Random Michael's Find

While purchasing some odds and ends for invitations, I saw some stickers in the Scrapbook area I had to share.

Apparently not only bride-bloggers Swoon, but bride stickers do as well.

Wedding Photographer

Just a short-handed update about the plans for early today. We got the photographer booked! We met with her on Saturday and I was really stressing about prices and the whole money thing in general. Shawn and I have out-of-pocketed quite a bit together and the last major expenses--Bunnymoon and Photographer--were turning out to be a choice between the two rather than things we needed to buy. When we met with her one of the first things we asked was "How much will this be?" She gave us prices and said something along the lines of Shawn's Mom and Aunt are taking care of the engagement and wedding photos...

Literally every ounce of stress fell off of me. I almost didn't believe it was that easy for it to be solved so we went to Shawn's parents' house the next day to see if we had understood the photographer correctly. If it was, hugs were due. They confirmed what we had heard and I was so happy that I was able to stomach a Twighlight movie with his dad for an hour.
After my epiphany on Friday I've learned to allow myself to be helped and to be receptive to all the help I'm being offered. I do need however, more fingers and toes to count my blessings on. The animals and Shawn's digits are not enough and they're annoyingly ticklish. I'm so happy all the time now... Please bear with me in my new state Y'all.
Also beware: I've started the plethera of DIY projects! I plan to post up my ring pillows I'm crocheting for my first DIY post either later or tomorrow.

What's Really Left To-Do

133 Days!

It's not a secret that wedding planning takes a ton of work. However, what's not thought about enough or talked about in wedding magazines enough, is the work that everyone who lovingly agrees to be a part your day has to do. I was making a Final To-Do List for the last 4 months that are coming up in less than 2 weeks. My nonverbal thought was working over time trying to feel out all the things I had to do and then translate that to words on a list.
I kept getting this feeling of SO much to do that I couldn't possibly do it all but I've already gotten so much done and I seem so organized... What was giving me the feeling was the thought of all the people in the wedding getting ready that day and meeting us at certain times in certain places and driving there and getting dressed for it and ya, ya, ya... It hit me! The total amount of work is much bigger than the work that we are doing on our own. The people who are coming and all my family that's helping me with the wedding are doing a ton, too!
Suddenly my shoulders didn't feel so heavy and I realized I have not just one more reason to be happy, but nearly 100; as many reasons to be extra happy and positive about all this work as I have people that are coming to our wedding.
All the parents of the little kids in our wedding have to get the kids ready, get themselves ready, and be down to a venue at a certain time with everyone for a wedding on a weekday when most people just got home from work. Thank you.

Our family and all our friends who are coming are going to do the above from either Michigan, California or another state, plus buying a gift if they like, and show up on a weekday at a crazy time of day. Thank you.
Everyone who has made us so happy by saying yes to standing up for us has agreed to buy an outfit, be there for pictures earlier in the day, be there for us with the things we need that day, take off work, buy a gift if they like, and spend almost the whole day with us. Thank you.

My parents are gifting us our ceremony site, the entire reception and my dress. They've also been there through every manic phone call in the
previous months over when the lady will alter my dress and who-the-hell-is-bringing-who's. For all this, being my parents and loving me & my Shawn I can never say Thank You enough.
Shawn's parents bought our invitation supplies, our flowers and his mother made all of our centerpieces for us. His mom's craftiness and never-ending supply of ideas has been wonderful. Thank you.
I can't help but get choked up because I've never felt so much love as I am feeling now from our families and friends. Thank you to everyone for all your help with absolutely everything. We love you so much.

Accessories Time!

I have finally found supplies and inspiration for my headpiece! I found a website that had everything I needed for my swag pieces, headpiece, head table and I even got a few extra faux sunflowers. I'm going to use some bark-covered wire for the main part of my headpiece.

Bark Wire

The stuff is 1/8" thick so to show up in my hair, I'm going to braid 3 pieces of it together. I may intertwine a piece of blue embroidery thread in with the braid to make it stand apart from my darker hair color. We'll see. The shape of the headpiece is inspired by a Bella Bleu's that I found while looking at the wonderous droves of accessory photos on The Knot.

Bella Bleu design

I'll attach the flowers and leaves somewhat similarly to how this is laid out. One large sunflower, two smaller ones on either side of it and lots of green leaves on the left side by my ear.
Now I collect shoes, but I never wear them. I collect them, put them on my shoe shelf display and admire them forever. I only bring them down for dates, interviews and other such elevated occasions. Our wedding is an elevated occasion, but I will not be donning a pair of heels at any point during the Day. For the wedding itself I'm not even going to wear shoes; I'm going to be a barefoot bride and my fiance is wearing hemp rope sandals. However, I do not want to get stepped on at the reception! I'll be cutting a rug with Shawn all night and I will be wearing some matching girly-versions of Shawn's shoes.

