wedding etsy

Items purchased off Etsy.com for use in our wedding.

August 24 TMW Post

Tweet: i’m having a major crisis of uniqueness.. my name goes from being 100% unique to utterly common in 50 days. 100s have my married name..

So, @celestialaxis and I were discussing this the other day. My name is currently 100% unique. I’ve checked. If you google my name, every result will be me. When I googled my married name, I found 38,100 results of hundreds of different people. Do you know how horrible that is? Yes, I am taking my fiancé’s last name. No, I do not want to hyphenate. Basically, I’m having a crisis of my identity. But no, not an identity crisis. I know who I am.. but, well, you know what I mean. I will become Mrs. Rebecca Maiden-name Married-name in a mere 47 days.

A big part of this crisis stemmed from my latest business plan. I am crafty (hello DIY bride!) and wanted to revamp my etsy storefront. Along with that revamping, I was creating new business cards for myself. Up until now, I never gave my personal brand a second thought. Since the moment I was born, I was MsRIB. My name has special meanings to me, not because I am the last of the line (I have 2 brothers) but because my father named me after himself. He signs his artwork MrRIB. MrsRBF doesn’t have the same ring to it. By the way, I’m not changing my twitter name.

Did you/ are you changing your name after marriage?

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June 15 TMW Post

Tweet: Plain water bottles would be appreciated as much as customized, right? #wedding #favors http://twitpic.com/1vkz23

For those that have been keeping track, I’ve been wanting to do personalized water bottles as favors for our Vegas guests. Personalized as in some design I would create. But even with the 20% off coupons I’ve got for DiscountMugs, with art work it’s figuring to be about $8 each bottle once all is said and done. During an errands run to Big Lots, I spotted orange and blue aluminum water bottles (amongst other colors) for $4 a pop! Sure, they’re not personalized, but do people really care? I may just snatch them up, make cute “thanks for coming” tags and call it a day.

I’m contemplating getting the $0.90 tote bags from CheapTotes and stuffing them with goodies including the bottles. My main issue now is how the heck do I transport it all? Mailing it to myself at the hotel? Mailing it to a friend in Vegas and hoping we get together in time to set up the bags? Send the bottles in advance to my guests? Well, the last option isn’t viable since I want them to have the bottles IN Vegas and they might forget them.

Tweet: I sorta wish I hadn’t bought our wedding rings last April… While I still love it, it’s too small on me & his is too big

Tweet: ok folks, do i send my fabu wedding ring back & spend $120 to have it sized &/or spend $25 on a simple band? he says $25, i say $120

Tweet: the matchy matchy rings: http://twitpic.com/6j3ro

Tweet: So I’m ok w/ easily dropping $200 on the #iphone4, but hesitated on an add’l $120 on my wedding ring. Talk about screwy priorities! …. Ring’s going back this week for resize/ remake. It’s going to last about 5000 times longer than the phone 🙂

Tweet: oh boy.. the remake/resize is $170. so long #iphone4 perhaps it’ll be a 3gs w/updated software instead. #ihatemoney

I know, lots of tweets, but for a very good reason. My ill-fitting ring is front and center on my mind right now. Steve’s fits well enough that it won’t fall off. Mine fits so well that it is painful to put on and take off. As in, it barely fits! Since buying my ring last April (yes, in 2009!) my finger has expanded. The ring is a US7.5 and a 7mm thick titanium band. I think I’d be happier with an 8 or 8.5. However, titanium isn’t resizable. The jeweler that made it (JewelryByJohan on Etsy) said I could send it back and he’d remake it for 60% of the price. I paid $200 for it last year, and it’s gone up considerably to $316, so 60% is $90. Holy freaking hell. I saved a boatload on airfare, hotel and clothes, but don’t want to spend it all on my wedding ring!

I did email him as I was tooling around his site and saw the exact same ring paired with a plain men’s band for $254. And on his non-etsy website, the ring is listed for $197. Hopefully I don’t sound nit-picky, but that is a crazy price increase, and an inconsistent one too.

I was looking on Etsy and Ebay for “replacement” titanium rings and can get a 3mm-4mm plain plain plain band for about $25. Bear in mind that my wedding ring was going to completely replace my e-ring. So the plain band would live all alone on my finger. Steve thinks I should get a stand-in because $190 is a lot and my original ring might end up fitting again.

What would you do?

