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.

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. :)

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!!!

Final Floral Consult

On Monday, I met with my awesome florist - who also happens to be a family friend - to go over the floral plan for the wedding.

Wow.

I had no idea how many decisions that would involve me making! Not just the style of my own bouquet, but also the numbers of everything else, styles of the bouquets for others, floral arrangements on tables (and just figuring out how many tables would need flowers was crazy!), boutonneires, and anywhere else that flowers can go.  Then deciding on colors and types of flowers I like...and I know absolutely nothing about flowers.

It was fun, but also challenging because I don't know anything about flowers - which are which, when they're in season, what looks good together, cost, etc. - but also because I don't think I have that many strong opinions on flowers.  I did learn, though, that I have more opinions on them that I would have guessed.

I mean, I like flowers.  I think they're pretty.  I like the way they smell.  I have a couple fave-ish, and a couple hate-ish and that's about where it ends.


Regardless, I know that these flowers are definitely going to add a lot to the overall look of the wedding...and I now know that I looooove the smell of tuberose. :)

It's also really, really nice to know that I can trust my florist and I don't even have to worry about it because I know it's going to be gorgeous.

Pins and Sticks

Yesterday I had my first real dress fitting wherein I didn't just put on the dress, I had to stand verrrrrrrry still for a verrrrrrry long time while a woman put many, many pins in my dress in order to make it fit me properly.


Apparently I lost a lot of weight since ordering the dress...which is good, generally speaking, but makes more a much more laborious dress fitting since the dress needs to be taken in on all sides, essentially.  It also means that I don't actually have a good vision as to how I will actually look in my dress.

[Alright Christopher, look away now. I'm going to have to trust that your curiosity doesn't ge the best of you....not like it ever does, which is simply astounding to me since I always want to know what's going to happen.  Maybe that's why I'm marrying you. :) ]





We also worked on adding the halter strap to the dress which, when they pinned on the trial fabric for placement and shape, made an enormous difference in how the dress looked on me.  I knew it would because my shoulders are quite wide indeed and this poorly suited for the proportions in strapless things.  Adding the halter definitely broke up the line of my shoulders, hid the armpit folds (that everyone has to some degree no matter size or shape and that I know I certainly don't find the  most attractive, particulalrly on myself) and changed the whole look of the dress into the pin-up aesthetic which is partly/kind of the point.

It was just me and my step-mom at the fitting, which was nice since we were able to share that together and chat about the wedding one-on-one. 


I also find that I am 100% fickle as all get-out when it comes to completing the look of the dress.  I mean, I picked the shoes, but mostly because I knew I would have to before the fitting for the pinning of the hem.  Other than that, I'm not set on hairstyle, earrings, bracelet, makeup style, or even shoe clips!

The combination of these things can dramatically alter my overall impact - not necessarily better or worse just...different.  I keep finding photos of things that I like that I think will work but then I don't know how I want to put it all together.

Generally, I'm not so great at choosing looks beforehand - I like having lots of styling options in my bag when I travel because I'm never sure how I want to put things together.  Sometimes I like something more subtle, sometimes more dramatic, and other times I just slap it together until I feel like I'm finished or the clock says that it's time to go.



You know what?
Probably I will make ALL of these decisions on the day of the wedding.

Wish me luck!

Surfacing

One theme that I have been noticing is that, with the wedding so close, it makes me think about my relationship with Chris in a different way.  Mostly what that means is that conversations about the future surface more -- and not in the "isn't it fun to dream about the future" kind of way, but in the "how are we actually going to make this happen?" kind of way.

To be sure, Chris and I both have things we want to achieve both as separate people (e.g., our careers) and as a couple (e.g., children and a home).  We have talked about these things before, many times and at great length.  And yet, as we creep up find ourselves closer and closer to the day of the wedding, these conversations seem to take on a different weight.

As a psychology grad student, I know that this behavior - the re-evaluation of a commitment during that in-between time after deciding to commit (e.g., engagement) and before the commitment becomes finalized (e.g., marriage) - is completely normal.  It happens with small decisions and large, good decisions and bad; this psychological reflex does not discriminate, particularly if you have a pragmatic style of thinking.

So, given that, it's completely normal and natural that Chris and I are having more and more serious conversations about the direction of our lives - particularly considering that, for the next year, I will be living in LA and he will be here in the Bay Area.  It's also particularly present, I think, because for the past four years the needs and demands of my schooling have been of paramount importance and largely immovable while Chris had to mold to mine.  A difficult feat to balance these things and now we are moving closer to being able to prioritize Chris' career and needs over mine. We discuss how we are going to manage this coming year while living apart, but also long-term financial planning, personal goals, professional goals, and family planning.

The closer we get to the wedding and the closer we get to more freedom (in the form of me becoming a licensed psychologist) the more these questions and discussions are imperative and hold more weight.

I suppose I have to think of this in neither a good/bad manner, but rather accept that the intensity of these transitions is appropriate and important to consider.

Sidebar: Our Marriage Will End The World

Alright, so maybe that title is an overly-dramatic extrapolation from this article about how there is a religious leader who is predicting that the world will end of the day of our nuptials.

Evangelical minister Harold Camping has predicted that the rapture (also known as the second coming of Jesus Christ) will occur on our wedding date.  In the first link, there is an article that details why he is making this prediction.

Now, I am not one to ridicule religion, and this post definitely is not about that; rather, I find it interesting how religious leaders have predicted this same event and other end-of-days proclamations many times over particularly because other religious leaders are having their own reactions to this prediction.

The truth is that I find it amusing and interesting that the end of the world has been predicted to occur on the day I will be promising to spend the rest of my life with someone.

Now to be fair, the rapture has been predicted many a time by many individuals for dates past and future.  But I'm note getting married on those days......