be merry, be bright

Dear blog friends,

This has been quite a year! It's been a thrill to share my adventures in life, letters and wedding planning with you. As the new year begins, I'll be moving on as a Mrs. and leaving the Ms. Bliss blog behind. You'll still be able to access the content here and if you are a new reader, I hope that you will enjoy digging through the archives and reading my story.

I wish you all health, happiness and a terrific new year. And should you be wedding planning, I wish you the day of your dreams.

xo,
Ms. Bliss

One Blissful Day In Photos

When Mr. Bliss and I arrived home from the holidays we had one extra present waiting at our door for us - our proof book from our photographers. We have more than 1,000 images of the big day to go through! We are so happy with the photos. Our photographers, Daria and Andy Bishop, really captured moments as they happened throughout the day. I thought I'd share with you a few (okay, more than a few) of our favorite moments.


Getting ready with all of the girls was so much fun.


Finally, I get to wear it!


My cousin Emma was ready for her flower girl duties.

Portrait of a self-portrait.

The guys look serious about getting dressed.

Mr. Bliss getting a little help from his brother.

We woke up to an overcast day, but just as we were getting ready the skies cleared!

Buttons can be tricky...

Buttoned-up and on the way to the trolley.

I love this shot of Mr. Bliss waiting in the back of the church.

And here I am waiting in the trolley.

Flower girl waiting for her big entrance.

I do!

Mr. and Mrs. Bliss enjoying some fresh air and champagne on the trolley.

The whole wedding party (and check out the yellow fields in the back).

Lovely little flower girls.

Oh happy day!

A quiet moment with Mr. Bliss in the yellow field.

Another moment by a beautiful barn.

Back in the trolley and en route to the reception.

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Bliss!

Hope, Peace, Cookies

What more does one really need?

I spent the morning of the cookie swap furiously producing these little snowflake sugar cookies. I've been celebrating the holidays with the same group of lovely ladies for a few years now, and these are always requested. I like to keep it simple with the snowflakes - no need to color the icing and I have amassed quite the array of white sprinkles and snowflake cookie cutters.

Decorating was simple as Mr. Bliss and I had decked the halls (or the condo) a few weeks earlier. I did pull out my kate spade for Crane holiday card from last year and slip it into a frame that we had to create the mantra for the evening.

Hosting a little soiree was the perfect push for me to finally get a few wedding photos displayed. Mr. Bliss had barely hung these on the wall when the guests started to arrive. I also had the perfect excuse to break out our new stemware and other fun wedding gifts.

Pomegranate prosecco cocktails were the drink of the night. They are so easy and super yummy. You simply place a few pomegranate seeds in each champagne glass, add a dash of pomegranate juice then fill with prosecco. The bubbles from the prosecco actually make the pomegranate seeds dance!

Wishing you all a cookie-filled holiday!

The Halls Are Decked

The Bliss condo is full of holiday spirit as I am getting ready to host a cookie swap this weekend! More photos to come.

Thank You Notes

I'm happy to report that all of our 100+ thank you notes are finished! Mr. Bliss and I spent several Sunday afternoons working through our list and writing them.

While choosing the design of our thank you notes, I found inspiration in an unlikely place - our toasting flutes.


Belle Boulevard toasting flutes by kate spade.

The flutes were a gift from a bridesmaid and I just loved the design. As I was going through Crane's new wedding collections I discovered that kate spade had just introduced a new Belle Boulevard wedding suite. The correspondence cards in yellow were just right for our thank you notes.


kate spade for Crane & Co. Belle Boulevard correspondence cards.

Now what exactly were we to write in those pretty cards? According to Crane's Wedding Blue Book, there's a simple formula for a thank you note:

- Greet the giver.
- Express your thanks.
- Say something nice about the gift and how you will use it.
- Mention the past, allude to the future.
- Repeat your thanks.

Here's an example:

Dear Aunt Kay and Uncle Joe,

Thank you so much for lovely crystal cake plate. I'm looking forward to baking now that we have such a beautiful piece to display the goodies!

It was wonderful, as always, to see you both at the wedding. I especially enjoyed dancing to the oldies with Uncle Joe. We are looking forward to seeing you at Thanksgiving and telling you all about our adventures in Hawaii!

Thanks again for your generosity.

With love,

Mr. and Mrs. Bliss

One of My Favorite Pretty Little Details

Cocktail Flags!

We provided our venue with yellow cocktail flags to serve in our signature passed drinks during cocktail hour. For signature drinks, we chose a "Bride's Favorite" and "Groom's Favorite." One was a lemonade and vodka cocktail and the other was a local microbrew. I bet you can't guess which was the groom's choice!

Now I wish I would have taken photos of how I made the cocktail flags to share with you readers. Sorry! I will tell you this - with very little cost (and definitely more effort) we were able to make these ourselves and I thought that they were definitely a detail at the wedding that did not go unnoticed. It was so fun to walk around cocktail hour and see people walking around with them.

To make them, I used yellow paper that I printed at home and cut with a paper cutter, double-sided adhesive and the bamboo sticks that you use for skewers. One thing to remember: call your venue and ask which glasses they will be using for passed cocktails so you know what length the flags need to be. Mr. Bliss was quite the trooper cutting 200+ flags to two different lengths!

Yes, the boys enjoyed the cocktail flags too!

Eyelet Invitations

A reader just wrote in asking for more invitation details so I thought I would share more with everyone. Check out these new beautiful shots of the Bliss wedding invitations.






photos by Daria Bishop Photography

The main invitation piece is a Crane 64lb white embassy card. The paper is 100 percent cotton and feels amazingly thick. The pretty eyelet design was blind debossed, which basically means that image was pressed into the paper (like letterpress without the ink). The debossing of the eyelet design combined with the thickness and the quality of the paper resulted in a beautiful, textured eyelet detail. For the lettering, we chose engraving, which is a highly skilled form of raised printing. Check out this video to see how exactly engraving works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6N2r7zUv9g. It's amazing how long a bride can agonize over fonts! After much deliberation, we went with Charter Roman and Colonial Script.


The corners on all of the invitation pieces are rounded. This is actually done by hand at Crane! It's a very smooth corner, not the result you would get when working with a punch corner rounder. The invitations are fairly formal, so I wanted the copy on the reception card to have a bit of whimsy. Instead of "Reception," we went with "dinner, dancing & happily ever after." The choices on the response card were "Will be there to celebrate" and "Sends best wishes and regrets."


Coming up: programs and how we incorporated the eyelet design into other wedding details. I also have more wedding photos!