September 3rd...one month out

Well it is officially one month away from the wedding. I have had a couple of rough moments this week, once I realized it is September. Today I feel at peace. We met with our Reverend last night and had our first pre-marital counseling session and it went very well. I feel very honored to have Reverend Maddox marry us.

I still have a long "to do" list, and I am just trying to hack away at it as much as possible. Little phone calls to make, and large projects to start and complete. This weekend is exciting with many wedding activities. We scheduled many of them in the same weekend since we would have several folks coming in from out of town, but it will be very busy. I hope to make Labor Day holiday on Monday productive with some of these projects!! :)

My look

Ok, I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this. I sent photos to family and friends...but I just can't seem to get enough. So here is my wedding day hair and make up look. My hair is very curly so the stylist bless her, re-curled my whole head! Took forever but I love the outcome.

grrrr....

Ok, new frustration. The invitiation pockets do not want to stay closed and the glue I am using with the ribbon to keep the pocket closed (aka belly band) is not sticking. I ran out of glue tonight so I will be picking up a couple kinds tomorrow to try. Currently I am literally squishing the pockets by weight of a heavy book to flatten and help the ribbon stay adheared. Oh the joy of crafting!

I was working on the green squares

And here is Ryan helping me out!!

Ryan's mom came over to help too!

Aisle Runner

Ok, so I was not a fan of aisle runners until I found that brides were painting on their wedding logo's to help personalize their day. I had worked hard on creating our wedding log and I thought "Perfect! a cheap way to personalize and get our logo included in yet another area of our wedding". So I found the perfect runner, bought the paint and got to work. It was tough and tedious, but I am happy with it in the end. Our aisle is really a deck and isn't very long but I think this will look very nice.

Amazing instructions followed from: http://www.roadtotheaisle.blogspot.com/

A few things

So a bride really needs a purse for the wedding day! She won't have enough to carry with her flowers, heels, poofy dress, and oh yeah all the emotion of the day! Right??...

This is what I tell myself...but isn't she so pretty?! My shoes will match once I find them

Oh, and check out the damask liner!!!

I found the purse on Etsy, Kelly "Simply Sage" had made one for another customer and posted it for purchase. This is when I see it and I HAD to have one, it was perfect. So I convo her and she makes me this amazing purse. She also was amazing and send me a swatch so I could match my shoes!!! I have fallen in love with Etsy. Such amazing crafts people and they really are some of the sweetest people!!!

You can check out her Etsy store at:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5861704

I also found these earrings that I *heart*

Another Etsy find and another amazing seller!

Her link can be followed below:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5541613

These earrings are more my style and I am so excited that all my accessories are peridot/green!!!

It's official

We have less than 100 days until the wedding. I have not been posting for a while due to the fact that when I get around to blogging I do not have any photos ready. Anyway, I will try to blog regardless to the photos now. My goal is at least once a week. Now that things are going full speed I have more to talk about as well.

I have met with the florist and loved many of their ideas! Just working on finalizing a couple things, meeting with the caterer next week and I should have engagement photos by tomorrow!! As well as the printed pieces of the wedding invitation!! So alot of put together coming up in July. Took some photos of working on the aisle runner last night so when that is complete I will post photos. So more to come!!

Did you know???

That Pier 1 and Lowe's are no longer offering wedding registries? :( this makes me sad, but what can you do?

We will be setting up registries with Target, Macy's and Pottery Barn. Target we have already hit up last night and it was fun and powerful with that scan gun. :) So many choices! Can't wait to work on the other stores too.

DJ

We booked a DJ this week and that is about all the productive work I could do for the wedding. Work has been pretty nuts and I am still working the night job as well. Hoping to be done with that next week. Ryan has been in Beaumont all week and should be back today. I had another wedding nightmare but it was another one where I just didn't get everything done in time. I think my mind is trying to get me to shape up and get some things done!

229 Days to go!

Well less than 230 days until the wedding. I can see that many folks are starting to receive their save the dates! I am glad that everyone is enjoying them. I really enjoyed making them ! The past couple of weeks I have been on a wedding hold with projects. Life sometimes just gets too busy. I am hoping to be back on track here shortly and rolling with the projects so there won't be a rush of "to do's". Thanks to all of you commenting on the wedding website! I am glad that so many of you find it fun and useful. Keep checking back cause we will be adding information as we go along.

