Planning Update!

Right now I'm procrastinating from finishing a take-home midterm for class. I've finished 7.5 questions out of 8, lol! I just wanted to make an update post to organize my thoughts and figure out what I need to be thinking about this week.

This weekend I finally opened the aisle runner and rolled it (partially) out. I think it looks great. We have the monogram placed about 10 feet from the end of the aisle. I think this will look really nice when the guests walk into the church.

We also updated our registry today. We changed the cookware set that we were registered for because Macy's wasn't going to carry the old one anymore. Well, we ended up picking the one Kevin had wanted all along. I think it's great and will cook beautifully. We added some towels and odds and ends to the registry since people are actually going to be using it now! My bridal shower is on April 10th!!

So, this week, we need to:

- buy the ribbon for the programs

- order the reception favors

- decide on ceremony music

- research sparklers for reception exit

- select bridal portrait for reception display

I know there's more to do... I'll keep thinking!

Bridal Portrait Teasers!

I'm so excited! Today my photographer posted my bridal portraits in a gallery on his website!! I think they came out even better than I expected. I was worried that I was posing weird or making a funny face or something in all of them, lol! Plus, I like my hair and makeup even more than I thought!! So, I'm not going to post a full length shot, but I'll give you some teasers for now. I don't want my fiance to stumble upon the pictures, although he knows to stay away from this blog.

Oh, and in these pictures, you can see the bouquet that I DIYed on Sunday afternoon. I was more stressed about making this one because it would be in pictures, but I think it came out even better than my trial!! I used pink tulips, ranunculus, and carnations and tied the stems with a pink ribbon.

Bridal Portraits and Aisle Runner

I had my Bridal Portraits today, I think everything went really well!! We took them at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke. It was a little overcast this afternoon, but I think it worked to our advantage since there weren't that many people around. I was really nervous about walking around on the stone and dirt pathways, but we didn't have any problems and thankfully my dress didn't get dirty!!

Before my portraits, I had the fabulous Elizabeth Tolley do my hair and makeup. She was so nice and really is as good as everyone says! I was a little concerned that the eyes would be too dark, but I got used to it and I think it looked amazing! Plus, she put fake eyelashes on so they would pop in the pictures. This was a lot of fun but took a few minutes to get used to, lol! I'm not used to wearing so much makeup, but you really have to wear a lot for it to look good in pictures. I wore my hair half-up, half-down and I think it looked really good with my veil. I think we might put a little less hair up next time, so I have some more volume, but it was beautiful!! I'll see if I can post a head-shot sometime soon, when we get the pictures back.

When we got back from the portraits, I got an email from the girl on Etsy who's doing our aisle runner. She's finished painting our monogram on the runner and is going to ship it to us this week. I am SOOO excited about this. I think it looks AMAZING! She did an excellent job and has been so fast! I just picked out the paint color last weekend, lol! I can tell she really took her time and worked really hard on it, I can't wait to see it in person. I love this and I know that it will be a great touch of personalization for our ceremony. I'm hoping our guests will be wowed that we have put so much thought into all of the details. Click Here to visit her Etsy store... she makes some beautiful hand painted, custom runners. Here are some of the pictures that she sent me:

Invitations are DONE!

I'm sooo, soooo excited about these! My mom picked up the envelopes from the calligrapher on Friday, they are beautiful! I can't even believe how perfect they turned out. I DEFINITELY recommend her to anyone that's looking for a calligrapher or just someone to address your envelopes. Leah was really great and she can copy any font you show her. Click Here to visit her website. Plus, the best part is that she's so affordable, a flat rate of $1.50 per envelope set!

Anyways, so we finally got all of the invitation sets into their envelopes. I put the stamps on them and sealed them up. They are so beautiful. They're almost like miniature works of art! I can't wait for everyone to receive them in the mail. Hopefully our guests will be as amazed as we are. Even my fiance, Kevin, was really impressed by how good everything looks together. Lol, he doesn't usually get into that kind of stuff! I didn't take any pictures tonight, but I'll be sure to post some ASAP.

DIY Bouquet

I'm going to DIY a bouquet for my bridal portrait next Sunday. I wanted to practice picking out the flowers and putting them together to see how it'd go. So, yesterday I went to Trader Joe's and bought a bunch of flowers. I got ranunculus, roses, and a daisies/mums mix.

I took off all of the foliage so that it was just the stems and flowers. Then, I slowly bunched them together, starting from the center, moving outward. It really takes a ton of flowers to get a substantial looking bouquet. So, after I got the flowers all arranged how I'd like, I tied a pretty pink bow around the stems. I used some cute pearl pins to secure the ribbon.

Next time, I think I'll go for less green and white, and use more solid pinks. The ranunculus were also pretty hard to work with because their stems are wider and flimsier than rose stems. They also get floppy in the bouquet really easy. I think it came out pretty good for a first try. What do you think?

Fitting Sneak Peak....

