Two Years

Two years ago today I got to marry my high school sweetheart and my very best friend. I am literally in shock that it's been two years since we were married. We were blessed with a heck of an awesome celebration and we often talk about finding ways to do it all over again. People always say the marriage should be more beautiful than the wedding, and I think that's why we want to do it over and over and over again - we want to keep celebrating our marriage, because it's been a beautiful two years and we've cherished every moment of it.

Happy Anniversary Mike!

*photo from BE Creative Photography

Featured: Marry Me Lovely

A few weeks ago I did my usual Twitter check and saw a bunch of new followers - I had a problem with spam followers a few times, so now I always click on the people the follow me, just to sniff things out. Well, to my surprise, my new followers were the ladies behind Marry Me Lovely - a local Long Island wedding blog.

Kristen wrote up a sweet little post about my designs, and it literally made my day! It's so fun to find other local creative people - and I hope to soon sit and chat with the ladies behind Marry Me Lovely!

One Year

I cannot believe that it's already been a year. I'm beyond words. The year has been filled with so many memories - from our rainy honeymoon & carbon monoxide problem, to the candle-lit dinner my husband surprised me with just a few days ago. I can only hope the rest of our lives are filled with as much love, joy, laughter and learning as the past year has been. Happy Anniversary, my love!

Recent Design Work - Oh, Hello!

Oh boy! It's been over a month since my last blog post - I'm contemplating reintroducing myself! Just kidding, hopefully you remember who I am ;)

If you've been following my blog for a long time, you might have noticed a trend where I really seem to back off blogging during the months of December and May - if you're wondering why, it's because that's the end of the school semester (don't forget, I go to grad school at night!) Towards the end of the semester my evenings are filled with school projects, papers, finals and registering for the next semester. Not much time for blogging.

But, just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean my business has been idle. Believe Notes has been  launching new items, submitting to Minted challenges, and working on some wedding invitations to add to the shop. I have also been looking into new business adventures, and cannot wait to share some of the fun things that will be happening in the future.

Oh, and I've been buying fonts. Because, as I've said before, some girls buy shoes when they're stressed - but this girl buys fonts. Although, this past month has been a month of shoes and fonts - I guess that means I've been uber stressed??

Minted has been having challenge after challenge after challenge. It's been hard enough keeping up with that, let alone everything else going on! One recent challenge that I'm waiting to hear back about winners is the Cheers! Wedding Party Invitation Challenge. The designers were asked to come up with designs for engagement parties, rehearsal dinners, and bridal showers. Minted often has "special categories" for their challenges where they ask designers to design for a specific theme, and one of the special categories was for a tasteful lingerie shower. I always try to have a few submissions that cater to the special categories. So, without further explanation, here are the designs I submitted for the Cheers! challenge:

 Into the Sunset, Embraced, Best Necessities, Barely There, Antique Flora

Hope you head on over to Minted and vote on the recent challenges! Your vote always counts, so head on over and tell Minted what to sell!

Custom Recap - Emily's Wedding Thank You Cards

It may only be the middle of March, but it seems that here in NYC Spring is in the air. Which means, to me at least, that it's time for Spring cleaning. I've been trying to clean up all of the folders on my computer, as well as all my pictures, designs, fonts etc. It's amazing how unruly things can become over time!

One good part of all this cleaning and organizing, is that I'm finding a lot of pictures of projects I did in the past and, for whatever reason, never ended up posting. So, as I clean up, I've decided to start a mini-series on my blog for "Custom Recaps" where I show off the custom projects I've created. I wish I could call the series "Recent Projects" but the truth is, some of these things are several years old now! 

Which brings me to my very first Custom Recap that I want to share. These thank you cards were designed for my husbands cousin, Emily and her husband Sal. You may remember them from the blog post where I shared the creative wedding gift I got them. Their wedding was amazing, and Emily was in my bridal party this past year, so I was honored and flattered when she asked me to create her wedding thank you cards. She asked for something simple, elegant and using hints of deep purple. We ended up with a simple photo card and accenting it with a lovely metallic envelope in a gorgeous eggplant color. 

