Tentative front cover

of wedding album

Wedding Book

I think I know how I’m going to create the photobook of our wedding photos:

http://www.blurb.com/

For 20-40 pages
at 10×8 inch (Standard Landscape)
Hardcover
= $32

(add $6 for 41-80 pages)

If I wanted to go bigger…

Large landscape, 13×11 inches = $57 (add $11 for 41-80 pages)

Large square, 12×12 inches = $63 (add $12 for 41-80 pages)

PLUS Shipping. The shipping varies depending on how many pages, what size of the book, and how many books you’re ordering. But for one to two books, it’s under 15 dollars.

And there’s an option where you can put the book in your “store” (on the website) and have family members order it.

Oh, and here’s the fun part:

They have InDesign templates and you just upload the pdf for them to print.

(Or you can download their program).

A co-worker of mine showed me the book she made of her trip to France. She’s a missionary, so you know she found a deal. :)

***

Three good things accomplished in three days:

Saturday – brought my wedding photos to Costco for prints (to put in the thank you cards)

Sunday – bought the thank you cards at Wal-Mart for cheap

Monday – found blurb.com!

~Yay~

Wedding Cards

I have received many congratulatory wishes in the form of greeting cards. Most are from the Dollar store, which I don’t mind one bit. But there are some that you know cost five bucks. Haha. And some are downright beautiful! There’s been a few cards that have made me stop and say, “Wow, I love this card.”

Any ideas about what I can do with them?

If I were doing a photo album (we’ll likely make a photo book) I’d stick in some of my favourites in the back.

I’m not one to keep things in a shoe box for ten years. I know how much fun it can be to open up a tin and find memorobilia from your childhood “Oh look! It’s the lead for my mechanical pencils from 9th grade!” but really, while sentimentality is fun, and as hard as it is to throw out those pennies you imprinted “Kennedy Space Centre” and “Busch Gardens” into for a buck, I like the feeling of getting rid of stuff much better.

Throwing out my perfectly good, yet cheap, calculator from high school was hard.  I had put Eeyore stickers on it and wrote out “MINE” in shiny stickers on the front. “My kids would think this is funny one day, and think I was a cute kid.” “Someone could use this, it still works,” I could just hear my mother saying. In the end I threw it out.

I find it hard to throw things in the garbage (images of landfills come to mind and I feel guilty), but I think the process is important because it helps me keep things in perspective when I consider adding to my accumulation of goods.

I am going through my wedding cards tonight. I will be making an excel spreadsheet of the wedding gifts, and who gave them. Then I’ll probably save the nice notes people wrote, and the pretty cards I like, and toss the rest.

I still think I’ll be resorting to a shoebox. :\

Sew Cool!

I want everything (sewing related) on this page.

My Grandma sewed the front of my wedding dress last night… apparently it was a good 4 inches too long, and I was going to trip on it.

Grandma is SEW COOL.

High-Five, Grandma

As you may or may not know, I was a smidge stressed that my wedding dress didn’t fit.

Sure, you could zip it up, but after about 20 minutes, my back hurt. It was too tight.

I remember it being tight when I tried it on the day I bought it, but not this tight.

I tried losing weight, but that just made me all light-headed and tired and discouraged and stressed out and irritable.

So I called up the local Bridal Salon and asked around to a few different people. It looked like alterations were going to have to be the way to go.

The woman who wore the dress last got it altered to be smaller (she’s Korean, and petite-er than I), and just the other day we noticed a ray of hope – a pretty easy fix around the zipper. It had been taken in on each side by about an inch, and that was exactly how much room I needed.

So grandma took 8 hours yesterday and hand stitched the zipper back to where it was initially. Apparently the dress wouldn’t fit into the sewing machine or something, it was too thick, so she did it by hand. Then I went up there after work and tried it on.

And it fits.

I can breathe in this dress. I can be happy in this dress. I can EAT in this dress! Sit DOWN in this dress! YAY!

God provides.

I gave grandma a high-five. We (mom, grandma, & I) are all really happy. YAY!

First Dance Song

At present there isn’t a dance planned for our afternoon brunch reception, but if there could be, our first dance would be to this song:

From my all-time favourite album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

A New Outlook?

As much as that last post showed me smarting from getting kicked in the butt for being so ridiculously off course in terms of my attitude about this wedding stuff, I really did appreciate it. I feel like, for once, I may just have landed on something sturdy.

Life is about two things: Love God, and Love Others.

Thus, every choice I make should reflect what I believe about God, and point others to Him.

This “special” day isn’t about me. No day is about me. Did I cause the sun to rise and the birds to sing? Did I do anything worthy of praise? Only God is good.

I think the purpose of my life has been choked out by wedding culture, and I need to get back to my roots. If I try to glorify myself that day,  it’ll backfire. I have to give it up – all for Jesus – even my wedding day. I gain a great peace from knowing this day is for Him. Other people probably won’t be able to see that, but I know in my heart that I am still a servant of the King, even in my big poofy white dress, and that gives me great peace.

Practical application:

I’m making wise financial choices because I believe everything belongs to God, and we can’t just spend it frivolously.

