Wedding Week – All the little things

There are a lot of big things in a wedding, the ceremony the family photos, the speeches and the dinner, but here here are some of the little wedding details. The things in the background, but not necessarily the stars of the show. The little things!

Menu’s – I wanted to do a round menu, but the cutting was going to be a ridiculous feat. Instead, we opted to print a square menu, double sided. One side contained the meal info, and the other had the bar menu. It was printed on semi-gloss cardstock. The corners were painstakingly rounded by the lovely El Granto.

Programs – We weren’t having a church wedding, so we just needed a simple program that explained the who’s who. It was again printed double sided, and corners rounded.

Dancing Shoes – I’m sad that I don’t have any pictures of this! We made a basket full of Dancing Shoes for the ladies that were in the women’s washrooms. The flip flops were tied with ribbon and contained a tag with their appropriate size. A sign donned the bag urging people to dance irresponsibly.

Custom Handkerchiefs for the Moms & Dads – We used our Silhouette SD to cut out text onto iron on vinyl. We custom made a hanky for all the parents with meaningful words. For instance, El Granto’s favorite book as a kid was “Love you Forever”. For El Granto’s Mum, Grant cut out this verse from the book “As long as I’m living my Mommy you’ll be. ” This garnered many tears from El Granto’s Mum, as well as any mother she showed it to. I even made one for El Granto that said “I want to grow old with you” from the Wedding Singer. It was our chance to be sappy.

Custom Wedding Arch – This was my Dad’s DIY contribution to the wedding. He built a wooden arch that could be assembled and disassembled in place in a matter of minutes. He even wired in an operating chandelier for over our heads during the ceremony. It was complete with billowy curtains and ribbons. He did an amazing job, and it was great to get married under such a lovely handmade gift. After the wedding, we hung the chandelier in our bedroom, so every night we sleep under the same light we got married under.

Wedding Dress Sash – This one was my Mom’s special project. I wanted a black sash to go with my black accessories, but black sashes were expensive and I didnt love any of the ones we found. My Mom sourced the same ribbon that was going on our cake, from Mokuba in Toronto. She steamed and pressed it, made the ends perfect points, and stayed the ends with a nail polish pen and oodles of patience.

The Socks: El Granto wanted some awesome socks for the boys, so all the guy’s (Dad’s included) had special socks. Here’s El Granto and his groomsmen showing them off.

The Harpist – We had a harpist for the ceremony and I have to say it was one of the most beautiful parts of the wedding. We spent an afternoon with him picking the songs for the whole ceremony, and now every time I hear a harp I think of the wedding!

The Rings: El Granto has an engraved tungsten carbide ring, and I have a diamond infinity band that matches my engagement ring. I love our rings!

The Candy Buffet: I don’t have pics of the candy buffet before it got eaten! Truth is, it wasn’t supposed to be put out until after dinner, but oops, it was unveiled before the cocktail reception. El Granto & I never even actually saw it! A ton of work went into it, and El Granto’s mum ran around the whole city buying tens of pounds of candy. Here are some pics of the aftermath!

My Shoes: My Mom & Dad gave me the gift that every girl wants, a pair of red soled Louboutins! I love these shoes, and I managed to wear them for 6, yes, SIX hours before trading them in for flip flops. LOVE

The Dress: I went to every dress store in the city and ended up with a custom made silk doupouani mermaid gown from Beckers Bridal. So happy I went with silk over a synthetic. It was unseasonably hot the day of the wedding, but I kept cool in my dress. And yes, I danced my butt off in it!

El Granto’s Cufflinks: El Granto may have cut his hair and trimmed his beard for the wedding, but he kept in his piercings, and he rocked a pair of skull and crossbones cufflinks.

The Flowers: I wanted a simple bouquet of white flowers, and our florist knocked it out of the park with a beautiful carnation bouquet (who knew carnations could be so pretty?!)

The Seating Chart: We used an Ikea frame and a custom poster for our seating chart. I made one typo; my new married name. Oops!

There were also a few things we didn’t get photos of, such as the signature cocktails, the custom cigars and matchboxes and the bathroom toiletries, the gift table and card birdcage. We tried to do as many little DIY’s as we could to make the day special.

Wedding Week – Save the Dates

El Granto & I knew we wanted nice wedding invitations. We had dreams of 5 piece letterpress, lined envelopes, cotton paper and luxury. Then we priced those out. EEEP!

So we started to do some research. In the middle of doing research The Wedding Co. announced that there would be letterpress workshops available at the Spring Wedding Show at the Drake Hotel. We jumped, and booked a workshop with Tanya @ Snap & Tumble.  One hour with Tanya and her press, and we were hooked. The heavy cotton paper, the crisp text, the tactile feeling of the deep impression.  Love at first sight! Check out some pics of our workshop.

So now we knew we wanted to letterpress our invites, and I immersed myself in learning about letterpress. At first I thought I would print at home using an L Letterpress kit that I picked up at a local craft store. After spending an entire afternoon trying to print, I knew that the L Letterpress plates were terrible as was the provided roller, and that under no circumstances could I ever be persuaded to print an entire invitation suite on this thing. It had one saving grace, it did do blind impressions very well. (more on that later)

So I started to hunt for a tabletop letterpress, but all I could find were wildly priced, or required tons of work. I visited Don Black’s shop, and lusted over many a machine, but none were in the budget. Finally I contacted Tanya and asked if there was any way she would let us fools come to her studio and rent PIY (print it yourself) time on her press. She agreed! YAY!

El Granto & I then designed our save the dates (2 different versions) as well as our envelopes. Our first version was a double sided with “Save the Date ” on one side, and the info on the other. El Granto also wanted to make a more gorilla marketing version for his advertising/web friends. For that version we simply put the wedding webside address in the middle of a blank card. Hopefully the recipients of that Save the Date would know enough to visit the website! We had custom polymer plates made at Boxcar Press in New York  and went to Coast Paper’s Cash & Carry store in Vaughn (now called Spicers) to purchase paper. We bought our envelopes online at LetterPressPaper.com (and paid a hefty brokerage fee with UPS.) We purchased a large paper cutter from Costco, and proceeded to cut all the paper down to size. This was a big mistake. We should have had the paper custom cut. It took so much time, and the paper wasn’t perfect.

We ordered a wax seal and black sealing wax online from letterseals.com and purchased Lotka paper to use as envelope liners from The Paper Place  in Toronto.

We rolled up to Tanya’s studio with all that in hand, and printed away!

The save the dates all laid out after printing

At home we printed the mailing info on to each and every envelope using Illustrator and a ink jet printer. We cut, stuffed and glued (handcut) liners into the envelopes, stuffed the Save the Dates, sealed with a wax seal, stamped and then almost got the entire project shut down by the guy at the post office. He said that the wax seals were too big, and that we had to put oversize postage on all the save the dates. It wasn’t even double or triple the postage, it was over $3 an envelope. El Granto got into a war of wills with the post office guy and decided to mail them as is anyways. It was a good call on El Granto’s part as not a single envelope was returned!

It was a labor intensive task, but so worth it.

Next up the Invitations!

Wedding Week – Going to the Chapel

Today El Granto & I are celebrating our first anniversary! I cannot believe its already been a whole year! To celebrate this week will be wedding city over here at Storefront Life. All this weeks posts will be wedding related. First up, recap photos. Continue reading “Wedding Week – Going to the Chapel”