Word find, part 2

In May, I made the word find for our wedding. It was a LOT of fun to incorporate places and activities and people into it.

So here's the actual word find that we had at each place setting at our wedding. If you're planning a wedding or other special event and would like me to configure a word find with words that mean something to you, email me!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

To our friends and family and complete strangers who read this blog -- happy holidays!

We thought you'd like to see the Christmas cards we sent out this year...

Click To Play

Please let me know if you'd like me to make your holiday cards for 2008! (See my FramesByDana Christmas Cards page for more info.) I'd be happy to give this blog's readers an additional 10% discount (code:WedBlog)!

Invitations

I finally got a half-decent picture of the invitation. I posted the extra invites on Nov. 17, but here's the wedding invitation I made:

And in the invitation envelopes were the hotel cards:

and the RSVP card, which we decided to do as a postcard just to be a bit different:

Here's the back with the info:

I think the butterfly/dragonfly cutouts held the theme together pretty well. The blue card stock I printed the hotel info on tied in the wedding's color, too.

If you'd like help making your wedding invitations, information will soon be up on FramesByDana.com, but you can always email me to see what I can do for you.

Thank you! (Finally!)

I was waiting for inspiration to hit. Then I was waiting to feel better. Now we're not waiting. All but 3 of our thank you notes have been sent. Here's what they look like:

and the inside:

Our Wedding Podcast Network podcast

Take a listen to our podcast. It's got pictures if you choose the enhanced version. Thanks Holli and Robert!

A Thanksgiving tour of devastated New Orleans

We're in New Orleans for Thanksgiving and yesterday took a tour of the devastated 9th District and areas east of town near the levees. I'm like many Americans, I suppose, in that I had largely put the plight of New Orleans residents of out my mind two years after Hurricane Katrina. However, the extent of the damage here snapped me back to reality. Thousands of homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Even those that did survive are so badly riddled with mold that it's unlikely they can be repaired. Our hosts told us that hundreds of thousands of people have left the area, most never to return. Many of these people are lifetime residents who never conceived of having to flee and put down roots somewhere else.

There are signs of hope. Rebuilding is going on all over the city and some of the wealthier neighborhoods near the breached levees look almost back to normal. The highlight of our visit was stopping by Musicians' Village, a complex of 70 homes being erected by Habitat for Humanity with the help of musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr. About 20 homes have been built and residents are moving in.

We ran into drummer Bob French, leader of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band and a local legend of sorts. We rapped with him for nearly an hour on the porch of his new home in Musicians' Village. He told us about the resilience of the New Orleans musician community and the many local jazz legends who are now his neighbors. He gave us an armload of his CDs and invited us to come hear his band as his guest next time we're in New Orleans. You can bet we will.

Here are a few photos I took on our tour. You can see more on my Flickr album. For background on the story, see this excellent flash video by the Times-Picayune newspaper. Happy Thanksgiving.

The ASPCA scoured the territory, marking homes where live animals were found so the pets could be fed and sheltered.

This boat came to a rest in a tire store parking lot two years ago and hasn't been moved since.

Many people are living in trailers outside their devastated homes.

One family that returned to its shattered home scrawled a message of hope on the door.

The high-water line was still visible on the inside of this shattered home; it was about a foot over my head.

Signs of hope: some of the brightly colored new homes built by Habitat for Humanity.

Extra invitations -- pix and wording

I see a good amount of people searching for wording for the invitations that go along with some "weekend-long" weddings and I wanted to post the images of our invitations, thinking it may help to see what someone else included on theirs.

First up is the Spa Day invite -- for the moms and the bridal party. We went out to lunch before the "treatments," but that was just communicated personally.


Second was the rehearsal dinner. People involved with the wedding (wedding party and helpers) were included, as were their spouses. I addressed the envelopes to the couple, hoping that would get the point across that both were invited. If I did it again, I would have made "significant others welcome!" more explicit on the actual invitation, as there was a bit of confusion the day of.


Third is the bridal brunch, which was held the morning after the wedding (some bridal brunches are the morning of the wedding). I wanted to include everyone who was invited to the rehearsal dinner as well as all out-of-towners (those who were staying at the Sheraton as part of our room block the night of the wedding).


Fourth and last was the gift-opening party, which was held immediately after the bridal brunch and included just immediate family. We invited only those people that we could feel like we could kick out at a certain time because we had a Jimmy Buffett concert to get to that evening.