The art of website masking for your wedding website.

Venue picked and booked, check.  Wedding suit, check.  Everything else ...

I must say that it's so great to have a supportave team mate in this wedding process, Steve has wonderful and sensible logic, while I can let the creativeness take over.  Case in point: Steve: Did we fill out the contract to book the place?  Me: These paper lanterns would look great it the reception loft....

It takes two.


Which comes to the least fun part of a wedding (for most) duhhun ddduuun ddduuuuuN ... budget.


Like fucker, budget is a six letter word.

I will go right out and say our budget is... $10,000.00*

*things not included in budget are, suit (already purchased), engagement/wedding rings, honeymoon, wedding dress.  My logic is A. They were purchased before said budget, and B. Are like presenats to ourselves, yes that's what I am going with.

I am no mathematician, my fiance teaches Physics and Chemistry (therefore he is).

I am great with budgeting, I clip coupons from the Sunday paper filing them in alphabetic order for our hour+ shopping trip.  I'm a sale-a-holic and rarely purchase anything at retail.  A fiscal budget... such as what percentage to be alloted to what... I'm clueless...

Enter Wedding Wire.

We already knew that to save paper, hence trees, we would be utilizing a wedding website that could post multiple pages such as multiple RSVPs (Engagement, Shower, Rehearsal, Wedding), Maps, Accomadations, that way our invites would be lighter.

The websires are neat, but behind the scenes we can use an app to balance our budget.  You simply enter your dollar amount and it separates where your budget should go, everytime you save money it redistributes the saved money amonst your categories; Catering, Transportation, Accomidation, Attire, etc.

The website templates aren't cheesy and feature designs from Martha Stewart and Several Stationary companies.  There is also no advertising space on your site and you have the option to completely customize it.

Another great thing is IT'S FREE!  Some other websites try to bundle things like Your Own Custom Domain Name included... for 60.00 bucks for a year, not terrible, but when stretching a 10,000.00 budget things can easily add up.

Here's a secret...
You don't need to pay that much.  If you use a free site, for example weddingwire.com/mrandmrsneff.  Build it and then you can purchase your own domail name (mrandmrsneff.com) from a place like GoDaddy, then use a feature they have called masking.

Masking takes mrandmrsneff.com when you type into web address bar and fowards it seamlessly to weddingwire.com/mrandmrsneff.  No one will know but you (and now you guys since I'm sharing).

Which ever place you buy your domain name from, I use GoDaddy for 11.99 for a year, will have masking directions.  I use GoDaddy for this blog and when I called them I spoke to a real person, who walked me through the steps on how to do it. 

ps I am not endorsed by GoDaddy.

multiple cakes

Everyday on my walk home I pass a cake shop down the street.  It makes everything from cannolis to wedding cakes. 

Every time I see the Styrofoam models of 3, 4, and 5 tier cakes, the less I'd like to have one. 

"I know this person is allergic to this, or this person hates this frosting, this one despises fruit on a cake, this one loves fruit on a cake... "

and the list goes on.

So why not have an assortment of cakes for everyone to choose what they want, or don't? 

The bride and groom get their own cake, and everyone else can choose from an assortment.  Our cake we'll then freeze (maybe).



The cakes pictured (courtesy of Warfel's Sweet Shop) are $20 each and serve 16.
If we could find something similar we would need 10 of them for $200 + tip.
Not bad, the average wedding cake starting is at least $300.



I must also admit I have anxiety about having a tiered cake, I can just imagine it toppling.

I know we are sending 150 invites, supposedly the magic number of no-shows is 20%. So approx. 120-150 people will be there.  The average round cake serves 10-16 people... therefore 10-15 different flavored round cakes would be great, and I'm positive the cake place down the street would gladly give a discount.

Tiramisu-Strawberry Shortcake-Cheese cake-Devil's Food-Yellow with Chocolate Icing-Coffee Crumb Cake-Coconut-German Chocolate...The pictured cakes look amazing, they are only local in VA.

Cupcakes, Cream Puffs, and Cannolis

I also like the idea of one cake for us and matching cupcakes for guests.  I wouldn't mind serving giant cream puffs, cannolis, and eclairs... we do so love them. 

