Our invitations were a labor of love for me, even if I didn’t do most of the work!

I knew I didn’t want to try and design them, or even print them, myself, so I spent a long time online researching my options. I ordered samples from a few places, which I highly recommend for online invitation shopping. You really don’t know exactly how they are going to look until you see them in person. Case in point, a lovely lady who got married two weeks after me that I know from my old job ordered invitations online, and while they were done to her specifications, she was unhappy. The invite was supposed to have a background of different ‘marriage and love’ words in all kinds of sizes and fonts. The problem was that on her computer screen, the background was a very visible gray. In person, it was so light you couldn’t read them, which wasn’t what she wanted.

In the end, there was a clear winner that matched the rest of our theme: the Butterfly Love invitation from Wedding Paper Divas.  They were perfect:

(picture by Tammy Martines Photography. Details blurred by me)

I don’t have a picture of the whole invitation suite, but we went with a mix of formal and informal elements, as the vibe we wanted to give off was classic but casual and fun. We chose the main invitation, reception information card and RSVP card. We paid a little extra to have Wedding Paper Divas print return addresses on the envelopes, which saved some headaches.

I also got really obsessed with envelope liners. WPD doesn’t do them for all of their invitations, such as ours. I was able to find an almost perfect match for them though. Mountaincow stationary offers liners in tons of colors for both rounded and square envelope flaps. We got a light purple shimmer that was a nice complement to the deep plum.

I also really liked this set because you could get a matching wed site at Nearlyweds.com. I paid the fee to have this matching site, and used it to put a lot of additional helpful information up for our guests. It was really simple to use, though I am a bit jealous because it seems like they have a lot of new features that weren’t available when we were engaged!

All in all, I am very happy with how everything about our invitations came together. I started early and it gave us a lot of time to think things over, make mistakes, and change our minds. We got tons of compliments on them, and they’re still one of my favorite projects from our wedding day.

Since we’re getting married in a Catholic church, NEPA Groom and I had to complete a pre-Cana class in order to move forward with our preparations. And since the King’s College Chapel isn’t like a regular, full parish, they don’t offer one of their own. NEPA Groom and I looked at all of our options and decided to do the one day seminar style class. Thankfully, the Diocese of Scranton offers a lot of options and is pretty thorough with the information they provide on their website. We registered and attended our pre-Cana class in February, well in advance of the big day.

Now, neither of us really knew what to expect, and I was particularly nervous because I’m not Catholic. All the research I did online really didn’t help because in situations like this, it seems like it can vary from Parish to Parish. So, if you’re doing pre-Cana in the Northeast PA area, my review will probably be more accurate. Either way, I hope you find it useful!

The class was scheduled from 8 am to 4 pm at a church about 20 minutes away from us, so it was an early and long day. We got there and got signed in, and they had some breakfast waiting for everyone. The room was set up with round tables, with two couples per table. There were a lot of good things that we got from the day, and some *interesting* things.

The Good

The class was run by a married couple, and was fairly relaxed. Having gone through this themselves, they tried to keep things light hearted where they could to break the ice. This particular couple was also time conscious, and covered everything thoroughly and still got us out 2 hours early. Sweet!

I think the whole day opened up a lot of good conversations for us – we really heard more about the magnitude of the commitment we were making, and it really started to hit home for us both. We also took the FOCCUS test, and have been having a good time going over those answers with our priest and talking about our expectations of marriage and what we want to see happen.

Finally, the class was very accepting of non Catholics. In fact, the couple made a point to thank any of us who weren’t Catholic for coming and for being open to at least listening to what they had to say. They made a point of not trying to force anything on any of us. They asked that we’d have an open mind and said it was up to us to decide

The *Interesting*

And then… then, well, I guess there’s no nice way to say this. But then there were the other couples in the room. I’m sure some of them were nice. I’m sure some of them were genuine and in love and headed towards healthy marriages. I just didn’t get to sit next to any of them.

We took the FOCCUS test first, and to keep things truthful, the boys from one side took their tests across the room and the girls from over there joined the ladies on the other side. I kid you not, during the test, the 3 other women at my table cheated on the test with each other. They asked each other for answers like it was a middle school math exam, not an inventory designed to identify points for conversation with the person you plan on marrying. They literally took the whole test together, identifying the answers that would cause the least waves, rather than what might be the truth.

After that, the couple that was at our table with us spent most of the six hours we were there texting other people on their cell phones, and showing each other the texts they were getting. At each break opportunity, they jumped up to go talk to someone else. It was a little discouraging to see, but I did my best to focus back on NEPA Groom and why WE were there. I hope maybe something managed to stick with them and will help them down the road!

Has anyone else taken their pre-cana class in the Northeast PA region? How did your experience compare? Did you get anything good out of it?

I just wanted to share this in case any of you wonderful NEPA brides out there were interested. There’s a bridal expo happening next weekend, on Sunday the 21st, down at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre. I won’t be attending since I’ve already had my fill of bridal expos, but brides early in the planning process might find it useful! They’re doing a big giveaway too, and that’s always fun.

