Pretty Little Cake

The other day I discovered inchmark, a ridiculously and wonderfully pretty blog written by a former senior art director of Martha Stewart Kids and Martha Stewart Living. Her name is Brooke, just like me, so naturally, I love her. (We Brookes gotta stick together, ya know?) This blog is chock full of beautiful visuals and lots of yummy wedding ideas (even if they're not all specifically intended for weddings).

After looking at so many wedding cakes over the last year and a half and thinking that fondant was the only solution to making a cake look pretty, reading this inchmark post was a refreshing reminder that plain old icing can still look really pretty (and not necessarily like a weird store-bought cake wreck). This cake for Brooke's 3-year-old daughter, Bee (yes, Bee!) is absolutely darling and lovely, but totally simple, and it could absolutely be translated to a wedding cake.


If you're planning to DIY your wedding cake and this sweet treat is calling your name, definitely check out inchmark for the tutorial on how to make the little icing dots (without dealing with fondant). And yes, even her how-to photos are darling.


Are you planning to DIY your wedding cake?

Twelve Steps To Creating DIY Wedding Invitations

In designing our wedding invitations, I was definitely at a huge advantage over other DIY brides, and for that I know I am very, very lucky. I design wedding invitations and stationery for a living, and have been a graphic designer for six years, so there wasn't a lot of guessing about how to begin or what to include. But thinking back to when I first designed wedding invitations for a friend over four years ago, I remember how overwhelming it was, which is what a lot of you may be going through. I thought I'd share some of my knowledge with you all, since it seems like a lot of brides go the DIY route for their invitations. I am certainly not claiming to be the end-all, be-all authority of wedding invitations... but I hope this can help a few of you out who may be struggling :-)

1. Make sure you give yourself enough time.
Designing, printing, assembling, addressing, and mailing your invitations will take a very long time... I'm not going to lie. It may be one of the most time-consuming tasks you will encounter while wedding planning. I'm not trying to scare you — just prepare you! If you think you can complete the task from start to finish in a month, give yourself two months. Everyone works at their own pace but it is better to err on the side of caution and give yourself plenty of time to account for your learning curve. A good rule of thumb is to mail your invitations 6-8 weeks before your wedding date, leaving your guests at least a month to reply before your response date, so try to plan things out so everything is completed several weeks ahead of this timeline in the event that you run into roadblocks along the way. I mailed our invitations on July 22 and our reply by date was September 1 (for our September 20 wedding), so our guests had ample time to let us know whether or not they would be attending.

2. Think carefully about your "reply by" date.
If your venue needs a final count a week before your wedding, set your response date for 2.5-3 weeks before your big day. This gives you a few days to let the procrastinators get their response cards to you (taking into account the fact that the USPS may take a few days), and then have at least a week or so to round up responses from the rest of the stragglers (still also allowing you enough time to put together your seating arrangement if you're having assigned seating). If your invitees are notorious for being hard to track down, maybe push that date up one more week to give yourself extra time to get answers from everyone. Our reply date was September 1 and we started calling people who didn't respond on September 6, as we had to let our venue know our final count on September 17th (and we also needed a few days to get our seating arrangement and place cards together).

3. When designing, START WITH YOUR ENVELOPES!!!!!
I have seen it happen so many times — a desperate cry for help when a bride has designed and printed her invitations but cannot find envelopes that are the right size and in the color they want. Ladies and gents, make sure you have the envelopes BEFORE you move full steam ahead with your invitations! There are very specific standard sizes out there, and if you accidentally make your invitations 1/2" larger than the envelopes you later find, you are going to have a big problem. Also, while there are a lot more options these days for colors, sometimes it is still hard to find the exact color you need. Know all of the materials that you're working with before you get too far into the process.

4. Work backwards with dimensions.
If your envelope is an A7 (which measures 5.25 x 7.25), it is best to make your invitation 5" x 7" so there is a little wiggle room to get your invitation in and out of the envelope. If you have a lot of inserts, make sure you test everything out in the envelope together as you may need to make the invitation a smidge smaller for it to get in and out of the envelope smoothly. Here is a good cheat-sheet that I use with envelope sizes and how large the enclosure piece should be; the sizes you'll likely be using are towards the bottom of that webpage. (If you're using Envelopments products, keep in mind that some of their sizes vary from standard sizes, so make sure you know the EXACT dimensions that you measure yourself!)

