Invitations - 3

The FINAL step in our invitation process was taking them to the Post Office to be delivered.  We thought this would be a stress-free easy process, but that would just be to easy now wouldn't it...

 First, Jac loaded all the invites into a nice little tote to take them to USPS.

Jac - Waiting in line at the post office to send our invites

Once it was our turn in line, the lady took one of our invitations and weighed it.  She told us that our invites were actually $0.66 which blew me away.  We were just there a few days prior to have our invitations weighed and got all of our stamps.  I told her this and she went over to the lady who weighed our invites (luckily she was working) and weighed it on her scale and it was just fine.

She tried weighing on her scale again after calibrating her scale and it still said it was too heavy.  She told us that she was going to take them anyway and we were fine.  This makes me SO nervous, because I don't know enough about how the postal service works and if it these invitations are going to be delivered to our guests or not.  I hope that they all get delivered just fine and people do not need to pay for insufficient postage or anything.

Please - tell us when you get your invites to put my nerves at ease! :)

DIY | Invitations - 2

Putting them together! Instead of telling you the story, we thought we'd take pictures to show you what we did to create these invites!

Friend - Leslie, had to cut off the extra bottom of the invite

 Then Jac put them all together, we didn't get a picture of that because he is so fast - like the Flash! Next... the final touches!

Putting on the Belly Bands - first you line it up

Next - fold it around the back

And lastly - tape it closed!

The next part was addressing the envelope.  I found this neat idea online of a wrap around label, which I thought looked much more classy than the simple Avery labels you can buy at the store.  First I found this neat tool that can turn your paper into a sticker - so we used that.

Feed the address labels through the sticker machine.

This is what came out.

I had to take off the plastic covering from the stickers.

Then I needed to take the label off of the label sticker sheet.

It was not as easy as this picture makes it look...

See - it got a little challenging... luckily there was only one fatality!

First I stuck on the return address to the back

then folded it around to the front

smooth it out

and file!

Jac would then find the appropriate insert to add to the envelope

Stuff them into the proper envelopes and BAM! Done! (well after he licked them all!)

DIY | Invitations - 1

Jac and I spent a lot of time looking through websites for invitations, but could not justify the price per invitation.  Now that we have finally sent them out, I figured I would show off the hard work that we put into them. First however, we will let you see a sneak peek before you get your invite in the mail!  Based on what I have seen on other sites, I have blocked personal information to save our lives! hehe!

The invite:

The Accommodations/Map Insert:

The RSVP Inserts:

These were all made by me in either Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign.  There were a few things I didn't realize before making our invites however, and I want to share those with you. Making maps is harder than it may seem.  I figured I could just trace a google map, but man is that rough! I suppose however, if Google offers me a job, I will consider it.  The postcards- we ordered our printed items from VistaPrint and I found it extremely interesting that when ordering a postcard through them, you have to order a TON and they are glossy, but you can order a "note card" which is the same size and it doesn't ahve to be glossy and I can order the 150 I needed easily.  I even got free envelopes - and man do we have a ton of envelopes now! :)

Let us know your thoughts!  The next posts will be about our assembling and the adventure to mail these dang things!

Engagement Picture Day!

Yay! It was engagement picture day which meant that Megan was in town! We went to MacKenzie Park, which is a park in town that Jac and I found.  We spent a weekend before Megan came into town looking at the many different parks located in Lubbock.  Many of the Lubbock parks were full of just open space, so not a lot of places to take pictures, but once we found all of the fun areas located within MacKenzie Park, we knew that was the perfect spot for our pictures.

The day we went to go take pictures, it was a VERY sunny day.  So we needed some things to do before going so we wouldn't be completely washed out of the pictures.  We went to a movie and then headed to the park before dinner.  I was not the best at being a model in these pictures, I couldn't just relax and look normal (according to Megan and Jac) and they kept laughing at me.  Apparently, all my smiles looked fake!

We played on rocks in a pond area, climbed on the posts that held up an old train track, found an open space to do some of the save the date card pictures, and then we even found a mini waterfall in Lubbock!

However, once it started getting dark, it got dark fast... we were lucky that we found shaded areas at first when it was extra sunny.  There was a very short sweet spot in the lighting where Megan was able to get the best shots without watching our faces out!

These were probably my favorites of the day:

Megan and Jac liked this one - but I thought it looked funny!

What are your thoughts? Hope you enjoyed them!

Save The Dates

For our save the dates, we wanted to do something fun!  We looked around at tons of different ideas online and ended up with what you see here!

We found the website New and Blue which is how we created the magnets to send out.  First, we had MOH Megan take our pictures when she came to visit.  The biggest reason for the photos was to get some pictures to use for the save the dates.  We bought stickers to add to the bottom of the shoes (big question we keep getting).

Once we had all of the pictures taken from around the park we were at, I brought the photo into photoshop and added the information we needed for our save the date.  Looking online before we purchased the magnets, they were trying to sell us magnet holders.  I looked at them and thought... really - that is a piece of paper with some slits cut in them.  So Jac and I went to work cutting black cardstock to the right size to fit in the envelopes and cutting slits to add our magnets into to send!

