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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Three Weeks

There are now three weeks until the wedding.

That's 21 days.

A visual interpretation:


That doesn't seem like a lot of days.

That time is getting close, and, fortunately, despite having many details to manage and verify, I am feeling very calm.  I have a strange sense that everything is in its place and that all will be okay.  At this time, I am mostly just excited and ready to marry my love and to spend that day with the people who we love the most.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Shoe Clips: They're In

Coming on the heels of the Royal Wedding, I have extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely important and exciting news:
I ordered shoe clips, they have arrived, and I am very pleased.

I know.
Revolutionary.



Whatevs. 

Here are my non-princess shoes with the shoes with the shoe clips attached:



Yes, I went with the turquoise flowers, despite concerns that the colors wouldn't match - a concern shared by all many some three two people.  I was a hair apprehensive, but I decided ultimately that I was more concerned about how the others might look a little over-bridal and result in the dreaded not-ever-going-to-wear-it-again disease that plagues weddings the world over.


And I have my results.
And I am happy.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Bottles of Bubbly

I have to say that this was one of my favorite wedding tasks to date: champagne tasting!
My wedding wine provider/selector, who also happens to be my step-uncle, chose a selection of three champagnes for us to try at Easter dinner so that we could select one for the wedding. (Chris did not participate since, as many of you know, he does not drink at all.)



First, up an Asti: the flavor was sweet and bright, and my personal favorite - hello! sweet tooth!! - but ultimately we decided that it was too much to serve to the wedding attendees since many are not likely to share my preference for sweet.

Second, Prosecco: very dry.  Some of the family preferred this one and, while I liked it, it wasn't a stand-out for me.

Third: Louise d'Estree: balanced, and spicy.  The ultimate winner with a good amount of flavor variety.



Who knew I was such a connoisseur of champagnes and that I would have such strong opinions on it?

It was certainly quite fun trying the different bottles and discussing it like a fancy-pants grown-up with my family members.  I'd never had that much of an opinion about these things, and I'm used to the real grown-ups making decisions about wine and things since I'm generally pretty easy to please.

It is definitely nice to know, though, that I got to pick this one....plus the bottle is waaaaaaay pretty, right?

Monday, April 25, 2011

Cupcaked!

After we decided that Frosting's in Walnut Creek would be our cupcake-provider for the wedding, the next step   was to go back and try as many of their cupcakes as we could so that we would know which ones we wanted.

So maybe we took a little bit of time to get to that step.
Whoops!

So we did it this week.


Chris graciously went to the bakery and ordered 9 cupcakes: 
  1. vanilla with buttercream frosting, 
  2. lemon, 
  3. chocolate with chocolate ganache, 
  4. chocolate with peanut butter frosting, 
  5. chocolate-espresso with espresso-caramel-chocolate frosting which they call a caramel macchiato
  6. black-bottom, 
  7. carrot cake, 
  8. red velvet, 
  9. and chocolate with cream cheese frosting
I provided the knife, napkins, and milk.

Over a grueling 45 minutes Chris and I (along with my wedding coordinator/boss and my dad - since, you know, we were doing the tasting at the office) tried all the flavors.

The results:

A few of them were rather disappointing (*ahem* vanilla and red velvet!!! *ahem*), but a few were super-delish.

The Winners:
  1. Black Bottom
  2. Caramel Macchiato
  3. Chocolate with Chocolate Ganache
  4. Carrot Cake
  5. Lemon
We figure that this will please various taste buds, as well as include our own personal favorites among the options.

There we have it!

I shot off an email to the owner of the shop and will place the custom order in the next few days.
Hopefully they'll be able to decorate with our colors and etc to add to the customization.

Now I have to rope someone into picking them up on the day of the wedding!

Any takers?

Thursday, April 21, 2011

THIRTY DAYS!



That's ONE MONTH.

That's how much time is left until the wedding.


How did that happen?

I may or may not be having mini-panics thinking about what's left to do.....or, you know, just worrying about what's left to do that I haven't even realized needs doing - because I'm like that.

