Our Wine

We had so much fun on Sunday bottling our wine... I wish we got to do it more often!  We got to Su Vino shortly after the opened and got a bottle of wine to share and some hummus and pita chips.  Then we got started!  Here's how you bottle wine  :)

1. Disinfect and rinse the bottles

2. Then you fill the bottle

3.  Then you cork the bottle

4. Then you put the foil top on the bottle and heat it so it shrinks

5. Then you take a break and have some wine...

... and some wine filled chocolates (these are AMAZING!!)

6. Then you put your back label on

7. And then your front label

AND THEN YOU'RE DONE!!!

Here's a picture of the label that Su Vino made for us...

It looks so cute with a purple foil top, and you can't really tell from this picture, but the green is perfect!

I absolutely LOVE this place... the ladies who work there remember us every time we come in and they are always so helpful and fun!  So, now we have 30 bottles of wine that are making the trip to Indiana with us.

If you're ever in Grapevine, Texas you should DEFINITELY visit!!!

Fort Wayne Planning - Recap

Sorry for the delay in getting this written... I've been spending time with my family instead of my computer (pretty good trade, if you ask me).

So, on Tuesday, we went and got my dress fitted, met with a potential wedding officiant and went to our ceremony/reception venue to make some final decisions and meet with the party rental place about lighting.  So here is a recap about the day...

Dress Fitting - although my cousin did document this occasion in pictures, I obviously can't put them on the blog.  The tailor is a really nice lady, but the dress shop (who is now closed) is not my friend.  They ordered me a size 12 in the dress.  I definitely could have fit in to a 10 and still had room.  This pisses me off because now I have to get it altered, including the lace, which is NOT what I wanted to have to do.  If you buy a lace dress, make sure you ask them what size they are ordering for you because it's one thing to have to take in satin, but lace is so much more difficult.  Hopefully my tailor is as good as she seems!!

Officiant - the lady that we met with is very nice.  She is also very organized, which I have an extreme appreciation for, especially since we are doing this from 1,000 miles away.  We talked to her and liked her and I don't really know what I'm looking for, but I wasn't immediately sold on her.  I didn't have that feeling with my dress, either, so maybe I'm just not that kind of bride.

We don't have someone here who either of us grew up with.  The priest that married my mom and dad and baptized me passed away quite a few years ago, and there isn't really anyone else who knows both of us and would be good at officiating the ceremony so I think that the nice officiant who is very organized, has good ideas and is in our budget is going to be as good as anyone else we will find.  CHECK.

Reception Venue - I need to start this section by talking about how fantastic Callie is at Ceruti's.  She is our event coordinator and she is so helpful, she keeps in mind that we are on a tight budget and she has been fantastic to work with.  I would recommend contacting her if you are thinking about booking a Ceruti's venue.

Being in the room makes things SO much easier to visualize and decide.  We picked out our table cloths in about 3 seconds.  We decided that we are going to do a two tiered head table so that we can center it and put pipe and drape behind it that we can up light.

Those are really the only decisions that we had to make there, but it was nice that J got to see the place again... it's been a while since he was there.

Lighting - the biggest "issue" I/we had with the reception venue was the lack of color.  Obviously, it's nice to be able to incorporate your own color into a blank slate, rather than having to deal with an already existent colored decor.  We decided that we wanted to add some color through lighting on the walls so in October, my mom and I went to a party rental company and this week, they came out to Ceruti's and met with us to make a final decision on how many and what color.

She brought colors that were exactly what we want... a dark purple and a lime green and they are going to be great!  We are putting lights on three of the four walls.  Initially we were going to only light two of the walls, but the one we weren't going to light is the one you see when you walk in, so we added three lights for that wall and we are all set!  The lights are going to cost about half as much as I thought they were, so that was a bonus as well!!!

Flower Girl - I also so my flower girl today and talked to her about a dress.  I decided I really want her to have lace on her dress in some form or fashion.  I found a few options, but I think I'm going to ask Jason's mom again if she could make a dress with specific measurements and then she could have it altered here.  OR, I may check and see if the lady who is altering my dress could make a flower girl dress with some of the lace from my dress that she has to take off.  Hopefully I'll figure out what direction to take on this in the next week or so.  I'm kind of apprehensive about buying a dress online, so that would be my last choice, but here are the dresses I found online and liked.

