12x12 scrapbook guest book

I have a an awesome idea I'm very excited about; a scrapbook guest book!

I can't find anything that's been done like this before online, so I'll have to work out the details, but the idea is simple, instead of a boring guest book where people sign in when they get to our reception party, they will turn in a finished 12x12 scrapbook page that they've created beforehand. That way we have a rockin' book of personalized pages from all the people we want to remember took part in our wedding day. I think the normal guestbooks are just so boring. Who rereads it after the day is over? It'll just sit and collect dust. And it doesn't give much time to write a real thoughtful meaningful message to the bride and groom, it's more just signing your name and writing "congratulations." ugg. I LOVE scrap booking and the endless possibilities that people can do with them. I know both our families have unbelievably creative people in them, and I would be honoured to have a page created by them to have as a gift.

So, to say the least, I am pretty excited about this idea. I was at Michael's craft store today and slowing walking through the scrapbook sections, and was just overwhelmed with the choices. So, there's a lot to pick from to make every page completely different from the next. There are , of course wedding themed scrapbook things all over the place, but at the same time there are lots of Halloween options even though it's just about June, so with enough notice for supplies, it should be pretty fun to pick through and work on this mini-project for our guests.

I was thinking I'd mail a blank 12x12 scrapbooking page to people when I was sending out the invitations. That will get costly because of the size, so I'm not sure if we should go for that, or if people can just pick up their own base page and create from there. I'm hoping it works out like that. Also, some families may more to do more than one page. Maybe the kids do and the parents do one, or maybe both kids would want to do one each. We look forward to seeing any combination people want to do! At least, I'll make up some sort of direction-sheet to give some clue as to what we are looking for, then the creativity is up to them. If anyone wants to leave feedback on how to handle this part of the situation, please leave a comment! I'd appreciate any ideas or help.

wow! I can't wait to see what comes from this! =)

I got my wedding ring!

I'm so excited! We went to Kay Jewelers a couple weeks ago to get my ring's 6 month cleaning (boy did that time fly!) and I asked the woman there to recommend a ring to go along with my engagement ring. Well, after a few attempts of trying things on, I found it! When they're together, they will look almost exactly like the photo to the side here. woo hoo! I'm loving it. I had to send it out to be sized, and we went to pick it up today. It's gorgeous! My engagement ring is typically the wedding band with no diamonds sticking out. This was because I'm a photographer and use my hands a lot, and do most of my work on little kids, so I didn't want anything to be getting in the way. When I started pairing up the wedding-ring-to-be though, it really looked best with an engagement style looking ring. So, I went with that. I'm really happy with the combo. And as a tip, I found out I can just swing the big diamond around to the inside part of my hand and it won't catch on any kids or clothing I'm working with at the time. Seems like a good plan to me. I'm psyched!

Guess I was on a wedding streak today, because while we were at the mall we came across a new store that is a used-bookstore. sweet! All books are $3 or $2! I totally scored at the arts & craft section. I found a Wedding PaperCraft book with awesome ideas for Invitations and Favor type things. I flipped through and found some really cool ones that I can totally handle making myself. I'm really happy that I have such a nice amount of time away because now I can happily create my own personalized wedding invitations. It's going to be such a cool Halloween party, I was looking for invitations online and I didn't seem to find anything perfect yet. So, this will solve that one. Plus, it looks like they'd cost over $250 for some cool ones, now since I have time to plan ahead I can hopefully cut that price down. I grabbed another book; Creative Paper Projects. I saw the coolest thing; Paper Cabbage Rose Vines. Really pretty flowers and vines made of paper. They're super romantic looking. So, it looks a little time consuming, but once again, will cut down on the cost of decorations. Then I can make sure they color coordinate perfectly with whatever we're doing. That is still to be decided later on (I'm not all psychotically fully planned ahead yet), I'm just happy I'm finding some projects I can work on to make the big day a little more special.

Looking for a Celebrity

We are not church-type of people, so we've ruled out the traditional church -> reception wedding. Those are kind of a bore IMHO. We've done some research and found out we can do a justice of the peace type deal, or we can file with the state or something official like that to give someone we choose to be able to give the official seal of marriage to us. THAT is much more our style. So, we can have someone dressed Freddy Kreuger or Elvira or something of that nature be the official at the ceremony. Most likely we will have to get someone who owes a favor or something, to be able to do that for us. That would be wonderful, so let me know if you're interested in any character in particular! Another option, would be if we could find an actual horror celebrity to come in and partake in the ceremony! How awesome would that be?! Talk about fun and memorable, huh? I know it's Halloween, so it might be hard, but that is our new goal. We don't know what kind of budget we're working with, so those numbers need to be crunched, but I really wanted to put that info out there, so if anyone reading this can work some magick and connect us somehow, or if you have any help or suggestions on getting someone to come to our party, please let us know!

Wedding Blog - What a great idea!

I'm super excited about announcing our engagement to everybody! yay! Dan and I became officially engaged in November right after Thanksgiving, but we took our time deciding the perfect wedding day. And, well, the big day is set: Halloween 2010. It's going to be a lot of fun to plan out, and I figured having a spot to let people in on the details would be beneficial to us and our guests. So, here's the spot I'll be doing that. Post suggestions or anything you'd like. I'll work on keeping it updated with things that are happening along the planning route and even though it seems like it's far away, it gets closer each day. I'm totally psyched to have such an awesome project to work on! <3