Oh, Internet... {11}

Obviously, the most important thing that happened this week was the election of Pope Francis!!!!!  Everything else pales in comparison, but, nonetheless, the internet can still make you smile:

I just discovered Catholic Memes and I love it

be still my geeky heart...//via ModCloth

image via cheezburger

just bought this album and I LOVE it // image via Amazon

Y'all, I am soooo jealous of Hayley at Water Painted Dreams who got to see John and Hank Green live!

Check out the Panda invitations on Weddingbee- beautiful!

Google is killing Reader, and also my soul.

What made you smile online this week?

Much love,
The Geeks

Oh, Internet...is inspired by Kaelah Bee's Things I Love Thursday posts

I Saw the Sign, Part 2

I made some more signs for the reception with stamped letters on vintage maps!

{personal photo}

I went ahead and decided to not paint the frames for these signs, a decision largely driven by the ever-ticking clock, but also influenced by your suggestions :)

I found this 2-sided frame at Goodwill that I plan to place at the bar; on one side, it will say "eat, drink, and be married!" and on the other will be a list of alcoholic beverages available to encourage dancing.  Observe:

{personal photo}

{personal photo}

Did you make menu signs for your bar?

Much love,
The Geeks

Gifts for My Girls

Yay for three-day weekends- they were made for wedding planning.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a whole lot of crafting done this time around- but I did tackle one project.

But first- Geeky Gals, don't read this post!

I Saw the Sign

Back when we met with our reception venue to taste the (delicious) food and settle on a menu, we discussed the display for our cupcakes- scrumptious little morsels that will take the place of a wedding cake. 

{personal photo}

We're still working out the specifics of the display for these puppies, but I went ahead and made a little sign for them.

The event coordinator suggested we lay out some sort of sign near the display discouraging guests from taking one right away.  We won't have all of the cupcakes out at first- just a small arrangement to give people an idea of what they have to look forward to, just as a wedding cake is displayed throughout the entire reception before it's cut- but there will be other food, as well as the candy buffet, available for the taking right as guests walk in.  The coordinator pointed out that even though cupcakes are "trendy" at the moment in replacement of wedding cakes, people that don't follow the blogosphere (read: most people) might not realize that the cupcakes should be left until "cake-cutting" time.  I have a few other signs to make for the reception- something for the candy buffet, a list of drinks for the bar, etc, etc- so here's what I've done so far!

{personal photo}

 I knew I wanted our signs printed on map backgrounds- the adventure bit of "A Geeky Adventure"- so it was absolutely perfect when I found this calendar of vintage maps at Paper Source.  Then I headed to Goodwill and snapped up a few simple wooden frames.  Last but not least, I snagged some ink pads in our colors, as well as some cute letter stamps, from that other man in my life, Michaels.  Time for a super-simple craft project!

{personal photo}

First, I cut the maps to fit the frames, then lightly marked, in pencil, the border of what's actually seen inside the frame so none of my letters would be cut off.  I used the cardboard backing as practice and laid out my stamps to spell out the messages.  Obviously size was the limiting factor here, so I had to be creative in my wording so everything would fit and not look cramped. 

{personal photo}

The cupcake sign was done in red and says "Please wait before enjoying cupcakes."  The candy buffet sign was done in purple and says "How sweet it is to be loved by you / Take some candy with you!"  I'm no master stamper (a thing I just made up) so you can definitely tell the letters were stamped on- by the dots inside the d's and the corners on some of the letters.  I kind of like the imperfect look, though- I like that you can tell they're handmade.

Like I said, I still have a few more signs to do, but I'm really happy with how cute these turned out- and how fast and easy it was to create them!

Now here's my question for you, dear readers:

These frames are all different shades of "natural" wood, and I had initially planned to sand and paint them all the same color- either a bright green or orange.  However, I'm kind of liking the eclectic look of the mis-matched frames.  So what should I do?

-Paint them orange!
-Paint them green!
-Paint them grey/silver!
-Don't paint them at all!

Much love,
The Geeks

How to RSVP to the Geek Wedding

Previously, on Our Geeky Adventure:

-Our wedding invitations are...different, to say the least
-And we're trying something...different...for the RSVPs-
- -online RSVPs!

So let's pretend you got one of these in the mail recently:

{personal photo}

Well, inside you'd find one of these:

{personal photo}

And you'd visit the website printed on the card:

{screenshot of our wedding website}

And then you'd click on RSVP in the side bar menu and be taken to a page with this form- whether you're planning to come or not:

{screencapture from our wedding website}

And in that last space you'd enter the code found on your invitation before clicking "submit".  And the information would populate our Google Docs spreadsheet and we'd know whether or not you're coming and how many people you're bringing.  And you'll do all of this BEFORE the deadline printed on the card, and Miss Geek will not go insane.

Any questions?

Much love,
The Geeks

No Admittance Except on Party Business

Well folks, invitations are in the mail, and by now at least a few guests will have received theirs.  So, in the tradition of Weddingbee bloggers, I can finally reveal our design!

Not Quite a Monogram

Alternate title: Earning Our Geek Cred

Many weddings have a "logo" of some sort, and ours will be no different.

Well, okay, a little different.

