Another thing to mark off

The first dance song has not been an easy task. I didn't want one that was commonly used, couldn't be too long, and too mushy was also out. It didn't help that we don't have a song, nor do we have music in common that would be appropriate (while I love the Rza, he's not exactly the first choice for a wedding song). I also didn't want another Beatles' song since one will be played during the ceremony and a collection of their songs will most likely be the pre-ceremony music.

I have a feeling that this choice was only made more difficult by the fact that we do have more than 2,000 albums, and I was bound and determined to find the perfect one.

So, tonight I spent 90 minutes on Indiebride trying to find hints for a nontraditional song, and the winner is: Bob Dylan's If Not for You.

At two and a half minutes, it's the perfect length, the lyrics are fitting (both of us have issues sleeping if the other one isn't there, and Jeremy does have issues finding things if I'm not around), and it isn't super slow.

Serve it up

I managed to find a great deal on a Lenox cake serving/cutting set. It was half off, so it was a big savings over the really fancy Swarovski set. But it still looks decent. Plus, it gave me something else to cross off the list, which is always nice.

And, now I'm enjoying getting the rsvps in the mail. They're a lot more exciting than the credit card solicitations or the bills. The other exciting thing is that items have been fulfilled on the registry. So to whomever bought a crockpot and breadmaker, thank you. I'm now playing the game of "hmm ... who would buy this for me?"

Hallelujah

The invites are finally done.

Well, I thought they were until we started stuffing them into envelopes and I realized that there were eight I never made name tags for and five that I never got addresses for. But, still, those figures are a lot better than the hundred I had before. Besides, the ones that I do have the addresses for will be done tonight. And out in the mail tomorrow. Woo hoo.

The process became a lot easier today when I finally had it with the old printer and went and bought a new one. I think I might have actually broken the other one with the cardstock. I'm pleading the fifth.

And now I might actually be able to enjoy the wedding stuff again. I think I was just a little too over ambitious with the fancy invites. But, they look good (even though the new printer prints more grey than black.)

I'd put a picture up, but you're just going to have to wait to get them in the mail and then you can be awed.

Woo hoo

With any luck, I will have all the invites sent out by the end of this week. I'm now beginning to think the pocketfolds were an insane idea because the cards don't always want to fit. And, I miscut some of the ribbons, so the bands vary from being really tight to kinda loose. But I don't care. I'll just be glad when I don't have to deal with these things anymore.

Also, I bought the stuff to make the guestbook, the unity candle, and the memory candle (which could not be a small size to fit all the names on there -- it's almost humorous). Jeremy's still up in arms about the unity candle because he doesn't think one is necessary.

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

A slight bump in the road

Good news: Les, our best man, is back from Iraq and in one piece with no pieces missing.

Bad news: Les is going to jump school in April and might not be at the wedding. This news made me cry at a bar.

So if any one knows where we can order large, cardboard, picture cutouts, please let me know. Because I made the executive decision that Les isn't getting replaced.

Help, please

If anyone reads this and knows of someone who does a good job with wedding gown alterations, please let me know! I'd greatly appreciate it. You can either leave me a comment or e-mail me at knip2be@gmail.com

Thanks:)

Grr

OK. So I got the labels up, but if you notice, there is less info in the sidebar.

I'm not so happy with it right now because it's not a basic html editor on here now, and it confuses me. So, it's going to be sparse unless I get a hankering to learn about widget tags.

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.

Only two months later ...

So, I know I said I was going to get the rest of the Save the Dates out after Fall Break.

Well, I meant like the next week, not two months later.

But, the rest of them (minus a few because of lack of addresses) are now on their way.

And, the countdown to some major wedding planning has also started: I've got 11 days left of school. And then I will work on the wedding. I swear.

Updates

If you look over that way (------>), you'll notice there are a few changes.

One day, I'll actually get back to planning this thing. You know it's getting bad when your school's dean starts laughing at you when you can't figure out how long it is until your wedding.

Back on track

After my mini freak out this week, I managed to get things accomplished on my day off.

I started printing out the invites, so now we just have to get a hotel block (Jeremy has a deadline of the end of the month on that one), make a map and write up the RSVP card, and I'll be able to print out the inserts too.

Of course, now I don't even like the invites, but Jeremy says I'm nuts, which I am, so they'll stay. Partly because I'm not redesigning now.

I even have some more save the dates printed out ready to mail.

I'm on a roll. I'm saying it's because I only had to work four days this week.

