Thank You Parasol Photos

During the dinner hour, we snuck off to get some photos done with our thank you parasol.  They turned out pretty well, I think.  And they did make an appearance in our thank you cards.  

 Photos courtesy of Howie Hartman of Double H Media.

Miss something?  Catch up here:
We arrive in Pennsylvania

We begin setting up

We stock the bar (and skip a rehearsal)

We have dinner and play games at our "Rehearsal" Dinner

We eat R2D2 and open presents at our "Rehearsal" Dinner

We bask in the glow of our paper lantern triumph

We finish setting up the tent

Wedding Day Details: The Favors

Wedding Day Details: The Set-Up 

Wedding Day Details: The Rings

Wedding Day Details: The Chair Signs

Wedding Day Details: Odds & Ends

The Girls Get Glamorous

Philip Gets Gorgeous 

Closeup: The Ladies 

Closeup: The Guys 

Closeup: The Bridal Portraits

Our First Look 

Pre-Ceremony Photos

More Photos of Us

Our Mini-Rehearsal

Partial Family Portraits

Wedding Party Photos at the Ceremony Site

Even More Photos at the Ceremony Site 

Grandparents, Parents, and Wedding Party Walk Down the Aisle

The Bridal Entrance... 

Ceremony Part I 

Ceremony Part II 

Ceremony Part III 

Ceremony Part IV: The Sand Ceremony 

Ceremony Part V: The Vows 

Ceremony Part VI: The Handfasting 

Ceremony Part VII: The Ring Exchange

Ceremony Part VIII: The Final Reading 

Ceremony Part IX: The End! 

The Recessional 

Pre-Reception Wedding Party Photos 

The Reception Begins

More Reception Photos

Thank You Cards -- HELP!

I still haven't ordered the thank you cards.  I know, I'm terrible.  However, wedding etiquette says I have 2 months to get out thank you cards so my time isn't up yet!  I'm just having some trouble deciding which card I want to go with.  So, please help me!

Well, what's the verdict?  Which one do you think I should order?  Right now, I think I'm leaning towards the third one.  Ugh.  Maybe I'll just order all 4 of them and have a random mix to send out to people.  :)  Help me, please!  

Now what?

Well, that about wraps up our honeymoon recaps.  I was hoping that by the time I finished with those, we'd have our professional photos back so that I could start actual wedding recaps.  No such luck.  

At the wedding, our photographer said it would be four weeks until we had our photos.  Four weeks was on Saturday.  Being the incredibly patient person that I am, I waited until Monday to email him.  ;)  He told me that he's been super swamped (which I've seen on his Facebook page!) and that they probably wouldn't be done until next week.  

Next week!?  What will I do with myself until then?!  Okay, so I'll probably survive.  I don't know how other brides do it when their pro pics take months to be finished!  

Anywho, Howie (the photographer) gave me a few of our thank you parasol shots to use so that I can actually get our thank you cards ordered.  And since you've all patiently waited with me for pro pics, I'll share these with you.  :)  

I had originally planned to do the top photo in the middle of several other pro photos (not thank you parasol photos), but since it's going to be even longer before the pro photos are done, I think I'm just going to do the top photo by itself.  Thoughts?

I bit the bullet...

And finally ordered the envelopes for the invitations (and a few other items).  It hurt me quite a bit to do so because envelopes are expensive!  Well, the envelopes I wanted were expensive.  

See, I wanted ivory inner envelopes (easy peasy) with navy outer envelopes (not so easy).  Since my pocketfolds are 5" x 7", I needed A7 inner envelopes and A8 or A9 outer envelopes.  I searched and searched and searched.

I was going to buy the ivory inner envelopes and the RSVP (A2) envelopes off Amazon.com.  And I found the navy colored envelopes for a fairly reasonable price on www.envelopemall.com. However, when it came to shipping, it was slightly outrageous.  One box of envelopes was going to cost almost $15 to ship!  That's almost what I'm paying for the envelopes!  

Change of plan.  If I order more boxes of envelopes at the same time, the shipping only goes up a buck or two.  So, I ordered the navy outer envelopes, the ivory inner envelopes, the RSVP envelopes, the thank you card envelopes, and the program envelopes all at the same time.  The shipping still only ended up being just over $15.  

Here's what I ordered:

Stardream "Euro Flap" 5-3/4 x 8-3/4" (A9) Envelope 100 Pack - Outer Envelopes

Carnival 5-1/4 x 7-1/4", (A7) Envelope 100 Pack - Inner Envelopes & Thank You Card Envelopes

Carnival 4-3/8 x 5-3/4", (A2) Envelope 100 Pack - RSVP Envelopes

Carnival 4-1/8 x 9-1/2", (No 10 Sq. Flap) Envelope 100 Pack - Program Envelopes

And, with that, I feel slightly nauseous about the amount spent on all things paper for this wedding.  Ugh.  At least I should be done with the invitations by this time next week.  With fingers crossed that is.  Hopefully the envelopes won't take long to arrive!  Then I can get them out of my house and not have to think about how much they cost!  ;)

The thank you cards are off!

I finished up the thank you cards for the bridal shower.  I think it actually took longer for me to get the printer to address the envelopes than it took to write the thank you cards themselves!  I don't know why I always have such a hard time getting printers to print on envelopes.  

I know I could just hand write the addresses... but, I thought I had subjected these good people to enough of my horribly handwriting in the cards!  

Right before mailing... taken with my crappy cell phone camera.

It feels good to have them done.  It wouldn't normally take that long to finish them, but with all of the other wedding stuff I've been working on (only 2 nights left to finish everything on my to do list!), it took longer than expected.  But, they're done now.  And, they'll be going in the mailbox when I leave work today.  :)  

Thanks for the (Shower) Memories!

As I said in my previous post, I had a great turn-out for the bridal shower.  It was SO much fun.  But, now it's back to business.  I have to get the Thank You cards started for all of my shower guests.  

I designed a polka-dot thank you card in Microsoft Publisher.  It's in our wedding colors (navy, ivory, and gold).  We had just talked at the shower about how I (and a few of my other guests) love polka dots, so I thought it was fitting!  :)

I printed two to an 8.5 x 11 sheet of ivory cardstock.  

Then, I cut them in half.

Then I folded the sheets in half to make them into cards.

So cute!  I love them.  Now I just have to write something in them!  Ha!  I guess it will give me some practice for the actual wedding!  Honestly, though, I don't really mind writing thank you notes.  I know that I get REALLY irritated when I don't get thank you notes for wedding gifts or baby showers, etc.  So, I really try to put some effort into thanking the people who have helped/gifted/loved me.  :)