10.8.10

We finally went and picked tuxes last night, and I have to say it was SO MUCH FUN!  I was expecting it to be that fun, but i liked looking at all the different patterns and possibilities, I think we’ve got real winners.  We originally went in with the idea of red for Jeremy and brown for the guys, well that’s what Jeremy went in with, I wanted white for Jeremy and red for the guys but he didn’t like the idea of white.  So we got there and the fabulous sales girl was helping someone else so we went about to picking our vest colors and talking over jackets and picked everything out before she was done with her other customers, or so we though.  I was set on everything by the time she got to us but I don’t think I really got anything I thought I wanted by the time we left.  I wanted to see the difference between a Euro Tie and Bow Tie on Jeremy, I couldn’t really picture it in my head right, I really liked the Euro Tie but when he put that Cherry Red Bow Tie on I fell in love with it!  So Bow Tie it was, which made Jeremy happy because that’s what he wanted, he just wouldn’t tell me.  Then on to pattern, we had picked out the blocky red which I didn’t think would look right in a bow tie since it’s so small, so the girl started pulling different ties and then I saw a dummy in the back and it kind of all made sense.  This dummy was wearing a white vest and a white bowtie and I really liked that look so I thought….why doesn’t Jeremy wear a black vest and tie, us be totally black and white, which is what i wanted (I originally thought I wanted brown tuxes, absolutely not now) and the buys could wear red, because I just really wasn’t digging the brown and black together, it was hurting my eyes.  So here is the loveliness that we settled upon

The black is what Jeremy will be wearing (Joseph and Feiss Single Breasted 2 button notched lapel tuxedo with a white pleated tuxedo shirt, black satin vest and tie with black and silver button/cufflinks as well as a white pocket square and a red rose bout) the boys will be wearing the same ensemble but with an Apple Herringbone vest and bow tie with red pocket square and white bout)

I also agreed to let him have his saddle shoes or spectator shoes as Men’s Warehouse calls them

The sales lady didn’t really like the idea, but I got to pick out my outfit without any input from him so if he wants to wear them he can.  He will be the only one and they have extra black in the store in case he changes his mind, which he might once he seems them on his feet.  Either way, doesn’t matter to me, if it makes him happy them it makes me happy!

Only 70 more days to go!

Embroidered Mother’s hankies next (once I finish them!)

I really like cake, the yummy frosting, the moist deliciousness of the cake, mmmm.  Wedding cake, however, is the worst!  I’ve never heard such ridiculous pricing for cake.  There is one bakery in town who wants $4-5 a serving…which is absurd!  Have you seen wedding cake servings?  there like this ( ) big!  I do cake on the side…sometimes, I’ve drifted out of it, too much work and not enough money, but I only do shape cakes.  So I know how much money goes into it, and a cake to feed 100 people costs approximately $75, depending on fondant and decorations, so why do people want to charge me $400-600?  I’m waiting to hear from a lady who makes amazing cakes with buttercream alone, but I’d be willing to pay a little more for her, because all of her cakes look amazing so I know I’d get what I want.  Here is my inspiration:

From the amazing pinkcakebox.com

We had originally pick out cake from an amazing place in Nashville, but it would just be 4 cakes, it wouldn’t look like a wedding cake.  We tried a lot of it and i just thought one day it was way too rich and I just wanted something simple golden yellow cake with fruit fillings and vanilla buttercream, but no one around here will do it!  The bakery I really liked, but it was in my hometown 45 minutes away, doesn’t do fillings because they make the cake too unstable, well that’s weird everyone else does fillings….I’m talking to a lady right now who is willing to do my fruit filling and deliver it to the cave, which I was worried about, but it’s been almost a week since she said she’d get me a price and I haven’t heard from her, but I’m being patient!

The cake will be just like this except no top tier, and the ribbons will be brown and possibly real, I’m not sure yet.  I still have to find some brooches that i like, it’s proving difficult at a reasonable price!

