Inpiration v. Reality: Cake

I want to do a series of posts that show my inspiration pictures and compare them to the actual photos from my wedding.

First up:  Cake!

Fairly early on in my planning I happened up this picture of a cake and I fell in love.

My search for a cake design ended right then and there.

I was so blessed when it came to my cake.  A family friend who worked with my youth group when I was in high school makes cakes and offered to make our wedding cake as a gift.  I was so, so happy because she makes DELICIOUS cakes and they are very pretty.

I gave her this picture for inspiration and we decided on lemon pound cake with lemon filling and buttercream icing.

And on our wedding day she delivered the most delicious cake which was exactly like I pictured it.

Here's our cake on our big day:

So what do you think?  Inspiration and reality were pretty darn close, huh?

Invitations

I felt fairly certain from the beginning that I would print our invitations myself.  I felt that this would be one way that I could definitely save some money. 

My dad's office has a great piece of equipment called a Riso HC5500.  I used to work for my dad, and so I was really familiar with the Riso.  It is basically a full color printer that prints up to 120 pages per minute!  And, it is EXTREMELY easy to print on nearly any size paper.  I was lucky enough to get to use the Riso to print my invitations.

So, I knew that I would print them, but I also knew I didn't want to design them.  And I didn't want to use invitation kits.

As I browsed online, I saved photos of invitations that I loved and that inspired me.  Here are some (if any of these photos belong to you and you would like me to credit you or would like me to take it down please let me know).

As I was browsing Etsy (as I did quite frequently for wedding related items) I found the perfect solution for me.  I stumbled upon Ellas Paper's shop and loved her designs.  She had so many beautiful invitations.  She prints her invitations and other pieces, but she also has DIY pricing.

She took the Mosaic invitation and customized the wording for me and designed it in the perfect shade of yellow for me.  She also designed matching RSVP and Reception cards for me.  She and I worked together and messaged back and forth to tweak every little thing for me until I was 100% happy.  I was able to have complete control over every detail of my invitation suite, but not have the stress of designing it myself.

For .pdf files of my invitation, RSVP card, and Reception card I paid only $40.00.  I could not have been happier with my experience with Ellas Paper.

I ordered all my paper and envelopes from Paper Source and armed with my .pdf files took to the Riso and printed everything.  And then all that was left to do was assemble them (which wasn't as bad as I feared).

In the end I was so glad that I decided to print them myself, and I was very happy with the final result!

Thanks again to  Ellas Paper!

Finding the venue, Part II

First, let me say how sorry I am for my recent absence and lack of updates!  I've been a busy, busy girl!  I'll do my very best to keep the posts coming!

When we left off I was a bride without a venue, and planning time was flying by...

Well, after my first major bridal meltdown (and I mean MAJOR) my mom was the one who kept things on track, or rather got things back on track.

As I was more or less throwing my hands in the hair in desperation, my mom convinced me to give her the phone numbers of all the venues that I had looked at online before deciding on the 3 that we had visited.

She told me she would call some places and report back to me.  In my terribly negative mood I was convinced that she would find everyone was booked, or too small for our guest list.

Well, little did I know that everything was about to fall right into place.  As my mom says it was "a God thing."  My mom called me and told me that she thought she had found the perfect reception venue.  I of course, stuck in my negativity, was suspicious.

The first (and as it turns out, only) place that she called was The First Lady of Suffolk.  As she talked to Mickey, one of the owners, she began to feel that this was where Joe and I were supposed to have our reception.

She found out that we could meet with them that night to see the venue, and discuss all the details with them.  She also found out that July 31 was the only Saturday they had open all summer.  It certainly felt like things were pointing toward this being the place for us, but I still wasn't convinced.

That evening my mom, Joe and I went to The First Lady to meet with the two owners, Mickey and Jen.  They were fantastic and we fell in love with the venue.  We also felt so comfortable with Mickey and Jen and came away feeling that they would do everything in their power to make our venue everything we wanted and more.

As it turned out, I was so happy that we ended up at The First Lady.  I had originally wanted a unique, out of the box venue, but had more or less settled for the hotel.  As it turned out, that falling through was one of the best things that could have happened.

I absolutely LOVED working with Mickey and Jen and I LOVED our reception venue.  I loved that the historic mansion allowed the party to spill from inside, out onto the porch, and then out onto the lawn.

So, after my Bridal Meltdown, I had an amazing venue, and was so glad that our first venue didn't work out!

What what was your biggest Bridal Meltdown about?  How did you find your venue?