn’t see any Christmas stuff, so I was thinking we’d strike out there too, but we found one single solitary cart in the middle of the store with their 50%-off holiday decor shoved onto it higgledy-piggledy — and in the middle of the mess sat eight boxes of 8′ white icicle lights. We grabbed them without hesitating, paid our $62, and ran home to test them out.

Successful lighting / Personal photo

The aftermath / Personal photo

It was like a Christmas light explosion. 56′ of lights is A LOT of lights. The lights came bundled up in little bunches, and we didn’t unravel them, to make for easier re-boxing and safer storage until the wedding, but still. 56′. It was a lot. Luckily there was only one bunch out of all the boxes that had gone out, and after tapping it a few times it lit back up — one of the lightbulbs must have just been loose. Once we confirmed they all worked I boxed them all back up as gently as I could, so as not to break any bulbs. We’ll test them out again closer to the wedding, and again the morning of after they’ve been hung, just to be extra sure. Keep your fingers crossed for us that everything still works by then.

Are you using any Christmas/string lights at your reception?