A geeky rehearsal invite

After catching a post about people using their Wii Mii's (or something with lots of i's) on their wedding invitations I had the idea to make our rehearsal dinner invitations using a fancy pancy Lego character creator (I wasn't allowed to play with Lego's when I was little but my guy loved them).

First I downloaded a really fun program from Lego.com that lets you build kits that you can later buy (if you so choose), then to make the characters I used a simple program on-line.

I haven't gotten much further than this, but I thought I'd share.And yes the groom is dressed up as Han Solo (closest I could get to a tux) and I don't have DD's now to just come up with some wording.

A trip down memory lane

In reading That Bride's beautiful proposal and seeing her very unique engagement ring I was thinking about sharing my own proposal.

It's quite a bit different, quite a bit goofy, and quite a bit unromantic. So it's just like me.

I suppose this needs some backstory first (well I mean even more backstory than the other backstory I'm telling), we spent a good 2 years doing the long distance thing (which really sucks by the way) so marriage would come up but towards the end I was just happy with living in the same town as him again.

Come this August we moved into our apartment (I know we do our laundry in sin! Never mind just how evil cleaning the toilet bowl while living together is) and at the same time visited our favorite Greek restaurant and saw they were having an Oktoberfest beer dinner in October. We both thought it'd be fun, for me all the German food, for him all the beer.

Fast forward to October and it's the night of the dinner. I come home and for some reason the dishwasher is going and my guy is acting really twitchy. If I stand up he stands up, if I even lean a bit to get a kleenex he stands up and rushes over to me. I'm just thinking that he's really excited about all the fancy beer (and the pierogies).

Well as it draws near to the time to leave I decide that I'd better get ready and first I should shave my legs. First I have to get into one of those evil clam shell packages the razor blades are in. So I head to our junk drawer so I can deforest my stems. This just happens to be right next to our fridge and gives my guy a total heart attack.

He can't take the stress anymore, so as I am holding a pair of scissors in one hand and the razor blades in the other he pulls out this:I was so floored, I didn't see it coming at all. I know I just started laughing I was so surprised (and if you can't tell it's made out of cookie dough so I stole a nibble here and there) I think eventually I got an "Of Course" out.

He'd actually made a ring out of tin foil and I wore that the night while we were having some very interesting Greek/German food. A few weeks later we headed to a jewelry store that I knew had great service and we set out to make the engagement ring (our jeweler was so happy to do something that wasn't a diamond, he still likes to point us out if we go in for a ring cleaning).It was actually my guys idea to get a sapphire, and he'd originally wanted two diamonds on the side but our jeweler recommended using a jacket with two diamonds for the wedding band instead.

I love my very different proposal and extremely different engagement ring. What can I say, we're both really good at being different and weird.

Is it Halloween yet?

Now for the last two halloween projects that were attempted (and sort of completed) this weekend.

The first is a pretty standard one for all fallish receptions. We got ourselves a funkin (fake pumpkin for those that are not Hobby Lobby fanatics) and after some hemming and hawing I decided to go the traditional route and carve out our initials.It was pretty easy making the pattern, I just had to look through every single font I had and pick the coolest (and easiest to carve), then I printed it off, taped it to the pumpkin and started carving. (R is the worst, I kept threatening to change my fiance's name to Carl just to make it easier)

About halfway through the 'S' I realized that I really should have carved out the bottom first (as Martha Stewart will tell you it's better than carving from the top for pumpkins so your pumpkin will, um, not show it's scars?) For this funkin though it's very very important that you carve from the bottom and here's why.

As I was starting to saw using our puny little pumpkins saw the paint on the bottom peeled off a bit (would really ruin the effect if done on the top). So thanks to my hand cramping up I switched to our rather fat steak knife to see if that would work better. The knife went in about two times before the entire bottom collapsed in. It was such a shock that my hand went in with it and the funkin cut up the side.

That's right, I got beaten up by a fake pumpkin. Wait til all the other pumpkins hear about this. I'll never live it down.

Luckily the rest of the carving was mostly uneventful, just put a fake tealight in it (real ones would cause a really big fire) and stuck a really cute bat on top.


