Invitation Re-reveal

Well the invitations for the “new” wedding are out, and we’ve started getting RSVP’s. You know what that means, hive!

Time to show them off to the world!!!

Image based off the Weddingbee Icon; Recreated by Mr. Unicorn.

Without further ado, I give you our new invitations:

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The wording we chose, while not very traditional, is very US. I don't know how visible that font is for all of you, so I've typed it all below: 

"So a Jew walks into a bar...and meets the love of his life.

Together with their parents, Aaron Unicorn and Mariana Unicorn invite you to join in celebrating their love at what is sure to be the most epic wedding EVER."

In case you don’t get the joke, Mr. Unicorn is Jewish. And we met at a bar. 

Yes, I was crazy enough to cut out each individual triangle for the bunting at the top. After doing that for 70 invitations, I let Mr. Unicorn simply incorporate it into the design for the RSVP cards; I was tired of gluing twine and triangles.

And the RSVP Card, with the following two options:

1. Sword-wielding ninjas couldn't keep me away.

2. Sorry. Can't make it. I heard about the ninjas.

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And all the pretty pieces together:

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What do you think of our second set of invitations, hive? Do they look just as good, nearly as good, or not as good as the first set?

Trigger Happy

Hive, the Unicorns are officially REGISTERED!!!! I was honestly expecting a super fun day of trotting through stores, armed with the glorified scan gun, adding pots, pans, and fortune-cookie-makers to our registry. In reality, the experience was tedious. We started off at Williams-Sonoma. After going into full-on sticker shock, I decided, “What the hell? I’ll just scan whatever!” And that is how we ended up registering for an entire set of copper pots and pans, a set of Teflon-coated pots and pans, and a grill scrubber. By the way, we don’t own a grill.

 After registering at Williams-Sonoma and getting a little trigger happy, we moved on to Bed, Bath,and Beyond. We spent TWO HOURS running up and down the aisles with a checklist and a scan gun. Pillows, sheets, towels, garlic presses, and rice cookers…we scanned them all. By the end of it, we were thoroughly exhausted. The nice man at the counter gave us some brochures and paperwork, and that was that.

Or was it????

Somehow, BB&B lost our registry. I don’t know if the clerk simply misspelled our names, or what, but the fact is that our registry was nowhere to be found. Two hours’ worth of work….vanished!

Eek!!!

Mr. Unicorn wasn’t too taken with the idea of going back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and re-scanning everything. So, I did the next best thing: I registered online. Registering online only took about thirty minutes or so, and since I created the registry myself, I knew for a fact that our names were spelled correctly. No danger of vanishing registries here!

Since I was online anyway, I also decided to register at Target. Now, when I mentioned to my FFIL that I had chosen to register at Target, I got the raised eyebrow. “Target??” he asked in disbelief. “Why?” Call me crazy, but I didn’t see any problem with registering at Target for “casual” dinnerware.  In my mind, I registered for all the “everyday” items at Target, all the “nicer” items at Bed, Bath and Beyond, and all the “ridiculously-priced-but-maybe-someone-will-buy-it-anyway” items at Williams-Sonoma.

Hive, how was your registry experience? Did you find it as tedious as we did? How many places did you register at?

Call Me Martha Stewart

Holy crap, hive! I had three straight days off from work, and let me just TELL YOU how productive I’ve been.

In a mere three days, I:

-Re-addressed 70 envelopes and stuffed them with invitations.

-Created moss-covered letters, a la Mrs. Mink.

-Started yarn-wrapped letters, shamelessly stolen from Miss Dragon.

-Worked on a lovely ribbon backdrop for our cake.

-Created framed chalkboards.

Please hold your applause until the end, because I have to show off my lovelies.

Photo by Mr. Unicorn

Below are the moss letters that I created using Mrs. Mink’s tutorial. The only thing I did differently is that I cheated hardcore and used pre-cut, wooden letters instead of cutting them out of foam board. I am going to be completely honest with you, hive. These letters were a royal pain in the butt to make. Moss sheds like crazy and gets EVERYWHERE. On the bright side, moss sheds like crazy, so it’s a pretty forgiving medium. To hide seams or any bare patches, you just have to glue down some moss-fuzzies. Yes, that’s the technical term: moss-fuzzies.

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Once these suckers were done, I moved on to the next project: Yarn-wrapped letters. I fell in love with Miss Dragon’s letters, and I knew I had to make my own version of them in our wedding colors. Cue peach and cream yarn.

