Hi! I'm Taryn, a writer, designer and soon-to-be-bride from Atlanta, Georgia. Sit a spell with me and catch up as I plan the wedding of my beer-loving, confetti-throwing dreams to the wonderful Mr. Williford.Save the Date: The Full Reveal
As a designer, I take a lot of pride in stationery and paper goods, so these save-the-dates—the first thing our guests would see—were the one thing about the wedding I was dying to get exactly right. Even though it took a long time to get our save-the-dates done, I absolutely love them! I tried to add lots of small details (which meant doing a lot of work) to really personalize them, and it makes me a little dizzy to think I’m soon going to do it all over again (and then some!) for our invitations.
- Spray-painted Gold-Edged Envelopes
- Custom Save-the-Date Stickers and Wrap-Around Labels
- Our Return Address Rubber Stamp
- Collecting Personal Vintage Postage Stamps
So, yeah. I may have put a little too much effort into our save-the-dates. But you know what? Our guests are loving them, if Facebook and Instagram are any indication.
Yes, I addressed my bridesmaid’s invite to her and Niall Horan of One Direction. Yes, we’re way too old for that. No, we don’t care.
It made my heart swell to see our friends sharing and saying such sweet things (and using our wedding hashtag!). It makes the work all worth it. And now that most of our friends and family have gotten our date announcements, I can finally share the whole thing here.
The full suite: Kraft paper envelopes with gold-edged flaps, adorned with custom wrap-around labels and our return address stamp. Inside the envelopes is a double-sided save-the-date card printed on thick layered Mohawk Superfine paper, plus a sheet of six stickers to mark the date.
The card itself is a really simple design without many frills. Just our names, wedding logo, the date and place and the url of our wedding website. For the back, I designed a geometric pattern in two of our primary wedding colors, green and black.
The card was printed on a Moo Luxe Notecard. It’s a super thick stock and feels really luxurious (especially for the price), like letterpress paper without the textured printing. I couldn’t get a good photo, but the Luxe cards come standard with a colored edge detail running through the center of the layered paper stock.
(FYI, the Luxe card stock is included in a free sample pack you can order from Moo, if you want to see and feel it for yourself. I ordered a lot of paper samples from many places to decide on this printer and stock.)
Moo’s Luxe Notecards come with white envelopes, but I really love the look of kraft paper (and plan to use it throughout the paper for the whole wedding), so I ordered an extra set of postcard envelopes from Moo that were spray-painted with metallic gold paint.
The stickers are from Moo, too. Their Stickerbooks come in books of 90—or 15 sheets of 6 stickers—and you can order as many different designs in your book as you’d like. I designed the stickers after the save-the-date card was done, grabbing elements from our logo, colors and the geometric pattern and combining them with some of our engagement photos (shot by the lovely Paige Jones).
We ordered several books and added one sheet to each of our save-the-dates, wrapping it all together with a bit of baker’s twine. Most guests got black twine, the guests towards the end of my tying and stuffing got red twine after I ran out of black. What are you gonna do?!
The vintage stamps pull the whole thing together, like icing on a cake. I tried to give each guest or family stamps that I thought they’d like. So my Florida family got the Florida gator stamps, and Roo’s buddies got a bunch of the sports-themed ones.
This save-the-date suite was definitely a labor of love, but I’m so happy with how they turned out! Now I just need to think about how I want to translate the look of our save-the-dates to our invitations. Ideally, I want our invitation suite to vary enough from our save-the-date suite to easily tell the difference, but still look like parts of a whole. At least, I think so. How closely do your invites match your save-the-dates?
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I don’t know if anybody cares to hear about the photo styling, but I used some of my favorite props in these photos: ribbon and twine, a little ampersand charm, a pair of gold-dipped playing cards from Anthropologie, a potted succulent from my living room, and a plastic toy animal from a 99¢ bin that was spray-painted gold. Basically, I just grabbed every pretty thing I could find nearby and arranged it for the photo. That’s how we do it in blogland.
Winner, Winner! Chicken (and Waffles) Dinner!
I am determined to be one of those brides who actually eats on her wedding day. Nothing—not rain, sleet, snow or the pressure to say hello to every aunt and cousin—will stop me from eating dinner that night. I’m insanely excited about our menu.
Our caterer is actually a food truck, Ibiza Bites. Their thing is “SoLa” cuisine, inspired by combining traditional Southern and Latin flavors to create food fusion magic. It’s not your traditional food truck grub, so I hope our guests are as eager and excited to chow down as I am.