Our other creation was mostly just something we had wanted to make for ourselves. After finding a really cool skeleton from Oriental Trading we got some fabric from Wal-Mart (a whole nother fun story of waiting behind a guy getting 5 yards of fabric from 20 different bolts). I sewed the fabric onto the skeleton in two layers and after having him pose for a while made a little cowl.
Meet our Death. For a while he was enjoying watching TV in our clam chair, right now he's hanging out on the beanbag.

But to really make it look like Pratchett's DEATH, we had to get some cool blue lights behind his eyes. So began a very misguided plan. There actually are some small strands of christmas lights out at Hobby Lobby (sad, I know) and I changed three of the bulbs from white to blue and removed the rest. Then after some taping and finding holes I got the three up into his skull.
We'll probably still get him all dressed up for the wedding. Maybe give him a masquerade mask and a little hors d'oeuvre to get him into the festivities.

I promise this is the last of the halloween crafts, at least for a while, but if you want to steal any ideas for your own cool haunted house or halloween decorations feel free.

There's a drawback to RSVP cards

Let's see it's now been over a week since our invitations went out. So that means we've gotten back 13 RSVP's. If that rate keeps up then we should get all ours back by . . . carry the one . . . use the cosign, Jun 13th 2012.

But that's not the sad and depressing part of getting your RSVP card back, it's how many come back no. Right now our stack is neck in neck for no versus yes. (Though I am hearing that yes has a few tricks up its sleeve and is gonna pull out a win in the end)

As that still gives us a glimmer of hope, to really make it pathetic, all but one of the yeses (yessers, yesipies, yeese?) are from people in the bridal party or doing something during the wedding. Well it sure does seem now that we don't have to worry about this wedding get out of hand. If we just have the bridal party come we'll have a whole 20-30 people there.

Due to this sad state of affairs I've been thinking of ways to both make sure you get back your RSVPs and also encourage people to show up to your wedding.

Drum roll please . . .

Have a drawing. Get one of those rolling things they use for Bingo. Say that you'll use their RSVP cards but they have to have been mailed to count. Oh and also the winner must be present, otherwise no gift.

That would be a new way to auction off those centerpieces you got from the dollar store. Or maybe you can even include a package of free labor for someone to help you take down all your decorations. If you have a limited number of cake or favors those can be the last "crappy" prizes.

And if that still doesn't draw in enough people to attend your wedding you can always look at it this way, there's less people you have to buy food and booze for. Or you can get the same amount of alcohol and have a really good time.

So you don't get lost

I've been a craftin' like crazy this weekend. The by far easiest to make was a sign for the reception. It was an idea that was kicking around in my head and after a lot of computer work, some spray painting, and some glue I came up with this:

I swear the covered up area is my future last name, it's just so rare
that I am a bit scared to share it with the world. That and I think the CIA is on to me.

So this all started after I got it in my head that wouldn't it be cool to have a personalized halloween sign. Thus began a long google search that lead to, well, very little. I did find one website that had quite a few but were a bit pricey. After seeing this one, the idea of having a graveyard or cemetery with our name on it formed into my brain.

The plan all began with a hunt for a cool picture of both a graveyard and then a sign I could alter. I used my mad photoshopping skillz (forgive me, but I just had to type that) to remove the original name on the gate and then added the 'Z' one and cleared off the original background so the one of the graveyard would show up.

After printing the image off on cardstock I aged it in some tea for about 10-20 minutes and dried it off between two towels and with a cutting board on top to keep it from wrinkling. Before it had completely dried I also took my grill lighter and a candle to the edges to burn them up but not enough to light the whole thing on fire.

For the base I got a nice piece of wood and a spray can of varnish in charcoal. I'm sure you can about picture what came next. (But for those I have spray painted with before, I did put down paper this time) After giving it a few coats and letting that dry I took my handy dandy lighter to that and burned off some of the paint around the edges to give it an aged look as well.

To finish it off, all I did was glue it together and then I sprayed a gloss on it all to somewhat waterproof the paper. I still need some bailing twine so we can hang it (I got an insider for that) but otherwise I think it looks super cool and it's something we can use for years to come for every Halloween.

If anyone else wants a graveyard as cool as this, I still have the photoshop template so you can just leave a comment with your last name and an e-mail I can send the completed image too. All the spray painting/lighting/dyeing is up to you.

I'm the God damned Batman!

So we're going to see The Dark Knight today (there was no way we were gonna attempt last weekend).

