good friends are hard to find...(a tribute)

without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable parts about wedding planning is how eager family and friends are to pitch in.  everybody seems to love a wedding, and we have had a great time getting to know each other's friends and family through the process, as well as reconnecting with some oldies but goodies.  

this entry focuses on one of david's oldest friends (think, in utero--their moms met in lamaze class...beat that), joanna (or joey, as i have taken to calling her, in my not-so-discreet efforts to hijack as opposed to just befriend all david's awesome buddies).  pictured above in the bathtub with baby david (in my not-so-discreet effort to force her to comment on this blog, even if just out of embarrassment) has grown into a remarkably talented graphic designer by day, and our personal stationary designer by evening and weekend.  lucky for me and her wonderful new husband jason, she and david quit bathing together (as far as we know), but remain good friends--we are more than fortunate to have this chick in our arsenal for many reasons.

having just planned and executed a wedding herself, joey has become not just my stationary designer, but my personal wedding planner, consultant, and confidant.  "above and beyond the call" doesn't begin to summarize how much work she has put into creating the perfect package for us, from brainstorming design to shopping around for supplies (a LOT of supplies), keeping us on schedule, spending *hours* discussing and debriefing, seeing to it that everybody comes through with their obligations, and making sure everything is totally seamless and entirely stress-free for us.  not to mention that she's incredibly generous, funny, and pretty darn cute...sorry everyone, she's officially off the market.

she literally put all of the tools, supplies and instructions into our hands (cardstock, digital files, hole punchers, stamp, ink, detailed instructions and examples, etc), and after months of discussion and planning, followed by a few days of setting up shop at the local kinkos' paper cutter, all of her hard work has finally come to fruition in the form of our *beautiful* invitations (if i do say so).  david gets an honorable mention here as well for sacking up and doing more than his share of trimming, mounting, binding, and other such joys of invitation assembly.  he's very right-brained.  he also, for the record, promises that this blog will soon become the team effort i've claimed it is (largely to lure more readers...).

if ever you are looking for beautiful, affordable, personal stationary, i would immediately direct you to joanna (whether she likes it or not, i have big plans for her to start her own stationary design company.  i also want her to come and decorate my next apartment).  you couldn't be in more adept or more wonderful hands!  i'm serious.  call her.

without revealing *too* much (it's always nice to leave something to the imagination), here is a sneak peak of the stationary shenanigans going down here in the past few days:

cutting.  when i walk into kinkos now, the staff says, "hey ash!"

punching and stamping.  i find this photo to be *particularly* artistic.

a cryptic look at the almost-finished product.

and most importantly, a VERY big thank you to joey!!

an addendum:  

speaking of friends pitching in and blessing us with their aid, my mom's best friend cristy offered to hand-pen the addresses on all of our envelopes.  she received the envelopes (via fedex of course, to whom i'm now very loyal) yesterday afternoon, and emailed me at 9 this morning to let me know she finished them.  FINISHED them in less than 24 hours, hand inking a number of addresses i hesitate to even put into writing for fear that she just violated a labor law.  whether this woman sleeps or will ever again have the use of her hand remains to be seen.

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!!!