We hope you enjoy watching this video as much as we did.

DIY Calligraphy with The Gracious Girl

It’s a pretty awesome thing.

They are also helping professionals all over the country to create Powerful Brands with their Making Brands Happen boutique consulting firm. Find out more about their latest workshop here, which has only 4 openings left…don’t say I didn’t tell you to sign up!

We’ve included a sneak peek below, but you can view the whole party feature on Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas here.

Happy Easter!!

Today’s question is…

Is it appropriate to insert our wedding registry information in our invitations?

Bottom line, this is a BIG NO NO. Wedding registry information should be spread via word of mouth and may be posted on your wedding website. You may include your registry information on your social party invitations (such as bridal/wedding showers) by tactfully printing something on the invite such as: “The bride-to-be is registered at Macy’s, Target and Williams Sonoma”. This information should never be included in your wedding invitation.

You may however, use a small insert card with your invitations that says something like “For more information about our wedding, please visit: www.ourweddingwebsite.com” and then you can have your registry information listed on your website along with other pertinent information such as accommodations, directions, timeline, things to do in the area, etc.

February 29, 2012 – Richmond, Virginia – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -
Virginia Bride Magazine Releases Best of Virginia Results

For many couples planning a wedding and locating trusted wedding professionals who will make their day go off with out a hitch can be an overwhelming prospect. Just in time for the upcoming 2012 wedding planning season; Virginia Bride Magazine has announced the winners of the Best of Virginia Wedding Professionals for 2012.

For the past six months; Virginia Bride Magazine offered an online voting button allowing brides to vote for the Virginia wedding professional of their choice in each major wedding service category including bridal salon, cakes, catering, ceremony and reception location, D.J. service, event planner, florist, photography, invitations, jewelry, rental company, video production, and transportation.

“There were thousands of votes that came in from all over Virginia from brides who had a wedding held in Virginia in 2011; voting for the professionals who performed a service for their wedding”, stated Angeline Frame, publisher of Virginia Bride Magazine.

“There is only one winner per category in the entire state; as we felt in any true voting process there should only be one winner recognized, therefore, truly making this an honor for those who won”, stated Frame. This award is significant for the wedding professionals who won as the bride’s voiced their opinion as to who they felt did an impeccable job for the most important day of their life.

The purpose of this award is to recognize these professionals for their service and to also serve as a guide for couples who are in the planning stages of choosing a business for their upcoming wedding. The recipients of the 2012 Best of Virginia Wedding Professionals are as follows:

Amanda’s Touch Bridal, Verona, Virginia- Best Bridal Salon
Cakes by Graham, Richmond, Virginia- Best Wedding Cake
The Jefferson Hotel, Richmond, Virginia- Best Ceremony and Reception Location
LK Events+ Design, Richmond, Virginia- Best Event Planning Company
Corsair Floral, Roanoke, Virginia- Best Florist
Choice Entertainment, Richmond, Virginia- Best DJ Service
The Cordial Cricket, Chester & Richmond, Virginia- Best Invitation Company
Chanticleer Catering- Roanoke, Virginia- Best Catering Company
Laura’s Focus Photography- Blacksburg, Virginia- Best Photographer
Finks, Richmond, Virginia- Best Jewelry Company
Prestige Limousine Service, Roanoke Virginia- Best Limousine Service
Shaking Hands Productions, Lynchburg, Virginia- Best Videographer
Classic Party Rentals of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia- Best Rental Company

For more information visit www.vabridemagazine.com

We recently ran across this wonderful video about the art form and wanted to share it with our readers. We hope you enjoy learning more about letterpress printing and we look forward to helping you select your perfectly pressed stationery.

Click on the link below to view the short film.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

As we prepare to enter 2012, we are excited to share new things that will be happening for us at The Cordial Cricket with all of you!

As our business grows, we are constantly evolving to adapt to changes within our industry. In the coming year, beginning February 1st, our Chester location will become a by appointment only wedding and event invitation studio, just as our West End studio location already operates. This means that we will no longer operate the Chester location as a retail gift store, after January 31st.

