April 6, 2011 Comments Off
Hello all! Hopefully Spring is creeping into where ever you live– it’s finally started to come to the Northeast!
Chez Darcy it’s been a whole bunch of trimming/getting samples out and not a lot of computer so no new pretty pictures to show today buuuuuuut:
Not sure if this is just for Boston (but since it’s for a website I’m hoping it’s nationwide) but the Living Social deal today is for Groomsday.com. For $35 you get $75 in credits for groomsmen gifts. Not bad! It’s a lot of generic groomsmen gift stuff like flasks and knives/tools but if you were planning on getting them anyway- why not pay less? Here’s the link I got hopefully it’ll work for you too!
Also EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!!! The postage rate is going up on April 17th. Letters under an ounce are staying at $0.44 BUT postcards (like the ever popular RSVP postcards!) are going up from $0.28 to $0.29. Now you may think, “Oh I’ll just make sure to get my RSVP postcard stamps before the rate goes up” but what you need to be thinking is “Will the postage I’m putting on these postcards be good still when my guests finally get around to sending them back?” Chances are if you haven’t sent them out yet, the reply by date is probably later than April 17 so MAKE SURE TO GET THE $0.29 STAMPS.
April 1, 2011 Comments Off
In an effort to post something useful with enough time for someone to complete it– as opposed to a recap several days after a major holiday– I thought I’d share my idea for a Spring/Easter centerpiece!
Photo by James Wojcik
After seeing this blurb about using an eggshell as a seedling plant in Real Simple’s New Uses For Old Things. I’ve started carefully cracking my eggs (towards the top) and saving all the shells to make a hopefully cute and pretty centerpiece for Easter.
I’m not sure if I posted any of my copious garden photos last year but in the three years we’ve had our house with it’s little garden patch I’ve made, I’ve found I really like gardening! Specifically vegetable gardening because I feel like it’s very rewarding to eat something you grow. SO, what I’m getting at, is that this is a win-win centerpiece because I get to start my garden even earlier! I guess if you were a really nice person you could give away the little seedlings to your guests but my guests are all traveling an hour or more to get here so I can hoard all my seedlings guilt-free. 
The windows in my living room (as seen in the bar set up photo from St. Patrick’s Day) are like having a little greenhouse so I’ve always been lucky with my seedlings but a good friend of Michael’s is quite the accomplished gardener and swears by the Veggie Tales seeds. As silly as it may seem, I’m sure seeds marketing to children are going to have the best shot being fool-proof!
I’m currently unsure whether those cardboard like egg shell cartons (as opposed to the new clear plastic ones) is going to be the best way to showcase or if I should get some moss or something from a craft store and do it up is better but we’ll see when we get closer!
Good luck to anyone else taking this on and let me know how your centerpieces come out!
Tags: centerpieces, DIY, spring
April 1, 2011 Comments Off
Now that we’ve seen the Save the Date, let’s take a quick look at their Napoleon + Josephine invitations!
Yes, I’ve crazied out their names and locations so no one can crash. But I REALLY love their colors. Also another first with them was a classed-up google map. Right before we were ready to print Nicole sent me a screenshot of google maps and asked if we could print that up and list accommodations info. A quick lesson about printing for the world at large: do not expect things printed from the internet to look good. Screen resolution is 72 dpi (dots per inch) and printing resolution is 300 dpi so you need a lot more dots to get good print quality. A way around this though is if you take a really large screen shot then proportionally shrink it in Photoshop (please don’t try this in Word or anything, just writing that makes my heart hurt and it won’t work!) so you’ll have enough dots to print well. But then we still had a very obvious google map in a sea of gorgeous purples and sea blue/greens so I changed the colors around so it fit a little nicer in the whole package.
It’s kind of like a happy medium between custom maps and no maps at all.