Most wedding logos are some form of monogram created with the new couple's initials:

image via Marry Monograms

image via Marry Monograms

image via Marry Monograms

Those are all nice options, but we're going in a slightly different direction.  Although we will be using our names...

I know you recognize this ring:

image via Wikimedia

When we were shopping for our rings, we talked about having them engraved with something.  Mr. Geek jokingly suggested the One Ring text, and I told him we could probably just get replicas, but we both agreed that would be a bit much, even for us.

"I bet I can find that font online, though," I said, "and we could write something else in that script."

"Like the date?" he asked.  "Or our names?"

Sure enough, I did find the right font on this website and downloaded it to mess around with.  In the end, however, we decided not to engrave anything on our bands.

When it came time to start designing our invitations, I looked at the font again, and decided we should write our names in it, to use as a logo on our paper products.  Now, I could have just typed our names in this font and been done with it, but if you know me, you know I have to do things right.

That's right- I wanted to translate our names into Elvish first, and then type those translated words in the script to create our logo.

I figured the best way to go about this would be to find our what our names mean and then find an online translator to determine the Elvish translations of those words.

Lucky for me, somebody had already done that for me!

Yup- I found an Elvish Name Translations website which lists male and female names, their meanings, and their Elvish translations (with pronunciation).  For example, my name means "beloved" and that translates to Melda in Elvish.  When I read that out loud, he thought I said "melBa."

"Like the toast?" he asked, which earned him a stuck-out tongue.  He's now taken to calling me Toast as a weird little pet name.

So, want to see our logo?

This is his first and middle names and my first and middle names, translated into Elvish:

{personal image}

This logo will be making an appearance in many places on the big day, including the invitations, the programs, the out-of-town bags, and maybe a few other places, too, but you'll have to stay tuned to find out!

So what do you think?  Pretty cool, huh?

Did you have a wedding logo?  What did it look like?

Much love,
The Geeks

In Which I am an Over-Achiever

Ladies (and gentlemen?)- first, let me apologize.  This is the only post I have time to write this week, and it's not even a real post! :(  Forgive me.  I hope you enjoy it anyway...

So, I have this list.

This big, giant, nearly insurmountable list.

It's the List of Things We Still Have to Do for the Wedding- the wedding that is less than 5 months away.

A portion of this list is DiY Projects...which is also a really big list.

A portion of THAT list is DiY Projects I have Yet to Even Start.  Want to see just part of that list?

Programs

We're definitely looking to do book-shaped wedding programs- ie a booklet of information that you flip through designed to actually look like a novel.  (If you recall, when coming up with our wedding theme, we thought in terms of "If our wedding were a novel, what would the title be?"  ...so we'd like to actually see that title on something that at least looks like a novel.)  Of course, when I say "looks like a novel" I really, really wish I meant this:

Design by Collin Morgan // image via Synecdoche

Ohmygosh, y'all.  This is the book jacket to wedding programs that were literally hard-bound books.  I have actually bound my own book before- for a writing competition in the 4th grade- so I'm sure I could do it, but this is really only feasible for a wedding of, oh, 20 guests.  Maybe.

In reality, our programs will look more like this:

programs by Coeur Noir // image via Martha Stewart Weddings

Boutonnieres

 I'm planning to sew some pretty simple fabric flower boutonnieres for the men, including both of our dads.  These should actually be fairly simple, and I already have the fabric.  Basically, they'll be slightly larger versions of these flowers, with safety pins on the back:

image via Martha Stewart Weddings

...and in the center of each will be one of these little dudes, representative of each guy's personality, secured with some floral wire:

for example, one of the guys is a pilot and is getting LEGO Iron Man // image via Amazon

Bracelet Corsages

I've posted previously about my "meh" attitude towards flowers.  However, in an apparent homage to high school prom, it's traditional to distinguish the MOB, MOG, and grandmothers with floral corsages.  I really want to recreate this with a slightly more modern twist- flowers that will last a lifetime.  I plan to make fabric rosettes and attach them to simple beaded bracelets, like those shown below, for our mothers and my grandmothers.  Mr. Geek's honor attendant, if you recall, is his Best Woman, so I'll be making her one of these in the same color as the guys' boutonnieres, with her own little LEGO minifig in the center.

rosette and image by Little Birdie Secrets

Reserved Pew Bows

You've seen exactly one picture of the church.  Here's another:

{personal photo}

In an apparent homage to the 80's, it's traditional to decorate every pew, or every other pew, or just the reserved pews with big, tacky bows made of shiny white ribbon.  You already know how I feel about the 80s...and you know I don't really want to add anything to the simple beauty of this ceremony space.  However, I see the wisdom in marking a few pews as reserved- namely, the front pews, for our attendants, and two more pews on each side for our immediate families.  But what to do, exactly?  Bridesmaid MrsL and her mother are very crafty, and for her fall-themed wedding, they made some very lovely pew decor:

{personal photo}

The jury's still out on the details of this one, so stay tuned for a design idea, much less a finished product.  (Ideas?  Leave them in the comments, please!)

I'm sure there are more things on my never-ending list of DiY's, but that's all I could come up with at the moment.  I think I'm gonna need a permanent caffeine IV for the next few months...

How much did you DiY for your wedding day?  Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the wedding to-do list?

Much love,
The Geeks