I can't believe the wedding was nearly a year and a half ago! Time flies, but with Emily's amazing taste and this simple design, these thank you cards will still be amazing for years to come.

Vendor Review: The DJ

Wow! It's been almost 6 months since my wedding! I cannot believe how quickly it went, and I wish it would slow down - I'm enjoying it too darn much :)

I'll be honest and admit that I've been procrastinating the last two vendor reviews from my wedding. I feel like once I finish them, that'll be it for anything wedding related in my life. Kinda sad about that. But, I saved the best for last and I really do want to get the word out.

In case you missed it, I've already reviewed all the little fashion details, the location, the transportation, the ceremony and church, the cake, and the flowers. Now it's time for the DJ.

And, like almost everything else in my wedding, there is a story about the DJ. Actually, I had originally booked a different entertainment company, but I started hearing a lot about Michael Gentile of Funktion 67 DJs and after seeing Michael at my cousin-in-law's wedding, I decided I had to have him. I think booking Michael may have been the best decision I made for the entire wedding. He MADE the night! I have never heard such a fabulous mix of tunes, and the dance floor was packed all night long (and it was a 6 hour party, so that's no small feat).

Oh, and remember, this theater is no stranger to good music. It's hosted legends from Eric Clapton to Mariah Carey to the Red Hot Chili Peppers - and, for the record Michael Gentile rocked the place like nobody's business! 

Michael was awesome to work with from day one. He loves what he does, and he's so damn talented it's not even funny. I think every pre-wedding meeting we had with him turned into a jam session at his office. If I remember correctly, at the last meeting he even had my husband singing Adele. Yes, I remember correctly (although I maybe wish I didn't).  Of all my vendors, I get at least one email a week from a guest asking who my DJ was!

I remember at one point during the wedding one of my friends - on the middle of the dance floor - looked over at me and screamed "Is this for real? this is the best set-list EVER!" and yes, it really was!


The bridal party walked out to Deadmau5 "Animal Rights", which my husband picked, actually my husband also picked the song we walked out to, which was Martin Solvieg "Hello". They're laughable, but totally worked for us! And I'll always have the picture in my head of Michael and my husband jamming out to Deadmau5 during one of our meetings. How could I deny them the pleasure?

Here is my favorite picture of my MOH and the two best men being introduced. I love how all three are in totally different - but equally entranced - states of PARTY!

Here are some more of my absolute favorite pictures from the dancefloor:

my father-in-law, probably dancing to Lady Gaga

not a party without the ROBOT!

yes, my husband's got moves, and yes, he began to strip

Mr. Jake, breaking it down and not breaking a bone.

Our couples dance

The music made the night, so thank you, thank you, thank you to Michael Gentile and Funktion 67 DJ's - you rocked the night!

An Epic Weekend for Love

This past weekend my very best friend (since birth!) tied the knot to the love of her life. Sarah and Giancarlo have been together for 9 years and have known each other since elementary school, how cute is that?! Sarah was my maid-of-honor nearly five months ago, and I was honored to be hers this weekend. We've also been lucky enough that now our men have become fast friends as well. Her husband was also a groomsman at my wedding, and my husband was a groomsman at theirs. Such an honor!

For the past (almost) decade the four of us have become partners in crime. Mr. Law and I are so blessed to have such wonderful friends, and we were both so happy to be to be standing at their sides for their special day. We're all pretty sure that the rest of our lives will be friend filled, adventure packed, and incredibly memorable!

The newly weds are off on their honeymoon now, but I can't help but relive their day by listening to their first dance song. It's so unique and perfect for the two of them! It's called "Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros....

And here are a few pictures of the beautiful couple that I stole from their amazing videographers, Moho Creative:

CONGRATULATIONS Sarah and Gian! I love you both with all my heart, may you enjoy icing for the rest of your lives!!

Vendor Review - The Ceremony and Church

I want to keep this brief, since I was not originally planning on saying anything about the ceremony at all....As it turns out, I think the ceremony may have been my favorite part of the entire day.

