Catching Up on Birthdays...Again

We've been celebrating birthdays around here like crazy lately. It seems like everyone I know (except Ryan) turns 30 this year. It's a very exciting time. Can't you tell?!

We celebrated Melissa's 30th birthday in the Redbird Club at a Cardinal's Game. And then we ended the night back at our house with snacks, Apples to Apples and birthday cake. It was a blast!

My 30th birthday was next. Ryan surprised me with a suite at the new Four Seasons downtown, a dinner at their finest steakhouse with all my closest friends, and a night of gambling at the casino. I didn't win a dime (as usual) but I had an amazing time.

Kirsten turned 30 in April. We all made the trip to Columbia to participate in one of our favorite college town activities - bar hopping! We began the night with a wonderful dinner at Bleu, then made our way over to Shiloh, then Quintin's, followed by table service at Room 38. Being downtown Columbia brought back a lot of memories from college. It was a really fun night.

And most recently, Ryan turned 29!! Such a young'en. We had so much fun last year at his Birthday Fiesta, that we decided to do it again! Margaritas, tacos and lots of chips and dips. Ole! Unfortunately I was really sick and was coughing so hard I threw my back out that afternoon, but still to have a great time.

Save the Date

I realized that I still haven’t posted about our Save the Date cards. Shame on me! Ok, here goes.

As with all my other paper, I wanted something a little different with some personality. I wanted our Save the Dates to reflect the rustic feeling of our wedding in the mountains. Ryan is an obsessed fly fisherman and we had picked an amazing fly fishing ranch for our ceremony and reception and I wanted to incorporate that in some way. I wanted the Save the Dates to appeal Ryan, as well as the rest of our guests. Something unique; something simple; somethign rustic but elegant; something us. Let the searching begin!

Initially I thought I’d make them myself. I came up with a couple designs and finally had something that I liked. However, no matter what I did, when I printed them out, I hated them. They just looked too home-made and crafty. Like a bad scrapbooking project by someone who has no idea what she’s doing. Ok, on to plan B.

I made an appointment at a local invitation store and spent about 6 hours looking through book after enormous book. I just didn’t find anything I loved. And frankly, the decisions and options were overwhelming. Each book had about ten million invitations in each, all of which could be customized in a bizillion different ways. What paper, what color, what graphic, what font, what envelope? Oh the choices! I left feeling like I was never going to be able to make up my mind. I spent the next week contemplating just sending out emails...I know! What is the world coming to?

Plan C was get back online and spend hours on the internet looking for something, anything! I did every search possible for rustic, natural and western, but not country. No luck. Most of the Save the Dates were just too “weddingy.” They had bows and hearts and bells. No thanks. If they were "rustic" or "western" they had boots and spurs and lassos. No thanks again. And the destination wedding Save the Dates were all beaches and sunsets and boat drinks. Nope. I found a few designs that had pine trees or leaves, but they all felt too autumn wedding, not really rustic mountain wedding. I was a little nervous that I was going to have to have something custom-made, especially since this was just the Save the Dates and I hadn’t budgeted much for this project.

And then I stumpled upon Letters from Lilly, a website that sells specialty papers, invites and stationary. They have a number of products and you can choose your “theme” by picking one of their beautiful hand-drawn graphics. I was immediately attracted to them because of their gorgeous lined envelopes. And then…I found a dry fly graphic and immediately knew I had found our Save the Dates.

Here it is!

Below is the dry fly design that was at the top of our Save the Date cards and on the paper that lined our envelopes.

And here's a sample of the invite with the lined envelope. The cardstock was thick and textured. The printing was beautiful and the envelopes were a huge hit. Our guests loved them. I got so many compliments...even from guys! And best of all, they were completely "us."

Love them!! Thank you Letters From Lilly. Here's their website: http://www.lettersfromlilly.com/index.php

Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

The rehearsal dinner invitations are my first serious DIY (do it yourself) undertaking. I finally got them printed, stamped and mailed last week. One more thing to check off that ridiculously long To Do list!

I'm incredibly excited about our rehearsal dinner. We're having a mountain-top Western BBQ at the top of Rendezvous Mountain in Teton Village. To get up there, our guests will have to take the Bridger gondolas all the way up to 9,095 feet! Our menu will consist of Western goodness like BBQ chicken, cornbread, baked beans, cole slaw and potato salad. For dessert we're roasting s'mores around the campfire. Western attire is encouraged - so grab your cowboy or cowgirl boots and hat! And hopefully we might even have a few people that would like to give us their well wishes in a toast. Here is the inspiration board I made for the rehearsal dinner.

And since this is pretty informal, I decided to make the inviations myself. They were a lot of fun and I think they turned out pretty cute. I wrote the poem myself and put some practical information on the back (i.e. altitude, lift tickets will be provided, western attire encouraged, will be chilly at night, etc.). I ordered the paper, red envelopes and address labels from Paper Source and printed them myself at home. I lined the envelopes in different "western" paper that I found at Hobby Lobby. I made the matching return address circle labels for the back of the envelopes using label paper and a 2 inch circular cut-out. And ordered matching horseshoe stamps from Zazzle. They just started showing up in our guests mailboxes and the response has been great!