Friday, May 11, 2012
Just go with the professionals...
Yep, save yourself some time and grief and find a reputable vendor for you wedding. When I first started planning this thing I had a friend or a friend of a friend who did everything. I had a friend who was going to do all of the bridal party's hair. He flaked out in the first month of planning. My brother in law's cousin is a florist at a grocery store and was going to do flowers on the side. Never heard back from her. My sister had a friend who does cakes, but she quit doing wedding cakes. And a friend of our officiant (also a friend) was going to do the catering. I just heard that he's possibly going to flake out too. So when it comes down to it, do yourself a favor, start looking for reviews and get someone you can trust. I now have an awesome photographer who I've seen in action even before our engagement pics. I have a cool florist who shared pics with me over pinterest to get exactly what I wanted. My cake shop comes highly recommended and sent me pics of a cake similar to ours. Found a restaurant that does catering and the price is right and I love their food. So the only service left from a friend is our officiant and he's not going anywhere. Almost planned, time to sit back and take a breather!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Why is it that every time I start to get ahead of my DIY wedding list that I find something new and interesting that I want to make for the wedding? I'm finally getting somewhere with the flowers, I even fluffed out about 100 of them a couple weeks ago and ended up with a very nice pile of pretty flowers
I also decided to see how it would look as a centerpiece...
Can you guess what my favorite drink is?
I also decided that I really like the rufflie looking chair decor so I made a few of those. I think that I need to get some more fabric though to fill them out.
And last I painted my aisle runner!
My neighbor finished both of our signs
That is the ceremony sign and I love it! It turned out well even after the missing "e" fiasco. I have a smaller one that points to the reception as well. Interesting how my squiggly little arrow looks like the word "love." A happy little accident, I didn't even notice until our neighbor pointed it out to me!
Now that invitations are out and RSVPs are starting to come in, I'm on full on wedding mode. I think it's starting to get to me because I'm having wedding nightmares. Last night I dreamed that I couldn't get a hold of the photographer. He didn't show up til almost two hours after the ceremony and I was very upset that I didn't get all of the pre-wedding pics, ceremony pics and the family had already changed out of their wedding garb. On top of that we were in some sleazy smoke smelling banquet hall instead of the tent. I kept telling everyone that we were supposed to be outside and playing games, but they kept saying it's going to rain, don't worry about it. The whole thing just turned into a complete mess! All I could think was, "what about all the stuff I had planned? I put so much effort into this and no one cares"
For the next couple of weeks to do list, program board (I started this but it turned out a complete disaster so time for plan B), vows book, menu/reception program, and signs signs sings!
Till next time!
I also decided to see how it would look as a centerpiece...
Can you guess what my favorite drink is?
I also decided that I really like the rufflie looking chair decor so I made a few of those. I think that I need to get some more fabric though to fill them out.
And last I painted my aisle runner!
My neighbor finished both of our signs
That is the ceremony sign and I love it! It turned out well even after the missing "e" fiasco. I have a smaller one that points to the reception as well. Interesting how my squiggly little arrow looks like the word "love." A happy little accident, I didn't even notice until our neighbor pointed it out to me!
Now that invitations are out and RSVPs are starting to come in, I'm on full on wedding mode. I think it's starting to get to me because I'm having wedding nightmares. Last night I dreamed that I couldn't get a hold of the photographer. He didn't show up til almost two hours after the ceremony and I was very upset that I didn't get all of the pre-wedding pics, ceremony pics and the family had already changed out of their wedding garb. On top of that we were in some sleazy smoke smelling banquet hall instead of the tent. I kept telling everyone that we were supposed to be outside and playing games, but they kept saying it's going to rain, don't worry about it. The whole thing just turned into a complete mess! All I could think was, "what about all the stuff I had planned? I put so much effort into this and no one cares"
For the next couple of weeks to do list, program board (I started this but it turned out a complete disaster so time for plan B), vows book, menu/reception program, and signs signs sings!
Till next time!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Why your girlfriends are better than a forum
I had a little frustration with something today and the one person who I talk to about every two hours every day was unavailable (Damn you!). So feeling like I had to get it out NOW, I turned to a forum that I have never posted on before. Yeah bad idea. So here is why your best friend is better than anyone on a forum.
When you call your best friend to rant, they will listen, sympathize momentarily, then tell you that you need to calm down, tell you that you are being a tad bit unreasonable, offer a suitable solution and then proceed to chat about everything else you have to get out from the last two hours that you haven't talked.