5. It's "Two thousand nine," not "Two thousand AND nine."
This is a constant battle with some invitation clients who insist that the year should read "Two thousand and nine," but grammatically, the proper way of writing the year is "Two thousand nine" — no "and." This is a pretty common mistake, thus most of your guests think it is written with an "and," too, so ultimately it's not a big deal if you already included it on your invitations. But, being the crazy OCD designer/typesetter that I am, I am a little crazy about making sure my invitations are grammatically correct and I always notice this now on other people's invitations. (It's a curse.)

6. Make your words look pretty.
Although the main purpose of the invitation is to be informative, it's also a keepsake of your day. Why not make it as beautiful as possible? That can include the words you choose and how you write them. Write out "North Seventh Avenue" instead of "N. 7th Ave." There is no need for you to include the zip code of your venue, and I usually think extraneous copy like this just junks an invitation up. Especially if you're including a directions card (where you can write out the full venue address, including zip code), you definitely don't need it on your invitation.

7. Don't include registry information.
Please don't beat me up for this one! Although I have heard the argument that some people need to know this information and it's more convenient for guests to have it all right there, the truth of the matter is it is just not polite. 80% of your guests may appreciate the information, but are you willing to accept that you'll offend the other 20% enough that they won't show up to your wedding, OR give you a gift? Proper etiquette can sometimes be stuffy, but this is one etiquette rule that I think should be followed because there are bound to be some traditionalists on your guest list. Stick to passing registry information along by word-of-mouth (tell your parents and bridal party, and they are free to include it on a shower invitation since THEY are hosting the shower for the purpose of showering you with gifts). If you or your parents are close enough to people to invite them to your wedding, it shouldn't be difficult for them to pick up the phone to call you or a family member to inquire about your registries. Perhaps also include it discreetly on your wedding website, which you'll likely direct your guests to via an insert in your wedding invitations. But just don't include your registry information in your invitations.

8. Print out drafts of your design — don't just look at it on the computer.
This is something I still have to remind myself to do, but seeing an invitation on paper, at actual size, is different than looking at it on your computer monitor. The type may be larger or smaller than you intended, or the script font you chose may be more difficult to read than you expected. Seeing it all on paper is a great way to make sure everything is easily readable (for young and old eyes, alike) and see what tweaks you may need to make.

9. Proof read, proof read, and proof read some more.
Have several people proof read your invitations before you print everything out. Especially people who have never seen it before — a fresh set of eyes is an invaluable resource (and more likely to catch a mistake than you who have seen it a million times). Read every. single. last. word. Spell-check is not always dependable when it comes to something like an invitation, where you use locations and names of places that it won't catch whether it's spelled correctly or incorrectly. This may sound weird, but look at it upside-down. Sometimes mistakes stick out more when you're looking at a piece in another way. "Fourth" and "eighth" are often misspelled.

10. Weigh everything before buying postage.
When you have an accurate mock-up of your invitation together (it doesn't have to have finalized copy — it should just include all of the paper layers, ribbons, etc. that you'll be including so it is the correct weight), take your invitation to the post office and have it weighed to find out what your postage will cost. If you're paranoid like me, take it to two different post offices and have it weighed. I have, in the past, had two different people at two different post offices tell me two different things. Just make sure you are 100% sure of how much postage you need before purchasing it. (This includes postage for your response card if it happens to have a few layers or anything else that may make it heavier than a regular letter.) Also, remember that square envelopes require higher postage than rectangular envelopes — an unexpected cost that can really add up if you aren't expecting it.

11. Send an invitation to yourself before sending to your guests.
If you are at all worried about your invitation being bulky or your envelopes not staying sealed or ANYTHING at all, send a full invitation to yourself before mailing them out to your guests. It will give you the peace of mind that yes, it will arrive to your guests in one piece (or it may inform you that you need to use a stronger seal or glue to keep the envelope sealed). Don't be discouraged if your envelopes get a little banged up — unfortunately, this is just what happens when something goes through the mail, and it's what's inside the envelope that is most important!

12. Take a deep breath and send 'em!
I was more nervous on the day I mailed our invitations than I ended up being on our wedding day! (That should make Mr. Cupcake feel nice, since I had no doubts about marrying him!) I was just so worried about the invitations getting out to everyone after having spent SO much time on them, but I had to just let go of any worries and get them in the mail. You've stressed over them enough... just send 'em!

I hope this helps some of you and makes designing your own invitations a bit simpler. It is definitely a complicated process that can be stressful and time consuming, but if you give yourself enough time and educate yourself on the process before beginning, you'll be successful and so proud of the end result! Most importantly, though, don't kill yourself over the process. If you find that DIY just isn't for you or making your own invitations is more stressful than you can handle, do NOT feel bad — it's not for everyone, and there are a lot of amazing resources out there for non-DIY brides who still want beautiful invitations.

