Saturday was a horribly rainy and windy day. it was POURING!!! i felt for any brides that got married on that rainy afternoon, and although i'm not superstitious and don't believe in "luck," for those who are and do believe in it — apparently it's "good luck" to have rain on your wedding day.

Sunday, on the other hand, was gorgeous. not too hot, not windy, not overcast, simply a nice day. The ceremony was scheduled for 2:30 pm at St Mary's Armenian Church in Toronto, so we showed up fashionably late at 2:40 knowing full well that as Armenians always are, nothing would start on time. We were right, but it wasn't long before the ceremony setup was complete and the doors were opened! The colour scheme of the day was a fresh spring green, white, and some brown accents, and the ceremony decor definitely reflected that: pews were decorated with mini-pom flower balls (pomanders, i think, but mini-pom pomanders didn't sound right), the white aisle runner was flanked with white/lettuce green rose petals, and the front & back ends of the aisle were decorated with these gorgeous manzanita arrangements:

check out the custom planter it's sitting in... decals with their artwork & names! how cool?

and the ones at the other end of the aisle (near the entrance) were sitting in these tall glass vases with more custom decals on them!

i love all the thought that went into making this event so unique. i love my pomegranate artwork!!

After the lovely couple exchanged vows, everyone stepped outside to watch the couple drive off and thirsty guests were served bottles of water with custom labels (which i unfortunately don't have photos of), and we were off to the Embassy Grand for the much-anticipated reception.

So i unfortunately missed the cocktail hour, but managed to snap some shots of some of the details of the rest of the evening:

they had set up this counter — not sure what was there for the cocktail hour, but it was the spot for the candy buffet later on in the evening as well as the favour boxes.

little touches on the table including our place cards.. i'm liking the idea of a tri-fold menu though. hmm...




the vase had this curly stuff in it and 2 or 3 cymbidium orchids, as well as some curly willow sticking out of the top of the floral arrangement and some more cymbids.. quite lovely :)

all in all a very successful evening. i loved all of the details and loved more the fact that i was involved — it doesn't happen every time that a vendor gets invited to the wedding (actually, it's a very rare occurance), but when it does, it's special!! Thanks to Paul & Tzoline not only for letting me be a part of your day, but also for letting me see it all come to life :)

Little Details

Meet Paul & Tzoline. For those not familiar, Tzoline is an Armenian name — but for the sake of ease, read it as "soh-lee-nay", or just Sol (which is what her non-Armenian friends call her). Now, this couple isn't unfamiliar to me.. Most of you know i'm of Armenian descent, and those of you who know anyone Armenian, you'll know that we're a pretty close-knit community. So when Tzoline called me last December, i was happy to be able to help with her wedding plans. Plus my aunt is a very good friend of Paul's mom, so i was sort of expecting the phone call.

It all started off with just invites: Tzoline is in the process of getting her degree in architecture @ Ryerson, so she's familiar with design software. She had done most of the design work, but needed supplies. Sooo, the initial extent of my involvement was simply printing her pieces, and ordering pocketfolds for her... but, and i'm sure you all knew there would be a "but," entrez le wedding planner!! In the end, we've ended up with a little bit more elaborate wedding invitation, favour boxes, table number/menu standup cards, bar menus, custom water bottles, petal cones, labels for the candy buffet takeout boxes, extra maps for guests who didn't bring their map with them, and of course place cards.

Today i spent most of the afternoon with my lovely cousin Natalie, who's home for the summer from school, wrapping up her very unique and cute favours: hand carved pomegranate keepsake boxes, made in Armenia (of course). Tomorrow: designing the place cards, printing menus, etcetera-etcetera-etcetera. OOH, best part is, i'm invited to the wedding!!! it doesn't happen often that i'm invited to weddings i do work for, but it'll be great to see everything in its place :) Stay tuned for the post next week about all that!

Detail shot of the tag on the favour boxes


The placecards will be divided alphabetcally, and these cards will help guests find their names easily


Closeup shot of their custom monogram... note the pomegranate!! Pomegranates are a very "Armenian" motif, and commonly associated with many Armenian organizations, events, companies, artwork, etc.

So anyways, the point of all this was: are you branding your wedding? Have you considered involving your stationer in the look/feel/theme of your day? What little details will you be incorporating, how else can you establish your brand? Things to think about... these little details will make your event more cohesive, and will help your overall look mesh better throughout the day.

Blissful changes!

DBYT is known for 2 things: accessories & stationery. Most people who happen upon our site have done so because of a google search for birdcage veils, or manzanita... while others who come to our site do so because of a referral from a previous client, a friend, or loving family member. Our stationery just doesn't even make a tiny ripple in the gigantic ocean that is google. However, despite all that, our stationery is a hit! Our workload in the first few months of 2010 is triple what it was in 2009, and it's only going to get busier.

That being said, we've decided to change things up around here.

how so? Well, I (Laurie) have decided to set up my own popstand and expand our stationery line. I'm so excited!! I went to the National Stationery Show in NYC this week (i just finished unpacking), and i swear — i barely slept a wink. Here are some changes that you should all expect to see in the coming months:

• the introduction of the 2010/2011 collection of wedding stationery — Brides will now be able to choose from a selection of the most popular styles of invitations, in colours forecasted to be popular in 2011.
• get ready for it ladies, we're going to start to offer LETTERPRESS INVITATIONS. yes, i said the L word. for those of you who don't know what letterpress is, stay tuned — i'll be blogging about it soon enough.
• an assortment of wedding favours brought to you by awesome companies like weddingstar, kate aspen, and event blossom — no more repeats of past wedding favours with the huge assortment you'll be able to find here!
• an assortment of simpler invitations especially for those brides who don't necessarily want to break the bank on their stationery (don't hold me to it, but i'm working on getting it to be less than $5)
• awesome paper goods and gifts (stuff that has nothing to do with weddings).

