Skeptickle

The late Dr. King has always been one of my heroes and a strong inspiration in the colored community. I couldn’t pick a favorite MLK quote so I’m posting all the ones that have the most meaning to me:

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”

-Above quotes are from Strength to Love, 1963

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

“[I]t is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment. The Black Power slogan did not spring full grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus. It was born from the wounds of despair and disappointment. It is a cry of daily hurt and persistent pain.”

-Above quotes are from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

I’ve used the following from time to time to remind myself:

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I was originally going to launch right into our ceremony, but I almost forgot about our programs! These were one of my favorite projects for our wedding. Mostly because they weren’t necessary so if I screwed up then they didn’t need to get distributed. I wanted to do something simple but elegant, and a little different from the usual booklets with staples. I loved the Stardream Opal cover paper at Paper Source so I decided to use that for our programs (sorry, they don’t photograph very well).

I basically designed the pages of the program on two 8.5″ by 11″ canvases in Illustrator (one for each printing side). I placed a light grey vertical line down the middle of each canvas to separate the pages. After printing them out on a laserjet printer (a must for Stardream papers), I’d use a bone folder to make a neat crease along the grey vertical line. I’d then fold it down that crease, wrap a ribbon around the fold and tie it at the top. I think they turned out pretty well.

The front of the program.

A close-up of the quote from Morrie and a Thank You to our guests.

A peek at the inside of the program.

The back of the program.

Making the following inspiration boards helped me quite a bit during the planning process. I was addicted to Snippet & Ink during that time so I finally kicked myself into gear and made my own. It’s one thing to tell people what you envision your wedding to be like, but nothing beats actually showing them.

I was going for “classy” with Asian influences for this first, general inspiration board. Of course, this was only for inspiration purposes and a lot of these weren’t actually incorporated into our wedding (especially all the pink!). But I gotta say that we did drive off after the reception in our eco-friendly blue Prius .

Sorry, I didn’t keep track of where all these images came from (I know- bad!). Most are from Martha Stewart Weddings and iStockphoto. Please let me know who to credit for the others.

This next one is a dress inspiration board, which I used to convey to the bridal stores the kind of dresses that I was drawn to.

Images from Jim Hjelm, Pronovias, and Amy Kuschel.

Both boards were made using Microsoft Powerpoint, which I found to be (surprisingly) much easier to use than Photoshop for making collages. There’s also an even easier option of using the Mosaic Maker from Big Huge Labs, but I found it to be constricting when it came to customizing the size, shape, and placement of individual images. Either way, it’s fun to get those creative juices flowing after dealing with the practical side of wedding planning. If you have an inspiration board, please do share!