I'm going to add just a few tiny sunflowers to the top ropes!
With the addition of my garter I realized I am DIYing all my accessories. Wish me luck. A while ago at Michael's I found my blue ribbon for my dress lacing and for my garter along with some crochet lace trim for the main part of the garter. It'll be one of those thick vintage-look ones.

I got some supplies at Joann with which to make some headbands and barrettes for the girls. I got an assortment of plastic headbands and metal french barrettes and yellow grosgrain ribbon to wrap and cover them with. I'm currently crocheting daisies and leaves to felt and then sew onto the accessories. I'll probably hot glue a ladybug on for good measure as well.

Flower Girl Dresses

When Shawn & I sat down months ago to visualize the wedding, we made a list of things we love whether they would "work" or not just to have a sense of true direction. Plaid was on the list because Shawn loves it and I think it's super-cool and cute. I never thought we'd get a touch of plaid squeezed into the wedding... and THEN my mother got the Find of the Year Award lastnight for finding my flower girls' dresses.

PLAID, LOVELY AND YELLOW!

 I could not ask for more. They're from a website called Pink Princess and they're only $40. We're done looking for these dresses as far as I'm concerned! Now I just have to find Junior and Regular Bridesmaids dresses. I'm hoping to go the Anthropologie route...

I have these baskets for the girls already.

I think I might just get some yellow ribbon and daisies and hot glue away. I have found sunflower petals online that they could sprinkle but I was trying to think outside the box. I'll just let it come to me like so many of the other details I've found so far.

Unity Candle, Schmunity Schmandle

141 Days to Go!

I started thinking about the ceremony last month in depth with Shawn and we have decided and re-decided some new things. I wanted a basic, bare-bones let's-run-through-this ceremony because I am going to be a mess of crying and emotions the whole time. I wanted to walk down the aisle with both my parents(I'm an only child), exchange Shawn & I's vows, rings, kisses and do the receiving.
I know, I skipped a Unity Ceremony! I think the candle is silly for us. We're having an outside wedding; can you imagine if it blew out?! I don't think I like the symbolism of that...



Other options I found like Hand fasting is cool--but we're not wholly Pagan.




The snap-together crosses they have now are neat--but we're not Western Christians!

It's not that I'm obsessed with doing something based on or off religion it's that I just want to do a Unity Ceremony that means something to us. It's not enough for me to take time out of the ceremony for something I just think is "neat."
I tried researching Rastafarian customs but I found no surprising information: Rastas do whatever they want. That is the custom. 

Then I found Bellenza and they swooned me away into a land where I'm not overanalyitc about this becuase someone else already has been! I found some great inspiration on this page and I bet brides in a similar position will, too. There's things there that I've never though of before like the idea we ultimately chose: Plant a flower/plant together for the Unity Ceremony.

 

I may need one or two of these...



This is perfect for Shawn & I because we garden and started to grow our own food last Summer! He was thrilled when I presented the idea to him. I think we will go buy another nice plant to add to our established forest from the Plant House and use it for the ceremony. If I get one of these bunny planters we'll put a blue ribbon on its neck and maybe paint the eyes. I'm going to put ribbon on the mini shovel handles, too. Then after we add the last two scoops of dirt at the wedding we'll put it aside and save it to take it home. I love this idea and I'm so excited to get the things I need for it!

Wedding Magazine Karma

I don't go to Barnes & Nobles very often but my particular visit on Friday was a might interesting. I went in search of a good wedding magazine--the very idea should have indicated a problematic journey--only to be a big pain in their butt and embarass myself mildly and the staff more.
I came in the store and said hello to the new position in the company: the greeter/loss prevention associate. They are in place simply to make eye contact with you and say hello in order to deter your chance of stealing, given there is one, by around 33%.
I walked over to the magazine section and I saw out of the corner of my eye the Men's Interests section. I saw lots of articles in plastic bags and some without that had cars on most of them.

I continued to the Women's Interests section and saw Wedding, Sewing, Cooking, Makeup, Fashion and Cosmo-esque covers. 

This is all we're interested in, eh?

I started to go through the wedding magazines only to find ones that would have been perfect for me when I just started planning. Where were these books 5 and a half months ago? I skimmed about 10 magazines before making an unintentionally verbal noise of dissatisfaction and threw the last one down. I went to find an actual book and that's when the trouble started.
I dropped my phone and the case cracked on the floor spilling the phone and the battery cover and everything everywhere. The battery had fallen out but it had gone under the book display right in front of the Starbucks. I went to the Help Desk and told the lady what happened and she brought a broom over to try and scrape it out.
It didn't fit under the display.
She brought a ruler but it was too short.
By now Starbucks theater was fully on and another lady came over to help. She suggested pushing it and moving it to get the battery. When the display was moved it made a great skidding noise to ensure everyone in the vicinity was looking if they had lost interest before. Underneath it was the battery and about 6 years' evolutionary development of a species of Amazonian dust bunnies.