Now, for my readers who were paying attention and are at the edge of their seats — you're wondering where the heck all this is going to happen, right?

Drumroll please....

www.paperbliss.ca

Ok don't go now, it's not up yet. in fact, i don't even have my splash page ready. however, i've begun moving my blog posts over to the new blog (www.paperbliss.ca/blog) and will be double-posting until i start seeing some consistent traffic there.

Oh, and i'm really going to make an effort to be more conscious of my social networking ... that means twitter, facebook, and blgoging. just don't expect a novel every day. i'll be too busy letterpressing.

(is anyone else excited about letterpress like i am?)

My new favourite vendor: FLAVOUR CAKES

So we all know, Jennifer, my sister-in-law, is getting married this July. She was referred by a friend of hers (and a previous client) to Diane at Flavour Cakes (www.flavourcakes.ca) for her wedding cake. Now, Jennifer has always wanted a specific kind of wedding cake, and when she saw the work Diane has done, it was a no-brainer: Flavour Cakes was the place to go for her dream cake!

Ever since the discovery of this super-talented cake designer, i've made excuses to use her services! First, for Hunter's first birthday party (my nephew), and second for Jennifer's bridal shower cake. Hunter's cake was pretty awesome (see the batman cake on her blog), but Jenn's shower cake took the.. cake... ok never mind. see for yourself.

so this photo isn't the greatest — but i didn't realize it until after i had uploaded it. which was well after the whole thing was devoured.

check out the attention to detail!!



hehe... i came up with that line m'self. i thought it was pretty clever. :)


aaaaand that's all that's left of it.

Now my only question is... can you have a cake made for your 22nd wedding monthaversary?

Oh, and Toronto brides, she'll deliver for a fee. All you Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge brides — she's local!! wahoo :D

Oh-So-fabulous Save-the-Dates!

Meet Karen & Graham's Save-the-Dates. i heart these.

A bit of background — Karen and I met through mutual friends back when i lived in Victoria, BC. We participated in a weekly ritual that consisted of reality tv and food. lots of it. she's currently a kick-ass lawyer, owns a pair of shoes (possibly more) that i'm completely jealous of, and blogs: see http://tobethewholepackage.blogspot.com

Karen has finally met her match, and is getting married in Los Cabos in November. again, completely jealous — you should see her venue! le sigh.

So Karen contacted me last year, and we met up over the Christmas season to discuss her stationery needs. Up first are her save the dates! After much back-and-forth (well, not that much), here they are :)




eee... pop mount :D
see, things like this make me wish i could do my wedding invitations all over again. congrats to Karen & Graham, looking forward designing the invites!!!

The Ribbon Wrap!!

Ahh, yes... the ribbon wrap. Everyone loves the ribbon wrap, not many are adventurous enough to do it. Adventurous? Ok maybe adventurous is the wrong word to use here, but it's definitely not something that everyone will do. Jody & Scott came through a friend of ours, and this wonderful friend wanted us to do their invitations so badly that she surprised Jody with a sample invitation created by us. We had no idea if she'd like it or not, but it was a shot in the dark and we hoped that she liked the quality of invite enough to give us a shot :)

Well, the design we came up with at the time is nothing like what we decided on at the consultation, but we definitely had some fun with this one!! Thanks to Jody and Scott for letting us be a part of your day :)

Krystal & Curtis' Fuscia & Black Damask Invitations

Krystal is our bridal-show-junkie. What's that? Well, simply put, she just likes to cruise the shows. So when Curtis finally popped the big question, Krystal had already done a lot of shopping around a knew what she wanted. When we sat down with her, she wanted something that packed a punch, and the 4x5" invitations really spoke to her! These fuschia pocketfolds are proof that you don't need to go BIG in size (or budget) to make a big statement.


We used rubelite metallic fuschia pocketfolds from our awesome supplier, Envelopments, black linen backings, white linen inserts, and white linen RSVP & outer envelopes. The original idea was to seal them with a circular monogram sticker (which we used for the Save-The-Dates back in August), but we decided to change it up a little with the 2" square layered card. I'm glad we went this route!

i heart Onlinelabels.com!

So a while back i posted about Christie & Sebastien's pretty little Thank You Cards, and a few of you have asked how it was done?


Well, the bulk of it is fairly simple, it's a few pieces of metallic paper & cardstock layered together, but no — i didn't sit there with a paper punch and punch out their monogram for hours... i used Onlinelabels.com! Check it out — they have an array of sizes and colours of labels, from 0.5" circles, to rounded squares and rectangles, from clear glossy/matte to neon pink! Whenever i need a sticker of some sort, onlinelabels.com. The best part, they ship via USPS so no brokerage!!

So all you Canadian DIY-ers out there, if you're looking for a specific setup in a sticker, here's an American supplier that's Canadian friendly!!

Guns N' Roses inspired wedding?

We met Katya & Louie at the January Bridal show at the MTCC, and they were definitely a unique couple!! Their May wedding is a Guns-N-Roses inspired black & navy blue wedding that's definitely not "ordinary" by any measure. Feathers, crystals, tattoo artwork — and on top of all this, Katya wanted to incorporate her beloved toy pom, Romeo!! The result was one of the cooler invitations i've designed thus far, and my hubby's favourite :)

Check out the images below — how are you making your wedding stationery unique?









Stay tuned — there's a special surprise about this invite that ties in with another essential element of every wedding. I don't know if i can spill these beans just yet, but trust me, when i can say, i will!