Map It Out: Another Check Off the Labrador DIY List

Bet you've been wondering where I've been lately? In Busytown, that's where. I started my final semester of classes (yay!), landed a second job (wtf was I thinking?!), and worked near full-time last week at my original job; all while continuing to plan this little wedding of ours.

We are *thisclose* to our 2 month mark and I am about to $hit bricks full of anxiety. No, I'm not being dramatic. My stomach churns just thinking about how little time we have left. But at the same time, I'm soooo ready for the day to be here! Conflicted much?

Somehow during a week full of 64 hours at work, 11 hours of class, and a coed wedding shower (pics soon!), I found the time to crank out our DIY wedding maps! I never really considered maps a priority, but after seeing Mrs. Ballet Flat make it look easy as pie, I decided to give it a try and shocked myself with the result. Here's what I came up with in PowerPoint:

Click on map for more detail!

To be completely honest, I'm no stranger to PowerPoint. Mrs. BF's tutorial was definitely thorough and easy to follow, but I'm also not a beginner. While the logistics were easy to me, it was still a tedious task! It took a few hours here and there to complete (mostly because I'm a perfectionist). Newcomers will have a tougher and longer time with it. But don't be too discouraged! If you have time to play around with it, you'll end up learning and getting better. That's how I learned PP: totally self-taught!

I won't repeat Mrs. BF's steps, but here's a run through of my project from start to finish. First up, the Google map of Savannah! "A" is our ceremony site and "B" is our reception site.


Then I traced the main roads and Savannah River. I added icons to represent event locations and lodging. I found all the icons through Google Images. I tinted them pink by double clicking on the icon, then clicking on "picture", then "recolor".


Here's my first attempt at removing the map in the background. As you can tell from the final map, I changed a few things because they didn't look quite right.


After some serious tweaking (what I spent most of my time on), I had my official map! I added the compass rose and map symbols and steam ship to give it an extra special touch. The title font is "Scriptina" free from Dafont.com and matches our save the dates! The font even coordinates with our invites, which I'll reveal very soon now that they're finished being designed and are on their way to be printed up and shipped out! :D

Our maps are more on the "cutesy" side than the super informative side. But our guests will have our wedding website for more thorough directions plus actual Savannah visitor maps in their OOT bags. I'm just hoping they'll use this map as a supplement that provides a visual pinpoint on where all the festivities will go down!


The perfectionist in me isn't quite happy with them yet. I'm stuck on the title of the map:

"The My Last Name - His Last Name Wedding
Events Map"

I think we're keeping the first line, but I'm not sure that I'm feeling the second part (Event Map). Should I keep it or change it to one of the following? [Poll]

• Event Map
• Events Location Map
• Events & Accommodations Map
  
• Just our names in the first line and "Wedding Events Map" in the second line.
  
• Just use "The My Last Name - His Last Name Wedding" title and that's it.
  
• None of the above. I'm leaving a comment with a suggestion!
  

You Are Cordially Invited...

...to help Miss Lab create her invitations!

I'm stumped hive. I'm closing in fast on the recommended two month mark to send out invitations and all I have are a few scrapbook papers that caught my eye while I was killing time in a Michael's. I'm slowly starting down the short path to full-blown wedding freak-out mode. *gulp!* Help?

Okay, here's what I've got:

All my Michael's finds in our wedding colors.

I love this shimmery patterned pink paper probably the most.

This is probably my second favorite paper of the lot.

The more I look at this one, the more I'm not really feeling it.

This is a closeup of the solid cream paper. The color of the paper is truer in the first photo.

Here's the chocolate brown paper's detailing. I like this because it has a subtle damask feel to it.

I have no idea where to start. Which paper to use, how to combine them, whether to use these at all or to get additional paper...*sigh*

I was also hoping to add some kind of detail from our ceremony or reception sites to the invitations as well. Like a gazebo or train motif:

Source

As far as the "look" I'm going for, I want something simple with a romantic, southern feel. I love love love Miss Cowboy Boot's invitations:



I won't have an entire suite like this because I'm not doing response cards (just RSVP at our wedding website or by phone) or a map. But some of the invites will have a rehearsal dinner invitation included. So maybe I can incorporate some of my/your ideas into one or the other?

Or maybe I should just cave in and buy some invitations? Anyone seen anything that reminds you of what I'm looking for? They've gotta be inexpensive!

"Southern Romantic Charm" Starts with the Venues!

I have a confession. I didn't come up with our wedding theme of "Southern Romantic Charm" all by myself. The truth is, the city of Savannah did most of the work. How could anyone have anything BUT a romantic, southern wedding in that city?!?

Our choice of venues reflect our theme perfectly. For our ceremony, Mr. Lab and I chose the charming Whitfield (or Whitefield) Square in historic downtown.

How gorgeous is this?!?

It has this cute white gazebo right in the middle that will be the perfect backdrop for the ceremony. It's also on a residential block, so we won't have to worry about tons of ugly office buildings in the background. The first time I ever visited Savannah, I knew I would get married on this square one day.

Can you tell how excited I am to snatch up this location? :)

We're planning on renting a trolley to take our guests back and forth between the ceremony and reception sites. Because our reception site is only a mile away, we'll be asking guests to park there. This will save them the hassle of trying to find the ceremony site (which can be hard because it's one of 21 squares) and then struggling to find parking.

As for the reception site, we chose Savannah Station. I did a lot of research on potential spaces, but most started at nearly $8-10 grand and had tons of rules about alcohol and catering, etc. The station is surprisingly affordable for its size and location. I love the history of the station (it used to be a train station!) and the fact that the interior works with our colors.

Here's another confession: I booked the Station site unseen! Because we live four hours away from our wedding city, I can't easily check out venues. Knowing how popular Savannah is for weddings, I didn't want to take the chance of losing such a beautiful venue. When I finally saw the site in person, I was not disappointed at all.

This is the first thing you see when you walk into the Station. I have a super soft spot for chandeliers and this one in the parlor is absolutely gorgeous. I also love all the historic photos of what the Station looked like when it was still a railroad station.

The parlor is where we're holding our cocktail hour. There's a full bar and tables and stools plus lots of space to roam around and mingle with other guests. They also provide antique tables to use for the guest book and hors d'oeuvres.

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The station provides all the chairs and tables. I love the mini lights lining the wooden beams. All of the lights can be dimmed. We'll be taking down the tapestries on the wall and adding paper lanterns to the ceiling. All that will be left to decorate are the tables!

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The ballroom is a 6000 sq. foot space decorated in neutral colors (yay!) with no carpet (double yay!). Because the room is too large for our 75-guest wedding, we are using a theatrical curtain to separate the room into a smaller, more intimate space. What's awesome about this is that the other side of the ballroom can be used as a backup ceremony site in the event of bad weather. We now have a back up plan and won't have to worry about a tent rental or people braving the elements. Woot!

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At night, the Station is lit up on the outside with mini lights as well. It'll look so pretty for our departure!

*All photo without source notation are my own.