the invitations

so another thing i had fallen in love with early on were the wood invites that i saw on a blog and etsy.  at $6.75 per invite though, it seemed a bit out of budget so i set off to look for cheaper vendors. we did flip flop a lot on even what kind of wood invite we wanted.  we thought we wanted ink and then we thought we wanted laser engraved.  in the end we went with ink and foil printing and the result was awesome!  the only thing is that the green foil isnt as dark as we had hoped but its not something we are stressing about.  in the end we went with cards of wood because their sample pack was the most impressive.  they were the ones who showed us the foil option whereas the other vendors had either ink or laser.  laser is actually done on thicker wood pieces and there were a couple issues with that: 1.  people probably couldnt put the invite on their frige with just a magnet and 2.  postage would cost more.  at some other places, the ink printing looked like it added a clear layer on top of the wood which i didnt care for much.  when we got the invites in the mail, i used a punch to round all the corners.  didnt take too much time and i liked the effect much more.

for assembly we decided that we wanted to hang two leaves on some twine and tie it over a strip of vellum.  the leaves we cut on the cricut but i think a leaf punch wouldve been better for the job.  i think when the cricut does repetitive cuts over and over some of the cuts can be not that good so some of the leaves had small rips in them.  after the leaves were cut, i also punched a small hole on one end so the twine could go through.  the darker leaf was stamped with "c&s" and the lighter leaf with "072812"  both sides.  the toughest part about the leaves was actually stringing the twine through.  we used pink and purple divine twine.

as for the vellum we got two rolls of 18" by 5 yards from a drafting store in sf and did a lot of cutting.  how do you cut about 150 pieces of vellum?  very imprecisely.  some of them came out slanted when assembled.  but i didnt worry about it too much.  we also ended up having to tape down the twine to the vellum with a small piece of washi tape because when the invite was pulled out of the envelope, it basically got unassembled.

i actually ordered some pearlized envelopes online but cards of wood provided me with envelopes as well! i think we can use them for thank you cards maybe?  unless the thank you cards come with envelopes too.  then we will be in envelope overload mode.  i printed the leafy pattern on 8.5" by 11" paper and cut it down as an envelope liner.  to adhere the liners to the envelope just a glue stick was good.  liguid glue, while strong, wrinkled the envelope a lot.  i also rounded the corners on the liner.  the calligraphy stamp on the back was also a custom piece.

the save the date

the save the date was such a labor of love.  i had seen some save the date videos before and thought that ours could include one since it was through email.  the stop action or stop motion ones really caught my eye and stephen willingly (?) or not so willingly took on that task. 

his first iteration was just of totoro running around.  he didnt end up liking it because he felt like it didnt have much to do with the song or the message.  the first song that we chose was actually Home by edward sharp and the magnetic zeros.  we ended up changing that too since his last and final idea was a more fun, party-ish vibe.  he did end up using some of the totoro footage

his second idea involved me and him and it was us getting ready for a picnic through kody's eyes.  fate wouldnt allow us to finish that one though - no bottle opener, out of battery, and inclimate weather.  so we ended up ditching that footage altogether

his last idea was to have the dunnys spell out save the date.  we were actually short a few dunnys so i made a try to urban outfitters for 10 dunnys.  most of them were repeats so they contribute to my collection but they definitely helped the save the date video. 

we finally sent it out with a link to our website.

Claudia Yu & Stephen Li - Save the Date!

the transportation

so we had been thinking about booking a shuttle for our guests but wasnt sure if it was a priority or if we could afford it.  i ended up looking and shopping around and found a place that wasnt too bad in terms of price.  for now, we booked two 36 passenger shuttles. 

the roads up to the venue seem dangerous to us and i guess no dollar amount can take away the piece of mind that comes with giving them the option to take the shuttle.

logistically i would delegate the task of communicating with the shuttle the day of the wedding to someone else.  i am thinking both shuttles would leave the hotel 30 minutes before the ceremony.  then they would each probably shuttle back and forth from the venue from mayb 10pm until the end of the event.

i havent even thought about how the bridal party etc would get to the venue ... drive?  or book one of the shuttles for an extra 30 minutes to take us?  not sure

the makeup and hair

surprisingly one of the things that took the longest to nail down was the makeup and hair people.  originally i had wanted to ask my sister's friend to do my makeup but her hair referrals were not coming through.  so i decided to just go with wowpretty whos done a number of my friends' weddings. 

the makeup style im not too picky about.  i want to look natural, pretty, soft, with a touch of color.  im afraid of my face looking uneven, my eyebrows being lopsided, shine, oil, makeup melting off by the end of the day, white face,  flat face, fat face etc ...

as for the hair, im in love with the side braid, chignon style.  its hard to tell what the front looks like but im thinking more of a swept back, away from my face  thing for my bangs.  im going to have to do a trial with them to nail down all the details.  pretty excited!

the maids

haha not sure about the title of the post but this is supposed to be about the bridesmaids.  they will be my two sisters and stephen's sister.

i decided pretty early on that i didnt just want one or two colors, that i wanted multi-colors for my wedding. a lot of people didnt understand this concept or didnt like it. not sure but people still keep asking me what my colors are.i wanted them to be in a neutral color with a bright accent color in a sash etc.  i had originally wanted to give them more freedom to their clothing choice but when jcrew had an extra 40% sale i couldnt resist.  kate spade also had a sale so i got them the shoes too.  the only thing left is the sash.  i am thinking silk faille since its not shiny and structured.

my sister jess will be in the yellow with the larger clutch since she is the maid of honor.  she will be holding my oil blotting paper and tissue etc!

the purple was for cynthia since i thought the neon might be a bit too much for her.  i had such a huge huge headache with the clutch though!  i bought it online and they cancelled the order for no given reason.  i had bought it with a gift card because when i exchanged her shoes that didnt fit, it was over the time limit.  then when they cancelled the order, they also cancelled my gift cards.  it took them months to give me new gift cards.  long story short, no clutch for cynthia yet.  they have a black one this season so im waiting for it to go on sale ...

toni is in the hot pink.

the dresses are all different styles but same material (silk taffeta) and color (golden khaki its called). i then got bright cardigans in different styles as well.

the photobooth

so stephen loves photobooths. im not sure he would admit it but he likes to take pictures in them by himself. my friend owns a photobooth company so it was natural to go with him. his also does video which im actually pretty excited about and hope people use it to record some messages for us!

the flowers

so believe it or not, i actually wanted to and thought i would do my own flowers. afterall, im a crafty person right? right? i originally asked a friend's wife for a quote and honestly the number scared me. so i thought to save money, I would do it on my own. my friend had done her own flowers and she was doing her sister in laws. she said it was a ton of work so i wasnt sure if i wanted the added stress that day.

i began researching some more and getting more quotes from people. it seemed that many of the florists in sf charged more than others. eventually i interviewed one in sf, one in redwood city, palo alto, and mountain view. i actually really liked the one in sf but the examples she showed me in the style i was looking for didnt look that good. plus she was out of my price range. then i went to the one in redwood city. she was super technical telling me about how carnations hold an arrangement up because they are stiffer flowers. i hate carnations! no offense to carnation lovers. she also was doing another wedding at our venue and went in to look around. she was very opinionated about what color lanterns, what kind of tables i should have. i felt a bit stiffled! then the palo alto one was super straightforward, honest, and nice but again i wasnt in love with the examples she showed me. finally, last but not least, the one in mountain view. she didnt really have a store front but more of a place where she did her work. she was a bit scattered brained and wasnt too expressive but i loved the work she showed me. she listened and seemed to really understand my vision.

im excited!