Mike and Kerry had their cocktail hour and reception at the Queens County Farm - the last and only remaining farm in Queens. Cocktail Hour was held in the Barn, which Kerry decorated with the perfect amount of personal touches and beautiful candle lighting.
Once inside the barn there was sooo much to take in! For their card box, Kerry bought a plain wooden box at Michaels. Her dad sanded, stained, and varnished it, put a nob on the top and painted their initials and date to the front. He's quite the handy-man!
All of Kerry's signs were from Two Cardinal Day on Etsy (the same place she bought her marriage certificate).
Our place-cards were attached to an envelope which held a card
stating that in lieu of gifts, a donation had been made to the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society. These donation cards held the same theme as their invitations and tied their whole look together!
Furthering on with her theme, Kerry opted for a fingerprint tree instead of a guest-book. She had seen so many of these trees online and was very close to purchasing one of the many options on Etsy. Then she remembered how amazingly artististic her bridesmaid Amanda is! She asked her if she could paint a custom fingerprint tree to match the farm. Amanda visited the farm a few times to scope it out, and make some sketches of the surroundings.
The week before the wedding, Amanda delivered this beautiful painting to Kerry's apartment:
Amanda should be very proud of her work! Kerry and I are trying to convince her to open her own Etsy shop!
Kerry put out green stamp pads on the table, next to a basket of hand wipes for guests to add their fingerprints and clean the ink afterward. Chris and I were quick to add our thumbprints to the painting!
After the wedding, the filled tree looked amaaazing. I don't have a picture of the finished product but once I get one, I'll be sure to share it.
Cigars and matches were placed out on the tables during cocktail hour. Many guys took these and held on to them for later during the reception!
Here are Kerry's straws in action again at the bar!
Each cocktail table had different sized hurricanes and candles holders with pictures of Mike and Kerry's engagement shoot. But the best part of this picture is their signature drink: Pumpkin Spice Ale with a Cinnamon Sugar coated rim! I'm not normally a beer drinker - but this was all I drank all night!
During the hour, we were treated to live music by two musicians who performed mellow Dave Matthews Band music. Mike and Kerry are long-time DMB fans, and this was yet another great personalized aspect for them!
It was great to catch up with friends we haven't seen in awhile!
James and Maria:
Rich, Julie, Timmy, Anna, Katie and Michelle:
Anthony, Corinne, Chris, Juan and Meg:
With some of my fellow bridesmaids!
Next up: We were led out to the tent for the reception to begin!
As our guests entered the reception area, there were a number of things outside the main doors. One of these items was our guest book.
As you remember, I ordered my guest book on Etsy from Modern Shabby:
I made a little Guest Book Sign to put on the easel next to it.
Here are our guests signing our guest book as they arrive!
I put a selection of photos around the guest book, some from our engagement shoot, some from throughout our time dating. On the left hand side, I displayed a wedding photo from each set of parents. I also displayed our RSVP responses from the White House and from Mickey and Minnie, just for fun ;)
Sprinkled around this table was heart shaped confetti, that I cut out of the same music paper I used for my Table Numbers.
I got my Guest Book in the mail last week! After a Wednesday Wedding Poll where I asked you all which guest book you liked more, I ordered my customized guest book from Amy at Modern Shabby on Etsy.com. She made this with the fabric of our choosing, and also printed out our customized calligraphy from Debi Sementelli as the tag.
Here's a little set up of the guest book with the Guest Book Sign I made.
I'm very excited to put this out at the entrance to our reception!
Hey guys! This is somewhat of a dis-jointed post, but there is a ton of housekeeping stuff that I need to address to you all today!
First of all: WE'RE OFFICIALLY UNDER THE ONE MONTH MARK!! Phew! I never thought I'd see the day! We are less than a month away and stuff is getting K-R-A-Z-Y!! It's sooo exciting!!
These were from my various countdowns yesterday....cause I'll never be 30 days away from my wedding again! (hopefully!)
Secondly: The winner of Saying "I do's" first ever giveaway is #27 Jennybusybee!
