Wedding Wednesday

As you saw on Monday, I really love lace.  There is something so classic about it, and it just screams ROMANTIC to me.  For anyone who is trying to really pull in a vintage feel to their wedding, you can't go wrong with lace, and when I saw this amazing accessory, I had to share!!!

via

It may be something that is more appropriate for a bridesmaid than a bride (depending on the bride's dress), but I don't think you can go wrong with something that is delicate, but makes a great statement!

You can check out this and all my pins on my Wedding Wednesday Pinterest Board!

Happy Hump Day!!

Wedding Wednesday

For those of you who may need flats because you don't want to be taller than your fiance/husband or for those of you who just want flats because of the comfort factor, I think these are amazing and there's no way you can go wrong with them!!!

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I'm not a huge fan of the white things, but I do love the other stones on the shoe... they may be a little gaudy, but I prefer to call it "costume jewelry" or "I'm the bride, and I'll wear what I want".

You can check out all of my Wedding Wednesday pins on my Wedding Wednesday Pinterest Board!

Happy Hump Day!!!

Tights Please Give Away!

As promised, today marks my FIRST EVER blog give away!!!

I was contacted not too long ago by a wonderful lady from Tights Please, asking if I'd be interested in reviewing one of their products and doing a give away from their site.  Of course I jumped at the opportunity...

Last week, I received the Trinny and Susannah All in One Body Smoother, not part of their wedding line, but in their shapewear area.  Here's what it looks like...

As you can see, it provides "assistance" with a variety of areas that tend to be problems for ladies.  Here are the thoughts that went through my head as I was trying it on...

1. WHOA... there's some work involved in getting this on
2. I thought this was supposed to get rid of my saddle bags [adjustment made], OH... now I see
3. I like that it's not cutting into my legs at the bottom
4. I can breathe, but I feel like I'm standing up taller
5. I can sit down and then stand up and not feel like I need to adjust
6. I should have gone with the one with legs

Overall I really like it... would I wear it on a daily basis, no, but for special occasions definitely.  I love that it has straps... it stayed in place SO well.  Like I mentioned above, I wish I would have gone with the one that has "shorts" because I don't like when my thighs touch, AND living in Texas all I thought of when I was walking around my house in it was how much I'd sweat.

The website has A TON of other things on it, including some really cute lingerie, which in hind site, I probably should have asked Lauren (who I have been communicating with from Tights Please) to send me, since I definitely won't be able to wear this under my strapless wedding dress.  They are out of the UK so those of us in the US have to plan for that as far as shipping goes, but the pricing is SUPER reasonable and you can't beat the selection!!!

ON TO THE GOOD STUFF

OK, now you've heard what they have to offer... let's see what you think!

Tights Please has been generous enough to offer a "gift certificate" good for $80 worth of products from their website.  Here's what you have to do to enter in the drawing:

1. Follow my blog
2. Go to Facebook and "like" Long Distance Bride (yep, that's me!)
3. Go to the Tights Please website and find your FAVORITE product
4. Comment on this post with a link to your favorite product and an explanation of why it's your favorite!

You have until 11:59 pm CDT (Central Time) on Sunday (May 8) to complete your entry, and I'll select and post the winner by Tuesday morning!!  

Best of luck and enjoy the website!!

Wedding Bands - CHECK!!!

It's so awesome to get to cross the big things off of our list!  This was one of the things that took us a long time to get done.  We went and looked at wedding bands a few times and I was just never really sure what I wanted AND I also didn't want my ring to be priced excessively high.

So, WAY back in September I wrote about buying Jason's wedding band and made some notes about mine.  This was the original wedding band that I had gone and looked at and tried on and I just wasn't sure about it...

It's pretty, but it was way more than I thought we should spend and I overall, was just not sure about it.









So we went back to Robbin's Brothers a few weeks ago, where Jason bought my ring, and we looked at the ring again.  I don't know when, but I'm pretty sure that the ring changed.  It was a lot more square on the bottom than my engagement ring.  The guy tried to tell us that it was just because my ring had been worn down... yeah right.  If my ring wore down that much in a little over a year, the quality of their rings must suck. We decided that the ring changed... SO, we kept looking.

