Photoshop vs. Reality: Wedding Inspiration Mock Ups

A little over a year ago (yikes, I'm such an old bee now!) I wrote a blog post about how much I love to mock things up in Photoshop or Illustrator. I've never been very good at just imagining or hand sketching things, but I like having a clearly laid out vision before I bring a project to life. It really saves on the cost of materials for projects too, since there isn't as much need to experiment.

I also said in that old blog post that it would be fun to come back after my wedding to compare my early Photoshop mocked up inspirations with the final result. So let's take a look back at a few of the many, many mock ups I created early in my wedding planning stages!

Invitations

I'd initially had another design for our invites, but it was too complicated and was more DIY time than we could handle. So I mocked up a scaled down version of our invitation suite.

And the final product. Other than some rounded corners, these came out pretty dang close to my mock up! Not only did doing a mock up really help me nail down exactly what elements I wanted to include, but it also gave me a great start on the content for the inserts that I printed.
Our Ceremony Set Up

We loved the ceremony site at our venue, the trees, the meadow, the bay view, it had a lot of natural beauty, that only needed a little decor. But when you're working with a big empty meadow, you've got to use some imagination. Or some Photoshop! Originally I had wanted us to build an arch that was bigger than the one provided by our venue, and had wanted an aisle runner, so my heels wouldn't sink into the grass.

However, after being lied to by the vendor who I was going to rent chargers and the aisle runner from, I decided on just using rose petals on the aisle. And Mr. Cola convinced me that it would be too much work to transport or assemble a DIY arch, so we ended up just decorating the arch the venue already had. The final result was beautiful though, even if not exactly like my original idea!

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Card Box

This was an easy one....and probably it wasn't necessary to do a mock up of a card box. But I did it back when it was too early to actually start working on wedding things, very early in the planning stages, and it turned out almost exactly like my Photoshopped version.

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Table Decor and Centerpieces

These mock ups ended up only becoming a partial reality. First, as I'd already mentioned, a vendor lied to us about having purple charger plates available, so we didn't end up getting to use them as I'd planned to add color to our tables.
I was really frustrated at the time, but ended up really happy with the end result. Instead of chargers, I went about $150 over budget and rented overlays for the tables. They still gave me the pops of color I was looking for, without the headache of trying to DIY my own chargers.

As for the centerpieces, I'd say we did pretty good with sticking to my inspiration mock ups. We ended up using some different flowers, but that was expected, since we were at the mercy of whatever was available at the flower market.

The tall centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Short centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Cocktail table centerpieces:

(By Shoot Me Now Photography)

Rehearsal Dinner Decor

This was one area of planning that I needed a lot of inspiration for. There were no pictures online that I could find of our rehearsal dinner venue actually set up for a dinner. So when we visited the location, I took pictures, which I later Photoshopped chairs, tables and decor onto. My sister was so amazed at how close everything turned out to my mock ups that she pulled up my original blog post on her phone during the rehearsal dinner to show the rest of our wedding party the mock ups for comparison!

The mock ups:

The reality:

The Inspiration Board

And finally, just for fun, and because I've seen a few other bees do it, how about a look at my first inspiration board, compared to what details really happened. I made this first inspiration board to use as my personal blog header, in August 2009 (you can click on these boards for a larger view if you like).

And here are the same details from our wedding (Sorry, when downsizing this board from over 800 MB, it muted the colors a little, but you get the idea!):

(Except the favor boxes, all photos in this board are by Shoot Me Now Photography, cropped by me)

Have you used any graphic design programs to help you solidify your vision for your wedding? And is anyone else as big of a fan of mock ups as I am? :)

(Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are personal photos, taken by myself or our guests, and all editing was done by me.)

Wedding Gift Recap: Amazon and Honeymoon Registries

I thought I’d do a little recap on how our wedding registries worked out, since we had two “controversial” registries (in quotes because I really don’t feel like these are very controversial these days, although I’m sure others feel differently).

