It's Time

It's time to say goodbye to this blog. It's been time for a while but life has gotten in the way and I haven't had time to write a proper goodbye post. Before I officially sign off, I wanted to share a few photos from our first anniversary:

We had leftover wedding cake in the freezer (not the whole top tier but a few extra pieces) but we hadn't wrapped it correctly because it had some serious freezer burn. Oops! So I picked up a couple of cupcakes from Butter Lane in Brooklyn. They were delicious!

We decided to exchange traditional first anniversary paper gifts. I used an idea I've seen on several wedding blogs - a word cloud (using wordle) of our ceremony script and vows. It was easy and inexpensive and I love how it turned out. 

Steve's paper gift to me was personalized stationary with my married name from Minted. I love their paper products (we got save the dates from them) and I'm excited to use these cards.

Our main gift to each other was a trip to Chicago! Neither of us had been before so we decided to take a long weekend. We stayed at the Avenue Hotel in an amazing king suite. The views from the bedroom were fantastic.

View of the sunset from our hotel room.

We did some touristy things, like a visit to Millennium Park.

We went to the top of Willis Tower and stood on the skydeck (which was kind of scary!) 

We ate delicious food, including deep dish pizza.

We took an architectural boat tour. The Chicago buildings are gorgeous!

One day we rented bikes and rode them along Lake Michigan.

Pitstop in Lincoln Park

Drinks at the Signature Room on top of Hancock Tower

Dinner on our actual anniversary at Province

We had such a great time. Overall, our first year of marriage was awesome. People say the first year is hard, but it honestly wasn't for us. We had the usual ups and downs but life is SO much better with my husband by my side. :) I'm excited to spend many, many more years together!

And with that, I bid Ten Eleven Ten adieu! I want to thank all of you for reading my wedding plans and recaps over the past 2.5 years. Planning my wedding wouldn't have been half as fun without the community of bloggers I met along the way.

I hope you'll stay in touch! You can find me on my other blog, twitter or Pinterest.

Take care, guys. :)

Last photo by Windau Photography. All other photos are personal.

Post Wedding Projects

Like I said in my last post, I'm very sentimental. I love being able to look at photo albums and mementos from past events and remember the good times. Since our wedding was one of the most important days of my life, I knew I wanted more than just photos to remember it by. So I made a few projects.

Project #1: Bolero Transformation

I actually can't take credit for this first one. Remember the fluffy fabric bolero I wore during our reception? 

After the wedding. I left my dress and bolero with my mom. She told me she wanted to make something with the bolero so I could look at it everyday and remember wearing it. My mom's side career is freelance interior design, so she used her skills to turn the bolero into a pillow! (Click photos to enlarge.)

I don't sew so I can't tell you exactly how she did it...but she maintained the look of the fabric flowers (including the beaded details). I love it! 

The only part not taken from the bolero is the back, which is white satin. She adorned it with additional beads from the bolero.

It seriously looks like expensive pillows I've seen in stores, but it's even better because it has sentimental value. It sits on our bed and I look at it everyday. Best. Gift. Ever.

Project #2: Shadow Box

I knew I wanted to make a shadow box after seeing examples of them in the blogosphere. Here's what I came up with:

The yellow fabric in the background is from our photo booth at the wedding. I included our cran-lemon invitation and envelope, one of our photo moo cards from our invitation, the monogram sticker I created  for our favors, and the "just married" flag from our cake topper.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I still have a few mementos from our wedding that I've like to showcase (like my bouquet charm) so I think I'm going to make a second shadow box soon.

Project #3: Honeymoon Canvas Prints

I got a groupon a while back for a discounted canvas print. Steve and I thought it'd be fun to chose one of our honeymoon photos so we could hang it up and remember the amazing experience. After we used the groupon to purchase one canvas, the company (Canvas on Demand) then gave us a promo code to get another print at a discount, so we decided to use it to buy another. Since we went to both Napa Valley and San Francisco for our honeymoon, we thought it'd be nice to have one canvas print for each place.

We took this photo in Napa: 

It's the entrance into Sterling Vineyards. We used Picasa to make the photo black and white, with a touch of color in the center where the trees get closer together. 

This shot is from San Francisco:

We took it while on Alcatraz Island. The San Francisco skyline is in the background. Again, we edited the photo to be black and white, except for the pop of color in the flower.

We placed them side by side on our wall:

Love them! They are now the most sentimental pieces of art we own. :)

I'm glad my mom and I took the time to put these projects together, because now when Steve and I walk around our apartment, we are reminded of our wedding and honeymoon, and how happy they both made us. 

Did you make any post-wedding projects?

First two photos by Windau Photography. The rest are personal photos.

Our Wedding Album

Finally, our wedding album reveal! We are in love.

The process of ordering it was pretty easy. First we picked our favorite photos (we ended up with just under 100), and then we selected the type of album we wanted (8 x 12 horizontal album, laminated metallic photo paper, and silver polished cover). Our photographer--Windau--took care of the rest. He showed us a proof online and we were able to make changes. He did an outstanding job!