In opposition, women on a forum will call you a brat, a bitch, a snatch face, proceed to ridicule you for any and everything you've written and continue to tell you that you are the worst person alive. This is why they have no friends and must continue to post on a forum of which they should really have no valuable input for.
When you call your best friend to rant, they will listen, sympathize momentarily, then tell you that you need to calm down, tell you that you are being a tad bit unreasonable, offer a suitable solution and then proceed to chat about everything else you have to get out from the last two hours that you haven't talked.
In opposition, women on a forum will call you a brat, a bitch, a snatch face, proceed to ridicule you for any and everything you've written and continue to tell you that you are the worst person alive. This is why they have no friends and must continue to post on a forum of which they should really have no valuable input for.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Lower North Fork Fire
The Lower North Fork Fire is threatening the home I grew up. We have evacuated animals and taken a lot of sentimental items out. Now we sit and wait, and hope that firefighters can contain the fire before it reaches home. Not only is this my favorite place on earth, but it's also where we are planning to have the wedding.
In an attempt to get my mind off this, I've decided to share a little bit. I'm also avoiding real work. Mostly because I've gotten about 6 hours of sleep and I don't have brain capacity to think anymore.
Talked to my future mother about the points in the last post, got a little snarky to get it out of us and decided that it's best to just go with what I want. She's such a doll! Most people I start in on the ex about and they roll their eyes. She gets up there with me. It doesn't last long, but it feels good to just get the frustration with that horrible girl out. It was also nice to find out the cake topper that they had was picked out by his mom, since I was worried that the one Mr. GL and I had picked out was too similar. He did tell me that he wasn't surprised that some of the things that we were doing were the same, after all he did pick us...I gave him a nasty look. I'm much better than her!
Well, back to the subject at hand...the wedding! The ceremony is almost done, I have the wording and it's lovely. Just waiting for Mr. GL to put some words down for when we exchange rings. After what seemed like forever, I have finished all of the Kusumada balls for the pews. I had a little help from the big girl, but mostly done by myself. I am considering making more so that I have two for each pew, but I'll have to see how ambitious I really am. I also added sparkly fun and cheap beads to the center of the flowers. I wanted pearls, but Walmart was out. And of course in Laramie, it's either order in or deal with what you have. The seem to catch the light so I'm sure it will be nice.
I have a wonderful neighbor whose dad bought a routing machine for wood! I've asked him to make me a few signs for the wedding...I can't wait to see how they will turn out.
The reception decoration is going well. I ordered some very cute and very cheap glass photo coasters. I had considered giving only one per person, but they are so cheap we are giving out a set of two. We put a picture of us in one coaster and then a little printed "thank you" in the other and then put them back in the plastic box they came in. Originally I wrapped them with the purple and green raffia and put a paper rose around each bow. They ended up like this...
Well that's nice, but I decided that I would rather actually wrap them with kraft paper. The result was very nice,
I plan on adding a tag of some sort and those will be all done!
I've also been working on getting the table decorations done. It turns out that my original idea of vases with orchids in water with a floating candle on top would be entirely to expensive, but I found this on pinterest. Oh yeah, cheap and very pretty. So I'm now most of the way through making them! There will be a mix of purple and green on the tables. All the big flowers are made, time for the small flowers. All for about $75. I also found very cute square vases at IKEA for very cheap (about $130 for all) that will go in the center with sand and a candle. In lieu of the fire though, we will be going for flameless candles.
Invitations are ready to be sent out as soon as I buy stamps!
I started off with printing envelopes, but decided to call upon my calligraphy skills in the end and hand address the rest of the envelopes.
I will have to take a picture of the inserts, they are pretty cool. I already gave my dearest neighbor who helped inspire the design her invite and she refused to give me the RSVP card back because she wanted to keep it. Mission accomplished!
Jewelry is also done, here is what I ended up making for mine.
Well that's about all the crappy cell phone pics I have for now. I really should get the big camera out to take pics, but I've been entirely to lazy when the cell is so easy to get pictures online with!
As I update, the fire doesn't seem to be moving any closer to home. Let's pray that the wonderful firefighters can get containment soon and no one else loses their homes or lives!
In an attempt to get my mind off this, I've decided to share a little bit. I'm also avoiding real work. Mostly because I've gotten about 6 hours of sleep and I don't have brain capacity to think anymore.
Talked to my future mother about the points in the last post, got a little snarky to get it out of us and decided that it's best to just go with what I want. She's such a doll! Most people I start in on the ex about and they roll their eyes. She gets up there with me. It doesn't last long, but it feels good to just get the frustration with that horrible girl out. It was also nice to find out the cake topper that they had was picked out by his mom, since I was worried that the one Mr. GL and I had picked out was too similar. He did tell me that he wasn't surprised that some of the things that we were doing were the same, after all he did pick us...I gave him a nasty look. I'm much better than her!
