All Occasions by JB

Once again, thanks to the Internet, I have met yet another wedding professional–this one based in Massachusetts, Julie Barnes of All Occasions by JB.  Julie and I met on Bridal Tweet, she was among my first friends there, and this is one really lovely lady.  Warm, easy to talk to, and always up for a good giggle, which those of us in the industry REALLY need from time to time!

I love working with wedding planners and their clients, and Julie brings such an air of professionalism to every aspect of a bridal event.  She has been putting together dream weddings and events for over 12 years and during that time, sought out additional training that gives her additional expertise as a planner.  Together with her assistant, Bella, they have been making weddings incredible events for brides and grooms.  Anyone in this industry thrives on testimonials–the best free advertising there is–and there are some really glowing ones on her site.  Over the years, I would bet I have addressed invitations to just about every single person in Massachusetts, many brides from MA have found me through referrals, and now I have a fantastic wedding planner to refer them to!  I look forward to working on MANY weddings with Julie. 

I tried watching Bridezillas last night–I had to channel surf, leave and come back, leave and come back.  It was PAINFUL.  Please, someone tell me that these women are really camping it up and they truly aren’t total self-absorbed, spoiled witches?  And what is with the impotent, silently suffering men that they are marrying?  Grow a pair, take back your manhood, and put the little witch in her place.  Looking forward to the season premier of My Fair Wedding.  David Tutera does a masterful job of taking trainwreck weddings (mint green and pink weddings at VFW buildings) and turns them into drop dead gorgeous affairs at beautiful locations, totally blowing you away with turning the whole affair around in three weeks.  Bridezillas not allowed.

I love discoveries!

I had to go to Portland this week to meet with a lovely client of mine and her mom at the stationer, Ecru. Now, I avoid Portland like the plague, but I found the the most beautiful shop right next door to Ecru on NW 11th Avenue called Dublin Bay.

I have crocheted since I was 13 and this store was like walking into a dream. Its warm decor made me want to sit down in a chair and curl up with any one of their crocheting books–alright, its primary focus is knitting, but I cannot knit to save my life. Crocheting is my thing and the gal behind the counter graciously showed me the crocheting section. However, any of the yarns in the store can be used for both. Handmade and handspun yarns of every kind, texture and color were stocked in bins. At one point I had to just stand back and take in the colors–it was scrumptious. Just when I found what I thought was the most beautiful color I’d seen, I turned around to another bin and found five more colors that I loved. This store is for SERIOUS knitters and crocheters, however, since you can pay upwards of $33+ a skein, and the skeins are not the size of the Red Heart ones you will find at Michaels, but that’s the whole point of the store. It’s for people that take knitting very seriously and create breathtaking sweaters, hats, socks, and other goodies. I have crocheted somewhere in the neighborhood of about 130 afghans and have wanted to start learning how to create sweaters for my girls and I. If and when the time comes to make something I would be incredibly proud of wearing, this is the shop I will go to.  They are also online, check them out at www.dublinbay.net.  Anything in the store you can see online and order there if you don’t want to drive downtown, but I assure you, for this store, the drive is worth it.

Paper Source–my absolutely favorite paper store! I have done so many weddings using Paper Source stock, but I have had the chance to finally actually go through one of their stores last month, the Portland store located at 638 NW 23rd Avenue in Portland. The entire neighborhood area is just a treat, and coming from someone that avoids Portland, that’s saying a lot. I had the chance to stroll the streets a few weeks ago with a friend of mine (who incidentally works for Paper Source!) and had a blast discovering all these little shops that are behind beautiful, funky, and creative storefronts on a beautiful tree-lined street.

If you’re getting married and a DIY bride, I urge you to go check out Paper Source if you have one in your city. There are all sorts of goodies in the store, an area with books of invitations from such stationers as Cranes and William Arthur, and then my favorite spot, one area in the store that houses envelopes, card stock, and escort cards in every size and color you can imagine. The stores are fun, colorful, whimsical, and it’s REALLY hard getting out of one without buying something every time I go in, but thus far, I have managed, with great effort!

I’m putting together a blog on etiquette and will have it up soon. Things I’m sure that many people know, but it always helps to refresh and go over them again!

Still learning, after all these years.

Recently, I had a bride in Hong Kong whose envelopes I addressed. When they were done I sent them back to her via the US Postal Service. BIG MISTAKE. International shippers exist for a reason. Somewhere after the package landed in Hong Kong, something went terribly wrong. We could not find the package. Then, the phone calls began. “We received this lovely envelope in the mail with no postage and no invitation……” We are assuming someone either in Customs or the Post Office there opened the Priority envelope and dumped the empty envelopes in the mail. They all had to be redone. Today they were shipped off to this sweet, sweet girl once again. This time, $74 later, they are being transported via DHL to Hong Kong. Years ago, orders used to be delivered to me all the time via DHL. This was after DHL bought Airborne (remember them?). DHL discovered that it wasn’t worth having US domestic delivery and they decided to stick with what works best, what they do best: International shipments only. I found a DHL authorized shipper in Salem and the package is off and running, due to arrive in my client’s hands on Friday, God willing.

Lesson learned. Stick with who knows what best. In this “internet” world we live and work in, and many of us no longer just have local or US clients, we have clients all around the world, we need to use the provider that serves the world, not the provider that excels at serving Mayberry, RFD.