 A general Ew passed round and everyone returned about their business. Thank you to the Associates; I understand you only work there but you helped anyway.
Now if the store could only do something about their ridiculously gender-segregated book selections. I don't want to reach over some dude looking at Hustler to reach that Auto Body book with the article on hot candy-colored paint.

Dress!

Before I go posting pictures and posts all willy nilly about accessories, I want to share a little about my dress.
I had wanted a non-white wedding dress when I first started thinking about getting my wedding gown. I wasn't sure whether I wanted yellow or purple but I found some Vera Wangs that got me in the mindset.

By the time I had stressed out so much about the price of the Vera Wangs I realized it would never happen. I did find a company online that specializes in replicas that are about 10% of the price of an original so I emailed them. They seemed legit and I talked to some other online brides who had used them, but the handpainting on the green "Didi" Vera Wang just wouldn't be the same on the replica.

I had dreams about the wedding but never saw my dress. Some of my Offbeat Bride Tribe-sisters told me they had dreams about theirs and they paid attention to the details and used them in their actual wedding. One night I had a dream I was climbing the stairs in my venue into the reception area and I had a lucid moment during the dream where I looked down at my dress and saw the top in great detail. I also saw that it was a shade of white so I disregarded it.

My mother said we would go shopping and just see what was out there so I agreed. I went once by myself to try one in every silhouette without a biased opinion (a positive bias, but biased nonetheless). I went once with my fiance to show him one I ended up hating in the end. Then I went to the Nebraska Bridal Outlet. People--- seriously. I'd heard from one bride who is smaller than me and one who is larger and they both got a dress there. Now this I had to see. It is a 45 minute drive into the bleak rural area West of Omaha to a place called Wahoo.

I walked in with my father, mother and fiance. They let my mom bring her dog in her pup stroller! As always, the HiLLjO-sized section looked bleak. I grabbed one out of that then went to a rack of my-size samples they had just gotten from a show. We tried on a bunch, some were pretty and some we didn't bother zipping. A couple of girls had found their dresses already since I had come into the store and they were shrieking their delight for the whole salon to hear. I looked at my mom with tears in my eyes "Mommy, I want my wedding dress." She hugged me, said "We'll get it. Let's go get that broad out there," and out we went again. I told her I was looking for a lightweight trumpet style and she took me over to the sample rack. She described one I had in the room and had no luck with. I sighed and threw my head back in exasperation.
Would I have to make it?

When I looked back down I saw a gown sticking out of the regular rack within the average sizes that someone failed to shuffle back into place. You know when you're trying wedding dresses on and they tell you it looks different on the rack than on you? Well I hoped it wasn't true with this little number because I loved it from inside its plastic bag before trying it on. We took it to the room and my mother and I wanted to lace it up in order to kill time and to see what it really looked like. As I was gettin sinched I started to look at the top.

All be damned if two things didn't happen:
1)I understand what deja vu is and 2)I cried. Deja vu is where you dream about something happening and then it happens when you're awake. The feeling is the remembering. This dress I remembered... from my dream! I told my mom "I know this is the one. I'm crying. I only want to see it all at once." I stopped looking even though I already knew and she finished the tying so we walked out to show our guys. I couldn't stop smiling the dress even felt good on. My dad says "She likes this one, look at her face," to Shawn. I got in front of the mirror and the magic happened.

We all stopped. We knew.

I'm not posting up what I look like in the dress but this is the manufacturer's picture of it.

Note that it will be much different looking when I am done with it. So this is my wedding dress story. I wish everyone would share theirs.

Boudoir Sessions

I don't understand the whole Boudoir wedding photos. Rather, I do not like it. I know the premise of it, but what I don't understand is WHY this way?! Okay, you buy underwear that only your future husband should see you in, then you go to your photographer (who will see you just for engagement & wedding day sessions) and take it all off for them? This just doesn't sound right to me and usually when I get that feeling I'm right. I get that same feeling seeing how much information is shared on our FaceSpaces or Mybook or whatever it's called. Then people get robbed.


Think about if the tables were turned around here, ladies. Say your fiance gives you a present on your wedding day in the form of a photo book. You open it and it's him losing more and more clothes until he's in his underoos. My first reaction would not be MEee-Ow! It would be, "Who took these. Seriously." So when your hubby gets his boudoir photos of you, beware the "whosawyoulikethisotherthanme?!" reaction because honestly, he's right.
Just because you're getting married doesn't make it okay for some photographer to see you in lingerie that should be a surprise reserved for your Love., Just because it's someone's job doesn't mean they wouldn't latently enjoy you prancing around while you're in denial because "they're a professional." People are people, lingerie is lingerie, and wearing it alone with someone you're not supposed to is wrong. This is my opinion, my blog and this is what we're wearing over here.

