A Last Hurrah

On Saturday 10/13, there will be a casual gathering in the Dubliner, which you can get to through a door in the lobby. We’ll be gathering for drinks and a chance to unwind from travelling and preparations. If you are around, we would love to see you before you head out for dinner. The back bar has been reserved for our party from 4:00-6:00 pm.  Ask for the Poe or Debelack party. All are welcome; the Dubliner is family friendly.

The Invitation Packet

When we first started planning the wedding, we began accumulating things we thought might be useful: for design ideas (sort of a lookbook, but a collection of objects and not just pictures); for the reception itself (decorations); or for the guestbook (a surprise).

Once I started putting all those things together into an idea for the invitations, I kept coming back to some vintage souvenir folders we had bought from eBay, featuring illustrations of various DC sites. In trying to figure out a use for the images I had scanned from one of them, I hit on the idea of an era-appropriate guide book for DC. The invitations themselves came together quickly after that (PDF).

To go along with that guide book theme, I modified this Esso map from 1942 from the BIG map blog to remove the pointer to the Standard Oil Building and replace it with a pointer to our venue (JPG). Including the map gave me the opportunity to add the “full color map included” declaration to the invitation itself for extra authenticity. The back of the map is our info card with details for the ceremony and reception and information about the hotel (PDF).

For the response cards I reserved an image of the Jefferson Memorial from the same souvenir folder I had used for the invitations (JPG). And here’s the back of the response card (PDF). The response cards include a link to the RSVP function on this very web site. This function is connected to our guest list to keep out casual snoops.

The fonts in the invitation packet are the same as this web site, with one addition. For the invitations themselves I added Futura, a geometric sans-serif font dating from 1927 in its original form.

For the printing we used Vistaprint and were very happy with the results. We were lucky that the USPS introduced commemorative stamps to celebrate the centennial of the cherry blossoms in DC, with illustrations of either the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial. These stamps were perfect for our invitations.

The invitations have been very well received. We are happy to share them with you.

Why Is This Man Shouting?

Representative Robert L. Mouton

Representative Robert L. Mouton, of Louisiana, practices for a hog calling contest

If you’re visiting our website, you probably received our Save the Date postcard. If you received our Save the Date postcard, you probably wondered what the story was with the photo on the front.

The photo, which we found via Shorpy, is from 1937. Rep. Robert L. Mouton of Louisiana, the man in the photo, is practicing for a hog-calling contest with Rep. Otha D. Wearin of Iowa. Mouton withdrew from the contest, so we’ll never know which state truly has the best hog-call.

Who are Nora and Nick?

Why hello! We’re so glad you stopped by to learn more about the upcoming wedding of Kate Debelack and Ed Poe.

But that doesn’t explain “Nora Meets Nick.” You’re right, it doesn’t. We realized we needed a new email account for wedding related emails. What better alias than our favorite movie couple, Nick and Nora Charles? The Thin Man is one of our favorite films, and there will be bits of inspiration from it as we plan our wedding. How could we not want  to throw a party that Nick and Nora would enjoy?

So who are the Poebelacks, then? We are. Our good friend Dan Via bestowed the name on us a few years back, and it stuck. We’re just like Brangelina, without the fame, fortune, or paparazzi.