Wedding Task: Favors

Accomplished!

We decided a long time ago that we would make some sort of charitable contribution for a our favors .. and then a while back we stumbled on the idea of planting a tree in honor of each guest ... but we were still overwhelmed by options. There are so many ways to do it, so many potential companies to go through .... what to do??? Well what we decided to do was research every ingle one until we were blue in the face and then go with the two we liked best (which incidentally happened to be pretty cheap too! Only $1 buys a tree! $1!!!!). We bought half the trees from The Arbor Day Foundation and half from the Nature Conservancy .. yep we are wise like Solomon .. always split that baby people!

Then I hopped, skipped, and clicked on over to VistaPrint to make the cards for each guest letting them know that a tree had been planted for them. Again, I made half representing on organization and half the other. Check the design skills peeps ...

You know like my style! And I bought it through ebates so I even got money back! Woo! I love me a good deal .. (its like chocolate cake or pizza even when its not that good a deal ... its still damn good!)

If you would like to plant trees through The Arbor Day Foundation click here and to plant trees through Nature Conservancy click here.

DIY centerpieces... sort of ...

So one thing about me that you will soon learn is that I heart trees... not actual trees! Mostly because I am incapable of taking care of plants of any variety, in fact I have a theory that they commit suicide the minute they realize that they are in my care.... but I digress!

I like trees as images and decorations and also for their symbolic meanings. So when I saw a Tree of Life picture frame this morning at Duane Reade I knew it was meant to be... posted on this blog.

So, its not technically DIY, since you would have to buy it, but its sort of a semi-DIY since you still have to add 10% of your homemade photos. Plus its still cheaper than hiring a florist to make centerpieces.

I think the frames would make a very cute centerpieces, or a nice way to decorate the place card table, or just a nice frame to have at your home. You can put in pics of you and the hubs from various times in your lives and your guests can enjoy perusing them during the reception. I would put pics from different age groups on different tables which (hopefully) would encourage guests to go over to each other's tables to check out all of the different pictures. The best part is that they are only $14.49. They are also available in bronze but they are more pricey. Go pick them up at your local Duane Reade or order them online at Amazon (here for silver and here for bronze).

{image source}

Help out the Broke-Ass Bride

If your a fan of the wedding blogs, then you know The Broke-Ass Bride, and you know that Broke-Ass (aka Dana) has one very kick-ass blog ... and now her ass needs our help.

Dana and her future hubby are in the lead in the Green Wedding Contest at Trees Instead and if we keep voting for them they will be able to win fabulous and eco-friendly prizes. Here she explains what she needs from us:

"We've got a great lead on the competition, but its sure to tighten up quickly, so please remember you can vote once per day on their website, but note that the questions change up every day or so...

Usually, they ask for:

Our names: Hunter Stiebel and Dana LaRue

Our wedding date: May 24, 2009

The location of one of their planting grounds - all of which can be found here

Their toll-free number: 1-866-972-8733

Any other answers are usually quite easy to locate.

You can also vote once per day on Twitter!

Just post the following link, along with our names:http://www.treesinstead.com/Green_Gift_Valentines.php Dana LaRue/Hunter Stiebel @TreesInstead

Or, once a day on Facebook!

Follow the link below, clicking "join group" and leaving a message on their wall stating that you vote for us! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22482072281

Voting is open until Jan. 29th, so vote early and often... your 3 potential votes each day can really be the thing that makes or breaks the competition! If we win, we get an amazing array of earth-friendly rewards such as trees planted for all our guests, and carbon offsets for all our travel, but the grand prize is a honeymoon to Costa Rica! Lawd knows we could use it!"

So come on people... start voting!

A tree ... instead?

Remember there was that time that I considered giving away little trees as favors/escort cards? I clearly still love that idea but what if instead of giving a tree ... we plant a tree instead?

That's where A Tree Instead comes in! Not only are they conveniently named for the purposes of my blog post but they are also effing awesome. The have an entire Green Weddings section. And for $3.50 each, you can get a tree planted on behalf of each of your guests and A Tree Instead will provide a certificate so that you have something tangible to share with your guests.

Clearly, I am smitten with this idea, helping the environment, incorporating trees, and for under $5 bucks a pop! ... yeh you had me at "A Tree" ...

