Phew

So, thanks to the past week, I'm no longer hating the wedding planning process.

A. I took a trip to Minneapolis. Yes, it was cold (3 degrees? Seriously.), but Lois and I got some good work done on the invitations. We huddled around her kitchen table and managed to knock out the bands for the invitations for almost all of them. We would have done more had we had enough of the champagne paper to back the name tags.

B. I got the flowers figured out. I talked to the flower lady, and we got it all taken care of. I get my white tulips, but Jeremy no longer gets his "shot glass" flower. Instead of a calla lily, he will have a white tulip too. The girls will have bouquets of various shades of pink gerberas, while the bouts will be the same. And the mothers and corsages will have orchids. We'll also have two altar pieces with ivory French tulips.

C. I got the direction cards written up and some of the RSVP cards printed out. This did create some frustration because the printer gets cranky and results in me getting angry. But, the end is in sight.

D. We ordered our wedding bands. Jeremy's excited yet bummed because he doesn't get to wear it.

So yes, things are coming together, which is good because it is now less than three months away

Here we go again

Something good came of me being home sick for two days -- things got done!

I'm now up to 88 invites done (still minus inserts), so I don't have too many more to do; about half that number. Woo hoo.

And, I even started making appointments for flowers. Of course, I forgot that there's this thing called Christmas coming up, which means they are all slammed. So, I don't get to talk to any of them until January. Which means I'm not talking about it to January because my track record with such things.

I managed to start labels on this blog. I realized that I talk mostly about paper. I guess it shows what I really like about this wedding (I won't discuss how excited I got when I realized Paper Source has gift certificates). However, I'm not brilliant enough to figure out how to establish label links on the page. Oh well.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

The laptop is back up, which means I once again have complete access to all my wedding planning stuff -- which could mean I might get things accomplished. Or not ...

But, I do have most of the stuff for the centerpieces. The boxes are now sitting in what has become the "wedding closet," which Jeremy isn't allowed into since my dress is in there. And, I now have ALL my paper products. Well, except for the paper for the programs, but that just means a trip to a store to get a ream of some off-white paper (yes, Lois, I'm totally stealing your program idea for them:))

Having the laptop back means I also have the Save The Date file back, so that design just might get finished soon. Of course, I also have to convince the boy to do the wedding info site. Or, I might just go with an easy one and then have him revamp it later because he decides its not up to his standards.

Anyway, here is the link to a bio of a recent bride with my dress that even has the champagne sash. Of course, she opted to use the free white sash for the ceremony and the colored one for the reception. I'm not doing that. That's too much work.

And, if you want to see more photos of the church on the inside, go to photosbyrae.blogspot.com and then click on "view proofs." Go to Sarah & Steven 8-5 wedding, and in the midst of those photos is the church.

Progress and more progress

I am happy to say that teaching has lit a fire under me, and I have gotten several things accomplished in only one day off so far this weekend.

Last night, I sat down and found the silk flowers needed for the centerpieces as well as the bud vases (for less than a buck, no less) so they're ordered and on their way. And, I've even been pointed toward some placemats at Target, so I might have all the stuff for them by the end of the month.

Today I cut all the ribbon for the band on the invites. If I counted right, I should have done 150 pieces. So now my hands are a little shiny from the hairspray I used to prevent the ends from fraying, which I don't think they would have because it's a meshy ribbon -- but I wanted to be safe.

I'm also happy to say I managed to get about half of the pocketfolds done. And that even includes putting the pink backing sheet on them too. I also sat down last night and did the math to figure out how many sheets of paper I needed for the invite wording and the inserts. So that paper - along with envelopes - is on its way. Of course, I realized today I forgot to order cardstock for the save the dates. However, I think I might just go to Michael's and get a pack of their cardstock in off white/ivory or something to that effect. I'm planning on cutting the pieces of paper for the fronts of the invites for the names so I can get a head start on writing those. I'm also going to start addressing the envelopes when I get them just so I don't have to do it all at once. I would just send them through the printer, but it gets fussy if the paper isn't 8 x 11, so that might just be a pipe dream. And I know I'm not letting Jeremy address them; no one would be able to read them.

Too bad my sixth graders don't have decent handwriting ....

And we have centerpieces!

The latest bane of my wedding planning has been centerpieces. I thought I knew what I wanted, then I realized I didn't and the one I thought I really liked I realized would make it difficult for guests to see across the table.

So, now that I seemingly have more time to work on wedding planning (I do believe my hiatus is over), I spent time this morning (I actually woke up before 10 a.m. by myself; that's a first in YEARS) looking for centerpiece ideas. And then I found this one:
Of course, I won't be using a green mat; it'll either be pink or beige. And, I'll use three gerbera stems (I'm thinking I'll just use silk ones) in light pink, hot pink and white. And, I'll probably also group three candles around the bud vase.

And, I'm also happy to say that I have almost all of the save-the-date envelopes addressed. Of course, I still have to actually design them, order the card stock for them and have a certain fiance make the info Web site so I can have the address to put on them. But, the addressing was going to take the longest, and it hasn't been that bad. So, at least I got the worst part out of the way.

Gimme more than a week, and I'll change my mind

So I've always been pretty deadset on daisies for the bridesmaids. Then I found this photo the other night:
It's callas with some flower in the middle (either stephanotis, lilacs or something like that). I'm not so crazy about the super long stems, but that could be easily remedied. It's not what I'd want for my bouquet because it's just not exactly what I want. But I like it because it's different. I still might stay with the regular daisies. Or I might just come up with something different.

Flowers, pebls and paper

There has never been any question that the main flower for my wedding would be daisies. Although I did toy with the idea of tulips, but I also know that April tends to be a little bit too early for them to be in season (I guess living near Pella "We're not in the Netherlands, but you'd never guess it" actually did teach me something). But, I am perfectly happy with a daisy/rose combo. So here are some ideas for the bridesmaids' bouquets and mine.

This is basically what I'd like for the bridesmaids. However, I do not like The little bow thing they have going on, so I'm going to find something different for that. But, I would like the brighter pink gerberas for them. However, I realized that a pale pink dress on Lois would completely wash her out, so she has a few color choices for her dress. So, she might get the lighter pink gerberas instead.

I have no clue what the bouts will be yet. Jeremy did make a request to have "the flower that looks like a shot glass," which I somehow determined to be a calla lily. So, he'll have some type of calla. Of course he admitted he didn't really care, but I figure it's one of those things I can let him have.

In my original wedding plans that have been going on in my head for years, I had just wanted a bouquet of daisies. But then I saw this picture on a Knot bio and decided roses had to be added in.
I'm not sure if I like the ribbon wrap on this one either, and I would like mine to be a little bigger, but it gives the basic idea of what I want. I do think I would prefer more of the lighter pink roses instead of darker ones.

In other items, I now have another "something blue" -- my cell phone. So it won't exactly be with me all day, but I have seen plenty of other crazy, crazy ideas for something blue (including stuff at the reception). And I just really love this phone. Jeremy's phone died this weekend, so we got to reup our contracts, and I picked the blue PEBL. I figure after placing second in the FSNE headline contest, I deserved something. And it's cute. And Jeremy's been playing with it more than his new BlackBerry, and that gives me some sick satisfaction.

Also, I ordered some paper to try out our pocketfold idea for the invitations. They appear to be labor intensive, so I figured I should a. try them to make sure I want to make 100+ of them and b. get a head start because I know how I can procrastinate. So I should know early next week how much work I'm going to be putting into our invites. And since the pocketfolds were more of Jeremy's idea, there could be a lot of grumbling at him next week.