Photography by Hugh Forte

Today’s tip: Most people are on a tight budget and schedule nowadays. Spontaneity can be lots of fun, but know that such short notice will limit your guest list.

Day 30 - 30 -Day Bride Day 29 -The Date Is Set Day 28 -The Location Day 27 - Brace Yourself For The Unexpected Day 24 – The Photographer Day 23- The InvitationsDay 22 – Dance Lessons Day 21 – Dance Lesson #1 Day 20 – Décor Part 1 Day 17 – The Dress Day 16 – Needs Your Help Day 15 – Sort Of Jewish WeddingDay 14 -Things Change Quickly Day 13 –  Off to California Day 8- Their Back Day 6- The Cake Is Ordered

With construction paper, tissue, scissors and glue, the girls went to work creating one-of-a-kind crowns. Once they were completed, Nancy and Mo were given the important task of judging the hats which ended up in a tie. The tie breaker: a spoon and egg race on the grass heels and all.

By Catherine Lash

When I first saw these place cards from TimelessPaper, I felt like the table they were perched on was going to take flight.

These butterflies look as though they have just touched down on each place setting’s glass and are about to defy gravity and carry each glass off  in a mass of fluttering wings  – much like that beautiful last scene in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.

Order your butterflies, or sparrows, or flora or shrimp place cards early enough and you can get your guest’s names written on them – talk about one stop shopping {and the easiest DIY ever!}.

When I discovered TimelessPaper for myself, I went on to read some of the comments Emily (the owner) had received about her work: what a wonderful feature! You should take advantage of the information Etsy provides on each business whenever you are considering buying – we, for example, have only written about companies with 100% satisfaction rates (at least when we’re writing about them).

Here is what few people had to say about TimelessPaper’s products:

The cutest little place cards. They will be front row center at the head table at my wedding. Thank you!!!

Absolutely beautiful product.. Emily does amazing work – packaged very nicely! Thank you )

As soon as my paper butterfly arrived, I placed it on the lip of a crystal glass…love it!

The announcement got us thinking … what are the general guidelines for publicly acknowledging your engagement and where should you make those acknowledgements?

Announcing an engagement is all about timing: leave it too long and you’re old news, but beware of going public before ensuring that no family friend or relative is going to hear it third-hand from a neighbour and be hurt they weren’t included in your good news earlier.

General consensus says engagement announcements are published 3-8 months before the wedding, but a particularly long engagement, or a very short one, may dictate something outside of that timeline.

A wedding announcement, on the other hand, can run anytime from the day after the wedding to a few months later.

Putting an engagement announcement together often requires looking up individual publications’ guidelines. A photo can usually be included and and they are typically informal; while it may nicely coincide with an engagement photo shoot, there’s no need for a professional photograph. Basically, the rule of thumb for the picture is that your heads should approximately line up.

You can announce your engagement in your hometown newspaper where you still have connections, your current newspaper and in the publications of your affiliations where you think it’s appropriate and where social announcements are accepted. The Toronto Star, for example, treats engagement, and any other social notices, as a classified ad. You pay for exactly what you want and they run it, other publications will run social announcements for free, but will not guarantee their inclusion. For larger, national newspapers, the selection criteria can be fairly competitive.

A standard announcement begins with the bride’s parent’s names, their city or town, and the names of the bride- and groom-to-be as well as the approximate date of the wedding, and then the groom’s parent’s names. This is followed by a short paragraph about the couple, their occupations, their city or town and how they met, or where they went to school. With single-parent families and re-married parents, the format changes slightly but not by much, but there aren’t any hard and fast rules about it except what each publication requires you include.

Congratulations Amberlea and Jonathan!

Eight prominent Canadian designers each contributed a dress made almost exclusively from good old toilet paper to the Fifth Annual White Cashmere Collection 2008: A Touch of Pink fashion show in Toronto last September. As we near the annual event, Farley Chatto, a Toronto designer has already submitted his final dress for 2009.

While they aren’t wedding-inspired, it’s hard not to see the potential of some of these incredible creations for marching, rather than strutting, down another aisle… what’s your favourite?

