Yay, Candy!

After several weeks of not really doing any wedding stuff, except the occasional
project and sending invites to people I missed the first time.. I have officially
ordered our candy for our candy buffet table.

At the advice of the internet.. my number one resource.. I decided to cut down
the number of candies and up the amount of each instead. So now there are roughly..
75 lbs of candy headed towards my door? Wow.. I feel like a major fatty. The candy
buffet will have little baggies and is actually going to be our wedding favor. With
a lot of trial and error, I actually printed and punched out our own stickers for it.
.. I even made a little slits down the back, so you can actually get them off the paper.
Yay! That's one more thing that's basically finished.

My other project for today is getting lumber for and starting to build our bed frame!
It's kinda a crazy platform bed at first that I basically had my dad design based
off of a bed I briefly saw on HGTV. It's basically a dimensional frame for the box spring, which will sit on the floor with no legs. It is six inches wide all around,
and then the box spring will sit inside it, flush with the top of the frame. The
mattress will sit on top, sort of platformed. Yes yes.. I hope it's easier to make
than describe. Anyway, gotta go get wood now!

Wow, I'm lazy

But then I doubt that anyone would be sitting on the edge of their seat, waiting for me to update this old thing.

Lots of good things have been accomplished..

We finally met up with the photographer to talk about ..photos.

I got most of my bridesmaid gifts completed.

I informed the groomsmen (though not to their eternal pleasure) of their wedding attire.

Calum and I both got full time jobs, so no possibility of living in my parent's basement!

Calum's suit finally arrived, though it took double the time specified to get here.. and unless they're up at his belly button, the pants need to be let out. .. I swear my measurements aren't wrong, his butt just got bigger. Mmhmm.

With the suit, I also received my garter. Which is a little pointless, since we're not doing the garter toss, but I digress.

I made a little chalkboard sign to guide wedding guests out of a thrift store mirrored tray and spray paints.

Enjoy this incredibly attractive face I'm making.

Umm.. umm.. I finished Hannah's bouquet, but that was awhile ago, and I may have mentioned
that already.

I did mail the invitations, despite never getting around to taking a picture of any of them. I know it's early, but no one's RSVP'd. It's makin' me sad.

In other news, I spilled rubbing alcohol on my keyboard, now none of my top keys work.
It's pretty great, my volume down button is irreparably broken, and three different keys work as volume up buttons.. including the original, which keeps turning the volume up on its own. I've come home several times to hear a loud popping noise, the computer repeatedly trying to make itself louder, but reaching its limit. While I typed that sentence, it did it, yet again. But my lovely fiance has ordered me a new one on Amazon. Unfortunately, this is a three day weekend, curses!

Anyway, think I've rambled enough. <3

Learning Things.. good, I guess?

I was a bridesmaid at Laura's wedding this week. Well, technically Maid of Honor, but the only other bridesmaid was her now-sister-in-law Amy, who was the Matron of Honor. Though the set up was intensely frustrating (we do not come from a family of decision makers, and apparently Laura didn't marry into one either) it ended up looking really nice.

I must say, most of it coming together was thanks to Amanda, who was the wedding planner/assistant photographer.. etc. She did a very nice job with the space given. Unfortunately,I didn't end up getting any pictures. I think I even lost my camera, possibly. But I'll still need to check on that.

This wedding.. has inspired me to plan and plan until I can plan no more. I love Laura, but the stress is not something I want to have to deal with. It did give me an idea of what goes on for a rehearsal. I had a general idea, but it was good to see one in action. I also learned that having live music, or fading the music at the end of marches really cuts down on awkward, minute-long pauses.

Anyway, I'm all pumped up and ready to make some stuff! I've started on my bridesmaid headpieces. I had Hannah's done, and it was quite pretty. Unfortunately, it was quite a bit larger and more ornate than my own. Maybe that is vain, but I also was concerned it might obscure half her head. See, I think of others. I'm planing to make the others similar, and ..add a clip, so they're not holding them on. :D

See those large tissue paper pom pom flower things in the background? On the sewing machine with the mustache? Those are fated to end up as a part of this kinda set up.


We will, however, just have an arch, rather than.. a gazebo type contraption. So
hopefully the tree branches are low hanging enough to have some hanging in the background. Lighter aqua tissue is on its way, along with red and aqua tulle (with expensive enough shipping, my goodness, it can't cost 11 dollars to ship tulle and tissue paper). Maybe I can find some silver tissue that's not a dollar per sheet or only sold in 100 sheet packs. I need more colors so it doesn't look extremely patriotic up there, the turquoise is a little darker blue than I thought.

I'll stop rambling, but here's a picture of my wedding dress with the newly acquired crinoline. (it is super puffy and makes me like the dress a lot more) Hannah, don't worry, I'm pretty sure Calum doesn't even remember this blog exists. Everyone, ignore the bra.

Stop that

I've decided that people should probably stop getting engaged ages after me and then getting married before me. Not cool, guys.. not cool. I think there were more weddings/engagements this year that the last ten combined.

Anyway, I've finally just bit the bullet with addressing envelopes. I stamped our names + my address on the back with a.. less than perfect stamp I made myself, then I had to add decorative brackets and hearts.. of course. I decided to just go ahead and pencil on the names/addresses in my approximation of the font I've used in most of the wedding designs. (except the Save the Dates.. that font is way too ornate for me) Then I went over them with my trusty thin tip Sharpie.

