Honeymoon Clothes

As promised... here are some pics of the stuff we bought during our honeymoon shopping trip last Saturday.  I hope the picture quality is ok... I took them with J's phone.

Here's what I got...

A few pairs of shorts and shirts
(yes, there's a white shirt there)

A super cute cover up/romper

Bathing Suits
(the flowery one will go with bottoms I already have)

and, of course the hat and bag!












Here's what J got...

A couple pairs of shorts and a bunch of t-shirts

Some linen pants and linen shirts

Two new bathing suits
















I may get another cover up, and I think J has a couple more things that he wants to get, but otherwise, when you combine that with what we already have (shorts and dresses and bathing suits) we are all ready for the bech honeymoon!  I really wish I knew where we were going...

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!!!

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!!!

Happy Valentine!

My Valentine's Day started at about 5:30 this morning.  I had jury duty today and had to get up REALLY early to be there on time... it's also continuing tomorrow (to be continued).

I did have my date with my Valentine to look forward to all day!  We started our celebration by pick up my wedding band... HOORAY!!! (also to be continued)

Then we went and had sushi (J's first raw fish experience) for dinner and it was awesome!  We just relaxed and talked and enjoyed each other.  Every time J buys me a card, it makes me cry... he's really good at picking awesome cards and he always writes really sweet things... this year was no exception!!!  When I was growing up, my parents usually bought each other two cards... a funny one and a mushy one.  SO, I have inherited those behaviors and I bought J two cards and put one inside of the other.  The mushy one was awesome... it said exactly what I wanted it to, and the funny one said something like
"No matter how stressful life gets, we'll always have one thing [open card] a corkscrew.  SO, inside this card I put J's "Valentine's Coupons.  One was a coupon for a bottle of wine to take to our favorite BYOB restaurant.  The other was a "gift certificate"... J recently bought new golf clubs so I paid for him to go have a swing analysis done.  In the spirit of learning how to play with our new toys, he got me a gift certificate for a class at Joann Fabrics so I can learn to use my new sewing machine!  HOW EXCITING! (also to be continued)

So, even though the day was long, it ended just the way I wanted it to... some time alone with my Valentine.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!

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!!

Slacking...

I'm sorry I didn't get anything written over the holiday weekend.  My parents were in town from Indiana so we had a weekend full of Thanksgiving, shopping, sleeping and activities.  Here's a quick recap...

Thursday - Turkey Trot in the morning, ran my fastest 5K ever!!!  Don't get too excited, I'm still slow.  Thanksgiving lunch/dinner with friends and some football and napping


Friday - midnight shopping (lots of good deals) and Steak n' Shake before going to bed around 5:00 am.  Then a day full of recovery once we woke up.  Dad and J went to see Harry Potter and mom and I did some more shopping.

Saturday - Mom and Dad caught up with old friends and J and I had 2 basketball games to work.

Sunday - a trip to the monstrosity that is the Dallas Cowboy's Stadium for a tour, then lunch and then some very skilled packing before mom and dad headed home.

It was much too short of a trip, but I'll see them again in a few weeks!!!

Also a very important part of their trip was the chance to get some wedding stuff back to Indiana.  They took a TON of stuff home with them... their car was packed really really tightly, but it's out of our apartment!  Although, I must say, it does not look a whole lot different in the "wedding corner" as I call it, so I'm not really sure how that happened.

There will be TONS of stuff do while we are in Indiana for Christmas and our to do list consists mainly of our DIY projects... pomanders, favors, centerpieces, card box, and the list goes on and on.  We also have to set up some meetings so we can get some stuff done, but I'm hoping that we can do that all in one day so that we can enjoy the holiday time and not spend the whole time on wedding stuff.  More to come on this later.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend... just a little preview of what's coming up in the next couple of weeks on the blog...

1. The Indiana to do list
2. Ring Bearer Pillow
3. The bouquets 
4. The pomanders

Stay tuned  :-D

Welcome Knotties!!!