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Not so Quickie Update

In the last few weeks, we’ve had the following wedding progress:

* booked our airfare — yes, this ranks as the absolute highest since it was such a chore! But alas, we have non stop flights to/from Vegas from the 8th to the 13th for $390.99 including the flights, taxes, fees, airline club fees, AND insurance. I may be taking a risk by booking on Spirit Air, but there’s a few reasons why I am OK with it. Namely being in touch with their head of customer service via twitter and email the last few weeks, and also Cat’s sister is working for them. Both make me feel good about the decision. Also you can’t beat that price for 2 people ON a holiday weekend with a stick! Now the problem is finding a hotel room for the 8th since our reservation in the suite is for the 9th-13th. Also, this puts us $200 under our travel budget!

* guest list — I finally typed the names from all the labels and the slips of paper mom gave me into Excel. I was somewhat shocked to find out that it added up to 189 warm bodies including children. The reception will be open to all families, totally casual and just plain fun. Honestly, as much as my head is saying no, I think it’d be completely fun to have a bounce house! The whole shindig is in my parents back yard and guests will have roughly 4-5 acres to roam and play on during the party.

* designed and had printed 2 more stamps for wedding/ post-wedding use — the first is a super fabu address stamp that went through tons of changes before being agreed upon. The other is a stamp for the back of the RSVP envelopes. The envelope stamp says “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Love Robert Frost! These 2 and the original one I had printed were done by the crazy talented BlossomStamps.

* purchased clear labels and downloaded loads of new fonts — yes, I am both lazy and cheap and will be using labels for our invites. The font I finally decided upon is called “MA Sexy” which amuses me, but whatever. It is both easily read and super flourishy. LOVE!

* cupcake tower — during a shopping trip to Home Depot to get the pieces for the tower, dad pointed out that we can do as many projects for the Miami reception, but not Vegas. His idea is to use short pieces of PVC pipe since I was going to wrap whatever I bought with blue painter’s tape anyhow and he has tons of piping. I’m also going to use 2 of the leftover door knobs from our new cabinets since there are a bunch left over.

* cupcake wrappers — I bought 3 shades each of orange and blue 12×12 card stock from Michael’s. After cutting them all out, I’m planning on stamping and embossing the following logo onto each. Steve said he prefers mini cupcakes, so we’ll be getting 4 dozen of those from Retro Bakery. I asked and was told we get 2 flavors per dozen, which is great and all, but their flavors are aMAZing and picking 8 will be torture!

* crinoline — I haven’t ordered one yet as I’m sort of hoping to find one locally. The only problem is I can’t find a store locally that sells square dance outfits. I might just suck it up and order the one from Petticoat Junction. I want a pale blue one, but think getting white and dying it on my own might be a better option than hoping they sell the right color.

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In totally non-wedding related news:
* ECU finally recognized me as a graduate with 2 degrees (the MBA and the MIS certificate)
* I am officially a Florida drivers license holder, now to get Luna transferred as well
* I am the somewhat proud owner of an iPhone. Somewhat because the signal is horrendous, but that may be due to it being an old phone.

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June 1 TMW Post

Tweet: @msrib – Ok folks, which font for the monogram in the middle? http://twitpic.com/1s99o4

Tweet: @msribyay… we finally have a Steve & Becca-approved return address stamp. <3 next up, the RSVP quote stamp editing

Tweet: @msribis it silly to stamp “thank you” on the back on the RSVP envelope? or maybe some other saying… #wedding

Tweet: @msribi believe we found our RSVP envelope quote! last 3 lines: http://bit.ly/VqyGd

I’m not totally sure where I got the stamping of the envelope idea, but whatever. At the suggestion of a fellow tweep, I started looking at quotes we like.  After much searching, and even quizzing Steve on some of his favorite songs and quotes, we found the perfect one.  I am really excited about it too. And even if the embossing doesn’t work, I’m fine with buying a few different ink pads and just going that route.

All our stamps are designed by the fabulous BlossomStamps on Etsy. So far she’s done one for us, and I just submitted the order for the quote stamp and our return address stamp.  The return address stamp went though about a dozen edits, some pretty major ones, before Steve liked one of them.  In the end, it will be a fairly simple stamp with only 1 row of dots in the middle.  He though 2-3 looked too cluttered.

The majority of my “planning” is the small stuff. Vegas is almost totally taken care of and now it’s just the DIY projects like embossed cupcake wrappers, cupcake tower, and picking out the flavors for the 4 dozen mini cupcakes from Retro Bakery. While I’ve started researching stuff for our January reception, I haven’t truly begun planning it yet.

