Unexpected consequences

It has been two years since I left my home country. Two years in which I've tried to keep in touch with not only my family, but also the few close friends I've known since high-school.
Last year, as we were about to get married at the courthouse I found out that my Senior High School friend M. had her relationship with D. going down the drain.
I wanted to be there for her, but the email she used back then was the one she shared with D. And I lost touch completely.
I considered contacting the Hospital were she works at a nurse to get in touch and my Mom even found out how to do that but the process was quite complicated. I have to admit that I got caught up with things and never got around to go through the Hospital administration to get a card to her.

But when came the time to send the wedding invitations, I still wanted her to know about it. So I used the French white pages. I assumed she was still living in the same city, and only one address came out with her name. So deciding that in the worst case someone would think I was a nutcase, I sent an invitation out, hoping it would be to her.
Several weeks later, I remembered to check the wedding website and I had a wonderful surprise. I had forgotten to remove the password. So I had a little note from my friend M. asking for it, and along was her email address.
Luck was on my side. It was the right person living at that address!
She might not be able to make it to the wedding, but who cares, we are back in touch again and that is all I could ask for.

Have you gotten back in touch with lost friends because of your wedding?

David's Bridal redeems itself (The Dress part 4)

If you read Part 3 of my dress search, you know that my experience at the David's Bridal in Asheville was far from good.
I had a good time at the small bridal boutique on Charlotte's St, but I didn't find The One there and I knew their dresses where not in my budget.
The only other bridal store in Asheville I knew about looked like they had beautiful dresses, and although I considered going there just for the fun of it, in the end I went against it for budget reasons.

So I was at the point of not knowing where to search next. I went online on pre-owned wedding dresses websites. I considered driving to Charlotte, NC; Greenville, SC and Atlanta, GA. All great places but without a bridal shop name it doesn't do much.
It's thanks to the blog of an other French expat' that I came across THE place: Kelly's Closet, which I will talk about later. I also wanted to go to La Reine, but they were closed the day of my visit. So I decided to go to Atlanta, we would spend Memorial Day week-end at my step-mother-in-law's place in the Georgia mountains and spend one day in Atlanta to do bridal shopping. My SMIL was very happy to join me and so was my SIL.
The day before we drove down, I talked with a friend and explain how bad of an experience I had had at the Asheville's David's Bridal. She was surprised. She had been to the one in Kenessaw for bridesmaid dresses and her sister's dress and did not regret it. I had a few doubts, but I decided to give them a last shot.

Before our road trip, I showed the previous shopping pictures to my SMIL so she would have an idea of what I looked good in and what I liked. I called David's Bridal 30mn before getting there to check if they had an opening and they did.
So we went it.
I was impressed at the size of the store: much bigger of course so close to Atlanta. But more than that, I was invited to look through the racks of dresses while I waited for my sales assistant instead of staying in the middle of the store. When the sales assistant came in she was so friendly, hugged us, quickly asked about my tastes and went on to the business of helping me find dresses. She listened to both my SMIL and I.
I tried 3 dresses in one hour compared to 4 dresses in 3 hours in Asheville. No comment.
She was there all along as I tried various dresses, said what she saw and was shocked when I told her about my previous experience. She even called several times since to check with me.
I think her name was Sheilah, and she definitely redeemed David's Bridal in my eyes.
I now know you can and should be picky with your sales assistant, and that there are great ones in chain stores too.

As far as the dresses, all the ones I tried were withing budget: $399-499 + a $50 discount if I bought it today.
The first one was dress T9395 A satin trumpet gown with beaded metallic lace, satin empire band with bow, and lace-up back. Chapel train.
While the train was definitely too long for my taste I absolutely loved the lace-up back. I tried it in Ivory with a Champagne ribbon.
Style VW9340, Beaded lace trumpet with godet inserts at skirt hem and charmeuse sash. Sweep train. I tried it before, but this time I got the right size.
Pretty, but it did not feel like the one either.

Styel EK9343, Floral print satin/chiffon burnout halter gown with beaded empire band. Sweep train.
I liked the halter and V neck look of it. But it wasn't the trumpet shaped I was looking for.
Although I let the sales assitant write down the styles of dresses I tried just in case, I couldn't decide which one I liked best. A sure sign that I had not found the right dress yet.
But I had a good time and it made a good introduction to our visit to Kelly's closet.

What experience did you have with bridal chain stores?

