Gocco--What and Why?

Let's not dwell on niceties and instead jump right into wedding things, shall we? Researching stationery was one of the ways I found weddingbee, so it's a good place to start.

Invitations and Save the Dates are the first glimpse that guests have of your wedding, and therefore take on a certain importance--you want it to say something about the couple's style, as well as convey the feel and tone of the wedding.  In my search for invitations to purchase, I continually came across brides who had made their own invitations.  Make my own invitations? I hadn't even considered it, didn't know it was possible (beyond writing with magic marker on posterboard).

When I saw the variety of homemade yet professional-looking invitations, I also saw a lot of the word "Gocco" flying around.  This is old hat for some of you, but for those of you new to Gocco (and may have missed Miss Pretzel's cool tutorial), here's a short intro: Gocco is a screen printing process that allows you to create your own design for a variety of media, including stationery. You create an image on paper, make a carbon photocopy, burn the carbon photocopy image onto a screen with the bulbs provided by Gocco, and then ink the screen with whatever colors and press it down onto your media.

There are already a lot of posts regarding Gocco and the basics of using a Gocco, like Mrs. Pretzel's posts and these videos:

One of the many helpful youtube videos (they explain the process)

Source (this video is more about showing the process, with no chatter)

And let's not forget:
Paper Source (please watch this and all her other videos, this woman is adorable)
Weddingbee wiki on Gocco

The Gocco allows you to print images and colors on papers that you may not be able to get away with on a regular home printer, because of a few issues:

Size

I'm going to print my invitations on 5x5 square paper. I could conceivably run a whole lotta 8.5x11's through my printer and then painstakingly cut each one out, but that's a pain in the ass (for me, because I'm lazy).

Thickness
I want to use 110lb or heavier paper. Many printers cannot handle this thickness. But with the Gocco, you're pressing down an inked image onto the paper so the thickness is not a problem (unless you are printing on something ridiculously thick, like your pet).

Quality of Print
Lastly, the pressed ink from the Gocco screen gives a bit more "3D" quality to the printed image compared to an inkjet or laser printer. We're probably only talking fractions of a millimeter here, something you can't feel with your finger and to be honest might be completely imaginary on my part, but the Gocco process gives a slightly more professional quality (but really, this is a minor point--for me it's more about the paper size and thickness).

So, Gocco: worth it or not? Discuss.

Helloooo Nurse!

Hello all! Here I am! Ta-da!

(crickets chirping)

What, you're like, who?  It's me, the weddingbee reader who's been avidly following this site for over a year, voraciously reading the daily posts, meticulously combing the archives of all my favorite bees (I know I'm not the only one who has spent a late night or a "work break" clicking "more by Miss/Mrs. ____"!), applied once to be a bee and was REJECTED, tried again, and now I'm here!

Still not helpful?  Well let me give some specifics and me and Kevin (the husband to be).

Kevin and I live in a small apartment, with our pug, in NYC.  Within a few blocks of our apartment are several delectable bakeries, which is important because I don't think we can function without constant supplies of sugar.  It also doesn't hurt that there is a cozy neighborhood wine shop nearby--nothing like a bottle of bubbly stashed in the fridge 24/7.  Who's with me on that one?

I like to cook and bake, and we love to have people over for dinner and serve them food on funny paper plates (shaped like skulls or candy corn in October; Barbie princess plates for birthdays) because our "dishwasher" putters out (i.e. Kevin doesn't want to do the dishes). We enjoy horrible tv shows (him: Korean drama series and me: Girls Next Door), and bestow unreasonable amounts of attention on our pug.  In short, we are big dorks.

We met over three years ago when a friend set us up on a date, and we got engaged two years later while on vacation.  Here's the fam:

 

Now we're planning a wedding--actually I plan it and then run things by him, which works for us--for about 50-60 guests out in Half Moon Bay, California. 

Us in a nutshell.  I think it'll be great to host this awesome party for our friends and family, and I totally look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you along the way!

Nice to Meet You

Ee-hee! I'm blogging! There is so much information out there about weddings.  I know that when I started planning, I really, really appreciated inspirational and practical/logistical resources, so I hope to serve as that resource for some of you.  Disclaimer: I won't have DIY tutorials or tons of great photos, but I will have lots of parentheticals, exclamation points, emphases, and substitutes for expletives. I'll also try to be honest and helpful. 


We are having a 60-person wedding on the Northern California coast that we hope will be an elegant, festive dinner party.  There won't be any dancing, but not to worry, we're thinking of a few things to keep our guests entertained (no, not a stripper). 


I used to imagine that I would have all the bells and whistles of a full-out wedding, but as I have gotten older, I have gotten lazier and am not feeling pressured to include every wedding tradition.  Nevertheless, there is still so much to do and I am having a blast planning the wedding. I'm excited to share my experiences with you!


If that wasn't enticing enough, let me present to you my reason for living*:

*I'm kidding, but only a little