Come What May: The Morning Of

Yes, Hive, it's that time! Recap time, to be exact! I'm more than aware that's it's been a loooong time since my big day, and you might not even know who I am. For that I am sorry, and let me catch you up!

I became a bee quite a while ago and said "you're not giving me a lot of options" when Mr. Giraffe proposed (but I meant yes!).  After that ring was on my finger, I was in planning mode for our blue and brown wedding! E-Pics were taken and turned into Save The Dates. Then I found out we'd be having fireworks at our reception, DIYed some cake flags, mentioned my wedding crush, got a tattoo, designed a cake, DIYed a 'Years We Met' Poster, and told everyone that they need a Videographer. Oh yeah, and we had DIY Invites, too.

Now that you have the highlights and are caught up, let's move on!!

I stayed up until midnight the night before. Yes, I should've been sleeping, but I waas too excited and I just wanted to stay up until my wedding day 'just because.' I really could've used more than six hours of sleep. Oy.

I also took a photo of my watch to document this. What was I thinking?! (Sorry for the blurry photo, but in my defense, maybe I just thought it was clear because my vision was blurry at the time. Hey, a week of DIY finishing and relatives will do that to a girl!)

Anyway, the day started with Mama Giraffe waking up me & BM Mang (who stayed over the night before), and having us pose with my favorite book. (*All are personal photos, by either myself, my mom, or my bridesmaids).

Then, obviously most importantly, Murphy Joe put on his tuxedo bandana Mama G purchased especially for the occasion.

Here's where I have to tell you a story.
What happened next was the BMs that weren't doing their own hair, headed to Fantastic Sam's with me. I had been set on an up-do, had it picked out and everything, but this occurred at my rehearsal
dinner the night before.

BM Mang: So, how are you wearing your hair tomorrow?
Me: Up.
At the same time, Mr. G: Down.

HA. Apparently, this whole time, Mr. G had been picturing a down-hair bride, because he thought it'd make me all beautiful or something. Whatever. Thank goodness I didn't waste money on a hair trial when my 'do would've been different!

BM Mang and I scrambled to find a hair style that morning (thank you, new thing called Pinterest) so I could have down hair. Luckily it all worked out, but it was crazy for a little bit there!

Anyway! At the hair salon!
For my hair, we decided to do something with lots of long curls and something sweep-y with the long bangs in the front.

You can tell my my face that I was totally happy with it. The whole time I was just giggly and nuts. I seriously could NOT believe the day was finally here.

I love that in the next one, you can see BM Mang, with her Pippa inspired Hair, taking the photo in the mirror.

The stylist also popped my veil in for me, and told the BMs, how to pull it straight up, to take it out without messing up my curls.

Oh, and then I forgot my wallet, and they don't do tips on cards so my sister had to tip my stylist for me. Thanks, big sis!

This picture shows BM O'Kelly getting the updo I had originally planned on. It worked out great because I all ready the picture printed out and brought it with me.

 

 

BM Mar also had some curls.

 The MOH getting her blonde hair did.

And that was it! Lots of giggles and happiness, because, hey, it was my wedding day!

We headed back to Mama G's house for lunch! (Hello Jimmy John's!!)  For those of you that are interested, I called every sandwich place/grocery store/deli in the area to get their prices on sandwich party platters, and J.J.s had the best prices. I ordered it, but, to this day, I have no idea who went to pick the tray up for me (and paid for it?!), sooo ummmm thanks random relative!

And then, the photographers showed up! Stayed tuned for some equally as fun, but much better looking photos.

How did you start your big day!

One Year Later

We had a rainy day in Chicago this week, and the first thing it made me think of was a chilly, rainy day in Chicago that was exactly a year ago.

It is so hard for me to believe that May 14th was a whole 365 days ago. The past year has gone by so fast, and I can hardly believe we're here! I feel like we're still settling into life as a married couple and learning how to live together, and all of the sudden we're not even newly wed ever more!! How did that happen!?

All post photos by the amazing Sarah & Ryan Miller / Miller + Miller Photography 

 

Video by the wonderful Jean and Alex / LynkzStudio

Happy anniversary, Mr. Giraffe! It's been pretty cool having you as a husband. I love you more every day and I'm looking forward to the next year and the next forever together.

A Whole Lotto Lotto Favors

You guys, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to think up a favor for our guests. Like a serious amount of time that could have probably been spent doing other things that were more important. In hindsight, I had no reason to stress about the favors. Our photobooth photos could have been our favor, as well as our Sweets table, but I just really wanted something fun at each seat to show our guests how much we appreciated having them with us!

Since I thought so long about it, I feel like it's only fair to share some of those options as well as the big winner. The runners up were. . .

Hershey's Kisses in spring time colors to match our wedding colors which were baby blue and sage green and chocolate (get it?!) brown (but obviously I'd eat all the pink ones to keep them in our color scheme).