This last week I made my first trip to Bridal Veil, Oregon, which was covered in my previous blog. The Post Office every year has designated wedding stamps in two different price ranges. Since I can rarely keep up with postal prices as they seem to increase at a rabid (yes, I typed rabid, not rapid), this year I can tell you they come in $.44 and $.61 values. The $.44 value is used for the rsvp cards and the $.61 is used for the outer envelope. Provided you don’t have an extraordinary amount of inserts for your envelopes. Or, in the case of the order I delivered there last week, the letterpress invitations were quite heavy. In that case, the bride and groom had dismal choices of postage. After digging, the lovely postal lady came up with some $.75 stamps, a nice sunset through clouds thing, which I guess picked up the periwinkle ink, and then a $.03 stamp of a vintage tractor or cart or something. I can’t remember.

Since the Post Office seems to be a bit myopic about the possibility that not every invitation suite is going to be $.61 or less, check out www.zazzle.com to have custom stamps made for your event invitations. They have a darling assortment to choose from, or you can design your own. Have your whole invitation package weighed (and have it weighed twice for good measure) and then order your stamps through Zazzle. And while you’re at it, peruse the rest of the site for all the other really fabulous things they make, too!

I am getting lots of orders in recent months with standard #10 envelopes in all colors and themes. The Post Office will allow the address to be on one line, as in the photo above, and that’s a very popular choice of my brides lately. Think outside the box and take a chance, wow your guests, and be different!

Tomorrow is my birthday. I turn 45. I cannot fathom the fact that I’m 45 as I think at the age of about 22. I still love to dance, listen to Van Halen and yes, AC/DC from time (You’ve been….Thunderstruck!), can’t get a leg into the bikini I once wore, but unless you’re a cougar, and thank God I’m not, what’s the point of wearing a bikini with all the adorable styles available? Seriously, two children = stretch marks = sags and bags = DO NOT WEAR A BIKINI. My point: It’s been a very good 45 years, all things considered. I am married to the love of my life, even if he does have “the other woman (his 1970 Duster, God bless him), two BEAUTIFUL girls that call me mom (I love you both, so much, Katherine and Alison), parents that I love from a distance, friends that are beyond anything I could ever ask for, opportunities, chances, gifts, and blessings that God has showered me with, my health (thank you, Dr. Nathalie Johnson, the most lovely Christian cancer surgeon in the WORLD), and above all, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ who took my sins to the cross, God my Father from whom all blessings flow, and the Holy Spirit that speaks to me in my heart and head and guides me through my days. I am soooo very rich. Despite what the bank account may say. To all those in my life, thank you for loving me and making me smile.

Bridal Veil, Oregon

It’s almost a rite of passage. Brides getting married in the Portland/Southwest Washington area for years have taken their completed wedding envelopes to the teeny little post office at Bridal Veil (pop. 88–give or take a dog or cat) just off I-84 in the gorgeous Columbia Gorge in Oregon.

In all the years I have been doing this, I have never had the chance to go to Bridal Veil until today. A bride from California opted for me take her invitations to this little post office and all I could wonder was what took me so long?

Head east on I-84 to Exit 28 and literally, if you blink while you’re making the exit, you will miss the driveway to the post office. You can see it from the road and my first thought was, “Jed Clampett’s home?” You pull into a gravel parking lot and there it is–honestly, our tool shed in Redmond was bigger than this quaint little post office. It’s old (built about 1950) and has basically two purposes-process wedding invitations with the stamp of “Bridal Veil, Oregon” and to serve the town’s mail needs. There is even a little bank of post office boxes for townspeople to get their mail from.

The sole postal worker, an absolutely delightful lady, drives her SUV to work, parking it alongside the post office and leaves the drivers door open so her dog Buster, a rat terrier, can rest on the driver’s seat while she works. Buster, if he can manage to wake up, will happily step down to greet you and kept my daughter entertained while we were there.

As I stood at the window purchasing stamps, five other brides and/or bride/groom couples dropped their envelopes off. Envelopes in boxes or bags that are already addressed and just waiting to be hand-cancelled by the lady in the window. When her husband gets off work nearby, he comes over in the afternoons to help her stamp the invitations. Today, she had nearly 1,000 envelopes to hand-stamp before they were shipped off to be delivered.

While putting stamps on the invitation envelopes I managed to have a pretty interesting conversation with the lady in the window–always multi-tasking. Stamps and conversations. She stressed several times that she SOOOOO appreciates brides purchasing their postage from the Bridal Veil Post Office since that revenue keeps them open. So, brides, if you are wanting this absolutely unique service, please consider buying your postage from this post office. To lose this service would truly mean we lost a bit of Americana, and we need to hang onto every bit of tradition we can. The service was wonderful, my new postal friend was warm, very helpful, happy for the conversation, and up for a few good laughs while my tongue was going numb from licking stamps.

When we were all done, my husband and daughter and I drove two miles further east to Multnomah Falls and soaked up the sun while enjoying the spectacular view of the falls. Sweetly, two separate people asked me to take a photo of them in front of the falls–I was genuinely touched that in this day and age of people isolating themselves from their fellow man, strangers trusted someone enough to snap a photo of them in front of this beautiful slice of nature.

I am working now on the template for a wedding invitation, return address, and rsvp card. Love is in the air, people are getting married, sharing joy, revelling in love.

Life is good.