Unique Wedding Memorabilia Friday, Sep 23 2011

I recently returned from an industry conference in Las Vegas where I had honor and privilege to witness something new and different that really impressed me and I think will resonate with you too.

A Wedding Portrait.  Now this isn’t any wedding portrait.  It isn’t captured by your photographer or videographer.  It is captured in the memory of artist and painter (and our new friend) Sam Day.  Sam is a canvas artist and paints the scene of your wedding (or other special event) while the event is in progress. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I think I’ll let the canvas he painted of our event in progress speak for itself. 

Event portrait painted by Sam Day

Sam is a talented and passionate artist in the Pacific Northwest – Seattle to be exact; however he is completely mobile and will travel just about anywhere to paint and create your unique memento.  

Wedding Guest frames are passe’, wedding guest books are rarely if ever opened; but THIS…this is a unique and personalized work of art that will grace your home for decades to come. 

Imagine the comments from family and friends each time they visit your home when they see this unique memento of your wedding day adorning the walls. 

The artist Sam Day and his canvas

Thank you Sam for the passion and personalization you bring to each canvas you paint!  We are thrilled to have met you and call you our friend.

 In LOVE with Sam’s canvas?  Follow him on Facebook.

 

 

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A Word about Invitations Tuesday, Sep 6 2011

The team and I have been preparing quite a few wedding invitations recently (go figure, it’s wedding season), which of course brings up all sorts of questions about the etiquette behind them; so I thought it would be a good idea to address their “do’s and don’ts”.  If you recognize yourself, a family member or friend in any of these “don’t” situations refrain from beating them (or yourself) up over the matter.   Just chalk it up to a learning experience and move forward; it’s not like your nomination for the Noble Prize is in jeopardy.

Do

• Mail Save-the-Date cards 6-9 months in advance
• These should be mailed only to those out of area, out of state family members and friends who need the extra time to make the necesary travel and vacation arrangements.  Save yourself the extra expense of mailing these to your local guests.
• Allow yourself plenty of time to draft and organize your guest list.  A well thought out guest list takes several weeks, if not months to put together.  Be sure to involve family and friends when acquiring family address books, sorority|fraternity lists.  The last thing you want to do is add names to your list after the fact.  Take your time. If you find your guest list is getting out of hand, apply these guidelines to help trim the list.  Think of these categories as a “this is what your wedding is not”  If a guest falls into one of these categories, remove them from the list for now, prioritize them and add them later if you find you have the space for them;
• Family Reunion.  By this what I mean is that you shouldn’t invite your seventh cousin, ten times removed if you (a) haven’t seen them since you shared a playpen with them or (b) have not had ongoing relationship with them in the past 2-3 years.
• Office Party.  Never no never post a wedding invitation on the lunch room bulletin board.  Although you spend a large part of your day with your fellow associates, unless you have an outside relationship with them, they should NOT be invited; nor should they expect to be invited.
• High School Reunion.  Like the family reunion guideline, this is NOT the time to reassemble the old “gang” for the day; that’s what reunions are for.
• Kegger.  There is a difference between celebrating a life milestone event and getting completely toasted.  If your potential guest doesn’t know the difference, keep them off the list.  You’ll be doing them and yourself a favor.
• Obtain proper first names of all guests invited.  If you care enough to invite guests to your wedding, you will take the time to find out the names of each member of their family that you plan to include.
• It is equally important to use the proper social titles (i.e. Doctor, Honorable, Lieutenant) and suffixes (i.e. Sr, Jr, III).   Neglecting to use these honorifics would not only be inconsiderate, but highly offensive.
• Use the proper order when addressing the outer envelope
• Married couples with the same last name should be addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Smith
• Married couples with different last names should be addressed as Mrs. Susan Schmoe-Smith and Mr. Joseph Smith
• Unmarried couples living together would be addressed as:
• Miss Sandra Stephens
• Mr. Samuel Jones
• Remember to make sure you have enough enclosure cards and|or inserts (engagement photos) for each invitation.  Despite what you think, your guests feelings will be hurt if they find out they were denied an engagement photo along with their invitation when everyone else they’ve talked to got one.  On another note, if you are including photos make sure to give them to your wedding planner, calligrapher weeks in advance of stuffing and addressing to avoid any unnecessary mailing delays.
• Send children over the age of 18 living at home a seperate invitaton.  It is important to recognize these individuals as the adults that they are.
• Spell out all street names, cities and states.
• Additionally all house numbers lower than 20 should be spelled out, as should P.O. Box (Post Office Box), Circle, Drive, Street, Apartment etc.
• Take a sample invitation to the Post Office to determine necessary postage prior to mailing. 

Don’t

• Include Gift Registry information inside the wedding invitation.  Not only is this considered poor taste, but it is perceived as a solicitation for a gift rather than the desire for the guest to share in your joy for your wedding day.

Having said this, it IS appropriate to include this information in a shower invitation as the sole purpose of a shower is to give the bride gifts.

• Address invitations using mailing labels.  Despite all the advances in printing technology, a mailing label sends a subliminal message to the guest that you can not be bothered to hand address an invitation and are indifferent to their participation in your wedding day.  Handwritting the invitation has been, and will always be the correct thing to do…so set aside the time to hand address your invitations; and if necessary, have the bridesmaids help you out.  We usually recommend an “Invitation Addressing Party”.  Print your guest list in alpha order (with numerical values) and assign each bridesmaid to addresses invitations for their predetermined number of pages.   Once everyone is done (it should take 1 hour) reward the ladies with some wonderful appetizers and cocktails….margarita’s are always a wonderful choice.
• A word about numerical values:  Assign a number to each household on the guest list and place this number on the lower right hand corner of the response card.  This will help you to determined whom the unnamed guest is when you get the RSVP back without their name indicated.  Believe me, it happens.
• Use the phrase ” and Guest” or “and Family” on the outer envelope.  This can seriously backfire on you as “and Guest” or “and Family” can allow the invited guest free license to invite anyone within or outside their family to attend along with them.  Believe me, we’ve seen guests reply with (11) attendees, all of whom the bride and groom had no connection with at all.
• Forget to apply the proper amount of postage on both the invitation or RSVP.  Nothing is more tacky than a guest having to pay the postal carrier to recieve your invitation.
• Mail your invitations more than 6-8 weeks in advance.  Anything sooner and guests will no longer have a sense of urgency in responding and you run the risk of them forgetting the event all together.  Anything short of 6 weeks and your guests may not have the proper lead time with their employers to make the necessary vacation and travel time off.

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