Sun Moon Stars Girl )-(

Welcome to my little place to vent…

After a few revisions and some minor adjustments, I am very pleased to say that the invitations are done! Well, ok, they may not be printed yet, but the design is finalized!

Donna painted several different lovely watercolors, and we were able to incorporate them not only on the invitation itself, but also on the reception card. Kris designed a few cute icons for the RSVP cards, and all that was left today was to adjust the sizing and spacing of the text on the reception, RSVP, and directions card. We printed out the finalized versions so we could send Kris’s parents a mocked-up example with the backing cards and envelopes we had chosen from Paper Source. Kris’s parents will be sending us their printed copies so we can see the paper weight and confirm all the sizing - I’m VERY excited to see this completed version.

Once everything has been printed, Kris and I will still need to assemble to invitation and reception cards onto their respective backings, as well as address and label all the envelopes. We chose to get clear labels for the RSVP cards instead of addressing those all by hand since they are coming back to us and the envelopes are much too small to go through the printer. However, we will be printing our return address onto the actual invitation envelope just because it looks so much better than even the clear labels. That’s one more thing we’ll need to finish before we can send anything out.

Our aim is to get these sent out by the middle of May. We still have no idea what is happening with the wedding stamps and postage situation, which will determine the exact date these invitations get mailed. Right now it’s more important to get everything assembled and addressed - once that’s all set we can make a trip to the post office and figure the stamp situation out.

UPDATE April 30: After a weekend of rally for us, Kris called his parents and we were pleased to find out that everything is printed and on it’s way to us this week. We’ll be stopping at Paper Source tonight or tomorrow to pick up the rest of the supplies we need. We also got some information from my mom, who was somehow able to find out the new stamps are not coming out until June 27th - WAY too late for us. So it looks like we are now stuck with the worst case scenario. Bummer, but at least we can go get the stamps now instead of waiting until the last minute.

I had to go to a symposium in honor of one of our faculty members who turned 80 this month. I learned quite a bit about his research, both past and present, and it was quite interesting to learn about the history of ribosome discoveries, since this is one of my favorite subjects. And this was the first meeting that I was “required” to go to that I was actually interested in all of the talks!

I don’t want to get too much off on a tangent from what inspired me to write this particular post, however. Mainly I wanted to make a comment about how many people I saw who brought their laptops. This in itself should not be all that shocking - what a great way to take notes on the talks and be able to find them at a later date! What, to me, was a bit disappointing was that the people I could see with their computers were mostly not taking notes. Here’s the short, most likely predictable, list of what I saw going on:
1) People checking/sending email (always tempting when bored!)
2) People working on either presentations for a seminar or class or working on their own papers
3) People instant messaging
4) People playing various laptop games, including solitaire (of course!)

I will, unfortunately, admit that I was tempted myself to check my email, and I did use one of my peers’ laptops to write notes back and forth during a couple talks - and I did get distracted. However, she actually used her computer in a smart way to look up information or papers about each speaker and their data as they were talking. I found this to be rather handy in understanding more thoroughly what a few of the presenters were referring to. And this is something I would do if I were bold enough to bring my laptop into talks at a conference. On the other hand, I would only be able to do this if the given location had internet access at which point I would be MUCH too tempted not to chat online or check my own email.

Our first wedding presents arrived this week - totally unexpectedly! I’m truly surprised to be receiving anything right now - I still feel like it’s a bit early at four months out. I guess since the NJ shower will be taking place in May, this is not totally out of the ordinary, especially for anyone kind enough to give us a gift if A) it needs to be shipped or B) they cannot make it to the shower.

I was so excited when I came home and saw a giant box sitting on our doorstep. I’d just been chatting with my neighbor-friend Renee, so I shouted to have her come over so she could see it too! She said, “What’s that?” and I responded, “Our first wedding gift!” I left it outside so Kris could see the box when he came home too, and he was quite excited. A few days later, Kris got the first look at another big box out front when he got home before me. He had brought it inside, so I had no idea something had arrived.

We opened both of the big shipping boxes, and one present was wrapped while the other was not. Since both items came with shipping invoices, we do know what everything is, but we are going to wait to unwrap anything that does come wrapped until we either want to use it, or just after the wedding. We were also able to send thank you notes out right away - very helpful to be able to do so one at a time for now.

It’s so much fun to come home to see a box out front, be it a gift or something that we’ve ordered. But now it’s like coming home to Christmas morning…sans tree, pajamas, and cold weather - ok, not exactly, but I’m sure you get the point!

Also gift/registry-related, I was just reading a great forum for brides/wedding stuff that my rally-galpal Amy suggested. It’s called Indiebride. I’m SO glad that we didn’t get involved with HoneyLuna because there’s so many horror stories on there of reservations getting messed up, bad customer service, - basically honeymoons being severely mucked up due to the registry company.

