I posted this photo to the Weddingbee Gallery, and I was featured on The Bee!
Thanks to all the vendors who made this photo what it is:
Boulder Blooms (flowers and chuppah rental)
not shown: La Bella Brass Ensemble
Showing posts with label vendors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vendors. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
welcome bags
[caption id="attachment_1201" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="welcome bags, behind the front desk at the St. Julien"]
[/caption]The St. Julien and the Boulderado were great about the welcome bags, no charge! The Marriott on the other hand was a pain in the ass, and the girl at the front desk wasn't very efficient at all. I understand that she wanted to make sure that she had marked on people's reservations that they had bags, but did I really have to be there and confirm each one twice?! It took 20 minutes!
Bag breakdown:
- canvas tote bag with homemade/printed iron-on logo (please don't sue us, REI!)
- welcome note/map of downtown Boulder, inc. directions to the synagogue
- home-made flyer on altitude sickness awareness
- vanilla mint chapstick (SPF 15)
- 1 oz tube of Rocky Mountain Sunscreen (SPF 30 with TiO2)
- 1 bottle of water pp (w/ customized label)
- 1 snack-size bag of Boulder Canyon potato chips pp
- 4 york peppermint patties pp
- 2 caramels pp
- 1 candy corn pp
- 4 flavors of tea per bag
- 2 glittery bandaids per bag
- tourist map of downtown
- hiking/biking trail map of Boulder
- map of public parking in downtown Boulder
- assorted flyers (Dushambe tea house, Celestial Seasonings tea factory, NCAR museum, FISK planetarium, Boulder Creek winery, etc.)
Total cost per bag:
less than $9, including delivery fees
yes, that's more than we planned to spend, but since there ended up being fewer people than we'd planned for, it still fit within our budget. I'm not sure that the bags would have been quite so elaborate if everyone had been able to come out to Boulder 2 weeks ago.
Custom water bottles were made from Costco water bottles with the labels peeled off. We printed our own labels on waterproof shipping labels and cut them with the paper cutter. It only took me about 90 minutes to modify 4 flats of water.
Let me know if you have any questions about anything else I included in the bags and I'll elaborate.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
items left to order: TWO
Kippot AKA yarmulkes (little hats for the men) and benchers (song/prayer books for after a meal).
That's it. Oh, and to pick up the water bottles and potato chips for the welcome bags.
Seriously. That's it. I sent the contracts to the DJ and the brass quintet (for the ceremony) last night. Every vendor we're hiring has been hired! All that's left is to do/finish all my crafty projects, finalize music selections, menu selections, floral decor, get our clothes tailored, and find someone to do my hair (I can do my own makeup).
We also have to talk to Rabbi Marc about our ceremony. A peer from synagogue (who is also a friend of a friend) got married about a month ago and Rabbi Marc was the officiant at her wedding too. He had just returned from a silent retreat and found out that his dad was quite sick and was in a weird/meditative head-space. Apparently, he threw everyone off by asking if they had any thoughts or wishes that they wanted to share with the bride and groom, to be spiritually sealed into their ketubah before signing it, no one was prepared for this question and there were 3-4 minutes of awkward silence (which my friend said felt like 10 minutes because everyone was just looking around like a deer in headlights). I want to go over everything with him, step-by-step, to make sure that there are no silent surprises like that at our ceremony. While Ben's family may be OK with the touchy-feelies, mine isn't. We're more of the silent WASPy types when it comes to emoting than the huggy ones.
That's it. Oh, and to pick up the water bottles and potato chips for the welcome bags.
Seriously. That's it. I sent the contracts to the DJ and the brass quintet (for the ceremony) last night. Every vendor we're hiring has been hired! All that's left is to do/finish all my crafty projects, finalize music selections, menu selections, floral decor, get our clothes tailored, and find someone to do my hair (I can do my own makeup).
We also have to talk to Rabbi Marc about our ceremony. A peer from synagogue (who is also a friend of a friend) got married about a month ago and Rabbi Marc was the officiant at her wedding too. He had just returned from a silent retreat and found out that his dad was quite sick and was in a weird/meditative head-space. Apparently, he threw everyone off by asking if they had any thoughts or wishes that they wanted to share with the bride and groom, to be spiritually sealed into their ketubah before signing it, no one was prepared for this question and there were 3-4 minutes of awkward silence (which my friend said felt like 10 minutes because everyone was just looking around like a deer in headlights). I want to go over everything with him, step-by-step, to make sure that there are no silent surprises like that at our ceremony. While Ben's family may be OK with the touchy-feelies, mine isn't. We're more of the silent WASPy types when it comes to emoting than the huggy ones.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
as if it weren't official already
All of our save the date magnets (expect for a few of Ben's friends who have no decorum) have been mailed!
Yey!
We ordered these a while back, from poseprints.com, and they were moving their office at the time. Things got complicated because I accidently ordered too few and tried via voice mail to change my order (I refuse to email my credit card info). About a month after our initial order we got the increased order in the mail at no extra charge! (I called to check on this, since it was totally my fault that I hadn't ordered enough and Jen, the owner, explained that their usual turnaround was 7-10 days and that she was comping us the extra 25 magnets because we got lost in the move.)
