May 4 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y'all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I'll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I've been seriously lagging at that and so there's going to be in flux... apologies!
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Tweet: our wedding photo dump ShutterFly site is all set up. too early to order the cards & invites? i'm totally itching to order my pretties.

Tweet: if i have your email address, chances are you just got the "gimme your mailing address" email. #feelingproductive

This past week has seen a dramatic upswing in actual wedding plans. Sure I play around a lot with DIY projects and dress options, but this week we worked on the reception party guest list. That's huge for us. Up to this point, it's been word of mouth for Vegas invitees. I've made all the paper products already and just need to hit submit on Overnight Prints. However, it'd totally be my luck that I'll order 100 of everything only to go over and have no buffer for mess ups. Right now we have about 55 address labels, but are still waiting for a good chunk of addresses.

Currently the items in my shopping cart, including shipping, total $93.60. Not bad for 100 announcements, 100 reception invitations, 100 RSVP cards, and 200 "photo dump" cards. I really want to order them at the same time to avoid duplicate shipping charges.

Tweet: looks like we're doing soaps as reception favors. yay for trade & crafty friends!

I designed a logo for a friend's business cards and website recently. In return, she offered to make us homemade soaps in our colors and any scents we choose. I'm picturing Japanese lanterns, twinkle lights, cherry blossoms, orchids and other fun touches on our extremely casual Miami reception party. The soap molds I tentatively picked out are flip-flops, palm trees, and an assortment of flowers. I still need to pick the scents as the colors will obviously be orange and blue!

Tweet: do i buy or wait? don't want it to increase, but also don't want to get screwed. 2r/t tickets Ft.Laud-Vegas for $501.80

The airfare really makes me nervous. Our hotel suite is booked already for 4 nights at just shy of $600. Booking another $500 for airfare is just nerve-wracking! I've heard booking mid-week is the best time to book flights, price-wise. What do y'all think, is $500 a good price for 2 round trip airline tickets?

Also, not wedding-related but still a huge accomplishment... I am days away from being an MBA graduate from East Carolina University!! It's been 5 very, very long years in the making. It's significant as I began the program before I even met my wonderful fiancé.

Favor Bottles/ Tumblers

Which wedding favor would you like better: http://bit.ly/a2ldtC - 32oz or http://bit.ly/97U49r - 34oz

http://twitpic.com/14ufpy - To imprint on bottle #1 - single color

http://twitpic.com/14ulr7 - Revised bottle #1 imprint. :)

coffee/ travel tumblers as favors maybe? http://bit.ly/bbOINz or http://bit.ly/caS8Sg or even http://bit.ly/aZ3NEa


Do you use coffee/ travel mugs or water bottles more frequently? Which would you want to have another of? Yes, bad sentence structure, I admit it.

Whichever bottle or travel mug is chosen will be deep blue (or orange if blue isn't an option) with white or silver imprinting. I designed it in a single color (black) for the printer. On the bottles, what’s black will be white or silver and white will be the color of the bottle (blue).

I have been stalking the Discountmugs.com site for months now. But I’m not making any purchases until we have a better idea of how many guests there will be. Now, granted, it’s not like extras will go to waste as we can send them off to family.

Also, I registered us on Amazon.com and am really excited about it. However, I think some people are still leery of shopping online still - which I completely can’t comprehend! – so we might need to double register at Target. Whatcha think?

Photo Shoot, Cupcakes, & Favors

After a few emails back and forth, I finally got to speak to Jessie this morning about our Vegas photo shoot that we won with Emeric Photography. I am ridiculously excited about it! We (and by that I mean "I") decided on October 12th so whoever is in Vegas for the wedding can join Steve, Cathy, Dan and myself on a trip out to the Grand Canyon on the 11th. Jessie suggested a just-before-sundown shoot, around 5pm, for optimum lighting. As the professional, I'm totally deferring to her on that one! I'd given a list of places I really wanted to go for the shoot and she agreed with me on 2 of them: The Neon Boneyard and the Fremont Street Area (Google images pics). My other options are a Strip tour (hitting all the major hotels and taking pictures as we wander about) or Red Rock Canyon (but we'll need to decide if outdoorsy is what we want). She is going to check on the pricing to do a shoot in the Neon Boneyard (facebook link) as that's completely my first choice.

The "down side" to this is that hair and make-up can potentially take 2-3 hours. Now, I am not a make-up person and usually wear minimal to work when I even put it on. My updo from Kim's wedding took about 30 minutes because it was very detailed and completely up. I am going to find some picture to send to Amelia C for both my hair and make-up... and of course pictures of me. I did friend her on facebook, so she's got those hundreds of pictures to look at of us. :-)

 Source: Retro Bakery on Flickr

I emailed my wonderful bakery Thursday evening as I was thinking about our budget. I asked the price of 3 dozen regular cupcakes, 3 dozen mini cupcakes, and a 6" cake similar to the picture but in deep blue with "Congrats Becca & Steve" written on it.

I got this back yesterday:
Cupcakes are $29 per dozen
Minis are $1 each ($12 per dozen)
6-inch cake is $20

Maybe we'll forego the regular cupcakes and just get a ton of mini's and the 6" cake; or maybe a dozen regular cupcakes for throughout the week and 4-5 dozen mini's and the 6". What do you think?

Source: my InDesign talents!

This afternoon I started working on favor items, namely the logo for the favors.  I also order a tote bag and t-shirt from VistaPrint with the logo on it so I can see what they look like.  For both plus shipping, it cost just over $8.  Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE VistaPrint??  Ordering 1 bag per guest unit (not person) I figure it'll break down to about $5-6 per bag.  These'll be favor bags or welcome bags or whatever you want to call them.  I doubt I'll do the shirts for the guests, but I wanted one! LOL  Yes, there will be a post when they arrive. :-)

So, what d'ya think?

Favors

woohoo! 50th post!

now onto the actual post..

I bought these today as sample favors. Also to taste the flavors. Really? Tasting lip balm? LOL

The lip balm flavor on the left is honey and the one on the right is tangerine. They are $.75 and $.80 respectively in quantities of 25 for Vegas favors. Plus they come in little pots so I can put my own labels on each one.

I'll letcha know how they are!

left image source: Brandi1181
right image source: MrsHerk

More Favor Ideas

Well shoot, another super cute idea! maybe we need to make "Vegas survival kits" complete with water bottles, band-aid's and lip balm! What else should go in the kits?

image source

or maybe this lip balm...
image source