Here are some of my favorite spreads:

Note: I took these on my point-and-shoot, which didn't do the album any justice. The quality is MUCH better in person. You can click each photo to enlarge.

The cover is metallic, which looks spectacular in person.

The cover is nice and thick. 

The first page has our names and wedding date.

This spread of our first look is one of my favorites. :)

The pages lay flat so you can barely see the seam in these full spreads.

lay-flat pages

The back is simple (faux) leather.

When I went to pick up our album, I saw that Windau threw in a 2012 photo calendar! That was a nice surprise. I'm excited to hang this up next year.

This is the one and only professional album we ordered. We would have loved to order parent albums as well but pro albums are very expensive! Still, I'm glad we splurged on this one because we'll have it forever and it's so gorgeous. I'm the sentimental type who loves taking out my photo albums to reminisce so I know it won't get dusty on a shelf. Now I'm working on designing parent albums through Picaboo, which I've used a few times before.

I've decided to share the last of my posts this weekend. Up next: a few post-wedding projects!

Whoops!

Sorry for going all MIA again! I've been busy writing a book and posting on my other blog. But with our first anniversary next week (where has the time gone?!) it's time to officially put Ten Eleven Ten to rest. Before I do that, I have three more posts for you which I'll share in the next couple of weeks. Here's what I have in store:

*Our wedding album reveal (it's gorgeous!)

*A few post-wedding projects (include a bolero transformation)

*How we spent our first anniversary (and what I did with paper)

Stay tuned!

Our Wedding Video + Photo Slide Show

From the very beginning, Steve and I knew we wanted a video of our wedding. I knew we'd love seeing the footage of our special day years from now and sharing it with our future kids. It wasn't in our budget to hire a videographer who does high-definition cinematographic videos like the ones I've seen around the wedding blogosphere, but we were able to add video to our package from our photographer, Windau Photography.

We love it! We only had the videographer shoot the ceremony and reception (not us getting ready or the first look) to cut costs. It worked out well because the parts of the day we really wanted to see on video were our vows, reception toasts and dances.

Check out this 3-minute trailer. We've watched the full-length video a bunch of times already and gave copies to our families. I can't help but smile and tear up every time I see it. (Except for when I cringe at hearing my voice on camera. I sound so different in my head!)

Wedding Video Trailer from GM on Vimeo.

Also on our video DVD was this photo slide show our photographer put together. I love everything about it! I couldn't be happier with our pictures.

Wedding Slideshow from GM on Vimeo.

*Photos and video by Windau Photography

Our Cran-Lemon Wedding: The End (or The Beginning)

As soon as we heard Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," Steve and I joined our friends on the dance floor and belted it out. It was one of my favorite dance floor moments and I'll never forget how awesome it was to be with my new husband, surrounded by our closest friends, jumping up and down and singing.





Thus the final stretch of our dance party began. Our DJ handed out festive maracas...




By this point, almost everyone was on the dance floor.

Before we knew it, it was time for our DJ to play the last song. After a whirlwind of a day, our wedding was over! Steve and I danced together one last time to Michael Buble's "Save the Last Dance for Me."


There were a lot more hugs as we said goodbye and thank you to our guests. On their way out, they picked up favors from the exit table that our venue put together. The table had a display of warm pretzels and assorted cookies as well as warm apple cider and hot chocolate. There were white paper bags with our monogram (below) and to-go cups so our guests could take snacks for the road. I'm sorry I don't have any photos of the table.

Then Steve and I walked to the Inn at Fox Hollow next to our venue, where we'd spend our first night as a married couple. I changed out of my dress and we toasted to our marriage with complimentary champagne. Then we gorged on the yummy meals that our venue packed for us, since we didn't eat much at our reception.

Champagne and chocolates in our hotel room
{personal photo}

The next day, we left for our California honeymoon. Our wedding may have been over, but it was just the beginning of our new life together. :)

That's it for my recaps! A big thanks to all of you who stuck around until the end! I still have a few more posts for you. Up next I'll share our wedding video trailer and a photo slide show our photographer put together. Then I have a few post-wedding projects I want to show you. Stay tuned!

Catch up!
Rehearsal Preparations
We Rehearse, We Eat and I have a Mini-Breakdown
Just One More Day!
The Only Thing That Went "Wrong"
The Guys Get Ready
Details (Part 1)
I'm a Bride!
Our First Look
Garden Photo Shoot
Bridal Party Photos
Details (Part 2)
Down the Aisle We Go
The Ceremony
Post-Ceremony Fun
Cocktail Hour
Details (Part 3)
Our Reception Begins
First Dance
Toasts!
Getting Jiggy With It! (Part 1)
Photo Booth
Getting Jiggy With It (Part 2)
Cake!

Take it away, Stevie

Making it Official

*Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are by Windau Photography