Congratulations Jenny! You are now the proud winner of a handmade makeup bag and handcrafted soap from Dragonfly Soaps. Email me at info@lauraandchristopher.com so I can get your information. Jenny is a fellow blogging bride who is getting married this coming October. Be sure to check out her blog at Jenny Busy Bee!
Fourth: The results of Wednesday's Wedding Poll: 71% of you did or plan to send out save the dates and 29% did not plan to or did not. This was pretty much what I suspected as it seems sending out save-the-dates has grown more and more popular in the past few years. I think save-the-dates are a great way to show your creative side and wedding style.
Fifth: I realized that I never revealed the results of last week's GUEST BOOK Poll! I received an unprecedented response from you guys regarding the guest book options, and I'm happy to report that this week I purchased the custom-made book from Modern Shabby on Etsy. I can't wait to show you how it comes out!
Lastly: I'm sure I don't need to remind you all of this, but NEXT WEEK IS THE ROYAL WEDDING! I have a few special posts lined up for next week tying into the Royal Wedding Theme and will be participating in a "Blog Party" next Friday beginning at 5am! Along with other fellow Weddzilla bloggers, we will be live-tweeting and blogging our way through the royal wedding. So grab your British Flag and join in with us! Be sure to follow me on twitter @lwoodsny if you want to join in on the fun!
There, I said it. I don't hate them. I "like them...they're ok...there are a small handful of good ones that I feel I can use, but as a whole...if I could redo the whole entire thing, I would in a second. I had gotten to a point last summer where I just wanted them done and over with, and didn't really mentally prepare for the whole thing.
1. I hate what I'm wearing: I was determined to find a new shirt to wear. So I bought one the day before that I had never worn and it was "eh". I wanted to have a real "casual, we look great without even trying" look, and instead I feel like we were trying too hard to be "casual"...if that makes any sense at all. Sounds crazy...but it makes sense in my head. I really wish I had dressed up more and worn a skirt or a dress. I would have felt much more comfortable and "pretty" in them. I also should have done a few outfit changes throughout the day.
2. We took our pictures on literally...and I'm not ven exaggerating here..the hottest day of summer 2010. I was sweaty, gross, my hair frizzed out, and I was so uncomfortable the whole time. Add that to the fact that I had gained some summer weight. Whether anyone notices or not, as long as you know you're not at your ideal weight, it's going to bother you...we all know that. I didn't "feel" pretty and that completely manifested into "most" of our photos.
3. I was under the false impression that the photographer comes up with the ideas for certain cute, creative settings for pictures. That may be true for some photographers, but it's also up to you to come up with specific ideas and props you may want to use. They're not going to read your mind. it had never even occurred to me to prepare props to incorporate into our pictures and bring them along. I could have gotten really creative with some Wagner ideas...sigh.
I want to stress that I'm not saying this so anyone comments saying "OMG BUT THEY WERE SO GOOD!" That's not my purpose is stating this at all. I got one or two great photos from our shoot...and really, that's all I needed for save-the-dates and other things.
As you can probably tell from my banner, this was my favorite picture from the day:
So yay, that's fine. I've moved on. The reason for this confession leads to the subject of our guest book. I really don't want to make a guest book with our engagement pictures on shutterfly.com or blurb.com. That was my original intent, and I love the guest books that I've seen so far from these sites, but I just can't bring myself to make a whole book of pictures I don't really love.
so I took to Wedzu.com and Etsy.com to help me figure out what exactly I wanted. The first one I liked was on Etsy in ModernShabby's shop. She does custom guest books and has a lot of options to chose from. This one immediately caught my eye because it's already in our wedding colors:
This one caught my eye. I liked the color combination and even though I LOVE the one above, I kind of want to get away from the whole white/green/black color combination for everything. This would add a nice contrast:
I emailed the shop owner and she will include our customized calligraphy on the cover tag, which would be a great way to incorporate that artwork! the only drawback with this one is it comes with 30 pages and I'll have to purchase about 50 additional pages. Though I'm not sure at what cost, I think this will end up being a bit pricier than my option below.
