Felt & Button Flower Bouquets - FTW!

O.M.G. Okay, so when I started to run across felt flower bouquets and button bouquets on Offbeat Bride, I went goo-goo-ga-ga over them. But feeling a bit intimidated, I felt the need to order a "kit" with all of the supplies together and step-by-step instructions. The kit I ordered was through Princess Lasertron and indeed, it was awesome. And yes, initially, I was quite intimidated by all the bits and pieces in the box. But now? I am obsessed! I want to make an endless supply of these flowers. They are so much fun and many of them have turned out so pretty!
So, these are some of the flowers I've made for my bouquet so far. And I am thrilled! So how have I gone from being totally in love but intimidated to obsessively wanting to make flower after flower? I've had to take things little by little. As Nick has said to me before, "Melaina, you can't eat the whole elephant in one bite." And in this case, that was very sage advice. So first off, I told Princess Lasertron the colors for our wedding: red, orange, turquoise, purple and pink. So she sent me a kit made of felt flower shapes, buttons and embroidery floss in these colors. While I waited for the kit to arrive, I'll admit, I did a little more shopping. I found more felt flower shapes on EBay and bought some extra supplies. I ended up throwing in a few yellows just to mix things up a bit, too.

Even after the kit arrived, however, I was still intimidated. I let the kit sit by my desk for several weeks (though admittedly, I was also on a deadline for finishing my latest comic, so I did have to keep my priorities straight for that time). But once the comic was done, my dear friend Mari and I decided to have a drawing date. Seeing as I was finished my latest comic and still conceptualizing my next one, I decided to use my time to start making my flowers.

In the approximately 5 hours we spent together, I don't think I finished a single one. BUT... I had so much fun! What I ended up doing was starting to put together the pieces for each flower. So I chose what colors of flowers to put with which color leaf and found a button that looked nice with each flower. I also dug through my own personal collection of random buttons that I've had for years and years and pulled out several of my own buttons to incorporate into the flowers. I'm giddy just thinking about how much fun that process was.

I will admit I got a little OCD about it. I actually made a chart that showed every possible two-tone and three-tone color combination amongst those 5 (well 6, including the yellow) colors. I think I came up with 34 options. As I'm only making 17 flowers, I could only choose about half of those options, but I wanted to try to avoid repeating color combinations. I feel very strongly about diversity! ;-) Next I put each individual flower combination into a snack-sized plastic baggie. And THEN I started to make the individual flowers.

I hadn't considered the colors of the embroidering thread when I was initially putting the flowers together, so that was another decision I had to make. But I tried not to feel too overwhelmed by that one and just went with my gut as to what looked best.

I only have 6 more flowers to make for my bouquet. But as I've been having so much fun with this, I've already gone onto EBay to buy some more random supplies so I can put together my own kits to make the bridesmaids' bouquets and groomsmen's boutonnieres. Seeing as I've decided to go all the way with this, you *must* believe me when I tell you how much fun I'm having!

Cake Topper

A lot has happened that I've skipped posting about. I've been wanting to keep some pieces of information to myself, as I'm afraid if I spill all the beans on here, there will be no fun surprises at the wedding for those who attend. But today's progress with wedding planning was too fun to keep to myself.

Nick (my handsome fiance) spends a lot of time at this place called Noisebridge in San Francisco. It's known to be a bit of a "hacker hangout." He finally took me there about a week ago to show me this place that he's so crazy about.

On what I thought was an unrelated note... I have been searching the internet trying to find a cake topper that inspired me. I found some cute wood cut-out style toppers on Etsy that someone would make for us and base the images on a photo we provided them with. I thought that was cool, but how odd to have a cartoon character version of ourselves drawn by someone else. I then emailed and asked the gal if she would make a cut-out based on an image that I drew and she said she would, but that she'd charge me more. Then all of a sudden, I remembered hanging out with my friend Lisa when she showed me a wood cut-out project that she was working on. AND I remembered seeing a woodshop at Noisebridge when Nick had given me a tour there.

So today, Lisa and I made plans to hang out at the Noisebridge woodshop together today. I somewhat spontaneously came up with an illustration after we arrived and painstakingly sketched it out directly onto a piece of woodscrap that was there. I would recommend sketching it on paper first for future reference, as brushing eraser crumbs off of wood left me with a couple of splinters. But in the end, with *much* needed coaching from Lisa, I was able to cut out a final draft of the illustration.

I'm planning to paint it and probably sand it down a little better. But I'm pretty psyched by my first draft, especially considering this was my first time using a band saw. And I left Noisebridge with all of my fingers intact! Yay!

Location Hunt becomes Frenzied

So we made a budget for having our wedding at Letchworth State Park (which was my dream inspired by photos I'd seen on the internet). But the budget may not be affordable. We are still planning to go there for my birthday (July 6) and have our engagement photos taken there. But we're now brainstorming ideas for other places to get married.

The traditional places have not been exciting me, though I think we'll at least look at the Avanti Mansion just to give it a shot. Nick wasn't too excited by these places either, as most of them require us to use their catering service and Nick wants to be in charge of the food.