I wish I had guts (The Dress part 3)

I don't know what your personality is like but mine is the kind who doesn't speak up. It's not that I don't want to really. It's just that most of the time I simply don't know what to say when I'm in an uncomfortable situation. So rather than saying something right away I think about it, and by the time I have the perfect answer well, it's two days later and often too late. Not only that, but I try to be accommodation, too accommodating and when you are a bride this is not a good idea.
See the third time I went shopping for a dress, I brought my aunt-in-law and her granddaughter with me and things did not go as planned.

I had asked to have a new sales person, because the previous one was just not helping me. The manager was very accommodating and booked my appointment with an other lady. I had explained that the previous sales assistant had not been very helpful and that well she wasn't there for me. So I definitely had expectations with this new sales assistant.
When I smelled her cold ashtray breath I didn't get a good feel. I am a non smoker and while if other smoke or not is none of my business I expect a sales person to at least chew on a mint or something so I don't have to smell that. I'm sorry but ashtray breath does not ring quality service in my mind. I should have known right away, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I wanted the granddaughter to have fun too. She is 11 and taller and bigger than me, I figured that at that age she would enjoy the fun of trying on dresses with the only goal of playing dress up and indeed she did.
That's the second time my opinion of the sales person went down. The way she commented on D's size was plainly and simply rude. So what if she is not a size 0 at 11 years old? She is there to try dresses. I had to ask her to go get a measuring tape to find out what dress size D needed.

When it came to my turn to try on dresses (because it seems we couldn't do both at the same time), things turned sour. I was simply left on my own with no idea where the sales person was. In the end my aunt-in-law told the store manager and that person came herself to help me, a little bit. It took three hours to try on three dresses, and the atmosphere and lack of help made me loose my smile and my interest in dresses. I simply didn't care anymore.

To top it all I had a conversation with my aunt-in-law about who were my bridesmaids. When I told her who they were, she turned to her granddaughter and said "Would you like to be one?".
What the heck? I was so shocked. I felt trapped too, she had not asked me but she had asked D, in front of me, without giving me a chance to discuss it. And because I was at the time hoping she would help me make a dress if I couldn't find one I like, I didn't have the guts to say no. Instead all I could say was: "Yes D, would you like to be one of my bridesmaid?"
I could have slapped myself.
While I later on figured out she could be a Jr Bridesmaid which would be much more appropriate to her age, I still felt like I had been forced upon a choice that was not my own.

So I wish I had some guts yes. I wish I had told the sales person that I expected her to be there for me and help me, here my questions and be there when I needed an other dress. Trust me I did not act like a bradzilla and I know I deserved better.
I wish on the way out that I had told the manager of the store that I'm very sorry but given the lack of customer service they provided they could be sure I would not buy my dress there, and that she should get her sales person to wash their teeth after smoking.
And finally I wish I had told my aunt-in-law: "No! No, I'm sorry but I have three bridesmaids and that's plenty enough. No offense but I'll find something else for Dorian to do if she wants to be involved in the wedding."

Oh and because it was dress shopping non the less here are some pictures (all dresses David's Bridal):

I loved the lace and the light feel of the dress, it was the wrong size however

The halter, trumpet lace dress that I thought was the one.

An A-line champagne dress I didn't like but tried to please the aunt-in-law

Me and Dorian (my unplanned Jr Bridesmaid)

Trying on a veil

Do you have the guts to stand up and give your opinion? Or are you like me and do you get in complicated situations just because you can't say no?

E-share the news

With the family scattered all around the globe and my heavy usage of Internet, it was obvious to me that we should have a wedding website.
I wanted it to be a fun informative tool where our guests could find information that would not fit in the invitation unless we made it a book.

Now all that is great but you have to find the support for it. Although not an Internet professional I do have a little bit of html knowledge (I learned a lot with http://www.lissaexplains.com/) and I know how to create a webpage from scratch. But my skills were definitely too low when it came to creating a full website where every page would have the same background, with an index to the side and pretty pictures everywhere.
I considered using a site like freewebs to create my page but quickly dropped the idea for the reasons mentioned above.

So I started searching pre-made wedding websites were I could host our informations.
I had several criterias in mind:
1)A free website. With our tiny budget I wanted to avoid that kind of expense.
2)A website with flexibility where I could put the information I wanted to share with our guests and even better: pages that I would translate in French.
3)A pretty background. I couldn't see myself with a background that would scream :"Chessy" at me.

