A Cautionary Tale of Stamps

Image via Business News Daily

With our business cards tucked safely away inside the envelopes, I drove to the post office. I was on the hunt for the new Garden of Love Stamps. I was in luck! My post office had just gotten them in that week. So I did what any bride would do and bought five booklets.

So cute!

Image via The Postal Store

I took a sealed envelope to get it weighed so I would have the exact postage. Since our STDs are magnets, they were a little heavier and I knew the postage was bound to be more than  expected. The nice woman at the counter complimented me on the envelopes and told me they would cost 64 cents. They didn't have any nice 20 cent stamps so I went home and checked online. I decided on the Herb stamps. Even though I only needed 20 cent stamps, I got these 29 cent stamps 'cause they're so puurty. 

Image via The Postal Store

44 cent stamps + 29 cent stamps = 73 cents worth of postage. More than enough right? Wrong. It turns out, I still didn't have enough postage. After my Herb stamps arrived, I quickly stuck all of them onto the envelopes and Mr. Warbler and I headed to the post office on my lunch break. Yes, lunch break. I was that desperate to get them out into the world! Before I tell you what happened, let me show you these beauties.

Outside envelopes

MOH J5 printed a modified version of our Penguins on the envelopes. Thanks again, J5!

I love the red flower and two doves stamps!

When I went back to the post office, I nervously asked the man behind the counter if they hand cancelled envelopes. I had read on other blogs that some post offices did NOT hand cancel and that it was really hit or miss sometimes. After he said "Yes." I breathed a huge sigh of relief and happily handed them off to him. But after he weighed one envelope he told me that it would cost 84 cents to mail them and that I needed 11 more cents. "No," I said. "I came last week and had them weighed. I was told it would cost 64 cents. Weigh it again, I have enough postage." The man shook his head and said "If you want them hand cancelled you need 11 more cents. Hand cancelling services are extra."

Ugh. I looked at Mr. Warbs for help and he just shrugged and said, "OK, give us 10 cent and 1 cent stamps." But I was mortified. How could I have forgotten to ask about hand cancelling last week? I had heard that there was no charge for hand cancelling, but I should have verified. Idiot! At this point I just wanted to preserve the stamp harmony. Adding extra un-matching stamps next to my beautiful ones made me want to cry. I asked the man behind the counter if we could just forgo the hand cancelling and mail them as is. But that was a no go. Since I was mailing magnets they couldn't run them through the machines anyway. The had to be hand cancelled. Big sigh. I could have run home and added an extra Herb stamp to the envelopes, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I reluctantly added the extra 10 and 1 cent stamps and destroyed my masterpiece. The end result looked like this.

Not what I envisioned at ALL.

To add salt to my wounds, the man took out a big rubber stamp and stamped "DO NOT BEND" in huge red letters on the bottom right hand corner. At this point I had to get out of there. Mr. Warbs tried to cheer me up by saying no one was going to care about the envelope anyway. Even though I know he's right I still feel moody about the whole thing. I don't have any complaints about the way my STDs came out which is all that matters. If anything, I'm glad I went through all of this with the STDs and NOT the invites.

So a word of advice to fellow brides: don't forget to ask questions! If you're going to hand cancel your invites or STDs, let the postal worker know when they're weighing your envelope. Trust me, it's best to stray on the safe side. Is anyone else going to hand cancel?

Business Cards

I've been a bad bride blogger. Our business cards arrived a while ago. I've been meaning to show them, but haven't gotten around to it. What with my recent dress purchase and shoe crusade, I figured lousy business cards could wait! But now that I've sent out our Save the Dates (yay!) I might as well show you the business cards.

 

It broke my heart to include the blurring!

After we assembled the STDs last month it dawned on me that I had forgotten to include our wedding website on them. D'oh! If eager guests (wishful thinking?) wanted to check out our website ahead of the invitations I certainly wanted to make it available for them. While I was kicking myself for such a major oversight, I also saw an opportunity to order business cards. I loved the idea of telling future vendors, "Here's our card." Swanky.

Luckily, Vistaprint was having a free business card special for a few designs. With shipping and handling, I ended up spending about 6 bucks. $6 for 250 business cards? Deal! I found a design I liked, ordered it and five LONG days later they arrived! I could have gone with a fancier design, but I liked how simple and clean these looked. After tucking them next to the STDs, I was finally ready to seal the envelopes and get them OUT of here.

Up next, my stamp snafu...

*All images are personal

I Love You, Man

image via iloveyouman.com

Peter Klaven: So what do i do? How do i make friends?
Robbie Klaven: If you see a cool looking guy, strike up a conversation and ask him on a man date.
Peter Klaven: Ok.
Robbie Klaven: You know what i mean?
Peter Klaven: No.
Robbie Klaven: Casual lunch or after work drinks. You're not taking these boys to see The Devil Wears Prada.
Peter Klaven: Ohhhh god i love that movie. No I wont.

Much like the main character from I Love You, Man, Mr. Warbler does not have a lot of guy friends. Of course this isn't the sort of thing that happened because he's an asshole or anything. Mr. Warbs is one of the nicest, sweetest  and friendliest guys (sure, I'm biased but he IS!) that I know. Whenever we go out, he always manages to strike up a conversation with strangers and is generally liked by everyone. So, what's the problem? His work schedule.