This post is LONG overdue, since I've been one of the Knottie Bloggers for almost a week now, but I figured it's better late than never! I am SO excited to be one of the new bloggers on The Knot and I hope that the other Knotties enjoy my posts!

In honor of the new locale of my blog, I decided I would do a week long recap of what has led me up to today in my world of wedding...

It's Nice to Meet You...

I met my now fiance a few years ago when I started working at my current job.  At the time, he and I were both seeing people so our quick meeting was our only interaction for quite a while.  Fast forward 5 months and a couple of my co-workers and I went on YEA-cation (long story) to see our school's basketball team in the NCAA tournament.  J was there working so I was reminded of him, but we didn't really talk at that time.  A couple more months passed and he was playing in the golf tournament that my department hosts every year.  By now, we were both single and although it took almost the whole day, we did have a quick conversation on the putting green (this is where I picked him up), but it was mostly just small talk.  I thought he was cute, so I started some email flirting and after a few lunches together, we went our our first real date.  The night before, he told me that he had a job offer in California and was not sure if he was going to take it.  During our few lunch dates and HOURS on the phone, I had started to think that I liked him, but I barely knew him so I had to act excited for him because I was not going to be that creepy girl who told him that I didn't want him to leave before our first "real" date.  So we went out, and did not talk about the job offer... just got to know each other.  I never really believed in the idea of "when you find the right person, you'll just know", but that's exactly how I felt about him despite my attempts to deny it since I was trying to give myself a break from boys.  After our first date, though, I just quit thinking about it so much and let it happen.

That was the beginning of us being attached at the hip.  We went on vacations together, tried new restaurants, and met each other's families during the holidays.  It was so easy to feel comfortable with him.  I loved that I found someone that respected me, my job and my goals, and I love that he has made sacrifices that have allowed me to advance my career.  I don't have a 9 to 5 job, and neither does he, which can get really really  hard because there are certain times of the year when we don't see each other much.  But we both know that it's just part of the job and that we each love what we do.  Having someone who understands that and who supports that makes the weird and long hours a little more enjoyable.

Fast forward about a year and a half... New Years Eve (morning) 2009, and enter the happiest day of my life!

It was the perfect guy... perfect proposal... the perfect ring.  I was totally surprised and although I gave him a little guidance on the ring style that I like (round, vintage, sparkly), I am proud to say that he picked the ring all by himself and I couldn't have done a better job myself.

Boutonnieres

The boutonnieres were a chance for us to do something cool, the way we did with our Mothers'/Grandmothers' corsages... something fun and unusual.

This is one of the very first things I saw after we got engaged and loved it immediately.  J and I love to cook together and one of my favorite things about cooking is how you can completely change the way something tastes by just adding some spices.

So, I saw pictures of herb boutonnieres and knew that it would be perfect!  They are going to be super cheap and easy to put together and they are going to make the boys smell delicious  :)   Here are some examples.

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A little mint, a little lavender, a little baby's breath and viola!!! you have a great boutonniere!!!  I can't wait to play with this and decide what ours should look like!

Groom's Cake

We found the coolest groom's cake ever on the knot, and our plan is to make it ourselves...

We just have to figure out how to make it.  J's mom has a 12 x 12 x 6 tupperware that we can use for the bottom layer, but it's IMPOSSIBLE to find tupperware with square edges these days.  Probably because they are harder to clean, but basically all the new tupperware you can find have rounded edges, even on the square containers.

So, we will have to get creative between now and July and figure out how we can make it happen!!!

I keep watching these cake shows (Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, these shows are so popular lately) and I see them make parts of their immaculate cakes out of "cereal treats" as they call them.  The only difference between them and me is that I don't want to cover mine with ANYTHING, so I can't just trim the edges and make it square because then it looks like we cut the edges.

I keep wondering if we can use the paper mache boxes that I found online and originally intended to use for my card box (that I'm no longer making) to make sure we have nice square edges.  This is one of the things I'm most excited about making for our wedding, so I hope I can figure out how to do it! Suggestions are welcomed!

