Shoes Part Two

My original plan, when it came to shoes, was to wear these all night long.

I figured I would have happy feet which would equal a happy me. And who doesn't want to be happy on their wedding day?

But then, there was the conversation with my dress maker. She asked what I was thinking about for shoes and after I told her, there was a total look of shock, disgust and fear on her little French - Canadian face. She was not happy. I quickly began to back peddle and said, well, maybe that was just one idea. Needless to say, I caved under the pressure . . . but then I found these:

Nothing too fancy, but something I could wear again. These are actually the shoes I had wanted to find for Seattle Groom's sister's wedding, but at that time, I couldn't find them anywhere in my size. Somehow I found them, bought them and haven't looked back. Now my plan is to wear the fancy shmancy shoes during the ceremony, then change into the ultra comfy, stylish Vans for the reception. Now all I have to do is learn how to walk in these things without tripping, ripping my dress or breaking my leg. Good luck to me!

Flowers

Flowers. What am I supposed to look for in a florist? I had no clue. I decided I wanted someone close by the Lake Union Cafe. I was thinking that if it was close, than that would be one less of a hassle to deal with on the big day! After a couple of google searches and some heavy review reading, I found The Flower Lady!! The cute little shop is just a couple of blocks from the LUC and is right on Eastlake . . . very convenient!!!

This little shop is quite the eclectic shop. There is a little bit of everything! The shop is owned by the super nice lady who obviously has a passion for what she does. And have I mentioned what a great job she does? No? Well, take a look at this arraignment she "whipped" up for us in about five minutes time!

It was pretty impressive! She seemed like she is going to be a lot of fun to work with too! Even better than all this? She is really pretty inexpensive. We don't have an actual quote, so this one could bite us in the butt, but we were looking over an invoice that was left on the counter for a wedding she was currently working on (I know, nosey us!) and this girl had a TON of flowers. She had aisle arraignments, six or seven bridesmaids, flower girls, table arraignments, the works! We aren't having nearly that many flowers, just me, the three bridesmaids, our two moms and that's it! I want just simple tulip bouquets - I am still going for the less is more mentality here. We are thinking that this is the one thing that is going to come in under budget . . . yay!!

Catching Up

I feel kind of like I have neglected my little blog, but in all honesty, there isn't much going on right now!! Here's where we are at:

• Bridesmaids dresses are all picked out and will be ordered within the next couple of weeks.
• I did change the shade of blue . . . originally I wanted a light, robins egg blue, but thought i could only get this deeper "pool" blue. As it turns out, I CAN get a lighter blue for the girls' peek-a-boo skirts! Yay!!! And even better? This new blue totally matches the blue of the save the dates and the favor tags, so I won't have to re-do them!!!
• I still don't know what to do with my hair . . . any ideas? It will be pretty long by March!!
• The invitation printer people still need all of the guest's addresses before they can print the invitations. That is goal number one for this weekend . . . come Hell or high water! :-)
• We, and by we I mean Seattle Groom, are still trying to figure out this groomsmen thing.
• We have to finalize the hotel block before invitations go out.
• We have to register before the invitations go out . . . which means that we just might have to agree on one or two things sometime soon!
• Officiants/Photographer/DJ/Cake/Location/Florist are all booked, but starting in January we will have to start meeting with them one by one (again) to talk details and finalize things.
• We still have to pick out/figure out what the groomsmen will be wearing.
• Rehearsal dinner still needs to be planned/organized.
• The favors haven't even started to be worked upon . . . that is a Christmas Vacation activity I think!
• I want to make a card box. Not something too fancy, but not something tacky either (and trust me, I have seen some VERY tacky card boxes on various wedding blogs and sites).

I guess instead of giving you an update as to what has been done, I gave you a list of what has yet to be done! At times I think about this wedding thing and I think that there isn't much to do, but then, especially once I put it down on paper, I realize that there is still a lot to do!! Now if only I could get motivated, or better yet, motivate my main partner in crime, to get a few things done!!!