Eh. It'll get done

I'm in an "eh" slump for the wedding. I have little to no desire to work on any of the stuff I need to do. I'm blaming this on the fact that I've been having nightmares about the whole thing. Such things included in these are:
1. No photog
2. An ugly Scooby-Doo cake that was not from J's
3. An odd, stuffy, extremely formal, extremely uncomfy, dirty - no less - wedding dress
4. A missing groom after the ceremony, which was questionable if it even happened
5. The ceremony and reception was at a two-bedroom house with guests I didn't know and were all in T-shirts and jeans. And a lot of them look like students that I don't have.

But I did finalize the invite wording. And I started addressing those envelopes. Those tasks seemed undaunting, and they don't even cost money right now. I still need to send out the second round of Save The Dates. Ugh.

I think I might have to go back on Paxil. Double ugh.

And they're out

Well, at least partially.

The stamps finally came in for the Save the Dates (I'd abbreviate that, but putting STDs up on my planning site just seems like asking for trouble), and the ones that I actually have addressed have stamps on them. And, they're going into the mailbox to go out into the world tomorrow.

I think I have a little more than half addressed, and the rest are just going to have to wait until after I get back from the land of corn. And speaking of the land of corn, I need to go pack.

We're dead sexy

So we had our engagement shoot tonight. Jeremy was a poo because he's just a little uncomfortable with getting his picture taken. And I continue my history with blinking/almost blinking, making myself look drunkish in the pictures (ie, the picture of Matt, Lois and me at her wedding).

Anyhoo, you can view a teaser of these lovely, lovely pics here. And of course, after seeing these pictures, I got a little down because Rae won't be shooting the wedding:( But then I realized this could be a good thing because I have a feeling I'd want to buy each picture she shot. She's good. So go book her!!!

They'll eventually get out complete with whimsy

So even though the save the dates have been done for more than a week now, they're still sitting on the coffee table (and not all of them are in their sparkly envelopes yet either, nor are all of those pretty envelopes are address either). I've been putting off buying stamps so it makes it a bit problematic to actually mail them out.

We had planned to go with the DC comic superhero stamps -- even though I was a little bitter about the Plastic Man ones (seriously, who wants Plastic Man; who even remembers who Plastic Man is?). But then, tonight, when I went online to buy them (I do not have good luck at the post office, and I still need to go there to file my claim since they shipped out my guaranteed next day package two days AFTER it was guaranteed to get there), I found these. I'm a little bummed that there aren't more Curious George ones; Jeremy is bummed that there aren't more Wild Thing ones. But yeah, we're using those.

I also say Yurtle the Turtle should have been included.

Let them eat cake

We officially have the cake. We woke up early this morning and headed down to J's, where Jeremy promptly ate all the white icing off the sample pieces and I gorged myself on the cream cheese frosting. Mmm, frosting. Of course, i was a little caked out because of yesterday, and cake at 9 a.m. is smidge to early for me.

But, it didn't take long to get it all figured out. It will be like the picture I posted earlier with some tweaks. The bow on top won't stick up as much because there's going to be some cascading roses and calla lillies on it. The bow will also be champagne colored for contrast and it will have real icing, not fondant.

And Jeremy and I are discovering vendors like us because we know what we want and we don't take much time. The cake lady said she'll get people who have no clue what they want and it will take two hours to figure things out.

I'm just glad we weren't like the girl who was before us this morning. She had a HUGE binder with each page in a plastic protector and was going to have 400 guests. My binder has like three sheets in it and none of them are protected. Nor do I have anywhere near 400 guests. Personally, I like simple.

They're done

I finished the save the dates tonight, and they look pretty good in my opinion. I tried to upload a picture of it, but it didn't show most of the stuff that's on them. So, now you'll just have to wait until you get yours in the mail:) With any luck, I'll get most of them out this week so be looking for a pretty enevelope!

Yum, yum and more yum

I had grand plans to go get the cake contract done and over with Saturday. And, of course, there were no meeting times for Saturday -- it was a slightly selfish plan because it meant more cake for me on my birthday:) Anyway, I did get an appointment for Sunday ....... at 9 a.m. But, with any luck we will have a baker that will make us the one cake flavor Jeremy likes (so the groom's cake will actually be mine because I have a feeling I am going to need chocolate that day). And I will also get plenty of cake this weekend:)

Also, the rehearsal dinner will no longer be at McGuires:( They are not cool and don't like Friday/Saturday reservations. But, it will probably be at Hemingways, which has some nummy, nummy food too.

And now I've made myself hungry so I need to go find something that isn't chocolate frosting.

Phew

So, it became official last night -- I have a photographer again.

I gave my deposit to Salter Photography, and we're going with the son. The galleries on their Web site do not do their full portfolio justice.

But honestly, I'm just happy to have a photographer again.