So here’s to hoping my little sis Holly, (aka one of the “Little Ones”- she has a twin), doesn’t kill me for putting her on blast (in a sombrero at that!) in this post, but in case I haven’t already mentioned, this pretty little face was proposed to by her long time boyfriend while on vacation in Mexico for our wedding!
Yes, yes people before you get your panties twisted in a wad and say “wait, he proposed during your wedding weekend? No, he shouldn’t have done that!” Ummm…sure he could, and he did! Mr. Oceanside and I live in a world of sharing, of celebrating others celebrations and if that made our wedding weekend end on another high note, we welcomed it with open arms! And the boy did good too. =) Took her on a horse ride along the Sea of Cortez with the breathtaking Cabo mountains in the distance and ended the night with a romantic dinner on the beach, bringing one very important question to the table, and of course a little bling!
Super duper excited for her and of course you know what this means? I get to extend my craftiness towards whatever little wedding projects she wants to swing my way! Woohoo!
So last night I got off the phone with my sis after chatting about wedding to-dos, dates, timelines, and yada yada. She is about 90% sure they will be getting married in their new city of Charleston. So since most of their family and friends live outside the state of South Carolina, she’s considering introducing them to their wedding weekend with a Save the Date map. And I LOVE this idea!
These maps work really for any wedding, any where in the world of course, but I especially love the “map” idea for destination weddings or weddings where most of your guests will be traveling to somewhere new.
Check out these DIY wedding invitation maps…(so fun!)
There are lots free resources out there such as the map creating site like Wedding Mapper and Google of course. Other software that could be useful in DIYing your own maps would be Photoshop, Illustrator, and/or PowerPoint. I may actually give it whirl and take a shot at creating one for her. We’ll see!
And just in case you’d rather focus on the other bagillion other details for your wedding instead and want to leave the map making to a professional, I found these two very talented designers: Couture Maps and custom wedding maps by Laura Hooper!
But if that little crafty and DIY go-getter side of you can’t help but be intrigued by the idea of creating your own, here’s a quick map video tutorial that can help get you started…
Did you use maps as invitations or include them in the suite? If you made your own and have tips, I’d love to hear them!
I am SO freakin’ excited on this Monday to finally be sharing our Mix Tape and Boom Box Wedding Invitation suite! Seeing that the wedding is over and done with I’m pretty sure all our guests have seen them by now. ;) So how did this instant love affair begin with my invitation designer, London Tierney, exactly? Through our obsession with mix tapes and love for all things with a vintage/retro-modern twist of course!
A lesson of “it never hurts to ask” played out quite lovely when the talented London uttered the sweetest words ever “YES, I can do that!” to me. =)
See it started when I had the greatest idea ever to design and home print our own save the dates and wedding invitations. While on my beginner Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator high, I was able to knock out the save the date.
The mix tape was a little potion of Mr. Oceanside’s love for music and my love for, well, anything that was different than a standard save the date magnet! But mix tapes and boom boxes also remind me of 80′s music (which I love) and they also bring back memories of me sitting in my room with my BFF, Tahiana, waiting for our favorite songs to come on the radio so we could run and hit “record” to capture the song and create a new mix tape! Ahhh, good times!
So okay fast forward a few months later when it was time to design our wedding invites. Yeah, not feelin’ it anymore but wedding invitations suites are so darn expensive and of course, like many other brides out there, I was trying to save money. Upon pursuing my favorite go-to website for all random pretty things, no not Pinterest but the other one- Etsy, I came across these a-m-a-z-i-n-g little retro-radio tiny tags in London’s Etsy shop. I think I remember squealing really loud when I first laid eyes on them. See, Mr. Oceanside and I were tossing around wedding “theme” ideas and how we could tie in our original mix tape save the date. A million and one people reminded me that I didn’t need to have a “theme” carried out if I didn’t want to but the mix tape save the date alone would have kind of been random. Sooo of course I had to figure out a way to “mix” it in. =)
So after seeing these tags…
And then these fab ones…
I decided to send a message to London to find out if she could customize the tags to match our colors. In that convo I mentioned to her that I was going to attempt to design our own invitations and she mentioned that can design pretty much anything and would be happy to help if I needed it. Ahhh, music to my ears! This is where I began to fall in love. Okay, so after exchanging a few more emails about what I was looking for and discussing pricing and all, it was settled. My initial thoughts of London possibly being an angel sent from God was confirmed. She was. I seriously believe that.
So London and I discussed what elements I wanted in terms of color theme, details like specific verbiage & headers I wanted, the doily/lace background, mix tape and boom box, and of course I wanted headphones put on my fur baby, Mr. Boston Garcia!
A few more weeks later and this super FUN box arrived (and London delivered JUST want I wanted!):
Here is my invitation/fabric flower work shop table a.k.a. my mother’s dining room table! My step-dad was a trooper because I pretty much owned this table for about 6 months before the wedding.
The main invite:
The wedding weekend itinerary:
The RSVP was printed double sided, with one side being the actual “RSVP” with the other side inviting guests to request a song. I have to tell you the song request was a huge hit and I LOVED receiving them over the month or so before the wedding. It definitely added to the “wedding experience!” I was actually quite bummed once the RSVP’s stopped rolling in simply because there were no more songs to YouTube anymore. =(
All wrapped up with love and ready to go out in the mail!
The envelopes were zigzag stitched bakery bags with coral dots sealed with washi tape (which has become my newest obsession lately). I was looking for something unique and this was definitely it for me! I had actually seen fabric invitations with stitched elements before which I LOVED but never a bakery bag! So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out London also had these in her collection of amazingness…
I had to snap a pic of our first RSVP envelope that returned, lol. I cheesed so hard every time I got one of these mini bakery bags back in the mail.