Ibiza Bites truck, shot by Rafter Men Photography
Ibiza Bites Lobster Mac & Cheese, shot by Rafter Men Photography
Ibiza Bites Chicken & Waffles, shot by Rafter Men Photography
The main reason I’m so stoked? Two words and a conjunction: Chicken and waffles. I am more than a little bit obsessed with the salty-sweet combination of this much-hyped Southern dish (although its deep South roots are highly contested). I love it so much I even created Chicken and Waffles cupcakes. Real talk. Yes, you eat it with real fried chicken covered in syrup, and yes, it’s delicious.
My photo, via Formal Fringe
So without further ado, and to keep you drooling, here’s our menu. Everyone at our wedding will get their choice from three entrees…
- Pecan-encrusted Fried Chicken and a fluffy Belgian Waffle with rich Maple Syrup, Grilled Peaches and house-made Honey Dijon Mustard. (I suppose it’s a little cannibalistic, now that I’m Miss Hen, but whatever.)
- Sweet Guava-glazed BBQ Baby Back Ribs with Crispy Yucca Fries & Chipotle Aioli and Deep-fried Corn on the Cob
- Roasted Corn, Leeks & Lobster in a White Wine Sauce over creamy Southern-style Mac & Cheese with crisp Panko Parsley topping
…plus one of two appetizers/sides.
- Crispy Fried Green Tomatoes stuffed with Thomasville, Ga., Goat Cheese & spiked with Chipotle Aioli
- Savory Mango Coconut Rice with Crisp Plantain Ribbons
- OR Waffle-cut fries with Meyer Lemon Aioli & Shaved Parmesan
You’ll immediately notice there’s a problem. We’ve narrowed down our truck’s side dish options to three, but can pick only two for the final menu. I’m torn!
Our original two side dish picks were the fried green tomatoes and the waffle fries. I’ve had both and they are killer. But after choosing our entrees to go along with them—with the fried chicken and fried corn on the cob—it seemed like maybe too much fried food, if there is such a thing. I mean, the only option that isn’t somehow fried on that menu would be the Lobster Mac & Cheese.
So then we decided to switch our side dish choices to the fried green tomatoes and Mango Coconut Rice options. The rice is pretty good, but it seems out of place with the rest of the menu. It would be the only dish that was purely Latin without a tinge of Southern influence. Plus, I realize that even though we’re switching out our 5th item with rice over something else fried, it’s still not exactly healthy or refreshing. I kind of feel like we need a vegetable—you know, one that’s not deep fried.
Which brings me to our third option: We brought up our concerns to Ibiza Bites and they are open to figuring out a veggie-centric dish for our second side (along with the fried green tomatoes; those are staying). We don’t yet know what it would be, or if it will add any extra cost to our catering budget, but this way maybe we can get something we’re really happy with.
So the options for a final appetizer/side are… (along with a little commentary from me)
- Lemon Parmesan Waffle Fries. They are crazyinsane delicious, and it will probably be OK to ask our guests to cheat on their diets for one day.
- Mango Coconut Rice. Because we should have more options that aren’t fried.
- Ambiguous veggie dish behind mystery door number three. I’m confident Ibiza can come up with something good, I just don’t know how much it will cost.
What do you think? Would you be happy to attend a brewery wedding with a ton of guilty pleasure foods? Or do you want more/different options? Anybody else having this much trouble building a balanced menu?
Miss Hen Reporting for Duty!
Some great news: I’ve just been invited to blog for Weddingbee! All of my posts about our wedding here will be republished on the Weddingbee blog, starting with this introductory post. If you want to follow my posts along with the rest of the community on Weddingbee, look for me as Miss Hen!
Hello hive! I “met” Weddingbee long before I ever met my mister, so getting to formally introduce myself as Miss Hen here on the blog is such an honor!
Long before I was engaged, I discovered Weddingbee and immediately became enamored with the community. I loved the idea of real brides sharing real details about their real weddings, and I decided then and there that I would apply, too, when the time comes. Now here I am, a happily engaged soon-to-be bride planning the wedding of her dreams. Let me introduce you to the dream team:
I’m a writer and graphic designer raised in Miami and now living in Atlanta. By day, I work for a major financial institution creating and designing employee engagement campaigns—which basically means it’s my job to make sure everybody around me enjoys theirs. The rest of the time, I’m an industrious home and lifestyle blogger contributing to sites around the web, plus my own blog about crafts, food and entertaining. (I shouldn’t need to tell you that Martha Stewart is my spirit animal.) Besides parties and decorating, my other interests include craft beer, confetti, the Florida Gators, boy bands, cupcakes, macarons and Walt Disney World.