They came with envelopes (linen-y feeling, and not thick enough to not been seen though) and little plastic sleeves and the magnets themselves are nice and thick and glossy and rounded on the edges like they were made of enameled. Definitely worth the sale price we'd paid for them. If there were actual product photos on the site, I might even go so far as to say that they're worth the full price, but why bother when we were able to get 50% off? I'd take a picture of the one on our fridge, but there's a cute/funny/naughty magnetic poem next to it and I don't want to disturb the tableau.
[caption id="attachment_549" align="aligncenter" width="521" caption="the blip on Ben's cheek is gone in the final copy"]
[/caption]
That's the true size. This is the proof and I commented on the response form that there was a white blip on Ben's inside cheek, they got back to me right away that they weren't sure what that was but that it would be gone in the final product (it was).
Hand addressing them was a fun adventure too. I used a green ballpoint pen and just started working my way down the list while the dude tried to figure out how to print the return address on the little envelops and how to format the printer. We got done at about the same time since he could only feed 5 or so at a time and kept taking breaks to make dinner while I addressed away.
Anyway, they've been mailed to family and out of town friends, handed out to local friends, and we're waiting to distribute a few more by hand (Ben can't seem to wrangle the last few addresses) at our engagement/tea party at his parents' house in 2 weeks. I would have saved postage and handed out more, but my aunts wanted to host a bridal shower which made me want to meet his family friends more (thus the tea party) and I wanted the magnets in the mail before people got invited to a party/shower and didn't actually know when the wedding is scheduled for.
Oh, and one last thing, the envelope is standard size and the magnet isn't a bump. I tried going to the neighborhood post office and the jerk behind the counter gave an envelope a eyeball and hefted it and told me that it was undersized and too thick and would need extra postage. I had 105 US and 3 international to mail, I was not about to pay $0.64 for domestic mailings and who knows how much for international. I calmly walked out and drove to CU's off-campus book store where I there's a postal annex (it's also just over a mile closer than going all the way downtown). I told the woman behind the counter what had happened at the last post office so she weighed, measured, and stuck the envelope through a slotted plastic thingy. It passed all the tests of being a normal, mailable envelope and she then handed me a bucket of $0.44 stamps to pick through and helped another customer. WOW! Even though I have to drive past the local post office and then another 2 miles and look for parking when I get there, when it comes time to mail anything ever again, I'm going to the bookstore annex so that I can get some decent customer service! The local post office is now only good for picking up oversized packages, IMHO.
Yey!
We ordered these a while back, from poseprints.com, and they were moving their office at the time. Things got complicated because I accidently ordered too few and tried via voice mail to change my order (I refuse to email my credit card info). About a month after our initial order we got the increased order in the mail at no extra charge! (I called to check on this, since it was totally my fault that I hadn't ordered enough and Jen, the owner, explained that their usual turnaround was 7-10 days and that she was comping us the extra 25 magnets because we got lost in the move.)
They came with envelopes (linen-y feeling, and not thick enough to not been seen though) and little plastic sleeves and the magnets themselves are nice and thick and glossy and rounded on the edges like they were made of enameled. Definitely worth the sale price we'd paid for them. If there were actual product photos on the site, I might even go so far as to say that they're worth the full price, but why bother when we were able to get 50% off? I'd take a picture of the one on our fridge, but there's a cute/funny/naughty magnetic poem next to it and I don't want to disturb the tableau.
[caption id="attachment_549" align="aligncenter" width="521" caption="the blip on Ben's cheek is gone in the final copy"]
[/caption]That's the true size. This is the proof and I commented on the response form that there was a white blip on Ben's inside cheek, they got back to me right away that they weren't sure what that was but that it would be gone in the final product (it was).
Hand addressing them was a fun adventure too. I used a green ballpoint pen and just started working my way down the list while the dude tried to figure out how to print the return address on the little envelops and how to format the printer. We got done at about the same time since he could only feed 5 or so at a time and kept taking breaks to make dinner while I addressed away.
Anyway, they've been mailed to family and out of town friends, handed out to local friends, and we're waiting to distribute a few more by hand (Ben can't seem to wrangle the last few addresses) at our engagement/tea party at his parents' house in 2 weeks. I would have saved postage and handed out more, but my aunts wanted to host a bridal shower which made me want to meet his family friends more (thus the tea party) and I wanted the magnets in the mail before people got invited to a party/shower and didn't actually know when the wedding is scheduled for.
Oh, and one last thing, the envelope is standard size and the magnet isn't a bump. I tried going to the neighborhood post office and the jerk behind the counter gave an envelope a eyeball and hefted it and told me that it was undersized and too thick and would need extra postage. I had 105 US and 3 international to mail, I was not about to pay $0.64 for domestic mailings and who knows how much for international. I calmly walked out and drove to CU's off-campus book store where I there's a postal annex (it's also just over a mile closer than going all the way downtown). I told the woman behind the counter what had happened at the last post office so she weighed, measured, and stuck the envelope through a slotted plastic thingy. It passed all the tests of being a normal, mailable envelope and she then handed me a bucket of $0.44 stamps to pick through and helped another customer. WOW! Even though I have to drive past the local post office and then another 2 miles and look for parking when I get there, when it comes time to mail anything ever again, I'm going to the bookstore annex so that I can get some decent customer service! The local post office is now only good for picking up oversized packages, IMHO.