Tuxes

I have seen a lot of weddings lately where the groom and the groomsmen have not worn tuxes.  I understand that if you have a more casual style to your wedding then tuxes may not be appropriate.  I did give J the option to go with something other than tuxes, especially since our ceremony is outside in July, but he decided that he wanted to wear one!

I'm kind of excited by this for a few reasons...

1. I'm really excited about the boutineers that we are going to make and I feel like they would look awkward without the jacket to put them on... and when I say that I "feel" like they would, I really mean I've seen boutineers with no jackets and it and it does look awkward.
2. Unless people are buying the exact same brand of pants, shirts, etc. then the guys will not match.  I know that's a little ridiculous of me, but I like symmetry and I like things to match if/when they are supposed to.

So, we have looked at a few different options on vests and tie colors at various stores.  We also had to keep in mind that we have guys from all over the country, and I would prefer if they were all measured at the store that we are actually buying from since I feel like they probably train their employees the same way.

J made a comment one time that he liked how white on white looked on the groom.  I took that to mean, that it was he wanted to look like.  Although that's not really what he said, he still likes it and I guess we've decided that's what he's going to go with.  My dress is not white, so he will be wearing ivory.

We do have the option of purple or lime for the groomsmen.  The bridesmaids are wearing purple and the purples are not the same so we decided to go with lime for the guys.  We will probably do purple for my dad and maybe for the ring bearer (if he wears a vest), but that hasn't been finalized.

Here are what the ties (left) and vests (right) look like for our wedding party:

J

Groomsmen

Dad

The only one I'm still unsure about it my dad's.  I have seen some weddings where the dads are in a different color than the groom and groomsmen.  I have also seen weddings where the dad wears a different color tie and the same color vest.  That will definitely not be happening... in our colors, whoever was stuck wearing a different color vest and tie would look like The Joker.  Any thoughts/opinions are welcomed!

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...

The Guestbook and Ring Bearer Pillow

Just a quick update...

We went fabric shopping today.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a combination of patterns and colors to put together in a quilt?  IT IS TOUGH!!!  But we were victorious, and the fabric is currently being washed and will be cut into squares and put into a pattern before we leave Minnesota.

We also bought the satin for the ring bearer pillow and we even made its guts.  Let's be more specific... I, ME, MOI, yes... I made the guts.  It was my first experience with a sewing machine and I LOVED IT!  I need to get myself one so that I can go take some classes and REALLY learn to use it!  I am so proud of myself that the next thing on my list (after this post) is to call my mom and brag some more!

I'll post some pictures eventually, but I can go ahead and cross those two things off my list because as far as I'm concerned, if I'm not the one that has to finish making them, they are done!

OH, and we found 2 more teapots, bring our grand total to somewhere around 25... so we are almost 1/3 of the way done!!!

OH OH OH... I also talked to my photographer (Catie's Captures) and we have pretty much determined the places we are going to go for our shoot on Tuesday.  We are going to the tea house that has become a summer tradition, we are going to another cool place called The Orchard, and we still headed up to the lake to finish the day.  I can't wait...

ONE YEAR

I meant to post this yesterday, but was too tired after our Friday night date of pedicures and dinner.

ONLY ONE YEAR UNTIL MY WEDDING DAY!!!!!  WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!

That is all for now... I'll write more later.

HILARIOUS!!!!

Today on My I-Do It Yourself Wedding, one of the blogs I follow, I found the funniest thing ever!!!!

I think I'm going to send a copy of this to each of J's groomsmen (and keep one for him) in a couple of weeks with a note telling them that I'm excited that they are going to be a part of our wedding.

I'm not even going to try and explain because there's no way I could do it justice... you just have to check it out for yourself... Let me know what you think!!!

Before the Bachelor Party...

(note: it's a PDF... if you can't open it, download Adobe Reader for free here)

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.

Why I Have the BEST Fiance in the World...

I thought a few weeks ago that I wanted to be a golfer... not professionally... just for fun.  Anyway, I was looking at golf clubs and I was excited and then it go to be summer here.  Now I've decided that I might still want to be one, but not in Texas.  It's too hot to be outside for any length of time unless you are getting up at 6:00 am and I'm just not a morning person.  I told J that I probably wanted some golf lessons or cool golf shoes for my Birthday, but now that I'm going to put my golfing on hold until we live somewhere that's not so hot, that's off the Birthday list.