Ack!!!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Article: Gender Difference among Couples in Conflict





I stumbled across the following article recently: "Women Have More Intense Emotions Than Men When Conflict Arises Within The Couple"


Yeah, this one has a little bit of a "duh" factor, I know.
I can't help but enjoy it though.  And it helps that this study was published in a peer-reviewed journal.  The author of the article about the actual study printing writes: 
"One could expect men to express more domineering or "powerful" emotions as wrath, anger or despise, and women to have more submissive attitudes guilt, sadness or fear. The results have proved that women feel more intense emotions, both powerful and non-powerful."


Again, not that surprising, but having a scientific study note this definitely makes me and my feminist heart happy and feeling justified.


Even more, the actual authors of the study write: 
"The socio-cultural context and gender-based roles assigned to men and women respectively might have a relevant influence on the generation of expectations concerning their role in relationships and in conflicts within the couple." 



Not that any of this necessarily applies to me, but I do definitely pay a lot of attention to the articles about couples and marriage these days.  I wonder why......

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

What cures all ailments regarding DIY projects?

Ordering 80 pounds of candy!!

Last night, I ordered all the candy for the candy buffet (or at least I think I did) from Amazon.  I was planning to order from an online candy wholesaler, but it turns out that the shipping for that wholesaler would increase the overall price by 40%.  So, a $200 order would cost $280 to get to me.  Well, turns out that Amazon has some great candy deals that fall under the Free SuperSaver Shipping deal that they have (or are Amazon Prime eligible, if you have that- I have the one-year student trial :) ).

I got all the below for well under budget:















(my 100% favorite that I fell in love with when working at the Sweet Factory)
































I think I ended up with a good grouping of chocolate, gummi, nut, sour, and flavors.  I also needed to consider the color situation since I want the candy, when all set up, to look good and cohesive and in line with my overall color scheme.

It was more difficult to determine the line-up than I thought it would be; all the considerations (color, flavor, price) made things somewhat challenging to balance well.

You know what, though?
I'm definitely excited to eat all the candy....you know, to taste test it...in case it's....poisoned.

Monday, April 18, 2011

DIY Frustration

I know this isn't much of a post, but I've been trying to get things done lately re: the wedding including making things happen on the many DIY projects I've set for myself.

One of these projects is decorating a display stand for the cupcakes.  With the help of an awesome crafty friend of mine - Nicole - we started the project and, when I tried to continue it myself, I found that I was getting extremely frustrated with it not coming out how I wanted it to, and having difficulty making adjustments.  When I realized that I was getting seriously irritated with the cardboard, glitter, hot glue, and ribbon itself, I decided that I need to step away.  At that point, it wasn't worth the frustration and, in the interest of protecting my sanity, I realized that I need to go back to the drawing board on this one and simply scrap the current plan for a new one.

Thankfully, I - using Nicole's know-how and ideas -came up with something in the same vein and that seemed more manageable given my now-lowered threshold of patience.

Once I get that going, I'll add a post on it, I'm sure.

I think I have learned the lesson now that, when it comes to crafting and DIY, things that get complicated are not my forte; I'm definitely better at things that are simple and virtually fool-proof....I simply do not have the make-up for much more than what I've posted previously.  I mean, I like being creative, but smaller/simpler projects definitely satisfy my crafting hankering and that's enough for me.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

DIY: Table Numbers

A simple DIY project that I completed a while ago: making the numbers for the tables.

Materials:
  1. (18) 5"x7" wood frames
  2. Spool of 1/4" red ribbon
  3. Turquoise cardstock
  4. Tan cardstock
  5. Glue stick
  6. Printer
This project is pretty straightforward, so I figure that not too many details are needed.
After giving the frames to Chris to drill the holes in the top parts of the frame for the ribbon to go through, I first made the backing.  
Using a simple floral image, I printed full-size pages of the image onto the turquoise cardstock and trimmed the paper to the needed 5"x7" size.  
Then I used Publisher to create the image on the tan cardstock, selecting a plus-shaped flourish - which I made red in color-and overlaying the numbers in the Captain Howdy font.  The size for these is 4"x6" so that there would be about 1/2" of the blue peeking out as the border.
Cut the pages, and glue them onto the blue - trying my best to center them and only mildly failing towards the end. Once dry, pop the whole deal into the frame.
After that, the harder part: adding the ribbon.  I found that it was easier to do the ribbon if I left the backing of the frame off. It also took a bit of wriggling to get the ribbon through the 1/4" holes and then some adjusting to get the ribbon to tie well enough.