Hershey's Pastel Kisses via Oriental Trading (Great prices there!)

Tazo Tea in Berry Bloom White or Tazo Zen Green Tea. Funny story, these are my two favorite teas EVER. I drink them constantly (as well as Tazo Passion Tea; those are my top three), and thought it was serendipitous that they matched our wedding colors. Yes, it's true, I almost handed out tea bags as favors. That is something I would love, but not everybody drinks tea.

Berryblossom White Tea via Shopping.com

... And then I wanted mugs! Custom printed mugs for our guests would have been awesome (back when I researched, Bargain Mugs had the best prices FYI). The only reason I didn't do mugs was I'd have to pay a lot of extra money in shipping to make up for the super short turn around time we needed (I know, I was totally last minute on this one) But that was also very close runner up. They would have been amazing.

As you can see, a LOT of indecisiveness here. Well, I finally stumbled upon this image, and - be still my gambling loving heart - I knew that this would be the favor for our wedding.

"Lotto Ticket Favor Idea" / Bride Ideas/ Bliss Weddings

I know, right?! I instantly started Googling for some more inspiration photos, and found out that there's even been talk about lotto favors on the Weddingbee Boards! And Jellyfish made some too!

Google told me that most brides had been using Glassine Envelopes (like int he above photo) or lottery ticket holders.

Lotto Ticket Holders via Oriental Trading

Well. . . I didn't want either of these options. I didn't want to have to order and wait for envelopes, and I didn't like the look of the paper holders.

I went to Hobby Lobby, looked around, and came back with jewelry making bags. They were buy one get one free so I got 200 small ziplock-type bags for $2.59.

Personal Photo

I tried to find scratch offs in our wedding colors, but after a few stops to different stores/ Gas Stations, I decided that the dark blue on the Money Pot was close enough! It was easy enough, all we did was put the ticket and a penny into each bag.

Personal Photo

Personal Photo

Remember our wedding invitations?

Personal Photo

Well, I designed labels to match. On one side they said, "A Whole Lotto Love" (Hardy har har, other options included 'thanks a lotto' and 'if winning ticket, return to bride & groom'), and the other side had our names the same way our invites did, and also said "Thanks for sharing our special day."

Personal Photo

Personal Photo
Personal Photo
Personal Photo

I also put color cardstock, cut to size, in the back of each baggie. It covered up the ugly back of the ticket, and gave the bags a little more weight. I almost didn't do that (because of the extra work), but it made a big difference, so I would really recommend this if you're using baggies for a project like this.

I was super happy with how this project turned out. . . As was my grandpa who won $7! Success!

I was so relieved to find a (relative inexpensive) favor that I loved, especially after stressing about it for so long. In the middle of the favor hunt? How's it going?

DIY Giraffe Invitations

Hive, have you seen the new Randomizer series? I have, and it's awesome! It seriously put me into "wanting to do recaps" mode just so I could participate. I feel like before I can start recapping, I should share one of my favorite things with you: our invitations!

Our invitation suite was a DIY affair. . . and it ended up taking longer than I thought (which is how it always happens, right?!). I'll break the whole process down for you, but it'll probably be easy to do in pictures :-D.

The first step was to create the invitation suite. As much as I loved all those modern invitations I kept talking about so many months ago, I really wanted something that looked fresh, but ultimately traditional. I spend all day, every day designing hip, modern things . . . for my wedding, I decided to follow my little designer-heart and create something that I loved, even if it wasn't exactly "cool" and seemed traditional. That was my inspiration. . . .

That and I really wanted an invitation suite with multiple pieces. I don't know why, but I wanted my invitation to have a whole bunch of pieces for people to read and look at. This is also why I didn't want pocket fold, I wanted just pieces everywhere. Weird, I know. I made the pieces a few different sizes so they'd "stack up" nicely.

And lastly, I wanted something that could dictate the look of other printed materials for our big day (table numbers, programs, escort cards, etc). Having one look I could essentially "re-use" over and over made things easy, and look cohesive. But more on that later!

I designed the whole set in Adobe Illustrator, using the fonts Burgues Script and Mrs. Eaves (for the small caps).

We didn't have a 'theme', but since I used hearts on our Save the Dates, I carried hearts over into the invitations.

The Invitation (5x7"), RSVP card (3.5x5"), and Reception card (3.5x5"). (Click for a larger view.)

Our Map (4x6") and Accommodations card (4x6"). (Click for a larger view.)

Next, I cut out bellybands while Mr. G embossed the flap of our envelopes with my Cuttlebug.

I believe Mr. G said at this point, "Now, you can't say that I haven't done anything for this wedding ever again." Haha.

Well. . . after I got all our invitations printed (through gotprint.net), Mr. G took off for his Bachelor week of skiing/camping with our Best Man. Luckily, the Giraffe Parents picked up the slack!