This is as far as I got before I got bored with the yarn project. Like I said, I have the attention span of a goldfish. It’s amazing anything gets done. I’m sure I’ll pick it back up by the end of the week. Maybe I’ll finish the whole darn word by August.

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After getting bored with the yarn, I switched to ribbon! I dunno about you, but I friggin’ loooove ribbon. When I started seeing pictures of ribbon backdrops on Pinterest, I about died. It was like a message from the craft gods. Anywho, one staple gun and many spools of ribbon later, we have this:

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It’s still not totally finished; I want a more full-looking backdrop. I think I may put this up behind the cake…

As for the framed chalkboards, I hate to include them in my craft list because they were embarrassingly easy to make. Hobby Lobby had these gorgeous frames at 50% off, and I couldn't resist. Now it's time for a confession. That black square? It's not actually a chalkboard; it's a piece of foam board that I wedged in there. I tested a left-over piece with chalk pen, and it looks awesome.

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I’m not the ONLY one who’s been crafting up a storm. Mr. Unicorn, always eager to play with power tools, surprised me by making this lovely, vintage-inspired crate.

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What do ya'll do on your days off from work? Do you go craft-crazy like I did? Whatcha think of our projects, especially Mr. U's crate?

Piece of Cake

One thing that I kinda missed out on when I was planning this wedding the first time around was the cake tasting. If you’ll recall, I just kinda pranced into Honeymoon Bakery and picked out a three-tier cake with peach-colored icing and ivory swirlies piped on top. I’ve been a huuuge fan of this bakery for about six years, so I didn’t feel that an official cake tasting was necessary. All their goodies are AMAZING! Seriously.

But after seeing other bees uploading pictures of delicious cake samples, I felt a little left out. Lucky for me, I get to plan our wedding again. And this time, I wanted a cake tasting.

After a little snooping around on the internet, I foundLittle European Bakery and set up an appointment to come taste their cakes. My grandmother decided she wanted to come, too, so we hopped in the car and drove over.

When we arrived, we were greeted very warmly by the owner. She came rushing over with three books full of pictures of gorgeous cakes, and after discussing exactly what I was looking for, she disappeared to go get us some samples.

You may be surprised to hear that my “vision” of what kind of cake I wanted had changed a bit since my meeting back in January at Honeymoon Bakery. Instead of a flawlessly smooth cake with intricate piping, I had fallen in love with the look of rough buttercream.

Photo by Jonathan Canlas Photography

Within minutes, the owner reappeared with this cute little cupcake, still warm from the oven, with dollops of several different kinds of filling. As much as I wanted to simply DEMOLISH the cupcake, I managed to enjoy it slowly, trying dainty little bites with each kind of filling.

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And the final verdict is?

Three tier cake, pale peach rough buttercream icing, no fillings, and an adorable bunting topper a la Mrs. Funnel Cake.

We signed the contract, handed over our deposit, and we were on our way.

Did any of you change your mind about what you wanted your cake to look like? What do you think of that rough buttercream look?

Flower Power Failure

Very early on in the wedding-planning process I decided I wouldn’t have any real flowers. Why? They’re expensive, they wilt, they die. ‘Nuff said.

Instead, I was going to make these beauties that I found on the Martha Stewart site. Miss Cassie Chappelle makes these and sells them for the very low price of your left kidney. You only need one of those, after all.

Naturally, with a free tutorial available online, I wasn’t going to PAY someone to do what I could do myself.

I stocked up on floral tape, floral wire, and coffee filters. And let the project sit for months. And months. And months.

Finally, this week, I decided to actually sit down and get this knocked out. I’m pretty crafty, so I had no doubt in my mind that this was just one more easy peasy project.

Boy was I wrong.

This is the face of failure:

Personal photo. Kindly disregard the pit-bull butt.

At one point, I remember throwing down a very mangled “flower” on the floor, much to Mr. Unicorn’s surprise. I don’t normally freak out with crafts. I just keep at it until I get results. Except this time around, I wasn’t getting ANYWHERE.

Beaten by coffee filters and floral tape. How sad.

My MIL, on the other hand, was cranking out gorgeous coffee filter blooms like it was nothing.

Obviously I can’t rely on my poor MIL to make enough flowers for 8 bouquets, centerpieces, and 7 boutonnieres by September 1^st. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. She would have to make flowers from sunup to sunset for the remaining 70-ish days before the wedding.

The answer???

Buttons.

Behold the button bouquet. Is it not adorable, if somewhat unorthodox?

Personal photo. Not NEARLY enough "blooms," to be a bouquet, but you get the idea.