Tags: aqua, blue, classic, green, maps, purple, wedding invitations
Today we have something a little different courtesy of the lovely Nicole. Nicole and Clay came to me back in January and needed some wedding invitations STAT… for their wedding in SOUTH AFRICA! How frickin’ cool is that? Wait, you’ll see! For their lovely seaside wedding they went with the Ariel + Eric (always a favorite!) invitation (and I have samples around, I still need to photograph them though).
Since not all of their friends and family could make it to their ceremony in South Africa they plan on having a swanky reception back home in Florida. When she got back Nicole wanted a save the date but since the invitation would be on its heels she asked if I could make her an image to attach to an email. I said “Yes… BUT wouldn’t an email newsletter be better instead of just an attachment?” and she agreed. We knew she wanted to go with the Napoleon + Josephine invitations so we can up with this:
Pretty cool, non? And let’s talk about how much I love the photo and the colors in it? I’ll post the corresponding invitations on the blog tomorrow but for those who just CANNOT wait, I’ll post them to The Future Mrs. Darcy fan page this afternoon.
Tags: aqua, purple, save the date
March 28, 2011 Comments Off
But, honestly, someone needs to tear me away! This morning I got a Daily Candy email about wedding blogs and I opened it expecting to already read all the blogs in question and feel all superior and in the know and WOULDN’T YOU FRIGGIN’ KNOW IT but the very first one I hadn’t heard of!
Bash, Please has lovely real weddings, florals, inspiration boards, EVERYTHING! And they’ve been featured on all the other blogs I read so I’ve definitely seen their work but how did I never go to the site before this?! Insanity.
But SURELY that was it, right? Brooklyn Bride? Check. Once Wed? Check. Project Wedding? Check. Grey Likes Weddings? WHAT?
Grey Likes Weddings is beautiful weddings everything as well but by a kick ass stylist extraordinaire, Summer Watkins.
So go forth and get lost in a sea of gorgeous wedding inspiration my dears!
Tags: inspiration, links
You know how sometimes you’re extremely busy then all of a sudden everything hit a lull (which you know is temporary) and you now have time to do all those “way down on the to-do list” things? And all of a sudden you’re desperate to do ANYTHING ELSE?! That is where I am. But thankfully for you I’ll probably be adding a slew of things to the site that I’ve been meaning to for awhile now. Although I did just realize that I did post all the Thank You cards but I feel like since they’re not apart of the specific suites they should go in “other stationary”. Or should I add them to “wedding” too? If you have an opinion, let me know.
Anyway, in my continuing efforts to be craftier I have some photos from my St. Patrick’s Day party from this past weekend. This was for my in-laws so it’s more “having flowers” than “having keg”.
Food in the dining room.
Booze and snack in the living room.
It was a lot cuter in person but, though it was nice to set each up in front of windows in real life, it didn’t lend itself well to photographing. Also I’m a terrible photographer with a point and shoot that I really think is a little off ever since I may have mistakenly dropped it in the snow this winter.
But I was proud of my thriftiness in decorations. Let me tell you, the day after a major holiday is a great time to get party supplies! (St. Pat’s was on a Thursday, our party 2 days later on Saturday) The table cloth and plates were cheap all the time (at the Christmas Tree Store which is theoretically a half step better than a dollar store or a Party City type store) but I got a nice cotton green striped valence which I used as a table runner on the main table for less than a dollar and those green little foam shamrocks which I strung together to make a little garland.
The flowers were Bells of Ireland and some purple thing which vaguely resembled heather. Since my flower arranging skills are novice as well I like to try and stick to only 1 or 2 varieties in an arrangement and concentrate on having different heights. I think it turned out a little wild but acceptable.
