My New Lovely's

I think I could waste half of this afternoon staring at my new business cards. I guess that's why I do this for a living, but I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I'm ashamed to say that I ran out of cards about 6 months ago and even though I print things on a daily basis never bothered to design new ones until a couple of weeks ago. They're engraved in ecru ink on dark espresso card stock. ooooooooh aaaaaaaaaaw. Did I mention that we're starting to offer engraved invitations? I can't wait to start sharing images of those.

The Dinner Party Plan

So a lot has been going on these last months, and for those of you following along I am actually going to be starting a new treatment 2 weeks from today. It's called Interleukin 2 and is kind of like a high dose chemo for us folks with melanoma. If it works, it should basically cure me which would be over the top kind of fabulous! I'll be spending about a week in the hospital, then a week out and then a week back in. These leads me to a question... what in the hell am I going to do staring at a wall for 2 weeks? Well, I'll be dragging my computer in there with me and I've decided the best use of my time would be to plan an extravagant dinner party to host as soon as I'm done with all of this! Logical right? ( insert an image of my mother shaking her head.)

I'll be updating the blog step by step, but my basic idea for the event is a combination of:

• 20-30 of our nearest and dearest + our big backyard
  


• The vibe: I'm aiming for that really amazing outdoor dinner party scene from the movie "Chocolat"(minus anyone dying and the big fire)



• An absinthe bar among other fun libations



• A lounge set up in our barn (yes, I'm hanging chandeliers in there!)



• Dinner on the lawn with a raging firepit nearby



• Chilled out Cafe Del Mar type of music



• Lanterns hanging everywhere and maybe some fireworks to oooh and awww at (we live in New Hampshire. Fireworks are really normal here.)



• Really incredible fresh food with recipes taken from the places we've traveled.

Here's the inspiration board which is bound to change over and over as I get more bored by the minute in hospital.

In case you were wondering, we will remain open when I'm on lock down. Dade will be shipping orders regularly. The only orders that won't be moving out the door during that time are the flat printed orders since I usually print those myself. That said, we've built extra print slots into the schedule of other weeks this month and everything should still be shipping right on time.

Padma's Bling

For those of you out there that watch Top Chef, you already know the ridiculously gorgeous host of the show, Padma Lakshmi. For those that don't, she's the stunning Indian model / actress / author who also was once married to Salman Rushdie. I always find myself immediately gawking at what jewelry she's wearing on the show. As the credits were rolling for the season finale, I noticed that Padma's name was listed for the jewelry. Hmmmmm..... With a little help from google, I found that she now has designed her own jewelry line available at Bergdorf Goodman. I'm in love....

Her website is also visually fantastic. If you have some time, take a look at the "scrapbook" which would make a great inspiration board for an event.

source

My Love of Sweets

Chocolate is great ... but there are times when I love the packaging even more than the goods. I have a collection of photos stored in my computer of chocolate boxes and candy bags. I just love them. Every so often I look at them for inspiration. The ornate borders and color combinations can lead to a great invite design.

Last week I was browsing through the weddingbee site and found that I'm not alone! If you haven't seen Miss Perfume's invitations, be sure to check out the boxes she made for them. They were inspired by Laduree packaging. Here's some other great eye candy.

More Jewelry for '09

Our latest sparkly additions:

www.whiteaisle.com

Luxury for Less?

I've been planning for quite long time on doing a series of posts on planning your honeymoon, but unfortunately haven't found time to do it! I'm not an expert on planning by any means, but I have traveled quite a bit and have always booked things myself. This has meant an obscene number of hours researching hotels, flights, restaurant and things to do. It's meant finding airlines not listed on U.S. sites to get between international destinations, and renting cars and/or drivers in places you want to road trip through (highly recommended!) I have learned to leave travel guide books in the last hotel stop of whichever trip I'm on to make extra room in the suitcase and hopefully pass along some tips for the next traveler to stumble into that room. I've picked up some good, useful travel knowledge! So why am I patting myself on the back? Because today I found a new and useful tool.

Dade and I are planning a trip to Africa this Fall. Why? Because you have to make the most of your time here on earth and neither of us have ever been. Plus... it's a huge planning challenge which is taking my mind off of other little things in life like ... hmmmmm ... medical drama maybe? Just when I thought that there was no way I was ever going to be able to afford some of the incredible, amazing, jaw dropping type of safari experiences I keep seeing in Travel and Leisure, the mighty google handed me this: http://www.luxurylink.com/. Welcome to my 1/2 price dream!

They have all kinds of travel packages on this site which range from the U.S. to the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, Fiji and beyond. I certainly can't attest to all of the properties listed, but I can tell you that when I took a look at some of the places listed for spots I've visited, they were all top notch and great bargains. They're honeymoon-worthy! I hope you guys will find a great bargain and end up in your luxury cabana with private plunge pool!

Vegas Baby, Vegas

So a few weeks ago I cyber-bumped into an old friend from college on Facebook. Roxanne and I used to share dorm space at good old Emerson college in Boston circa 1995'ish. She was always a blast to be around and we stirred up quite a bit of trouble as a team. She sent me a message last week letting me know that she'd actually ordered jewelry from the White Aisle website while she was planning her wedding. We'd been writing back and forth a year ago discussing a bracelet, and never knew who the other one was. Well... we're back in touch now, and I have to share with you guys some of her wedding photos.

Roxanne and James got married in Vegas last June. Her photographer, Chelsea Nicole was just 20 years old at the time!! Can you believe it? Check our her website for tons more gorgeous shots. They're also planning to get together in September to do a Trash the Dress session. Roxanne wanted to wait a year to enjoy the clean dress.

In the bride's own words.... "I got to be a guest at my own wedding! My husband works in events, all over the world. He directs shows with 20K attendees, etc. When he directed TV shows, they would do wrap parties - so we decided to have more of a wrap party than a wedding. He's the creative genius behind the whole thing. He came up with doing a color palate rather than say, two colors. He brought home a PMS color chart and made me pick 15 colors.

He had the idea to rent out a night club (we rented out Tabu at the MGM Grand in Vegas) instead of a ball room - so smart, the place was already decorated, lit, ready for sound etc. They even had a program that projects images onto the tables and dance floor (that you can interact with, i.e. turns the image to fire or water when you wave your hand over it), so my husband put together a video of our engagement pics and flowers to project."

"We rented out a huge suite at Planet Hollywood over looking the Bellagio fountains with a foosball table and pool table and had our after party there with a late night taco bar, sushi and pizza and a second DJ. "

Thanks for sharing!