Good luck!

The Perfect Accent, Part 3: Hair Flower

Previous posts:
One Ringy-Dingy... Two Ringy-Dingy...
The Perfect Accent, Part 1: Earrings
The Perfect Accent, Part 2: Bracelet (and Bridesmaid's Jewelry)

I professed my vendor crush on Twigs & Honey a while back, and had such a great experience working with Myra, who created the beautiful flower for my hair that you see above. I first contacted Myra and was looking for some hair flair that I could wear at our reception, once I wouldn't be wearing my veil anymore. I asked her to include some teal to go along with our teal and moss color palette, and I sent her a swatch of the bridesmaid's dresses to match. She did EXACTLY what I asked for.... the only problem? I changed my mind!

This is the first flower that Myra created for me, exactly as I asked for

After she sent me a photo of the teal and white flower, I had this gut feeling that it just wasn't going to work with my wedding day ensemble, but I felt terrible because we had had several conversations about what I was looking for, and she listened to every. single. request.

Eventually, I got up the gall to email her and tell her that I loved the piece, but I was afraid it was no longer what I wanted... I begged for forgiveness, and asked her if she could put a safety pin on the back of the teal flower (so I could still use it as an accessory on my clutch purse), and create a new, all white/ivory/champagne flower for my hair. She was beyond understanding and sweet about it, and whipped up another beautiful creation for me.

Much more "me"!

A close-up of the beautiful details. The netting is so, so soft and delicate.

I loved the second flower so much that I decided to wear it all day, not just at the reception. It looked really beautiful under my veil (and I was inspired by Mrs. Tiramisu, after I saw how pretty her flower looked tucked under her veil).

Non-pro photo by our friend Beth

Non-pro photo by Mr. Cupcake's cousin, budding photographer Evan

Non-pro photo by SIL Cupcake

The teal flower also managed to spruce up the cheapie $15 clutch I had gotten at a no-name jewelry store in NYC.

Non-pro photo by SIL Cupcake

Non-pro photo by SIL Cupcake

I highly recommend working with Myra if you're looking for a unique hair accessory (or anything else, really — she does it all!). Just contact her early as she is a very, very busy lady in high demand!

Myra Callan
Twigs & Honey
Pebbles and Paisley (Myra's sister-company)

The Perfect Accent, Part 2: Bracelet (and Bridesmaid's Jewelry)

You've already seen my rings and my earrings — now onto the beautiful custom-made bracelet that I wore on our wedding day!

A lot of the wedding (or non-wedding, for that matter) jewelry I saw online and in jewelry stores was very blingy and crystal-fied. I wanted something with pearls to better accent the beading on my dress (and, now, the Lunessa earrings I would be wearing), but most of the pearl jewelry I could find was very traditional looking, which I didn't want. I wanted something that represented my taste and still went along with the whole ensemble, without being too matchy-matchy. (Man, do I sound picky! Hehe.)

Momma Cupcake, an elementary art teacher, still keeps in touch with a former student teacher she had a few years ago named Tracy; Tracy has a side-business making beautiful jewelry and loves taking on custom work. Coincidentally, Tracy had also made a bracelet for MOH Kelli when she got married, using crystals from her grandmother's old necklace (Kelli had found Tracy from an entirely different connection). Both Momma Cupcake and MOH Kelli loved Tracy's work and raved about her great prices, so I decided to talk to her about making a bracelet for me.

I showed Tracy a photo of my Lunessa earrings (which I didn't have in my posession just yet) and my dress, and described that I wanted a sort of "unstructured" looking pearl bracelet that wasn't too dainty but wasn't too thick, either. I didn't mind a few crystals to brighten it up, but I also didn't want it too blingy. Tracy said she could definitely put something together, and she'd let me know when it was ready! I left her to it, and was totally excited a week or so later when she showed me this:


It was beautiful and coordinated PERFECTLY with my earrings. I loved the double strands... I also have freakishly tiny wrists (normal bracelets usually hang off of me), so it was nice that Tracy had measured my wrist beforehand and the fit was just right.

Jewelry photos by me

Here's a shot of me wearing the bracelet on the wedding day — this was as Mr. Cupcake and I were exiting the church after our ceremony.

Non-pro photo by Mr. Cupcake's cousin, budding photographer Evan

And zoomed in:


And, simply because it's hysterical, the bracelet on my wrist while dancing like a fool with MOH Nicole at our reception. (You may remember that Nicole and I have a history of dancing like fools together.)