What dessert could/would/did you pick for your wedding, did you find that everyone ate/enjoyed it, or where there lone slices?



gifts are meant to be shared

Last year we had a garage sale.  Besides tons of duplicate items, (from moving in together) we had tons of wedding coasters, etched wedding frames, endless tea light holders, glass wedding bell paper weights, another wedding frame, a glass basket that held those (gross in my opinion) white almonds, endless bottles of wedding bubbles, oh I can't forget the place card holders. Lots of stuff.  I think I sold the coasters for 0.25.  I don't want to think about what the bride and groom of that wedding paid for them.  Some things I gave away, the rest went to goodwill.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an ingrate.  It's sweet, just not my style.

Lately we have been trying to think of eco-happy gifts, in lieu of just-stuff.

Originally we wanted to send everyone home with individual wine bottles, but it's too expensive. Even the small ones (the vineyard won't do) are a waste because you only get one glass of wine - if that, then that's 120 more wine bottles out there because of us.

We went to a friend's wedding recently and they gave away ferns.  Currently, my fern sits happily in it's new pot on my fire escape with all his (he's a boy in my head) other plant friends.  I loved the idea.

The entire inspiration for the wedding is US!  What we like to do together, how we met, things we enjoy together.  (get it?) We went hiking on our first date hence an outdoors ceremony.  I changed my beer drinking guy into a wino, enter vinyard.  As most outdoorsy types usually do...we love trees.  Fun Fact* Steve can climb a tree better than anyone I've ever known. 

Trees it is. 

We are giving away trees.  Each of the round tables is going to be a different tree and everyone at their table will get their respective sapling to take home and plant in a park, garden, yard, or even on the side of the road.  We are going to have approx. 120 people, that's 120 trees (ideally) that are out there growing, housing animals and bugs, cleaning the air. 

:insert kumbahyah hand holding circle here:

I have to think up a cute- and equally eco-friendly way of packaging the saplings.  It would be kind of silly to try and be green for our wedding ( examples: all RSVPs are going to be done online to save paper, reused/ up-cycled decorations) to then turn around and use a ton of plastic and ribbon for a a tree that will be planted soon.

*keep in mind to always check that you are planting trees/plants/and flowers that are native to your area as to not introduce an invasive species - check here.

Here are some ideas I've stormed thus far:

• My bestie/m.o.h. works at a bedding/home fashion textile design place (so cool I know) and is always coming home with things they just throw away!- bedding, curtains, swatches, yards of fabric- in the garbage!- so perhaps we can "rescue" some of the more neutral/ linen type of fabrics (it doesn't matter if we mix and match as long as they are complimentary (sort of) shades) to wrap the saplings in like this.
• Using Biodegradable (Peat Pots) that can be planted with the sapling directly in ground.  Up the cool factor by getting our "seal" stamped on the planter to then grow with the tree.
• We could package with upcyled beer bottle glasses, but I think we'd use bottles sans labels.  I'm confident our housemates (consists of 3 apartments) can get together 120 beer bottles during a BBQ, easy.

 

I thought these newspaper pots would be fun for next years seedlings, but not for the wedding.

I'd love to hear some eco-friendly wedding ideas from you... yes you.  Email or comment below no sign in needed...other than name and what you want to say.

ps... in exactly one year from today, we will be getting married 7.14.11.

The "Perfect" Picture

(Still not turning this into a wedding blog I swear) But it's so damn hard to take "THE" picture... You know, the one that will be printed on the magnet for "Save the Date"... that magnet will then be on your mother's, grandmother's (and don't forget in law's) fridge long enough for your first kid or two, to be born and out of diapers.
Case in point, 2 weekends ago we went to book (whoo hoo) the place for the wedding.  It's a charming vineyard in Upstate, NY about 1.5 hrs away from NYC- Millbrook Vineyards.  After we went through particulars we decide to set up the tripod and take a few shots, between the hair in my lip gloss, and my crooked tripod set up that resulted in my fiance looking like the leaning tower-they were not keepers to say the least, don't worry I'll post them after I load the trillion that exist.  We most definitely won't be using them.
Here are some ideas that I love.

 I could never convince Steve to do the above one with me. He HATES posed, hence the reason I am setting up my camera/tripod and shooting a bunch with a timer, he stiffens up when it comes time to take pictures.  They may be posed...but I think these are too adorable. 

If it were up to him he'd use the one of us (me seasick) on a fishing boat at 7am last year.  We got some great shots of my "chumming" overboard.  I will eventually (after we send out "The" picture) post what we decided on.

and some that I loathe.

 

Hello easy listening the beach version. 

 

Why not an actual article in wedding magazine/blog, or even an announcement in your local paper?  Why of all magazines... would you choose OK!?

As promised here are 3 of the most decent shots...FAIL.

Which leads us to...