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!!