On the intarwebz

As much opportunity as I had to learn them there fancy web-creation skills at SILS, I decided to go the "easy template wedding website" route. I feel a little like I'm wussing out because a secret part of me has always wanted to be able to make kickass websites, but that part got left behind soon after the days of fancy flashing gifs and Geocities (to my middle-school-aged credit, I refrained from most flashing gifs and made stuff that looked as tasteful as something created by an 8th-grader could look. Black and purple all the way, baby... with stars... the theme, it holds together and is not overwhelming!).
So, to keep a "wedsite" *snork* from looking like 8th-grade me made it, I went with a free pre-designed option. I looked at a couple of different services - TheKnot's free ones, and eWedding.com - but their template choices didn't hold a candle to the ones over at MyWedding.com.
For a while, I couldn't decide which template to go with because there were SO many awesome ones. One of the great parts about MyWedding.com is the way that they partner with other services -- everything from Offbeat Bride to Christian fiction author Karen Kingsbury to Green Bride Guide. There seriously is something for everybody.
Even me!

Yep... finding out that they've partnered with Minted, the company that makes the awesome invites, miiiiight have just made everything feel like awesome cosmic alignment.
I don't have everything juuuuust the way I want it yet, but close enough that I'm ready to post it here :) Hooray!

Some thoughts on cake

Yet another snow day has come and gone without me being able to get to the fabric store. I'm itching -- itching, I tell you! -- to buy the fabric and thread and other materials I need to get started on some sample fabric flowers. But, since I'm unable to get started on that, I decided to think about something else today. Cake!

"Oooooh, I love a bit of cake. Oooooh, cake. Oooooh, cake. Cake. Cake. Cake. Cake. I'm just one of these people. I come home and I need a piece of cake."

(*cough* I've been on a BritCom kick recently.)

The whole cake business is something that's been pretty much strictly DIY for us from the start. For one, we live in an area where there isn't enough business for bakeries to... well... work. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to outsource this cake, I'd be spending a ton just to have it transported here. There's probably somewhere in Boone or Blowing Rock that would do it, but I guarantee you it would cost more than it will cost us to make... something. The question is, what kind of something?

I love this cake that I saw on Style Me Pretty -- I'm really drawn to the fabric flowers (who'da thought?) and the detail around the bottom of the layers that looks like... I can't figure out what, but I like it. Maybe like branches? Something pretty.

If we do a layered cake, I'd love to do something similar, but probably with simple ribbon around the bottom of each layer and buttercream instead of fondant. I know me and Mom. Buttercream = familiar and less stressful. Fondant = "what are we supposed to do with this?" But -- that's if we do a layered display cake. I think we're a lot more likely to have success with two or three smaller layered cakes (or one display cake and some sheet cakes) than a big ol' huge tiered thing.
I also love the idea of having multiple, smaller cakes. For one, it seems to go well with the idea of having a groom's cake (I would love to make a cake with the Horde insignia on it, or possibly his guild tabard, for Johnny's groom's cake. Picture a large hot pink cake with a purple scarecrow on it, if you will.) Also, that means you can do some nice-looking crafty stuff with multiple cake stands. Here are some on Etsy that are gorgeous, but I know enough people who do woodworking (or at least own a chainsaw) that I thiiiink I could coat them in polyurethane and make them myself.

Made by RoxyHeartVintage

That's if I want to get fancy about it, though. I don't have my heart set on anything like that, as cool as it looks -- but at least it did get me thinking about the fact that you do have to put a cake on something.
I love the way that cake tables with multiple small cakes on stands with different heights look, especially since I could nest this in the center...

So. My thoughts on DIY cake:

• Probably multiple pieces -- whether that means one display cake with extra sheet cakes or multiple small cakes.
• Buttercream all the way, baby!
• Simple decorations. Not a lot of flowers and piping and stuff. For DIY, easier is better :)
• Must be easy to transport - nothing too big or unstable
• Must not be so big or complicated that helper-folks who aren't pastry chefs can figure out how to cut 'em.
• Something we can make to scale in a practice round or two without going broke.

I also found some neat tutorials and reference entries on DIYing your own wedding cake at DIY Bride. They ran Cake Month entries recently:

• Is a DIY Wedding Cake for You?
• First Steps
• Slices: Size Matters
• Boxed Mix or Scratch Recipe?