To get in the mood I present some great web videos "I'm a Marvel and I'm a DC"

Reception decor

First off, if anyone is having a fall wedding with the whole leaf theme the Dollar Tree Store has theirs in and they look really cool for being a whole dollar.They're four feet long and it even has some fake moss on the branches (you'll have to click on the image to actually see it). I think these bad boys are going onto the head table.

After visiting both of our parents and amassing the pile of Halloween stuff now it's time to start delegating what goes where.

Meet our ever growing pile

We've got some really cool blinking green skeleton lights from his Mom that as soon as I plugged them in I thought, DJ, perfect. Thanks to my Mother I think we have a miles worth of orange lights we can string up all over the place along with a garbage bag full of fake leaves.

As time goes on we keep getting more and more props to decorate our wedding with (stay tuned for my attempt at making a Pratchett mainstay) so we have to decide where to put the cool pumpkin and spider lamp as well as the cauldron and an adorable bat.

I think some of it will be a day of thing. "Oh well here's an open space, quick put ghostie there." Never mind all the pumpkins we'll be getting and my MOH pushing the idea of getting straw bales.

We do have one thing figured out sort of, the cake table. First we are gonna do the old standard of scattering the leaves around on the table (why fight against a standard) but thanks to his Mom we got some really cool lights that are green, purple and orange (I'll admit at first I didn't think the color scheme would work at all, but it really looks amazing together. So if anyone is thinking of having a purple/green/orange wedding I say go for it).

I'll admit this picture does not do them justice as it's about impossible to take a picture of lights but they really pop and we're gonna run them around the cake and through the leaves.

We still have quite a bit more to go to really bring out all the halloween stuff (that and we just love making halloween stuff. I really think I need to make a spooky wedding sign but I have no idea how) and so if anyone needs any ideas for a haunted house I'm sure this blog will help with that as well.

Oh and in other news, I changed my shoes from white to blue last night.
Anything to get more blue and an excuse to get my fingers a different color.

I'm a watchaholic

You want to know the easiest way to drive me crazy? Lock me in a room so that I'll be late to something. It could be something simple, something you can show up late to and I'll still be climbing the walls, clawing off the wallpaper, and chewing my own leg off (assuming you have to use a coyote trap as well).

The second way is to just take away my watch. I have been wearing a watch since I was in the 7th grade. It's become habit for me to always know what time it is as I just have to look down at my wrist (I am one of those weirdos who doesn't carry my cellphone, or a purse for that matter).

I am proud of my watch tanline

So due to my habit I always wear an Ironman Timex (It takes a licking and keeps on ticking, even if you take it swimming in a pool or smash it onto a shelf). But, alas, my usual watch just isn't dressy enough for the wedding (or as my fiance's side says wearing a watch is Bohemian. I have no idea what that means as all I associate that word with are the bug eyed Olsen Twins, but I'm guessing it isn't a good thing).

Thus begins my hunt for a fancy dress up type watch that isn't too expensive (I suppose I could always get a pocket watch and then give it to a groomsman later but that won't hide my tan line).

The top watch to the left is priciest of the three
this watch can bring together any gold and silver accessories you have.

For the more traditional pearls and lace bride
this watch to the right can be a nice substitute for a bracelet.

Found from my favorite place for jewelry (etsy.com)
I love the simpleness of the blue used for this watch.
And easy way to have your "something blue" if
you aren't as crazy about it was me.


I have no idea what watch I'll wind up getting, but I'm glad to see that there are some options for brides. Even if it makes me "bohemian" to want to start my wedding on time and not have to hunt down a clock to make sure. (Here's hoping I don't automatically check it while during the ceremony).

I know I'm already weird for wearing my glasses (though I am going to keep my hair long, for a short hair bride check out She Weds) adding on the watch and the fact that I'm not really wearing a bridal gown and I may be in the running for weirdest bride of the year.

Fun for all the kiddies

We'd never even thought about having a kid free wedding. It just isn't us or really our wedding. Ours is gonna be less elegant and more candy-fueled randomness.

But as we all know weddings can be incredibly boring for the young, so last night we headed off to the dollar store and got ourselves some fun stuff to play with. (You can buy a wedding table activity set but ours was more fun to collect and cost under $5). The three coloring/activity books are completely different. One is more for the really young kids as it's just random pictures (and I mean random, one page is a GI Joe stealing a bunch of blocks and next to it is a T-rex), another one has a story to each page (which is extremely entertaining to read apparently a cricket and a bee hook up or something), and the last one has Batman. Batman!