Pretty simple, but it did take a few hours all-told to complete:




I made more than eight, but I was too lazy/demotivated to take them ALL out of the box for the photo.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Map Project

I have mentioned before that we are getting married at Rush Ranch, which is an entirely open space.
What I may not have made clear is exactly how much we are making this ranch INTO a wedding venue.

Here's the long view of the venue:
You can barely see the connection to the 'main road' right in the top corner.



Now, a little closer:
Some of the buildings become clearer and more discernible.


And this is the space that will be used for the actual wedding:
Buildings, cars, trees, right.


Even though I'd been there more times than anything else, eventually I had to make this so that I could make some sense of what things are and where each part of the wedding will be (yay for Paint):

There we go!
I think maybe one or two small changes have been made, but this is the basic idea of where things will be the day of.   It's a lot of space and it definitely went through many iterations before settling on even the biggest basics, like where dinner and the ceremony will be.
I have sent these to the vendors and given them to the parents...my ushers and greeters will definitely have some things to learns about where everything is. 

I love the space and it should be beautiful and green when we get there.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Presents!!

I love getting presents.


I also love giving presents! (Honestly!!)

Over the last few days I have spent a lot of time finalizing the gifts that I am giving to my bridesmaids, to the parents, and a few other thank yous.
Golly, is it tiring!

Partly because there are so many people to consider at once and also because giving gifts to individuals for the wedding feels like a completely different animal than giving a birthday or holiday gift.

Still, I'm feeling pretty good because all of my bridesmaids gifts are wrapped and boxed together for easy transport, the parental gifts are nearly all ordered, AND I am almost completely done with shopping for the other thank-yous.  I even got Chris to order his groomsmen's gifts!!

Hopefully, those to whom we give these gifts will appreciate the thought and care that we have put into selecting these gifts.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

DIY: Soap for Out of Towners

One part of the out of towner (OOT) bags that was 100% Chris' idea was to hand-make soaps for our guests.

So we did!

To start, we accumulated the following items:
  1. Clear vegetable glycerine melt-and-pour soap base
  2. Essential oils in various floral scents
  3. Coloring
  4. Heart mold
Following these directions, we made a couple of dozen soaps.

Then, when they were hardened, we put them in the same (unstamped) glassine bags that we're going to be using for the candy buffet.

After, I made a small tag (2" x 5") that Chris then printed on cardstock and cut.  I folded the bags over and stapled the tags to the front of the bags.

Here are the tags that I made:



The Result:


They turned out to be pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

It doesn't hurt that Chris was very proud of his idea. :)

Friday, April 8, 2011

Hair Trial

I met with our neighbor slash my sister's best friend slash my regular hair stylist for my wedding hair trial.

Just like I mentioned regarding my accessories, I'm was having difficulty deciding on a style that I want and one that goes with the rest of the style.

First, though:

[[Christopher, this is where you should - once again - stop reading!  Thanks and I love you!!!......now go away ;) ]]





There we go.
Sometimes these spoiler warnings seem silly, but I definitely don't want him to know and I also definitely want to post.

So there we go.




Anyways, when I met up with her, I brought along a handful of "inspiration" photos:












Yeah.
I know.
It's a lot of pictures.
And there are some themes, and some things I was pretty sure of when I walked in:
(1) mostly an up-do (rather than long and down)
(2) volume!
(3) natural-ish curl
(4) big-ass flower(s)
(5) go with the 1940's/pin-up aesthetic

After  a rough draft and consultation, this is what my girl ended up with:






I think the photos still don't do the whole thing justice, but I really loved my trial. She did a great job listening to my adjustments along the way and we tried a few things before we ended on this.

I love the volume, the curl, and the overall effect.

Well, done friend!!!