We went away from looking at Tacori bands (which is what my engagement ring is) and moved on to a different brand.  We found a ring that doesn't have three rows of pave diamonds like the first ring, but the diamonds are set the same, and look the same.  Here's the new one...

It's Ritani and you can't really tell, but the diamonds go all the way around the top of the band.  It's also skinny enough that it doesn't cover up the cool side detail on my engagement ring.










Here are some more pictures for you... please excuse how dirty my engagement ring is  :-D

SOOOO excited to have this crossed off our list!!!

Indiana To Do List

I am so excited to go to Indiana tomorrow.  I have been looking forward to Christmas since Thanksgiving, for MULTIPLE reasons...

1. It's Christmas... nuf said
2. Snow
3. Some time away from work
4. HOPEFULLY a finish to the wedding "planning" and maybe even some DIY projects done

So we leave on Friday evening, and we were lucky enough to get two of our three flights as direct.  We will start by going Texas to Indiana on Friday and then on the 29th, we'll go to South Dakota to J's sister's house, where i get to meet my almost-niece.  Then it's back to Texas on the 1st, but it will be 2 weeks of no work and all family!

SO, let's talk about number 4 on my list of reasons for excitement.  I have booked us pretty solid on Dec 21 with "wedding" meetings.  My mom and I are starting with a trip to the tailor to get my dress altered, and by altered, I need to have a hook and eye put on the bottom of the back opening so that it doesn't gap.  That's all I am willing to do to my dress, and no one will talk me in to more.  OH, and she's hopefully going to bustle it, too (rats... I just figured out that means I have to have my shoes with me... so much for only having to pack 1 pair).

After that, J and I have a meeting with a lady who may be the person who is going to officiate the ceremony.  Yes, we still don't technically have someone to marry us.  If we don't like this lady, we are going with my mom's friend's daughter, and that's that... no more searching.

Last meeting on that day will be at our venue.  We have a few things to do there... 1. meet with a party rental company to talk about reception lighting.  2. pick a purple table cloth.  3. Take some more pictures of the venue so I can a. post them, and b. have fun playing with them while I try and figure out exactly where everything should go.

ALSO, we have to go to the place where I've already put down a deposit for the guys' suits so J can see what they look like and approve them and I'm hoping they have SOMETHING that is not a computer screen to show us so I can see what the color of the green for the groomsmen really looks like.

ALSO ALSO, my flower girl will be making an appearance at the holiday festivities and I'm sooooo excited to get to spend some time with her, looking at flower girl dresses.  I can't wait to hear what her favorite styles are!!!

No, it's not nearly as much as we've fit into wedding planning days in the past, but it will still be a very full day.  The other wedding related tasks have to do with our DIY projects.  We have a birdcage/card box to spray paint, we have a flower girl basket to spray paint and accessorize, we have some teapots to spray paint (the shapes work, but the colors just don't), we have some flowers to put together so that we can just toss them in the teapots, we have favors to put together (this one is not essential), and we have 40 pomanders to make (this one is essential).  I'll feel SOOOO much better about my DIY projects and my long distance planning if I can get a good amount of this stuff done in the 10 days we are in Indiana.  I think right now, we technically have 3 days with NOTHING scheduled, so hopefully we can put some of those to good use!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GO!!!!

Ring Bearer Pillow - CHECK!!!

As promised on Tuesday, here is an update on my fantastic, DIY ring bearer pillow!!

You may remember my excitement that my first sewing machine lesson resulted in the insides of our ring bearer pillow.  Well, since it was my first lesson, I was not trusted (by myself) to make the rest of the pillow.  My FMIL has been working on both our guest book and the ring bearer pillow and I was SOOO excited to get a picture from her of the pillow!!! 

Isn't it cute!?!?!  I'm going to have to see it in person to make sure it's what I want, but I'm pretty sure it is!  It's not completely done... she has not fully attached everything... but as soon as I see it at Christmas time, I'm going to count it as complete!  One more thing checked off the list... WOOO HOOOO!

I'm not exactly sure how much it ended up costing, but I've done my research and something like this runs between $25 and $50 online... so I'm pretty sure I made out pretty well on this one, especially since it is the exact colors and look that i wanted!!

A DIY Update

I was contacted by Gottlieb and Sons about writing a post that could be featured on their new Facebook page.  They are a jewelry company who prides themselves on customized pieces for brides.  They were interested in my blog because of the DIY projects and the element of personalization they add to a wedding.

So, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity for me to highlight some of the DIY projects that I have planned, completed and in the works!  There's a full list of projects to the left where finished projects will be linked as they are completed, and if it looks overwhelming... it kind of is.

Semi-DIY
There are some things on my DIY list that would probably be better described as "homemade" because I'm not making them myself.  These include:
The Guest Book
The Veil
and The Ring Bearer Pillow (Pictures to come Later)

My Favorite DIYs

The Centerpieces

We've been to every thrift store and Goodwill in town and we have 35 of the 40 teapots that we need for our centerpieces.  We chose this for centerpieces because this is how J proposed to me.  I have collected teapots for the past 3 years, since I finished grad school and got my first real job.  So, on December 29, 2009 I received a cute little tea set with a ring tied in the lid and the words "Will You Marry Me" around the rim.

So, now we have searched high and low for teapots under $5, which we have been very successful finding!  I think we are averaging about $3 a teapot right now and we are using different shapes, sizes and colors!  Here are a couple of examples that my mom made up

The Favors

We chose a favor to follow three themes... DIY, tea and budget friendly!  I found this idea in my Martha Stewart Wedding magazine and LOVED it.  It's creative and they will cost less than $1 each to make!

Martha's are a little cuter than my first attempt, but I think once I get the hang of it, they will be fine.  I am really excited that we get to include our monogram stickers on the back of the teabag tag!

The Invitations

I knew that we wanted our invitations to be DIY because there are SO many options on invitation kits at Target and Michael's and stores like that.  We started with Target invitations that looked like this

We got them really early because we were afraid they would go away, and then decided that we did not need the RSVP card (we are requesting it by email/phone) so it made the pocket that we liked so much, obsolete.  I was also having a hard time incorporating our colors in to the invitation design and overall, I was settling for them.  SO, we took all of them back and started over.

We found some AWESOME petal fold envelopes and some really pretty ivory card stock that has a pearl sheen to it.  We are going to print on the ivory, mount it on lime green, and we will have all of our colors incorporated in a simple but pretty invitation!

The Pomanders

I have been tossing this idea around for a while.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to make pomanders because I didn't know where I'd use them or what I wanted to make them out of.  When I went back to Indiana a couple of weeks ago, I looked at the ceremony courtyard again and was reminded about how much white there is there.  I need a pop of color in the form of something that was easy to put in the space.  So I decided that pomanders were the way to go.  

I decided that tissue paper, while fairly easy, would probably not store or travel well and I was concerned about how they would stand up to the humid Indiana summer.  I also considered silk flowers, but let's be serious... that's expensive... I would need a lot of silk flowers to cover the styrofoam ball and we're trying to keep our decorating budget low.

So I found a "how to" for fabric pomanders here and thought that they could be a great, inexpensive option.  So, we went and got half a yard of fabric, which was just the right amount to make one pomander, and we tried it out.  The first attempt was not so good, but I quickly learned how to make the "flower" look out of the fabric and I think these are going to AMAZING!

I haven't added the string yet, but you get the idea.  I'm really excited about these and I'll have more updates once I finish it completed.  All I have to say about these pomanders is THANK GOODNESS I have 8 months to finish them... it takes a good amount of time to cut out all those circles!!!

I hope you've enjoyed by DIY update, and that 

you'll keep up with my DIY list on the left sidebar as the next 8 months goes by... eventually there will be completed pictures of everything!

I would love to know what DIY projects you are doing or you did for your wedding... you can never have too many ideas!

Hair... oh the stress...

This is going to sound ridiculous, but the most difficult decision I've had to make in the whole wedding planning process has been what my hair is going to look like.  I know that sounds so silly, but I'm very particular about my hair.  Here are my current criteria:

1. I have naturally curly hair and want my REAL curls present on the wedding day (not ones that come from a curling iron... my real ones are prettier)
2. I HATE my ears... they stick out and I hate how they look in pictures.  They have to be covered in some form or fashion
3. I have a veil that I'm so excited about and it will be incorporated into my hair style
4. I don't really want a full up-do because I want to look like myself!

