After 18 hours of stuffing and stamping on a busy weekend, the wedding invitations have been mailed out! Being able to put those babies in the mailbox and cross them off my long “To Do List” after two years of engagement was nothing short of euphoric.  When I first started looking at wedding invitations, I fell in love with the pocket-fold style and knew I had to have it. Then I discovered the price tag associated with most purchased pocket-fold invitations and decided this was a perfect DIY job.  With lots of help from one of my bridesmaid ’s (who happens to be a graphic designer) and Cards & Pockets, an amazing website for DIY brides that  I found chock full of invitation materials, I was able to create my pockets of cuteness!

Finished “pocket of cuteness” invitation

Close-up of invitation

My wonderful graphic designing bridesmaid created the snowflake design on the invitation which has the Star of David as the center of each snowflake! Each pocket-fold included the invitation and four inserts: Travel, Map, Directions and a RSVP postcard. While the majority of the creation of the invitation was a labor of bridesmaid love, I took on the task of creating the wedding map.  After searching for designs and discovering websites dedicated to creating such maps, I decided to, of course, DIY! Considering my future hubby is sort of a map aficionado, he helped me draw out an abbreviated version of southeast Florida and then we got to work picking clip-art images to make the map “cartoonish.”  The finished product took us a couple of hours (only because we are both perfectionists).  So, without further ado, our wedding map!

A wedding is all about the little things. It’s these little things that seem so insignificant, but once you get an idea in your head about this “little thing,” it becomes a huge deal.  You start to obsess about it, brood over it, and ultimately drive everyone around you crazy until you figure it out! Now I feel it is important to remind you (and myself) that I am not a bridezilla and refuse to be one.  Having said that, I still believe that a bride and groom should know what they like, what they want, and how they want it; which is why my fiancé and I flew 3,350 miles for a “little thing”… the glass that will be broken at the end of our wedding ceremony!

Photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest Shop

Ok, before you think there is a picture of us in the dictionary next to the word crazy, let me explain. My fiancé was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington – 3,350 miles away from where I was raised in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  After years of being away from home (I think it was 3 years in case you were wondering) we planned a trip to the beautiful northwest to spend time with my future in-laws.  One day, while surfing the internet, I had an idea to use a glass ornament for the breaking of the glass in order to keep with my Winter Wonderland theme.  Plus, I figured if I could find a pretty one, I could always keep the shards of glass and have them made into a mezuzah for our first purchased house.

Well, I stumbled upon a website that had the most gorgeous glass ornaments (see caption above for the site) and I knew I had to have one.  After surfing the site, I learned that each ornament is handcrafted from the ash of the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980 (my birthday is May 18th) and sold in Washington.  I screamed and my fiancé came running into the living room with a frighten look on his face.  Once I explained what I had found (and his heartrate was normal again), I began asking him if he knew where the store was and sure enough, the store is in Tacoma!  We decided to check it out and buy the ornament during our trip.

So on a chilly, rainy day in April, we headed out to the store.  It was so quaint and the owner was a sweetheart.  When she asked me what I plan to do with the ornament I was hesitant to tell her but finally did.  “He’s gonna step on it and break it!.” “Are you kidding me?” she shouted at me.  Once the initial shock of my answer had passed, she began to understand my explanation and thought it was the sweetest gesture.  She said that buying something that is made in his home town from a volcano that erupted on my birthday (several years earlier than my birth) warmed her heart.

And so we bought a pretty ornament in Tacoma, Washington and traveled the 3,350 miles home with it… bubble-wrapped.

When I told my fiancé how much a wedding costs, I had to peel him off the floor. He could not grasp why we needed champagne flutes (he wanted to use the ones the hotel gave us) or a knife and server set (he wanted to get a plastic knife from the supermarket). Once I explained the wedding traditions to him, he still did not understand but knew he had to give in. Then when I told him I wanted to cut costs by DIYing a lot of the necessities, he groaned and said, “Oy, what’s DIY?”

