Wedding Cookie Buffet

A couple months ago I was honored to plan, decorate and coordinate a special couples big day. Seemingly endless paper decorations, hand stamped tags and a beautiful cookie buffet were some of the visual highlights. The wonderful photgrapher that day was Victoria Carlson. Her photos are so intimate and warm. They blow me away. She offered to send me some photos of the work I did at the event and I am happy to share them with you. 

Wedding Crafts

Mr. Ramon and I had a blast collecting for about a year all sorts of knick-knacks, antiques and junk to use for our wedding props. Our overall theme was sort of rustic glamour. Think old brick and glitter, vintage props and twinkle lights.

I love old typewriters. I thought what a fun idea to use an old typewriter as our guest book. We came up with about 10 different questions for our guests such as "What is your best marriage advice?", "If Ramon and Nicole were super heroes, who would they be?", "When should we consider becoming parents?" etc. We printed them on card stock and created a guest book area with the amazing old typewriter we had found. It was a really nice interactive way for people to share their thoughts and love with us.

We had decided to not use a lot of flowers for our wedding - instead using props for the tables. I would carry a bouquet and he would of course need a boutonniere. I had seen some very cool hand made boutonnieres on Etsy and thought I would try my hand at creating one.

I had been stashing away feathers, netting, botanical pieces etc for hats, headbands and to make my veil. So I had a lot of materials to choose from. Ramon had brought me back an acorn from his trip to Nebraska and I thought that would be my focal point. I added in some feathers and used a varnished orange leaf as the base. I glue gunned it all together, wrapped the base in ribbon and added a pin on the back for easy application. I think it turned out really nice.

 We were visiting my mom in Bend, Oregon and spent a sunny day treasure hunting. I found this antique shop with bowls and bowls of vintage baby blocks. Mr. Ramon and I love lettering so thought this could be fun for something. I chose letters to spell Ramon + Nicole = Love. We could not figure out what to do with them or how to insert them into wedding appropriate props - so I came up with gluing them onto a small chalkboard. Not my favorite application - but it works and I can always pull them off at a later date.

 We were excited so many people decided to travel to Seattle for our wedding. We thought it would be nice to put together bags of snacks and drinks for the hotel rooms of our guests. We kept them Washington themed by adding in Washington apples, local chocolates, hand made granola, Dry Soda, spicy nuts and local chips. We found bank recycled totes and screen printed tags for them. We hope everyone enjoyed the treats!

Save this Date!!!

So exciting - we hit our first big milestone. We sent out save the dates on the 6 month mark from our wedding.
This is a big accomplishment for us as Mr. Ramon has been insanely busy with a big project and it was a team effort so we needed to coordinate all the different pieces.

We had originally decided to screen print on wooden postcards - but then got together for a brainstorm session that left us interested in fabric, sewing and screen printing. We are really trying to do all of the elements of the paper goods for our wedding ourself (with the help of some amazing friends and family) - not wanting to out source or go the mass produced way. We both love paper goods and tend to geek out on them all the time. I spend way to much time perusing blogs filled with paper goods and right now with wedding on the brain it could fill up all my days if I let it.

We hit up a local fabric store and found two prints that were indicative of our "rustic glamour" theme. A little home spun a little fancy. First I had to join the two fabrics together with a iron-on binder.

Then I cut each piece out just big enough to go into the envelope - and pinked the edges.

Then it was Mr. Ramons turn - get paper and screen print the image on and cut them all to size. He has a really great friend who is a pro at screen printing - so this was a chance for him to learn some new tricks. Once that was done I was back to work. I glued the top of each paper to the fabric so it was secure to sew. I chose coordinating thread for a nice visual pop.

As the timeline drew near - I had some assistance from my mom with the sewing. We left the edge strings a little long - they looked so nice.

Mr. Ramon made some pretty wrap around labels for addressing our save the dates.

So the finished look was this. We were very happy with the results - they spoke to what is to come at our big day as well as hand crafted and unique. Such a fun project.

location and date set

Exciting news on the wedding planning timeline. We have a venue and a date set. Yippee!!!

We decided on a Friday night event - we have people coming in from out of town and this allows us to spend Saturday with them before they go home. So January 28th it is!!

We had two great locations in mind. We did not have a lot of choices as we had some unusual needs for our event. First no way am I getting married in a hotel - 1. way to expensive and 2. not really my style. So we were looking for something that met our "theme" of rustic glamour (more on that later), would let us party late, have both the ceremony and the reception, central to Seattle, let me bring in my own deserts and meet our tight budget!

We first looked at the Engine Room in Georgetown. Amazing old space - the look and feel we wanted with a 24 hr. rental period giving us lots of time and amazing owners to work with. I was sure this was it - and then we started talking about all the work it would take to decorate the space. How many friends we would have to enlist, how many ladders we would need and how cleaning all that up early the next morning does not sound like fun.

So on the hunt again - Mr. Ramon suggested I look at Sole Repair in Capitol Hill. We have been to several events there - but I have never looked at it from my own event perspective. We met with Grace the event coordinator to look at the space. Seeing it empty allowed me to visualize my event and it seemed so much more do able when it came to decorations. They have a great bar staff that will do a wine tasting with us and Grace was very flexible with the items I am bringing in and when they can be picked up etc. I love that there is a loft area where we can have soft seating and that the entire space is  feels old and recycled - giving it that rustic urban look we are going for.

So now that we have put a stake in the ground - Mr. Ramon and I are meeting this Friday to put together a timeline and some deliverables so we can move forward!! So exciting!!

wedding planning begins

Since becoming engaged in February Mr. Ramon and I have rambled about on the topic of our wedding. I started looking through wedding blogs for DIY inspirations and dreaming of what it could be - our perfect night.

How happy am I to have a guy who wants to be involved in every decision made ? Very - at the moment, though I can see this also being a pain in the butt as we continue to move forward. He is a designer and has very specific ideas in his head. My job - get him to articulate them.

We came up with the 2 most important things for us - look awesome and have great music. All other elements being secondary.

We tried to put our "theme" in words - it would have been so much easier to understand if it was "ranch themed" or "preppy". We settled on describing our theme as "rustic glamour". Not sure what that means - well we are trying to figure it out as well. Think Anthropologie - in the sense of found items, open beams, rustic details and a dose of candles, sparkle and glamour.

We landed on a month - January. I really want a winter wedding. Cold, pouty day with clouds - I dream of snow.

We chose a time - we are looking at an evening wedding with desert, dancing and drinks to follow.

Here are a couple of images that I found that are little bursts of inspiration.

Next week we conquer venues - of course we are looking for something specific - so our options are limited. So pop back and see what we found!