It’s crazy to think a year has gone by since I got married. A year ago on this nearly 90 degree day, I was running around like crazy taking care of all the last minute details of our do-it-yourself wedding, right down to the flowers with live succulents, the booze, the invites, the music, the wedding fans: you name it, we probably made it ourselves. Between my husband and I, we have enough of a skill set to host any kind of party. Oh, and the crochet. There was crochet! “Crocheted Gifts” by Kim P Werker had just come out and I saw Annie Modesitt’s, “Trinity Lace Shrug” and loved it. It was a week before the wedding and I had no time to think of engineering a garment on my own considering all that I was already doing. I bought the book and set out to make the garment within days of the wedding (cutting it close, eh?)

What you can't see are my buckling knees, no lie! 6" yellow heels will do that to a gal.

Our wedding was the anti-wedding and I was the anti-bride. Neither of us are completely into formalities. We didn’t want anything fussy since we’re not fussy people. We like to have fun and hang with our friends and that’s what our wedding was set out to be: a party to celebrate 10 years together. That doesn’t mean we boozed it up making our way down the aisle! We did have our fair share of laughs though. The ceremony was both very touching and quite humorous at the same time. Our wedding “celebrant,” Dana did a fantastic job delivering the opening remarks. There was a lot of poking and at times it felt like a roast (in a good way).

No booze was ingested during the making of this photograph. I swear.

We had a simple ceremony that lasted 15 minutes. I wrote the reading which left very few dry eyes in the small group of 50 family and friends; I am a soothsayer with the words when I need to be. We also wrote our own vows. I don’t know how I got through that ceremony without crying.

Someone yelled, "IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!" right after we were pronounced husband and wife. Love, Love, Love!

But I did. It was an emotional day made extra emotional by the recent passing of my step-father just a few months earlier. His passing was the impetus to move forward and get married after a 5 year engagement (no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you on that number). We received so many compliments on the wedding. Many said it was hands down the best wedding they had ever been to.

Our reception was a party. No fussy sit-down meal. Incredible food served buffet style. All organics! Friends made up the band and switched out during different sets so the music was always pumping. We skipped the wedding cake – we both HATE cake, yuck – and opted for Bailey’s vanilla ice cream in a chocolate bowl with a chocolate dipped spoon. SUPER YUM.

A sweet ending to a sweet day.

Here are some more details about the wedding…which is in 4 days!

Techno-Wedding Cards & Bouquet Extras:

Larry came up with the FABULOUS idea of having our guests be able to automatically upload pictures they take at our wedding using their cameras and phone cameras. Once someone takes pictures, they just send them to a prescribed email address and they’re posted automatically in an online image gallery for everyone to see, share, print, download, whatever. The gallery is already set up so if people want to snap and upload on wedding day, it’s ready to go. Yeah, we’re a bunch of geeks.

The other items clumped into this image are for my bouquet. The top one is a picture of my step-father. I printed it out and cut the image to fit this silver trinket I bought at Michael’s for $3.00. The other is something I picked up last night. I’m thinking of adding some crystals at the bottom of the one that has Larry’s name on it. Both will be attached to my bouquet so my step-father will be walking me down the aisle, posthumously.

Tree of Wisdom:

This will replace the boring guest book that is sometimes signed but rarely re-visited after the wedding. Basically, guests can complete the sentence that’s posted on a sign next to the tree. Some of them say, “Marriage is like…,” “Always say….,” “For a Long, Loving Marriage…” (Here’s a link to the pdf of the sign. I printed it out and put it in a black picture frame). We’ve encouraged guests to say silly and ridiculous things! Once they’re written what they want, they’ll hang the card from the tree.

I bought these sandblasted manzanita branches from Nettlton Hollow and arranged them in a glass vase I bought at Michaels. You can see one of the placemats will go underneath it.

I crocheted a basket to hold bird and leaf cards I cut from heavy paper. I love the birdies!

I’m going to try to squeeze in another post before the wedding but no promises. I’m busy finishing up the loose ends. No really, I’m just about done with my version of the Trinity Lace Shrug from “Crocheted Gifts” by Kim P. Werker.

(If you missed Part 1, here’s a link. If you want to see where they wedding will be held or check out the color inspiration for everything, check out this post.)

While I’m a fan of the importance of the larger details of a wedding – the clothes, the wedding vendor, the food – it’s the smaller details that I feel make or break a wedding. I can think of one wedding I’ve been to where all the details were attended to that made the day feel like we were a part of something unique, something special. That’s the feel I’m going for here with the planning of this wedding. It’s important to us that it feel like an extension of who we are as people. Nothing cookie-cutter allowed.