I had my first wedding dress fitting with the famous Olga today. We didn't really know what to expect when we drove down the gravel drive to her house in Cary. Once inside, we found that she really knows what shes doing, even if she is a little intimidating, in her own Russian way... ;) She knew exactly what to do with my dress immediately after I put it on. I don't want to post the full pictures of myself, but here are some other shots of the dress and bustle.

I have my bridal portraits on March 21st, so she's going to do everything before then. I'm so excited about my dress, I love it! :)

Flights are BOOKED!

We finally booked our flights today. I had been putting this off for a while now, lol. I've been watching the prices fluctuate and placing the tickets on hold, just to see if the prices were going to change any.

I'm really excited to have this done! Now, we can focus on finding fun things to do while we're in France! :) We've been looking at some french cooking classes and fun parisian activities, I think that would be amazing! We also have 1 extra day between when we get to France and when we can go to the apartment, so I think we're going to make an overnight trip somewhere. Right now, we're trying to decide between the Champagne/Reims area, Normandy, or Alsace.

Either way, it's going to be an unforgettable trip!

Going away dress... part 2

I don't know what to do about a going away dress! I was so convinced last week that I definitely wanted to do it, but now I'm having second thoughts. I love my wedding dress and I definitely don't want to waste money on a second dress/outfit if it's not necessary. So, I haven't made a final decision about what I'll be wearing when we leave the reception... But, I have figured out which of the ones in the earlier post was my favorite. I think that I like #5, the strapless, cotton sateen dress, the best. Here's a picture of me wearing the same dress in green.

So, I guess I'll keep thinking about it. If I do go this route, I might get a cute hair piece or birdcage veil to make it look a little fancier. I don't think that my fiance will change out of his tux, so I don't want to look too casual. What do you think I should do/wear?

PS... my first wedding dress fitting is TOMORROW!! eek!

Bags are in!

This is a follow up to the previous post. I got the bags that we're using for the OOT bags from UPS today. I'm really excited about them. Although they aren't the greatest quality bags, I think its really neat that the guests will be able to reuse them for things after the wedding. Here are some pics of the bags and the things I've collected so far to put in them. I've got a lot of ideas of stuff to include that I haven't made/bought yet.. more on that later.

Out Of Town Bags

I just finished 72 custom labeled water bottles for our OOT bags. I designed the label myself using a damask pattern and our monogram. I printed and cut the labels and affixed them to water bottles that I bought.

I think they turned out well and I can't wait for our guests to find them in the out of town bags.

I also got a lot of great travel materials to go in the bags from my MOH Sarah. She stopped at the NC visitor center on Friday and picked up tons of NC maps, NC travel guides and Raleigh maps. These are going to be great OOT bag fillers and very informational for our guests.

New Wedding Party Newsletter

I just finished the next wedding party newsletter. I'm hoping to mail them to everyone this weekend. In this issue, I included information about:

-Wedding day logistics

-Hotel accommodations

-Groomsmen's tux rentals

-Bridesmaids' hair and makeup

-Bridesmaids shoes

-Important dates to remember

Going away outfit?

I've been going back and forth about this for a while. I still haven't decided yet, and if I do, it'll probably be a last minute decision.

So, what are your thoughts about the going away outfit? I think it is a really cute tradition. I love the almost vintage feel that it gives. It's a little more out of practice in recent years because most brides and grooms aren't jetting off to their honeymoon immediately. But, I think it's still a great option for brides who want to change into something more comfortable before they make their exit!

There are a million different outfits that you could wear, but right now I'm leaning to a short white dress. Since this is not super important, I don't want to spend a lot on the outfit. Here are some of the dresses I'm looking at. What do you think? Vote at the bottom of the post.

Dress #1 Dress #2

Dress #3 Dress #4

Dress #5 Dress #6

Wedding Rings!!!

I picked up my wedding ring tonight! I'm soo excited, it turned out beautifully! I wasn't sure the diamond band would look when sized down to a size 4.5, but it looks great!

I'm not too great with taking up close pictures with my camera, but here are a few:

I can't wait to wear the wedding band with my engagement ring all the time!!

Stamps!

Yes, you read that correctly. This post is devoted to postage stamps. I am wayyy more excited about our invitations' stamps than any normal person would ever get over stamps. I am the proud owner of 240 stamps that we'll use to mail our invitations out very soon!

I took our complete invitation to the post office today to be weighed and measured. I was very excited to learn that we can use the $0.61 stamps for the invitation. Our invites are printed on 220 lb letterpress paper by Crane, so I thought we might have to pay even more than that for postage. We decided not to do the ribbon around the invite set because it was going to make it too bulky. Plus, it's already a snug fit with all of the enclosures!

So, I bought 120 of the $0.60 wedding cake stamps for the outer envelopes... they are so pretty! I also bought 120 of the $0.44 wedding ring stamps for the response envelopes. :) I had looked at making custom stamps on Zazzle or somewhere like that, but I just didn't like having to pay more than the face value of the stamps. So, for the exact minimum postage needed, we were able to get wedding related stamps and I think it's great!

Can't wait to mail these out, hopefully, NEXT WEEK!!