Our wedding album via Artifact Uprising

Making our wedding album was quite a meticulous process.

I had a very specific concept in mind, and initially I had a hard time finding the perfect company to use.

I came across Artifact Uprising (on Pinterest, I believe) and immediately fell in love with their simplistic style.

They had templates available for the page layouts, but they also had the option of completely customizing any page on your own.

I spent hours narrowing down our 3,000+ photos to fit onto 150 pages.

Ultimately I had to add about 27 more pages in order to include everything I wanted.

The cost was about $1/page, which was an ideal price point for me. 

The only downfall was the fact that I wasn't able to go back and insert a page between previously completed pages.

It took me about four months to finalize the album.

I completed it section by section, due to my fear of forgetting to include particular pictures and having to erase pages in order to go back.

After lots of tedious work, the album was finally ordered, and I was completely blown away with the end result.

The quality was incredible and the company was SO great to work with.

I would highly recommend following them on instagram as well (@artifactuprising), because they are always posting inspiring images and creative ideas.

You can view our entire wedding album here 

(be patient, it may take a while to load)

After making our wedding album, I saw that Artifact Uprising also offered custom calendars.

You can upload your own photos and choose which month you would like them to be displayed on.

They also include a really great clipboard with a magnet on the back.

I made a few custom calendars as birthday gifts for my friends using some of their Instagrams.

One of the recipients, my friend Nicole, is a photographer, and she snapped the calendar photos for me.

Aren't they so great?

Her company is Southern Shutter Photography, so go here to check out some more of her work!

Do you have any experience with the gorgeous work of Artifact Uprising?
If not, then check out everything they offer at www.artifactuprising.com.
You won't be disappointed!

Our Wedding {The Music}

Hands down, the most stressful thing about planning our wedding was choosing the music.

Picking our first dance song as well as the father/daughter dance song was a task we avoided until the end.
Josh and I are both huge music lovers, but we tend to have a slightly different taste of music than most people.
We wanted to choose music that would appeal to everyone, so we decided to have a DJ for the ceremony and reception.
At first I wasn't too thrilled about this decision, but it was SO much cheaper and it really works out best if you have a handful of specific versions of songs you want played.
I've always been a huge fan of Vitamin String Quartet, and we primarily used their instrumental cover songs for most of our ceremony music.
I was pretty worried how that would go over with the guests, because we didn't use a single traditional wedding song (and my DJ wasn't too encouraging of my choices either) but after the ceremony we got so many compliments on the music.
My dad couldn't stop talking about it either, he really loved all of our choices.
The instrumental versions kept it classic and formal, but the non-traditional song choices allowed it to still be relaxed and fun.

For our first look, my sister Ellie, the Maid of Honor, chose the playlist for us.
I honestly didn't even consider needing music for that, until the photographer mentioned it about 15 minutes before.

Learn from my mistakes if you are planning on a first look, have a playlist ready.
The only song I remember from the first look playlist was The Lumineers "Darlene"
At the time, the song was unreleased.

I had never heard it before until Ellie showed it to us and the lyrics are kinda perfect:

I see you
Standing there
In your favorite dress
I like what you wear

Oh Darlene, oh Darlene

I give you my ring
In your shaking hands
You give me a sting
With your crazy plans

Appropriate for a wedding, right?
It still gives me chills.

Our photographer had some music on her iphone too which helped when it came to loosening the guys up for their group photos.
(Except at the time no one knew any lyrics to "Call Me Maybe" except for "so call me maybe.)

Songs we used for the guest seating were:
"Something" Vitamin String Quartet
“Everyday” Vitamin String Quartet
“Let It Be” Vitamin String Quartet
"Wake Up" Vitamin String Quartet
“Ho Hey” Vitamin String Quartet
“Here Comes the Sun” Crimson String Quartet

Mothers and grandmother seating:
 "Can't Help Falling in Love" Vitamin String Quartet

Wedding party entrance:
“Hey Jude” by Vitamin String Quartet

Bride processional:
“All You Need is Love” by Vitamin String Quartet

Recessional:
“Om Nashi Me” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
(Starting at 101 seconds)
When we got engaged and started the wedding planning process, for some reason, this was the only song that Josh insisted we use in the wedding, so it really sticks out to me.
. . . another one of those that makes me tear up to hear after the fact, especially live.