If you attend, let me know how it went and what parts you loved. I also recommend creating a new email address just for signing up with vendors at the expo, because some of them can occasionally be pretty spammy. Better safe than sorry!

This is another really great song that I like, but it doesn’t quite fit in with our musical style. I’ve heard of a lot of brides using this Alicia Keys song as a recessional. That’s really perfect because of how passionate it is. We’ll be using more classic selections during the ceremony, probably, but maybe this will inspire someone else!

A couple of days ago, NEPA mom dug up a little something for me to use on my wedding day. It’s absolutely going to be my “something old” on the day of. So what did we find?

What’s this now? Not sure?

Read more »

So I seem to spend more time lately swooning over pictures of butterfly wedding supplies online than I do actually buying them and doing crafts for my own wedding. But with 2010 almost here, I’m trying to get myself back in gear and start doing and not just dreaming.

BUT, before that happens, I found a TON of really great butterfly wedding favors on the site Daisy-Days.com and I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces of inspiration!

If you want a less DIY approach, I like this whole Butterfly Dreams Wedding collection. They have four popular colors and you can get all the accessories like the ring bearer pillow, flower girl basket, etc. If it gets down to the wire and I’m still missing some of these things, or haven’t found anything I really want to make, I might pop back over and pick some of these up.

Next up are some fantastic jewels you can use to dress up your bouquet. I’ve seen other brides do the little crystals in the flowers, but what about crystal butterflies? I love the idea of that extra sparkle in my flowers, and it will tie my look in with the rest of the theme.

I’m not going to do individual place cards on each table (just place cards at the door with their table number, not assigned seats), but if I was I would use these butterfly name cards. They are so freaking cute. The little pieces of glitter they have in the sample pictures on the site just add to the overall adorableness of that table!

Finally, the creme de la creme: butterfly candy favor bags. DREAMY SIGH. The candy buffet is happening, but I still need bags for people to take the candy home in (or I could just tell everyone on the invitations that pockets are required… lol). We could do them in our colors, with our names. Look how hot these are:

I can’t even handle it any more. I need to go lay down and recover, ha!

Has anyone else ever gone into wedding inspiration overload? How do you not end up buying/making every cute idea you see?

I’m a big fan of beach weddings. I know, I’m not having anything that even remotely resembles a beach wedding, but I adore them anyway. NEPA BIL and his wife were married a year and a half ago on the beach in North Carolina and it was a simple, yet breath-taking ceremony.

As per usual, I was browsing around for all things wedding and i came upon QualityShells.com. The best way I can describe them is a ready to go beach wedding in a box!  From bulk shells for decorating (think – filling a large hurricane vase with them as a base for a candle) or even large shells that could serve as the focal point of each centerpiece.

If my family could travel easily, I’d probably blow off a lot of this wedding stuff and just have everyone gather at the beach during sunset for a quick ceremony. Then we could sit at tables draped with seashells and candles and enjoy the night. As much as we all probably love combing the beach for shells, it would get pretty exhausting to gather enough shells for 20 or so tables.

What kind of ideas have you had for a beach-themed wedding? If you could just run off to the ocean and get married, would you?

So a while back NEPA Groom sent me this:

(source)

Sigh. Yes, those are zombies. The boy, he loves them. I’m fairly confident he’s joking about the zombie cake. We’ve made a game out of searching for the most ridiculous wedding pictures we can find and send them to each other over Facebook. I think our friends are still amused. At any rate, a lot of our friends have told us that I ‘just have’ to let him do the zombie cake. Um. Sure.

Though I’m thinking maybe we should make some concessions. We are prepping ourselves for married life, right? He can have the zombie cake if I can do this:

(source)

Two of our favorite inspiration sources are Wedinator and Awkward Family Photos. Do you have any favorite sites that you go to for some wedding laughs?

I have an exciting guest post to share today. I was recently introduced to NEPA Harpist Giselle Pedraza, who was kind enough to sit down and answer some of the most common questions brides and grooms to be have about wedding music choices. So read on my darlings, and let Giselle give you some wonderful advice about choosing a harpist and music in general on your big day. She’s got an impressive resume, so check it out:

“I just wanted to write you a short note to thank you for the excellent job you did! The music was beautiful and it really added to our ceremony and cocktail hour. Thank you very much!”

Some of the corporate/institutional clients who have hired me include The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, Misericordia University, Wilkes University, Marywood University and the Cultural Council of Luzerne County.

“Giselle is a beautifully accomplished musician, and a lovely person. She has played for several of our arts events, and I recommend her highly.” -Shelley Pearce, Director of Cultural Programs, Wilkes University

“Giselle is an excellent harpist. We have hired her for several events and look forward to working with her again.” -Mike Burnside, Executive Director, Cultural Council of Luzerne County.

How can people interested in more information get in touch with you?

I can be reached by visiting my website, gisellepedraza.com, by email at info@gisellepedraza.com or by phone at +570.575.8509.

Sweet! Lookie what we got in the mail today:

It feels good to know that this is scheduled and we’ve mad a little bit more progress. Though now the letter itself is making me worry about bad weather. And what “comfortable clothing” really means. Sigh.