Table Centerpiece Rough Draft

This first center piece post is a definite work in progress (so don't judge :) my first mock-up of our table centerpieces (will probably require multiple drafts until I'm happy.) A while ago I was home sick and took the opportunity to do (a very) rough draft of our centerpieces. Here's a brief synopsis of what I made, using the materials I could find at home.

Also, be warned, I do not own a Gocco or Cricut or any of those serious tools that many of you talented crafters out there have in your homes so all of my attempts are on the "homemade" side of cute. But not to worry, for the real deal I'll be getting outside (e.g. Staples) help with printing and cutting, etc.

I have about 50 Save The Date cards leftover and was hoping to incorporate that image into our table numbers somehow. So I started by cutting out, very carefully, the image from the rest of the card. This took a while but since I'll only need 20 or so table numbers, it shouldn't be too tortorous of a task. I didn't have any white cardstock lying around so I used what I could find: a white Anthropologie bag (I KNEW saving those puppies would be good for something!).

Here's a shot of all my materials, minus the scotch tape I used to tape the paper together.

I cut out an unmeasured rectangle of paper (in hindsight, should have used my papercutter!) and folded it into a tent a la Martha Stewart, securing the bottom with tape. I taped my cut-out image from our Save The Date to the side and wrote out a number in blue, using a Sharpie. Easy enough, right? Here's what it looked like:

I decided it needed something else so I took the metal lid off of one of my treasured mason jars and taped the paper tent to it, so it has a base. And voila, table number prototype is done!

It will look better when I make the real ones, I promise. For starters, the paper won't be all wrinkly (and I'll probably pick a heavier cardstock). I'll also either print the numbers out or use cut-out numbers for each one, I was just sick and unable to make a trip to the store today (and of course, our printer is out of ink right now).

Gratuitous Mason Jar Shot

I'm excited about these for a number of reasons. One, I'm using materials that I (mostly) already have (the STD image and lids from the mason jars), which saves both money and the environment! I also think the final product will be sweet and go great with our mason jar centerpieces.

Since I happened to have some yellow flowers in the house, I filled one of the mason jars with them and threw in a candle, just to get the basic effect.

Overall, I'm please but I still think it lacks something. I'll definitely have to play around with some more ideas but this was a good first start!

Anyone have any suggestions for how to rework this table number idea? What inspired your centerpieces?

Friends' Weddings are so. much. fun!

This weekend P and I attended the wedding of one of our oldest couple friends. We've known them forever, since we all went to college together and they are one of those couples who we've known would get married since the beginning of their relationship. Even though the weekend was a whirlwind of fun, I managed to take a couple of photos of decor ideas at the wedding that I liked and thought I'd share them (plus, who doesn't like to look at more wedding pictures?)

The color palette was red, orange and gold, which they incorporated into the table centerpieces, here's a shot of the tall ones. Very dramatic, right? Love the single flower (Calla lily? Orchid?) in the center of the vase!

There was a mix of high and low centerpieces throughout the room. Here's a shot of the low ones and also the table number. The couple framed pictures of themselves at different points in their relationship and then used that phrase on the escort cards (for example, our table was called "First DU Formal," which was very fitting since every guy sitting at our table was in the fraternity.) It was fun to go around the room and look at all the pictures of them, they look so young in some of them. It's hard to believe time has gone so fast! ( Cue "Sunrise, Sunset" here...)

Even though I was too busy dancing to actually eat my slice of cake (sad, I know! I was so disappointed when I found out I missed it since it was red velvet, my favorite!) but I did manage to get a picture of their elegant, classic cake before it was cut. Although we're not having a cake, if we were to have one, I would want it to look like this:

And finally, just for a fun, here's a shot of the couple as they were exiting the church. Love the bubbles and the bride's gorgeous dress!

Congrats P and E, your wedding was amazing!

PS- Here's a shot of P and I, later on in the dancing portion of the evening... <3

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

At least, my girls do...This is a post dedicated to my amazing bridesmaids. P and I both wanted to keep the wedding party small, so it was not easy having to "choose" friends. I consider myself blessed with many close girlfriends and truthfully, I could have had a bridal party twice the number we ended up with. But for a variety of reasons, ultimately it made sense to keep the number down and so we decided on 4 each. Each of my bridesmaids brings a unique perspective and I value their opinions very much. And so, without further ado, here are my lovelies:

1. Maid of Honor- Her given name starts with an R but she's known as Pippi by all her high school friends (her fantastic nickname caught on in 3rd grade and she hasn't been able to escape it since!) She's been my best friend since 7th grade, when I started a new school and didn't know anyone. We bonded over our love of the 60's hippie culture and the Anne of Green Gables books. It's been more than 14 years of friendship and having her as my MOH was something we decided on a long time ago. Here's a picture of the two of us with another friend from high school (Pip is the one with red hair and freckles (shocking, huh?) on the right).

