Trying to figure out what songs to play for the processional? Recessional? Reception? Click here for an awesome website that has samples you can download and listen to!

Wedding Ceremonies and Programs

www.myweddingvows.com - A great place for wedding vows, readings, poems, etc. to customize your own ceremony.

What goes in a program? (Program Template)

Invitations

Invitation Wording: Standard Examples

Invitation Wording: Sticky Situations

Verse It: Wordings for every occasion, wedding etiquette, etc.

MyPersonalArtist.com - beachy/hawaiian wedding invitations.

Hana Hou Productions - tropical island style invitations and accessories.

For a huge list of places to order invitations, click here.

Timelines

Wedding Day Timeline: A Bride's Schedule for a Noon Wedding

Wedding Day Timeline: A Bride's Schedule for an Evening Wedding

Reception Timeline: A Traditional Guide to What Happens When

Big Day Timeline

Paper Stuff/DIY Invites

DIY Pocketfold Bio - Step by step instructions to make your own pocketfold invites.

MIB Bio - Create your own message-in-a-bottle STDs or invites.

Specialty Bottle - A great place to buy bottles and boxes if you doing MIB invites!

Island Paperie - Great tropical themed paper, albums, and scrapbooking supplies!

IslandArtCards.com - Vintage-style Hawaiian postcards.

ScrapbookClearance.com

CreateForLess.com

DraftingDeals.com - great deals on vellum!

Photo Albums

Art Leather - These are great but they will only sell to professional photographers.

Exposures - They have some stuff you won't find anywhere else!

Kolo - Simple and classic albums.

My Publisher - Great coffee table books/albums!

Embossers

Living Victorian

StampCo

Wedding Shoes

My Glass Slipper - Discounted designer shoes. Lots of dyeable shoes!

Dyeable Depot - All shoes $19.99 or less!

Zappos.com - Not always the best deal, but you can't beat their free shipping / free return shipping policy!

ShoeBuy.com - They also have free shipping / free return shipping!

* NOTE - Sign up for a free account at FatWallet, then link through their website to get 6% cash back at Zappos or 10% cash back at ShoeBuy. For a complete list of stores offering cash back, click here.

Tipping

Tipping: Who, When, & How Much (from theknot.com)

All About Tipping (from weddingchannel.com)

Travel Agents

Everyone always asks: "Should we use a TA for our DW wedding? Or can I do it myself and save some money?" Well, our solution was simple... we did both! We used the TA to help us brainstorm and figure out which places best suited our needs, then we shopped around online ourselves... and then we had the TA beat the best price we could find! In general, using a TA takes a huge burden off the bride and groom because guests can direct all their questions to the TA and the bride and groom can spend their time planning the wedding instead of planning everyone's vacations for them.

Travel To Paradise: If you are looking for a travel agent, I'd recommend Paula Simpson from Travel to Paradise. I had heard good things about her from other knotties so we decided to give her a call and see what she could do for us. She was great to work with and is so familiar with the islands (she lives there!). She wasn't the cheapest initially, but after we got some ideas from her we did some work on our own and hunted down the best quote for our HM (it ended up being from Costco). We presented that offer to her and she beat it for us, saving us even more money! She can also help you with other locations besides Hawaii... she helped us with the Tahiti portion of our HM as well. If you call her, please tell her Jaime and Brent referred you :o)

Note to Hawaii Knotties: If you enroll in Hawaiian Airlines' frequent flyer program, they will send you emails with special "members only" discounts/coupons that can be used for additional savings off of their webfares. We did this and got tickets for many of our guests from LA to Honolulu for $259 + tax. You can also sign up for their Wedding Wings Program so that you and your guests can receive 10% off. Plus, after 10 tickets are booked, you'll get a one-way first class upgrade. Caveats? It's 10% off tickets that are $350+ but I have also heard that other knotties were able to get the upgrade even though the tickets were less than $350.

Miscellaneous

Hawaiian Phrases / Sayings

What time will sunset be on my wedding day?

What should we engrave on our wedding bands? Click here or try the readings&poems bio (scroll down until you see "inside the ring").

Cheapribbons.com - Looking for ribbons? You can get them super cheap here, although all sales are final.

Minimus.biz - Get travel sized items for your OOT bags here.

Cudge.net - Cheap wedding supplies… votive holders, tulle, wedding favors, aisle runners, etc.

Doing a sand ceremony? Visit this site to purchase unique containers/frames for your sand!

Need help choosing flowers? Here is a list of flowers by color. There are also individual flower bios in the specialty bios list.

Templates

Knottie Templates - templates for programs, unity candles, newsletters, maps, etc.

Uprint - Templates for invites, RSVP cards, programs, place cards, candy bar wrappers, wine labels, STD's, etc.

HappyTXBride - Click here to go directly to the template downloads for candy bar wrappers, coloring books, etc.

Water Bottle Template - If you want to DIY on your own printer, click here to buy waterproof labels that you can use. Also download the templates from this site.

AmyInSydney - templates for invites, programs, coloring books, and even a really cool passport template!