PS: I found this fabulous idea on A Hot Pink Petticoat, which is one hot blog.

A teaser ....

Trees

I THINK that I shall never see 

A poem lovely as a tree. 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in summer wear 

A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 

Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree. 

- Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918 

We are back from the Hamptons a little tan-er, a little more relaxed, and very very happy! I will reveal the big surprise from over the weekend .... shortly!  .... and there will be pics! In the meantime enjoy the poem. {Image source} & {Poem source}

F*ing gorgeous

Ever read a poem that was so fucking beautiful, you had to curse just to express how dizzingly gorgeous it is? No? Try this one on for size.

... oh and just to warn you, this only my second favorite of his poems ... the link to my favorite one of his is below .. its so lovely it makes my chest ache .. you know, in that really really good way.


The Archipelago Of Kisses

We live in a modern society. Husbands and wives don't
grow on trees, like in the old days. So where
does one find love? When you're sixteen it's easy,
like being unleashed with a credit card
in a department store of kisses. There's the first kiss.
The sloppy kiss. The peck.
The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we
shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips
taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.
The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss.
The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad
sometimes kiss. The I know
your tongue like the back of my hand kiss. As you get
older, kisses become scarce. You'll be driving
home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road,
with its purple thumb out. If you
were younger, you'd pull over, slide open the mouth's
red door just to see how it fits. Oh where
does one find love? If you rub two glances, you get a smile.
Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling.
Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss.
Now what? Don't invite the kiss over
and answer the door in your underwear. It'll get suspicious
and stare at your toes. Don't water the kiss with whiskey.
It'll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters,
but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out of
your body without saying good-bye,
and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left
on the inside of your mouth. You must
nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it
illuminates the room. Hold it to your chest
and wonder if the sand inside hourglasses comes from a
special beach. Place it on the tongue's pillow,
then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia: beneath
a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C.
But one kiss levitates above all the others. The
intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss.
The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.

                           -- Jeffrey McDaniel

... and if you liked that one, this one is even better. No seriously, it gets better. Don't believe me? Check it and enjoy.

{Image Source}

Happy Halloween!

Since its Halloween, I figured I would propose another unconventional bouquet idea... 

Getting married in the fall??? Why not carry a bouquet of pumpkin trees?

Soooo, their not really pumpkins (they are technically ornamental eggplants) and not really a tree (but when dried the stems take on a brown wood like appearance) but they are fun and different. 

Another way to use them could be as part of your centerpieces surrounded by other orange and brown flowers and plants.

{Source for top image and for middle image and bottom image}

Escort-cards... that are favors...

... that might actually be sort of useful? Can it be!?!?

Ok well not useful per se! But these are escort-cards/favors my guests might not throw out the minute they leave (hopefully! there is no telling with Russians, they are hardly ever pleased!).

 Here is what I am thinking: a table full of mini evergreen tree seedlings.

They can either be lying down like the one above or standing in small clay pots, like below.

This idea comes thanks to Evergreen Memories. They provide the seedlings and will also put them in little pots or burlap sacks and tie ribbons on them, all depending on your preferences.

 

Clearly there many things to love here, first and foremost the price, each seedling ranges from $1.25 - $4.25 depending on whether you want the trimmings. Also, my hope is that people will take them home and plant them somewhere or leave them on their desks at the office to have a little something green and bright in their every day.

What I especially dig is how perfectly they fit in with the whole winter wedding wonderland idea that I have whirling around my snow crazed head. Plus the Big Guy is from the Evergreen State, so since our wedding will by in the NYC, it will be a nice shout-out to his home too.

Thoughts? Ideas based on these little trees? I would love to hear 'em.

{All images from Evergreen Memories}

No color scheme? No problem!

We never picked wedding colors ... usually when people ask about it, we just shrug .. which is followed closely by us having to call an ambulance to revive the person we have just been talking to since they have clearly passed out from the shock of hearing something quite so horrible as "no set colors" ... I know we are truly heathens... but more to my point .. we just never sat down and picked colors. Mostly because we both think a color palette will just kind of develop organically on its own, based on the choices we make (and not the other way around).