I’m throwing one heck of a party because God is a lavish giver, and generosity is a character quality of God.

I’m making my decisions based on a fear of God. Sound weird? Well, we all fear something. Whatever you fear, you serve; you bend your will to it, you live according to it.

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom. That keeps things in perspective for me. I won’t fear the unknown, I won’t fear spending money, or making mistakes, or fear my family (and their opinions).  Worry doesn’t add a day to your life, and God is a father that knows how to give good gifts to his children.

I need to stop fearing, and start acting like I know the one who has it all under control.

My wedding will reflect something beautiful, something God created. I want to showcase on that day the goodness of God, and his plan for our lives. God is good. And he cares about what happens to us.

If this was actually a day of love, it would be characterized by patience, kindness, forgiveness, and hope. It would be a time to rejoice! I’ll be able to say, “Yay! Look what God has done!”

And amazingly, I realize where I AM the expert.

I’m the expert in what God has done for me.

And I can  show the same generosity that has been shown to me.

(yes, sometimes I need to reiterate everything I already know to remind myself of what I actually believe. And yes, all those links are to the Bible.)

Faith, Food and Community Wedding

Read this.

It almost made me cry as I read how simply she put it, how clear-minded and goal-oriented she was.

We pulled out a few words to keep us anchored and centered during the process. Hospitality was one. I read once that a wedding reception is a bride and bridegroom’s first act of hospitality as a married couple. This drove a lot of the decisions we made: is this idea hospitable? Also, community. We have deep friendships with people all over the country, and we wanted to bring them together in a one-day reunion!

What anchors me? What centers us? All I know is I don’t want to spend too much money.

At the end of the day, that deal you hunted all over for, that savvy-shopper mentality that makes you feel better than all the rich folks that spend frivolously, none of that leaves you very fulfilled. Unfortunately there is no “right” amount to spend. No matter how far I come under budget, I’m not going to be happy because of it. If anything, I’m going to be stressed out trying not to spend money, stressed out when I spend too much money, and smugly prideful whenever I succeed.

What actually matters?

Glorifying God.

Getting married.

The people that you share it with.

The food.

I think that’s about it, isn’t it?

Progress on the Wedding Front

The Invites:
Are printed, assembled, the map cards and rsvps are printed and cut.  They’re all stuffed in brown envelopes, which I hand-addressed, and in the mail. I saved money on stamps by not mailing the ones I can deliver in person.
Hang-ups: There were approximately 100 paper jams. I wanted to kill the paper-feed tray.  Each invite took 4 little double-sided tape dots, peeled, placed in four corners, and then placed on the coloured back card. (Thanks goes out to the fiance for helping with that.) And the RSVPS had to be printed twice. I spelled “twentieth” “twenthieth” the first time. And I only noticed once I’d cut them all.

Reception changes:
We can only seat 60. “Seat?” You ask, “I thought you were having a strolling brunch?” Well, the fiance and the mom want to sit around a table. Fine. But that puts a limit on our seating. I think our ideal number, where everyone I’d want, everyone the fiance and his family would want, everyone my mother and grandmother would want, would be there, is probably closer to 85 – 100. But we simply can’t afford it.

I feel a bit like a fool, thinking that I could do my wedding for $5000. I read books that said you could do it. But I didn’t realize some factors are very different in my situation. Like the fact that the authors of those books and those blogs either don’t live in a big city, or even in Canada. We all know your buck goes farther down in the States.

If we want to feed our 60 guests (ten more people than initially planned) it will cost about one and a half times as much as I originally thought it would.

Yes, our budget is shot. *sigh* I guess that’s one good thing about your parents paying for the wedding – when they inflate the guest list, and request a sit-down meal, they’re willing to pay for it.

I just hope there will be enough food.

Oh, and there’s only two “passed” items now. We’re sticking with the brunch. Walk in and get an apple cider shooter with mini cinnamon donut on top (it sounds complicated, but it really is a double-shot glass with hot apple cider in it). No welcome cocktail, no alcohol, unless you pay for it. Not even a toast. Then we have a breakfast “station” with mini croissants, mini muffins, mini scones, jam & butter, coffee and tea, “spa water” (they put sliced up fruit in the water – apparently the presentation is beautiful).

Then there are passed breakfast items – what I’m excited about – the french toast & mini pancakes.

Then we sit down for some salad, followed by chicken or salmon (which I’m not keen on but it pleases others) and then for desert, wedding cupcakes.

It doesn’t sound like a lot, does it?

The Invitations

Ladies & Gentlemen,

I have found my invitations.

They are at Staples.

And my mother is currently saying, “I told you so.”

Ta-daa.

Now to figure out how to feed 4.5×6.5″ cardstock into the work printer…oy.

Update: 05/02/08 I figured out how to print. Horray. One card at a time, and after about 50 paper jams, but I have created one invite!

Now I realize why this card set was a cheaper option than the “all you need invitation kit”. It doesn’t include any cardstock for rsvps, or maps. Hrm.

Bah. The journey to having the invites printed, assembled, addressed, sealed and delivered seems far from over.