We started about 10 minutes late (I just told you why, in the past post), and as soon as I got to the alter, Father Steve (or rather, Monsignor Steve!) said to me "Take a deep breath, relax, we'll get this thing back on track!!". After that, Father Steve proceeded to give the most down to earth, heartwarming ceremony I have ever, ever heard....

Let me give you a little history about Mike and I and Father Steve. When Mike was a volunteer fire fighter and EMT, Father Steve was the department Chaplain. Everybody loves Father Steve, he is a down to earth guy that is always genuine and kind, but has a wicked good sense of humor. I say "wicked" good because he's from Boston - well, actually, I think he's from Ireland originally, and then Boston. Either way, the man rocks.

When Mike and I got engaged the very first thing I said was that we needed to go talk to Father Steve to see if he would, please please pretty please, marry us. I was so excited when he agreed! Over the past three years Father Steve has since become a Monsignor (congratulations!) and left the Fire Department to take on greater responsibilities. A few weeks before the wedding I told him how afraid I was that I was going to cry the entire time - or worse, giggle the whole time! He reassured me that even if I did cry or laugh, and on the day of the wedding, when I got to the alter in one piece, he said "you did good!" in his endearing Boston/Irish accent.

In fact, on the day of the wedding I did not cry at all, I was too in awe of everything around me to even feel anything other than joy. I took a sigh of relief when Father Steve told me I was sitting up too straight, and I laughed when he joked about the different methods I may need to try in order to wake Mike up from deep sleep. He told all of our guests about how, when Mike was in the fire department, the department installed amplifiers to Mike's pager because he was such a deep sleeper that he would sleep through the normal alarms....Father Steve told us never to text the words "I love you", but to speak them, face-to-face. Overall, the ceremony really felt like a conversation between us and a man/friend we deeply respect, love and look up to. It was touching and beautiful, and I genuinely regret not having a videographer, because I wish I could replay the ceremony over and over again...

Here are a few pictures...

Vendor Review - Limos and Transportation

I'm back with more reviews!! I hope you're not bored yet, caused I'm keeping these coming!


The one thing I left up to Mike to handle was the transportation for us and the bridal party. He ended up booking through Elegant Limo, and here are some of my thoughts around transportation....

I had originally wanted to rent one of those vintage type trolleys for the whole day to serve as our bridal party transportation and the guest shuttle service, but my family thought it was a terrible idea. I was frustrated to see that the traditional car and limo package was three times the price as my beloved trolley would have been and I absolutely couldn't bring myself to spend the money. So, I had Mike do it....and he got lucky because while the stretch Escalade might not have been vacuumed the night before - the drivers more than made up for it!!! In fact, the entire timeline for the day very easily could have been blown when the wedding that was taking place at church before us was running over 40 minutes late....but our awesome limo drivers saved the day!! I'll explain after the first picture below...

Mike booked us the 1938 Caddy, driven by Ray, and the 20 passenger Escalade, driven by Junior (Charlie Jr.). The Escalade was for the bridal party, and the Caddy took my parents and I to the church, and then took Mike and I to the reception.

So let's talk about how Ray and Junior saved the day....

The plan was for the Escalade to pick up the groom and the groomsmen and drive them to the church early and then swing back to my parents home to pick up the bridesmaids. Let me first say that our cars were ALL ON TIME, which helped so much!!! Junior picked up Mike and the groomsmen to go to the church, but when they got there they realized that the wedding before us was running almost an hour late. When Mike got to the church the other wedding party should have been on their way out, instead they were just starting their full Mass ceremony. Uh oh. So Junior, our limo driver, got the phone number of the limo driver for the other wedding party and asked that limo driver to call him as soon as they left. This was perfect. Perfect!! When Junior and Ray showed up at my house - perfectly on time, might I add - Junior told me to take my time with pictures because the other wedding wasn't going to be done for at least a half hour. At first I had the initial feeling of panic, and then he said, very calmly "Don't worry, they are going to call me the minute they leave, it takes us 10 minutes to get the church, you'll be fine." Ray and Junior insisted we use the delay to take more pictures, which turned out to be perfect. While we were waiting for Junior to get the call from the other bridal party, we snapped some fun shots in my neighbors garage sale...