Wedding party introduction at the reception: “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

First dance: “Living of Love” by The Avett Brothers
There really is no rhyme or reason why we chose this one.
It was between this or Andrew Bird "Tables and Chairs" and we concluded that The Avett Brothers were more "danceable".

Father/daughter and mother/son dance: 

“Carrying Your Love With Me” by George Strait 

We really struggled with this.

We are both really emotional and we knew we couldn't handle anything overly sappy.

I was dead set on doing Achey Breaky Heart, but he convinced me otherwise.

Because George Strait was the first concert my dad took me to, this ended up being the perfect choice.

Cake cutting:
Dave Matthews Band “You and Me”

Bouquet toss:
Spice Girls “Wannabe”

Garter toss:  “Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money
This song was chosen because Josh "stripped" to it at his fraternity pledge auction his Freshman year.

Along with our online RSVP, I included a blank for guests to request songs and include messages for the DJ to announce as he played the song at the reception.
I had my mom screen these (so that the messages could be a surprise to us during the reception)
I gave those song requests to the DJ along with a list of songs to play and also a list of songs to not play under any circumstances at all.

My only other requirement was that we end the night with "Hey Jude"

Other songs on the "to play" list:
“Hallelujah” Jeff Buckley
“Sweet disposition” Ellie Goulding
“40 Day Dream” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
“Live and Die”  The Avett Brothers
“I Will Wait” Mumford and Sons
"Sweet Home Alabama" (sorority throwback song)
"Come Together" The Beatles
"Maggie May" by Rod Stewart
Shout!
"Calling Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks
"Your Song" by Elton John
"Benny and the Jets" Elton John
"Separate Ways" Journey
"Any Way You Want It" Journey
"Twist and Shout" The Beatles
"Hurt So Good" John Mellencamp
"Pour Some Sugar on Me" Def Leppard
"Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show
"Proud Mary" Tina Turner
"I Wanna Dance With Somebody" Whitney Houston
"Come on Eileen"
"Purple Rain" Prince
"Ho Hey" The Lumineers
"Living on a Prayer" Bon Jovi
"Don’t Stop Believing" Journey
"Under Pressure" Queen
"Can’t Help Falling in Love" Elvis
"Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond
"I Want You Back" Jackson 5
"You Shook Me All Night Long" AC/DC
"Play That Funky Music" Wild Cherry
"Freefalling" Tom Petty
"Mary Jane's Last Dance" Tom Petty
"Old Rime Rock and Roll" Bob Seger
"Baba O’Riley" The Who
"Ain't to Proud to Beg" The Temptations
"Valerie" Amy Whinehouse
"Bad Romance" Lady Gaga
"Lady Gaga "You and I"
"All I Want for Christmas is You" Mariah Carey
"Like a Prayer" Madonna
"Signed, Sealed, Delivered" Stevie Wonder
"Boogie Shoes" KC and the Sunshine Band
 "Jack and Diane" John Mellencamp
"Friends in Low Places" Garth Brooks
"You Never Even Call Me By My Name" David Allan Coe
"New Orleans Ladies" Laroux

Songs that were on the "do not play or I will hurt someone" list:
YMCA
The Bunny Hop
Chicken Dance
Macarena
Cha Cha slide
Single Ladies
Baby Got Back
Ice Ice Baby
Cotton Eyed Joe
Getting Jiggy With It
Free Bird
Any Black Eyed Peas or LMFAO songs

. . . in case you missed it, you can see more posts in Our Wedding series here!

Our Wedding {Digital RSVP How-To}

Even though our wedding was a bazillion months ago, I've been wanting to write a post on our RSVP method.