2. Bridesmaid D (or my little moo-shu Jew, as I call her since she's half Chinese and half Jewish) is a college girlfriend whom I hold near and dear to my heart. Although I didn't really become friends with D until the very end of college, I'm so glad I did because she is truly a soul sister. Here's a picture of us, along with bridesmaid J, after I ran the NYC Marathon last year (they made signs, how cute is that??)

3. Speaking of bridesmaid J, there she is on the left of me in that picture. As I've mentioned before, J is a photo editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine and she is my go-to for wedding decor decisions (she's the one who found the blue mason jars, remember?). She's also totally awesome.

4. And finally, bridesmaid JEW, who is called that not because she is of the Jewish faith but because those are actually her initials. JEW rounds out the fab four and she's another college dear heart. I don't get to see her as much as I would like since she lives in Boston (where she's a cheerleader for a certain professional football team there) but it's always a good time when we hang out. JEW is also in charge of my hair and make-up for the big day, since she was practically raised in the salon her mom owns and runs. Here's a photo of us with bridesmaid J (JEW is inthe middle, J is to the right and I'm to the left) last winter:

So there you have it. My wonderful, beautiful bridesmaids. They're the ones who are going to get me through all the wedding trials and tribulations and share all the fun projects and parties. I love them all to death and couldn't imagine getting married without these four standing up there with me.

How did you choose your bridesmaids? Was it an easy or hard decision?

Save-The-Date Goodness

While most of the decisions regarding our wedding have caused me some serious stress (I hate making decisions!), our Save The Dates was one of the first and easiest ones we made. About 2 weeks after getting engaged, a friend of mine from college sent out an email describing her new children's card shop on Etsy. After perusing her designs, I knew a custom Save The Date from her was a must. They were all so simple and sweet, just the theme I wanted to convey.

Seriously, how could I not fall in love with these?

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She also makes beautiful notecards (thank you note possibilities?!?!)

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So I emailed her, asking if there was any way she could modify one of the existing cards into a Save The Date and whether she had the printing capabilities to print off about 150. She was more than happy to make the changes and could print out that many so the decision was made and about 2 months later, I picked up our oh-so-beautiful cards.

They are printed one a piece of cardstock that went into a white envelope with another pale yellow insert. The insert was a very simple DIY project that I created on word, including information about our wedding website, and had printed on at Staples, since our printer was broken. I stuffed both and sent them off (way way way too early. but that's another post :). So, without further ado, here's our lovely STDs (HA! That acronym always makes the 12-year-old inside me giggle). The first image is a close up of the actual design and the second picture includes the insert:

At about $1.25 a piece, they were reasonably priced for custom work. You can check out more of my friend's cards at her Etsy store: www.homadedesigns.etsy.com.

What do you think? How'd you decide on your Save The Date?

Ketubah Inspiration

After I saw a beautiful Ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) posted by a reader on the boards, I clicked on the website to see who the artist was. Her name is Amy Kagin and her Ketubah's are works of art. I browsed through a bunch and while I loved them all, I managed to pick out a few that I felt particularly excited about. The first two reflect a more modern style of Judaica but the movement and colors are so pretty!

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The next two are more traditional, patterned ones. I love the blue and yellow one because it matches my color scheme :)

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These last two are probably the least common types of Ketubah's and (typical), my favorites. The Amy Kagin flower tryptic is considered "mini," which I like the idea of aesthetically and it's also cheaper (Hey, it's a Jewish wedding, I'm ALWAYS thinking of cost-cutting ideas :). The other one I found on Ketubahs.com (Does anyone else think it's funny/random website name?). It's definitely different but so pretty and would go with a lot of different decor schemes. This sounds trivial but it something I would like to display all the time, so it is important to consider these things...Le tough decision!

(Ketubahs.com, Amy Fagin)

These are just a few of the thousands of Ketubah options. First I need to figure out the budget for ours before we make any decisions. But I'm curious, which one would you want to look at for the rest of your life and why?

E-Pics: A Worthy Decision

I originally thought getting engagement pictures taken was a waste of time and money. But after seeing tons of beautiful, creative photo shoots on sites like the good ol' Bee and Snippet and Ink, I decided that maybe it would be a fun thing to do. After all, we're only engaged once and why not take some time to document this point in our lives?