Most brides might have been upset by their neighbor having a garage sale, I thought it was kinda awesome. As long as my cars had a place to park, I was a perfectly happy camper.

We also got to take some fun shots with the Caddy....

Alright, so while we were taking the pictures, Junior got the call that the other bridal party was getting into their cars and heading out. It was GO time! Ray was super helpful in getting me (and the gown) into the car.

Ray helping me get in, and Junior holding the door for me.

In fact, Ray ended up being the one to show my dad how to pull the veil over my head, and Ray was also the one that put out my train before I went down the aisle. Thank you SO much, Ray!! Ray was such a kind, warm and helpful guy, which was just what I needed to calm my time-line nerves.

Ray and Junior planning our arrival so perfectly that I literally pulled up and walked from the car outside the church straight inside and down the aisle. It was amazing!!!! So, so, so perfect. Thank you to Ray and Junior for saving the day and my nerves!!!!

starting the walk straight to the alter!

Turns out we started our ceremony only about 10 minutes late and - thanks to Father Steve (the fasted Monsignor out there) - we ended exactly on time!!!

As for the couple before us....I do feel bad because my guests crashed their receiving line. In fact, one of my guests asked for a picture of the other couple to show me "who made me so late". HA! So now I have, along with my own pictures, a picture of the other bride and groom who's timeline didn't work out so well. I hope their day turned out amazing anyway!

Vendor Review - Location, Location, Location!!

It's mind blowing to think how incredibly lucky we were to get married at such a unique and sentimental location. Really, I get all teary just thinking about it.... and I'm not going to lie - hands down the number one reason the wedding was so amazing was because of the location.

Our reception was held at the Nikon Jones Beach Theater, and no, they do not "do" weddings, and yes, they made an exception for us....

Mike and I met at Jones Beach back in 2003 when it was the "Tommy Hilfiger Jones Beach Theater" and we were both working for Aramark at the concession stands. We met in the Food Court, where I worked on a register and Mike flipped burgers. We both continued to work there every summer...I became a supervisor and Mike left when he became a cop. The staff there became like family to us, and so when Mike and I cancelled our original wedding venue because they double booked our wedding, the folks at Jones Beach offered to let us have the reception in the VIP tents. It took me a few months to think it over - they had never done a wedding before and the location is totally 100% outdoors, so weather could be an issue. In the end, obviously, I said OK, because really, how many people have the chance to get married in the very spot they met? Oh, and it helps that the location is BEAUTIFUL!

I cannot thank my boss/coworker/catering manager enough for all of his hard ward. Rowland has been there since day one and was the single most important person in making this day come to reality. He worked 'round the clock with me and really outdid himself. Let me also say that the staff that worked for our wedding could hardly be called "staff", in reality they are the people Mike and I have been working with for the past 9 summers. They are our coworkers and our friends, and we were thrilled that they were a part of our day. I made it a point to thank them in front of all the guests.

Also, can I just say how flippin' awesome it was to be able to take our wedding pictures on the stage and in the seats at Nikon Jones Beach Theater? It was an breathtaking backdrop, and at times it just didn't feel real.

So I give our location ten million thumbs up. It touches my heart to know we got to start our lives as husband and wife in the very place we started our relationship at. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody that works with us for helping so much!!! I really believe that the whole feel of the day was dictated by how special the location was. For that one day in time, the entire theater belonged to us. I have never felt so much love before in my life, and I think that's the right feeling to have on your wedding day.

Wedding Wrap Up - Vendor Reviews!

When I close my eyes I still get the butterflies I felt just before walking down the aisle...man, I cannot believe it was almost two months ago!

I wrote up a quick post when I returned from my honeymoon, and I have spent the last few weeks putting together reviews of all of my vendors.  Part of why I wanted to wait is because my photographers rocked the house and I really want to use their pictures in my reviews. Now that I have the pictures, I am ready, ready, ready to rave about my people!

Let's do this!

Why Orange? Believe Notes has a NEW LOOK! (again!)

Remember this post? I mentioned how frustrated I was with branding, and that I feel like every six months I need a new look.

That was in January. Fast forward exactly six months, and indeed I have sipped the kool aid. Time for another re-brand. Do you also remember this post? Because that's when the drinking really began.