Armed with my searching page I typed in "free wedding website".
The first one I came across was:

http://www.ewedding.com/
Their websites have a cute intro and you can create a lot of different pages with various information.
It also has unlimited photos, events, rsvp, etc. You can create files to download and it has a lot of very fun features.
Except that, when you look into their packages option, the Free Website really does not offer much and you have to pay to be able to use all those features.

http://www.ourweddingday.com/
Only offers it free for the 30 day trial.
It is however free for David's Bridal customers.
The main thing was: I couldn't see the features or the background without registering. Wanting to avoid Spam and not sure if just trying David's Bridal dresses was enough to be considered a customer, I decided to skip.

http://www.weddingannouncer.com/
I think I actually started a site there, but gave up because I didn't really like the background and I couldn't have all the information I wanted on the website. It has some cute choices and the basic information you might want to share though

http://www.weddingchannel.com/
A bit like ewedding, they temp you with a free version but you can only put so much in it and should pay to share all you want.
The plus part is that they make a donation to the charity of your choice if you post the registry there.

There were many more but in the end it was under the advice of a friend that I choose to use
http://www.mywedding.com/
Without signing up I was able to look at their various themes and I could even change it's color a bit. They have a wide variety of templates that can fit just about any theme or season.
They are entirely free and not only do they have all the pages I needed but I could customize some of them.
It's very user friendly too, so even without html knowledge you can create a beautiful site.

Do you have a wedding website? Which one are you using and why?

Unplanned dress shopping (The dress part 2)

My second dress shopping experience was completely unplanned.
My car was under repair and my husband dropped me north of downtown were I had an interview. I had been planning to take the bus home, not realizing that here on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, public transportation was not functioning. It was a cold day, I was all bundled up, and while I walked downtown to catch a bus (I still though there was one) I went by this very cute boutique that I had always wanted to go in:

Wedding Inspirations
Just the look of the boutique had always made me want to go in it.
But when I face the door I found out that they were not open on Mondays. I was ready to turn around when a sales person came and opened the door just for me. She had an appointment coming up that morning but offered to take some time with me.
I couldn't believe my luck.

She quickly asked for some information about me and our wedding and then explained how things worked. She pointed at the rack sales spot, showed me around the other rooms and then gave me several red ribbons that I was to attach to the dresses I liked.
What a difference from David's Bridal where I had to select gowns from a catalogue. This time I could feel the fabrics, feel the weight, look at the details and the shades.

The atmosphere was warm and cozy, I didn't feel pressured by the sales person and I took my time to look around and select gowns that caught my eyes. I was then escorted to the dressing room (a former bathroom) that made me feel in a boudoir. She then brought me a few dresses at a time.

Because I was on my own and didn't have my camera, I never took any pictures and I didn't think to write down the names of the dresses I liked either.
I had been looking for halter top, ivory color and trumpet shaped dresses. I didn't want really want an A line dress that seemed to puffy to me. There were few. So my selection included anything with straps.
No underskirt or bustier to struggle with made my experience much more pleasant.

I really like the second dress I tried. It was a Jasmine Couture gown made with silk. I mention to the salesperson that I like natural material, she says she is not surprised because all the dress I selected are like that.
I feel pretty in that dress, the trumpet shape is definitely flattering, the décolleté looks good and the natural silk color and texture looks great against my skin.
But when I look at the price back inside the dressing room, I read $1080 on the tag. Oh dear, natural fabrics means luxury tastes!

I try an other dress with an interesting structure but it's obvious that the color does not work with my complexion. The sales person uses the opportunity to tell me that I have a skin with blue undertones and that I should therefore avoid fabrics with too much yellow in it as well as diamond white that would wash me out.
So off white and ivories are my colors. Good that was what I had in mind anyway.

I also tried this Alfred Sung style 6631 wit organza and sateen ribbons, it's an A line but I do like it.
Nothing more catches my eyes after that so I headed downtown after thanking the salesperson and promising to come back with friends next time to get their opinion.

That's when I find out that there are no bus. I will have to walk miles to get back home. Not so exciting when it's close to noon on a cold January day.
On my way I stop by David's bridal with the simple goal of picking up their new collection brochure. It's close to 2pm and I wasn't really in the mood to try things on, but the sales person there insist that I should.
I get the same sales assistant as the last time. I don't like her. She makes me follow her, has me sit down on a chair and then leaves me to wait. I start chatting with a mother of the bride, a wonderful mom who will end up helping me out more than the sales person throughout the experience.

