Happy Stampy

From reading The DIY Wedding, I got the idea to look for a personalized address stamp to save time + our wrists when writing out the invitation envelopes. Needless to say really, I searched on Etsy and came up with these favorites! Now just to see which one Alex likes best (or at all)!

Sweet and circular:

Self ink stamp by ishandmadestamps

Sexy Calligraphy:

Self-inking Rubber Stamp Calligraphy by emililies

And my personal favorite:

Eco Friendly Self-inking Rubber Stamp Calligraphy by emililies
(Um, awesome. Recycled plastic, water based ink, re-fillable)

Anyone know of any other great places to look for customizable stamps? Possibly in the UK?

Also, just started looking for a photographer and it is HARD. Like, not finding one (just google Cornish Wedding Photography, and, boy, do you have a whole heap of choices!) but, like, how do you pick one from SO many!?!?!?

DIY Reading

Hi y'all. It is another busy week in the Gillingham Crisp household, let me tell you. I've just made a schedule to write a chapter of my dissertation a week to finish by my birthday in December (and to meet the university deadline) and Alex is up before the sun to go take bloods and patient histories at a nearby hospital. Crazy times up in here. And still, any free moment where my mind gets to wander and be playful a bit, I'm still smiling about our wedding. Smiling, mostly, cause I'm getting to marry Alex (YAY!) and also because it's really fun planning a wedding with her. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely times when we're on such different pages it's like we're reading different books, but the giggling, the giggling and giddiness makes it all worth it.

Speaking of books, my current selected reading a la weddings: The DIY Wedding: Celebrate Your Wedding Your Way.


The DIY and money saving info is fab, but occassionally my feminist consciousness wants to toss it on the floor (i.e. the focus on the bride is crazy and sometimes I get tired of swapping groom for bride and fiancé for finacée).

Save the Date -- Done!

For all of you following this who are actually coming to one or two of the ceremonies, this may be a bit of a spoiler, but I'm just so pleased with how the Save the Date and photo collage came out I couldn't resist sharing.

As for our to-do list, the photo collage is now checked off, the website coming along nicely, and some more basic details to be covered this weekend (like getting a Certificate of Approval from the UK Home Office--immigration stuff scares me! The bonus part though is that I just spoke to a very nice man at our council office who we'll go see to Give Notice of Intention for our UK ceremony. There's no Vegas-Let's-Get-Hitched! around these parts!).

Now onto the good stuff, what people will be receiving in their email boxes next month (yeah saving trees, postage, and fossil fuel!), with the exception of our grandmas--some of them are computer saavy, some of them prefer good ol' post.

Click on either for a larger view.
Images, respectively by savethedate and Wyatt Olson Photography.

The Save the Date design is called Jenny by savethedate's etsy shop. She was super easy to work with and Alex and I just love her design. Plus her slogan is 'Save the Date * Save the Trees' --pretty rockin. Then we picked out our favorite photos and threw them together in the collage! (Ok, ok, it took a bit more time than that...) In all seriousness though, we loved working with Wyatt and can't wait for him to photograph our wedding in California!

Week's To-Do List

I have to say that after being back in London for over two weeks now, I finally feel like I am sort-of back in the routine again. The realization was signaled by finally moving all of my IDs, cards, etc. from my US wallet to my UK wallet. (Yes, I have two different wallets. And if you've ever traveled abroad, you know the difference coins can make!)

With the settling came the time to start looking at the 'to-do's before the 'I do's--and let me tell you, we've only got 6 months left now before April 17th rolls along. Loads of time really, what with a dissertation to write, hospital placements to attend, jobs to find, shifts to work. Ok, ok, I'm not really complaining. Here's what we're up to this week:

Wedding Website

MyWedding.com is a free wedding website site up for couples to post their wedding info of where to go, where to stay and what to do along with their story, photos and select music. Let me tell you, Alex was stoked on that last one.

I heard about them as a dear dear friend used the website for her wedding and I really liked the set up. I have no idea who owns them (Anyone? Anyone?) but I've found their site easy to use and gay friendly--i.e. I didn't have to pretend to be a 'groom,' instead I could be the 'partner' that I am. (Although, best thing would have been to let their be two 'brides,' but hey, it's a US site and partner has a heck of lot more politic weight there than in England.)

This week I'm in charge of filling it out with the goal of having it done by the end of the week, ready to send out with our email Save the Dates going out at the end of the month.

A little preview:

The header we picked out of about a hundred,
it was a long process...

One of our favorite listed attractions!

We heart Pinky Murphy's

Another awesome reason for doing a wedding website: saves on paper, printing, and postage. Unlike some wedding invitations that come with different cards of where to be, where to stay and what to do, we hope our guests will use the power of the internets to garner all that information for themeselves and save some trees while they're at it!

Photo Collage

Alex's job for the week, among other glorious, but not so exciting feats in Excel and Google Docs, is to create a photo collage from our engagement photos (a few here) to send out with the Save the Date. Conveniently, the photo collage will also have the url for our wedding website. So far, it looks like it will be a run-off between these two photos for the 'big' photo in the collage. Votes?

Sort of traditional in pose and a nice shot of our faces.

More stylized and great colors!

Photos by Wyatt Olson Photography.

We Interrupt This...

Normally Scheduled Program for a sneak preview of a wedding gift (not for me!) in progress--More in a few weeks after she's married!

New Napkins & Vintage Vases

I tell ya, right now, the ideas are flowing, and my thoughts on napkins and vases are my current favorite. Most days I check a few different craft blogs I admire and a few weeks ago, I found a post on The Purl Bee that made my fingers start to itch with excitement: hand-made napkins!

Ok, maybe the sound of it might not have the same effect on you, but check out this table setting:


Gorgeous. One of the ladies of The Purl Bee, Jen, used a variety of fabrics to make the napkins for each place setting at her wedding. The guests got to take them home as wedding favors if they wanted and she had enough left over to make a wedding quilt for herself. While the quilt seems like a lot of work right now, the napkins feel like they could be such an enjoyable venture! (Especially if I get my Y-town quilting ladies to help me.)

The napkins would add such color to the tables (right now we're thinking deep purple tulips would be perfect in the UK for April--maybe purple & green, a little pink for me?). Plus, I bet I could find the majority of the fabric at second-hand shops in Yreka (or gladly visit my fav quilt shop in Mt. Shasta, Sew Unique). I'm also thinking that my growing collection of clear glass vases (mostly from second-hand shops as well, or ones people I have known didn't want at one point or another) would be perfect for an ecletic mix of table arrangements.