Mom and I need to talk and figure out what flavors to do (Johnny already says he has no preference...), what recipes to use, and when to do our test runs. Rest assured that there will be a rundown when that happens!

At least our DIY cake will taste better than dust.  

Hello, ladies.

Look at this invitation:

Now back to me.
Now back to this invitation:

Now back to me.
I still can't get over this invitation. All three pre-done colors it comes in look awesome, and either the taupe or the blue would go with the other colors... and I'm ordering a sample of the lobelia to see if it would go as well. Just. Can't. Get. Over. It. I've got a ton of time to think on it, which means I also have time to evaluate whether it'll go in our budget (and/or save up for it!). Dah! It is dumb to be so infatuated over an invitation when the paper stuff is not that important... none of the fiddly details are that all-fired important. But just.... looooove it.
I'm on a horse.

Ch-ch-changes

Hey, it's 10 months until go-time! Thought this would be an appropriate day to give an update after my "time off" for the holiday season. I'm extremely glad that I took some time away from actively trying to get stuff done related to wedding-business and worked on other projects -- finishing NaNoWriMo, moving house, getting used to winter weather driving again (I've slid off the road twice already...), and all that jazz. (I should probably include "playing the heck out of some Cataclysm" in that mix.)
However, I didn't actually put wedding-stuff completely out of mind for the past month. Kind of far from it. I spent a lot of time just mulling ideas over, getting a better sense of what I want to do and what can be done with the funds and time I have, and thinking about the end product. And all that has come down to a lot of changes.
As any goblin in Azeroth will tell you, "time is money, friend." I'm lucky that I have a lot of weeks and months to use for DIY projects before October, but the free time I have day-to-day is pretty hard to come by. I've been trying to evaluate how much product I can get out of the time I have in order to come out with stuff that looks good but hasn't taken up so much time that I'm left stressed to the max. I'm still keeping the picture tree (and I finally know what that kind of tree is called - manzanita!) and the candle centerpieces, since those are the projects that are most important to me. My big decision right now is whether to go with making fabric flowers or not. I mean, look at these beauties:

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Or this one...


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I love the rustic, relaxed, homey look of the felt ones, and Mrs. Locket's lace ones are to die for. If I don't do fabric flowers, I'll most likely be doing something involving a ton of wheat. Like this.



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Actually, it was that picture that changed a lot of the style choices I'd been thinking of. (More on that in a minute.)
I'm probably going to be doing a combination of wheat and felt flower stuff with the reception table centerpieces, too.
Most of my other DIY projects that I had in mind are getting super-simplified. Mallorn-leaf bouts will probably get replaced by simple wheat ones, maybe with a fabric bloom on there, because I forgot how bad I am with Sculpey :P This is also a contributing reason for why the cake topper idea is going away and getting replaced with an already-made piece that isn't technically a cake topper but which J and I both really like (which will probably just stand beside the cake):


"Together" by Susan Lordi (Willow Tree)

I've re-thought my stance on invites. The things are so dang expensive. Actually anything paper in general is so dang expensive - programs, thankyous, everything. That and the flowers are what I'm most up in the air about at the moment. I still like Cards and Pockets, but I've also seen some nice Seal 'N Send invites with detachable RSVPs. Or I could go the totally DIY route and make some like these pretty ones I found instructions on from Michaels:


Source

Or some of the pro ones from Wedding Paper Divas that I could simplify down to one piece. The more I think about invites, the less I want multiple pieces of paper stuck in them and the more I want to encourage people to use our website. Since we know there'll probably be people who don't get an invite who turn up anyway and know how weddings around here generally work ("Why do I have to send this card back?"), we're just going to do a ton of finger-foods and not have to worry so much about head count. The website has all the info that would go on all the extraneous invite cards.
I also changed my mind a little on the color scheme after taking a better look at the church and the fellowship hall with wedding stuff in mind. The sanctuary has medium-tone wood and burgundy carpet, and the fellowship hall is dusty blue and taupe -- I ended up really liking the way that dusty rose looked with both those sets of colors, so the purple is getting traded out for that color (which should be the same color as the blog background, if it's registering the same way on your browser as it is on mine).
So... I guess that even though I haven't really done anything, I've thought a lot! With the end of the holidays, I'll probably be making some DIY update posts as the ball gets rolling with those projects, and I'll have a better idea of what we're going with.
That's where we stand...