They didn't have true Play-Doh but instead a lovely 6 pack of Magic Dough. Call me crazy but I kinda doubt the kids are going to be all that brand savvy, at least not when they can play with it and make a total mess of their dressy clothes (good thing they'll all be in costume, eh).

I was thinking after watching my 3 year old ring bearer it'd also be really cool to get them all some temporary tattoos, which we could spend a ton of money to get them with our names on them but I'd rather just get the kids some Spider-Man or Dora. Got to make some cute pictures of kids just covered in fake tattoos right?

Hopefully the kids, in between stealing all the candy to get super sugared up, will have some fun and color a cute picture to share with everyone (if we're given any they are so going into the scrapbook).

My replacement

One of the problems of getting a jacket/ wraparound wedding ring is that I will have to have it soldered to my engagement ring. So for two weeks I will be without any ring and it will drive me up the wall.

I have worn a rune necklace since I was in 8th grade. It's something simple but not wearing it really bothers me, to the point where I am checking to see where it is at all times. Rather than drive myself nuts always checking to make sure I have or don't have a ring on my finger I thought I'd get myself a simple substitute. This is my replacement ring. Well the one on the right, the one on the left is my engagement ring in crappy light so it looks really dark and foreboding. I got my replacement from, where else, etsy.com. It's from the shop Kim's Jewels that I got in any size I wanted for a whole $7 including shipping.

If like me you are looking for a simple ring but haven't found anything at etsy, there is another option. SilverJewelryClub.com is having a sort of showing off of their products giveaway. Essentially pieces are up for only 15 minutes but all you have to pay is $7 for shipping. Sometimes it's just fun to see what pieces are going to be up for sale later.

Soon enough Mr. replacement and I are gonna have to get acquainted as my ring goes into the shop and his goes in for some engraving (still no idea what we're gonna put on it), but at least out of it all it means I don't have an issue with where to put my engagement ring during the wedding.

Is anyone else gonna need another ring to keep them sane while theirs is away for re-sizing or being soldered?

It's really happening

This weekend was an interesting learning experience for us. On sunday we traveled to see my parents (on Saturday we got some cool halloween stuff, Michaels already has some out so if you're like me and just like looking at it their spooky town has a killer octopus). They live a whole 2 hours away and as we'd just mailed our invitations on Friday I really didn't think that anyone would have one yet.

Instead it seems like everyone does. My Dad had to ask me how to run the RSVP postcard (something about asking if he had to e-mail it to me) and my mother had already put it on the giant paper filled fridge.

It's a weird feeling to have that invitation and reception card we worked on and okay didn't stress over as much as others but it's still ours, up there where all the other fancy weddings were in my life.

So that really means that we're gonna have to do the whole nine yards now. The white dress, the flowers, the candles, the having piles of pictures taken, the chicken dance. Dealing with waring relatives and the stress of "well why didn't you invite so and so."

As my fiance pointed out, it's starting to feel like graduation, something you've worked at for a long time and when the day arrives it just flies by so you barely remember being there. That's probably really why they take pictures so they can prove to the couple that they are in fact married.

It's one more of those life things that proves I'm growing up, though I do still like coloring and playing with cars, so while I'm not nervous about being married I'm still a bit in denial that I am one of those women about to become "THE BRIDE!"

If any nerds haven't heard

You have to go and check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It stars the adorable Neil Patrick Harris (he had me at Rifftrax) as an evil scientist trying to make it into the evil league while also trying to attract the attention of a girl he's barely talked to. To stop him is his arch nemesis Captain Hammer (Firefly fame Nathan Fillon). Oh and there are some really catchy songs in there

I still can't get "It's a Brand New Day" out of my head.

They're gone

So after months of fussing over them, getting them all dressed up, then watching them squat on our table for weeks it's finally time to send out invitations off into the wide blue yonder.

We had a very simple system for putting our invitations together. My fiance and I each took half of them and then raced to see who would finish first. I would have won too if it weren't for that meddling tissue paper.

Then it came addressing time, which thank God for that JC Penny planner we got. It had a nice listing of who to call what and also served as a nice lap table. Maybe it's tacky but postmen all across the nation will thank us as we printed off the addresses on the outer envelope on my handy dandy printer (we only lost like 25 envelopes or so in trying to figure the damn thing out).