The other fun part that we worked into our Save the Dates were the amazing stamps!  We chose different pixar stamps to best fit each person that we sent them to! :) How fun!

Thoughts on Save the Date cards?!

The Wyndham

The second hotel we decided we wanted to use for our group bookings was the Wyndham Hotel in Lisle.  When Jac first moved to the Chicago area with his family when he was about 8-9 years old, this hotel was a Radisson and his family lived in a few of the suites while their house was finishing being built.  Jac's dad worked for the hotel, and Jac would go around holding the elevator door for people and putting mints in front of their doors.  He remembers being allowed to go down into the kitchen area and get cookies from the waitresses!

Now this hotel is a Wyndham, but it still holds special memories for Jac. 

Below you will find more photos of the interior of the hotel.  First being the king room and then following, the double room. 

 Some of the amenities in this hotel are listed below:

• Bathrobe
• Hair dryer
• High-speed Internet
• Iron/ironing board
• Modem/data port
• Room service, limited availability
• Self-controlled heating system
• Sofa-bed
• True Blue® Spa Bath & Body Works® products
• Voice mail
• Spare electrical outlet at desk
• Work desk with lamp
• Voicemail

Hotel Lounge

Hotel Resturant

If staying at the Wyndham - we hope you enjoy hearing some of Jac's childhood stories in this hotel... if you are looking for more - just ask him... he even mentioned something about losing a fingernail in a door!

The Hyatt

The first hotel that we chose was The Hyatt in Lisle, IL.  This hotel looks beautiful and has been super easy to work with.  We have an online system that helps us to see how many people have booked through our block of rooms.

This is also the hotel that Jac and I decided to stay at.  We can get a free room once we have 15 rooms booked for our night.  The room that we will be staying in is called the Panoramic King Suite and it looks beautiful.

The other two rooms look pretty amazing as well.  They have options for a king bed suite, queen bed suite, two double beds, as well as others.  Below are photos of the King and Double rooms.

King Bed

Two Double Beds

Each of the rooms have:

• Separate sitting area
• Iron/ironing board
• Cable/satellite TV channels
• Dual line phones
• Data port
• Concierge during regular hours
• Crib upon request
• Pull-out sofa
• In-room dining during regular hours
• Video on demand
• Speakerphone
• Analog phone line
• 24 hour Concierge
• Aquafresh® Extreme Clean® toothpaste amenities

• Enhanced work desk lighting
• Coffee maker
• iHome stereo with iPod® docking station
• Voicemail
• Individual heat control
• Video checkout
• Maximum guests per room: 3
• Hairdryer
• 24” or larger TV
• Gaming through On Command
• High-speed Internet access
• Individual air conditioning control
• No Rollaways

Check out more pictures at the hotel - the lobby looks beautiful, and Jac and I will be exploring to find the best place for our first look pictures that we will take together before the rest of the photos of the day.

Lobby Area

We are thinking of what we can do together for a brunch the Sunday following our wedding.  Perhaps we can all eat together in the hotel restaurant!

Hotel Restaurant

Hope you enjoy the Hyatt hotel! Hope to see you book your room soon!

Hotel Rooms

Something that I didn't realize needed to happen as early as it did - hotel rooms.

After the question of the date, that is the question I continued to hear.  Lucky for us, our venue gives us a free room at one of these three hotels nearby: Hyatt, Wyndham, or Hilton.  So we started with those three, but also looked for others to find the best choices for our guests.  I also found a website that works with you to find the best group deals for the needs you have, grouptravel.org/.  It was interesting to look at the site, but I didn't end up using it and just contacted sites on my own.

I contacted them all to find prices and ask them questions to be sure we were getting the best choices for us.  Below are the questions I asked each of the hotels:

• How will you let us know who has reserved rooms? Will you email us, or could we contact you to get a list?
• Is there a point person who coordinates these types of events, or will I be dealing with a different person every time I call?
• Do you have an online code for our guests to receive the group rate or do they have to call the hotel directly?

• Is a deposit required? If so, how much? When is the deposit due? May I make partial payments? When is the final payment due?
• Is there an attrition clause?
• It says there is a minimum of 10 rooms that need to be filled, what happens if that number is not reached?
• What responsibility do the bride and groom have in the contract?
• Can you add more rooms if you fill up your block at the same discount?
• At what date will the rooms be released
• Can guests extend their stay at the discounted rate if they want to make it a longer weekend or short vacation?

• Will the guests room be scattered throughout the hotel or will they be close to each other?
• If we wanted to possibly do out of town bags for our guests, does your hotel allow for that and if so, do you have a policy regarding how they can be given out? How can I deliver OOT bags?
• Do you have a room available for a day after brunch or to open gifts in? If so, is there an extra cost?
• How exactly does the shuttle service work - are there specific times the shuttle will come or do the guests just call to be picked up?

 After hearing back from hotels and not hearing back from others, we decided to go with the Hyatt and Wyndham Hotels.