Friday, February 5, 2010
photographer contract is in the mail
Here's to hoping that Amanda and Debi Tipton win some fabulous award now that we put our contract in the mail this morning!
Please welcome, Kokoro Photography to our vendor list!
Please welcome, Kokoro Photography to our vendor list!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
yey for cool people/vendors!
Ben and I took the bus into Denver on Saturday afternoon (yes, we broke the "no wedding talk on Shabbat" rule, again). For some reason we we kinda disgustingly snuggly all weekend, but managed to pry ourselves a few inches apart so that we didn't scare off Amanda and her mom Debi, the awesome photography team behind Kokoro Photography.
Oddly we've found that the standard of how we get along with vendors is: cakewrecks. Yes, a fail blog is used to measure how well we get along with someone. Does the vendor appreciate a blog that catalogs epic fail cakes? If not, then how can we ever get along?
Afterward we went to visit a friend who was working at the Christkindlmarket, drink some Glühwein, and do a bit of shopping at Ann Taylor Loft (40% anything that wasn't on sale on Saturday, how could I not!?), 'case ivory is in this winter! So, I of course had to go start looking for sweaters and other things to wear for our wedding weekend. I'm going to need lots of outfits, oh darn! Here's the list (so far) of activities:
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Boulder Mikvah"]
[/caption]
Is it weird to be thinking about the whole week before the wedding as part of the wedding? I jut figure there's a lot of potential for photo taking and I'd like to look a bit better then my usual PJ/crappy work uniform potato-sack self.
PS- try adding 2 pumps of gingerbread to your chai at St@rbuck$, yummy!
Oddly we've found that the standard of how we get along with vendors is: cakewrecks. Yes, a fail blog is used to measure how well we get along with someone. Does the vendor appreciate a blog that catalogs epic fail cakes? If not, then how can we ever get along?
Afterward we went to visit a friend who was working at the Christkindlmarket, drink some Glühwein, and do a bit of shopping at Ann Taylor Loft (40% anything that wasn't on sale on Saturday, how could I not!?), 'case ivory is in this winter! So, I of course had to go start looking for sweaters and other things to wear for our wedding weekend. I'm going to need lots of outfits, oh darn! Here's the list (so far) of activities:
- Wednesday: bachelorette party
- Thursday: pre-mikvah get together? (then I go to the mikvah)
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Boulder Mikvah"]
[/caption]- Friday: Erev Shabbat service & dinner w/ family
- Saturday: Shabbat services/Auf Ruf
- Sunday: WEDDING
- Sunday: brunch?
Is it weird to be thinking about the whole week before the wedding as part of the wedding? I jut figure there's a lot of potential for photo taking and I'd like to look a bit better then my usual PJ/crappy work uniform potato-sack self.
PS- try adding 2 pumps of gingerbread to your chai at St@rbuck$, yummy!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Boulderado bridal show
Ben and I went to a bridal show yesterday at the Boulderado Hotel. We went mainly to look at photographers, but ended up more interested in invitation stationery and greenery/orchids than the photographers who were there. None of them were bad, just not our style. We also tried some AWESOME cupcakes from some of the bakers, especially from Shemane's Bake Shoppe who did our friends' wine and dessert welcome reception. Mmmm, lemon poppyseed cupcake with toasted meringue frosting. Kinda makes me re-think the no cake idea. Oh well, NO CAKE! Not at our reception anyway. Maybe afterwards, what kinds cupcakes go with beer and soft pretzels (the current after party idea)?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
I like working with people I like
Ben and I met with Danielle, from Something Classic Events last night at one of our favorite bookstores (Tattered Cover, LoDo) last night and ended up talking for over 2 hours about wedding-y and family stuff. The first sign we were all going to get along well: we bonded over Cakewrecks.com!
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="my mini wreck from the book signing"]
[/caption]
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="392" caption="all the mini wrecks (minus the 3 winners of the day)"]
[/caption]
If you go look at the cakewrecks.com entry about Denver, you can find me in the group photo. I'm on the left, half way back, wearing an olive green shirt and waving my arms.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="my mini wreck from the book signing"]
[/caption][caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="392" caption="all the mini wrecks (minus the 3 winners of the day)"]
[/caption]If you go look at the cakewrecks.com entry about Denver, you can find me in the group photo. I'm on the left, half way back, wearing an olive green shirt and waving my arms.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
website music: a rant
Dear Potential Vendors:
If you have music that plays automatically on your site, we won't be hiring you. Seriously. You're no longer even a possibility.
Sorry, and good luck finding customers.
Sincerely,
Deena & Ben
If you have music that plays automatically on your site, we won't be hiring you. Seriously. You're no longer even a possibility.
Sorry, and good luck finding customers.
Sincerely,
Deena & Ben
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