I met Mr. Rooster (let’s call him “Roo”) at work more than five years ago. He’s originally from Brighton, Michigan, and is a midwesterner through and through. If he’s not working hard at his job interviewing students for university admissions, you’ll always find Roo watching the Michigan Wolverines or rooting for one of his hometown Detroit teams. His other loves include the DIY network, alternative music, sleeping and bacon—both the food and our deliciously-named Boston Terrier, Bacon.
Roo with Bacon (the dog) the day we got him. Not pictured: bacon (the food).
Roo and I bonded quickly over our mutual love of sports, beer, trivia and live music before making our work romance official. He proposed on our fourth dating anniversary at Downtown Disney on what will go down in history as my favorite trip to Walt Disney World ever (and I have made many).
We’re planning an October wedding here in our adopted hometown of Atlanta which celebrates all of our favorite things about the South: craft beer, fried food and great weather! (Knock on wood, y’all.) We’ll be married in a secular ceremony on the patio at Monday Night Brewing just before partying down in a cocktail reception at the brewery with enough food, drinks, music and lawn games to last all night. I can’t wait to share it all with our friends and family …and now here with you, hive, as Miss Hen!
Why Hen? I’m a wee bit obsessed with British culture, and one of my favorite bits of trivia from across the pond is how the English refer to Bachelorette parties as “hen parties.” The hen has always seemed like a great symbol of single-ladyhood, and I’m excited my Weddingbee moniker gets to play right into that tradition!
I’m looking forward to sharing my hen party with you all one day, as well as everything else about our wedding. So come sit by me, have a swig of sweet tea and let’s chat!
Let’s Get Into the Green
Extraordinary Days Events
I can say confidently that our budget has been the biggest consideration in every one of my and Roo’s wedding planning decisions. I wouldn’t say that we would have a totally different wedding if money was no object, but I would definitely invite more than 90 guests and splurge on a few things we’ve decided to go without. It turns out our $15,000 budget is a ridiculously low number for an urban city wedding, but it’s a huge amount of cash to us.
(I want to preface this post by saying I am not the poster child for building a wedding budget. I think we’re doing everything “wrong” according to conventional wisdom. But Mr. Rooster and I are both really great with money, so our approach to budgeting is definitely a little less organized than most. But whatever. Here it is.)
Where’s the Money Coming From?
The money for the big expenses is coming from an account I created exclusively for wedding costs. As soon as it looked like Roo and I might be heading down the aisle, I decided to start a savings account and put money into it whenever I could. My pre-engagement account eventually became our joint wedding account after Roo popped the question. Without a doubt, starting early was the best decision I could have made. My little nest egg allowed us to get started right away and make deposits to a venue and photographer as soon as we found them.
Celebrate Today on Etsy
Here are all the sources that add up to make up our wedding fund:
- My pre-engagement wedding savings. I was saving exclusively for wedding costs for about a year before our engagement, so we had a good little chunk of money to start from.
- Some help from our parents. Our folks on both sides have been very generous and contributed lump sums to help with our wedding expenses. We weren’t counting on their help (and are still paying for 75% of the wedding ourselves), but their contributions have given us some breathing room.
- Regular deposits from each paycheck. Roo and I each have money going straight from our paychecks into the wedding account at fixed amounts twice a month.
- Any “extra” income. Since we’ve been engaged, whenever one of us comes into some cash outside of our normal personal budget, we make a deposit for the wedding. This includes any freelance writing income, birthday money, tax return refunds and work bonuses.
To other brides or soon-to-be brides, I definitely recommend having one account set aside exclusively for wedding expenses. This way you get a really great picture of your budget, and you can see exactly how much you have and how much you need at every stage of wedding planning.
How Are We Splitting the Budget?
This is where I’m supposed to recommend one of those downloadable wedding spreadsheets that takes your budget total and calculates all your line items for you. They’re great, I know. But I just can’t do it. I don’t know if you want to call it “resourceful” or “being stubborn,” but I wasn’t about to let a spreadsheet tell me what I should spend on a venue versus a dress.
