Engaged: Anna & Hovsep

Both Anna and Hovsep are good friends of mine and I was delighted when they asked me to take some engagement shots of them. This was good practice for their big wedding day next October. I definitely recommend an engagement shoot for couples before the wedding. It gives you the opportunity to feel comfortable with each other in front of the camera. That way by the time the wedding comes along you become professional models ; )

We wanted to have a real natural and playful feel for the shoot, so we got some picnic goodies and headed over to an orchard near my house. We had our fingers crossed the entire time that the weather would hold up. Luckily there were just a few drops of rain. Thank you Anna and Hovsep for giving me the opportunity to capture some special moments. You are a beautiful couple both inside and out. I can't wait for the wedding, I'm having wedding withdrawls!

My Black Chandelier & Lace Wedding Invitations

My husband and I just got married on 9-10-11 at Casa Real at Ruby Hill Winery in Pleasanton, CA. The night was truly unforgettable. It was a dream to see the entire day come together after planning for two and a half years. I designed and made all the invitations, place cards, envelope box, menus, table numbers, and signs. I had a blast, but also drove my parents and husband crazy. I was watching over them like a hawk whenever they helped me because I wanted everything to be perfect. I will share all the details in a future post, but for now here is the invitation making process that I documented. It took me months to come up with a final design because I had so many different ones running through my mind. I liked the idea of incorporating an element besides paper, so I purchased black lace to use as one of the layers in the invitation. I wanted the invitation to have a chic/modern/romantic/unique feel and act as a sneak peek into the day of the wedding. I think the end product reflected the wedding theme perfectly. Thank you to my entire family for being patient and helping me during the invitation making process. It wasn't easy making 300 invitations! Stay tuned for more detailed photos of the wedding.

 I created a template in order to cut the lace in the exact square size that I needed

I then marked the excess corners and cut them out

Then it was time to start attaching the lace to the cardstock. I loved the color of the cappuccino cardstock through the black lace. I used adhesive to wrap the lace fabric around the cardstock like a present.

The hard part was over, now comes the STICKY part. I used spray adhesive in order to attach the lace cardstock piece to the cappucino colored pocketfold card. My grandma went a little nuts when I made the entire floor of the garage sticky, sorry grandma!

I then prepared the actual invite that was going to go on top of the lace layer. I used a scotch advanced tape glider to attach the invite to a plain piece of black cardstock first. I wanted to have a layer of black cardstock between the invite and lace to create a cleaner line. I then purchased champagne colored swarovski crystals and attached them to the chandelier using a hot fix tool.

Now that the invite portion was complete, it was time to take out that spray adhesive again and attach it to the lace layer. Sorry again grandma!

adding the inserts

For the outside of the invitation I first cut pieces of black satin ribbon. I braided the ribbon around the outside of the invitation and attached the ends with a glue dot. I heard that the glue dot was a little difficult to pull apart so I will remember to use something a little less strong next time ; )

We then stuffed the invitations into the envelopes. I wanted to continue the theme on the outside of the envelope so I had a black chandelier peeking out from the left side and a stamp I designed on zazzle.com

After weeks of cutting, gluing, and assembling I finally reached the end product