wedding planner -the beginning

as some of you might have ascertained, i'm getting married.

when i started scheming this whole fete up, i envisioned, napa in november. beautiful rich espresso colors, deep grapes, creamy linen, with a bit of olivey-citron thrown in for the joozsh.

sun setting over a vineyard with a long farm table covered in greefe's "lichtfield resist" fabric.

urns with tumbling loose (way looser than this, uptight bunch) arrangements. good friends, family. the whole dealio.

at my request, sfgirlbybay sent me names of great letter press designers, stylecourt sent me some fabulous pictures. she even gave me terminology for what i was trying to achieve, 'sophisticated farmhouse'. and my fabulous friend, landscape designer and blogger, robyn (aka gardenrooms) offered to help with the flowers.

super fun to create, and yea to the nay sayers, maybe impossible to make happen, as it was right around the corner.

then the whole plan changed. a dear friend and business partner of my S.O. came to us with an amazing offer and gift. have the wedding, at her home! on the beach! in mexico! my god. we would be idiots to say no! who gets this opportunity! saying yes, immediately, we rescheduled the whole event for spring and i started to reinvent the program.

first up: 'save the dates' there are a million incredible lines of stationary out there. a million. it's hard to choose. i like the fun, letterpress look. but honestly, a lot of it, is too goofy. (ok, whimsical) normally, i'm the mrs. john l. strong type. but i wanted something a bit more modern, and unconventional. i looked at about 14 different books with letterpress. loved a lot of them. but i was looking for something traditional, enchanting -yet, youthful and hip (like us.)

i found exactly what i was looking for with 'louella press' (none of these are the actually pattern i chose, i'll reveal that later)

the design i chose? i love it. it says mexico to me, but very stylized and not in an,

in your face, donkey-painted-like-a-zebra-wearing-a sombrero- mexico.

on second thought.....

photo of bridegroom birds: ann wood