Mr. Warbs works at an oil refinery in the water treatment plant. He works 12 hour shifts both days and nights from 5AM to 5PM or 5PM to 5AM. His schedule rotates every week, which can sometimes give him days off during the week which is nice. But that also means that sometimes he has to work the whole weekend. So when everyone wants to go out on a Saturday night, Mr. Warbs is either working the night shift, or he has to be in bed by 9PM to get up early Sunday morning for the day shift. As you can imagine this can really put a cramp in your social life.

Another problem are his friends. Everyone has a group of friends that you've know since high school. Sometimes you keep in touch for years and sometimes you slowly drift apart. Mr. Warbs and his friends sadly fall into the last category. They're all in their 30's and are starting families of their own. When they do manage to get away for a Friday or Saturday night, its usually on the day that Mr. Warbs can't go out. His friends (in my opinion) are also major flakes when it comes to making plans, but that's another story. So what's my post about? Mr. Warbs' lack of groomsmen.

Awkward!

Image via iloveyouman.com

My bridal party is up to five people: four bridesmaids and my awesome Man of Honor. Mr. Warbs originally intended to ask his old high school friends, about 3-4 guys to be his groomsmen. Well after being given the run-around and several cancelled events, Mr. Warbs decided to completely count them out. Not just as groomsmen, but as guests. At first I thought that it was just a heat of the moment decision, but now I realize that he needs to stand his ground on this. In a perfect world his oldest friends would stand up there with him, but you can't have everything. Which leaves Mr. Warbs searching for new candidates.

Man Date

Image via iloveyouman.com

Unlike the movie, I don't want Mr. Warbs to have to go on any awkward man dates. Of course, it would be nice if both of our sides were even for the sake of beautiful photos. But is that more important than only have the people that you care about stand beside you? Seven months ago as a newly engaged bride my answer was "Umm...yeah!" Thankfully that's no longer the case. Poor Mr. Warbs has really been stressing about rounding up some groomsmen. So far he's gotten confirmation from his dad and two cousins. And you know what? If he can't anymore than that, it's really fine with me. In the end it's not about groomsmen or bridesmaids, it's about us.

Seeing Red

Kenneth Cole Reaction Wicked Rich in Red.
Image via Project Wedding

Red shoes, that is! It's no secret that I'm in love with the color red. I have had two red bedrooms, countless bags, clothing and accessories. The color scheme for my wedding is red and gold. So, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I want red wedding shoes. Desire might be a more appropriate word. It never crossed my mind to wear the traditional white shoes. White is fine, but I'll likely never wear the color again. Red shoes on the other hand can spice up a black cocktail dress or jeans. So a cursory Google search returned images like the one above and these:

 Manolo Blahniks. Carrie Bradshaw would be proud!
Image via Euroshoesbox.com

Ouch! Christian Louboutins
Image via christianlouboutin2011sale.com

Gorgeous, yet sky high shoes. Realistically, I won't be able to wear any of them. Not just for the fact that I can't afford them (although that's a big reason), but I'm kind of a giant already. I tower over most of my family and friends at 5'9". OK, I suspect that I'm a bit taller than that these days, but I'm afraid to measure myself. In a pair of 3 inch heels, I'm  closer to 6 feet than I am to 5'11. Luckily, Mr. Warbs is about 6'4", so my height isn't usually a factor. But, on the day of my wedding, I want to look beautiful, feminine and NOT like the Jolly Green Giant.

Hello, up there!
(Source)

While perusing my favorite wedding blog, Weddingbee, I saw a post about Kate Spade shoes. They sell high end shoes catered to weddings, at a fraction of Blahnik and Louboutin prices. If you've never heard of Kate Spade before, please take a minute to peruse the website. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Kate Spade Charm Also available in Platinum, Silver and Navy Blue!

Amazing, right?! It was then that I decided my wedding shoes would definitely be Kate Spade shoes. But after a closer look at the website, I discovered that it was seriously lacking in kick ass red shoes. The Charm shoes are awesome, but not awesome enough to throw me off my red shoe mission. So I went back to Google, wedding sites and scoured the globe for similar styles in red. I found a whole bunch, but I was two or three years too late as they were all discontinued. Every time I excitedly clicked on a search result, I was forwarded to the sad face at Zappos, saying my item was no longer available. I would have loved to rock the Nina Koras, but couldn't find them anywhere. Sad face.

Nina Kora, discontinued

Nine West Jojus, no longer available in red
Image via Overstock

Stuart Weitzman Pomposo, no longer available in red
Image via Martha Stewart Weddings

I was able to find a few styles not yet banished to shoe-blivion.

Nina Forbes
Image via Endless

Vigotti Metis
Image via Zappos

 Stuart Weitzman Turalu
Image via Zappos

I was pretty bummed that they weren't more options out there. I'm not sure if red is a seasonal shoe color or not, but they're pretty hard to find in low heel, non feather styles. Maybe more options will become available around the holidays. But for now, the Forbes and Turalus are the two contenders. Out of the two, which one is your favorite? Are there any other red shoe (or colored shoe) brides out there?

