the story of us

Okay, so this one is still a work in progress, but I figured I would show you what it currently looks like and surprise you with the finished product on the day of.

I wanted something that we’d probably use again.  So I went to Ikea to search for Candle Holders.  Here’s what I came up with:

So people shopping at Ikea were wondering what the heck I was doing, but whatever… I knew exactly what I was doing.  Which one do you like?  In either case of the above, the finished product isn’t going to look like that.  Below is a DIY for dressing up the candles themselves.

Here is an example of what you can do with the candle (mind you, I decided I don’t like it, and have already designed a new one):

This is attempt #1 and the only one you’re going to see.  As you can see our names don’t exactly fit when you look at it head on.

I’ve written the steps on how to do this yourself.  This can be a very inexpensive project if you want it to be.  Honestly, it really depends on the candle holders.  I originally wanted crystal, but each piece was going to cost us about $25 or so.  And really?  Do we use candles that often?  Never.  So Ikea was a more cost effective option.

What I have also found, is that vellum paper is only good for white candles.  If you want to use an ivory candle, you’ll either have to choose ivory vellum paper, or try using printable stickers.

Have fun with this!  And it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s a craft.

Materials:

• Large Candle
• 2 Taper Candles
• Ribbon (Optional)
• Candle Holders
• Vellum Paper

Steps:

1. Create a graphic or monogram of what you want on the large candle.
2. Print graphic or monogram onto vellum paper
3. Wrap vellum paper around candle and glue
4. You can add ribbon to accent the candles and even little trinkets.   Do whatever your heart desires!

I can’t believe I didn’t share this.  A few weeks after our engagement, I see this on twitter:

Dennis had contacted Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory to congratulate us. He DMed him and he responded with the above. Point for Dennis. I love him (Dennis.. lol).

If you don’t already watch the Big Bang Theory, you should.  It’s one of our favourite shows.  Friends of ours, Josie (Making our cake) and Tom Wajda  are going to the taping in California.  So excited for them!

So I’ve has this phone for about two weeks now. Honestly, I would never thought I’d own a smartphone. I had always thought they were just way too expensive to pay for monthly. But now I don’t know what I’d do without it.

So here is the only app that I’ve been using thus far:

Wedding Wire

Wedding Wire took it’s online wedding planner and brought it right to our fingertips. This app allows you to track payments, find local vendors and manage your to-do list.

There are four major components to this application.

Countdown
The first screen acts as the title / overview screen that contains a countdown to the number of days till your wedding. In the overview part it has any upcoming payments as well as the number of tasks already completed.

Checklist
The checklist will sync with your online WeddingWire account allowing you to add, edit or delete tasks on the go.

Budget
Keeping payments organized is quick and easy. You can check your budget, track past payments, and manage scheduled payments.

Vendor Search
Their application will find your location automatically and display vendors within your locale. Unfortunately I haven’t found this part of the app very helpful since all he vendors are situated in the US.

Being one of the only free wedding apps out there that is worth downloading, I would definitely recommend it. Mind you, it’s their online portion that awesome, but this allows you to take it on the go. The only downside I’ve seen was that it would freeze or crash a lot. Since I downloaded the app they have pushed down an update to fix that, so it hasn’t been happening as often as it did or even at all for that matter.

Okay, there is one more app that I’ve downloaded and haven’t tried called “Wedding Timeline” by Sevenlogics. From what I’ve seen so far it’s an agenda for the day of our wedding. You can plan both bride and groom and it will track the two timelines side by side. I’m not sure how useful that will be for me the day of. I haven’t decided if my phone will be with me the entire night. Probably not.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering, what the heck is Etsy?

Etsy is a website whose mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. Their vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:

Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.

I’m constantly looking at this website daily trying to find something to purchase. One might say I’m a little addicted…

However, Dennis is very supportive. He loves the idea that we’re supporting independent artists/entrepreneurs, the fact that we’re getting unique items and we’re still staying within budget.

I have this idea that our wedding will be filled with unique handmade items whether they are made by myself or purchased on Etsy. I’m a huge DIYer so this wedding is allowing me to create all these projects for myself. However there are just things I don’t exactly trust myself doing for our wedding, so I’ve left them up to the professionals on Etsy.

What’s great is that you can speak to the seller directly and customize your order.

Below is the current list of purchases made on Etsy as well as the shops they were purchased at.

