STDs (not the kind you're thinking...)

Save the date.  To send or not to send?  From my experience,  most people send save the dates now.  If you think about it, weddings 30 years ago were not as big of a deal as they are now.  Graduation parties today are often larger than weddings were not too long ago.

Since my engagement is going to be a little over a year, I intend to send a save the date.  I may not be having a destination wedding, but both my fiance and I will have a vast majority of our family traveling to the wedding location.  To be fair and give them adequate time to plan, I intend to send save the dates.  In my "research", save the dates should be sent 6-8 months before the wedding.  The more traveling involved, the sooner you send your save the dates. 

After figuring out the details and etiquette regarding the save the dates, I now get to look at the fun stuff.. what will be on it?!  Do I want to put an engagement picture on it (once they're actually taken...)?  Do I want some sort of fun typography on it?  Perhaps a mix of both? Maybe I want a picture of us, but nothing like our engagement pictures, something that is more tailored to our personalities or the wedding theme.  

I searched for an ugly example to show you with little avail.  So we'll just move on it fun creative ones, and finally the one that I intend to copy!

Theme?

Typeography

Engagement pictures

Creative

I think this is neat because it centers around both of them.  Not overly feminine, which many tend to be.

Finally, this is what I want!  Andrew and I are both teachers, so it's only fitting to be with a chalk board!  And, I think it will be fairly cheap to print these out on picture paper.  So easy!  Now to find a big chalkboard...

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

So, my current theme idea goes something like this "Midnight in the forrest."  Now hear me out.  When I say this I envision what a Midsummer Night's Dream might look like.  I have only read the play, never seen it.  However, thanks to google, I can search it and look up what some of the sets look like.  Here is what I found:

In the last picture especially, you can see the blues and greens, basically anything that is a "cool" color.  I was already leaning towards these colors for my wedding, but this just solidifies my choice!  My background image is Invitations by Dawn (it takes two).  I fell in love with this design when I began to work on my wedding website to share with guests.  I don't know if I will actually order invitations, but they have certainly inspired me.  

In the first and second photographs, you can see *twinkle lights! I am so incredibly in love with twinkle lights and MUST have have them everywhere for my wedding.  I would really like for it to be the primary lighting for my wedding.  During Christmas time we have this garland we hang up in our kitchen that has white lights weaved throughout.  It is probably one of my favorite Christmas decorations that we put up.  We turn the lights on while playing cards and watching movies in the living room.  The light is so warm and natural feeling and that is what I want my wedding to feel like!  Below are several images of twinkle lights that I have collected that I really like.

You can see that I want something that really does look like an evening under the stars, but I DON'T want it outside (too much work and weather dependent).  Simply love them and lastly they have significance in my relationship.  Before Andrew and I began dating (during our "talking" stage) we would lay out and star gaze all night.  Seriously, some of my fondest memories are those early times.  We learned so much about each other and had that awkward flirtation.  So precious!  

Just the beginning!

So this is us in a nutshell (fairly chronological pictures, all but the last three being from our first year of dating)  We are engaged!  I will soon be Mrs. Lawrence; how incredibly exciting!  This blog will document my journey through wedding planning.  I plan to post all my inspirations and frustrations here.  I love, love, love crafts!  I'm not always successful and often have lofty aspirations (hence the poor outcome at times). Now that you have been virtually introduced to us, I hope you enjoy traveling this journey with me!