Things I’ve been digging around the web this past week (or two):
Tags: crafts, links
March 11, 2011 Comments Off
Hey! I just added a new home page inspiration board for Bogey + Bacall (it’s a little large if you check it out on the home page). I think this was the hardest of all the invitation suites to do just because, though I LOOOVE red, it’s a tight rope walk for weddings. Little slip and you’ve got a style I can only think of as “bad prom”. Another bobble and you’ve overshot “glam” and fallen straight into “vampire goth”. And red can be wonderfully playful with gingham and when paired with light blues and greens but a classic red with some black and white that is NOT harlequin– damn difficult.
The images in the inspiration board (Images: The Future Mrs. Darcy: Bogey + Bacall, Claridges Luxury Hotel in Mayfair by The Creative Wedding Photographer, Tablescape by Paul Scott via Carolyne Roehm, Bride by The Nicols via Style Me Pretty, Red Shoes by Justin and Mary via Elizabeth Anne Designs, Bold by Sarah Rhoads) are great jumping off points (especially the last 3!) and here are a couple of others to take a look at that are moregood classic/glamourous weddings than reds but I liked them:
Old Hollywood Wedding in Canada at Ruffled
Cicado Wedding by Justine Ungaro
Julia Morgan Ballroom Wedding by Caroline Tran
1930s Ballroom Wedding at Ruffled (and Part 2 is here)
NYC Photographer Belathee (check out the bridal fashion and featured weddings on their site or just google their work for tons of great stuff)
I don’t think there was a specific post in mind but Santa Barbara Chic had a bunch of nice posts.
Also some good red flowers I came across if you don’t feel like standard roses* are: peonies, anemonies, calla lillies, ranunculus, dahlias, tulips, carnations (yes, carnations) and amaryllis.
*There’s nothing wrong with red roses and I’m sure there are tons of varieties that I’m not aware of but I’m just saying it’s what you think of first and if you don’t care for them, there are alternatives.
Tags: black and white, Bogey + Bacall, classic, flowers, links, red
March 11, 2011 Comments Off
Here is the “grand reveal” for the invitation I mentioned on Tuesday:
It’s just an invitation for the moment, I still need to do the RSVP but after some back and forth on the script font and the colors with a bunch of very helpful friends, I chose the font I originally liked best and changed up the colors and TA-DA!
This works perfectly for vineyard/winery weddings (as it was designed for a vineyard wedding), weddings in old ivy covered buildings, outdoor weddings, weddings you wish could be outdoors but you really don’t want to go head to head with Mother Nature, and more!
I’ll let you know when the RSVP is ready for debut!
Tags: custom wedding invitations, green, nature, purple, vineyard, winery
March 8, 2011 Comments Off
Well we are are quite busy over here at The Future Mrs. Darcy. Lots of interesting stuff going on but unfortunately not a lot I can share picture-wise just yet though!
I will let you know that the ideas that were rolling around for a Bella + Edward invitation forever ago have gotten a bit of brilliance from a bride getting married at a planetarium whose colors are– are you ready– an ombré navy black to blues to nude. It’s frickin’ amazing. I want everything to be this night sky ombré now. Not sure if it will actually end up named “Bella + Edward” though- do you think that will turn some people off? Anyway, you will want to make out with this invitation though, it’s fabulous, but still in the works so… sorry.
Another bride is going for the Lois + Clark invitation in PERSIMMON. Persimmon, I have recently learned, is the BEST way to ask for orange. Love it.
Then I have a couple who’s having the Alice in Wonderland party invitations turned into wedding invitations. The brand new RSVP features a stack of teacups that I find quite adorable.
And to top it off- I need to photography the Bogey + Bacall invitations and the Elvis + Priscilla invitations for Invitation Crush Wedding Ideas Lookbook! Yowza!
But remember our nature sneaky peeks? I think we’ve figure our path for those invitations which means one is now up for grabs! I’m running two last details by some lovely ladies but then I’ll have the grand reveal!
In the meantime: did you catch the amazing winter wedding featured on Snippet and Ink? Daaaaaaang.
Tags: custom wedding invitations, links
Awwww…. Hopefully brings a smile to you too!
Tags: funny