Writing on the inner envelope was a whole new kind of challenge as my mother's list was, well, sparse to put it nicely while his mothers was already set up with every one who just hit 18 getting their own invitations and a guest (we did it but I really do not understand the point of sending three invitations to the same house). But as I could fake nice handwriting better than my guy (or so he claimed, but he's probably lying so he can seem cool) I got to write them all out while he stuffed.Then came the worst part, the licking of the envelopes. Like most envelopes these tasted terrible so I switched to the sponge method halfway though (not quite the same as the birth control, in fact as far from the idea as possible). Rather than buying one of those things I just got a cup of water and a new dish sponge. It would have worked out really well if it weren't for the fact that half of the envelopes seemed to barely have any glue on them so it just got the paper all wrinkly and I had to tape them.
But now they're gone, off into the world all alone. Some may get lost in the shuffle and spend the rest of their lonely days in the letter kennel, others may make it to their destination just to be shoved under the growing pile of mail. It is out of my hands, so time to celebrate.

Free turkeys for all!

Map Maker, Map Maker

Make me a map, find me a find, catch me a catch. . .

Apparently one of the drawbacks of having over half of your guest list coming from a few states away means that they're gonna have no idea how to find that place (or possibly the state depending upon how early they start the celebration).

So I set out to map this territory. After driving around with a piece of paper and some crayons I realized that this isn't gonna work. Especially after we got turned around and wound up in a pasture (Be careful, cows can be mean).

I was really happy then to find a program for free that would make my Map for me. It's Wedding Mapper.com and it essentially uses google maps or yahoo maps (I never asked the maps their affiliation) to place dots down where your sites are. Then you can click on them to get directions to and from one area.

But I realized that may be too complicated for some guests who aren't as big into clicking on random things and finding the Llama Llama Duck song. So I used the magical powers of photoshop and image capture to take a picture of the map, then two sets of directions (one from the hotel to the church and then one from the church to the reception site), combined them together and put that up on our website.Sadly our sites are too far apart for us to print off a really useable map to put in our invitations (plus it will save on shipping costs). So hopefully those who don't like my really pretty map can use their own GPS to tell them where to go, or just ask someone else who's heading that way for a ride.

If that doesn't work we can always get them all a bunch of state maps for free from one of the rest stops.

Four eyes!

Like Big Foot or the Lochness monster Brides in glasses are rare cryptic creatures that are only photographed in fuzzy old movies.

Well I am a glasses wearing freak. I have been for as long as I can remember. I know there are pictures of me from when I was really little running around without, but I was probably just as blind then.

My eyesight is on par with moles and any other cave dwelling creatures. So I couldn't really imagine spending a day without my glasses, which makes everything visible and shiny. (I did try contacts once, totally not for me.)

But it seems as though in the pursuit for perfection it is about impossible to really find a bride that doesn't care if she's called a nerd or a dork on her wedding (If you worry about a pantsing you may need to re-work that guest list). The reasoning is for fear that pictures won't come out. I am hard pressed to think of a time in my 20 years of glasses there was a picture that would have been perfect if it weren't for my glasses. And even if the refraction from a flash is an issue you can get a coating put on your glasses to stop just that. (it also seems to help keep them from fogging up which rules!)

Offbeat bride has a small q&a on glasses, about the only article I could find on it. I have no idea why glasses are seen as so taboo for a bride to wear (though it doesn't seem as bad for the groom which is good as mine has them as well). You will not look less like a bride if you wear the glasses that you have worn your entire life. You do not have to try contacts just for your wedding day so that people will think you look more like the insane standard of beauty. Glasses don't make you look like a dweeb, they just are who you are (levels of smartness people believe you to be on the other hand can come in handy for convincing people you are a rocket scientist Just mention Goddard a lot.).

On my wedding day I'd rather look like me than someone I've never really seen or met before, and no matter what you do I look like a nerd. So for all those brides out there that are four eyes, let out a yell that we're gonna keep our beloved eyesight just the way it is and damn the naysayers.

Make your own spooks

This past weekend we did a lot of really boring stuff (like cleaning to make room for when our place explodes with wedding stuff). But one fun thing we did was make our new friend. I like to call him Ghostie (though I call ghost rider the same thing so I'm not very creative).