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There's also been a lot of projects going on around the house, but there's more to come on that later!!

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!!!!

Escort Card Display

With as many guests as we plan on having at the wedding, we needed a creative way to display escort cards, but something that also wouldn't take up a lot of space.  I got this idea from Danielle, another DIY bride, and I think this is something that we could do!

It's as simple as a couple of foam presentation boards, some spray paint or fabric, some ribbon and a couple of easels.

They are simple, and when you put a folded escort card on them, they look great

Plus, with something as light and simple as this, we can expect to fit two on an easel like she did

I think this is going to be a great option for us, and I'm really excited to make them!!

Pomanders

I'm really torn about how to decorate for the ceremony... we are going to have an arch, but I can't decide if I want the white arch that we can rent from the ceremony/reception venue, or if I want to borrow the beautiful dark metal arch that my mom's friend offered (used in her daughter's wedding in June).  I don't know which will look better with my ivory dress, in the light colored courtyard (white stucco walls and white cement floor),

There are also going to be white chairs... yes, I know weddings are white, but come on... how can we incorporate some COLOR!?!?!??!

As I read the blogs I follow, I find really cute things that people are doing and then I do some more research and find other ideas that piggy back off the first idea and then I can't decide...

Today's tough decision... POMANDERS... to use, or not to use.  Here are some examples...

Tissue Paper

The DIY Bride

Silk Flowers

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Fabric

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Fresh Flowers

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Silk Flowers

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They seem easy enough... no matter what you make them out of.  The part I'm having a hard time deciding is how much time I really want to put into these.  I really like the size of the ones in the last picture... smaller versus larger.  I just don't know, at this point, how much time I want to put in to them... do I want to make the flower (tissue paper or fabric) or do I just want to put the things together (silk flowers) and hope they fill in enough.  Either way... add them to the list.

OHHHHHHHHHHHH the Invitations

So, we originally started with these (DIY from Target)

BUT, we were having lots of problems trying to incorporate the wedding colors on the invitations.  We were going to do a green hydrangea in the background and some purple words, but we just could not get the colors right.  Also, as much as I love the pocket fold design and the fantastic price, they were never going to be what I wanted them to be... plus, we don't really need the pocket anymore, since we are requesting an online or phone RSVP.

So we started looking again, and found some really great stuff... good prices, great colors and i think it will be much more of what I really want.  I don't want to get too far ahead of myself since no final decisions have been made, BUT... here's a sneak peek... more to come later.

The Guestbook Quilt

OK, not only did we purchase the fabric, J's mom cut it into squares and we layed it out.  Talk about progress... I'm OFFICIALLY crossing it off my list now that it's out of my hands and into the hands of the future MIL.  I thought I would share the "finished product" with you...

June 19 Wedding

Last night, J and I went to a fantastic wedding.  I know the groom from my work with an arena football team when I was in college and he and I have stayed in touch since then.  I came back to Texas after grad school and he invited me to come to a football game and told me that this girl would be there who recently started working with him, who had been on a couple of dates with, and who he really liked.  So I met her and loved her.  So, when I met J, it was my turn to tell my friend about this guy I met and how great he was and of course, he wanted to meet J.  Since then, J and I have seen them 3 or 4 times a year and we always have such a great time with them.  They live a few hours away and we've taken turns visiting and they have always invited us to a football game or two each year.

They are both super creative and talented peole and they used their creativity for SO many aspects of their wedding.  The colors were fantastic... inspired by a pair of shoes she loves, and affectionately called "circus colors", this was their pallet:

Dark Red / Royal Blue / Light Blue / Gold / Cream

I must admit that when my friend told me this, I wondered how much it would actually look like a circus, but the colors were very minimal, but knowing that was their pallet, I could see how they pulled those colors in and they were all used very tastefully.

I wish I had a facility that would lend to my colors because I would not have to find ways to incorporate my colors as much as I feel I do.  The room we are in is black and white... A LOT of white, so I need to find ways to push my colors because I don't have a space with character.

They had so much character in their space.  They got married at Hamilton Twelve which is totally in the middle of nowhere, but it was fantastic.  It has a Spanish influence to the architecture, a great outdoor space, and the food was phenomenal.  They also had a good band, and a super fun photo booth that they used ot create their guest book.  It's great what you can do with a small-ish guest list.

It was so much fun and it made me think a lot about stuff for our wedding... which I'll talk more about later.