**First off, I would like to note that I know registries can sometimes be a heated topic, and I’m not writing this to start a debate. I just wanted to share what happened with our registries, and what worked for us may not be what will work for you. I’m well aware that you are never supposed to ask for gifts for your wedding. However, the fact remains that some guests like to give gifts, and like to know what the couple would like to receive, so I’m in the pro-registry camp. I’ve always used registries for weddings I’ve attended, and I enjoy knowing I’m gifting something the couple will actually use.**

Our first registry was with Amazon.com. Long ago I wrote about how easy it was to register from the comfort of our couch and almost all of the items we selected qualified for free shipping, because that has been an argument I’ve heard against Amazon registries, that people don’t want to pay for shipping. However, I disagree with that argument. 100% of the time I’ve bought gifts for weddings, through Macy’s, Bed Bath, etc, I’ve opted to have the gift sent to the couple’s home, and paid shipping every single time. So unless you’re going to be hauling the wedding gift to the wedding (which isn’t recommended because then the couple or someone has to deal with it and get it home from the venue), shipping is going to just be something you have to pay for.

We had a pretty conservative registry on Amazon, with far under the recommended number of items, because we just didn’t really need that much in the way of traditional wedding gifts. We’ve lived together for 8 years, and I felt there was no need to replace perfectly good kitchen items. However, in the end, we didn’t end up receiving that many gifts off our Amazon registry, although we were very grateful for what we did receive. Maybe 12-15 things, and mainly these were items that were purchased for us well in advance of our wedding date.

And actually, the main thing we wanted from Amazon was our Pfalzgraf set of everyday dishes, platters and bowls. So I ended up spending about $500 after our wedding to complete our whole set, because I was afraid that our pattern would be discontinued at some point and didn’t want to be stuck with only half the number of plates we needed!

{Our pretty everyday dish set}

Then there was our honeymoon registry, which we set up through Paypal on our wedding website. I know some people are still against this kind of registry, but no, we did not use it to “pay for a honeymoon we couldn’t afford” (the argument I've heard against honeymoon registries). You can see my original post about it, but we just gave people the option to gift us excursions or nice dinners. And again, we’ve lived together for almost a decade and just didn’t need that many traditional gifts, so we thought this was a really great way for guests who wanted to give us a gift to do something a little different and fun.

And this registry actually went over really, really well with our friends. It was easy for them because they didn’t have to worry about bringing anything to our wedding, and it was a quick last minute gift. In fact, about 90% of our honeymoon registry gifts came in in the few days before our wedding, and even a few on our wedding day (I got an email every time someone contributed to our honeymoon). So again, this type of registry couldn’t (and really shouldn’t) be used to pay for a honeymoon that was outside our means. We had no idea what people were going to get us until a couple days before our honeymoon, and it wasn’t something we were counting on anyway. But it was a pleasant, much appreciated surprise, and our guests ended up gifting us all our excursions, snorkel and boogie board rentals, all our dining out, and much more!

{Wearing our snorkels we rented as a gift in Kauai}

In addition to gifts from our Amazon and Honeymoon registries, we received many cards filled with well wishes, cash and checks. Definitely not something we were counting on, but we were so grateful for everyone’s lovely gifts, which we put into savings.

So my takeaways on registering:

- Register for what you want and need, but within reason.
- Don’t hesitate to do a non traditional registry if that’s what you want to do, your guests can take it or leave it, and you might be pleasantly surprised at how much they like it.
- If using Amazon, try to find items that qualify for free shipping, and maybe make a note on your wedding website about the free shipping, in case your guests are concerned about that aspect of ordering online. We put a note in small font under the link to our registry, “most items qualify for free shipping.”
- You will most likely receive gifts for which you have zero use for. Just accept that as an unfortunate downside to people not using registries and promptly send the thank you note to the guest.
- Appreciate all your cards and gifts, your guests were thinking of you when they sent them. And don't be offended if you don't receive a gift from someone. Technically they have up to a year to send something, and in this economy, people may just not be able to afford it. At least they spent the time and money getting to your wedding, and you got to celebrate with them!
- And as a wedding guest, unless you know the couple really, really well, my advice would be to just stick to their registry, or give a card. Or at least look at their registry first, to get a feel for what they are in need of. If you don’t see any crystal or fancy knickknacks with no purpose on their registry, chances are they don’t need whatever versions of those items you’ve found off their registry. Just sayin’! ;)

What are your thoughts on buying wedding gifts, do you like to buy from on the registry or off the registry?