	Shop: Creative Bridal Solution Purchase: Garter and Throw Garter This was my first Etsy purchase. At the time our wedding colours were black, white and teal, but since then, that has changed. However, this will be my something blue. Notice the damask pattern on the garter.
	Shop: Ardesign Purchase: Bouquets, Corsages, Boutonnieres, Hair Piece This is my most recent purchase on Etsy. I’m not a huge flower fan, but when I saw this bouquet I absolutely fell in love. Instead of the brown we’re doing purple since that’s our new accent colour. I love how this bouquet seems so simple, yet still has that pop of colour. The chinchilla feathers also give this bouquet the modern touch that I’m looking for.
	Shop: alexbridal Purchases: Faux Fur Jackets and Birdcage Veil Since our wedding is in the middle of February, I had purchased the black faux fur shawls for my bridesmaids and the white one for myself. I had also purchased a bird cage veil to try on with my dress since I’m not 100% convinced that I want to wear a traditional veil at the wedding.
	Shop: Teri Huang Purchase: Waist Length Double Tier Veil I love the volume and length of this veil. Actually once it came in the mail, I wore it for hours. I can’t wait to try this on with my dress.

Photos courtesy of their respective shops.

So there is this website that I frequently visit and which also hosted The Great Engagement Shoot Challenge that Dennis and I took part of a few months ago called The Wedding Co.

They have put together The Crane Chandelier Project to build a chandelier from thousands of origami cranes which have come from engaged couples around the world.

Their goal is to collect 10,000 of these peaceful tokens of love by January 2011 when The Wedding Co. will celebrate its 10th anniversary. The final creation will be a visual representation of a worldwide community of engaged and newly married couples.  Each crane will represent one couple’s leap of love, commitment and patience.

For each crane they receive, they will donate ¢50 to The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation.

So if you haven’t already done so, please do participate.  If you are worried on not knowing how to make a crane, don’t worry, they’ll show you. Or they will send you a pre-made crane that you just need to sign and send back

Photos courtesy of The Wedding Co.

So you think your envelopes are way too plain?  Spruce them up by adding lining to the interior of your envelope flaps.

This is just a preview of our personally designed invitations. I won’t show the contents until after our invitations go out, because that will just ruin the surprise.

You’ll see from the pictures below that there are black and white envelopes, the white one is the exterior envelope and the black one is the interior envelope to keep everything together.

We are using 5.5″ and 6″ square envelopes.  However, this can be done with any type of envelope, but your stencil will need to be created according to the shape of your flap.

Materials:

• Envelope
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Pen
• Stencil
• Decorative Paper

Steps:

1. Choose your paper for the lining (Image 1, we chose our dining room wallpaper which is the inspiration for our wedding theme, I will post something about this later)
2. Create a stencil to hug the interior of the flap.  As you can see in picture two, I created two stencils.  The one on the left is for the black envelope.  The one on the right is for the white envelope.  Since the white envelope is slightly translucent, there was no way for me to create a shorter stencil and only go half way in the envelope like the black stencil.  This one needed to fit the envelope like  glove.  So depending on the colour of your envelope you may be able to get away with a shorter stencil.
3. Outline your stencil onto the lining paper. (See Image 3)
4. Cut out the outlined lining (Image 4)
5. Apply glue onto your cutout lining. (Image 5)
6. Paste the lining into the envelope and ensure it is on straight.
7. Fold your envelope flap

So Tuesday was a big day for us. Not only was it a long weekend, it was an extra long weekend since we took an extra day off. Dennis just had his wisdom teeth pulled about a week ago so this was his first time out of the house in a long while. And of course I had a jammed packed day all planned out.

First stop, Howards Jewelers on the corner of Bank and Sparks Street. This is where we purchased my engagement ring. We had originally thought we were going to go elsewhere since their products were a little higher end and of course pricier than other stores. For weeks we had been shopping around and eventually had fallen in love with pieces at Birks. However, also a pricey store. The piece Dennis wanted was tungsten, but we decided against that when we were told that it could never be resized or cut off your finger in case of emergency. I had researched black gold and Howards actually produces it so we wanted to get a custom piece done. Well when Dennis was trying bands on for style, Myrna, our consultant, pulled out a brushwood white gold beveled edge ring. The price was in our range and to top it all off, it was a perfect fit for Dennis. So we just had to get it.

For myself it’s never that easy. I always have a vision for everything but unfortunately my visions are always out of the price range. So this time I had to scale back. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful and fits into every specification I have. Ugh, curse me and my expensive tastes.

Well the most important part is that they will photograph well together. Lol. And oh yes we were able to cross of purchasing the eternal symbol of our love.

Then it was off to the Apple Store for my iPhone which we were 15 th in line but still took an hour to get to the front of the line then another hour to actually purchase and transfer my data.

The. Last stop was EQ3 for our much needed dining room table for our home. How can we get fine dinnerware for our wedding without a table to eat on? Definitely a necessary purchase. But according to Dennis we could have waited.

All in all a productive day.