Non-pro photo by my friend, Blake

Tracy's work was so beautiful and affordable that I also asked her to make jewelry for all of my bridesmaids. Each of the girls has their own unique taste, and although they'd be wearing matching dresses I still wanted them to feel like themselves, so I asked Tracy to make six different pairs of earrings using the same blue and green crystals. I mentioned that MOH Kelli likes simpler, dainty jewelry, while bridesmaid/SIL Cupcake is more of the chandelier earring type of gal. Tracy ended up making 15 or so different styles of earrings in the same colors, and she let me pick the six I liked best for my girls! She also gifted me with a seventh pair for myself (which I brought along on the wedding day, just in case one of the girls forgot theirs).

I stupidly never took photos of all of the girls' earrings before I gave them to them, but here is the seventh pair that I kept for myself. I loved that everyone's were a little different while still going along with our color palette.

Jewelry photos by me

Tracy also made six matching bracelets for the girls — these were all the same.

Non-pro photo by SIL Cupcake

I have nothing but raves for Tracy and her work. Also, for a bride like me who had zero time to make jewelry myself (especially considering it's something I have never done before), it didn't feel like I was going broke just by paying someone else to do it; her prices were very reasonable. The earrings ranged from $12-$18 per pair, the bridesmaids bracelets were $22 each, and my bracelet was $40. She uses high-quality materials and has a great eye for what she does.

Tracy doesn't have a website, but I'm trying to talk her into opening an Etsy shop... in the meantime, if you'd like her contact information, send me a PM or comment on this post and I'll get her email address to you!

The Perfect Accent, Part 1: Earrings

Since I bought my wedding dress a full year before our wedding, I had plenty of time to search for the perfect accessories. The only problem was that I'm not so great at accessorizing on a day-to-day basis... it did take me a bit of time to decide what I was looking for, but I managed to achieve just the look I wanted.

On the wedding day, I was so pleased with how all of my jewelry and accessories came together; I decided to continue my ring photo shoot to capture some great jewelry shots to show you all. First up: my earrings from Lunessa.

You may remember that I had seen these earrings on the Lunessa website after SIL Cupcake highly recommended the store to me, and I fell in love. I found the exact earrings I had been picturing in my head. After deciding the price tag ($125) was a bit too much for me, though, my dad and step-mom made the generous offer to buy them for me as a birthday gift. I wanted to make sure I really, really wanted them, so while in NYC for the National Stationery Show last May, I stopped by Lunessa in SOHO to see them in person. The freshwater pearl and crystal clusters were smaller than I had imagined they'd be, but they were really, really pretty. They were the perfect, dainty earrings that I wanted, so I gave my dad the "go" to buy them for me!

Earring photos by me

Non-pro photo by SIL Cupcake

I like that they were more of a small accent rather than a bold statement. My dress had a lot of beading and sparkle, so I really didn't need loud earrings. They are also something I can wear again in the future.

Next up: my custom-made bracelet!

Where did you find the jewelry you that you will wear on your wedding day? Did you splurge or find a bargain?

Our Wedding in Film, Part 2: Mummers Whatting?

Part 1: Sharing Tissues { Sidenote: sorry I've been so late following up with this video series! We had some technical difficulties over here at Cupcake headquarters, but we're back in business now... so, as we are still patiently awaiting our pro wedding pics, I'll get back to sharing a few moments of our day in film! }

If you're not from the Philadelphia area, chances are you've never heard of the Mummers. Basically, the Mummer's Parade is a New Year's Day tradition here in Philadelphia, one that I attended every year as a kid. The Mummers consist of elaborately costumed Philadelphians who perform up Broad Street; there are different "clubs" in four different categories, the best of which (in my humble opinion) is the String Bands category. There is just nothing like hearing the music of banjos, saxophones, accordians, and strings and seeing men in gaudy, sequined costumes dancing their hearts out amidst thousands of drunk Philadelphian spectators on a freezing January day. My mom's second-cousin is the captain of Fralinger, the string band that has taken home the first place prize for their performance for a record SEVEN years in a row, so we take our Mummers pretty seriously in my family. There was no way I couldn't include the Mummers somehow in our wedding day.

Now, it's not what you're thinking — we didn't have Mummers actually perform at our wedding (although I have heard of couples doing this) — but we DID do some Mummers Strutting. Mummers Whatting? Mummers STRUTTING. Just take a looksee. (Pardon the shaky camera — our videographer, a family member, was filming and strutting :-) Also in my attempt to brighten it up a bit, everything now looks a bit pixelated... so I apologize if you're freaked out by my blurry, pixel-faced family.)