So then I decided that I wanted to read more.  I was talking to my friend at work and she was telling me that once she got her Kindle she started reading more and that she loved it.  So I started looking at e-readers and did my comparisons between them, read reviews and decided that I wanted a Kindle.

I actually did all of my comparing and decision making on the exact same day that I first mentioned that I wanted one, so it kind of went like this...

"{Talking to J} I think I want a Kindle.  {Still talking to J, but more to myself} OOOO, there's this other one by Barnes & Noble and it's the same price!  Oh, but people don't like that as much.  {Really talking to myself} Oh, Sony makes one too and it's a lot cheaper... oh, but it's a lot different than the other two.  Hmmmm... this guy's review is helpful... ok, that's interesting.  {Bringing J back to the conversation} OK, I officially want a Kindle.  Can I have one for my Birthday?"

J's response was, "if you're a good girl I'll get you a Kindle for your Birthday"

an of course I responded with, "I'm always a good girl, and remember how you got your Birthday present a little early???  Maybe I could get mine early too since we will be traveling"

So I took J to the airport on Friday morning to go visit friends and then I went to work and came home and there was a UPS note on my door so I went to the office and got the packages and the whole time I was trying to figure out what I ordered and how long ago I ordered it because I did not have the slightest clue why I was getting a package.

So I open the box and it's contents wrapped and there's a note

I will miss you this weekend.  Enjoy your new toy.  Happy Birthday (early).  I love you.

I tear open the paper, and there it is... MY KINDLE!!!!!  I'm so excited about it and I love it, but not as much as I love my fiance for being so thoughtful and sweet and for loving me so much!!!

What a Weekend!!!

I know I made a list of “things to come”, but before I can do that, I need to create a point of reference on how quickly this all happened. Looking back on the 5 days we spent in Fort Wayne, I’m pretty impressed with everything that we accomplished.

All you have to do is look at our itinerary… yes… we made an itinerary. You have to plan down to the minute when you are planning to interview 4 photographers, visit 4 reception/rehearsal dinner locations, try on dresses at 3 different places AND find time to eat and go to church on Easter Sunday.
We arrived on Thursday and didn’t schedule anything so that our parents could meet and spend some time getting to know each other. We also had the chance to talk to our parents about everything that we had found during our research and presented them with the following schedule for the weekend:

FRIDAY, APRIL 2ND
9:00am Goeglein’s Reception Hall
10:30am Catie’s Captures - Photographer
Noon LUNCH
1:00pm Ceruti's – Woman’s Club & Bergstaff Reception Halls
3:00pm Allen County War Memorial Coliseum Ballroom
5:30pm Photography #2
7:15pm Dinner – Grandma’s House

SATURDAY, APRIL 3RD
9:00am Photographer #3
10:30am Photographer #4
Noon - LUNCH
1:00pm Wedding Place - Lexi
1:30pm Parkview Field (Possible Rehearsal Dinner) – J
3:00pm Wendy’s Bridal - Lexi
5:00pm David’s Bridal - Lexi
7:00pm Dinner – Casa Grille

SUNDAY, APRIL 4TH
Easter

MONDAY, APRIL 5TH
Noon Leave for Airport

We did a decent job of planning. Only a few things changed. We cancelled the appointments with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th photographers (more info on this later) so we finished up a little early on Friday and I was able to move the first dress store to 11 am and go see Parkview Field with J. Even better on Saturday, most of the appointments took less time than we had planned so we were able to shorten the day and eat dinner earlier, which was good because I was STARVING!

We got to enjoy a really nice Easter with part of my mom’s side of the family and just relax. Monday looked like an easy day, but it too started early and included a lot of signatures and check writing… again, more info to come in one of those.

The moral of the story is, we got A LOT done and can proceed with a lot of other things now that we have a date booked. If you haven’t noticed above this post, there’s a countdown to the date… only 448 days until our wedding on July 2, 2011!!!

