Bride Day - Friday

I cannot believe that it's been almost a year since we got married and I have not shown you my amazing bridal portraits!  I guess I can't say that I can't believe it... we haven't done our "After I Do" session and we don't have ANY wedding pictures printed or up in our house.  I know... ridiculous.

SO, check out these amazing pictures and let me know which ones you like best... I feel kind of weird putting up pictures of just me, so let me know how you think I should use these pictures, too  :)

AND, while you are checking out my pictures, you can also check out my photographer, Catie's Captures, on her website, Facebook page and blog!

my favorite...

Hope you all have a great weekend!  I'll be back next week, getting ready for my cousin's bridal shower!

Meet My Dress

I stole this idea from my fellow blogger at "Saying I Do" and I'm so excited to show off the most beautiful dress I've ever worn.

My dress was created by Maggie Sottero... her name is Grace.

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I tried on a lot of dresses.  I went shopping with a group of bridesmaids to start with and never really felt like it was an exciting experience for me.  I'm sure part of that is because I knew I wanted to go shop with my mom before I made a final choice.  When I went up to Indiana and shopped wit her, I went through a lot of dresses and never had that teary, emotional, can't hold it together moment that you see on "Say Yes to the Dress".

Apparently I was not meant to have one of those moments... I'm probably too logical a thinker for that.  I am someone who compares one thing to another... I don't often make decisions based on emotion, and although a lot of the major decisions in my life have been accompanied by a sobbing breakdown, this was not one of them.  There are a few dresses that were contenders...

Pretty, but not perfect, although I thought it was at first

Beautiful, but too expensive

This was definitely a contender!

Just kidding... but if I ever go to the Oscars, this is the dress!

This is one that the Bridesmaids liked a lot

In the end, nothing compared to this...

The first time I ever tried it on...

I love the lace...

I love how it fit me, and how it made me look in pictures... 

My favorite of all of my bridal portraits by Catie's Captures

Who needs a tearful "moment" when you love your dress this much for the long haul?

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!!!!

HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY!!!

My wedding dress is HERE!  I'm so excited and I can't wait to put it on!!

I'm taking bridal portraits on Friday and my mom and I were both worried that it wasn't going to make it in time, BUT IT DID!!!

That's all for now... I have to go watch Glee.  More about my trip to come!!!

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!!!

Coming Soon!!!

I had a request today for a new post.  Here's a preview of what is coming soon...

- THE DRESS!
- The Ceremony and Reception
- The Photographer
- What Comes Next

I promise I'll get an update on the Wedding Planning Weekend up ASAP!!!