After having searched high and low for inexpensive, non-patterned parasols and coming up empty-handed, my cousin from New Orleans came to the rescue — she bought twenty black and white cheap plastic parasols at a Mardi Gras store in New Orleans before boarding the plane for our wedding, and having the parasols made it perfectly strutter-iffic. It was mostly my family on the dance floor, as any of our out-of-town friends and Mr. Cupcake's family didn't have a clue what was going on, but it was two minutes of good, family fun for my clan!

This New Year's Day was the first Mummer's Parade that Mr. Cupcake has ever attended, and it was a blast! We'll always remember strutting at our wedding, and now we can carry on the New Year's Day Mummers tradition together.

Mr. Police Man was trying to keep people out of the street, but we grabbed a quick shot with Fralinger passing behind us.

MOH Nicole is home from Austria for the holidays, so she joined us at the parade. She snagged these t-shirts for us — two for $5 :-)

Then we saw this nice guy selling shirts for $5 a piece... we informed him of the competitive salesperson down the street, and even though we didn't buy shirts from him he was a good sport and let us take a picture.

"Tired? Need a place to rest? Why, here's one right here!" says Mr. Cupcake.

(Still curious about what in the world the Mummers are? Here's Fralinger's 1st place performance on New Year's Day 2008 — each club comes up with a unique theme each year and carries it through their routine with music, costumes, and props. The music is so much more amazing in person!)

One Ringy-Dingy... Two Ringy-Dingy...

Can you believe I have been blogging on Weddingbee for over a year and I have yet to show you my ring? What kind of poor excuse for a bride am I, right? Well, since everyone else is doing it (and yes, if they were going to jump off of a bridge, I would do that, too), I figured there was no better time than now to show you my bling. With the help of Anne Ruthman's amazing tutorial and my beloved new Panasonic Lumix TZ-5 point-and-shoot (by far the best purchase we made for our honeymoon), I went to town.

While in Brooklyn visiting Brother and SIL Cupcake in November, we went to Brooklyn Flea and picked up this amazing vintage letterpress type drawer. It was a great prop to showcase my rings! We are planning on somehow making it into a table of some sort one day. I'll leave that up to Mr. C to figure out...

My ring is by designer A. Jaffe. It has a Pavé platinum band and round cut diamond in the center. The center stone is .75 carats (Mr. Cupcake did an amazing job of choosing a near-flawless stone), but the Pavé stones surrounding it give it the illusion of being larger. I definitely don't mind that ;-)


Before Mr. Cupcake and I first went ring shopping "for fun" about 6 months before we got engaged, I knew I loved this style of ring. I wanted something that had a vintage flair to it, but I also wanted a very thin band because I have fairly small hands; I didn't want anything that looked too clunky on me. Along with wanting a thin band, I also knew that I really wanted a ring that would allow for a thin coordinating wedding band, as I'm not a fan of engagement rings and wedding bands that don't match. When I tried this ring on, I immediately loved the simplicity of it combined with the vintage-looking setting, and I loved that the coordinating wedding band was designed to sit snugly under the setting of the engagement ring. The woman at the store let me wear it the whole time we were there and I was totally in love with it, so Mr. Cupcake knew it was definitely the one!


The ring has a European shank design, which means it is weighted at the bottom so it doesn't turn easily on my finger. That is a really nice feature. You can also see in the above photo the signature "A" logo for A. Jaffe with a tiny diamond on the bottom left of each side of both rings.


Mr. Cupcake bought my ring at Robbins Diamonds in Newark, Delaware (also the home of my alma mater!). Delaware is a tax-free state, so he saved a bundle by buying my ring there. I'm glad I married such a smart spender :-)

Because I had too much fun setting up a little glamour shot for my two ringy-dingies*, here are a few more photos (since I had a hard time choosing just a couple that I liked the best).

I used a ceramic flower candle holder for the two shots above. All photos were edited in Adobe Photoshop using the following adjustments: Levels, Curves, and Hue/Saturation.

One of the photo booth pictures from our wedding, on the Gocco'd photo mats I created so our guests could take their photos home as favors.

On top of the dinner menus I created (as a very last-minute project 6 days before the wedding) with a silhouette/monogram logo. I'll definitely do a tutorial of this for you soon.

* Props go to whoever knows what famous comedian that is a reference to!