I was planning on doing my own hair, but my cousin/bridesmaid works at a salon and one of the girls there has said that she will do my hair for $20.  So as picky and protective as I am about my hair, I'm going to give her a shot.  I have an appointment set for the morning of my bridal portraits as a "trial" and I guess we will see how things go with that!

I have been looking ALL OVER the internet for something that I like, and it's been SOOOO hard.  I've only found one option... here it is... what do you think???

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The Card "Box"

I've been thinking about what to use for a card box.  In my research, I've found a lot of really cute options...



















The DIY Bride

Megan and Michael

OR

Overstock.com


 My I-Do It Yourself Wedding

I was originally thinking about making the box cake, and I absolutely love the look of them, but then my mom offered a really cool bird cage that she's had for quite a while.  She said we can spray paint it or whatever we want to do to it, so why spend money when I can have that for basically nothing?  So, we are going to paint it lime green... add some purple ribbon and probably a piece of poster board at the bottom (so the cards don't slip out) and we will be READY TO GO!!!

SUCCESS!!! Major update...

A few weeks ago, I posted about my "vacation" that was going to be a lot of running around and getting stuff accomplished... so here's a progress report.

• Look for a DJ
• DONE!  We had two really great options and the decision is still pending
• Look for a place to have a rehearsal dinner
• We actually have a pretty big list of places to do more research on... this is not too pressing
• Find a hotel or two
• We are definitely going with 1 hotel because we were told that they are not busy on the 4th of July weekend so one hotel should be able to accommodate
• We are pretty sure we found one... more info to come, once things are finalized.
• Look for a Mother of the Bride dress
• Not only did we find a dress, we found that same dress online for half the price!!!
• My mom wants a second opinion (hopefully my aunt can reassure her) but that should be done soon-ish
• Get the approval for invitation wording, program wording, etc. from the parents
• Other than a couple of misspellings, they were approved.
• After going to J's cousin's wedding, we fell in love with the paper she used for their programs so we may be going with text only, because a pic probably won't look right on the pearly cardstock that we want to use.
• Look for fabric to go under the centerpieces
• Kind of done... J's aunt said we could have their table runners (purple) so we are going to use what she has and then order the other half in lime green and go half and half on the 2 colors.
• She said she would let us know where she got them so we could get the same brand/kind
• Take engagement pictures
• Done... look here for a recap
• It was so fun and I'm excited about bridal portraits in the fall

We also figured out that we have 30 teapots.  This is HUGE... we only need 10 more to reach our goal.  Thankfully my mom and dad have multiple garages where things like that can be stored  :-D

ALSO, I found a blue flower brooch that was my grandmother's, and instead of wearing her pearls (that would have to be restrung) for my something old and borrowed, I'm now going to use the brooch for my something old and something blue and my mom's pearls for something borrowed.

AND, we ordered and received the brooches (for the corsages) while we were at my parents' house.  They are fantastic and they are going to look great!

Last piece of important info... my dress is scheduled to arrive at the first of October, which means that bridal portraits amongst red and orange leaves will become a reality.  EVEN BETTER, the lady at the store told me that even thought I'm going to take my dress for pictures, I can bring it back to the store once I'm done and they will keep it until I need it again.  How great is that!?!?!

The FINISHED Veil

Going back to work today after 2 weeks off was really really hard.  As much as I enjoy being in a routine, I was also really enjoying my family time and we were getting a lot of stuff accomplished!

But when I walked in to my office today, I was greeted by a sweet little post it note and MY VEIL!!!  Back in June, I bought the stuff to make the veil and since I am NOT a sewer, I was just waiting on the fantastic girl who works for us to let me know when she was done.  I was actually thinking today, that I needed to ask her if she could have it done by October 1 so that I could book a date for bridal portraits, but then the finished product was there waiting for me!!!!

I can't say too much about my dress since J sometimes reads my blog, but my veil has to be simple, and I didn't want it to hide any of the fabulousness that is my dress, so I also wanted it short.  The finished product is awesome and I put it on and felt like a bride!!!!  I'm pretty sure when I see her next and ask her how much I owe her, she will tell me nothing, so I'll just have to think of something special to do for her instead!!!

Here it is...

I really only planned on wearing the veil for the ceremony, but it's so light and I hardly notice it's there, so it may end up staying on!  I'm so excited!!!