Once I peeled myself off the floor we got down to business making our “to-do list” of DIYs. Our first hurdle–the aisle runner. After doing research on how much it would cost to get a professionally-made monogrammed aisle runner, I decided to make mine for much, much less. With a lot of help from Oriental Trading Company, Michael’s and my wonderful Maid of Honor,  my DIY aisle runner became a reality.

Our Monogram

Here’s a brief tutorial!

You will need the following: aisle runner (not plastic), acrylic paint, black marker, lots of paint brushes, wax paper, and a computer.

1. Design and print your monogram in any program you are comfortable using. I used Microsoft Powerpoint.

2. Take your print to your local copy store and have them blow it up to the dimensions you want. I asked for poster size prints of both my monogram and quote.

3. Use wax paper to cover the surface of your work space so the paint does not destroy your table, floor etc. Then tape your poster-sized prints onto the wax paper.

4. Now, using those skills we all learned (or attempted to learn) in Kindergarten, get to tracing with your marker!

5. Carefully remove the poster template and continuing to use those Kindergarten skills, paint!! Be careful not to smudge the paint or place your hand on anything you have already painted (coming from experience) so you don’t ruin your aisle runner.

6. Once you have finished painting, make sure you place your aisle runner in a safe place and let dry for 24 hours.

And voilà, you have your very own monogrammed aisle runner!

C-A-N-E-S, CANES! My future hubby and I met at the University of Miami; in particular, at a football game at the legendary Orange Bowl (may she rest in peace). It was our freshman year in college and while the sparks between us were not immediately electrifying (not every relationship can begin in slow motion with wind whipped hair), we had two things in common: we had the same group of friends and we were huge Miami football fans.

My future hubby and I in college.

Two years and many unfulfilling relationships later, we began spending more time together thanks to a mutual friend.  After two months of being “just friends,” we finally expressed our interest and feelings for each other on a hammock looking up at the night sky. Ok, collective “Awww.” Yes, we were kind of romantic back in the day, but to be honest we are just a normal couple with two adorable cats (our kids for the time being), Gotham and Shadow.

Then an arbitrary day came in November 2007. We had tickets to a show in Downtown Miami and afterwards, while stuck in traffic, my future hubby asked if we could go to the infamous South Beach to see the Miami skyline. Of course, being a doctoral graduate student in clinical psychology, I wanted nothing more than to go home and get sleep before seeing eight clients the next day. Oh, and did I mention, it was pouring! Not the drizzle of Seattle (where my future hubby grew up) but the monsoons of South Florida! Luckily for me, he would not take no for answer and drove out to the beach.

Giving me a piggyback ride to the shore, he set me down. I turned and stared at the beautiful skyline of Miami when he grabbed my hand. I turned around to see he was on one knee, in the wet sand, in the rain, and asking me to marry him! My response was what any girl would say in this situation; “Is this for real? No seriously, is this for real?”  To which he replied, “You can say no if you want too, but, I didn’t prepare for that.” After realizing this was in fact, for real, I accepted with tears streaming down my face.  And the rest is history.

My amazing engagement ring!

After allowing the initial shock to set in for a couple of days, we began the long, two year process of planning our wedding, which is the ultimate feat! We are attempting to create a DIY Winter Wonderland on a December evening in Miami, Florida! Oy vey. While my fiancé is not Jewish, he is open to including most of the essential components of a Jewish wedding (much to my Jewish mother’s delight!). We are getting hitched under a chuppah that we are constructing ourselves (oy), having a ketabuh signing ceremony, and a mostly Jewish ceremony.  We want our guests who are not Jewish (my fiancé’s family and most of our friends) to learn about and share in the Jewish culture and traditions.  Our wedding date is also the first night of Hanukkah so are planning on including a menorah lighting ceremony during the reception! Maybe we should add some potato latkas and applesauce. Just a thought!