I spotted a new dress in the brochure that I wanted to try. It's far from what I had imagined so far: covered with lace when I was thinking of a simple gown.
The dress as select is Style: T9512, it's an all over lace, trumpet shape with an illusion halter top and a ribbon with the color of your choice in the middle. I love it, the shape falls so well on me. I want to try it with a coper colored belt but of course the closest they have is chocolate. I like it but the near-by mother of the bride tells me it makes it look more casual. The only thing is: it's way too long and it does not exist in a petite size, not to mention the $800 price tag.

The sales person believe then that she knows what I want and brings me an other dress. It simply looks awful on me. The sales assistant obviously does not understand what I am looking for nor what works with my figure.
I do try one last dress though, the one that my neighbor had been trying: Style: CV226, it's pretty too with it's empire waist and beaded lace sheath.
I like it too although not quite as much as the first one, and again it's close to $1000. But with little energy left I have to put a halt to my dress shopping and head home.

But the visit was not fruitless, it did help me again to define what I was looking for, and the T9512 made me realize that I do love lace and that maybe it's part of what I would like for my wedding dress.

Did you ever go shop on your own? Do you think it made it easier or harder to select gown without a close friend's opinion?

A unique Cheese Cake

I dream of a pumpkin cheesecake for our wedding and I've been looking for alternative ways to present our wedding cakes.While searching around the web, I came upon this.
I though oh, cool, a cheesecake that imitates cheese. What a fun surprise for the guests right? It's beautiful and definitely creative
...
Then I read the description
"a tantalising blend of mould-ripened blue, mild firm-textured and crumbly smoked cheeses"
What? Mould-rippened blue? You mean... no way!

Ok, I'm French, I come from the country that probably makes the most variety of cheese. But when I search for a cheesecake I was not thinking a cheese-cheese cake.

The Wedding Cheese Cake Co. says the following:
"Let The Wedding Cheese Cake Co. make your wedding day the one event people will always remember with a beautiful wedding cake made entirely of cheese! "
That is indeed something our guests would remember, but sorry as much as I love cheese this is not what I was looking for.

I wonder if people really do get that for their wedding cake. I could be a good alternative if you don't have a sweet tooth and are more on the savory side though.

What is the weirdest thing you came across while doing wedding research?

Image source: http://theweddingcheesecakeco.co.uk/

I do not want to look like a meringue (The Dress Part 1)

I never dreamed about a big wedding. Probably because I never real thought that I would meet someone I would marry.
I have to admit that I was very lucky when we had our civil wedding, I had a simple dress (picture to the left) that I had bought at Etam years ago. I saw that dress in the display, it ended up being the only one there and my size. I bought it for 50€. It was simple yet beautiful: ivory linen, sheath with 3 flowers embroideries in a light pink on it. Of course linen wrinkles extremely quickly, but I loved that dress and it worked perfectly for our wedding and one friends saw the pictures they couldn't believe it wasn't an official wedding dress.
I was happy given how quick things went that I had something available right then and there.
The pearl necklace and earings my sister-in-law let me borrow me also worked perfectly with the outfit. I couldn't have been happier.

When we decided to have a formal wedding though, I knew I wanted a real wedding dress. The only thing I was sure of was that I didn't want to look like a meringue. I also wanted something that would look different from my first "wedding dress".
I have too many memories of friends of my parents marrying in puffy outfits that really did not flatter the bride. I have curves, I am not a size 0, and guess what? I am proud of it.

So when I had a friend visiting in August 07, with only a fall wedding date in mind, I went in to the only wedding shop I had seen: David's Bridal. I did not even know at the time that it was a chain, nor that appointments are usually required, that's how ignorant I was.
With no definite idea of what I wanted I pointed to some dresses on the magazine that I was curious to try and let the assistant do the rest.

I had a hard time putting my first dress on. What with the corset and the underskirt and all those zippers that I couldn't get a hang off. I felt a bit abandonned. Thankully my friend was there and I managed not to get out of the dressing room in underwear.
Here are the various dresses I tried in that shop, and as you will see I tried very different things from halter top to sleeveless, A-Line to mermaid and long to short.

