Our amazing vendors!

I know I have a few entries to catch-up on, but I wanted to get a shout out to our amazing vendors.  We were lucky to work with some really great people and companies on our special day.

Flowers
Sublime Stems (website)

This might be may favorite "extra" of the wedding - the bouquets turned out gorgeous!  Kristal was super responsive, even though I was in Hawai'i and she was in the Seattle area.  We came up with a concept that fit with my vision and budget.  I would highly recommend her.

Bridal bouquet
Green Cymbidium Orchids
Stephanotis
White Hydrangea
Purple Dendrobium Orchids

Bridesmaid bouquets

Green Cymbidium Orchids

White Hydrangea

Lily Grass

 

Groom boutonniere

Green Cymbidium Orchid

Purple Dendrobium Orchid

 Cake topper & blooms

Green Cymbidium Orchids

White Dendrobium Orchids

Hair & Make-up
Salon Maison (website)

I definitely didn't want to worry about my own hair and make-up.  One of the references we talked to about Ray's mentioned Salon Maison.  She said they were awesome and they come to you so the bridal party doesn't have to coordinate traveling to yet another place on a very busy day - especially since we were having a 12:30pm ceremony which meant we had to be ready for pictures by 10:30am.  They are a little bit more expensive than going to a salon but I felt like it was a great value in the end.

Bonnie and her assistance came to our hotel room at 6am!?! to get things rolling.  My three bridesmaids and my cousin, our reader, all had their hair styled.  They all looked amazing although I'm quite certain none of them were used to quite that much hairspray!  It was fun for me to watch them transformed from their usual carefree, beautiful selves to these gorgeous, elegant ladies.  I had both hair and make-up as I wanted to have someone who knew what they were doing apply the make-up so it would last all day.  I had something like 70 bobby pins in my hair but I LOVED the final result.  It was just want I was hoping for and stayed in all day.  Of course, I set the airport alarms off when we flew out that night, but it was worth it.


Ceremony Music
Bella Trio

 

We lucked out as Justin has a musically talented family and his cousin's string trio was available.  They played music for about 30 minutes prior to the ceremony while our guests were being seated.  They also played a selection of music during the ceremony.  It was amazing and I loved listening to it on our video over and over again!  It was a bit of a "luxury" item and I'm certainly very happy we splurged and went with the live music.

Venue (Ceremony & Reception)
Ray's Boathouse (website)

We picked Ray's because it is one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle and we knew our reception was going to be mostly about the food!  We also had the option to have the ceremony on their dock which overlooks the Puget Sound with the Olympic mountains as a backdrop, so we knew it would be gorgeous as well.  My dad created an arch for us to stand under during the ceremony, otherwise we just used the natural background and Ray's catering elements.  



We had a plated lunch with the wedding cake as dessert.  We gave our guests options of steak, salmon and a vegetarian meal - with family from the Pacific Northwest and Colorado, we needed surf and turf!  The food was wonderful, the ceremony was beautiful and we had a great experience at Ray's.  Amy, our contact, was great to work with even with the distance.  We met with her a few times prior to our move and then the rest was done via email.  The only part I was a bit disappointed about was the centerpieces - they turned out to be much smaller than I anticipated but overall it was fantastic.




Cake
Lamb Cakes

Justin's mom had a friend who was a retired professional baker.  She was willing to come out of retirement to create our cake for Eileen.  It was a 3 layer red velvet with live orchids as a topper and accents.  She used our invitation orchid as inspiration to create the vines and leaves.  It turned out pretty and tasted good as well.  Although I have to admit I think I only took one or two bites of it!




Getaway Car
British Motor Coach (website)

A few weeks before the wedding, I realized that the only car we had available was my 350Z, which is not easy to get into and very small.  I had always wanted to have a vintage car as the "getaway" vehicle and lo and behold, up popped British Motor Coach.  We requested the Bentley and it was a hit.  A lot of people posed with it - Justin's dad, the auto mechanic, gave it a good once over!  Our driver was very friendly and we had fun driving around town a bit in it.

Seattle Rubik's Cube Favors

Rubik's Cube Favors

As with all of my DIY projects, I went through what seems like a million ideas before finally having that "ah ha!" moment.  I was reading through posts here and came across this Bee's post and knew this was for us.  I showed Mr. Ball and he agreed wholeheartedly, even helping me find the pictures for each side.  We purchased a real Rubik's Cube from Toy R Us and did our test favor.  Below are the pictures of the test favor - we are making a few changes for the final version but overall we are over the moon with how it turned out.

We finished the test favor and Mr. Ball immediately challenged me to mix it up to try and solve it.  This was the next day after he spent some very quality time twisting and turning the puzzle.  He was slightly concerned that we would never see the pictures whole again.  Here he is with a solved, extra cool Rubik's Cube!


Okay, so now on to the how to accomplish this project!



The Rubik's Cube site has a PDF based template you can download for free to create the stickers.  I started with this but immediately converted it into a Photoshop template as I prefer working with images there.  I re-sized and cropped 6 images to fit the sticker template - including one with our names and wedding date.  From there I exported the image to a JPEG format which I opened in Photoshop as well.  I printed the image onto a full sheet of inkjet compatible label paper using the 'Fit to Width' option to make sure it printed on the entire page.

Now came the time consuming part - cutting and pasting.  I started out using the paper cutter but soon discovered it was not the right tool for the job.  I moved to using scissors to finish up with the test.  For the real deal, we are going to use our cutting mat and an X-Acto knife to make more perfect cuts and lines.  You will see in some of the pictures that a few of the stickers are cut a little bit off - this is why.

Once each picture was cut into 9 pieces I immediately stuck it on the cube.  There were two reasons for this - one because I really wanted to see how it was going to turn out and, more importantly, I didn't want the images to get mixed up.  I absolutely loved the results from the very first picture to the last.  I did change the template for the pooch picture - hated the words once I saw how they ended up on the cube - otherwise this is what they will look like. 

We are also going to use the laminate over the labels, as suggested by the Rubik's Cube site, to protect the stickers a bit more.  They held up pretty well throughout the solving phase however I think it will look a bit more "professional" and last longer with laminated stickers.

 

 
 
Once I finished up with the test cube and knew this was what we were going to use, I immediately started contemplating providing a quick solution template with each.  The actual cube comes with a 7-step solution and we thought it would be handy so people could get the cube back to starting position quickly if they wanted to.  Since we are using imitation cubes (*much cheaper*), I knew I had to create something.   Here is the result and I'm pretty pleased with it as well.  We are going to find some better paper and print at a higher quality but I think it accomplishes the task rather nicely!

This might be my favorite DIY project!  After I make 40 more of these guys I might feel differently however it is one of the coolest ideas I have run across.  It is also a great way to share our love of games with everyone without having a game-themed wedding.

Find the templates here:
Rubik's Cube Sticker Photoshop Template
Rubik's Cube Solution Booklet Publisher Template