Next, I found this one in Red Otters shop at Wedzu.com
I love the tie, I love the colors, I love how simple it is and it comes with 80 pages instead of 30, and she already said she'd add 20 more for free if I was worried the 80 wouldn't be enough.
This one isn't customizeable, and won't have our calligraphy on the cover...but it's perfectly lovely the way it is.
You can probably tell which one I'm leaning toward for ease's sake, but I'm still really debating. Tell me, what do you think? Should I go with the fully customized one on Etsy, which will also include our calligraphy design? Or just go with the wedzu.com one that I won't have to design or make any changes to? Is there one you love more than the other?
There, I said it. I don't hate them. I "like" them...they're ok...there's a small handful of good ones that I feel I can use, but as a whole...if I could redo the whole entire thing, I would in a second. I had gotten to a point where I just wanted them done and over with, and didn't really mentally prepare for the whole thing.
1. I hate what I'm wearing: I was determined to find a new shirt to wear. So I bought one the day before that I had never worn and it was "eh". I wanted to have a real "casual, we look great without even trying" look, and instead I feel like we were trying too hard to be "casual"...if that makes any sense at all. Sounds crazy..but it makes sense in my head. I really wish I had dressed up more and worn a skirt or a dress. I would have felt much more comfortable and "pretty" in them. I also should have done a few outfit changes throughout the day.
2. We took our pictures on literally...and I'm not even exaggerating here...the hottest day of summer 2010. I was sweaty, gross, my hair frizzed out, and I was so uncomfortable the whole time. Add that to the fact that I had gained some summer weight. Whether anyone notices or not, as long as you know you're not at your ideal weight, it's going to bother you...we all know that. I didn't "feel" pretty and that completely manifested into "most" of our photos.
3. I was under the false impression that the photographer comes up with the ideas to "set the stage" for pictures. That may be true for some photographers, but it's also up to you to come with specific ideas and props you may want to use. They're not going to read your mind. It had never even occurred to me to prepare props to incorporate into our pictures and bring them along. I could have gotten really creative with some Wagner ideas....sigh.
I want to stress that I'm not saying this so anyone comments saying "OMG BUT THEY WERE SO GOOD!" That's not my purpose in stating this at all. I got one or two great photos from our shoot...and really, that's all I needed for save-the-dates and other things.
As you can tell from my banner, this was my favorite picture from the day:
So yay, that's fine. I've moved on. So the reason for me confessing this leads to our guest book. I really don't want to make a guest book with our engagement pictures on shutterfly.com or blurb.com. That was my original intent, and I love the guest books that I've seen so far from these sites, but I just can't bring myself to make a whole book of pictures I don't really love.
So I took to Wedzu.com and Etsy.com to help me figure out what exactly I wanted. The first one I liked was on Etsy in ModernShabby's shop. She does custom guest books, and has a lot of options to chose from. This one immediately caught my eye because it's already in our wedding colors:
This one caught my eye, I liked the color combination and even though I LOVE the one above, I kind of wanted to get away from the black/green/white theme for everything:
I've emailed the shop owner and she will include our customized calligraphy on the cover tag, which would be a great way to incorporate that artwork! The only drawback with this one is it comes with 30 pages and I'll have to purchase about 50 additional pages. Though I'm not sure at what cost, I think this will end up being a bit pricier than my option below.
Next I found this one in Red Otter's shop at Wedzu.com.
I love the tie, I love how simple it is, I love the colors, and it comes with 80 pages instead of 30, and she'll add 20 more for free if I feel I'll need more.
Not customizable, and won't have our calligraphy on the cover...but it is perfectly lovely the way it is.
You can probably tell which one I'm leaning toward for ease's sake, but I'm still really debating. Tell me, what do you think? Should I go with the fully customized one on Etsy, which will also include our calligraphy design? Or just go with the wedzu.com one that I won't have to design or make any changes to? Is there one you love more than the other? Thanks for your input!
