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!
  

Wedding Party Monthly: A Newsletter

Extra extra! Read all about it! That's right, my first wedding newsletter is out in inboxes everywhere! Well, by "everywhere" I mean my wedding party members' inboxes! I designed the entire thing using my trusty MacBook Pro, Powerpoint, Picasa, Picnik.com, the ever-handy Google image search, some inspiration from Mrs. Eggplant's newsletter, and my own imagination and creativity. Check it out!

For the cover I used one of our engagement photos taken by our very talented photographer Lindsi Jones (she just got back from shooting back to back weddings in Mexico & Las Vegas!). Don't we look like models?!? :D I used a barcode generator to make it look like a real magazine cover and as a way to sneak in our wedding date! I set the page orientation to portrait in powerpoint and put the picture as the background so all the text would show up on top. There's really no tutorial to this, just a lot of trial and error with different fonts and sizes and positioning of the text. (All sources found on last page.)

This is where I really began to draw a lot of inspiration from Mrs. Eggplant. I included a little "On the Cover" section like they do in real magazines! The next page included a screenshot of our wedding website for a "Find Us on the Web" section.

Still drawing from Mrs. EP, I decided to credit all my wedding party members in the "Contributors" section. I found a little scroll-like flower using Google to lay in the background to add some interest. Sorry I had to write out all the names. I don't think my wedding party would be too pleased with their names plastered all over the web! lol

For the "Meet the Party" portion, I alternated between the guys and the girls instead of completely separating them. Aren't they a good-looking bunch? :)

Next up was information on the trip to Vegas we're planning for our bachelor/bachelorette parties. There was also a section on ways to save on the trip (I'm a huge cheapskate, so of course we're making the trip as affordable as possible!).

As part of the Vegas feature, I listed potential shows and events for the guys, girls, and everyone. We're planning separate parties for one night, so it's important to choose gender-specific things to do!

The next page in the newsletter was devoted to giving the wedding party a chance to leave their impression on our wedding. We're letting them choose songs to be introduced to at the reception!

We then had a "Groomsmen's & Bridesmaid's Corner" section. For the ladies I gave them a chance to vote on different bridesmaids dresses. If you remember, I already picked a dress but I'm having second thoughts and decided to open it up to a vote to seal the deal! For these slides I used a "texture" background.

The last feature was on the "After Party" which will be held on River Street less than a mile from our reception site. I once again used a picture as the background.

Lastly was the "Sources" page. I'm so used to crediting my work for Weddingbee, I decided I might as well give credit where credit's due for my newsletter as well! We included another e-pic and a note asking for the wedding party to send a confirmation that they received the newsletter.

It took me 4 days to finish as I struggled to find time around my internship and got exhausted with many trial & errors. But I finished by my "deadline" to send it out on the 150 day mark. I can't believe the wedding is only 5 months away! *eek* I like it so much that I may print it out for a wedding scrapbook memento. I'll probably hang on to this issue as a template for the next newsletter.