ChicagoRuby821 - She has these program templates plus a few other goodies :o)

Heather&Peter’s CD favor/program template.
Photos courtesty of Christopher Bickford.

Click here to download the template for these program fans. Thanks to knottie aylee for the template and knottie LoveDW for the pic!

Tri-fold Wedding Newsletter Template - You must have MS Publisher to open this file. Thanks to knottie 1FunGrl for sharing her template!

Luminaries template - Thank you to MrsBeachybride for the template and Jessica Claire Photography for the pic. Click here for the template and here for the instructions.

Downloads

You’ll find links scattered throughout my bio to download stuff, but here is everything in one place.

Packing checklist

My Program Wording

My Welcome Letter Wording

My Big Day Timeline Template

My Guestbook Pages Template

DW Checklist

Island Wedding Checklist

Every Last Thing Checklist

Duty Delegation Spreadsheet

Ceremony Venue Questions: Make sure you have all the relevant information before choosing a ceremony venue.

Reception Venue Questions: Make sure you have all the relevant information before choosing a reception venue.

Caterer Questions: Make sure you have all the relevant information before choosing a caterer.

Reception and Photographer Contact Info: A great way to keep track of contact information and compare reception venues and photographers.

Water Bottle Template - If you want to DIY on your own printer, click here to buy waterproof labels that you can use. Also download the templates from this site.

How to create My Publisher album pages in Power Point

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Calligraphy

I have started to do some calligraphy for other knotties. Please contact me for rates if you are interested. I can do more or less any style that you see online, including some of the more contemporary, whimsical styles.

Here is a sample of the calligraphy I did on our wedding invitations.

And here are some samples from the work I did for knottie vibi. (I had to blot out part of each one to protect the privacy of the individuals).

And here is what she had to say about them:

Jaime did the calligraphy for my wedding invitations and they look beautiful! She even found brown ink, which is what I wanted for my wedding colors. I picked a font from a calligrapher's website and she was able to duplicate it and get the invites to me in less than a week! If anyone needs calligraphy done, you should contact her. Thanks Jaime :)

The Happy Couple!

DIY Paper Projects!

I designed our invitations myself, had the printing done professionally, but then we assembled them together ourselves. We are very fortunate because my uncle owns a printing shop so we were able to get everything done in thermography at a low cost. They were also able to get everything done much quicker than the usual 4-6 weeks quoted to me by the invitation sites I found online... and with a short engagement, we didn't have time to wait that long for invitations. If you would like to contact them for a quote, you can email Top Notch Printing or call them toll free at 800.595.1901, just keep in mind that they are in the Pacific Time Zone (tell them Jaime sent you).

Our invitations! Assembled with the help of my dear FI, my dad and brother, and two of my cousins. I was lucky to have so much help! All our paper projects were printed on ivory linen paper and mounted with double-sided tape onto sage cardstock. We had all the text printed in sage to match the borders. Once we had all the individual cards assembled, everything was tied together with a 5/16" ribbon.

These were my inspiration in designing my invitations:

From knottie leevu. Photo by David Murphy.
From knottie bozme1. Photo by Jennifer Finch.
From knottie makamae.

Here is a closeup shot of the invitation. The main font is Garamond in all caps; the script font is Splendid, downloaded free from www.dafont.com For whatever reason that font isn't available on their website anymore so if you would like it, just email me and I can send you a copy.

Our RSVP card.

Our enclosure card, giving guests the address to our Wedding Website.

Here's what the back of the invitation packet looked like once it was all assembled. The enclosure card was placed beneath the RSVP card/envelope. (sorry the flash was a little bright)

I bought an extra fine point calligraphy marker from the craft store and hand addressed all the invitations.

This is our dinner menu. Click here to view an enlarged image.

These are our donation favors.

Here are professional pics of our invitations :o)

Wedding Programs

By the time it came around to making programs, I was a little tired of DIY projects so I didn't want to do anything elaborate. These were very simple and I was very happy with them :o)

Not sure what goes in a program? There’s a link to the usual program contents above under "Useful Links. " Or, if you want to download a general template of what I had in my program and modify it for your own wedding, click here.

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OOT Bags

We got these Lauhala Tote Bags from www.ailanakai.com Only $1.75 a piece for the size we chose (the mid-size bag)!

The bags were filled with:

* Our welcome letter
The border reads: "HO'OKAHI MAKAMAKA O KO ALOHA * OUR LOVE BEGINS THE UNION OF OUR LIFE TOGETHER"

Click here to download the text of this welcome letter.

* A travel planner from the Oahu Visitor's Bureau
(Including a bunch of maps, things to do, places to eat, etc.)

* Snacks (Costco)

* Bottled water (Costco)

* Cookies from Big Island Candies

* A "Big Day Timeline" similar to this one made by knottie Pineapplegirl:

Here is how ours turned out:

Click here to download this template.

And just to add another personal touch to it, we included some crossword puzzles we made at:

Click on the image to be linked there.

All the clues in this one are fun facts about us.
This one is just fun wedding stuff.