The Westin Book Cadillac Hotel

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with Rebecca Mazairz, the Social Catering Sales Manager at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit.  Rebecca was kind enough to give me a tour of the newly renovated hotel. It is stunning! If I could get married all over again, I would do it here! The design is a combination of contemporary and Italian-Renaissance styles. With four ballrooms to choose from, including the famous Venetian Ballroom which has been completely renovated to look as it did back in the 1920's is the perfect place for your reception. The hotel has many other great ammenities so that you wouldn't ever have to leave! They offer spa services and 3 restaurants, including Roast, A Michael Symon restaurant. I have been dying to see the renovated hotel as I love old buildings with history, especially in Detroit, where there are so many of them. It is nice to see one being brought back to its original beauty! The Book Cadillac is still booking weddings and events for 2009. Contact Rebecca at rebecca.maziarz@westin.com for more information.

Penned and Pretty

Hello all! I am very excited to tell you about Penned and Pretty. I happened to stumble upon her blog yesterday and was so excited at what I saw. Not only is it a blog that features some of the most talented wedding professionals in the industry, but also Jessica Lynn has her own shop, with some of the most unique "calligraphy" I've seen! I'm all about putting a different spin on the traditional, and this is right up my alley. Not to mention that it is super affordable! Her pricing is as follows: Outer envelopes: 75 cents for the first 100 and 70 cents for every envelope after that. Inner envelopes are 25 cents and RSVP envelopes are 50 cents! Very reasonable! She offers 3 different styles to chose from, as shown above. The sooner you get in touch with her the better. She books up fast!

Go Green! Go White!

In honor of my Alma Mater, Michigan State, who is playing in the Championship Game in the Final Four tonight, I thought I would post a little green love! Not to mention that I am taking the babe to his grandparents for an over night so that my husband and I can go out, minus child for the first time in 10 weeks and watch our Spartans! I customized one of our inkwell invitations to a green color scheme. The bouquets are from Martha Stewart and the other green invitation is Kerry Doyle for minted.com.  I love, love, love this invitation! It is so crisp and clean...plus, green is my favorite color! So go Spartans! Michigan needs a little positivity these days!

Vintage Bride

Talk about inspiration! I love this image and it is none other, than my very stylish and classy Grandmother, Ruth Leonard. She has since passed away, and we are coming up on the 5 year anniversary of her death. She is a constant inspiration and I owe much of my artistic talent and ability to both her and my mother as they were both creative and talented ladies.

My Grandmother and Grandfather were married on March, 22, 1940 in a Methodist church, surrounded by skyscrapers in New York City. They held their reception at the Waldorf Astoria, (how glamorous :) and the following day, set sail for South America on a 6 week cruise.

The dress in the picture was made of ivory peau du soie, with tiny seed pearl beading sewn on and around the neckline with a veil made of tulle. One of the reasons that I love this dress is that she used to let us play dress up in it when we were kids!! Can you imagine?! By the time my sister and I got our hands on it, the veil was practically crumbling in our hands and the dress was yellowed with age, but it was still beautiful. I remember how heavy it was and wondering how my Grandma could wear such a thing for as tiny as she was...more to come.

Bridal Show - Wedding Expressions

Come visit us on Saturday, April 4 at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester! We will be a participating vendor in the Weddings Express Bridal Show from 9 AM to 1 PM. I am so excited for this event. It is the modeled after the speed dating concept. Signaled by the striking of a gong every five minutes, 80 brides-to-be get the opportunity to meet with every vendor for 5 minutes each. For those brides who are interested in attending, there is still time and it is free! Send me an email at info@paisleyquill.com and I will email you the information needed. For those of you who are already attending, we look forward to seeing you there!

Kinsley's Baby Shower!

There must be something in the water, because it is the "Year of the Boys!" Every person I know that is currently pregnant or has had a baby in 2009, (including me) has had a boy! To be honest, I am getting a little tired of light blue :), but I was very happy to create an invitation for a good friend of mine who is due in 6 weeks! Her nursery theme is polka dots and stripes in baby blue and chocolate brown. I created a pattern of dots and stripes for the background. The invitation was mounted on chocolate stock and mailed in a pretty, blue shimmer envelope.

Tarena & Gary - Inkwell

Tarena & Gary came to us for save the dates. They are getting married at the Roostertail in Detroit and wanted an announcement that set the tone for their wedding. She had visited our website and really liked the Sunburst invitation from our Inkwell collection. Not only did she get a color-customized announcement, but a coordinating envelope, with her guest list printed on it. From the time she approved her proofs, we were able to have her announcements printed and in her hands in less than 72 hours! This line is perfect for the bride in a time crunch!

Couples Shower for Lucy

Lucy came to us with the silhouette graphic that she wanted to incorporate into an invitation for a couples bridal shower. To give it some added detail we backed the card with green and white zebra print and then cut out the umbrella so that the fabric would show through.

Amy's Baby Shower

We were very excited for the opportunity to create a baby shower invitation for a good friend of Megan's who is due next week! Megan chose the orange paisley patterned paper and worked the design around that. It is a nice change of color from the traditional pinks, blues, greens and yellows that you usually see with a baby shower. For added detail, she did a complimenting paisley envelope liner and the gold embossed baby foot at the top of the invitation.

Yellow Submarine Announcement

This is my son Campbell's birth announcement. Inspired obviously by the Beatles' song and cartoon show, The Yellow Submarine. When I was young, my mother used to sing this song to me and I thought it would be a great concept for my son's birth announcement. I did custom, wrap-around mailing labels, which I cut out by hand. All 120 of them!! Along with custom envelope liners. My husband even had a part in the design of these! He drew the images of himself, me and our dog, Reggie, which you will see in the portholes of the submarine.

Makayla Turns 2!

Megan created this invitation for her daughter's 2nd birthday party. Makayla picked out the orange sparkly paper and Megan found this cool white cut out paper, which she put over the orange background and added the flower embellishments. Perfect for the cutest little girl I know!

Brides Michigan Feature

Another exciting opportunity here at PQ is our feature in Brides Michigan this month! We were thrilled when the people at Brides contacted us to see if we would like to submit some of our favorite projects for a feature article. They chose Adam and Lisa's Lovebird invitation.