Other progress...

I booked our photographer, who I LOVE. Her name is Julie, and her website is: http://www.jclportraits.com/ Her work reminds me of my own in a lot of ways (must be why I like her so much, ha!). She uses a lot of natural light, punchy b&w, saturated colors, and captures people interacting and having fun. On top of that, she was willing to come all the way up to the wedding from down where I live now which I am BEYOND pleased about!

The lovely bridesmaids dresses are ordered (shown in gold, we ordered a gorgeous grey color):

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Flowers! Oh my!

For anyone who knows me, I'm generally not a fan of fake flowers. Really, like at all.

Go figure, we're doing faux florals. But LOOK AT THESE! They're gorgeous!!! Caroline and I sat down today and made these. I'm over the top thrilled at how they turned out.

Please don't ban me to tacky-land :-)


My bouquet (notice the feathery goodness to tie into the bouts I made earlier):






For the ladies:

Flowers/a little project

I've been going back and forth about if/how much to do myself for the flowers. I think the conclusion I've come to is to do the small flower projects myself (boutonierres, maybe corsages, pew buckets, bud vases) and to enlist the pros for the bouquets and alter arrangements.

While sitting in Clarksville waiting for my B to get home from work, after a trip to the craft store, I came up with these for the boys:

The supplies, courtesy of Hobby Lobby:


Wrapped up:


Final product!


A group of them:


ETA: These bad boys costed less than $1.50/ea to make! NOT BAD!

Running of the Brides!

I think the event is best described in photos... (all courtesy of the lovely and talented Kara Granroth!)


Walking, mirror in hand to the event... with our faulty map. Totally went about 2 miles out of our way trying to find the place.



Waiting in the 3 block long line!



Once in the doors, the entire floor was utter chaos. Jen and I are trying to get through the crowd to claim a spot where I can try on dresses.


All of the racks where bare when we got in, and stayed bare the whole time we were there. To get new dresses to try on, the girls had to barter with other groups of girls!



One of the many no-goes of the morning.



Ha! I think I made this face a lot. After trading up numerous times, we were SUCCESSFUL! I ended up buying my dress here!



Nap time.

Look at me go!

Yay, yay, YAY! I am finally accomplishing things!!! I don't have any new photos, so those will have to come soon (stay tuned).

In the last couple of months since I last posted I have:

Changed the date! To March 20, 2010. There are rumblings on Ft Campbell that they will be deploying right away again in Jan 2011, so B & I decided we wanted to be married more than 5 months before he leaves again. Such is the military. Its going to be a fabulous winter wedding. (authentic YOOPER wedding. hehe)

1. Bought my dress!!! At the famous Filene's "Running of the Brides". Full report on this later. For now I'll just say - SO MUCH FUN. Completely worth the hooplah and production. Unfortunately I won't be able to post photos... I don't trust the groom to keep his eyes away. ;-)

2. Picked our bridal party (check FB if curious, I have them all on there). Its huge. LOL.

3. Picked a photographer... more on this later too, I want to wait until I have the contract & deposit all taken care of so I know for sure I have her. Her work is awesome.

4. Ordered the engagement photos! The disc at least... I need to figure out what I'm going to do with them.

5. Tested out my table runner idea - wallpaper with a sweet pattern on it - and its totally going to work. Photos soon.

My accessories are all bought as well (except figuring out what winter gear to wear over the dress), and my centerpieces are closer to being done. I started the conversation with the florist I want to use. The bridesmaid dress is getting close to being picked out too.

Things are rocking and rolling over here.

projects !

I finally got around to taking nicer photos of my projects... so here they are so far...







And now, my newest crafting... my idea for centerpieces. My original thought for the tables was I was going to buy some wholesale flowers online, plunk them in some vases, and be done with it. After pricing out flowers (even at wholesale), putting a vase of flowers on each table, or even every other, was looking wayyyy too expensive. So, this idea was born! Trial run #1:





As you can see, I still need to figure out what to put in the inside. Also, if I am going to spray paint it a matte gray instead of leaving the galvanized steel. I think I might paint a monogram on the front too. Any opinions? Thoughts?

Thats all for now, folks!