The photo above shows how I used our not-theme of "hearts". You can click the photo to make it larger and see more clearly, but there were hearts everywhere! The address labels were heart shaped, as were the return address labels, and every bellyband had a heart tage around it that listed our guests' names.

The labels on the front of our envelopes were printed on my parents' HP printer, and the cut out with my Cricut (the same goes for the labels on the back). Our labels on our RSVP envelopes were smaller versions of the ones you see here (but with our address, of course!).

The back with our return address labels and Cuttlebug embossing. Gotta love those metallic envelopes!

I made the envelope liners using the heart-gyle, I had designed for our website. I bought a ream of 11x17" blue paper from OfficeMax, and was able to print 3 liners per page. . . Of course, I also bought a ream of blue paper from Staples so I could compare the "blueness" of each. Needless to say, 6 months after the wedding, I still have a ton of blue paper.
I stacked all the pieces of the invitation from big to small (with a small wallet sized e-photo of us on the top), wrapped a belly band around it, wrapped baker's twine around that, and attached a heart tag with the twine.
Okay, okay, Daddy G did the stacking and tying, but I put them in the envelopes!

There were so many! The DIYing went on forever!
So there they are! They whole kit and caboodle (. . . until recently, I thought it was 'kitten caboodle'). I'm pretty happy with the final product and I head a lot of nice things from our guests, and that's what counts :).

If I did it all over again, I probably still design my own invitations, but I don't know if I'd go through all the work of doing the extra pieces! I spent a looooooong time trying to set up my Cricut to cut the hearts correctly and I got super frustrated at times. I loved how it looked, but I don't think I needed all that stress at the time.

Did you take on the daunting tasking on DIYing invites? Would you do it again?

Giraffe Showers

Hive, I had my bridal shower a looong time ago. I mean, I've been married for six months now, so that should be indication enough that's it's been a while. It was actually last February, so we're getting closer and closer to the 'year away' mark. I loved my shower, and had always wanted to share it with you guys, but it happened right before crazy-wedding-frenzy-mode and I never got the time. I was thinking about it today, and I decided that there's no better time than the present!

My mom planned my shower, but after mucho begging from me, I got to help. I know, I know, Wedding Planning for Dummies actually told me that I should have absolutely no part in planning the shower, but I still lived at my parents' house, and I have all the crafting goodies my mom could've have needed (not to mention I love planning parties) so she let me help.

It all started with the invitation. Mama Giraffe chose a theme of "bright colors, polka dots, and stripes." She was worried at first that it didn't match our wedding colors, but it turned out great and was so "me." After an extensive online search for invitations and finding nothing, she had finally agreed to let me help and had me create them. She "art directed" the whole thing, I just created it on the computer for her. She made up a rhyme for the invitations, and continued rhyming throughout the rest of the shower.

She used bright colors for the rest of the decorations. I made the "Congrats" banner with my Cricut and scrapbooking paper. The photos on the table were in bright frames from IKEA and had a picture of us from each year Mr. G and I have been together.

One of the coolest thing Mama Giraffe did was buy a large platter from Target and porcelain markers from Michael's. Everyone signed the platter with the markers, and later my mom baked it at 350. That set in the marker so now I can have it forever :).
The centerpieces looked amazing, and they were all created by my mom. She bought bright colored paper plates from Party City, fun vases from Walgreens, and "Festival Pom" flowers from Jewel. The flowers were placed on the plates and each table had a different bright candy on them. I repeatedly visited the people at the Pretzel M&Ms table because they were so good (my table had gummy bears).
Mama Giraffe put together favors of mini loufas and mini shower gels and bath bubbles for everyone. The tags on the favor bags went with our rhyming theme and were labels stuck on to different scrapbook paper.
I also got a billion presents!
Whooo all our dishes!You might also notice my super super cute outfit. My dress came from Kohl's (new, especially for the shower, and on sale!), and the adorable and perfectly matching headband came from the amazing Mrs. Sloth. It was so very nice of her to send it my way and I appreciated it so very very much.

If you remember, Mr. G and I have a thing about Uglydolls, and he even used one to propose; My super talented and amazing friend Helena ordered me a Wage Uglydoll and dressed in up in my wedding dress. She later gave me Babo in a tux. This was quite possibly the best gift ever, and we displayed them at our wedding and now display them in our home.
Overall, my shower was one of the best days ever, which is way I had to share it with you. I had so much fun, and continued to have fun with my thank you cards.

Mr. G and I set up the presents in my parents dining room and posed with all our awesome new stuff. (Seriously, it was so awesome. It's hard to believe so many people were so generous and just bought new things for us).


So there it is - the best shower ever! I had a great time, and I think I even had a better time because I got to help plan all the fun and games (and boy were there games!).

Help plan your own shower? Did you enjoy it more because of it?