another First Nation wedding - Dene

Okay. My grandma's brother Frank's daughter (so that would make her my third cousin?) was married on August 8th, 2008. She's Dene and did they ever have a First Nation inspired wedding.

Here's some snaps I borrowed:

The ringboy... paddle boy?

Her dad (my great-uncle) escorting her down the aisle

Getting the "I do" done

I think they were blessing their canoe?

Making it official

the bridal party - check out those awesome vests

cutting the cake

I'm going to try and get a hold of her to ask her to explain the paddles. I think that's an awesome unique touch to their wedding. And her buckskin white fringe dress was amazing as well - culture baby, culture.

make mah own boots:

{found here}

I'm not buying boutonnieres for the guys but doing something like this might be a fun and crafty idea. Or making something like this for the mom's. I don't know, but I likes it.

more pom pom action

{a great how to found here}

the name game

A. and I still haven't officially decided what we are going to do about our last names. I'm pprreeetttyyyy sure we are going to keep our last names, which I am thrilled about, but we're now talking about our little imaginary children.

Little Jack and Little Jill need their last names too.

I really like the idea of going with his last name for the boys and my last name for the girls. Why should he get to last-name all the kids just because he's the man? I resent that. Well, not resent but it does annoy me.

So it would be Little Jack D'Jonaire and Little Jill Campbell. I like it.

And then A, in his most "doh!" moment ever, asks - quite seriously "But how will they know they're brother and sister?"

And I lean in and whisper "Because we'll tell them. I think they'll figure it out."

But we don't know. It's something we have an extra year to think about - thank god - and we'll take our time. If we could figure out what to call ourselves, I'm sure we can figure out what to call our kids.

cutie overload:

My favorite blond nephew was a ring bearer in his aunt's wedding. I stole these off facebook. He's just too cute and I miss him so much.
Doesn't he make your heart melt, the cutie? I love him. Charmer.

more hair inspiration:

{source}

{source}

not wedding but still DIY paper fun:

Fast Facts:
- Awesome fonts used are MA Sexy and Teen Light from dafont.com - what a great resource.
- Tree-Save-The-Date template from Merriment Design. A full how-to is available there.

My family usually has a family get together during the summer. We started this back in 2005 or 2006 and has just kept it going. It's a casual affair, a small portion of the family shows up (usually around 25 people), it's potluck and b.y.o.b. and we just have a great time.

This year I wanted to send out invitations. I love paper and I found theee perfect tree template (mentioned above). I bought some chocolate brown envelopes from Micheal's new stationary line ($4.99/ten) using a 50% off coupon and some spring green cardstock to use as backing ($21.99/30 sheets).
I had to manipulate the image a bit. I don't have Adobe Illustrator so I printed the image, scanned it, and edited it in Photoshop. I also changed the colour of the leaves to a spring green and just played around with it until it worked for me.

Finally, I cut out the backings and the tree image, pasted it all together, and stuffed it in the envelope.
I did make a wrap-around label using the top half of the original tree and adding in our addy as well as the guest addy's in our chosen fonts. It looks so cute.
So yeah. the final product has some really great summer colours that pop, the tree reminds me of the one in my parents front yard and it weighs just enough to feel really, really luxurious.
It's a nice touch to our event. And it gives me some way to add to it, although I'm all the way out west.