The first wedding dress I tried, ever. It was nice but it was hard to put one and...
... the cathedral lenght trail is not exactly my cup of tea.
The second dress is, beside The One, my mom's favorite dress. She of course only saw the dresses on line. I wasn't too fond of the strapless idea though.
This one is probably one of the least flaterring dresses on my figured that I tried. I was curious about a halter top, but obviously that shape is not for me.
This one was quite cute, but being a petite size didn't help to make me look taller. It's also not the best lenght for a November wedding in the mountains as I was not planning to wear wool leggings!

I had fun in the last one. I think it's mainly because by the fifth dress I started feeling like a real bride and I really like the trumpet shape of the outfit.I didn't come out of this first visit with a dress but it helped me tremendously to understand what I was looking for and what shapes looked flattering on me.

Did your first dress shopping experience gave you an idea of what you were looking for? Or if you already knew what you wanted, did it changed it?

DIY Invitation cost breakdown

Our invitations are done and in the mail. It is now time to break down our invitation cost. More pictures to come:

Invitations supplies
100 Marquis Ecru Outer envelop 6x6 (LCI Paper) - $23.00
50 12x12 Card Stock Soft White Linen (LCI Paper)- $16.00
+ shipping (LCI Paper) $8.50
50 Paper stock nepalse paper in Brown (Nepalese Paper)-12x5.75 - free (should have been $20)*
30 yard of 3/8 inch chocolate brown (AC Moore) - $11.17
24 yards of 1/8 inch chocolate brown (AC Moore) - $2.14
Cutting paper at office max - $1.25
Total $62.06

Other
Stamps:
12.18 (heart) + 21.75 (blueridge)+ 14.85 (postcard) +23.56 (dragonfly) - $72.34
Calligraphy pen (Michael's) - $3.73
Total $76.07

Grand Total $138.13

With 78 invitation, some going to France and some going to the USA the average cost per invitation is $1.77 stamps included and $0.85 without stamps.
It should have been $2.02 with stamps if the Nepalese paper had been like ordered, 1.10 per invitation without the stamps.

I'm amazed we made them for so little, this definitely fits into our budget, and people love them.


After much searching I bought the ivory card stock with a linen effect and the square ivory envelops from LCI paper, the shipping was fast, the quality of the product excellent.
The paper was 12x12 so I brought it to office max to get it cut so it would fit in our printer: 6x6.

I wanted a paper with a texture to go around our invitations, I though about all sorts of different papers, went to Michael's, A.C. Moore, and then I found a small party store that had this beautiful nepalese paper. The shop could only sell some classic letter size paper from them, so I took the name of the company, searched it online and contacted them directly.
They sent me several paper samples in the brown shades and I selected light brown.
Now things got a bit complicated because I was making a custom order. Their nepalese paper is Lokta paper and it comes directly from Nepal.
At first I thought about ordering some 12x12 sheets, but I didn't want to waste tiny strips of paper and I also decided to save myself from the grueling cutting. So I ordered some 12x5&3/4 of an inch.
Because it was a custom order they had to ask for it directly in Nepal and it was to come with the next shipment (takes about 3 weeks). Well...
*The order was messed up and we received the wrong color, Nepalese Paper offered us to keep the paper for free because of it (it was a custom order), there was no shipping fee because we ordered other items with it.
The paper is of excellent quality, beautiful colors, and the customer service is excellent. It's a small company and they are very arranging. I talked directly with the owner chuck and when the paper came out wrong, he shipped it overnight at no extra charge so I could quickly decide whether to order the right paper or not. He is the one who offered not to charge me for the paper since 1)it was not what I asked for and 2)it's such a custom cut that he could not re-sell it.

I brought two different types of ribbons. I originally only wanted the small one, but the store only had so many left and I took them all. I ended up running out of it and had to go back to A.C. Moore. They had not been resuplied so I had to buy a larger version of the first ribbon. It was more expensive, but I don't regret it because it's very pretty too.

And finally, I wanted the names and address to be written down in a beautiful way. So I bought two calligraphy pens (I was not planning on running out of ink) at Michael's and wrote it all myself.

I'll do a post on how I made everything late on in case someone is interested.

My DIY Fall theme invitations

The supplies I started with: Lokta paper stock, Ivory card stock, paper cutter, printer, scissor, ribbon.
I ended up with a different shade of paper than I ordered but it still worked out in the end.

The envelops for three destinations, stamp fun someone?
From left to right: France, USA, Canada
Addresses done with a calligraphy pen by myselfFirst glimpse at the opened envelop

Side viewFirst glimpse at the invitation

French version of our invitation

English RSVP

French RSVP

Directions Card. I also created some with a column about accommodations on the left for the out of town guests.
All the elements together

Rainbow of postcard stampsClose up

Did you choose to DIY your invitations?
If you have two cultures and two different languages, did you do a bi-language invitation or two separate invitations (one for each language)?

