Green Louboutins

(photo: Cheri Pearl, source)

When looking for the perfect wedding shoes, I would have given anything to be a few inches shorter and have a few extra dollars to have these Louboutins. But alas, I don't think there were even for sale anymore when I was on the search for my wedding shoes. Plus, since my husband's only a couple inches taller, I wanted to keep my heels more around the 2" mark. It's rare that I even wear 3+" heels anymore, but when I do he always jokingly glares at me, and I really didn't want to be taller than him in all our wedding photos.

My friend is now looking at the coveted Louboutin for her own wedding, and while I was checking out her potential choice, a couple green pairs in the current collection caught my eye:



They're perfection. Despite the fact that I already own 4 pairs of green shoes, I'd still like to add a pair of these to my shelf.

shoe source: Saks (first pair) (second pair)

Decision: to Save the Date or not Save the Date

Our kitten Natalie was near the best source of natural light in the house, so she got to pose with our postcard

As a graphic designer, there was no question for me as to whether we'd send a Save the Date or not. Since most of our guests live in Columbus, or at least within driving distance, it wasn't a complete necessity, but I've taken any excuse to design paper pieces for our wedding. Once we had picked the date and color scheme, it was an easy process from there.

I knew I wanted to keep them inexpensive since a chunk of our budget would be needed for the actual invitations, and a postcard seemed like a natural way to convey our message. The one indecisive moment that arose was when considering how to print the postcards. I requested letterpress quotes and purchased a gocco, but the letterpress would not have allowed me to flood the page with green and was too costly for us so early in the game, and the gocco was too small and didn't allow for the oversized cards I envisioned. Ultimately, I used a laser printer, and I was really happy with the clean results. Cutting corners in some places has allowed us to spend more in others, and this was a perfect situation to create something inexpensive yet still stylish.

I think the 250 page pack of 100lb. Cougar paper in bright white cost me all of $11 and I have access to an incredible laser printer, so really the only expense was a bit of a splurge on postage from zazzle. I wish the site didn't charge so much on top of the postage itself, but I think the details are the most important part of a design and Nathan agreed it would complete the piece, so we went with it. In the end, we got more comments on the stamp than the design, so it was really worth it. (People love a novelty!) I went with typefaces that were already on my Mac, and I knew I wanted our names to be big and bold with a calendar incorporated somewhere (much like the Chewing the Cud Save the Date featured on my inspiration board).

One design sacrifice was the rounded the corners I originally planned for, but upon researching the USPS regulations, I discovered postcards need square corners to be mailable. (So glad I discovered that before rounding them all; it pays to do a little reasearch beforehand!) In the end, the design of the postcards paved the way for the rest of the invitation suite (which went into the mail a few days ago) and one friend described them as chic, which made my day.

the front of our Save the Date

the back, with our custom stamp

Design nerd moment: I determined that the green I'd use for all the printed pieces would be PMS 376 by holding a Pantone chip book up next to my shoes and choosing the color that most closely matched. Yes, I realize this is overly obsessive, but it helps to be consistent! Plus I love that everything comes back to the shoes :)

Decision #2: the colors & an inspiration board

I've been reading wedding blogs since long before I was engaged, justifying that I was getting inspiration as a graphic designer, which was mostly true. But naturally, I was also gathering ideas for a day I knew would come eventually. I had always been drawn to the black, white, & green color combination, so the color decision wasn't too tough. The difficulty comes when I see other weddings that have such great and original color schemes. I knew that my bridesmaids would probably have to wear black, and it was photos like this that made me second guess the colors I chose.

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I knew I liked a neutral pair with a pop of something, and the black, white, and green certainly fits the bill. Ultimately, my choice was almost made for me when I came across a pair of alluring apple green heels across the shoe department at my local Nordstrom. I glanced over, saw them on a pedestal, and said to my mom, "That's the green I want for my wedding!" I had envisioned a more delicate shoe, but these were the most perfect color and I could not pass them up. They became my first wedding purchase, and a few months later, I came across a blog post that had my exact shoes (and the same spectators my groom-to-be and I had chosen for him). I just love the way they photograph!

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Going through the stockpile of images I had gathered, the trend certainly emerged that I gravitated to the color combination, and since my fiancé also responded favorably to the color combination, I figured we had a winner. He's had very rare opinions to the wedding choices I've made, and I'm glad we went with my first instinct. I had to rebuild my image library after a MacBook hard drive crash, but one Saturday in September I assembled my inspiration board, and it's been such a great reference to go back to and see just how well everything is lining up.