The Colas' Behind The Scenes Wedding Video

Oh? What's that? You thought my last recap about our Sunday-after luncheon was my last post? No way, I've still got a couple more things to share before I say goodbye, and I wouldn't leave you all without a proper farewell post!

I wanted to share with you our "behind the scenes" wedding video. One of my good friends, who couldn't make it to our wedding, put this together for us and gave it to me last week as a surprise. He does video editing as a hobby, and took bits and pieces of video that several of our guests filmed and created a mash up video.

I'm calling this a behind the scenes video because it's definitely not a wedding video. All of the (bumpy and grainy) filming was done by amateurs on low quality cameras, and because my friend who edited it only had a small selection of video to work with, there's no real timeline flow. And our guests, not being pros, filmed things more like a fly on the wall, so the footage my friend had to work with was really random.

All that said though, I think it's pretty fun to actually see our wedding (and a little bit of our after party) from behind the scenes. Having a videographer was never a priority in our budget, so this is definitely better than nothing! And it was free!

So here it is, the effort of several of our wedding guests and a good friend. The whole video is about 10 minutes long, but it includes a little of our ceremony and us reading our vows that we wrote, so feel free to skip that (from one minute in through about 4 1/2 minutes) if you like!

The Colas' Behind The Scenes Wedding Video from MsCola on Vimeo.

So what do you think? Not too bad for the cost of $0!

And this just goes to show that you can still have something to look at even if you don't have the budget for a professional videographer--you just need a few willing guests with video cameras. And in all honesty, any wedding video we would have paid for would have been something we'll only look at a handful of times throughout our lives, so I know we made the right decision by not hiring a videographer, especially now that we have this.

Are you having a videographer for your wedding? Or are you hoping your guests will take some free video for you on their personal cameras? And is anyone considering just renting higher quality cameras for a few select friends to use, for a cheaper-than-pro-videography option?

A Woodside Wedding: The Sunday Luncheon

The Sunday morning after our wedding, we woke up early-ish. But after staying up until about 3:30am the night before for our after party, we weren't moving too quickly. I had a Starbucks Double Shot and some leftover cupcakes for breakfast, and typed up a short morning-after blog post on my phone, before I was ready to take a shower, get dressed, and start cleaning up our messy hotel suite.

By around 10:30am we'd gotten both of our cars loaded with everything from the suite, and I headed up to my grandfather's house a couple miles away to help with setting up tables, while Mr. Cola checked us out of the hotel and went to Safeway for the luncheon food trays, ice and orange juice for mimosas.

Here's a look at my grandfather's house, all set up for the luncheon. We borrowed some extra tables and chairs from neighbors, bought linen-like disposable table cloths (the same kind we used for our rehearsal dinner tables), and reused the small reception centerpieces and bridesmaid purse bouquets to decorate the tables for the lunch. Plus my mom had bought brightly colored disposable plates and napkins on sale for about 80% off, so big win on cheap decor for our Sunday event!

I helped set up some umbrellas in the back yard, and a couple fans, since it was another ridiculously hot day for June, and Mr. Cola arrived with the build-your-own sandwich platters. We also had meatballs, BBQ chicken and ribs, various snacks, and of course, lots of left over cupcakes for dessert.

I poured mimosas for everyone, and managed to snap a few more photos of our luncheon before my mom yelled at me to sit down and eat something. But I was past the point of exhaustion at that point, and could only pick at my food.

I tell ya, after shopping for wedding flowers Wednesday morning, the low key bachelorette party Wednesday night, arranging flowers all day Thursday, our wedding party welcome dinner and sunset cruise Thursday night, the ceremony rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Friday, our amazing wedding, and after party, I was about running on empty. So if you are planning on having a ton of wedding events like we did, just plan on being really, really tired after it's all over. Definitely pack some Double Shots or 5 Hour Energy shots in your purse, in case you need a last minute pick me up. And drink a ton of water, staying hydrated will help you keep your energy up through days of non-stop events!

After picking at my lunch, our officiant friend reminded us that we still had a very important matter to take care of. We'd forgotten to sign our marriage license at our wedding! So I ran out to my car to retrieve it, and then we had to figure out how to actually fill it out correctly.