Now, I'm not the best at writing how-to blog posts, and I'm also not the best at explaining technological things, so consider yourself warned.

For our wedding, I thought I would take advantage of my own little space in the world wide web and allow our guests to RSVP via my blog.
Saved us tons of money of stamps, and made it quite easy for everyone who knows how to work a computer.
Sorry to all the old folks out there who got all hot and bothered about this very non-traditional method of RSVP'ing (but hey, if you were born enough centuries ago that you were bothered by it then you probably won't ever come across this blog post, so I take back my apology, not sorry)

The main reason we wanted to do a digital RSVP was so that our guests could request a song for the wedding (and even include a message to Josh and I) that may or may not be read out loud by the DJ (if my mom deemed it socially appropriate).
GoogleDocs provided the perfect platform for me to make a custom form for the guests.

I provided the website in our invitation (our custom hand painted watercolor invitation, that is, see more here)

I bought a generic domain name (RSVPEmilyandJosh.com), and incorporated the HTML for the google form into a seperate page on my blog.

This is how it all went down:
www.Docs.Google.com will be your starting point so that you can choose the generic layout for your form.
I chose the form "Blue Birds"

The next page allows you to edit each question, and you can also customize the heading and the options listed below the questions. 

You have plenty of choices for responses to your questions like checking items from a list or allowing responders to freely type in a response box.

See the little hyperlink at the bottom of the photo above that says "You can view the published form here"?

That will give you a little preview of your form (like below)

Now, if you are happy with your form you created you can skip this next step.
Personally, I wanted to incorporate the form into my personal blog so that I could include a few links to other websites (like hotel info for our guests and our honeymoon registry website)
For some reason GoogleDocs wouldn't let me include hyperlinks.
Somehow I got the HTML (website code) from the google document and copied and pasted it into my blog formatting, but for the life of me, I can't remember how.
Super helpful, right?
If anyone has any really awesome technological advice then that would be fantastic and I'd gladly insert it here for people who want to incorporate their custom document into their personal blog format.

If you like the look of the original form you created via GoogleDocs then you can definitely keep that format, rather than incorporate it into your blog, like I did in the above photo.

All you will need to do next is buy a simple domain name (I used GoDaddy because it's like $10-$12 for a year) and then link the new domain name (RSVPEmilyandJosh.com) to the ugly google doc webpage name (which will probably look something like this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdWQ0NGcEpYR3Mycm1maEx6Rk51T2c6MA

. . . and you definitely don't want that jumbled wad of letters and numbers on your wedding invitation.

This will let you guests be automatically directed to your RSVP form just by typing in the simple domain name you bought.

Now, when it comes to receiving your guests information. . . 

All of that is conveniently and automatically sent to a very well organized google excel chart which you have access too from the docs.google.com homepage.

Awesome, huh?

If you have any questions about how I did it (because I know that was probably the worst explanation ever), feel free to email me at emily@dashboarddiary.com and I'll do my best to assist you!
To see more about our wedding, you can go here! 

Our Wedding Feature

Last Friday I was thrilled to find out that our wedding was featured on the Paper Moon Weddings website!

Go here to check it out!

Our Wedding {Details}

My mom and I worked so hard collecting little things for the wedding last summer.

I spent lots of time either crafting, spending money on Etsy, or browsing the shelves of local antique shops.

I think the details were definitely what made our wedding that much more perfect.

This is the original print that we used to create our wedding invitations.

See my old post about the invitations here

Initially we weren't planning on doing a program at all, and then all of a sudden the week before the wedding we had a minor change of plans.

Thank goodness for my awesomely talented mom who whipped these bad boys out in a matter of hours.

(I mainly just wanted something that would point out the minor details at the reception, like the cake assortments, the coozy story, and for the guests to tell my grandmother and grandfather happy birthday!)

My awesomely talented cousin Lyndie painted this sign for us to put by the bar!

. . . and then here are some more random pictures that I liked that haven't made it in any of our weddings posts yet

In case you've missed out on some of our previous wedding posts just go here!