Well, back to the subject at hand...the wedding! The ceremony is almost done, I have the wording and it's lovely. Just waiting for Mr. GL to put some words down for when we exchange rings. After what seemed like forever, I have finished all of the Kusumada balls for the pews. I had a little help from the big girl, but mostly done by myself. I am considering making more so that I have two for each pew, but I'll have to see how ambitious I really am. I also added sparkly fun and cheap beads to the center of the flowers. I wanted pearls, but Walmart was out. And of course in Laramie, it's either order in or deal with what you have. The seem to catch the light so I'm sure it will be nice.
I have a wonderful neighbor whose dad bought a routing machine for wood! I've asked him to make me a few signs for the wedding...I can't wait to see how they will turn out.
The reception decoration is going well. I ordered some very cute and very cheap glass photo coasters. I had considered giving only one per person, but they are so cheap we are giving out a set of two. We put a picture of us in one coaster and then a little printed "thank you" in the other and then put them back in the plastic box they came in. Originally I wrapped them with the purple and green raffia and put a paper rose around each bow. They ended up like this...
Well that's nice, but I decided that I would rather actually wrap them with kraft paper. The result was very nice, 
I plan on adding a tag of some sort and those will be all done!
I've also been working on getting the table decorations done. It turns out that my original idea of vases with orchids in water with a floating candle on top would be entirely to expensive, but I found this on pinterest. Oh yeah, cheap and very pretty. So I'm now most of the way through making them! There will be a mix of purple and green on the tables. All the big flowers are made, time for the small flowers. All for about $75. I also found very cute square vases at IKEA for very cheap (about $130 for all) that will go in the center with sand and a candle. In lieu of the fire though, we will be going for flameless candles.
Invitations are ready to be sent out as soon as I buy stamps!
I started off with printing envelopes, but decided to call upon my calligraphy skills in the end and hand address the rest of the envelopes.
I will have to take a picture of the inserts, they are pretty cool. I already gave my dearest neighbor who helped inspire the design her invite and she refused to give me the RSVP card back because she wanted to keep it. Mission accomplished!
Jewelry is also done, here is what I ended up making for mine.
Well that's about all the crappy cell phone pics I have for now. I really should get the big camera out to take pics, but I've been entirely to lazy when the cell is so easy to get pictures online with!
As I update, the fire doesn't seem to be moving any closer to home. Let's pray that the wonderful firefighters can get containment soon and no one else loses their homes or lives!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Second time epiphany
Well the wedding crafting is in full force. I spent a good portion of the weekend putting together the favors with a little break to go ride the sled and drink some beer.
Thursday night I decided that I didn't want to do anything that Mr. Get lucky did in his first wedding so I convinced him that I needed full access to the pictures and files from his first wedding which we will call from here on out the practice wedding. Being the guy he is, he gave them to me. I spent a good portion of the evening and Friday looking through them and making snarky remarks. Bad idea. I was starting to feel crappy about the whole thing.
That was nothing though. This morning I decided to tackle the ceremony wording. I picked a few readings including one from a favorite book, The Prophet. Since I like to be original we have decided on a hand fasting ceremony as well. I opened the practice wedding ceremony wording to make sure she never read The Prophet and it wasn't included. Well, good news there. As I read a little further my heart sank. Some of the wording that I had found for the hand fasting ceremony was repeated very closely. Well crap. I had to notice that what I found and I liked so much was about partnership while her rendition was all about how wonderful she was. Typical.
I showed it to Mr. Get Lucky and he shrugged, "well the context is different." Thanks honey. After calling all of my friends and whining I got some of the best advice I've heard. Don't worry about her and do what makes you happy. I've been so concerned about bot repeating anything that was in the practice wedding and avoiding asking Mr. Get Lucky as to avoid him thinking about it as well as having my ideas rejected without a reason why. But they are right. This is our wedding and we can't avoid everything. While I don't want to remind him of the past it might happen. While I don't want to repeat what she did it might be inevitable.
What I have to remind myself is that this is the real wedding. I won't ever tell him that I want a divorce in a pathetic attempt to....uh, "save the relationship." I refuse to be that stuck on myself. I will do everything in my power to stay together forever.
Ok, time for a little snark though. I will be the bride with a beer pong table but I won't take pictures of us kissing half in the portal potties as a posed picture. I don't think my photographer would even agree to that. I will not have "artistic" pictures that involve my deodorant or me making a fishy face.
