I am so glad it’s Friday! I’m leaving work at 4pm, grabbing my suitcase, and jumping in the car for the seven hour drive to Atlanta because…

Casey is running the ING Georgia Marathon on Sunday morning! I am so excited.

I have run two marathons myself, but I’ve never actually watched one. I am totally ready to take on my new role as spectator – I will be armed with a course-map, MARTA bus pass, extra Honey Stingers and mini-marshmallows for Casey, and of course a fully-charged camera. I’m hoping to navigate the course as efficiently as possible, so that I can see him at multiple mile markers.

It’s so hard to pack for an out-of-town race – there are so many things to remember! Not to mention all the weird food and nutritional needs you have. We have an entire bag ready to go with all the makings for PB2 & jelly sandwiches, granola bars, gatorade, oatmeal, and more. I’ve tried to be a good marathon-supporting-girlfriend – I stayed up late last night making peanut noodles for us to eat for dinner in the car tonight (since pasta-dinner will have to take place on the road!), and I even got up at 5am this morning to make another batch of banana bread mini-muffins before work, since the batch I made just yesterday has quickly depleted. I will have to remember how much weird stuff you have to pack if I get chosen for this…

Most of Casey’s extended family, as well as his brother and his girlfriend live in Atlanta, so we get the added bonus of a great family visit while we’re down there! Casey’s aunt who is an amazing cook is making pre-race dinner tomorrow night, and I am especially looking forward to that, since I’ll be running 19 miles tomorrow morning! The weather is calling for massive storms and hail, so I’m currently facing 19 miles on a treadmill. I’m trying not to think about it.

For now, I’m ready to hit the road. I’ll be back Monday with race highlights – enjoy your weekend!

(Big thanks to Lindsey for hanging with the doggies this weekend! Hoggy’s dinner awaits!)

Now that they have safely landed in our guests’ mailboxes, I am happy to share with you (drum-roll please)…

I never did a post about my Save the Dates, but they incorporated similar elements. Maybe after the wedding I’ll do a recap post and include those, because honestly, they were really cute.

On our wedding day, I’ll be wearing a beautiful cameo necklace, also worn in the weddings of five other women (of three generations!) from my mom’s side of the family. Wearing that necklace was one of the first (and easiest) wedding decisions I made! I love all things cameo, so I came up with the concept of turning our silhouette images into cameo-type necklaces, and have carried these images through our various print pieces.

How did I do this? It’s your lucky day because I’m about to tell you! I’ve received so many nice compliments and “oh my gosh I can tell that’s really YOU GUYS!” comments from our guests. Honestly though, it was really easy. I forced Casey into some mug-shot-type photography in the kitchen, and after a few unsuccessful attempts to snap his profile, he obliged.

I put my ratty hair into a ponytail, even though that’s not how I typically wear it because otherwise I thought I would look bald. I opened the images in Adobe Photoshop Elements, did some cropping and resizing, removed the backgrounds, and filled us in with black. Voila!

A bit more cropping, and the addition of a nice flourish and our initials, and I had created a fun, personalized silhouette image for our wedding materials!

For the invitations, I decided to take the silhouettes one step further and turn them into actual “necklaces.” I got this great vision in my head that was nearly impossible to bring to life. Many thanks to Lindsey for talking me down from the ledge several times, and to my mom for countless trips to craft stores for more glue and ribbon.

I ordered gate-fold invitations and Stardream Metallic paper (in pretty shimmery Rose Quartz) from Cut Card Stock, and I ordered all my envelopes from Envelopper, Inc. I would highly recommend either of these companies – both were budget-friendly, extremely easy to work with, and very speedy on delivery. To save money, I ordered 12×12 sheets of paper, and hand-cut each sheet into the sizes I had planned out for various print pieces. I printed our silhouette cameos onto the Stardream Metallic paper, and then hand-cut all 200 circles. Hence, the insanity.

I punched holes in each one, and ran a ribbon through to the back, securing each with a foamy tab, and giving the silhouettes a lifted effect. Lindsey patiently attached buttons (ordered off Ebay) with gluey dots, and once the bows were tied, it all came together! We were SO excited when we made the first sample and finally saw it come to life. I present to you…the outside!

The pink is much prettier and shimmery than my camera can capture. Below is a shot of the outside envelope, which I stamped with our custom address stamp (ordered off Etsy).

For the inside, I printed directly onto the side panels. These contained info on wedding events and logistics, as well as the address to our wedding website. One of my goals was to have an all-inclusive invitation – all the info together in one piece, rather than five different cards to misplace and confuse our guests. The middle panel was a Stardream Metallic card, glued onto the gatefold, and was the official “announcement” of our wedding.