PS: My Shawn would be especially miffed as he takes photos and would feel very hurt if someone else took photos of me, especially photos like that.

PPS: I'm especially inspired to write this post because I have been seeing some gals that will post their boudoir sessions or submit them to other blogs to post up for everyone to see. That is especially disgusting.

Small Details

From Party Frosting



I'm a huge fan of the paper cones filled with flowers that you see hanging off the backs of chairs along the aisle at a wedding. I saw these hot off the press from Kim at Party Frosting this morning and I got a similar feeling to how I felt when I saw my wedding album. These cones are going to adorn the chairs along my aisle with a blue ribbon instead and they'll have little daisies, sunflowers and greens popping out! I'm so ecstatic to see this idea! Why didn't I think of that?!

 Both images from The Knot

Venue Love

It's occured to me that I have not put up any pictures of my venue! Here I have a few of the pictures of the place where the ceremony and the reception will be. It sits on the Missouri River in Omaha.

Here is the upstairs area to the right of the doors when you walk in. The cake will start out occupying this space before it is removed and the buffet replaces it. You can see the restaurant below if you look into the portholes!

This is the window behind where the head table goes. The window faces East so no one will be blinded at sunset during dinner or dancing!!!



My FMIL hand painted 17 of these beauties for me to go on the tables

 



This is it! This is the ceremony site.



The corner there on the right will be where we're standing and the chairs will be placed in triangle-shaped sections on either side of the aisle. It can accomodate 75 chairs right now as it is. The patio ceiling has white lights strung across it so it will be beautiful as the night goes on.

The venue has informed me however, that they may plan to do some renovations to make the upstairs patio twice as large by April. Not only would that make sure ALL our guests get to be on the patio, but then we wouldn't have to rent lapel mics or speakers for those who have to watch from the head table window and need to hear. That's fine with me!

I wanted to put up pictures of my garter and shoes but I'm going to work on my headpiece this weekend. So I will save something for Monday to post about and just do an accessories entry! YAY!

Rehearsal Dinner

I know it's a little early to think about the reheasal and the dinner but my mom has been calling me about some details surrounding it so it's on my brain. I first wanted to do our party in blue like the wedding and because Shawn likes blue. I though Navy would be different from the wedding blue so I started there. I found a post at HWTM that had a modern navy and orange baby shower. I LOVED the pictures. So I stole the palette, added some animal print details and bada-bing: Wildly in Love Rehearsal dinner.

My work has so many nice jungle decorations that I ordered all my supplies from there. I'm going to group the lanterns together with some of the vine and hang them over the main food table. I have the tropical leaves for placemats and some gorgeous serving bowl sets for salad or rolls.

I'm also planning on making some mini vases for the tables using animal print scrapbook paper wrapped around toilet paper tubes. You slide the tubes over some votive holders, add water and an orange day lily -- Voila!

Invitation Progress

My FMIL bought us our cardstock, outer envelopes and rsvp card envelopes for my DIY invitations! It's amazing!

They all match in a really nice blue color. All we knew was we wanted colored envelopes and I thought about doing recycled paper. We didn't know whether we could find such a thing--let alone afford it! So she started asking me about them yesterday and got into a discussion about how insane I am for wanting to do hand calligraphy on them myself.
I know. I always have insanely lofty goals for DIY projects but I swear my madness can achieve a good end result! My family has so little faith in me!
We reached a consensus that we would have the mounted information printed and our names would still be hand written on the invites. So she offered to buy the printing at Kinko's or wherever and that she wanted to look for the other items. So we googled up some envelopes and cardstock and found Paper Jam that has an insane amount of paper items for very good prices. And we found blue envelopes and cardstock that were recycled. Exactly what we were looking for and then she bought them. Thank you Mama Donna.
So here's a mockup graphic of our invitations!

Martha Stewart is Never Disappointing.

Tomāto, tomäto; insider trading, smart business insight... anyway!

I found my wedding photo album!!!

Look how beautiful! I just went to Michael's the other day to get paper only and saw this in the Martha Stewart area. Damn Martha; I could not resist. It was only $19.99 though and my stomach fell on the floor with certainty that this was Ours. I have faith now that our hodge podge photo plan will be okay. We are supposed to have a family friend of Shawn's Aunt do most of our photos on the day of the wedding. I'm having my dad take some portraits because he is so darn good at them and I'm also putting reusable cameras on the tables for the guests to catch good moments.
After all the photos have been taken I'm going to photoshop them myself to make them amazing and perfect like real life cannot. I've been retouching photos for YEARS and I'm very confident I can do it instead of paying for it. Then I'll print and put all the pictures in my beautful handmade photobook to have and to hold forever. Shawnie got my computer fixed for me so I can actually use my photoshopping. Thank you, Bunny.