Finding THE Dress

Good news everybody! I found my dress! And yes I do mean wedding dress! It is a beautiful, fitting and tear inducing dress that I would love to show here. However, Mr. Warbler reads my blog, so of course that can't happen. But, I do have a few pictures of the dresses that didn't make the cut. First, a warning...

Save the Dates Reveal

Our STDs. Sorry about the blurring!

Tada! Here are our finished Save the Dates! When I alluded to my love for Penguins Books and desire to use them for a large part in my wedding, I originally thought about postcards. I wanted to use the Penguin Books postcards because they all had different designs for each book. I thought it would be cool and tie into our book theme. My bride brain thought it would be totally doable to personalize 50 different Penguin Books postcards, with different designs, without going insane. Well, I soon realized that wasn't going to happen. So I basically decided to just create a simple replica of the classic book covers that wouldn't be a hassle to reproduce. Once the design was finished, we printed them out via Costco, (super cheap!) and MOH J5 came up with the brilliant idea to stick them on to magnets.

Magnets!

I bought a pack of 50 4x6 magnets from Amazon for $35. They had better deals, but they were for bulk orders of 75 magnets and up. I will probably never use that amount of magnets in my life, so I opted for the 50 pack. When the magnets arrived, I noticed when lined up with the save-the-dates they were a bit bigger. Ahhh! After ruling out using a paper cutter or having them cut professionally, Mr. Warbs and MOH J5 talked me into just cutting them with scissors. J5 tried one and it came out fine. So we began our STD assembly line.

MOH J5 carefully stuck the magnets on

Mr. Warbs and I cut the excess magnet edges

I don't know what's going on with my hair.

The finished result!

Mr. Warbs' cute face...

and his "confident guy" face

MOH J5's handiwork

Even though these babies are finished...I still haven't sent them out. Don't worry I'm not being a lazy bride. I'm waiting on the business cards I ordered from Vistaprint with all of our contact info (including our wedding website) to include in the envelopes. Since they won't arrive until Friday, I'm going to sit in agony for a few more days. But, I am definitely happy to check these off of my list!

All photos are personal

Dissecting the Bridal Party: My Man of Honor

I was going to write an in-depth post about our Save the Dates reveal, but instead I decided to postpone that even further :)  In all seriousness though, they are coming soon! Today, I want to take the time to devote a post to my very best friend and Man of Honor: Johnny 5.

Johnny 5, the super awesome robot from the 1987 film, Short Circuit
Image via Johnny-Five.com

Not to be confused with WALL-E, the robot that ripped off Short Circuit.
Image via Screen Rant

Alright, as awesome as it would be to have a robot as my MOH, that is not the case. But my MOH is even better, because unlike a robot he can consume large amounts of cheesecake and Korean BBQ! I'd take that over a robot any day.

All photos are personal unless noted otherwise

My Johnny 5! We really do love cheesecake.

I make up fake names for everyone I mention in this blog. I have to remind myself to give code names for everyone else except for Johnny 5. This is because he is actually the only person that was given his nickname previously. Johnny 5, or J5 for short, is the same nickname I've called him for more than eleven years now. I refuse to call him by his real name which he used to hate but now embraces. One day I just looked at him and decided he would be J5. It caught on and soon everyone was calling him that. Even today, my family and our closest friends still call him J5. I win.

Us back in high school

I have a few girlfriends that I also consider my best friends, but J5 probably knows me the best. Sure girls have a special bond, but there's nothing like the bond between two friends and the last slice of cheesecake. Or pie. Or...well you get the point. Anyway, as soon as Mr. Warbler proposed and I was done jumping up and down, J5 was the first person I called (sorry Mom!). He rushed over that same night to celebrate with us and it was right then that I wished I could ask him to be my MOH. At that point the idea of having a man act as my MOH didn't occur to me. One, I assumed it was a role that naturally went to a woman and two, I honestly didn't think he would be up to it. 

At my Dave & Buster's graduation party

But when it came down to deciding, Mr. Warbs asked me to think of who I possibly couldn't get married without being there. I admitted that it was J5. Mr. Warbs smiled his smirky know-it-all smile that I hate (but secretly love) and told me to just ask him. Who cares about tradition or what other people might say?

J5 and I at his "Yes" Surprise Birthday Party

Let me tell you, asking him was one of the most nerve wrecking moments in my life. I tried to play it cool so he wouldn't feel pressured to say yes. But, really I was screaming "please, please!" I actually thought the "man" in him might say no, but he just smiled and said "Let's do it." Classic J5. 

I'm so happy to have him as my MOH. I've been trying to slowly ease him into things, a question about wedding colors here, a registry outing there. I don't want to overwhelm him with all of the inane inner workings of a bride's mind all at once. He's probably more likely to put up with me than anyone else though. Not only does he provide awesome, unbiased and un-girly feedback on everything, but he's also pretty crafty. In fact, his Save the Date suggestion that I...whoops that will have to wait until next time! :)  Is anyone else having an unconventional bridal party?