Sidenote: Guys are silly and clueless about weddings. When we told a male friend of ours we were getting engagement pictures taken, his response was "Wait, what? You're getting engaged tomorrow? Aren't you already engaged?" HA! Boys...

Anyways, once I decided we were going to have them done, the next question was where? At first I thought that New York City, where we live and love, would be perfect but we would have had to hire a separate photographer just for this session and it would've gotten pricey.

Our wedding photographer is based out of Boston but we weren't planning a trip there anytime soon, so we weren't going to be able to take advantage of our photographer's e-pic session that is included in our package.

Then finally the lightbulb went off in my head! Mr Trail Mix's cousin is an amazing (like, really really amazing) wedding photographer who runs a studio in Miami Beach (www.ambrosiophotography.com) and we had a trip planned to Miami for 4th of July weekend. Done and done! Stacey is incredible. We were uncomfortable in front of the camera at first but she managed to make us feel at ease after a few minutes and got some wonderful shots. You can check out more of her work here. We took them at South Pointe Park in Miami Beach. Here's a few of my favorites:

Silhouette smooch shot.

I love the skyline in the background.

Sometimes awkward laughter makes for a cute picture.

Up on the lifeguard's tower.

One of the few where we both managed to not look stupid.

For some reason, my heart always stops at this one...

And finally, to finish off the shoot, we jumped in the fountains.

All photos by the lovely and talented Stacey Ambrosio.

I'm so glad we ended up doing the photo shoot. Not only did we get to practice for our wedding photos (note to self: do NOT look up in pictures. Ever.) but now we have some beautiful photos of us, which is somewhat of a rarity since in an given photo. someone looks silly (it's a toss-up who is worse in pictures, for sure ;) . I'm definitely going to frame one of these, but it's so hard to pick! We'll probably also use some in our guest book, just to shamelessly self-promote (ha!) a little bit more at our wedding. Did you get engagement photos taken? Which one of these should I blow up and frame?

Traditional vs Non-Traditional: Where Do You Stand?

If it was completely up to me, our wedding would be pretty non-traditional. I'd love to incorporate some fun ideas I've seen in the online wedding world (Krispy Kreme donuts instead of a cake? YES PLEASE!) But alas, Mr Trail Mix is actually surprisingly traditional when it comes to weddings and has shot down a lot of my ideas (Cocktail-style dinner reception and signature drink options are two that come to mind.) But in spite of his many protests, I have managed to incorporate a bit of non-traditional flair into our wedding, as well as doing away with a few traditions I wasn't excited about. Here's the rundown:

1. I'll tell you a little secret: I'm not wearing a veil (Hope Mr Trail Mix doesn't read this...Ok, who am I kidding, there is no way he's reading this). I love veils on other brides but it just didn't feel right for me. I tried a few on at Kleinfeld's when I bought my dress but they didn't make me feel any more bridal. And truthfully, I've always seen myself walking down the aisle wearing a wreath of flowers with ribbons down the back. And that's what I'm planning on wearing. Something like this, only a little smaller and more delicate:

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2. We're abandoning the bouquet/garter toss traditions. Not only do I dislike the idea of putting my single friends on the spot, why would I want to throw something so pretty?

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Well, actually, I'll be giving it away after the anniversary dance (a new tradition that I'd never heard of until I got engaged and started reading wedding blogs but I LOVE the idea.) The garter toss makes me uncomfortable and Mr TM didn't care about doing it so that went out the window as well.

3. I already posted about our cake. We're not having much of one, just a little presentation cake to cut to make the relatives happy. Then it's strawberry delicious goodness.

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4. I want to walk down the aisle to the Beatles' song "In My Life" and the wedding party to walk down to the Beatles' song "Here Comes The Sun." I know I'm not the first one to think of this but it's definitely not "Canon in D."

I would have pushed the boundaries of tradition even more if it weren't for Mr Tradition Mix. But since weddings and marriage are all about compromise, I decided to let the boy have his say. Things such as an ice cream truck for dessert, Asian-themed dinner and blue grass band all went by the wayside. I'm ok with giving some of these things up because ultimately, this wedding is a reflection of the two of us. And I think it's going to be pretty damn amazing, regardless of how traditional it is.

What's non-traditional about your wedding?

A Case of Blue Balls...

Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm not talking about a certain effect on the male anatomy (much to Mr Trail Mix's relief :). Nope, I'm talking about blue ball mason jars!