Ideas

I haven't posted in quite awhile and I have lots to catch up on!! But first, I wanted to share this super cool idea board I just created! I love the concept of idea boards, but had no idea how to create them. Then a super nice blogger on WeddingBee posted a mini tutorial on how to create one using PowerPoint. I had a file full of potential bouquet ideas so I put them to work and here is what I created!!

It couldn't have been easier!!

These are just a few of the bouquets I have bookmarked from my various searches.

Really, I was just wanting to play and see if I too could be one of those "cool" bloggers who create these awesome collages!!

The Dress

Have I told you about my dress yet? I can't tell you too much, just in case Seattle Groom decides to peek at this, but I will share a few details along the way!

While I did go to a local dress shop and totally fell in LOVE with a beautiful ivory, lace, beaded gown, my mom convinced me to at least meet with a friend's dress maker friend before I made my final decision. I humored my mom, not having the highest of expectations, but what do you know? I fell in love again, with Chantal, the most amazingly talented couture dress designer! Amazing!!!

I am just beginning this dress journey! We have been to the fabric store and have narrowed down the fabric options (more on that soon!) and next Tuesday I have my first meeting with Chantal where we will begin to design my dress!

I will admit, I am a little nervous about this whole process, but I am doing my best to be open minded and flexible . . . two traits I do not normally possess! :-)

Hair Update

Remember awhile back I posted a picture of Taylor Swift and a cool up-do I wanted to try out when I got my hair done for Seattle Groom’s sister’s wedding? Well, that plan didn’t quite work out! My hairstylist just started in on my hair without asking what I had in mind or wanted and I got a little intimidated (go figure!) by her so I said nothing. Dang it! Especially since what she ended up doing to my hair was nothing like I wanted and it fell out before the wedding. Super annoying! I didn’t get any pictures of it either (super annoying, again!) but I am sure I will find one or two to post here soon!

Could the first up-do I find be “the one?” I think just maybe. I keep looking at different hair styles and up-do’s and I have to say, the photo I posted of Taylor Swift’s hair is still my favorite!

Officiant Searching

For the past couple of weeks, I have had one thing on my “to do” list and I am just not sure how to get it done. How do I find a wedding officiant? Seattle Groom and I are not religious. Not being part of any sort of religious group is making this task a little tricky.

I have done the Google searches, the Knot searches and even asked around to a couple of friends who have gotten married somewhat recently. So far, no luck. The people I find through my on-line searches all seem a little too over the top for us and many of our friends had family or family friends officiate their ceremony. I am kind of stuck here!!!

How do you pick someone to marry you to your best friend?

Pleasant Surprises

Love a good bargain? So do I! Love them!

Awhile back when we were first looking at wedding invitations (you know, those HUGE books with page after page after page of invitations and accessories) Seattle Groom mentioned how he thought it would be kind of fun to have napkins with our names and wedding date pressed into them. I was pretty surprised that he was so into this idea. It wasn’t really something I had thought about. We put it on the list to talk to the invitation people about and moved on.

The other day as we were wandering through the mall (again!) we walked by a table full of random wedding stuff. I did not really give the table or its contents a second glance yet alone a first glance, but the table caught Mr. Groom’s eye. He began rifling through the contents and excitedly exclaimed “Hey, Babe! Check this out!” What had he found? Nothing less than the cutest white cocktail napkins decorated with a simple silver “mr. & mrs.” They are beyond perfect! They are perfect for the cupcake table!

Did I mention that they were found on the clearance table? They were a STEAL!!

What awesome wedding bargains have you stumbled upon?

Happy Feet!

Shoes. Shoes are a big deal, especially when it comes to the ones you will be wearing under your wedding dress!! A friend of mine wore the cutest cowboy boots under her dress and I remember thinking just how cool I thought that was. Seattle Groom’s lil’ sister got married a few weeks ago (more on that later) and wore adorable hot pink stilettos under her dress. Cute little tips of bright pink peeped out from time to time during the day and into the night which, I have to admit, was pretty fun!