London is seriously talented so I definitely encourage all you bride to be’s out there to check her out if not for her invites, but fun tags, custom buttons, and twine collection!
Ahhh so finally! There’s the recap. I know I’m so behind but trust me, I’ve been dying to share these invites with everyone! So tell me, what do you think???
It’s Friday! It’s Friday! And boy am I sooooo excited. I have NOTHING planned this weekend which is freakin’ awesome!
What about you? Got anything fun planned?
I send you off into this weekend with a little bit of fun! In case you haven’t seen our *tear jerker* wedding video trailer shared with us this week by our videographers and new friends Steph and Robin Killip from Bubblerock Studios, you must go visit them and take a peek at our wedding rehearsal tequila tasting and piñata bash! Of course it’s just a taste and I’ll be giving you a more detailed recap soon of that fab night. =)
It was a blast working with both the Killips and Jacin, who you get to see some in the video and some of her creative skillz too! {Yes, spelled that with a “z”}.
Anywhoooo, so one more thing to leave you with? This darling day after session from Karen Ard Photography shot in a little piece of coastal paradise, aka Malibu. Simply beautiful…
Happy hump day everyone- yes there is LOTS going on today! Well technically the big mac, riverboat, and royal wedding are all wrapped up into one sweet wedding I’m about to share but the NAME CHANGE sits all alone.
Yes. It is done. I officially and legally changed my last name {GULP}. Dropped my now-maiden name completely because it would have just been a complete tongue twister. And I’m not gonna lie, it is just plain weird. Don’t get me wrong, I am very, very excited to be a part of an awesome new family line and to take the last name of my husband {GULP, that reference is still new to me too, lol}. I guess when you’ve been signing a name on just about everything since you went to Pre-K, then yeah, picking up a new one is a little different. Even Mr. Oceanside got wide-eyed when he first saw it on my social security card! Haha, I think he thought “uh-oh what the hell did I get myself into?!?” But of course to make the new name really, really official, because you know it just doesn’t stop with the drivers license and social security card, I updated my Facebook account with the new name! {BAM!} It’s done. I am a STEAPLE!
Now onto tackling over the next year or two all the other gazillion accounts, profiles, email addresses, work documents, etc that need to be updated…{sigh}
Okay so what does a Big Mac, riverboat, and the Royal Wedding have in common? Well this sweet, intimate Maryland wedding of course! Captured by FlickFoto Photography along the Susquehanna River, this adorable and newsworthy couple took their vows in front of 50 guests.
What’s all this newsworthiness stuff about? Wellll…today’s couple, Lisa and William shared the same wedding date, April 29, 2011, as Prince William and his bride, Kate Middleton! ABC picked up Lisa and her own Prince Charming, William’s wedding story and published it a few days before the Royal Wedding. Cool right?!
Oh you want to know a little more about the Oceanside couple? Here’s more from the beautiful bride, Lisa:Bill and I met while we were both working at McDonald’s. I was 16. He told me when he met me that he was going to marry me one day. We remained friends, but didn’t date until I was 27. My job relocated me to another state. Bill quit his job and moved away from everything and every one to be with me. I knew then that one day I would marry him!
Because our wedding location was so different we didn’t want to go theme-y (light houses, boats etc) The only thing I wanted was Bling! We were able to find swarovski crystal bouquets for myself and the girls and we were able to have the same crystals in the mens flowers. Everything else was pretty low key. However, I had my garter custom made. It had a Big Mac charm sewn on it, to remind Bill of how we met! =)
We moved back to Harford County the year we were engaged. Havre de Grace is a town that Bill and I both love. We started researching wedding venues where a ceremony and reception could be held in one location. When we happened upon the Lantern Queen Riverboats web page we knew it was where we were going to be married!
What challenges (if any) did you face while planning your wedding?I was working full time (45-50 hours a week) and Bill was working full time, so I felt alone in a lot of my wedding planning. Finances were a factor as well. We faced some hurdles along the way. Bill’s suit was perfect, but my Dad and my Bridesman’s suits were far from acceptable. (Mens Warehouse) I’m not the kind of person to complain, but 9 days before my wedding I was freaking out that my guys were not going to be dressed for the wedding!! Time and money were tight during those months!
What was the best thing about having a destination wedding? Share your best wedding weekend moment!My favorite moment during the wedding has to be when we said “I do”. We had some special touches during the ceremony that we loved also. After the Captain of the Riverboat asked if there was any reason the two of us shouldn’t be married (and of course no one had a reason!) He called our Mom’s up to the front. Bill and I wanted our last “single” kiss to be from the women who gave us our first kiss. Emotions were high after that! When we walked down the aisle as a married couple and formed the receiving line, both my mom and mother-in-law circled and hugged me. That moment was so special to me.
What is your best advice for other couples considering a destination wedding?My advice to couples planning their wedding: remember that your wedding day is for you. Not your sister, or Mom, or guests. If you like it and it means something to you, do it. Also, there is no rush. My engagement was almost 2 years. I took it slow, and the pay off was the wedding of my dreams!
I love that they shared their last “single” kiss with their moms *squish*! What a moment that must have been and so special for their mothers to be a part of. Such a beautiful intimate wedding and so glad I could share it!
Bride/Groom: Lisa & William Wedding Date: April 29, 2011 Location (City, State, Country): Havre de Greace, Maryland, USA Approximate Guest Size: 50 Ceremony & Reception Venue: Susquehanna River on the Lantern Queen Riverboat
Newborn Posing Workshops | Jillian Kirby | Baby BLOG
I know this makes at least one of you want one! so I've decided that's what Im gonna do to get in your head ...post a precious baby picture once a day :) enjoy!
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