What does this news mean for you?
If you’re a bride, it means that you will continue to work with us just as you normally have, by scheduling an appointment at either our Chester or West End studios, whichever is most convenient for you.

Our Bridal Gift Registry Program will remain and we will continue to offer the exclusive formal and everyday dinnerware as well as the very popular Mariposa tabletop and entertaining line of products. Brides will continue to be able to select wonderful gifts and we will make exclusive one-on-one arrangements with shoppers who would like to purchase gifts for our registered brides.

This year our “After Christmas Sale & January Clearance” that we typically have each year, will include all of the in-stock gift merchandise that we have in our store (excluding only Mariposa and special order gift items). You will be able to take advantage of our largest sale EVER beginning Monday, December 26th. Items throughout the entire store will be deeply discounted for final sale.

After February 1st, if you would like to order invitations for an event, whether it be a wedding, birthday, anniversary or even a corporate event, you will simply need to schedule an appointment to meet with us to discuss your invitation needs and event details and we will be very happy to help you!

We look forward to seeing many of you soon at our After Christmas Inventory Sale and working with you in 2012 on all of your invitation and event needs!

As the focus of our business changes to be exclusively on weddings and events, we are also pleased to announce that we have partnered with long-time employee, Jennifer Eschbach, formerly of Details Weddings & Events, to offer new event consulting services for our clients.

Jennifer has been a certified wedding and event planner since 2005 and brings tremendous expertise to our customers regarding their weddings and events.

We will be announcing several new event consulting packages in January 2012, to include, but not limited to:

The Cordial Introduction Package – a 3 hour block of event consulting which brides or customers may purchase to discuss the most important details of planning their events with an event professional at the very beginning stages.

After their Cordial Introduction Package, clients may choose to purchase additional event consulting hours to use as they may need.

Day of Event Coordination – which brides/clients may purchase to have an event professional onsite at their event ensuring that every detail goes smoothly.

We will also offer other packages that cover everything in between as well as complete planning of your event with a professional from start to finish.

More details to come in January 2012!

What a great offer from American Express! First there was Black Friday, then Cyber Monday. November 27, 2010 was the first ever Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is the day we celebrate the Shop Small movement to drive shoppers to local merchants across the U.S. Did you know that they have designated this Saturday, November 26th as Small Business Saturday? On this special Saturday, all American Express card holders are encouraged to shop at independently owned small businesses and will be rewarded for doing so with a $25 credit on their next monthly statement! What could be better!

All you need to do to participate in Small Business Saturday on Nov 26th, by doing the following:

Click here to register your eligible American Express Card. You may only register one Card for this offer. Using your registered American Express Card, you must spend $25 or more at participating small business merchants on 11/26/2010 to receive the $25 statement credit.

Yes, we are a participating small business merchant and we do accept American Express cards at our store!

Sixpence Card from our friends at Haute Papier.

We think this is THE perfect little greeting for any bride, whether it’s right after she gets engaged, for a shower or on the morning of her wedding!  The two color letterpress adds a little luxury to go along with the vintage sixpence coin. What bride doesn’t want the fortune of having a real sixpence in her shoe on her big day.

We are pleased to now carry these delightful sixpence cards in our store and we are even going to give one away to a lucky bride! To enter our contest to win your very own sixpence card, you simply need to leave us a comment on this post, Like our store on Facebook and/or Follow our store on Twitter, post a link to this contest on your Facebook and/or Twitter profile. The more things you do, the more times you’ll be entered. We will select the winner on November 30th! Good luck!

And when you’re looking for a wedding gift, Haute Papier’s luxuriously beautiful Silk Stationery Boxes can’t be beat!  With four sets of twenty-five letterpress correspondence cards, you can customize one set for the bride, one set for the groom, one with their names together and one their new monogram.  What better way than to send them off than with their thank yous for wedding gifts. That’s 160 pieces of personalized letterpress stationery for a retail price of only $180, which can’t be beat.

As a special offer for our blog readers, we are offering FREE shipping on any Silk Stationery Box order placed in our store until November 30th. Stop by soon to order yours!

Find out more about our friends Sarah and Erin at Haute Papier here.

Check out this wonderful idea for a birthday gift at any age. Detail on how to create this memorable gift here.