Design & Supplies

As I mentionned Friday, I was doing some research on our invitations.
I thought finding the paper for it would be a breeze, well not so much. But I did use the wonderful tool that is internet to figure out how to make the invitations themselves.

I quickly realized that I would have to put the ribbon a certain way to make sure it kept the invitations closed, and that the traditional layout like the following one is easier to do to present things in a pretty way.

Source

I also decided that I wanted a fairly thing ribbon, something around a 1/4 of an inch.
I originally wanted some 6x6 invitations because I knew it would be easy to order a 12x12 paper to that size.

But the hardest part was the paper. I needed two kinds: the paper for the invitation itself, the map/direction and the rsvp and a different paper for the outside layer.
I did Michael's, A.C. Moore, nothing. They had a lot of scrapbook paper yes, but nothing I could use to create such a large number for invitations without exploding our budget.
Thankfully there is a little store: Carolina Party and Paper that had a better selection, well at least enough to get me inspired.
I looked over every single sheet of paper they had. I looked at envelops, card stock, paper stock and all the colors they had. I checked every sheet of every paper sample book in hope of finding the shade of chocolate paper with a bit of texture that my mind was set on.

This is how I came across the paper from nepalesepaper.com. The paper had a beautiful texture and and one of their paper in the sample book was exactly what I wanted. A rich chocolate color that would make you crave chocolate anytime. And they had one in the sample catalogue, they also had a very pretty light brown color that I enjoyed too because it reminded me of copper.
Because the store only carried their paper in 8&1/2 by 11, I decided to contact the company directly.
I discovered through their website that their paper is not only beautiful but good for our planet. Indeed it's the woman of the villages who make this paper and it's also tree free as Lokta is a bush that grows back quite quickly.
They sent me some paper samples so I could decide what I wanted and the owner gave me quotes on their prices.

Here are the various colors in the "brown" scheme that I received:
I decided to go for the light brown since it would look good with a chocolate ribbon. I made a custom order for 100 sheets of 12x5&3/4in paper stock. The goal was to use the paper on the outside of the invitation.

Inside, I visualized an ivory square card stock paper with fall motives such as leaves, or an oak tree branch.
Here are some examples:

I found envelops on envelopemall.com that I liked at $18.75 for 100 in chocolate or $12.95 for 100 in a natural color.

But in the end, because I wanted to order both envelops and cardstock paper from the same company to lower the shipping costs, I went with LCI Paper.

I also search for fall/autumn vectors and here is what I came across:
Autumn
Grunge Floral Background
grunge2
Flowers and foliage I really liked that one, it was actually used to make some very inspiring invitations.

I was thinking of using chocolate tone fonts.

Two websites that helped me to develop my ideas and narrow down what I really wanted are:
DIY invitations
www.invitesite.com they have incredible invitations. If only I could afford them.

Did you used internet to find your inspiration and supplies as well?

Inspire me oh paper.

Although I quickly figured out some simple Save the Date to send by email to our families, I wasn't sure what I wanted for invitations.
After a visit at David's Bridal, I received a brochure full of a variety of invitations, each uglier than the other. Well ok, not that ugly, but just too "made in china by the thousands".
I looked over it to find some inspiration however, all it told me is that I was motivated to include fall colors in it.

I wasn't thinking much of invitations when I went to the local wedding show in January 08, but that's where the inspiration started. I picked up a bunch of documents and once I got home and went through it, one of the photographer's item caught my eyes:


It's a pocket folder with various information about the work of the photograph. I didn't necessarily want a pocket folder but I liked the shape, the color and the design with the star element and the ribbon.
I did some scavanging in the house and found some supplies that could help me make some sort of mock up: a sheet of black card stock left from Halloween, raffia, and some paper I cut and colored. Here was the result.


And the open version next to the Photographer's
Nothing overly exciting, but the idea was there.
I showed my work to my husband and I really liked the whole idea.

What I wanted was something that would match our wedding colors (chocolate and copper), so a chocolate paper wrapped by a copper ribbon and a fall leaf sticker.
All I had to do was to find the right paper right, which I thought would be so easy...

What was your first inspiration when it came to your invitations. What did you imagine of them?