Now me, I am not so much of a heel sort of girl let alone a stiletto sort of girl much to the disappointment of a certain guy. What can I say? I teach first grade and those little guys and heels just do not mix! And on top of that, I am a comfort craver. I get pretty grouchy if my feet hurt, I am hot and so on! So, the other day, when Seattle Groom and I were wandering through the mall, these beauties caught my eye and I knew that they were the ones!

I know, I know . . . they are so not what would come to mind when thinking about your wedding day shoes. They aren’t elegant, but they are comfortable and I can (and will!) wear them after the wedding.

My feet are going to be the happiest little wedding feet dancing the night away!

Hair

What to do with my hair apparently is a very important detail that needs to be figured out. I had no idea how important this hair issue is. Everyone asks what I am doing with my hair. I don't know. I don't. I don't want a total up - do, but I don't want "normal" hair either.

The other day, while perusing through the weddingbee (have you checked out this awesome site yet???) I stumbled upon this picture.

I think this is it! I like how the hair is pulled back, yet isn't totally up and there is a natural feel to it. Now, I know that Taylor's hair is naturally curly and mine isn't, but I think for one day I can pretend!

Seattle Groom's sister is getting married next weekend and I am one of her bridesmaids. I just found out that she wants us to all have up - dos, so I am thinking that I will have to pack a copy of this picture with me all the way to Indiana and just maybe have myself a trial run!

Stay tuned to see how it goes!

Bridesmaid Dresses

As with just about everything else, when it came to the bridesmaid dresses, I had a vision! Last Thursday night my maid of honor and two bridesmaids along with my mom headed out to David's Bridal. I am trying to keep the dresses as cheap as possible, yet still somehow manage to make my vision come to life. At first I didn't think that I was going to find what I wanted. The girls were troopers and tried on all sorts of dresses. Finally, thanks to Seattle Sister Number Two taking charge and putting our "dress consultant" (if you can even call her that since she was MIA for 90% of our time there) we found what we wanted and I think everyone is happy!

Black dresses. I want black dresses. I figured with the Lake Union Cafe and the ceremony being at night, we would need something simple and elegant. Here is a picture of the dress we decided on. Black, strapless, and envision a light blue ("pool") peak - a - boo skirt peaking out the bottom of the dress. Love it!

Each of the three girls will have the option of adding a blue ribbon around their waist and or a blue sash along the top of the dress. Those options, like I said are up to the girls, along with their shoes, as long as they are black!

I think we are going to order the dresses in November to allow for PLENTY of time for them to come and for the girls to get them altered if needed. I think they will all have to be hemmed at least a couple of inches in order for the peak - a - boo skirt to work out!

Thanks girls for helping me figure this all out!!

Resource

It is summer time and I have a bit of time on my hands. Ok, a lot of time on my hands. However, thanks to this extra time, I have had the opportunity to do A LOT of playing on the internet and have run across a couple of really cool resources. This web site is by far the most helpful site I have found. I check it several times a day just to see what people are up to and what new ideas people have come up with . . . check it out, it's totally worth it!!

www.weddingbee.com

Wedding Page

After going through a multitude of options, I finally found a site that I wanted to use for our wedding website! It is pretty simple, but it gives you lots of options and is really easy to use which was a must!

www.nickandmelissa.projectwedding.com

I still have work to do on it, hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be finished and hopefully pretty cool!

Progress

When I think about what still needs to be done for this wedding, I think we are well on our way to getting things done.

Venue? Check!

Photographer? Check!

DJ? Check! Oh, have I told you about the DJ? So cool! He will be playing the piano there at the venue as the guests arrive, through the ceremony as needed and into dinner - that's my favorite part ever!!

My dress? Check! Well, kind of, I am having a dress custom made which is pretty cool and that will start in August after I get my "foundation."

Save the dates? Check! Although, we do need to get those in the mail . . .

