Dallas Comic Con 2014

This weekend, I went to my first ever Comic Con with a good friend of mine. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I met some amazing people. Neither Matt nor I had ever been, so we weren't exactly sure what to expect. I think this will definitely be something that we return to in the future. Instead of boring you all with details, I'll just let the pictures speak for the weekend. 

Favors: Part I

Wedding favors are the type of thing that people will either think are really cute or really dumb. I've noticed that when a couple decides to go with an edible favor, guests seem to like that better than some cutesy little nick-knack. So Austin and I decided to do little boxes of chocolates and miniature wine bottles.We both love wine, and who doesn't like chocolate??

I was able to find all of the boxes for the chocolates several months ago and I've just had them sitting in a box with other wedding related items until is was time to actually start putting them together. A couple weeks ago, I ordered personalized M&M's with our names, date and two pictures on them. I was able to get them in our wedding colors, so I was pretty excited about that little bit of personalization. I've been working on them for about three days now after work and they're done! It was a process and very tedious, but they look super cute! At least, I think so.

Empty favor boxes, ready to be filled

A little orange tissue paper just to add a little extra color

That's right, we're on M&M's

All they need is a little ribbon to finish them off!

All packed up in a box and ready to be taken to the venue day of!

Programs

I've been trying to decide for a couple weeks whether it was actually worth my time to make the programs myself. I've had them all typed up for a couple weeks now, I just couldn't decide how I wanted them to be printed. I had bought all of the paper months ago in anticipation that I would actually be the one to do them all, but with all of the last minute details I've been working on, I wasn't sure if it would all just be too much at the last minute.

Well, I decided to suck it up and do them myself. I already bought the paper, why waste it?! And I didn't really want to have to spend an extra $250 on programs.

I bought a couple packs of the HP Brochure Paper in order to give them a more professional look and I didn't want to use something as thick as cardstock or as flimsy as regular paper. Next up, create a basic MS Word document and create two columns. After that, just input any information you might want to include! I think they ended up coming out quite nicely!

Now to finish printing another 100 of them or so and I'll be able to check one more thing off of my to-do list!!

Place Cards - Update I

I've started working on my place cards! Its turning out to be quite an easy project (thankfully). Just as a quick reminder, this is what I wanted to make for my escort cards:

Well, I started working on it a couple weekends on getting some of my corks sanded down. I don't have all of them yet, we're going to get the ones Austin's dad has and is willing to let us use, but I figured I needed to get started on them. I know that they will need a flat bottom so that they can all stand up on the table for display and not be rolling around making a mess of things. So, being the type of girl I am, I haven't got the slightest clue where to get sandpaper since I don't have any idea where a hardware store or home improvement store is. I can direct you to any DSW within a 25 mile radius, but not a single hardware store. And there's the fact that I'm trying to cut costs (and I haven't the slightest how much sand paper is), I decided to sand them down myself.

If you look outside, I'm sure you will see concrete. Concrete is not smooth. It will sand down a wine cork. It will in fact be able to sand down hundreds of them. So I took my bowls of wine corks and sat outside for about an hour and sanded down about 75 until they were able to stand on their own!

All of that tan stuff is after working on only a couple of corks!

See! Its flat! It really does work!

So there you have it, the cheapest way to get to work on your wine place card holders! So far, we've spent a grand total of $0 on this project. I think its my favorite so far!

Place Cards!

I've been toying with the idea for months over a seating chart and I think I finally figured out what I want to do. Austin and I love wine. We drink it all the time and we used to have a huge bowl of wine corks that we just threw out. Why would we need to keep them anyways? What use could I have for old wine corks? I figured it out (only after I threw them out of course): I'm going to use wine corks as place card holders.

I found these online:

but I just couldn't bring myself to spend anywhere from $250-$500 for place cards, so I think I'm going to make them myself.

Since it wouldn't be possible (or something I would suggest trying) for Austin and I to drink 200 bottles of wine in the next two months, we're going to talk to his dad about getting his old wine corks. I guess its something that most wine-o's tend to do, hold on to their old corks, because he has a large jar of his wine corks. If he doesn't have enough for us, I found that you can buy old wine corks on eBay (100 for only $10) and we'll get what we need from them. When I actually start on this process, I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, but I'm pretty excited to have this idea FINALLY nailed down!

Our Invitations are Done!!

Well, all of our invitations are done! After many hours and a lot of trial and error, they are all finally all printed out! I finished assembling everything last night, all that I have to do is start putting all of the inserts and the invitation cards into the pocket-folds! After that, its a trip to the Post Office to figure out how much all of the postage will be. And I'll have to start printing up all of the wrap-around labels for the addresses. And stamping our address on everything...


Maybe there's still more to do with these than I thought....

In any case, the biggest part is complete! Even Austin was impressed with the finished product!

The Pocket-folds are Done!!

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on all of our pocket-folds. I was able to finally able to finish cutting, measuring, scoring and gluing together 150 pocketfolds. I felt like it was a huge accomplishment to finally get it all done. I'd been putting off finishing them since it has been a huge undertaking, but I'm glad to finally get it all done. About two (or three) months ago, I had been able to measure and cut down all of my 11"x17" card stock.

But then I stopped. I don't know why, but I was burnt out on all of the wedding work. And since Austin hasn't been too interested in the planning or anything, it was hard to get motivated to get back to work.

I guess it was because Jessica and I had been talking about wedding stuff while she was here, but I suddenly got the urge to finish my project. I don't really know why it happened, but I sat down on Friday and started scoring everything. Sunday I spent the day cutting tape down and taping up every flap so that I had pockets on my pocket-folds. I would not recommend this project to most people, but I'm picky and didn't want to spend almost $500 on the invitations I wanted. And I didn't realize how much of a project it would be. Well, I knew, I just didn't think it would be quite this big,

I'm hoping I can finalize my wording this week for my three inserts and my invitations. I'd like to start printing them all this week, but I'll be realistic and shoot for the middle of next week. I think I'll be able to start putting them together in about two weeks or so... I'm hoping. My goal is to have the entire invitation, all 150 of them, put together by the end of the month.

If I don't get distracted I think its possible. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can stick with it!

And, to feel like I actually did something, I'm going to show off my template for the invitations. Its not perfect, but this was my first one I made and I'm using it as my guide. What do you guys think?

I need a florist

So I've come to realize how badly I need to start making appointments with florists. I don't know why, but this is one of the things I'm dreading the most. I really like these, and they have the right blue I'm looking for:

I just cant bring myself to actually start looking for a florist! I've talked to Austin's mom (who has been WONDERFUL, just saying, and I'm really hoping she knows somebody that can help me out. I do feel a little accomplished when I'm still 9 months out. We have the DJ, Photographer, venue, officiant (as of today), the menu, my dress, my Maid of Honor's dress is ordered and I've started the invitations. I will finish the pocketfolds this weekend. I have to! I just feel like I got off to a great start and now I'm falling behind. I haven't been doing wedding stuff for a while, now I realize how much I need to!