saving the date!

hey there! life has been busy in the bay area, but the save-the-dates have all gone out -- so it's time to share!

i guess i should probably spare you the story behind my late-night-evite-faux-pas that sent broken jpegs to more than 100 of my friends and family.... yeah. ok. i'll spare you.

yep. amazing.

you may remember me mentioning a design that i saw and liked back at the tilt wedding fair. well, that was my inspiration, and we decided to go with a similar look for our save-the-dates and invitations...

design by hello lucky

i'm so lucky to have schniz, my wedding goddess, because she hooked me up with a good friend of hers who is an amazing graphic designer that really nailed the idea i had in mind. having dara (designs) put it together saved us a LOT of money and we got to tweak it to be exactly how we wanted, like the colors, the formatting, and changing it into a postcard. check her out. she's fantastic!

polotek and i are fairly casual people, who want to have a fun and offbeat wedding, and we wanted to really set that tone through our STDs -- i know, "STDs" makes you think of the clap or crabs or something, but it's annoying to keep typing all those words -- with everyone, giving them that feeling. no pomp. no circumstance. just what promises to be a really awesome day. i wanted to stay as far away from script fonts and flourishes as possible. we are not trying to be extra fancy now or on our wedding day.

we are just trying to be us.

design by dara robin lustig

so, i hope we captured at least a little bit of that intention with our stationary. aaaand you can look for our actual invitation design to hit this blog in about 4 or 5 months. ha. we're not trying to be stuffy, but we do want to leave SOMETHING to the imagination!

smiling for the camera.

i'll be turning 26 on the 26th this year! you only get one of those ___ on the ___ birthdays, so i better live it up! i'm trying to decide what big extravaganza we'll have for my 2011 born day....

oh wait, we are about to spend $15,000 (plus) dollars on a wedding.

well, in that case, i guess i'll just order take out and watch hbo with polotek.

on the upside, i got an awesome birthday gift from a friend this past weekend. it is being used, and will continue to be used!

so purrrrty.

this gorgeous little gem is a ceramic ring holder -- aka operaqueenie-ass-saver. because jean pockets are evil crevices that no one should give into the temptation of putting valuable things inside. ok, that was a tad melodramatic. but i could go the rest of my life without experiencing the insanity of losing my ring again. insurance coverage is underway.

in other news, remember that wedding fair i went to a while ago? well, THIS GIRL put her name in a basket for a free engagement photo shoot and won!!! SNAP! now, i would have much preferred to put my name in for something and won myself a free wedding, but, 'tis the luck of the draw. besides, i never win anything in raffles and the like, so i will rejoice in this victory.

i will also rejoice in the fact that ananda shorey (yes, with an N, and not an M), the face behind the photos of bliss fotography, is very talented and also very awesome for shooting our ugly mugs gratis. now i'm prepping things for the shoot which is this saturday at the ferry building (my east coast peeps, check out the hyperlink if you are unfamiliar with SF landmarks).

that means it's time to tame the mane, press the clothes, veet the legs, paint the nails, wax the furry... brows. i can't wait to dish about the experience and the photos! squeeeeeeeee!

my wedding goddess, the one-and-only schniz, already sent me some inspiration for the shoot...lots of pretty pictures i love to look at. there is this one...i'm so in love with her tulle skirt. there is actually a fantastic etsy shop that she appears to have gotten hers from. i must have one...putting it in the sewing projects queue!

i'm also a fan of this shoot. i dig her style, it feels somewhat reminiscent of my own...

and i like the use of props in photos. i much prefer fun prop shots to a bunch of canoodly kissy pictures. polotek and i are thinking of incorporating a couple things or elements that people identify with us as a couple -- our little whiteboard, our iphones / laptops / miscellaneous apple devices, movies, music (my guitar?). i think it's really neat how this couple incorporated the banner and scrabble pieces!

alright, so let me know if you have any cool ideas for our shoot -- and let me know quick, because we only have 1 day!!!

my fair lady.

i'm gonna take a moment to hit pause on the venue "woes and wows" and talk about a wedding fair i went to with a friend today. we checked out tilt wedding fair in oakland this afternoon, which was a nice venture into wedding concepts that were alternative, creative, offbeat, vintage, and contemporary.

i got some ideas for cool save-the-dates and invitations -- my favorite design was from hello lucky, from their "big day" collection. love. i especially heart the rsvp cards.

aaaaaand my favorite part of the fair was the magbooth. WANT. it was dangerously good fun. but i don't have the $2,000 built into the budget for something like this, so i would have to find an alternate way to make a photo booth happen for the wedding. like if i did a jerry-rigged slr with a remote shutter and props from the dollar store! um yes, people. the ghetto version. here's my little sess below:

those sunglasses are ballin'.

while there, i also got to gush over linens and jewelry i can't afford. however that was made up for by the caterers with free samples and neat-o swag bags. all in all it was definitely worth the trip. i mean, come on, who doesn't love free shit?! last but not least, i got to finish it all off with a lychee tea snowball. yummm.

why yes, that IS a delicious piece of almond shortbread in it.