One last thing...

I LOVED this...

Per Mar's suggestion, my wedding colors are officially changed to silver and tangerine instead of grey and orange. Hehe.
Speaking of colors, why do people only have two colors? My colors will actually be more like this:

Lots of silver, slate, platinum, and some black as the base color. From there, my accents will include tangerine orange, and sprinkles of lemon, and burgundy. I'm going for modern chic mixed with citrus-y summer fun.

I don't love everything about all of the photos I posted, but each of them has a part that I love. I'm sure you get the drift.

xoxoxo GOOD NIGHT!
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Another "DIY" project

So as I mentioned before, I'm trying to make my wedding day thoughtful and budget friendly. A homemade project that I'm working on now are these organza flowers (photo above, but mine are silver not pink/purple). They are very easy to make - just sewing together layers of flower shaped organza with beads in the middle but MAN are these time consuming! Very tedius for my lack of sewing skills. I have 6 so far, but I'm planning on using them for the kitchen girls & ladies so I need a lot more. I'm hoping people will be able to reuse the flower by pinning it to a purse or coat, or maybe using it as a hair accesory afterwords. And, I'm saving money. Booyah.

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Hello, handsome...

B and I decided pretty much from the beginning that he would wear his dress blues for the wedding instead of a tux. When he sent me this picture the other day, it reminded me why! ;-) He looks so handsome in uniform (albeit stern in this photo).
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a mild obsession [brooches]

So... I'm a little obsessed. With brooches. Typical girl I am, I love sparkly things.

My first idea, which I'm particularly excited about, is this...

For the moms and grandmas, I think this would be something extra special! I'm thinking about using it in place of the floral wrist corsages that they usually wear at weddings. The only thing I'm a little hung up on is I wonder if it'll look weird in family photos if the ladies don't have a corsage to wear, but the guys to? Or if the aunts/sisters/etc are wearing flowers pinned on and the moms/grandmas aren't? Thoughts? Opinions?

More typical uses of brooches that I'll probably do are like these photos:





ahhh.... love.

Garage sales, estate sales, HERE I COME!

My first little DIY project.

These are painted dark red with a silver design (looks gold for some reason). I'm going to use these either in front of the cake, or on the desert table.
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Wedding planning is...

A process. And a half. My head is swimming with ideas, thoughts, prices, budgets, colors,.... It goes on and on!

So I wasn't originally going to blog much about planning my wedding. I read a couple of wedding blogs that are fabulous and entertaining and lovely. When I get so much information from them, I didn't really feel the need to record my whole process. Until now. I feel like my head is going to explode with ideas (really, I am that much of a dork) and I need a place to compile all of them. I'm such a visual thinker, I really want a place where I can see all of my work in one place. Hopefully it'll give me a better sense how it is all coming together.

So my lovely (neglected) readers, here I go. Please feel free to comment as usual, the input helps so much.


Without further ado, my 'vision' for the day is a thoughtful and unique wedding, with clean details and modern colors. I want most of the "things" from my wedding to be able to be used again in my home or friends homes. I have a tight budget, so the wedding won't be extravagent (nor would I want it to be) but I've always loved quality and beautiful design.

My main color palatte, grey & orange, and the pattern I will be using throughout:
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First week: done!

Wow, what a week! I dropped Bobby (my fiance... Hahaha I still get a kick out of calling him that!) off at the airport, spent last weekend setting up my room and unpacking, and started work on Monday!

The work week went well... Its a little stressful learning an entire new industry that I haven't worked in before, but I'm asking a lot of questions and learning a ton. Thursday and Friday finally felt a little more comfortable because I'm getting the basics down. Next week on Wednesday thru Friday I'll be driving down to Detroit to do my official teller training. From there, once I get the teller part down, I'll be able able to start selling which I am VERY excited about! :-)

Moving and leaving friends is tough, I definitely miss all of my UP girls (and Kara, still! :-) ) but I guess this is all a part of growing up. My new roomies (S & J) are fantastic, we've been having a lot of fun getting the house set up and hanging out during the few times we're not working.

Anyway, I have a busy day ahead of me! Need to get moving!

Xoxox
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