I think I was counting out what day we had to mail it in by in this picture....

And to make sure we were all clear on who had to sign what and where, our officiant read the instructions out loud.

Form signing galore! I like that in this picture you can see that our smaller wedding centerpieces were still holding up pretty well, considering we arranged them on Thursday.

And....I'm totally not sure why I'm posing like a crazy person in this photo. Showing off my Anthro dress maybe? Who knows, like I said, I was too tired to be thinking completely clearly!

Once our officiant filled out his part, it was my sister and my BIL's turn to sign as witnesses.

And we too had to get in on the posing while signing action, even though we didn't really need to sign anything!

After posing for a few more photos as family members requested, it was time for hugs all around. Some of our guests were taking off to go sightseeing for the afternoon, and Mr. Cola and a groomsman had to go back up to our venue to pick up the Uhaul full of our wedding decor.

I loaded up my car, said goodbye to a few more of my family members, and just like that, it was all over. And it was surreal....and bittersweet.

15 months of planning, crafting, budgeting, blogging, more planning, and finally the executing--it was all over and done with. And I won't lie and say I wasn't a bit sad driving back home by myself. Actually, during my 25 minute drive home after our luncheon is probably the closest I came to crying our entire wedding week. I'm not a crier (at all!), but just thinking about how much love I'd felt all week, how great it was to see friends and family, how wonderful everything was, and the fact that everyone was packing up and going home, and it was really and truly over made me tear up a little.

But alas, luckily I couldn't dwell on it for too long. Once I arrived back home, we had to unload the 10 foot Uhaul truck, return it, pickup some last minute honeymoon items at the drug store, say goodbye to the last of our wedding party before they flew home, and procrastinate on finishing packing for our honeymoon by laughing at and uploading fauxtobooth pictures for guests to download. It ended up taking about 4x too long that night to pack for our honeymoon (which we were leaving for at 9am the next morning), because we were just plain dead tired and brain fried.

But that Sunday night was the best, most restful night of sleep we'd had in weeks, in our own bed, married.

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time
- Our families met for the first time at our rehearsal dinner under the trees
- What went wrong on our wedding day, and my tips for future brides
- My bridesmaids and I got our hair and makeup done in the hotel suite
- I put on my wedding dress and became a bride
- The guys watched the World Cup, then got ready in 10 minutes
- Traffic delayed our decorations getting to the venue, and I almost ruined our first look
- We got to see each other for the first time on our wedding day at our first look
- We took some time for bride and groom pictures in the park
- I gave you a behind the scenes look at our family, friends and DOC setting up our venue
- Arriving at our venue and getting ready for the ceremony to start
- Everyone walked down the aisle
- Excerpts from our ceremony, and reading the vows we wrote for each other
- I interrupted our officiant, we exchanged rings, and with a kiss we were officially married!
- Wedding party and family portraits, and my thoughts on missing pictures
- Our guests enjoyed cocktail hour while we took a few more photos
- Everyone ate a delicious dinner, and our siblings gave beautiful toasts
- We didn't practice, but we had a very special and wonderful first dance as husband and wife
- I showed you some disposable camera pictures, which were totally worth it to include on our tables!
- I found a target and tossed my bouquet at her
- Mr. Cola finally managed to find my garter under my dress and tossed it
- We fed each other cupcakes, and our guests swarmed our 6ft tall cupcake tower
- We stole some private moments together that our photographers documented
- All our guests had some fun taking pictures in our DIY fauxtobooth
- We enjoyed the rest of the evening with our guests
- I showcased all the pretty details from our wedding, part 1 and part 2
- We snuck out of our reception and away into the night
- We partied into the early morning at our awesome after party

(All photos in this post are personal, taken on either my camera or Bridesmaid H's camera)

A Woodside Wedding: After Party Awesomeness!

Once we arrived back at the hotel after sneaking out of our reception, we had to rush, since we only had a half hour head start on our guests! Mr. Cola helped unlace my dress, we changed, emptied both of the ice machines on our floor, and scrambled to clean up the bridal suite for our after party.

Luckily one of my bridesmaids was texting me with updates as to how close the charter bus with everyone was, so by the time they arrived, Mr. Cola and I were ready to continue the party!