So then I got on this Frank Lloyd Wright kick. I emailed two Frank Lloyd Wright destinations in Buffalo, but neither of those places allow weddings. Falling Waters, which is my favorite Frank Lloyd Wright creation, allows weddings, but that's 4 hours away in Pennsylvania, so I think that's probably out.

I've also been thinking about outdoor city park spaces that might be nice, though Nick hasn't gotten too excited by this idea.

A comic book store would be almost perfect, but they are all *way* too small.

So the latest has been exploring possible art gallery or museum spaces. At least one advertises that they're available for rental, but I'm not sure how many people could fit in that venue. So we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

In any case, I'm trying to get the list of places to see complete before we leave, as I'm not sure when we'll be back to Buffalo again to figure this out. So cross your fingers for us!

New Wedding Website & Other Updates

A lot has happened since I last posted on this blog. Where do I begin? Maybe I'll go section by section.

Theme:
So we have pretty much agreed upon a theme - Comics, since that's what brought us together. I'd like to subtitle that "He colored my world," but Nick thinks that's too one-sided. But even without the title, we are definitely planning on having a colorful wedding. Beyond that, I may keep things a secret, so at least something is a bit of a surprise that day!

Date:
We are still hoping on 8/20/2011. But we have not confirmed that date with the location yet, so write that in pencil on your calendar for now!

Place:
We are 99% certain it'll be at Letchworth State Park in New York, but we won't confirm that until we've actually laid eyes on it in person. We are traveling to New York in July for Nick's cousin's wedding, so we plan to see Letchworth and complete the confirmation paperwork on my birthday (July 6), so stay tuned!

Budget:
Don't ask. Although several items have turned out to be less than anticipated, even more items seem to cost more than we'd planned, so the figure just keeps going up. Fortunately, we started pretty low to begin with, but still...

Photographer:
We are going to do an engagement session with the photographer we chose when we are in New York in July. So I'll keep her information private until then. I guess engagement sessions are kind of like a paid job interview (we pay her, of course). Hopefully we'll all work well together!

Flowers:
So this one has been fun researching, but I still don't have any answers. I have looked at tons and tons of bouquets. So far, my favorite is the bouquet that my friend from college, Leah Feeney, had at her wedding. The challenge is that most of the flowers I like are not in bloom in August. So I got another great idea from Offbeat Bride: flowers made from ribbons. I love how vibrant the colors look and that the flowers are not limited by the season. So I'm kind of leaning towards doing this. It looks like a lot of work, but I figure I've got over a year to pull it off, right? If you live near San Francisco, I may be calling on you to help me with this project. And let me know if you have any experience in this department, because I, mostly definitely, do not. Cross your fingers I can make it happen!

Attendants:
Nick and I are still figuring out who all will be in the wedding. There are so many people I'd like to ask, but we want there to be a balance between the number of groomsmen and bridesmaids. So for now, I've asked my sister to be Matron of Honor, my dear friends Mari and Johanna to be bridesmaids and my niece Jessica to be a junior bridesmaid. Jessica was all cool and casual about accepting my invitation, but I bet she's more excited than she's letting on! My sister was in town this weekend, so we went dress shopping for both my bridal gown and the bridesmaid gowns. Mari was able to join us on this excursion. I thought this dress was a lot of fun. But from the look Mari gave me, I thought she might kill me if I picked that one. I couldn't ask Nick to come with us, because I didn't want him to see me in my dress if I found one that I liked. And his response when I emailed him that photo was similar to Mari's facial expression, "R U kidding?" So I guess that rules out that one. In the end, we left with just a little bit more of an idea what Nick and I are looking for.

As for groomsmen, I hadn't really thought beyond your basic suit or tuxedo, but again, Offbeat Brides helped me to think outside the box. Unfortunately, Nick didn't get too excited about any of those ideas. So we'll have to see how that turns out.

Guests:
Nick has an enormous family. So another project I got kind of obsessed with was figuring out his family tree, especially on his Mom's side. His Mom has 9 sisters and there are 24 cousins on that side alone. So I created a family tree of photos to help me keep track of which cousins belonged to which aunts. I had a lot of fun putting that together and it's already been helping me. I am just hoping I can memorize faces and names and connections before our wedding. A year sounds like a pretty decent amount of time to get that all figured out. I posted this photo on Facebook and have amused Nick's family with it, as well.

That sounds like more than enough to have accomplished since my last post, huh? I am still leaving a lot of details out that I've been working on, but I have to keep some stuff as a surprise. But lastly, I'll mention, we have a new website. This site is where I'll post all of the finalized information so you won't need to weed through this blog to figure out... Now *where* is the wedding going to be? And now *what date* is it going to be? Those details will all be kept well organized over on our theknot.com website. The URL is http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/NicholasIannone&MelainaEller.

Searching for a wedding photographer...

I am taking this aspect of wedding planning VERY seriously. We have friends who are photographers (even professional photographers), but I really want to have someone present specifically for that purpose.