To that end, it was important to me especially that we have our hand (and say) all over every detail and even make or put together a lot of what will be seen. Additionally – if that isn’t enough of a charge – we wanted a portion of the event to be about sustainability. I felt confident that we could use and re-use a lot of what’s put together – or even sell to some other bride/bridegroom to re-use – so that we weren’t impacting the Earth. That’s why we chose the Stone House for our event. They’re big on that sustainability factor. Hopefully we’ve been able to apply what we felt strongly about in the course of planning this event.

Here’s the nitty-gritty details in no particular order:

Cocktail Table Flowers:

Instead of using regular flowers which just wilt and die, I decided early on that I’d like to use succulents. I’ve seen them used in wedding before and they’re just gorgeous. The colors, the shapes, the uniqueness. I love it all. So I set out to plant them in glass containers I purchased at Michael’s and AC Moore. With coupons, I wound up saving a bunch of money. I bought some rocks in a large bag at Home Depot for $4.00 and used them as “soil.” The gray of the rocks goes with the color palette we set out to use. Aren’t they cool?

Fans:

I found the idea of doing wedding fans online and I liked it and thought I could make my own because they’d be way cheaper and more personalized. One of the Best Gals bought 6″ tongue depressors from a medical supply store for me. I glued two of them together to increase their length. I bought Epson Matte paper (1-sided) and designed them using the image from the invites altered to include another bird. Below the birds are the names of everyone participating in the wedding and a special “thank you” to everyone for coming. What you don’t see – stoopid me because I should have taken the pic with one front and one back view – is that on the back is the menu for the day. While people are waiting for the event to start, they can peruse the food selections!

After printing out the fronts and back separately, I carefully glued the tongue depressors to the backs of each and then glued the front on top. Lastly, I cut ribbon to a certain size and tied it around the bottom of each. Some I made gray, some green:

Cones:

Another idea I found online, these wedding flower cones will hold some of the Billy Button (crespedia) flowers I purchased on Whole Blossoms. They’ll hang from the aisle chairs in the first three rows to designate “Family Only.”

All the paper was purchased at AC Moore. The yellow paper has a gold, textured design on it which I liked. What you can’t see well enough is that the gray paper is wedding paper – it has hearts, linked wedding bands, and the words, “I will marry my friend,” “2 become 1,” and “The one I Love, Live for, Laugh with Forever and Ever” all over it. I bought a $2.00 pair of fancy edging scissors from Walmart and trimmed two sides of the yellow paper, which was cut at 81/2″. The gray paper was cut for 8″. I glued two sides of the paper down on the inside and rolled the cone and adhered the open edge with hot glue. Cut some holes in the front and back with a hole punched, weave in a long ribbon, and done!

I love these little Billy Button flowers!

More to come. There’s just too much to fit into one post!

]]> http://www.nexstitch.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=367 0 http://www.nexstitch.com/blog/?p=342 http://www.nexstitch.com/blog/?p=342#comments Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:31:17 +0000 Amie http://www.nexstitch.com/blog/?p=342

Sorry to leave you “flat” as we used to say when I was 10 years old. I’ve been so busy with wedding plans that I haven’t had time to pop in here and write. But let me catch you up on all things wedding (with some crochet too!).

I decided early on that I was going to be the “anti-bride,” as I was calling it, meaning I wasn’t interested in doing anything that’s typically done at weddings. Not to offend anyone, just that all of that stuff is not in my taste (nor Mr. NexStitch’s). Even our 4 1/2 year long engagement isn’t typical! Neither of us wanted a chicken dance, bouquet throwing, cake cutting, tuxedo wearing, garter belt getting via teeth kind of wedding. No way Jose’. My intention was to put on the “anti wedding,” to show everyone that all that stuff isn’t missed when it doesn’t creep up into the  schedule of events – shoot, I don’t even want a schedule on that day! Our plan is simple: get married and have a great party with excellent food and only close friends and some family. Oh, and we want to do it on a smaller budget and load the day up with lots of DIY touches, to personalize it and save money. Tall order.

If you saw my previous post, you saw that I was going with the bright yellows and greens with a splash of gray in moderation. That’s been carried out in the attire.

First up, the “Best People” (we’re not having a best man or maid of honor). The ladies will wear jCrew Cotton Cady Sydney dresses. My friend Nancy works for jCrew and got us a discount on the dresses ($157 per dress). Both of the female “Best People” are going to rock these super cute Anne Klein Hoola Sandals in a slightly paler shade of green (on sale at Marshalls and on Amazon, so about $40 a pair):

Mr. NexStitch is going to rock the jacket and pants from this slim cut Alfani suit with a nice white shirt that has a faint white on white stripe in it, black shoes and a black belt. Total cost for his outfit: $310 including tailoring of the coat. The best guys will wear gray pants and a white shirt, no jacket, same shoes and belt. The suit was 50% off at Macy’s!:

