What to wear on my head

While I have always dreamed of the perfect dress, I have never dreamed about a veil.  To be honest, I knew going into this that I wouldn't wear a veil.  (also, I have kind of a big head, which makes the whole veil thing interesting.)  Anyway, I tried one on for my sister-in-law just to appease her, but my heart wasn't in it.  (I even tried on a tiara, which is soo not my style.  I laughed out loud and I think I pissed off the bridal attendant.) 
If I was going to wear a veil, I would wear a mantilla veil.  Something about mantilla veils just gets me.  Here are a couple that make me wish I was a brunette who wanted to wear one:

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OK, let's focus.  (Clearly I am feeling a little ADD today.)  After my no veil decision, I started to pay attention to hair flowers, since I'm not really a headband girl.  I discovered these from Etsy seller myrakim:

They were really beautiful, but I was still unsure about my ability to pull off a birdcage veil.  That, and I was concerned that a big a** flower would make my rather large head look even bigger.  (Seriously people, I have a huge head.  I don't think I realized this until I was getting fitted for my high school graduation cap, and then I realized why hats never look good on me.  Numbers don't lie.)  Anyway, I saved these in my Etsy favorites folder until one day I stumbled upon ohmydeer's etsy shop.  I requested a custom order, a smaller ivory gardenia, with a vintage inspired center and a little bit of birdcage veil netting (it's as close as I'm gonna get to a veil).  Here is what she came up with:

I really love it.  I'm not completely sure how I'm going to wear my hair yet, perhaps I will throw that one out to y'all in another post.  But chalk this one up to another Etsy purchase.

Etsy Wedding Invitations

I am neither crafty nor patient.  So all this DIY invitation stuff I read about sounds really great, but it's not gonna happen.  However, I love the idea of buying stuff from talented people with their own businesses, rather than from huge online businesses or expensive stores.    Enter Etsy.  I love Etsy.  I will one day write a post on all of the cool stuff I've gotten from there.  (I've already posted about our awesome save the dates, which I am still LOVING.)
So, here are some of the invites I considered, from some really amazing Etsy artisans:

These were really lovely, simple and well designed.  I was THIS CLOSE to choosing these.  The seller was amazing to work with, and asked a bunch of questions to get the "feel" of our wedding before sending us a customized sample.

Love Made Visible

Handmade, linen invitations with eco friendly envelopes.  Again, the seller was great to work with.  They were a little too plain for me, but really lovely. 

Artful Beginnings

If our wedding invite budget was double what it is, I would have bought these.  They were WAY out of our price range.  The coolest part?  The seller will include customized vintage-style RSVP postcards for each guest with THEIR hometown on it.  So cool.  Someone please get these and tell me all about them. 

Oh So Suite

And the finalist.  I was so indecisive about wedding invites, but I kept coming back to these.  Simple, a little different, great quality, and super affordable.  I entered one of her giveaways she was hosting, and she gave me 15% off the entire suite.  Awesome.

CheerupCherup

On our invites, the flower petals will be sage green, the envelopes will be a pewter grey, and the writing will be in black and blush pink to go with our rather loose color palette.  I'm as psyched as I can be about wedding invitations.  To be honest, this is something I don't really care that much about.  I just knew I wanted to like them, and they needed to be less than 4 bucks a pop.  Done and done.  I feel so accomplished. 

Save the Date choices - Help!

One day, while trolling Etsy and searching for Save the Dates, I stumbled upon these:

Vintage-style Save the Date postcards!  About 90% of our guests will be traveling into Madison, so it is almost like a destination wedding. The postcards will be a great way to invite them to come to Madison, and show them what our (old) beautiful city looks like!  The seller, Beyonddesign, will create custom Save the Date postcards from old vintage postcard images she finds, and then designs to meet your needs.  These were exactly what we've been looking for.    She was amazing to work with, and was great with making changes based on our feedback.  She gave us SO MANY options, but we have narrowed it down to two choices.

Option A

Option B

I love them for such different reasons!  Option A has such a fun, vintage vibe and it really showcases a lot of the different parts of Madison that we love.  Option B shows one of my favorite views of Madison, which you see right when you are driving in, and it shows off one of the lakes.

I just can't decide!  Please help!

Save the Dates (no acronym please)

A few years ago, I had no idea what Save the Dates were (and no, I will not use that acronym, it just seems WRONG).  Then, all of a sudden, everywhere we went we saw them on the fridge!  Most of the Save the Dates we saw were of the engagement picture magnet/postcard variety, which are lovely, but really not for us.  I really like Save the Dates that are fairly simple and to the point, and P prefers the cheese factor to be close to zero.
Here are some that I really love, seriously considered, and are $2/each or less:

This was the first one I fell in love with.

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I love everything this Etsy seller does.

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Also an Etsy seller, also amazing.

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We decided to go the Etsy route, but we did something a bit different.  It is in the works as we speak and I can't wait to share it!

What unique, affordable Save the Dates did you find in your search?