And may I make one thing very clear, I did not drink pink kool aid, I drank orange kool aid....because orange is sorta my thang.

Orange has worked its way into my life in a really adorable and meaningful way. When I met Mr. Law  (over 8 years ago, yeesh) he loved orange. I wasn't crazy about orange yet, but as time progressed, so did I, and so did my adoration for the punchy hue. Then, I bought myself an orange rain coat. Let's say it was a turning point, because that coat was an investment, if you know what I mean. From then on, orange was not just a color, it was our color.

When we purchased our home last year, I spray painted an antique captains chair BRIGHT orange. It's now one of my favorite parts of our home - oh wait, the orange chair and the CRAZY ORANGE BUDDHA!

Yes, I almost forgot, I found a crazy orange Buddha statue at a sale once and had to have it. It sits happily on our antique china cabinet and watches us eat. When I sneak a cookie, crazy orange Buddha knows.

When we got married I wanted an all white wedding, and my hubs wanted - you guessed it - orange. When my girls and I went shopping for bridesmaid dresses, we all collectively gravitated towards one dress and one dress only - and as luck would have it, it was orange.

So, I have continued to sip my favorite colored kool aid, and now my business is going orange as well.

I hope you all enjoy the new punch of color!!!

Don't mind the mess, but that's our office chair :)

Miss Juliet and her orange toy

We even had orange at our engagement party! These were the favors that I made.

I discovered the way to get him to clean: an ORANGE vacuum!

Our wedding invitations

My beautiful girls and their orange dresses

Can you spot the crazy Buddha???? He's laughing at the "day after bridal shower" mess!

Ok all, enjoy!!!

In My Heart

Processed Type

Right now I have a lot of the above in my heart. I've gotten my pictures back from my photographers, and while I didn't shed a tear at the wedding, every time I look at the pictures I get choked up. Aside from the obvious, what makes it so much more special is that my photographer ( a husband and wife team) are such incredibly sweet people. I look forward to working with them on some other projects in the future...

But for right now, I need some private time with me and my box of tissues. It doesn't help that I've got this song on replay....

Oh, how I completely love how love feels.....

Just Get Things Done!

It's been a fun week for me. My favorite thing to do is to get things done - I am definitely not the type to sit around and "lounge". That being said, Mr. Law is more of the "lounge" type, and so of course we have the never ending battle of how to spend our little bits of spare time.

This week I won the battle and we got things done. I mean, we totally rocked the installation of our new entertainment unit, and even though we still have some finishing touches, I am thrilled with how it came out.

We also got all of our wedding pictures back and were able to narrow down from 1,500++ pictures down to 75 for the album. I absolutely love working with my photographers and cannot wait to get the digital files back so I can share some of the loveliness with you.

On the design side of the world, I have been working on a few different custom business card designs, the Believe Notes wedding invitation suites (any day now!!), and some other super pretty custom projects.

Tomorrow our new sofa arrives, and in case you haven't been following along, we did decide to go with the leather one. I'm both excited and nervous to see if I can accomplish my goal of making a room with a chocolate leather sofa seem light and elegant.

In the meantime, if you want to hum along with me today, I'll be listening to A Fine Frenzy, because Alison makes me feel like a little kid playing out in the field :) Love her!

Have a good day!!!

Weekend Project!

It's the freakin' weekend baby, I'm gonna have me some fun!!

and by fun, I mean installing a new custom entertainment center. Don't judge, fun comes in all shapes and sizes.

I've decided to take a little time to embrace my new leather sofa (yes, my arm was twisted and we went with the leather sofa talked about in the previous post). Our kitchen gut-job has been put off from this fall to the winter, since Mr. Law has a big exam to take in the fall and I want him to be able to focus 100% on that. My dad will be taking off some time in January to oversee the kitchen work...I'm stressed already because they (my father my husband, and my father-in-law) seem to think they can do the job totally on their own. Eek, some things seem OK as DIY, other things *ahem- kitchens -ahem* seem better fit for professionals.

