Happily sharing photos of a letterpressed wedding invitation I designed over a year ago for friends and former co-workers.  This is a perfect example of work that has sat in a sad little pile in the corner of my home office before it was re-organized (promise to share more details and photos of that adventure in a later post).  Now it’s wonderfully at my fingertips and begging to be photographed.  So here it is!

The happy couple had settled on a Portland, Maine wedding – perfect since the bride grew up there. The groom’s family, all from New Jersey, had never been to Maine.  They wanted the invitation to present iconic Maine imagery that would get all their guests excited about the idea of traveling north for their nuptials, but also wanted the overall look to remain classy and a bit more traditional.

A stately lighthouse image graced the invitation, while cute sand pipers and of course, the ubiquitous lobster were used to tie the whole “Maine” theme together on accompanying cards.  To keep the overall look subtle and more traditional, I used a soft gray and sharp black color palette against thick cotton paper.  Even the simplest design looks regal in the letterpress printing medium, don’t you think?

Perhaps my favorite part of this invite though was the quote provided by the couple.  Emblazoned right across the top of the invitation, it reads “You work, you play and then one day…love just happens!”  – the perfect sentiment for a couple who’d been friends and worked together for years before Cupid struck!

Without a doubt one of the coolest, most ingenious marriage proposals I’ve seen in a long time.  Created over the course of 3 nights on a North Carolina street and captured in this time-lapse, long exposure video. Stay with it, it’s worth it!

Light Writing Proposal from Derick Childress on Vimeo.

Lucky girl this Emily!!  Thanks Victoria for sharing this.

I’m back! My hosting transitions seems to have gone smoothly (at least so far) and technical difficulties are over for hopefully a LONG time.

If you read White Thread with any regularity (and I hope you do!) you might have noticed posts were pretty few and far between around the holidays. Which segways nicely into my 2010 resolution – to share more of myself here on the blog.

So a quick recap of my 2009 in stream of consciousness fashion would be something like this:

Debate opening a bridal boutique here in the Triangle, do lots of research, hope the economy will get better so a business loan is possible. Sit by while economy does NOT get better, decide it might not be the best idea to open said boutique. Consider other ideas that would exercise the more creative part of my brain that is slowly dying at my day job. Try to hold down the fort at home while hubby finishes his MBA. Promise myself 2009 will be the year I finally get to decorating our house. Lose steam quickly, decide to just close doors to the rooms I can’t deal with and hope little Nate Berkus elves take care of things behind those doors. They don’t. Debate moving back to Boston. Consult Zillow and confirm probably not a good time to sell our house. Determine any brick and mortar business that keeps me here in the Triangle is probably not a great idea since I miss Boston so much. Distract myself by going to Paris, spend a small fortune on macaroons at Laduree but fulfill a lifelong dream. Return from Paris but daydream about going back pretty much every minute of every day since we left. Find a place of honor in my house for my pretty Laduree box. Decide it would make an awesome inspiration for a whole wedding. Plant a vegetable garden, eat fresh cherry tomatoes every day for 3 months but sadly watch as my pepper plants produce exactly zero peppers. Visit my college roommate in Toronto to be the godmother to her beautiful baby girl. Experience hottest weather in 30 years in Canada. Decide I need to quit my day job because I’m dying a little bit inside every day. Start White Thread in an effort to keep that part of myself alive. Finally get out of the job and realize just how miserable I had been. Say a thankful prayer every morning that I don’t have to go back there anymore. Ponder what I’ll do next for income. Post to White Thread to distract myself from this harsh reality. Pull together a fun DIY feature for the blog with Nancy Ray.  Partner up with another talented, tired of corporate America woman to get our home office under control.  Decide I should have done this 3 years ago.  Re-discover my love for textiles, paint, furniture, etc.  Lament the fact that I threw out all my Domino magazines before they stopped publishing.  Do a poor job of staying away from corporate America by taking a 3 week contracting gig at another ad agency.  Decide it wasn’t ad agencies that I was tired of but rather the ad agency I had been working at.  Rediscover how fun and rewarding work can be when you actually like and respect your co-workers and managers and have interesting work.  Barely have time to decorate or bake or anything else I love to do.  But appreciate the income around the holidays.  Take an extended trip to Boston for Christmas.  Spend quality time with my family, trek through sub-zero temperatures for a beer with my brother.  Remember that this is a perfectly normal activity.  Receive all back issues of Domino Magazine as a gift from my ever thoughtful husband (thanks eBay!).  Return home to a totally redesigned office.  Cry it’s so perfect.  Decide I must hire Nicole for the rest of my house immediately.  Get completely re-invigorated to decorate all those blank rooms.  Decide to start a blog focused on this adventure.  Get completely re-invigorated to share more of my work here on White Thread (now that I can find it and it’s all neatly organized in my office).  Decide 2010 is going to be the best year yet because I’m going to make it so.

Phew!  So there you have it.  I hope I didn’t bore you all.  I’m thankful for every single reader who stops by my little blog and I promise to keep at it.  I love posting here and I think by sharing more of myself, I’m going to enjoy it even more.  Of course the gorgeous real North and South Carolina weddings will be a mainstay as will talented vendor spotlights.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

I’ve had a long and tedious week of dealing with one email and/or hosting issue after another. Turns out any email I’ve been sending for the last, oh, 3 weeks (!!!)  has been bouncing because my hosting company had me on the same IP server with someone who sends Viagra spam. So Mr. (or Ms. I guess) Viagra had gotten the whole IP blacklisted including any innocent emails little ole me was sending. SO ANNOYING.

So, I’ll be transitioning hosting companies over the weekend. Hoping it is smooth and painless and takes less than 24 hours with no data loss. HOPING.  But if you get a “page not found” error for a while, at least you know why.

Oh and the above image has nothing to do with my hosting issues but it could very well be the funniest picture I’ve ever taken of my dog Daisy.  She looks like Godzilla in it, it’s hilarious.  And I needed a good laugh after this week!

Have a great weekend everyone.  Here’s hoping you see me back here next week.

Take your breath away gorgeous.  That is the only way to describe this series of images sent to me by the fantastic Crystal Genes.

Newlyweds Emily + Pete had already been married a few weeks when they contacted Crystal about scheduling one last “hurrah” before packing away the wedding dress.  Having been plagued by rain on their actual wedding day, this was the perfect opportunity to capture all those incredible outdoor shots they didn’t quite make happen on the day of.  And for a couple of adventurous, rock climbing, outdoor lovers, Hanging Rock State Park proved to be the perfect backdrop.

From Crystal:
“We originally planned to shoot about a mile from Beacon Heights.  After researching a bit, we discovered that the autumn leaves had already mostly fallen by the week of the session.  So, we went for Plan B and headed up to Hanging Rock State Park in Danbury, NC.  The leaves were still quite colorful and the location was just as gorgeous, if not more dramatic!  Believe it or not, there were dozens of onlookers all around during the whole shoot.  The couple made everyone queasy with how freely they posed on the edges of these high rocks.”

Don’t you looooooove Emily’s dress?  It’s a strapless version of this Mia Solano gown.  It looks so different strapless.  Let that be a lesson to you all!  Don’t be afraid to ask for small modifications to a dress if it’s just a wee bit shy of perfection.

Seriously, if this doesn’t make you want to run out and get married in the mountains, I don’t know what will.  Someone put these 2 in an ad for Western NC weddings please!

Thank you so much Crystal for sharing these spectacular photos with White Thread.  I know the couple will cherish them forever!