He was actually my guys project, so it was rather interesting to watch a guy attack a craft project. First stop was Home Depot to get the special glue and paint and give up completely on finding any cheesecloth. The lady checking us out was one of those that just loves to talk and ask everyone what they're gonna do with what they're buying, so my guy sort of mumbled that we're making a ghost and then we made a bee line for the door.My guy tackled the unfun project of attaching two smaller bottles to one large one with some hot glue and then shoving a styrofoam bottle onto it all.
I got the fun job of mixing together the stiffy fabric glue and the glow in the dark paint and then mashing all the cheesecloth into it. It's way more fun getting to make a mess than anything else.
After the cheesecloth had absorbed all the kick ass nutrients from the glues and paints it was time to place it all on the pop bottle model. There was a long debate about how quickly it should be put on before we make a huge drippy mess all over the floors. Alas that didn't work out so well as in the process of debating lots of glue and flashy glowing paint spots got all over.

But after a few days of drying (I eventually cheated and used a hair dryer) and adding some really flashy eyes Ghostie was born. He now sits atop our boxes of wedding presents that have no room to go anywhere and every night I like to charge him up to watch him glow.

Just one more bit of decoration for the reception that we crafted to prove that no matter how crazy we are we're gonna have a Halloween party.

It's my birthday!

For my birthday my guy got me The Sims 2: Seasons. For anyone not into The Sims, you make people and then mess with them. Seasons added the new dimension of now it's not summer every day as well as you can garden and fish. (I love fishing!)

I thought it'd be fun to make some Sims of me and my guy and then make a fall wedding. Here's how it worked out.Sadly there doesn't seem to be any pumpkins for the fall that you can carve, but you can burn the leaves.

I wonder what a wedding birthday theme would look like? Maybe something like this:Favor baskets
Wedding Cake pinataSome decorations you can hang with crepe paper.The perfect invitations.

Inspiration

A lot of people have been posting their gorgeous inspiration boards, (Silly Little Mischief, Weddingbee's Miss Candy Corn, A Practical Wedding) so I figured I'd share mine. I didn't make it with anything interesting, just some good old fashioned photoshop.

This is what it looks like if you combine blue and green and then fall Halloween. We're nuts.

Meet the pres(ent)

Last night we got our first wedding gift shipped to us.

It was rather exciting to have a package show up that we didn't order or have to put with something else for the wedding.

Meet our first shipped wedding gift. We call him Al.
Me: Welcome, so glad you could be here with us.

Al: Wow I never really thought that I'd make it. I mean it was quite a bumpy road for a while there, but here I am.

Me: So what was it like going through the whole registry process?

Al: Well, at first I wasn't so sure they really wanted me. I mean I was one of those heavy pieces of furniture and everyone can use a few more spatulas.

Me: Ha ha, tell me about it. The dishwasher just ate another one of mine.

Al: But after some debating they picked me on-line and I got the call that I was getting shipped out.

Me: Okay, so how about after you arrived?

Al: That was a bit worrying. Will they like me? Will they want me? Will they attempt to return me to Target and get so frustrated with the customer service I get flinged across the parking lot?

Me: Well as you can see we wanted to keep you.

Al: Thank goodness for that milk crate night stand. Ha ha. They were a bit rough in unloading me. And it took them forever to find my instruction booklet.

Me: Got any funny stories to share with us?

Al: Oh yes, when they were putting me together they messed up the long screws with the short screws so in attaching the top of me to my legs they drilled to huge holes through the top. Ha ha, owe.

Me: Well to err is human, to forgive varnished pine.

Al: I'm just happy to be supporting an alarm clock and a box of kleenex now, doing a job that I love.

Me: Thanks for meeting with us.

Al: Sure no problem. Just remember to spray and dust your furniture. Thanks for playing.

Walk that line

There is a balancing act that anyone who is planning a wedding must walk: how much information to tell a person so they feel informed but not so much they feel like it's all you talk about and your wedding.

For me, I started out not telling anyone much of anything (aside from my fiance, we're the weird people where he'll help with most of every aspect). I didn't want to bog them down in boring stuff like what color we chose for the linens (black with spider web) or how long it took us to find a photographer.

Turned out that wasn't enough, as my best friend started to pelt me with questions like "what color dress should I get?" and "where is this thing gonna be held?" So total secrecy didn't really work either. I fear that I then went overboard.