Favors? 50% Check! Flowers? I know what I want but still have to check out a few options.

Invitations? Just need to be ordered!

Bridesmaid dresses? That's on the list to do next week!

What other "big picture" things am I missing???

By the way, here is a picture of the outside of the Lake Union Cafe. We went for a walk around there this past weekend checking out a few parks and other options for wedding day photos! I love this place!

Favors Part One

Ugh . . . I did my best to get a decent picture of these suckers, but for some reason, I wasn't able to get a clear, in focus picture. I don't know what's up with that, but I'll keep trying and when I get a good one, I'll be sure to post it!

Anyway, this is the tag that will go on our favor. It has our names and the date, pretty simple. I made 160 of these and am so hoping that I won't need to make any more. My hand hurts from punching out all of those little circles!! I think the tags look pretty cute and I can't wait to see them on the ornaments!!

Invitations

I had wanted to make my own wedding invitations. I had visions of the save the dates, the favors, invitations and programs matching 100% and I saw myself making them all.

Seattle Groom and I didn't agree on this 100%. He began investigating printing options because he was envisioning embossed invitations. I can't do embossed invitations, so we were willing to have that done professionally. We ended up at the Costco print shop where we were sucked in to the typical wedding invitation sample books. An hour later we flipped a page and both went "AHHHH!!! . . . That's it!!!" We found exactly what we were wanting without knowing that that was what we were wanting! I LOVE them!! I love them so much, I am counting down the hours until Saturday when I get to go back to Costco and order them.

This isn't the best picture of them, but hopefully you get the idea!

Save the Dates!!

I have always pictured myself making my own wedding invitations. Not quite sure why, but that's just what I have thought I would do! Since so many of our guests will be coming from out of state, Seattle Groom and I decided that Save the Dates were in order! Let the planning begin!

I had a very clear picture as to what it was that I wanted my S.T.D.'s to look like. Simple. Classy. Elegant. Not too much to ask for, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. After playing around with a couple of different ideas, a several trips to Paper Zone (thanks you, Tatjana for going with me!!), Ben Franklin, my mom's craft closet and more than a couple trips to Michael's, we had a winner! Or at least we thought we did.

Test after test after test.

Tatjana suggested that I use a stamp and emboss it. I absolutely loved that idea!! Once I finally had all of the necessary supplies, Seattle Groom and I go to play! The embossing wasn't turning out like we wanted it to. We were using black embossing powder which got everywhere and it was hard to get all of the extra, random little specks of powder off before we used the heat gun. We were getting kind of a spotty finish which was not cutting it. Seattle Groom, being the investigative sort that he is, turned to the internet and found an instructional video where the proctors suggested using black ink with clear embossing powder over it - genius!! It worked perfectly and finally, we had it down!

Here is what the finished product looks like!

They are all made, all 150 of them. Our next step is to finalize the guest list, print the envelopes and stick them in the mail!!

Engagement Story

This probably should have been the first entry to this blog, our engagement story, but I think I got a little ahead of myself! Better late than never, here is our engagement story!

It was quite the day! We got up very early in the morning with the intention of hiking down to the lighthouse at Discovery Park. However, after figuring out that we couldn’t drive all the way down there, and not really knowing how to get there, we nixed that idea and headed to Gaswork’s park. It was a pretty morning with crew teams and sail boats out enjoying the morning. From there it was back toward home, ran a few errands, had lunch, went back home, took a nap (we did get up early!), went to a very cool little park in Redmond which is a real farm with pigs (a mommy pig and 13 little baby piggies!), goats, horses, sheep, cows, turkeys, bunnies, chickens and I don’t know what else! There were newborn little goats out playing around which entertained us for a bit until the piglets came out to play! Then, all of a sudden, we decided to go watch the sunset, and where else in Seattle do you go to watch a sunset but Kerry Park? It was really cool. I had never been there before, but Seattle Groom had. We hung out awhile watching all of the high school kids come and go taking their prom pictures (um, when I went to prom, no one was wearing SHORT dress, but apparently, SHORT dresses that look like tutus are very “in” right now) and just before we go ready to go, I told Seattle Groom I loved him, he asked if I loved him enough to marry him and I said yes! Yay!!

