Fabric to back our invites has been screen printed.
And Mr. CCandy has been busy at work sewing over 100 buttons onto our belly bands. If anyone is interested in a how-to for these let me know and I’ll get one together.
We’re making progress and have a plan in place to get these suckers done and out the door come the first week in March! Wish us luck!
Anyone else pushing to meet a tight wedding deadline?
Each invitation was sized to fit in a #10 envelope and had some Mid-century flair featuring our font Festiva with sewing and craft touches to unite our handmade modern. The first one was inspired by the Style Me Pretty invite I sent her and echoed the look and feel of our STD’s.
Invite number 2 was inspired by our love of concert posters.
Last but not least was our third choice with had a simpler elegant feel to it and I was really drawn to the simple wording of the invite.
After some discussion back and forth Mr CCandy and I finally decided upon Invite #1. I really love the frame shape that Kristen created and really love all the different sewing elements she included into the design. 
We received the final design last week and were now in a race to get these bad boys screen-printed and assembled in time for our 1st week in May deadline!
What do you guys think? Anyone else up against a time crunch to get your invites out the door?
For the past couple of months I’ve been working with our coordinator Amanda design associate Kristen and the whole processes has been a breeze. We started off by emailing her a hodge podge of inspiration pictures along with some pics of our STD, font choice and signature pattern.
First up were these fabulous invites by Pinkpolka Wedding Design. I love the bold pattern and simple layout.
Image Via Stylemepretty.com Photo by James Design Studios Invite Designed by Pinkpolka Wedding Design
I love the vintage flair and colorful details of this free download from the Wedding Chicks.
Image via Weddingchicks.com Invitation designed by Susie of Zee Studio Photo by Julie Harmsen Photography.
Up next was a scan of a page from my absolutely favorite Magazine ReadyMade. I love the mix of tyle faces and the mix of color.
Scan by me of ReadyMade magazine
Our most random inspiration pics was one of Mr CC and I favorite concert posters. The poster is one of our favorites largely because of its vintage feel and even thought the poster itself has nothing to do with the rest of our inspiration images I loved the feel of it and wanted to bring that into our invites. 
Last but not least was the one design element that I was set on having from day one. A couple of years ago I received a gift from Anthroplogie with an adorable button ribbon. I loved it and filed it away as inspiration for a future DIY. For our wedding I plan to use the button ribbon as our invitation suites belly band.
Once I sent our inspiration pics to Kristen I waited impatiently while she worked away creating 3 unique designs for us to choose from and man did she ever deliver!
Next time I’ll share with you our 3 proofs along with our final choice!
Anyone else going the custom design route for your invites?
Needless to say I was driving Mr. CCandy crazy so when I casually mentioned Kate Spade’s friends and family sale he tossed me his wallet and told me to buy the freaking bracelet. Surprisingly I said no, even with the discount I couldn’t justified spending almost 200 bucks on a piece of jewelry I would wear for one day.
Mr. CCandy wasn’t too happy with my decision; he was tired of hearing about the damn bracelet and gave me what he calls his David Tutera speech. He told me, and I quote, “for our wedding day as long as it is within our means I should get what I want. Yes its only for one day but it’s THE day and he would hate knowing that on our wedding I was regretting my choice of accessories because I wanted to save what equaled to a couple of dinners out. Swoon, Have I mentioned I love this man? I melted and agreed to head down to the Kate Spade store in Pasadena to see the bracelet in person.
Unfortunately for me they didn’t have the bracelet in stock but they did have several others that I had be eying up on-line, one in particular caught Mr. CC eye and he proclaimed to me and the sales associate that it was the one and bought it on the spot!
Here she is in all her sparkly bauble glory-
And with the Rest of my accessories-
It’s completely different from the original bracelet but I love it even more and it looks perfect with the rest of my accessories. I also love that Mr. CC feel in love with it too and the price was about 80 bucks cheaper than the pearl bracelet so win all around.
Has your fiancé surprised you during your engagement? Has anyone else’s fiancé involved in selecting your accessories?
Photo via weddingchicks.com Veil by Tessa Kim
Oh she’s lovely and she’ll be heading my way in just a few short weeks. While I wait for my new piece of bridal flair to reach our home I’ve been busy at work putting the final touches on my equally as lovely hair comb.
When I purchased my dress a couple weeks ago I knew that I wanted a hair piece that would complement the crystal applique on the bodice of the dress. Something kind of like this was high on my list of possible combs.
Image via Etsy Designed by Twigs & Honey
Since I refused to pay over 200 bucks for an accessory I would only wear once I decided to get creative and recreate the look on my own. After some brain storming I came up with a pretty simple process and headed down to Michael Levine in Downtown were I picked theses pretties for 11 bucks each.
I later picked up some gold tulle, fusible interfacing, nylon thread and silver hair comb at Joann’s. After about 2 nights of stitching, cutting and gluing I had my very own sparkly hair comb all for about 30 bucks!
The process was pretty simple I started by played around with the appliques until I came up with an arrangement that I liked and then using my clear nylon thread to stitch both pieces together to create one large applique.
I then took my tulle with the interfacing already fused on and stitched the applique on with my clear thread.
Once applied to the comb the tulle and light weight fusing added just enough support to the applique to help it hold its shape. I read a tutorial online that instructed you to apply decoupage glue directly onto the applique to make it ridged but I really wanted the back of my comb to look neat and I didn’t want to risk ruining my appliques with glue.
Once completely stitched I trimmed the excess tulle from the applique and using some E-6000 glue I attached it directly onto the comb. 
Since I’m paranoid, I reinforced the glue by stitching the comb onto the applique with some embroidery floss making sure to only go as far as the tulle and not catch the actual applique
And that’s it! Easy peasy hair comb that looks like it cost twice the price of your supplies!
Anyone else making their own hair accessories?
Its all Mami CCandy fault, a couple of weeks ago we were heading to Joannes to pick up some fabric for our ceremony pillows when she causally mentioned that she wanted to pop in Davids Bridal to see what they had to offer in terms of Mother of the Bride dresses. It took her oh about 5 minutes to dismiss every MOB dress in the place and start wondering over to the big froofy wedding dresses.
I’m not going to lie to you Hive I did absolutely nothing to move her away from them. Considering my horrible first dress shopping experience you think I would have rushed us out of the store but the dress were oh so pretty and the selection in my size was so large and tempting that I started to get the dress shopping itch. I resisted though, and we almost made it out of the store until I saw it. THE DRESS, it made my heart skip when I saw it and better yet they had it in my size so I could try it on!
We quickly scooped the dress up hunted down a sales associate for help, threw in a couple more dresses in the pile for comparison and headed to the dressing room. My lovely sales associate April was savvy enough to save the show stopping dress for last and the moment I tried it on I knew it was meant to be mine. It was perfect, I loved it, Mami CCandy with giving the the “Aye Mija” head shake that told me she loved and the fit was impeccable so we bought it on the spot.
Since we had no plans of dress shopping that day I don’t have any pictures of me in the dress but I was able to pull this one up via Davids Bridal’s website the only difference is that mine will be in ivory.
Oleg Cassine style 8CWG322 Via davidsbridal.com
If the dress looks familiar that’s because it is. It’s the same dress that the oh so fabulous Miss Crepe will be sporting on her wedding day. Like Miss Crepe I’ll also be adding my own personal style by modifying the bodice to add some more coverage in the form of a tulle strape possibly something like this. 
I'm meeting with my seamstress this weekend to discuss possible options and I'm hoping she'll say the tulle straps are an easy addition, cross your fingures for me!
So what do you ladies think, good choice? Did anyone else flip flop on their decision to have a custom dress made?