Soon we were IMing back and forth random cute things we'd found (like some cool fall candle things maybe someone else can use) and I'm sure I was burying my friends in crap I'd made for the wedding (maybe the 3rd e-mail on my tail was a bit much). After no one started talking to me I realized that maybe I'd gone too far the other way.

I'd like to hope I now have both feet on the wire and have my huge balancing stick but it seemed during the shower everyone kept asking us if we had anymore plans to make (honest answer: I sure as hell hope not, it's only 3 months away). And my other bridesmaid (his sister) is feeling left out as she lives 8 hours away.

Though, honestly, I don't expect my wedding party to do much of anything. I am gonna do some stuff with my MOH. Some is tradition (we now know how to make almond bark mints work after a slight disaster for her wedding) and some is just an excuse to hang out. I suppose I view the wedding as something I got myself into and they really shouldn't have to help out with all the boring stuff.

They both are willing to help plan a shower, stand up and have their picture taken a ton of times, and generally put up with me. That's hard enough work to earn them all a gold star in my book.

Free gifts for all

Okay, if you are in anyway affiliated with me or the wedding party that we are trying to arrange, step back now.

Further.



Further.


Don't make me pull out medusa. She hasn't had much to do lately.


I mean it Stinky and freshman.


Okay, they'll at least feel a little bad now if they're peeking.

First off for my sexy taller flower girl (there is still just something funny about a flower girl that can legally drink).This was my second find from etsy.com.(my first was my necklace) They aren't really earrings meant for the day of wedding (though freshman can pull off anything no matter how weird it is) but she absolutely adores pink and black and these just screamed her as soon as I saw them.

Hopefully she can rock these whenever she gets an opportunity.
So she can be a super cute flower girl I also got her a tiara. I won't be wearing one but I thought it'd be really cool if both of the flower girls had their own tiaras so they can be beautiful. (If you can't tell by now Freshman is my accessories friend, who is also going to be doing my hair for the wedding).

My Matron of Honor and best friend Stinky is a whole nother kettle of fish. She barely wears any jewelry, doesn't do well with random crap (so no flasks or that other stuff everyone always gets a bridesmaid) so I thought outside the box a bit for her.She has a 3 and a half year old son (who is also one of our ring bearers) and all of her pictures of him are online. I remember when I was younger loving to flip through scrapbooks and picture books to find pictures of me when I was a baby.

So I collected a bunch of stickers, some cardstock and a lot of rubber cement to make her a scrapbook of her son.It's just amazing to flip through and watch the little-man grow up. I remember when he was just a few weeks old hearing him sneeze for the first time and realize it was just like his mom's.
For my other bridesmaid (fiance's sister) we've been hunting around for a spanish wine. She's really gotten into wine tasting recently and spent some time in Spain (for school). I don't really want to buy it yet for fear that we could have a big mess on our hands. Let's just say the wedding table is not all that stable.

Like the kids, for the girls I got them each something a bit different from the norm. None of my friends are the same so I never could have pulled off the "tote with cool things in it." But I hope that they'll all enjoy it. If not we can always get them real quick some Thomas bubbles too.

Ah, I've been hit!

Okay more like tagged. It was Jen in the conservatory with the pen. Here's the game. Make up your own 6 word memoir title. Here are the rules:
1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who tagged you.
4. Tag 5 more blogs.

So let's see here:

It's a nerdy life for me- The tale of how to survive being a female nerd in a nerd eat nerd world. Also how to really floor guys that you know so much about something.

I've tagged

Guilty
Kara
Porcelain
Sarah
Jenna

So watch for their memoirs. Mine shall hit bookstores October 18th, 3008

The official flower girl/ring bearer set

This is gonna be my first in a threeish day series on gifts for other people. First off I thought I'd start with the fun ones, the kids. (If any of the kids in my wedding are looking right now you better turn away. Or at least not be able to read yet).

I am not real big into the various gifts and keepsakes that wedding sites will advertise as the best things to get your flower girl or ring bearer (who wants a book on how to be a flower girl?). Instead I'd rather get them all toys. Who doesn't love toys? And it'll give them something to play with the day of as well.