Hanging out watching the sunset!

Pretty Seattle!!



The ring!!

A Place To Say I Do!!

I'll be honest, I have been researching wedding locations for years. My ideal location has changed year to year but now, my heart is set on the Lake Union Cafe. It is a quaint little place with lots of character and charm. I have come across it many times in my google searches for the ideal location, but have paid it no attention, I mean, who wants to get married in a cafe? Oh, it is so much more!! I don't have any of my own actual pictures of the place (yet!) but you should definitely check out their site, I love it!

www.lakeunioncafe.com

It's A Date . . . I Think!

Picking a date is proving to be a little bit more challenging then I had thought it would be. I want December, he wants summer, so we are compromising . . . March! March 20, 2010 to be exact! Of course we are 100% sure but I am thinking we will be by this weekend and then it will be time for the fun stuff! First up for the fun stuff? Save the dates. Oh, and there will be pictures!! :-)

Photographers

The person (or persons) you pick to take the pictures of your wedding have a huge responsibility. You don't want to hire just anyone off the street. You want someone who is reliable, creative and knowledgeable, I mean these are your visual memories we are talking about!!

I thought I had found the perfect photographer. I LOVED her work. I would read her blog each Monday to see what new photos she had posted. It was a done deal. I was ready to call her the minutes I had the ring on my finger. I wanted her to be my new BFF. have you picked up on all of the past tense wording? Yeah, that's right. It isn't going to happen. You see, she is moving at the end of the summer. Moving to Boston. Can't blame her. Boston is a pretty cool town, but now I am back at square one. And I am disappointed. I guess if you live in Boston and are planing a wedding, you should check her out! She is awesome!

www.katemcelweephotography.com

BUT there are other photographers out there, so I am told. I mean, I am in Seattle, a huge metropolis of a city. Shouldn't be a problem. Well, my friend, it is. I was just so hooked on the first photographer, that I am having a tough time letting go and moving on. But life is movin' on and so must I, so here are a couple of new possibilities!

This photographer was recommended to me by a coworker whose friend's daughter is getting married. It's not my favorite, but I think it has potential.

www.michellenewellphotography.com

This is my second choice. I am leaning more toward this photographer, but nothing is set in stone yet! I like her creativity and not so traditional photos.

www.kaylabosmaphotography.com

The First Issue

When you are engaged to someone whose family lives two thousand miles away, you face interesting challenges when trying to plan a wedding. Part of you, the bride, wants to have you wedding in the area in which you grew up, or someplace that has special meaning to you, or maybe you just want your wedding close to your home for the sake of your sanity. But what happens once you have that ring on your finger and those ever so important discussion begin? While there is part of me that is totally content on having my wedding here in the Northwest, part of me feels bad about my fiance's family and friends being so far away and even worse at the thought that most of them will not be able to make it out here to Seattle.

This is a tough situation. We have discussed having our wedding "in the middle" i.e. Denver, but then both families would have to travel and everyone will be at an inconvenience. For now, our wedding will be in Seattle, but even with that decision made, the guilt does not go away.

Dreams

Doesn't every little girl dream of her wedding? The big white dress, the beautiful cake, the flowers, the cute guy waiting for her at the end of the aisle? I have. Not only have I dreamed about my wedding, but I have a vision. A vision that has evolved over the years. In all honesty, I didn't really think that i would ever find a guy who would put up with me (I am being honest!) long enough to put these dreams and visions into action. Somehow I did and now we are in the very early stages of trying to combine my vision and his conservative, responsible tendencies. It isn't proving to be the smoothest of roads, but at least we are on the same side of the street and are making it over the pot holes together! here's to our quest to mold together two visions into the perfect day!