Just an update...

My sister texted me today and said she got her BM dress and that it fits perfect!! She also said it looks as good in person as it did online. whew! So we did good. I am so glad we found a good deal and that it was so perfect!

I am currently working on addressing the STD to send them out. They are all put together!! Photos to come later. I do have to say something about Vista Print...they printed the magnets and it was not consistent at all...some were cut crooked, some cut off the bottom and some cut the top. The colors were not consistent, but some turned out perfect so I know my file was fine. I will not be using them again for future printing needs...

Bridesmaid buckets

I created a bucket for each of my bridesmaids asking "Will you be my bridesmaid/maid of honor?" They each loved the gift. It was just a fun box with some sleep pants I picked up at Old Navy and had "Bridesmaid" or "Maid of Honor" embroidered on the leg. I picture us wearing them when we are getting our hair and make up done.

Of course I had to have a pair made for myself!! Mine are hard to read, but it says "Mrs. Williams, October 3rd, 2009"

Bridesmaid dresses

Ok, I find my dress and then everything else seems to fall into place. Ryan proposed in May last year and then we had that whole issue with the Tuscany so things seemed to start off slow and then rocky. I really enjoyed the whole dreaming part of the engagement where I could just day dream and not really do. Now that the new year has come around I knew I had to get crackin! Well I find my dress, and then my mom found this dress online at Nordstroms for an amazing price that we would not have been able to find in a bridal salon.

Whatcha think? I can actually post this one...

Wedding nightmare

It is funny cause I have read other blogs and seen the posts about "my first wedding nightmare". I knew one day I would have one, but I figured it would be much later. Turns out I must be pretty concerned about the day of being all that I want it to be. I posted earlier that we booked our photographer, well other than the location the photographer was the most important vendor choice. Maybe I have just been watching too many "wedding planner" shows on my new awesome ATT Uverse but I had a nightmare that nothing we planned and worked on was incorporated for our day and that my photographer turned into the day wedding planner. Of course everything was wrong, and in my dream all I could think was "There is no way I can re-do this, it is done...this is my wedding day". I was so sad that all the hard work we had put into our day was ruined. The creepy part was the photog drove off in a van...yes a creepy van...with all the other vendors. I don' t think in the dream she even took any pictures, or it was with a cheap camera. Some of the details are fuzzy now, but I am grateful I am awake and have 8 months to still work on our plans.

Technology

Well, I know why we will never become a completely "paper less" society. Cause we just cannot trust technology. I have been keeping ALL of my wedding information as electronic as I can. 1. Cause I just don't like my handwriting. 2. because it is small and easy to keep with me. I have this fun little USB drive that holds my web clippings and of course the all important guest list. For some reason my guest list is now empty. Everything else on my USB seems to be fine ( I will be checking this again later today), but the guest list has a few random zip codes that excel was able to retrieve. Luckily, I do not fully trust technology (took me years to decide to switch to bill pay online) and have a printed copy and all the little scraps of paper that have addresses scribbled on. So I will be re-creating my electronic version...oh fun.

On a positive note, the bits and pieces of our save the dates have been coming in. I have the base card, the design ribbon. The printer did not print the actual save the date correctly, so they will be re doing that. I am hoping to have the magnets next week.

I have learned when I read blogs I enjoy them more when there are photos. I don't always have the photos ready to go with my stories and up dates. That fact has actually kept me from blogging. I figured that I should just blog when I can and add the pictures later.

To come, I will post about the "will you be my bridesmaid" buckets I made for my girls. They all loved them! And I will also include a picture of our save the date magnet. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.

The Dress

Well, I found the dress. Took me about 50 dresses and 7 stores, but I found it. I would love to post a picture of it, but I am afraid that Ryan may check this blog. But it is perfect for me. It is ordered and should be here by April. :)

Something else we have taken care of is our photographer. Her name is Christine and she is great. We met with her a couple weeks ago and got along well. She seems very passionate about her profession and her art. This is the one piece of this whole wedding puzzle I was struggling with the most and I knew that if this part didn't go well I would be very upset. Wedding photos are just not something you can "re do". Now we just need to work out some other odds and ends and start to tackle our amazing list of diy projects for the wedding.