Our after party outfits were so typical of us--I was all dressed up in a nice dress and he was wearing a tuxedo t-shirt (which I bought for him, and he was very excited about) and shorts. I was even wearing 4 inch heels, while he went barefoot for most of the evening!

(I'd meant to shorten this dress to above my knees, but ran out of time. Oh well, after enjoying our open bar all night, I doubt anyone noticed it was too long!)

One of my friends, who owns his own bar and restaurant, started mixing drinks for everyone, and we got down to partying.

(We had a counter full of liquor and mixers, plus several buckets on the floor full of beer and ice. I still can't believe how many half gallons of booze we emptied that night!)

Early in the evening Mr. Cola broke out his "beer robot." It's actually just a remote controlled cooler that I got him for his birthday last year. But it was a hit....until the batteries ran out after about a minute of beer delivering action!

Then our late night snack of pizza, wings and bread sticks was delivered, and enjoyed by all.

(I took this last photo from the second story of our suite, oh, 10 minutes after the pizza was delivered. It sure didn't last long!)

And of course, after being fortified with some greasy pizza, some shots were in order with our wedding party!

We spent the rest of the night just hanging out with our friends, drinking, reminiscing, and just enjoying getting to hang out with a lot of people we love, but don't get to see very often. These photos pretty much sum up the rest of our after party!

(I totally love that my bridesmaids put back on their "getting ready" purple hoodies I'd decorated for them!)

(Showing off our new bling.)

(My sister swiped some of the mustaches from our fauxtobooth). And yes, it was so hot with all the drinking people in our suite that we turned the temperature down to 63 degrees so the AC would blast!)

(One of my favorite photos from our after party, since my sis and I never got a chance to pose together in our fauxtobooth.)

At around 2:30 in the morning it was time to call it a night, which I'm sure our neighbors in the hotel appreciated. Everyone trickled back to their own rooms (some, I suspect, continued partying for a while), and Mr. Cola and I could finally retire upstairs in our suite and rest our feet. And spend a good 45 minutes trying to untangle my hair and get all the bobby pins out (over 50 of them!).

This picture was taken towards the end of our after party, you can see that my curls were still going strong. What you can't see is that the under-layer of my hair was a giant tangled mat. I was SO tired, but couldn't go to bed that night until all the tangles were out!

Are you planning to continue your wedding night with an after party? I highly recommend it--it was the only time all evening that we got to spend with some of our closest friends!

Next up, my final wedding event recap (so sad!), our Sunday luncheon.


Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time
- Our families met for the first time at our rehearsal dinner under the trees
- What went wrong on our wedding day, and my tips for future brides
- My bridesmaids and I got our hair and makeup done in the hotel suite
- I put on my wedding dress and became a bride
- The guys watched the World Cup, then got ready in 10 minutes
- Traffic delayed our decorations getting to the venue, and I almost ruined our first look
- We got to see each other for the first time on our wedding day at our first look
- We took some time for bride and groom pictures in the park
- I gave you a behind the scenes look at our family, friends and DOC setting up our venue
- Arriving at our venue and getting ready for the ceremony to start
- Everyone walked down the aisle
- Excerpts from our ceremony, and reading the vows we wrote for each other
- I interrupted our officiant, we exchanged rings, and with a kiss we were officially married!
- Wedding party and family portraits, and my thoughts on missing pictures
- Our guests enjoyed cocktail hour while we took a few more photos
- Everyone ate a delicious dinner, and our siblings gave beautiful toasts
- We didn't practice, but we had a very special and wonderful first dance as husband and wife
- I showed you some disposable camera pictures, which were totally worth it to include on our tables!
- I found a target and tossed my bouquet at her
- Mr. Cola finally managed to find my garter under my dress and tossed it
- We fed each other cupcakes, and our guests swarmed our 6ft tall cupcake tower
- We stole some private moments together that our photographers documented
- All our guests had some fun taking pictures in our DIY fauxtobooth
- We enjoyed the rest of the evening with our guests
- I showcased all the pretty details from our wedding, part 1 and part 2
- We snuck out of our reception and away into the night

(All photos in this post are personal, taken on either my camera or Bridesmaid H's camera)