What do you think? Will these work as flower substitutes? Or should I resign myself to the fact that I’m going to have to hire a florist?

Invitation Reveal

I figured I might as well show you the invitations we sent out for our “first” wedding. You know. The one that fell to pieces and left me scrambling for a new venue at 83 days to the wedding. Yep. That one.

After all, we spent way too much time on these suckers to have them go unappreciated.

First, I will show you the inspiration.

Image via WeddingInvitations21

I immediately fell in love with the design, and demanded that Mr. Unicorn do his best to replicate it. And he did!

Behold! The marvelous results:

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As for the RSVP card:

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And here are all the components, tied with cantaloupe-colored baker’s twine that I ordered from Greenmunch, a company based out of Canada that I highly recommend. I’ve ordered paper straws and twine from them, and with each order was a HANDWRITTEN “Thank you” note and a free pen. How is THAT for amazing customer service, eh?

But I digress.  

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We included our wedding website on the back of a mini-moo card, since we found out that it’s frowned upon to put your registry info on the invitation itself. Honestly, I think that’s kinda silly, but who am I to challenge Emily Post?

And in case you can't see the wording on the RSVP card:

Names:

1. Gladly Attend

2. Regretfully Decline

3. Regretfully Attend

4. Enthusiastically Decline

Number of Persons:

So. What do you think, hive? Are they purty or what???

Make it Work!

Let’s face it, hive.

With my “old” wedding falling to pieces, I don’t have time to panic. I just have to get over it, get my butt in gear, and MAKE IT WORK!!!

Let’s just take a minute here for a very brief detour into how much I love Tim Gunn.

Who doesn’t love a man in a sharp-looking suit??? He came to my school. I met him. I want to be his bff for LIFE.  And I want him to teach Mr. Unicorn how to dress.

But back to wedding shenanigans.

Fueled by red bull and armed with my trusty credit card, I did what any desperate bride would do.

I went on a shopping spree!!!!

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Look at all my bags of goodies! Yes, that’s moss you see peeking from one of the Hobby Lobby bags. I love Hobby Lobby almost as much as I love Tim Gunn.

They were having a glassware sale, and I had a coupon, and before I knew it my cart was loaded up beyond capacity.

I bought:

-Cardstock: for the invitations that we have to RE-design, RE-print, and RE-send to our very confused friends and family.

-Moss: for decorating the tables.

-Letters: to cover in moss and hang somewhere.

-A Chalk Pen: for our chalkboard menu.

-Burlap: for making bunting and table runners.

-Pretty Glass Things: for the centerpieces.

All this stuff came to less than $200 bucks. I think it’s a steal. Mr. Unicorn thinks otherwise. He still doesn’t understand the concept behind the decorative moss balls. To be honest, I don’t either, but I think they look pretty.

What do you think, hive? Did I go overboard? Or do I totally deserve a crafty shopping spree?

The Great Wedding Fiasco of 2012

So you may have noticed I’ve been rather quiet this last week or so.

I wish I could tell you that I’ve been blissfully busy making wedding related crafts, but that’s not the case. At all.

In fact, everything just came to a crashing halt.

Why?

With only 90 days to the wedding, Mr. Unicorn decided to get cold feet about our venue. After we’ve booked it, put down a deposit, and planned the rest of the wedding, he voiced his growing concern that the venue is inconveniently far away for his family.

The argument that ensued was one of epic proportions, and we almost called off the wedding entirely.

You see, his family is coming from Florida. I’ll admit that’s a bit of a trek to come to our wedding in Rome, Georgia, but the kicker is that I have family flying in from VENEZUELA. As in SOUTH AMERICA. And they haven’t made a peep about the huge inconvenience it is for them.

So. What are we going to do?

We are going to book a venue here in Atlanta.

We are going to re-print and re-send all the invitations.

We are going to make corrections to our wedding website reflecting these changes.

We are going to cancel our current DJ and book another one.

We are going to cancel our cake order and find a bakery here in Atlanta.

In short: I have fewer than 80 days to plan the entire wedding all over again…from scratch.

This is how I feel about that:

Image via Mr. Unicorn

Why yes, I DID make Mr. Unicorn sit down at his computer to make me this animated graphic. Didn't he do a great job? I think he really captured the essence of a panicky, pink unicorn. Actually it was a collaboration. I created the outline, and he filled it in and animated it. I'm not gonna lie; I love having a tech-savvy graphic designer at my beck and call.

Has anyone else’s wedding completely fallen apart at the seams? Should we just run away to Vegas and elope?