I will not make the same pose forehead to forehead to every member of my wedding party. My pictures won't have my acne scars visible, oh wait I don't have acne scars. My photos won't have red eye. My bridesmaids will not be in prom dresses. I will not force Mr. Get Lucky to read a full page of vows I've written for him about how much he loves me. My wedding will not look like Toucan Sam threw up. I will not have cupcakes that look like they came from Walmart. I will not make my future sister in law be my personal attendant and treat her like a slave. I will not hire a bartender to get my future in laws drunk so they will look like asses in front of our friends and family (especially when they paid for the wedding). I will not make it all about me, but I will make it all about us. I will be unique and the wedding will be visually stunning.
Most importantly I will never take my future husband for granted and I WILL love him for all that he is.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Decorating a wedding
I some how thoughtd that decorating a wedding myself would cheaper. Just like I thought that doing my own invites would be cheaper. It's not. Why? Cause just when you think that you have it perfect, you see one more element that needs to be added. Case in point, I just decided that my outer envelopes will need liners and my inner envelopes need paper bands, but I will get to that later.
As thought how to decorate the aisle for the ceremony I dreaded the cost of flowers at the end of each row of chairs. I saw this picture on theknot.com....
Lanterns! What a great idea! But lanterns are still a couple dollars a piece...I'm sure I could do better than that! A few months ago I downloaded an app for kusudama origami for big girl since she has discovered oragami and loves it. Then I ran into a blog post where a bride to be had used these for pew decorations.
There are a lot of variations, of these flower balls and some very stunning, but finding instructions was all too difficult so I'm staying with the traditional ball. You can find some nice instructions here. I got out my stock of purple and green scrap book paper, made a bunch of 3" paper squares thinking that I would be well on my way to the 16 balls I think I will need. Not even close. I have enough for about 5. So I started searching for origami papers to make it out of. Wrong again, too expensive for the amount of paper that I needed. My next bright idea was to go through all of my old magazines and pull out any pages that had the same colors. Brilliant! That got me another two balls. Crap. Why didn't I think of it sooner....wrapping paper! Of course! It comes in every color and design imaginable, it's relatively cheap and there is usually a lot of it.
If you are thinking about kusudama balls for decorating keep a couple things in mind.
Another piece of advice, make sure you spell check your invites and all inserts. I did mine in photoshop and didn't spell check. The first thirty direction cards I printed I spelled south with an "r". Whoops. So I whited out the R and figure I will send those to people who are getting the courtesy invite but won't actually come.
I've also decided that printing our return address as well as the RSVP card envelopes will be too much of a pain, so I decided to create a stamp. Now the stamps that the paper source have are undeniably cute, but also too small and also expensive. But it turns out that you can have a stamp created from a jpg file very affordably. I chose a 2 7/8 by 1 3/8 self inking stamp for $18 from thestampmaker.com. I created the design I wanted in photoshop, uploaded it and tada! For $10 less than the cost of the papersource stamps, I have one that is large enough to stamp our address on the RSVP cards and will work for return addresses as well. It's also something that I can have Mr. Get Lucky do. As good as he is about all this wedding planning and DIY, I would love a little more help.
Well that is what I have for today! Or at least this morning...
As thought how to decorate the aisle for the ceremony I dreaded the cost of flowers at the end of each row of chairs. I saw this picture on theknot.com....
Lanterns! What a great idea! But lanterns are still a couple dollars a piece...I'm sure I could do better than that! A few months ago I downloaded an app for kusudama origami for big girl since she has discovered oragami and loves it. Then I ran into a blog post where a bride to be had used these for pew decorations.
There are a lot of variations, of these flower balls and some very stunning, but finding instructions was all too difficult so I'm staying with the traditional ball. You can find some nice instructions here. I got out my stock of purple and green scrap book paper, made a bunch of 3" paper squares thinking that I would be well on my way to the 16 balls I think I will need. Not even close. I have enough for about 5. So I started searching for origami papers to make it out of. Wrong again, too expensive for the amount of paper that I needed. My next bright idea was to go through all of my old magazines and pull out any pages that had the same colors. Brilliant! That got me another two balls. Crap. Why didn't I think of it sooner....wrapping paper! Of course! It comes in every color and design imaginable, it's relatively cheap and there is usually a lot of it.If you are thinking about kusudama balls for decorating keep a couple things in mind.
- They are time consuming. I can do one ball in about two hours.
