Invitation Inspiration

Since I've been "allowed" to publicly view and purchase wedding magazines (yes, I was once one of those un-engaged girls who bought wedding magazines!!) I've been anticipating the day that I could send out our invitations.

Seriously. I've designed, on my mac, at least 7 different wedding invitations that I was going to Gocco (I own one, never used it. Bought it on E-Bay right after I discovered Mrs. Penguin on WeddingBee.com), or take to Kinko's and have them print (again, WeddingBee inspiration here ladies), or take to a real printer to have them print (my design) on professional machines.



I've been looking forward to the invitations for such a long, long, long time. I remember when I was recently engaged I was talking to a friend about what I would do for flowers. My response was something along the lines of "I don't know what I want to do for flowers, but let me tell you about the invites that I'm obsessed with right now."

My first love was a feature from Brides magazine (I'm a subscriber, I love the pictures):



I love everything about this invitation suite. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it just speaks to my style.

The funny thing is is that I ended up winning free invitations from WeddingBee.com when I had fully intended on doing them myself (side bar: MJ was FREAKED OUT at the idea of DIY invitations, he had little faith in my artistic abilities). So when I won free invites, I was under the impression that I was limited to one designer's collection. Low and behold, when I finally was able to select my invites, I went with a different designer, in a color palette that was not in sync with our own.



I love these invites, and my girls love them too. :) But I felt like they needed to be dressed up a little bit (I can't handle plain envelopes after making beautiful ones for our STDs), and after fiddling with some different ideas, I've fallen victim to the lure of boxed wedding invitations. Pre-Purchase invitation brides shield your eyes!







Slight tease: I'l be doing boxed invites. I can't wait to assemble and post our boxed invitation suite!! I've already purchased and received (thank you Fed-Ex!!) our boxes. :)

Where did you pull your invitation inspiration from?

It Happened One Afternoon...

...in Bloomingdales in San Francisco on a shopping trip with my mom. We went into the city to return my Christian Louboutin wedding shoes that I had purchased at Barney's online, but turned out to be a half size too small to justify keeping them.

I had hopped that by some freak chance they would have them in the store in a half size larger and I could just exchange them (I got a great deal on them - I wasn't ready to drop full price on CLs after I already bought them at 40% off). So we exited Barney's and went about looking for something that could satisfy my idea of wedding shoes.

We went to Nordie's and I spotted a great pair of Jimmy Choo's that were practical, timeless and very comfortable. The nude sling back. A beautiful shoe that I would for sure wear again, but there wasn't enough oomph for them to be my wedding shoes.



I then went back to searching for a pair of blue shoes that would satisfy my original idea that my shoes could be my "something blue." The closest blue and style that I was happy with was a pair of Guess pumps, but the heel made them a little too casual for the wedding.



Even though I saw myself wearing the hell out of these shoes long after the wedding (I didn't buy them, I was on a mission for wedding shoes.)

After that my mom suggested that we walk on over to Bloomies. As we're walking around a pair of Badgley Mischa shoes start screaming at me. They are scarily similar to a pair of CLs that I had fallen in love with when I first started looking at wedding shoes online:



As I begin to drool on these shoes, a very helpful sales person walks over and asks me if I would like to try them on. Learning from my first experience I ask for several sizes only to be told that they only have one pair in stock, in my normal size: 8.5. I cross my fingers while he goes back to the store room and brings out a simple black shoe box. I slip on the shoes and perfection.

I present you with my wedding shoes:



How and where did you find your wedding shoes? Did it include a trip somewhere?