If you know us and are reading this, then you already know that we are a family of artists. I am a cartoonist and Nick (my fiance) is an electronic artist of sorts. He made my iPhone app and my comics website and colors my comics. So we've been looking for a talented photographer whose sense of style and artistic eye we like. Although I'm focusing my search in the Upstate New York area, as that is where our wedding will be, I'm keeping my eyes open for super-talented artists in other areas. I'd be willing to pay travel to get someone there whose work we truly admire.

These are the criteria I've been using while looking for a photographer:

-sense of style and artistic eye I appreciate. And is able to capture in my wedding photos - the romance I've seen in photos I've been collecting of weddings (see link below to Flickr album)

-who can captivate both the wedding AND the beauty of Letchworth State Park. This may be illustrated through photos they've taken in that specific park or of a nature portfolio.

-who would be willing to give us the raw images (my fiance Nick, being an electronic artist, can do color-correcting and editing of the photos)

-who is confident enough to direct our gregarious family into some posed shots (including directing my very fun-loving fiance into some more serious poses)

-passes the Nick screening (I'm not sure exactly what his criteria is actually)

If we like the person but end up needing to pay travel expenses, I'm hoping we'll be able to negotiate for a price that we can afford for the work, especially by minimizing the work needed (directing and taking the photos). We can even provide a hard drive to make things as simple as possible.

I've spent DAYS and DAYS on this search already.

One great resource I've come across is an Association of Photojournalists. I've found a number of very talented photographers there and would recommend that site to others.

Another thing I've been doing, is keeping an album on Flickr where I save wedding images I come across on the web that I like as examples of what I want from the photographer. Of course, much of wedding photography is protected on the internet and thus I haven't added those images to my public collection.

Some other ways I'm considering incorporating photography into our wedding... I'd like to create a sign-in / guest book for the wedding with photos in it of me and Nick. I think I'd be more likely to look back and read the sweet messages from friends and family if they were mixed in with photos. I'd also love to have a photobooth - both for entertainment at the wedding and as another means of getting photos of our guests.

So... We'll see how much of this vision I can bring to life! Cross your fingers for me.

Getting Organized

So I finally took everyone's advice and put a binder together. I'd picked up several bridal magazines in the airport on my way to visit my sister and had pulled out pages with bridal gowns and wedding rings that I liked. My sister had also given me some great bridal magazines she picked up for me with advice about favors and budgeting and invitations and such. The end result was a pile of paper that was in chaos. So I now have a binder with sections for:

-budget
-vows
-wedding rings
-photographers
-flowers
-location
-music
-dresses
-honeymoon
-invitations
-guest list
-food
-entertainment
-decor

And I feel so relieved to have everything in a place where I can easily refer to it.

We are tentatively setting a date for August 20, 2011. And we are seriously considering having the wedding at Letchworth State Park. We will be attending Nick's cousin Shannon's wedding in Buffalo, NY in July of this year, so we are hoping to allow time to visit Letchworth while we're in town. I am *in love* with Letchworth from all of the online photos I've been looking through, but I want to be sure that the photos aren't misleading. Plus, we'll also need to make sure there is a picnic area that is in a pretty location, so we'll have shelter in case it rains.

In the meantime, I've kind of been obsessing over flowers. I have been looking through friends' wedding photos that are posted on FaceBook as a starting place to figure out what I like. And I've become quite smitten with my college classmate, Leah's wedding bouquet. I hope she doesn't mind my posting some of her wedding photos here! She got her flowers from her family's garden, though, so she's not even sure what all was in there. So I've been listing some of my favorite flowers out that may correspond to the color combination. Here is the list I've come up with of my favorite flowers:

-tulips
-grape hyacinth
-wisteria
-red bud tree blossoms
-poppies

Now, the first two on the list, I can get from just about any florist. But the last 3 are much trickier. I can buy an entire Wisteria or Red Bud TREE, but no one seems to sell cuttings from these trees. Hmmm... And poppies? Well, I can buy poppy SEEDS off the internet for growing my own poppies, but once again... no cut poppies.

So I'm still brainstorming. Got any ideas?

Overwhelm is subsiding somewhat....

I think I need to make a binder for all of the information I've been collecting. I'm *finally* getting excited about the wedding. Nick and I have been spending some time each weekend going through the whole list of elements of the wedding to brainstorm what we want. I'm pretty attached to having an outdoor wedding. I found a website where you can see the history of the weather in a specific place for that day for many years back to see what the likelihood is of having good weather that day.

Weather Underground

I'll have to keep that in mind when we *finally* decide on a location. We're still waffling between New York and San Francisco.

We... Well, I should say *I*... have started to panic about where we'll come up with the money for this wedding of our dreams. So for starters, Nick and I opened up a joint savings account, so we can both start contributing to it. I also found a website with some tips on ways to save money. And I liked a few of their ideas:

75 Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding

I've also been searching through my Facebook friends who have wedding photos posted, looking for inspiration. I have already found bridesmaids gowns I like on there and flowers.

And on a google search for "Unconventional Weddings," I found an idea I liked for part of the ceremony. This woman gave individual flowers to individual guests at the wedding and she collected them as she walked down the aisle, ending up with her bouquet. I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment and may have to borrow that idea from her.