- They take an insane amount of paper. I made mine with 3x3 pieces for each petal. They take 60 petals to make a ball. Do the math.
I'm thinking of doing the balls and a lantern on each end chair for a bit of overkill. Or just to annoy the guests sitting in that chair.
Another piece of advice, make sure you spell check your invites and all inserts. I did mine in photoshop and didn't spell check. The first thirty direction cards I printed I spelled south with an "r". Whoops. So I whited out the R and figure I will send those to people who are getting the courtesy invite but won't actually come.
I've also decided that printing our return address as well as the RSVP card envelopes will be too much of a pain, so I decided to create a stamp. Now the stamps that the paper source have are undeniably cute, but also too small and also expensive. But it turns out that you can have a stamp created from a jpg file very affordably. I chose a 2 7/8 by 1 3/8 self inking stamp for $18 from thestampmaker.com. I created the design I wanted in photoshop, uploaded it and tada! For $10 less than the cost of the papersource stamps, I have one that is large enough to stamp our address on the RSVP cards and will work for return addresses as well. It's also something that I can have Mr. Get Lucky do. As good as he is about all this wedding planning and DIY, I would love a little more help.
Well that is what I have for today! Or at least this morning...
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
OMG! So Flipping Cool!
After hand addressing 130 some save the date envelopes I'm pretty sure of three things: 1) I really need to lighten my grip on the pen; 2) I have carpal tunnel; and 3) I'm definitely printing the envelopes for the formal invitations. While theknot.com says that it is absolutely unacceptable to let your computer do the work, Martha Stewart says that it's okay. I'll trust Martha on this one, given she's the queen of all things DIY AND Etiquette. I'm sure she didn't write the article, but I digress.....
The save the date cards had a bit of a snafu; according to them I'm getting married. 7/14/201. Get your time machines out peeps. I'm pretty sure that I just missed the full date not fitting in the allotted spot when I created them on Walmart's photo page (yes I'm cheap). I really didn't want to wait the 2 weeks it would take to return them and have them reprinted, so I sucked it up, found an old scratch board pen and scratched the two in the photo paper. Wouldn't you know that after 150 I could scratch out a fairly convincing two? This is the second F-up I've made; the first being that I ordered text paper, not card stock to make the pocket folds out of. I decided that would be okay since it just reduces the weight of the invite and hopefully the postage as well.
Back to the invites I think I got the wording down, the directions return cards and so on together. All I needed was a nice map. Now I could spend 4 hours on photoshop trying to make one, I could pay someone on Etsy a ridiculous amount to make me one...or I could do a little internet searching. Since I'm both lazy and cheap, I chose the latter and found this little bit of awesomeness....
Which gave me an awesome map, that I will choose not to share less my three anonymous readers decide to crash my wedding (email me, and get a formal invite at least!) Hopefully the link took you to the right place, but here is a mock one that I created so you can see how cool this is.
In the meantime I wait for postage to arrive so I can send out save the dates and the rest of the fun stuff for the invites so I can finally get a full mock up to weigh, send to myself and of course take pics of it for here.
What mistakes did you make when planning for the wedding? What cool tools did you find to help you along?
The save the date cards had a bit of a snafu; according to them I'm getting married. 7/14/201. Get your time machines out peeps. I'm pretty sure that I just missed the full date not fitting in the allotted spot when I created them on Walmart's photo page (yes I'm cheap). I really didn't want to wait the 2 weeks it would take to return them and have them reprinted, so I sucked it up, found an old scratch board pen and scratched the two in the photo paper. Wouldn't you know that after 150 I could scratch out a fairly convincing two? This is the second F-up I've made; the first being that I ordered text paper, not card stock to make the pocket folds out of. I decided that would be okay since it just reduces the weight of the invite and hopefully the postage as well.
Back to the invites I think I got the wording down, the directions return cards and so on together. All I needed was a nice map. Now I could spend 4 hours on photoshop trying to make one, I could pay someone on Etsy a ridiculous amount to make me one...or I could do a little internet searching. Since I'm both lazy and cheap, I chose the latter and found this little bit of awesomeness....
Which gave me an awesome map, that I will choose not to share less my three anonymous readers decide to crash my wedding (email me, and get a formal invite at least!) Hopefully the link took you to the right place, but here is a mock one that I created so you can see how cool this is.
In the meantime I wait for postage to arrive so I can send out save the dates and the rest of the fun stuff for the invites so I can finally get a full mock up to weigh, send to myself and of course take pics of it for here.
What mistakes did you make when planning for the wedding? What cool tools did you find to help you along?
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