The tall flower girl I'll show off tomorrow (as she can read and I want to give even more warnings and rent cerberus for the day to keep her away). For the short flower girl we looked high and low to get some ideas.Then we saw this play phone set. If she's anything like her mother she'll be addicted to the phone. And as sad as it is Disney by far had the best option. All the princess have a few different sayings (though all done by the same voice actor so it's kinda weird), and you can call them from the phone as well as leave a recorded message.

I just picture her the day of the wedding running around with a little phone in her hand (hopefully she won't smack her brother with it).To help her feel more like a little princess (or at least enjoy the dress up aspect) I got her a little hair comb. She doesn't have a really poufy dress but this will give her a little sparkle so she'll get to play dress up.

In the end her gift cost about $25. So for the price of a frame and a t-shirt she can wear once, I got her a toy she can play with til it gets broken or thrown into a puddle and some jewelry.

The boys were much easier (if you can't tell, I love looking at toys, they are so much fun to play with and figure out the good and the boring ones). They are about the same age range (one is gonna be 4 the other 3) and they both love trains. (For christmas I got my MOH's boy a thomas train set that had to be assembled and he watched it for hours as it went around and around, even jumping up and getting super excited when it dumped some coal).The first thing I found was a really cool engine (either Thomas or Percy) that has a switch on the back if you flip it to one side when you push the train it makes train noises and if you go faster the noises speed up, the other side plays the Thomas theme song (sure to drive mom nuts).

For an addition we also found some Thomas bubbles. Both of these kids love blowing bubbles (to the point where I was once covered in soap helping one of them) and the engine is actually shaped like a train whistle. Plus if we suddenly decide we want some bubbles, we'll have two toddlers that can help.

These two cool present cost about $18 total for each kid (actually got them on a 50% off toy sale) and as we realized later are actually our wedding colors. So even buying them at full price it's a bit less than an official ring bearer duffle bag, wallet, and frame set.

I just don't see the point of gifts that they can realistically use one day. Instead we went and got them some toys they can play with for a few years (assuming not put in the wood chipper of course) or at least it'll keep them distracted the day of. And the adults can play with them a bit too.

You, take it now!

Last night, my fiance and I were watching the candy expo on food network (from 2004, seriously food network that's 4 years old I'm sure there's been new candy made since then). They were showing off a giant sucker you can put on your thumb and he mentioned how every sucker you put on your hand is just like someone trying to imitate a ring pop.

My mind thought of our reception and how we have to make sure to get a few ring pops for our candy centerpiece pile so we can have a picture taken of us wearing those instead of our wedding rings. (that just sums us up quite nicely)

It got me to thinking of all the other pictures normal people call "must takes" (I call them the same thing but who doesn't love quotes?)

1. I loved the idea of a bride eating, especially a doughnut. It's sad when eating something sweet is seen as weird and strange by a grown adult but there ya go. Maybe for me it'll be a Runza cheeseburger though. (I can't be trusted with chocolate, I will get it on me)
2. This is just a gorgeous picture. Assuming we have a bright sunny day, it'd be nice to take a really hopeful picture
3. My fiance and I are always laying on the couch like that. He says that I make a good blanket and I say he makes a good pillow. Another simple picture that shows the whole point of said wedding.
4. This is such a lush picture getting in lots of foliage. Since we're getting married in fall I'd love a picture of us just playing in leaves. Sadly I couldn't find any pictures of a bride jumping in a pile of leaves.
5. I had the thought of wouldn't it be neat to see the couple "stopping to smell the roses" in a garden. Of course any pictures like that lead to a bride smelling her bouquet. So this one of a kid being a kid is just too cute.
6. As we're having a taller flower girl (ie she's 21) and a smaller one (5) I'd think a cute picture could be my tall one instructing or showing the little one. Or vice versa really. Though man you can't really trust those girls, always trying to drag a boy to church.
7. I love all the wild and crazy things can and will do, so just some candids of me and my fiance interacting with the kids (especially my MOH's son, he loves my guy).
8. My MOH and I always had a weird tradition in college if it was raining she'd jump in the huge puddles and try to drench me but she always got herself. So I just thought it'd be hilarious if it's raining and we want to do a trash the dress we could jump into a huge puddle. Sadly this is the closest pic I could find.

That's all I've found so far, for other blogs that have lots of must take pictures there's Silly Little Mischief , That Bride, Rock 'n' Roll Bride, In This Instance, and Porcelain have tons of other really cool pictures to steal inspiration from.