2-23-2010 Just engaged this weekend, and ready to start planning to marry my honey! Can't wait.

Booked St Patrick's Cathedral for the big day, to my complete shock and elation.  Better still, my uncle is going to officiate. It will be so special, a city landmark with a family atmosphere. My cousins will be the altar servers, my aunts the readers, and my fiance's uncle the Eucharistic minister. Everyone is getting involved, I really can't wait. It will be beautiful.

Updated with photos 3-22. Interior photo from NYC-architecture.com:

Exterior photo from blog.beliefnet.com:

We only were able to take one photo the night we got engaged, we were too excited. He proposed in Battery Park on Feb 20th, and then took me to a night of surprises: Ducale restaurant on the UWS, Blue Note's late show, and a boutique hotel near the Museum of Natural History. Perfect!

Tiny flowers from the bouquet waiting in our hotel room! Too cute:

Everyone always asks me about it, and I love it!:

And from the jeweler's website a better photo (leoingwer.com), Princess cut Trellis style:

2twentysix2011.projectwedding.com

I found a brilliant calligrapher Robyn on Etsy [designsbyrobynlove.etsy.com] who will design a custom calligraphed invitation and convert it to digital format for self-printing or via your favorite print shop. Mine will be this style (called "Love No. 006"), I cannot wait to see them! I think I'll send them to Mercurio Bros. for letterpress printing:

We booked Water's Edge in Long Island City for the reception, we're very happy. It has beautiful skyline views, and we went there for dinner with my parents and loved it. My scallops and pork belly was phenomenal.

My ladies will all wear Navy Satin-Faced Taffeta floor-length from Jim Hjelm/Lazaro. They're all excited for the formal style and warm fabric in February! They're each picking their own style, so it will look sort of like this:

Above: Snippet & Ink Board #345

Above: The Perfect Palette Board 78

I wanted to do a Save the Date to give my many out of town friends a head start on booking flights and hotel rooms ... but wanted to (1) avoid spending another $300 plus on stationery; and (2) do something a little different than the couple photo magnet. I thought long and hard, wanting something really customized to FH and I, very different, and a little humorous.  I was inspired by this New York Magazine article about one couple's TMI save the date.

I scaled back the TMI, added a fancy font for our names, and threw in a small gold card with accommodation information. The numbers add to 226.2011 ... sort of our wedding date. :-)

I used paper-source.com for tea length luxe blue paper and matching envelopes- their luxe paper is on mega sale now. I used the color 'luxe frost'. The accommodations card is p-s shimmer gold in size A2. My sister and I then stuffed everything, and used the p-s 'Calligraphy' stamp with gold stamping ink to add swirls to the front of the envelope. The MUJI store had some cheap NYC stamps that I snatched up and used the same gold ink on the envelope flap. Luckily, the USPS has lilac postage LOVE stamps that are perfect for my blue, purple and gold colors.  The whole project cost about $180 for 130 save the dates, including postage. Viva creativity!