I went to the Chelsea Flea Market today with bridesmaid J, looking for a pair of earrings to go with a dress I'm wearing for a wedding in two weeks. J is a photo editor at a major (seriously major) magazine and her taste is impeccable, so I've been using her as a sounding board for wedding decor ideas. We'd tossed around several concepts for centerpiece containers, including miss-matched yellow and blue vases (too expensive, even going the flea market/thrift store route) and clear glass vases (too traditional), before finally settling on blue and/or clear mason jars. I was using this as my visual inspiration (ignore the lilacs, I'll be using yellow and white flowers):

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So guess what we stumbled apon today at the flea market? I'll give you a hint:

Yup, a whole lot of blue ball mason jars. I can't take credit for the find, J is the one who frantically called my cell phone, saying to come up to the upstairs floor of the flea market IMMEDIATELY. Thinking she had found me some earrings, I excitedly headed upstairs. Instead, she pointed to an entire shelf of my dream centerpiece containers. Between the 3 different sizes (all pictured here, taken by moi), there were a total of 17 jars, which I purchased for $40 total! I can't believe I got such a great deal on these, I've seen them sell for upwards of $10 dollars each, so paying less than $3 each is a bargain. Here's another shot of my pretties:

I love the light blue glass and the country connotation behind these. I'm thinking the flowers will be a very loose, organic mix of yellow and white blooms that evoke a wildflower feel. I can't wait to see how it looks on the tables. I'll definitely have to play around and post pictures of ideas for the centerpiece flowers. Buying these was such a rush, since it's one more step towards making my vision for the wedding come true. Anyone else had a thrift store or flea market score?

PS- Just for fun, here's the earrings I bought at the flea market today as well, a total steal at $5!

I'm wearing a beautiful, navy blue silk wrap dress with bronze shoes. I think these will complete the outfit perfectly. Hooray for flea markets!

Engagement Party #1.

My parents threw us the first of our 2 engagement parties back in June, at their house upstate. Having two engagement parties is totally excessive, I fully admit. And I'm embarassed to write that I'm partially to blame for it. Not thinking the FIL Trail Mixes were going throw us one, I badgered Mama TM into having a low-key BBQ at the family home, which turned into a 40-person+ extravaganza that was seriously amazing.

Of course, about a week later, the FIL's offered to throw us an engagement party down in Miami, hence the fiesta doble! As country and down-home as my parents' soiree was, I had such a blast. The BBQ really made me feel good about my wedding choices so far, as I was reminded how I am always at my happiest when dirty besides a campfire after a day of drinking, eating and dancing. Here's a few shots, all taken on my camera.

Right before we embarked a tubing adventure down the creek near my house, 3 friends and I decided to see if we could all fit into one inner tube. Turns out, we could. It was getting out that difficult :)

Check out my serve! Heated battles of bocce and intense volleyball games were also present at the party. I love me some lawn games!

This picture makes me giggle.

That's Mr Trail Mix, Bro Trail Mixer and I cutting our delicious, amazing, awesome cake. Little bro just graduated from college, so he got to share in the fiesta as well.

Late night bonfire. DEFINITELY having one of these after our wedding!

Le siiiigh. It was a really wonderful weekend and we capped off Sunday by heading up to Vermont for another dear college friend's bridal shower. It was a blast, look how beautiful my girlfriends are (and her fiance is a cutie patootie as well:)

The weekend was truly special, filled with good food and lots o' love. It made me so excited for the big event. Thanks mom and dad, it was the best party ever!

Anyone else finding your wedding is just a big excuse for one party after the next? Stay tuned for our Miami bash coming in November...

I Just Registered for Boston!!!!!!!!

So anyone in the running community knows that it is a big deal to run the Boston marathon. Like, a really big deal. It's definitely the most prestigious marathon in the United States, possibly the world. The entry time is pretty low, so it's not easy to qualify. However, I am happy to report that for my age category (20-29) the qualifying time is 3:40:00. I ran the New York City marathon in 3:18:26, well below the minimum needed to qualify. I'm so excited to run Boston, it's been a dream of mine for several years now and the time has come to check this race off of my to-run list!

The training is going to be rough; I'm definitely NOT a winter-runner. But I want to do well in this race so I'm just going to have to suck it up, put on my spandex, gloves, underarmour, fleece headband and fuel belt and hit the streets! I'm excited, nervous and exhilarated, all at the same time. Am I crazy for trying to run a marathon less than 2 months before my wedding? Only time will tell if this decision was good, bad or ugly. Nonetheless, I can now officially say Boston or bust!