Anyway - there are some REALLY exciting things coming down the pipe. I've got vendor reviews for all of you looking to throw a fabulous wedding or other type of fête. I've also come fun custom designs I have been working on, along with some other pretty little things.

In the meantime, since I have home decor on the mind, here are some things I have been drooling over....

As seen on 6th Street Design School

Dining Chairs? Anything is possible at Dwell Studio

A dark sofa in a light room? Holy smokes, I'm smitten!!!

So that last picture was pulled off of pinterest. Which brings me to the point of, well, pinterest....I have a feeling most of you that read blogs regularly are aware of the amazingness that is pinterest, but if you are not aware, you need to become aware. It's a lovely site that almost reminds me of an online bulletin board. You can browse the internet and then "pin" all of your favorite things and they get stored to your pinterst site. It's crazy addicting, save me tons of time, and provides a huge amount of inspiration for almost all of my designs. Right now the site is invite only, but if you are interested in getting an invite, I have a few left so email me at believenotes@yahoo.com. In the meantime, go check out my boards and pins :)

Enjoy your weekend everybody! If I have a break during assembly of my entertainment center, I might even come and blog the progress, yay!!

<3 Jackie

Month in Review

So today is Sunday, July 3rd...it's a rainy, muggy, steamy day here in Queens, and when I look out over the water, Manhattan seems lost in the fog. Yuck. Weather it's raining or not, I seem to have found a pattern in that I almost always blog on Sundays, which is good, because I know my weekday blogging has been slower. It's for good reason though. Remember this post? Well, I am still tired, but I have gotten a lot accomplished. During my honeymoon I really did some thinking about where I want my life to go, and I decided that someday I would love to do full time stationery design. That sort of a thing doesn't happen overnight. So over the past month I have spend every moment working on my business. I get home after the 9-5 and I begin working on my Etsy shop, networking through my Facebook page, and taking photos of new designs to prep them for sale. I've also been able to submit a few birth announcement designs to Minted, which reminds me, you need to go vote for them!!! Here are the two designs I submitted, click and vote please:

"Falling in Love" Birth Announcement

"Sweet Hearts" Birth Announcement

I am very proud of myself that I was able to pull out two designs. It's the small milestones that make me proud these days :)

My Facebook page is doing very well, we're up to 129 "likes" which I'm feeling good about. I had a giveaway when I reached 100 "likes" but it seems the person that won has gone out of business and did not claim their prize. I'm thinking I might do a "pop up" giveaway in the near future to make up for it.

I've launched my new line of business cards on Etsy, and so far they have been a hit. I sold one around five minutes after it was posted and I have a few more custom orders that I am working on as well. Designing business cards is fun for me, but I am definitely struggling with the costs involved. Since they are so tiny I have a hard time cutting them properly at home. While I would love to print them on my trusted home printer, I've realized it would be better to have them done professionally. The problem with that, of course, is that it is slightly more expensive and takes much more time.  So far it seems the "Soft Lattice" design is the winner, I've already sold several of them. She sure is pretty though, isn't she?

"Soft Lattice" Business Card on Etsy

I seem to have finally found the secret to taking pictures of my cards, which happened accidentally, but who cares! I love the way they've been coming out. My research has taught me that no matter how much research you do, and no matter how many "how to" tutorials you watch, the "correct" way to do something is always a little trial, a little error, and totally unique. What works for everybody else may not work for me, and what works for me may not work for everybody else. Hmm, sounds like something my mom has been telling me for, well, ever. *sigh*

You may also remember this fiasco with my carbon monoxide situation, and I'm very, very happy to report that my dad did indeed fix the problem. We haven't had any carbon monoxide issues since the whole thing happened, but I still panic when I hear things beeping. My coworkers cell phone was dying a few days ago and it began to beep, my first instinct was to panic, but then I realized it was a cell phone. I wonder how long it'll take before I can hear a beep without thinking I need to evacuate?

Anyway, life is moving along pretty well. I wanted to give you a little catch-up post before some other posts about specific topics. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about all of my vendor reviews for the wedding. I am waiting until I get my professional pictures are back so that I can use them in the posts. Hopefully next week :)

I hope you are all enjoying you Sunday, whether it's rainy or sunny!!