I picked out, for myself, an off-white dress from BCBG that has a similar off-white on off-white stripe in it which is most evident at the hem. I LOVE this dress because it’s simple. No beading. No glitter. No nothing (except a sash around the waist) Dress cost: $370 including 2nd-day air shipping:

For shoes I picked out a rockin’ pair of high, high heels by Carlos Santana. They’re faux crocodile, baby and only $80!:

And just today, as I was doing my tour of the Internets, I came across a new design from Annie Modesitt in the new book called, “Crocheted Gifts” by Kim P. Werker. The design is called, “Trinity Lacy Shrug” which I immediately fell in love with. I had planned to design my own shrug to wear on wedding day but with all these other details I’m taking care of, I just feared not having time to put together something I liked. This was the evident solution. I’ve decided on using Bouton d’Or’s Surya yarn in Soleil (yellow) to match the shoes ($18 a skein for 3 skeins plus the cost of the book = $85:

Details I’m still deciding on: jewelry and handbag. I’ve picked out a handbag I like but it’s $95. Not sure if I want to spend that much now, although I love the bag and would use it otherwise:

The last detail is the jewelry. My mother would like me to wear something of hers but I want to wear a green beaded necklace (not yet determined). We’ll see how that goes.

Next blog post? More details related to the wedding space (and more crochet to follow!). Stay tuned.

Following on the heels of my big announcement, I’ve sent out all but 2 invites so I guess it’s safe to share what they look like. I started out by going online to see what’s going on in the world of weddings these day. Green Wedding Shoes provided endless inspiration for real weddings, some of which are very non-conventional, which I love. I had my eye set on a bright yellow as being one of the colors but I was unsure what to pair it with. I wanted to keep it modern and playful since the venue is modern. And the location for the wedding ceremony will have a lower-intensity yellow in the background:

We’re using their Pre-Function room for the cocktail hour and reception afterwards. This room also has touches of the same yellow and a darker grey for the carpet on the slightly higher level. The first two shots are in the waiting area outside of this room and the last shot is the actual space we’ll be in:

As awesome as this space is, it’s been challenging to think about what to add to it to make it feel like a party. At the moment, I think perhaps some flowers and the people. Really, it’s an awesome space that speaks for itself.

Now about the invites…

So I wound up going to Michael’s and picking out some ribbon that I liked. The initial plan was to have the theme colors be yellow and green OR yellow and gray. Through the process, I decided that all three would work since one is a neutral (I apologize for these pictures in advance as they’re just quick snapshots from my iPhone):

From there, I devised the idea that I wanted there to be cute birds on the invites. I had found a pattern on iStockPhoto a longggg time ago that I adored and wound up coming across again. I used the bird and flower from that, tweaking it a bit. Keep in mind I had a week from conception to mailing to get these out the door. Normally, I’d just create my own illustrations from scratch, but time was of the essence! I decided pretty early on that I wanted it to be like a flip book. Here’s what I came up with:

Of course I took that one before I trimmed the bow…

For the map, I took a screen capture of two maps, one broad and one local. I brought them into Adobe Illustrator and created my inspired map on top of the originals. For the road signs, I Googled sign images and then did the same as I did for the maps. The roads I drew by hand.

The beauty about the way I designed these cards is that there was enough room to make the “thank you” cards fit on the same page, so my cards are all ready to go! You can see a shot of those on the right side of this picture:

Now, onto the wedding fan programs.

It’s hard to believe that over 4 years ago, Larry proposed to me. It was our 5th anniversary and we were headed out to dinner at our favorite (dearly departed) restaurant, “Novita” (pronounced, No-vee-tah). I was looking forward to their Chilean Sea Bass dinner I so often got there. Melt in your mouth fish with an incredible bed of mashed potatoes and olives surrounded by a delicate broth. Hmmm, I can still taste it. I know I spent the whole ride over there in anticipation.

Needless to say when we exited the car and started making our way to the door, I was blindsided by a large, fast-moving, talking banner with the words, “Amie Will You Marry Me?” written across it. It turned out that our best couple friends were wielding that banner from the other end of the restaurant parking lot. And for those of you who weren’t there, and that’s everyone reading this, I present you, “It’s Not Upside Down, Is It?”:

So fast forward 4 1/2 years later and we still haven’t sealed the deal. Needless to say, it’s bothered me this whole time. I mean, we’ve (I’ve) talked about it from time to time but never really fleshed it out. Well, maybe that’s not true. We did go see one place late last summer. And then again this past December we contacted the place we’re having the wedding at to ask about pricing. But it wasn’t until my recent loss that I realized we’d waited too long. About a week after my step-father passed away, I decided that we weren’t getting any younger, and neither were our family and friends and that we just had to move ahead and do this thing.

SO, WE’RE GETTING MARRIED!

It’s going to be a very simple, authentic, DIY wedding. Details to follow in upcoming posts, but yes, there will be some crochet somewhere in this wedding mix.