As most of you know, lately, we have been loving greens. There is nothing that makes me smile more than a huge evergreen with thick green needles dusted in white snow ... the green, the white, the black, all work so beautifully together and they just scream, WINTER is here! It makes me feel like a little kid again waiting for Ded Moroz to bring me presents for New Year (yep in Soviet Russia even Jewish kids got a sort of Santa, he was like a fake government sanctioned Santa for all Russian kids, we can call him Fanta .... I can explain but it takes a while ...).

Wow ... my digressions are really getting the best of me today! Anyways ...

This weekend we got bridesmaids dresses! Yep, they are selected and ordered and done with. But the interesting part is that they are not green, which had been the plan originally. On Saturday, we had picked out a dress and were debating colors in the store and my beautiful ladies decided the dress we had picked would look better in a different color. They are far wiser and more stylish then I; besides which they actually have to wear the damn thing, so I totally deferred to them. Plus I couldn't agree more that the color they picked will be a stunner on everyone.

... and now a color scheme is starting to develop:
Green - trees which are very symbolic to the two of us
White - for winter and my super fabulous hypothetical cotton ball bouquet

and .................................................................................................

Navy - which is the color of the girls dresses

So what do you think? Here are some inspiration boards I found online to give you guys some visuals:

{Source}

{Source}

{Source}

mmmm cakes

There is nothing I like more than sweets ... cakes, cupcakes, .... bucket full of frosting and I am in! And you all know how I feel about trees (see here, here, and here) and pine cones (here and oh yeah here). So these cakes look extra yummy to me....

I hope the branches are edible (mmm and made of sugar... or chocolate!)... I think I would take off the birdies though. This cake comes from Ritzy Bee blog.

This one makes think of snow falling and hot chocolate (bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens?). This one comes from the incomparable Martha.

And now I am going to continue to study for the bar exam ... if by study for the bar you mean dream of sugary sweet frosting, maybe even with some cake underneath it.

I'll be your tree if you'll be my roots

Remember how I told you that a ketubah = art? And you know how I feel about trees .....

 

Could this be more perfect? No Chandler Bing - it could not. Right from the beautiful, simple tree at the top to the roots stitched, yep you read that right! The roots are sown into the paper! Ok now that your in love, go, go on check it out at New Ketubah (which I found on Something Old, Something New.)

Continuing with theme of trees...

As the holiday season looms in the very near future, today I am thinking about presents. There is not a whole lot that I like more than giving people gifts... my very slim bank account can attest to this fact. Last year I decided to buy a small meaningful piece of jewelry for two of my closest friends (incidentally they will be my two maids of honor!) and I happened upon the The Giving Tree.

I found exactly what I was looking for (beautiful designer pieces) and the kind of personal service that makes you feel like you live in Pleasantville, USA and just bought something from the cool ladies who run the jewelry store down the street.

The owners of Giving Tree collect fabulous pieces. They are extremely knowledgeable about their products and are super helpful to their customers. Plus they have a blog! Let's get real they are really tipping the scales of awesome into uber awesomeness.

The website is the definition of user-friendly... my favorite part is that you can view the jewelry by price. Hello, $50 and under page, I will definitely be using you for bridesmaids gifts! Another fun feature are the descriptions of the jewelry designers that they carry. Each designer gets a page with some information regarding their work written by the ladies of Giving Tree Jewelry. They not only describe the designer's bio, they also describe the feeling of the jewelry that that person designs.

Ok I think I need to stop raving now...just go check it out!

Glug glug

Yeh, trees are great and all .... but .... uh .... so is booze!

... and it just got a little better over at Just A Glass because they are offering Personalized Alcoholic Miniatures for under 5 bucks!

And it gets better! They give 10% of the purchase to Cancer Research UK. 

Talk about drinking responsibly!

Go ahead, it's Friday. Imbibe away!

Inspirational

Go vote for your favorite inspiration board over at My Island Wedding. I am number 23 Woodsy Meets City but there are so many great submissions I won't be hurt if you vote for someone else ... I'll just know that our relationship means more to me than it does to you, thats fine! (How good are my mama-inherited guilting skills? I mean like soooo good!) 

Happy Voting!

Image sources: {cucumbers, cake, bouquet, cufflinks, tribeca rooftop, b-maids, cotton bout, trees and lights, words on wall, flowers in birch vase)