The Itinerary

On April 1, I will get on a plane and fly to Indiana for 3 days of crazy busy, planned to the minute wedding planning.  So far, we have just been trying to figure out our schedule.  J made us an itinerary and I have been filling it in like MAD!  We didn't actually realize that we would be traveling on Easter weekend when we booked our tickets, so there's a good chance that Sunday will accomplish 0% as far as the planning/shopping/interviewing goes, but one day off won't be so bad  :-D

During our time there, we are planning on visiting 4 reception locations and interview 4 photographers, and I will be visiting 4 dress shops and J will be checking out some church and rehersal dinner locations.  All of this will happen in a matter of less than 72 hours!!!

A few updates...

The Church
We have found some... um... let's go with interesting things that have come up with the church where we originally hoped to get married.  As I mentioned in my last blog, this is the church that my Grandmother has been a member for... well, forever.  This is the church where my parents got married and where I was baptized.  When I say that this is "the church" that all of these things happened in, I mean that the name of the parish is the same, and there are probably some other similarities.

The building is not the same one... the church where my parents were married and where I was baptized burned down in 1993.  They have rebuilt and although it does not quite compare to the beauty of the old chuch, it has it's own charm and beauty.

The priest is not the same.  I was baptized by the priest who married my parents, and he was at St. Mary's for a very long time.  Sadly, he passed away in 2004 after 30 years at St. Mary's, and it's just not the same.  I can't say for sure that their policies would be significantly different if it was the "old" St. Mary's, but I also can't say that they wouldn't.

- We are currently looking at close to $1,000 to use the church... that's a HUGE chunk of our budget.
- They will only allow us 3 hours at the church for set up, guest arrival, ceremony, guest departure, pictures and clean up.
- They do not want any children in the wedding party - which I have never heard of before.
- There is no where that J and his groomsman can get ready/hang out before the ceremony so they better be ready to go and not come too early.

Unfortunately we have not found an alternative yet.  There is a Deaconess (I'm not actually sure what her religion is) who performed my Grandfather's funeral service.  She was amazing and took great care in getting to know not only him, but also our family.  Unfortunately, she is not currently licensed to do weddings.

So I guess we can leave this section classified as: TBD

Invitations
When you have cool invitations that great, but I don't actually know the last time that I saved someone's wedding invitation because it was THAT cool.  What that means for us... SAVE MONEY!!!  We found a couple of fairly inexpensive options (less than $1 each) that we print ourselves, but non of them were anything special.

We were at Target last weekend and found these really fun invitations that fit our criteria of under $1 each, and they were more interesting that the ones we had found online up to that point.  So, we bought them.  They are not exactly one of our wedding colors, but what the hell... we will make it one of our wedding colors  :-D

They are kind of a bronze-brown color with cool flaps and pockets, and I think that all it should take us is a little bit of ribbon to pull it in to our color scheme.  So here, they are... a sneak peek...

One More Thing I Found...

When you are 1,000 miles away and there's a lot of "hurry up and wait" involved in your wedding, it gives you a really great opportunity to Google.  I must say... Google Images are the best, especially when I just want visual ideas and I don't want to have to read about whatever it is that I'm looking at.  I actually found this one on The Knot, and I don't remember the context, but this is a new idea that we have that you may just see on our wedding day!!!

SERIOUSLY... HOW COOL IS THIS!?!?!?



That's all I've got for now... if you are reading my blog, I would love to know!!  You can be a follower of my blog if you click on the button to the right and that will let me know who's reading!!!

PROGRESS!!!!

My fiance keeps telling me that I'm going to be ready for this wedding in May, and he just doesn't understand why I'm working on things when we have such a long time. Well, it's because I want to, and rather than the two of us sitting around doing research, I just want to do the research and then be able to give him the information so we can make a decision together.

So far, we have actually made progress... now that all of my bridesmaids have their formal invitation to be a part of their wedding, I can talk about my latest and greatest wedding planning success. After a few hours of wedding dress shopping (this topic will be covered at a later date) we switched gears and started looking at bridesmaids' dresses.