Well, if you must know, the Sharpie started acting up about ten in, so I switched to these manga artist pens I borrowed from Calum several months ago. And when I say borrowed, he let me use his laptop and these happened to be in the same bag as it.

As soon as I get six more addresses, I'll be all done on that front. Then I have to seal and stamp the envelopes. We decided to hand out as many of them in person as we possibly can (aka we're cheap) so that will save on stamps. As for the sealing, the envelopes have the most wretched adhesive possible, so I will be recruiting some sort of damp sponge to my cause.

Want a badly shot picture of the envelopes? Sure ya do.

But I fail at taking acceptable pictures on iphoto at night. So those will have to wait.

Blind Sided

Pardon my pun. I watched The Blind Side today, and ended up being pleasantly surprised.



I am definitely not a fan of sports movies in general. Not that other movies aren't predictable,
but are we really supposed to be surprised anymore when the underdog team turns over a new leaf, surprising critics and taking home the gold? That's uplifting and all, but really?

I guess I'm just a sucker for stories about people coming from hard backgrounds and overcoming nearly insurmountable odds. Okay, I know that sounds a lot like what I previously said made sports movies so predictable. Leave me be, this movie had me in tears, alright?

Go watch it so you too can say that it was really good for a sports movie.. or for any type of movie in general, really. Excluding horror, of course.

Mish Mash

Another lesson has been learned today. Don't apply lipstick in a moving car at night by the light of a cellphone. (Unless you're an experienced professional?) It will result in bright red mustachios, which while amusing, are not the best look for anyone except Yosemite Sam.

But anyway, what do you think of red lipstick on me? I'm considering it for my wedding lipstick.


Is it too bright? I must say, the flash didn't help with that any. I'm not a vampire, I swear. Anyway, voice your opinions, please.

I had something very (ver ver) important to say, but I've forgotten it. Surprisingly.

Invitations

So.. apparently I cannot read/compute dimensions. The invitations are a little smaller than I expected.

.. I think I may have switched from A6 to A7 envelopes and not realized it. The maps are a little bigger than the invitations. I think it's alright? Alright enough to not spend money to re-do them. Now I've just got to make good on stuffing envelopes. That's what they had us do in high school if we didn't have jobs, stuff envelopes.

Now that I think about it, they would have letters to the alumni encouraging donations because so-and-so student was working so hard in this area and so-and-so student was working so hard in another. Such as, "Susie is here on a scholarship and she's so excited to attend a Christian school and be in sports and music and art and everything ever." But.. none of those students actually attended the school. Way to lie, that's a good example.

Oh yeah.. now I have to figure out how to address these. What I did for the Save the Dates is not a possibility if I want to retain any sanity. Are clear mailing labels tacky?

Wedding Planning

Wedding planning has been going smoothly enough, though there is always a need for more money to pay for things like the venue and photographer. (Interesting note, it's awkward to show up to your photographer's house for a meeting and find that she's out of state and you just forgot the correct date.)
I've almost finished ordering all the stationery stuff (invitations, rsvp cards, etc.) now, only the programs left to order. That is, unless I've forgotten a crucial piece of wedding info that needs to be printed. I'm just saying, it can't be that crucial or I would've remembered it.. probably. The maps/rsvp cards have arrived, and I've even stuffed them all into the pretty silver envelopes (which I just remembered I was planning to line. Too late now..muahahaha!).

Yes, I'm aware of the terrible quality, I couldn't find my camera

So when the invitations arrive tomorrow (I'm impatient, since I thought the delivery date said the 15th. See any recurring themes here?) I shall complete the invitations.. Except printing all the addresses and stuff like that. Fun stuff. I shall try not to misspell any names this time.

That is it for my wedding planning rambling.. for now.

A tale of a wedding-to-be

Standing with Calum in front of my dad as he asked for my hand in marriage was one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life. Though instead of a moment, it felt more like an hour. It wasn't so much that I thought he would say no, there was just a palpable awkwardness about the whole situation. They liked each other, but my dad was just surprised by it all.

It is understandable, I suppose, looking back. We'd only been dating for about four months, and hadn't even been in the same state for one of those months. Only after did I actually calculate the months and found them to be much fewer than I'd imagined at the time. To us, it seemed like it had been such a long time. (Though in a good way, not in your this-class-has-gone-on-forever sorta way)

When you see people in movies look across a crowded room at a recent introduction and say, "That's the woman I'm going to marry someday," it is quite the romantic moment. But.. well, it feels really creepy to have these feelings about someone you've just started talking to on a more serious level. Maybe I was just worried that my secret (okay, maybe not that secret) creepy side was manifesting itself, causing me to get way ahead of myself. In any case, I told a few close friends, but was not about to broach the subject with Calum.

A few weeks after Valentine's Day, he asked me to be his girlfriend and we began to talk even more. (If that is possible) For whatever reason, it soon became apparent that both of us wanted a life together and we began to plan for it. We talked of it often, even going through part of a marriage counseling booklet together over the phone.

After I returned home, we spent almost all our free time together. (Sorry, friends!) Finally, after several months, Calum was able to work past the nervousness and fear I'm sure a lot of young men face when preparing to ask for the father for his daughter's hand in marriage. I'm a little amused by the fact that we even googled how to ask and that sort of thing. Finally it was over, and within a week, Calum had proposed in "our tree" that we had visited all throughout the summer.

And that is the long, drawn-out, and possibly badly-written story that lead to our engagement.