Scribble Nation

100 Little Things

The wedding has come and gone, and I am proud to report that it went off without any major hitches.  Naturally a couple of things strayed from the plan, but overall the evening turned out better than I had dared to hope.  It was pretty much perfect.  All in all it was a night to remember, and is in no danger of fading into a mush of cookie cutter wedding memories.  Mission accomplished!

While obviously the big things going according to plan had plenty to do with the party's success, it was the little things that added sweetness and personality to the event.  My Mom and sisters, and my new favorite red headed Floridian, James, did an amazing job putting together the wedding favors and programs.  They created over 100 of each!

These little Match Boxes were first thought up as wedding favors by our buddy Sailor at Hot Rock & Dye.  Originally, I envisioned hand stamped collages of glitter and construction paper, but Heather decided to take these little guys to the next level by designing their paper covers on the computer.  She put together an adorable template of leopard, red, and black, complete with the wedding date, then used four adorable puns and catch phrases on the other side. She used "Hunka Burnin' Love", "A Perfect Match", "Flame On", and "Hot Stuff". These were so cute, and very popular! We only ended up with a handful left over the next morning.

Heather also designed these matching programs.  They featured an awesome tattoo font, a heavenly piece of clip art on the front, and more art from the centerpiece stencils inside. Awesome!

All of the favors were outstanding, but the most amazing of all were the tiny cakes that my Mom made.  She started out by assembling almost 200 little blue boxes that arrived flat stacked from EFavorMart.com.  Then, she created hundreds and hundreds of little bows from blue and gold ribbon.  She attached ribbons and bows to all of the boxes, and then started on the cakes.  She baked mini cupcakes from both yellow and strawberry flavored cake, and then carefully trimmed each cupcake to a uniform shape.  When they were all ready, she glazed them with a white chocolate ganache, then dipped the tops in melted white chocolate.  As if that wasn't wild enough, she topped each tiny cake with a pair of handmade (by her, of course) gum paste cherries!  Even the little bows attached to the cherries were made by hand with ribbon and hot glue.  Heather designed and printed tiny cards to accompany the cake boxes, explaining the tradition that went behind them:

Legend says that if an unwed woman places a slice of wedding cake under her pillow, that night she will dream of the man she is going to marry! Thanks for being with us as we watched our dreams come true! To play the game, place this box of cake under your pillow tonight and dream your heart out!

There are many more photos to come.  I'll keep posting as they flow in.  Next, I'll share photos of us setting up, and explain how we transformed the Heirloom into a swanky fifties dance party

Bridal Shower!

10 Days left until the big day, and I thought I would take a little time to highlight some recent wedding goodness for you all. One of the biggest things I haven't gotten a chance to blog about was the amazingly well put together Bridal Shower that my sisters threw me a few weeks ago.  They held it at The Sesame Seed Restaurant, a really yummy granola type place that is super cute and right up my alley.  In fact, it is the favorite local restaurant for many of the girls who attended that day.  I know more than a few of the guests were thrilled about the location.

The Sesame Seed Restaurant resides in a charming old Victorian style house on Wooster Street in Danbury, CT.  It is decorated in a sort of antique, shabby chic meets crazed hippy collector sort of way, and it serves an eclectic menu of healthful and delicious, hippy dippy foods, including their incredible homemade hummus, and hefty portions of Gorgonzola topping several standard dishes.  For the shower, they provided a menu with three lunch entrees: Spinach Pie, Chicken Fajitas, and Salmon.  They let us run rampant across their entire second floor too, giving us loads of space and privacy for the party.  My sisters also mentioned several times how helpful and accommodating the staff at The Sesame Seed was during the planning and execution of the party.  I would definitely recommend the venue.

In true McNally fashion, Sarah and Heather crafted their little fingers to the bone for the shower.  The craftiness began with a gorgeous welcome centerpiece, made from sticks, punched flowers, moss, and glitter birds.  Next to the centerpiece were an army of tiny, handmade note cards, and one of the lovely invitations the girls had sent out.   Speaking of glitter birds, Heather and Sarah hand glittered an extraordinary amount of little feather birds, which they used to decorate their welcome centerpiece, and to top jelly bean favors!  The favors were so cute!  Tiny metal tins were covered in two layers of crafty paper, with hearts cut out between them. Then, the tins were filled with red and turquoise jelly beans, and topped with glitter birds!  Then each tin and bird were wrapped up in little cello bags and tied with handmade, grommetted tags that said "MH"! The gals didn't stop there, either.  They put lovely milk glass (my favorite) bud vases on all the tables, tied with ribbons and filled with daisies! So crafty!

We played the classic Toilet Paper Bride game at the shower, which was a huge hit.  The party split off into three teams, each given a few rolls of TO (Recycled, of course) and about 15 minutes to create a masterpiece.  I ran around snapping photos as the ladies went to work.  The game resulted in three very different TP bride looks, all of which were incredibly creative.  Of course, the Scissor Squad was almost entirely on one team, and what they created was simply mind blowing. It really did look like a real dress. Incredible!

Later we ate delicious cupcakes from the American Artisan Bakery in Sandy Hook, CT.  These things  were gi-freaking-normous and VERY tasty.  Everyone had fun splitting their cupcakes up to share flavors.  After the cupcakery was done, they sat me in a chair and showered in fantastic gifts!  Hooray! I have been chipping away at my Thank You cards ever since, and hope to get them out very soon, for I am, indeed, very thankful for all my gorgeous loot!

Thanks, Heather and Sarah for a super lovely time! To check out the full collection of photos, visit the gallery!

Zoo-Venture

My sisters decided to give me a nice break from wedding planning this past weekend, and treated me to a trip to the Bronx Zoo!  To me, the Bronx Zoo is one of those special places that can always make me happy.  It doesn't take long for the Zoo to banish my blues and dismiss all nagging anxieties.  Cute animals just make me happy, I guess.  Staring into fuzzy, feathery faces makes it unbelievably easy to forget everything that has been weighing on my mind.  It's too bad I can't just pop over there every afternoon.

This trip was a great opportunity for me to practice more with my new camera.  The sun was out, the light was bright, and the Canon was snipping and snapping away.  I'm still struggling with blur and noise, but I am getting better.  One thing I have discovered about the SX10 is that its automatic settings really stink.  They don't do much justice to the camera itself, so tweaking settings is absolutely necessary to get a good shot.  I took hundreds of photos Saturday, but was only happy with about 70. Not too shabby, but not good enough yet. I'm looking forward to getting a lot more practice in while I'm in Maine in July.

Here's a slide show of photos from our zoo adventure.  If you get a chance to stop by the Bronx Zoo sometime soon, send my fuzzy buddies some love from me.