WOW... I had no idea that there were so many UGLY dresses out there. Who are these people who choose these ugly dresses for their bridesmaids so that they look better? Seriously... these girls are going to be in your pictures forever... I would think you would want them to look good!

Here was my list of requirements for my bridesmaids' dresses:
1. Looks good and FEELS good on everyone (this took strapless dresses out of the mix)
2. Something that is inexpensive (I was shooting for under $150)
3. Something that was fun and summery (knee length-ish)


So during our dress shopping, we mostly found things like this:

Yes... I know...

There are no words...

So, one of the girls and I went to the mall to do some non-wedding shopping and ended up checking at Macy's to see what they had in their dresses that could be used as bridesmaid dresses. Their selection was pretty disappointing, and none of the dresses hit that "inexpensive" requirement. We went over to Dillards, just to look and WOW!!!

First of all, I never knew there was such good stuff in Dillards, and I never thought I would find bridesmaid dresses there. We actually found three different dresses that we liked, and we were fortunate enough to have a great sales associate named Sarah who spent about an hour and a half with us and was SUPER helpful!!!

So... here it is...

It's royal purple (even though it looks kind of blue here) and yes... those are pockets. It looks really cute on everyone, no matter what their body shape is (and believe me... I have a BUNCH of different shapes amongst my bridesmaids) and it is so cute!

Let's talk about the most exciting part... the part that is going to get me an award. These dresses cost $45 each... yes... $45. I guess if you want to get technical, they are $48 with tax, but like I said... this is getting me an award, "Cheapest bridesmaid dresses IN THE WORLD"!

So, I bought out the store (in misses and petites) and the fantastic Sarah looked around the metroplex and figured out where we could get more!

I think I ended up buying a total of 15 of these and I mailed them to the out of town girls and so far, they work for everyone!!!! Now the only thing we need to figure out is shoes. I think I'm going to go with an ivory shoe, and everyone can just get whatever ivory shoes they want. We tried silver and it didn't look as good as we though, and I know that I'm going to get an ivory dress so that will tie things together (plus the dress looks super cute with pearls).

OTHER PROGRESS:

We have narrowed the photographers down to 4, who we will interview in April when we go up to Indiana to plan.

We have also narrowed the reception options down to 9. Yes, I know that doesn't sound like it's been narrowed down, but we had almost twice that many on my research list. So, we will have to visit those as well... it's going to be a very busy 5 days!

As of last Thursday, we have been engaged for 3 weeks, so I'm pretty happy with our progress so far!

December 31, 2009

Most people only see this day as the end of a decade, but it was so much more than that for me... it was the happiest day of my life. It's the day that my best friend asked me to marry him, and I never saw it coming.

The lights turned on in my room and they woke me up from my sick slumber. I had been fighting a sore throat and cold for the past couple of days and mornings are always the worst. He came in with a tray and said, "good morning honey, I made you some tea". He set the tray down and there was a miniature Winnie the Pooh tea set. It was complete with two cups and saucers, a tea pot, a honey pot and a creamer. Since I collect tea pots, my first question was "is this tea pot for me", excited that I was getting something to add to my collection. Buddy just laughed and said "yes, it's your tea pot".

He is always so thorough and cute and makes sure to do everything right and he poured tea for us, put in a little milk and a little honey. He poured a little more tea in each cup and the tea ran out. As he lifted the lid, it was like my only sense that was working was sight. I have no idea what he said (although I have been told that he said "I love you Lexi, will you marry me") and all I could do was look at the bottom of the lid. "Will You Marry Me" was written in his handwriting and the bottom of the lid held a small ball of yarn with a beautiful diamond ring tied to it. I was so surprised, and my only response was "Buddy" as the tears started willing up in my eyes. I hugged him and cried and I was so shocked and so excited. I picked my head up and kissed him and he said "you didn't answer me", and I laughed and said, "yes, of course".

He took out a small pair of scissors to take the ring off the yarn (he's always so prepared) and put the ring on my finger. It was so perfect... I could not have imagined anything better.