Update on the stamps…Now I have no idea what the release date on these new 2007 wedding stamps is going to be, but at least they’ve updated the image (shown here) to the corrected postage rate. I really hope they release them prior to the rate change date, or at least around then, because otherwise we’re going to be stuck with dilemma #1 where we have to send the invites out before the date of the postage rate change (rate changes on May 14th): Send stamps with the old (higher) 2 oz. rate, and use the old wedding stamps with the extra postage (ugly) on both the invites and RSVP cards - or the new 1 oz. first class (41 cents, also ugly) stamps on the RSVP cards. I guess that’s not SO bad, since we’ll be getting all those back…and we can always use the new wedding heart stamps for our thank you cards.

© 2006 USPS. All Rights Reserved.

This past week we got everything organized for the flower girl. Below is the dress that I found a while back when looking for cute, yet affordable, flower girl dresses. After figuring out the appropriate size, the dress was ordered. It comes with the shawl/wrap thing shown in the first picture (but not the gloves - it will be too hot for them in August anyway). I’m really excited about seeing it on Natalie - she’s going to look so beautiful!

Update April 25, 2007 - I just got an email from our flower girl’s family that included some pictures of her in THE dress. The pictures were SO cute! I can’t wait to see her in person with the dress on. (And no…I’m not going to post those pics - you’re all just going to have to wait for the wedding to see her!)

Last week while searching for honeymoon information, I also did some searching for wedding favors. It’s been a difficult process, as once again there are several variables and types of favors to consider while trying to pick a favor. These include:
1) Little items as place card holders, such as miniature chairs: they’re SO cute, but what purpose can they serve other than holding those cards? None Kris nor I can see. We’re opposed to giving anything too cheesy that’s cute but not really practical.
2) Candles and soaps…cute again, but so boring - and what if they melt in the August summer heat and humidity?
3) Candy was a good idea - possibly even something personalized…but then again there’s the heat and greater chance of melting not only AT the wedding, but before - and even when they’re being shipped!
4) The cute favors that are something along the lines of: “Mint” to be Together; Meant to “Bee;” the Perfect “Pear;” and “Two Peas in a Pod” - we feel are a bit too cheesy for us.
5) We’re not wine lovers, so wine favors are out. We’re not having our wedding in the fall, winter, or on a beach, so all those favors are out. Not to mention our friends Andrew and Sabrina are getting married on the beach in May, and I didn’t want to copy anything they might use as a favor. We just had no wedding “theme,” (I didn’t want to drag the sun/moon/stars into the wedding and we didn’t have our honeymoon booked yet, nor we sure how to incorporate that besides the beach favors) and there’s not really any favors we could find that might best represent our career fields and passions: science, technology, and rallying! Plus, we’re not sure that even if we could find rally-related favors that most of our guests would understand what they were all about.
6) We can’t use rice or flower petals or anything thrown at the church. I’m opposed to bubbles because they are known to stain - and who wants that to happen to her $100, $200, $500, or especially $1,000 dress? Since we can’t throw anything, and we don’t want people to have to wait around forever for us to come out of the church after the receiving line, we’re probably not going to have anything at all - no rice, no flower petals, no bubbles, no bells, no flags. Maybe we’ll get some rice if we can throw something at the reception instead for some faux “we’re leaving for our honeymoon” pictures.
7) Picture frames - not a bad idea, but they’re a bit expensive, especially if you are using them as place card holders since you have to give one to everyone (as opposed to giving one per couple). However, if the favors are like $10/person, multiplied by a hundred guests - that’s an easy extra $1,000 spent on cheesy favors alone! I don’t think so.
8) I’m Italian, so I’ve wanted (almost my whole life) to use Jordan Almonds as a traditional favor. Yes, these are classic, probably over-used wedding favors, but they have a more subtle meaning behind them, as opposed to the cheesily obvious “Mint” to Be.

This list doesn’t leave much left in the “ready-made” favors area.

I had no good ideas - not even the Jordan almonds thing, since I felt that was an inpractical favor. I wanted something else, but couldn’t find anything and was getting frustrated. I eventually figured that at least the Jordan almonds were a starting point for my new searches. But what should we put them in? Now I had to find favor holders that weren’t too expensive or silly. Luckily, I found tulle, ribbon, and tags in a package available at a fairly reasonable price almost immediately. So I started searching Froogle for “Jordan almonds” to get some pricing on wholesale bags of almonds to at least make our own and try to save some money for when Kris and I would eventually figure out what the more practical favor would be.

I got lucky again, because in that search I came across the cutest Jordan almond favors, which come with tags, ribbon, and a poem all their own! I decided immediately that these were one of the favors we would use, and discarded the idea of putting them together on by ourselves (especially because it really would most likely be my mom doing all the work!). Anyway, I’m not going to say exactly what they are (maybe after the wedding I’ll post a picture), since I don’t want to ruin the surprise for our guests. However, they gave me a great idea of a theme for the wedding, which in turn gave me an idea for a second, more practical favor that can also double as reception place card holders. Again, I’m not going to say what they are - I’m going to leave it as a surprise for our guests. But I’m really excited because these items gave me an idea for gifts for our wedding party and our parents too! Kris and I need to discuss the last part a bit more, since I already have something for my girls, and I’m not sure this is something he wants to give his guys, but at least we’ve at least got it partially figured out.