According to my iPhone app, 131 days left until 10-10-10!

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April 6 TMW Post

Disclaimer: For all y’all not following my wedding planning antics over on TweetMyWedding Tuesdays, I’ll try to remember to post them all here.  Unfortunately I’ve been seriously lagging at that and so there’s going to be in flux… apologies!
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Tweet: quite a lot to do today. i have 5 days to wrap up everything & file/ organize the last 1.5 years worth of stuff for my successor.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of wedding planning going on this week due to the fact that we are moving to Miami next week and are crazy busy packing, packing, packing. Also, I have 2 major papers due this Friday; one in each of my 2 classes. Also, this coming Friday is my last day at the job I have loved like crazy for the last 19 months. They’ve been interviewing for my replacement over the phone and today one came in. She was nice, and got the thumbs up from me. Three more are interviewing this week.

Tweet: custom designer in miami, styles: http://bit.ly/9L5euH http://bit.ly/b5nEPK http://bit.ly/dws7Sd http://bit.ly/cTy8ur http://bit.ly/90AhLN

Tweet: i really want this dress: http://bit.ly/9L4GCY #wedding

One thing I did play around with was my dress. Since my original dress is gone and in the hands of her new mama, I started looking for a replacement dress. During a random Etsy search, I found a fantastic custom dress designer. Not only that, but she is in Miami! After many emails back and forth, it seems that she will custom make anything I am willing to pay for AND she’s planning her own wedding! The tweet with the 5 links are all hers that I initially loved. I’d been leaning towards a custom made, or custom fitting dress (like the second tweet) for a while now. And if I can make a new friend out of it, all the better.

187 days left! It’s nice to have something considerably far away since everything else is bunched up in the next few weeks.

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veil combs

I want to wear my veil, but not my hair, like this:

Tonight I started looking for combs to attach my lovely knitted veil to so I can shove it into my hair.However, I also have a total bling comb that I bought ages ago. I cannot and will not attach the veil to the bling comb since there are rhinestones and crystals all over the place that can snag it. And after knitting it for months, I don’t want it ruined! 🙂

So here’s my choices for the combs:
1. http://bit.ly/a67bJi 
2. http://bit.ly/96cutE 
3. http://bit.ly/9UaGBP 
4. http://bit.ly/cWdddN 
5. http://bit.ly/9tZobq

Read the sizes in their descriptions and let me know whatcha think, please. 🙂

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Ring Dishes & Ketubah!

i’m totally getting these for Steve’s and my mama’s for the wedding! http://bit.ly/8D37Ry

I was perusing etsy tonight and flipping through my favorites. And saw these little ring dishes. How adorable are they?! Oh, I’m totally getting one for myself as well. I’m thinking of this dish: http://bit.ly/4zQjB9 either keeping the claddagh or replacing it with a 4-leaf clover or something Celtic. I have no idea why, but I’m totally drawn to Irish/ Celtic things. Maybe my grandmother was Irish. I like to think she was. I mean really, we’re all freckled with blue eyes. A girl can pretend, right? 😉

Have you purchased ring dishes? What did you use it for or did you just hang it on the wall? I’m picturing ours hanging near (probably underneath) our beautiful ketubah.

And on that note…

packed up the ketubah paper & the deposit and will be sending it to @swoonoverit on Monday! it’s really happening!!! #wedding

It’s going out on Monday! I cracked open the paper package tonight for the first time. It’s beautiful and thick white paper. The hardest part was finding something to ship the paper to Amanda totally flat. I ended up finally finding a scrapbooking paper keeper and putting thick cardboard on either side of the 15 sheets in the keeper. So exciting!!

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Dress LOVE

Oh wow oh wow ohwowohwow… I am in LOVE with these dresses!

Wait, back up and rewind. I was scrolling through my RSS reader and catching up on the eleventy-twelve feeds I read, including about 50 wedding blogs. Yes, I have an addiction! I was scrolling through the 200+ entries on WeddingBee and clicking on the interesting titled ones, I saw “Closing the Book on the Dress Search” and *click*…

Instant love.

I knew I wanted a knee-length or tea-length dress and have been drawn more and more to the fuller skirts. Oh yes, OffBeatBride makes me drool with the multi colored petticoats and mmm, love it.

Seriously, how super cute and flirty are these dresses?! And best yet, they’re totally customizable for the fabrics!  Oh yes, I could see myself wearing these dresses over and over again.

More pretty pictures! And more along the lines of what I’d like mine to look like. <3 What do you think?

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