Thien Le's Cashmere BT Dress

Farley Chatto's design for 2009

Arthur Mendonça's Cashmere BT Dress

Comrags' Cashmere BT Dress

David Dixon's Cashmere BT Dress

Evan Biddell's Cashmere BT Dress

Joeffer Caoc's Cashmere BT Dress

Lucian Matis' Cashmere BT Dress

Ula Zukowska's Cashmere BT Dress

All photographs courtesy of Cashmere.

By Stephanie Gareri

The Crane Museum of Papermaking

Since its inception in 1801, Crane & Co has been green. The company’s commitment to the environment is clearly stated in its philosophy, “We don’t cut down trees to make Crane papers.” This revolutionary, family-owned business, now in its seventh generation is 100% tree free, it’s energy efficient, it reduces waste, it spares the environment and it is renewable and recyclable.  For over 200 years, it has been an industry leader by making a conscious efforts to minimize their environmental footprint.

Green for over 200 years

To read more about Crane & Co’s fascinating processes and paper production, click here.

Crane & Co. features unique wedding invitations by Kate Spade and recently partnered with Martha Stewart to create an elegant line of invitation suites – click on the look book to view. For the purposes of the Crane Chandelier Project, I like their appropriately named, Birds of a Feather collection.

Images courtesy of Crane & Co.

Martha Stewart Calligraphy Bird Wedding Suite

One of our all-time favourite DIYs tastes as sweet as it looks and leaves guests with a tiny memento of your day – in honour of Paper Week: The Wedding Co.’s Sweet Paper Purses.

These miniature purses are the perfect tote for a little something sweet, leave them at every lady’s seat as a token of your affection.

For someone with a little time on her hands or with a pack of dedicated ‘maids, this DIY project is straightforward and tons of fun as you watch a set of customized mini purses take shape. We guarantee they’ll be snapped up at the end of the night as tokens of the day. As always, let your imagination guide you and make any adjustments to our design to customize them for yourself. Fabulous for weddings, showers and rehearsal dinners!

Download our quick and easy directions and materials list.

By Stephanie Wright

When the envelope arrives in your inbox, complete with the official Paperless stamp and your name, it’s as close to the real thing as you’re going to get. The sense of anticipation when you ‘open’ it just about equals the rush of opening a calligraphed envelope you’ve discovered in your mailbox. It has the promise of something significant.

I’ve had so much fun the past two weeks co-planning a Girls’ Night Out for my friend, Gillian, whose wedding is this summer. Because my co-planner is in Cambodia, we’ve left the details to plan when we can meet for a glass of wine and talk face to face. To give everyone fair warning, we put together a Save the Date on Paperless Post – the overall theme of the night and our destination will be revealed when we send out our invitation in a week or so. I’m hoping that our Save the Date will inspire a little excitement and anticipation for the event as well as ensuring as many guests as possible.

Designing our Save the Date and invitation was so much fun, the best part being that you really can’t go wrong despite the huge selection of great paper, motifs and fonts.

PP works on snail mail’s stamp system. You are awarded a certain amount (it may still be 25 but it’s going to drop to 12) when you sign up for a free account. You are also awarded stamps for getting your friends to sign up and for every month you remain a member you get an additional 12. You can play to your heart’s content on the site creating and re-creating, setting up an address book and tracking your invitations all free of charge. And when you need to buy new stamps, they come in rolls of 60 to 500, 200 sell for $10US. Compared to the other electronic mail sites, PP is pretty user friendly, although it took me a little time to be familiar with the address book navigation but it doesn’t yet offer customization with personal photographs.

Personally, I would love to be able to customize the colour of the envelope and its lining, I’d also love to be able to send ‘the suite’ as stationers call the full collection of inserts for a significant event: directions with a great map, ideas for hotels and restaurants, and additional details I’d like to share with my guests. But maybe that’s just me.

In the end, PP isn’t the same as receiving an embossed card you can post on your fridge or tuck in your diary but it does attempt to close the gap between the efficiency and eco-friendly benefits of email and the significance of the beautiful invitation in the mail.

A few of the great motifs you can add to your invitations

]]> http://www.theweddingco.com/thedailynews/2009/07/go-paperless/feed/ 0