Our plan for the wedding was to splurge on a few top priorities, and leave out others, so a pre-balanced spreadsheet doesn’t help much. We planned to spend more than the suggested 10 percent on a photographer, but way less than 10 percent on attire.
That said, I would still recommend that non-budgeting brides like me still at least give the wedding spreadsheet thing a try. In a kind-of depressing way, the spreadsheet helped me figure out that we couldn’t do everything we wanted on our budget and showed me where we would need to cut back. When I keyed in the $3000 we wanted to spend on a great photographer, it left very little for everything else. Like, impossibly little. I knew to avoid going into debt there would be no room for hiring a florist. Since I would rather have great photos than great flowers, we cut the stems from the wedding (opting instead to DIY whatever limited florals we will have) to give everything else a little padding.
What’s Not in the Budget?
I kind of feel like I’m lying when I say our wedding budget is $15,000, because our budget doesn’t include two big expenses that some other budgets include: The rings and the honeymoon. We wanted to do the math just for the party and keep jewelry and travel expenses separate.
And another thing: Our $15,000 isn’t really $15,000. There are plenty of small expenses I’m not formally recording. Over the course of planning, whenever a small wedding-related expense comes up that I can pay for out of my normal spending money, I just spend the cash and don’t keep track. For example, I didn’t budget any of the “big” money for invitations or stationery, and instead just used cash in my personal checking account to order envelopes and have my Save-the-Date design printed onto cards. Same goes for the groomsmen’s ties; we just ordered a sample for Roo and he loves it, so he’ll buy his men their ties out of his normal paycheck and not our set-aside wedding money.
Is this the best idea? Probably not. But it’s been the best for us so far. I’ll try to save all my receipts so at the end of wedding planning, I can add it up and discover our “real” wedding budget. That will probably be fun for all of you and eye-opening for me.
Keeping Track of The Big Expenses
I abandoned the idea of using wedding budget worksheets or keeping a line-item budget for little expenses, but I still need to keep track of what’s been paid to our big-money vendors and, more importantly, what we owe. So I started a “booked budget” spreadsheet. It helps me figure out how close we are to saving enough money in our account for the wedding.
It’s really straightforward. Whenever we book a vendor, I add them to the list and make note of our deposit and what’s due in full later on. The spreadsheet adds it up and gives me a big round number of what’s due near the wedding so I know exactly how much we need to save to meet that goal.
We just got quotes for the last of our vendors last week (the bartenders), so I decided to run the numbers again. Guess what? We’re in the black! If we don’t save a single extra dime from now until September, we’re on track to be able to pay the remaining costs to all our vendors from the cash in our dedicated account.
Every cent from here on out goes towards our dream honeymoon to London. Let’s see if we can make this happen! Any advice for squeezing some extra cash out of the budget?
How We Met and Our Unconventional Anniversary
Mr. Rooster proposed on a lovely day in May, on our fourth dating anniversary. Or at least, that’s what we tell people.
The truth is, the day we actually decided to make our relationship official back in 2009? It was sometime in July. We decided we liked being each other’s someone in my studio apartment before heading out on a quasi-date to a Corey Smith concert; a concert after which I drunkenly said “I love you” for the first time. Yeah, I guess we moved fast.
This is us at the concert, two beers from “I love you.”
So why do we celebrate our anniversary in May? Because we’d rather not tell people that it’s not an anniversary… it’s a bonerversary. Real talk. We started counting from the first day that we… you know.
PandaWhale
Roo and I met at work at a University. I was answering calls in the admissions department when he was invited to become an admissions advisor. Thanks to the most friendly and outgoing mutual work friend ever, we began hanging out outside of office hours. I don’t need to tell you whole the “work couple” story…. We hung out in groups. We flirted. We started hanging out by ourselves. A lot. We denied to everyone that anything was happening between us. Then one night we… you know.
Fanpop
Our relationship was happening behind the scenes, but because we worked together, we didn’t rush to make it official. By the time we did make it official after that night in July, it didn’t feel right to say it was our anniversary. I mean, we’d really been together-together since… you know.
Fanaru
So we decided our real benchmark should be that day in May. A “bonerversary” was born! Of course, we’ve only called it that privately. Oh, and with all of you strangers on the internet. Oops.
I have a feeling we’re not the only ones whose bonerversary comes before their anniversary. Spill it!