The next cake is the groom’s cake!  Fi doesn’t really like cake so I’m not making him cake…I’m making him a tiered dessert I suppose.  The bottom layer will be layers of brownies separated by vanilla buttercream, covered in butter cream then fondant and decorations.  The middle layer will be layers of cookies separated by buttercream, covered in butter cream then fondant and decorations.  The top will be s’mores treats, rice crispy treats but with golden grahams and chocolate pieces, covered in butter cream and fondant and decorations.

Jeremy has always loved Super Mario Brothers so I found this cake and knew it was it!

The middle layer might be more like the underworld area of Super Mario Brothers, because…that’s what Jeremy wants for some reason, I’ll have to do some sketching for that.  He is so excited about this cake he doesn’t really care about the other cake, it’s just this one he cares about.  I think he’s even said he’s most excited about this cake of the whole wedding….except for marrying me of course!

I also got the Mario and Peach plastic toys to be our toppers, they are so cute

I’ve seen a picture where someone added a veil and bouquet to Peach’s hand and I might do that, I’m not sure!!

This is very fitting because for our engagement party we had a halloween costume optional party.  We were Mario and Peach

Coolest halloween costume I’ve ever had!  We were the talk of the party…and town because after the party we went to see Paranormal Activity in the theater, but it was sold out for the show we wanted to see so then we went to wal-mart to get new tights for one of our crew… I’ve never had so many people stare at me before!  Granted it was October 17, but still it was october!  And yes, i was still wearing the crown, it was awesome.  Both costumes were completely home made, his was much easier than mine, but it was completely worth it.  I kind of want to bust it out at the reception because it was just such a fun costume!

So, now you know all about my cakes and the coolness of the groom’s cake, and my awesome Peach outfit, I show it off anytime I can!

Next up…..no clue!  Stay tuned for something else fun!

Tuesday was our 4 month mark….AHHHHHH!  I’ve gotten several big things done here in the last day or 2.  I just ordered, like 5 minutes ago, a proof of our invitation and all our paper from Cards and Pockets, that was a crazy button to hit to finish up the order, so weird the invitations might be by OMG moment!

Yesterday I stopped by a cake shop on a whim and got a quote and I’m pretty sure I’ll be going with them!  I will be posting about cake next time, so stay tuned, I have some awesome scheduled!

I also spoke to my lovely wedding coordinator today, Leona Morelock, and told her my linens and she will be ordering those soon.  The worst part is coming though….all the money…..I hate money.  The biggest source of grief is money, Jeremy deals with money completely and he doesn’t like to talk to me about money because I always get upset at our lack thereof.  We both have very extravagant tastes but not the money to really live that, but we try a little, that’s just who we are!  So to save more money I got plain old boring coffee poly table linens when I really wanted the beautiful pintuck, oh they are so gorgeous…but they were double the price of the poly and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it

We are going camping for the weekend, so wish us luck!  I’ve never been and Jeremy hasn’t been in a long time, hopefully we’ll come back in one piece! Have a great weekend, everybody!

I’m pretty sure I just ordered our invitations.  I’m having cards and pockets print them, so I just sent the last e-mail with instructions and attachments to Bonnie just 30 minutes ago.  Craziness!  She is so nice, and even though I sent her files that she couldn’t open, she was very understand and patient and even complimented my design.  I love it, but then again I did design it  Here are our invitations

The some of the information has been changed to protect the madly in love.  These will be in a coffee bean pocket fold with a candy apple invitation mat.  The envelopes, outer as well as the RSVP will be in pomegranate, which is a sparkly red, so pretty!  All paper is from Cards and Pockets, I can’t say enough good things about them!

So excited to get them in and start assembly!  However, not looking forward to address all the envelopes.  They will be printed by me in Feel Script in that infamous way where the last name is much bigger than the address.  The question is what color to print them.  I think black would be hard to read, can’t print in white….hmmmmmm.  Any suggestions for color?

This is the color that the envelopes will be.  Think black will work for printing?

I have an unnatural love of dead trees….our entire wedding is basically based on dead trees   The centerpieces are the major source of the dead tree decor, not necessarily dead trees I guess, but dormant or bare trees.  Here is my inspiration

I will be ordering red roses, orange roses and white hydrangea.  I’ve been price comparing and I think I’m going to go with Sam’s Club.  I can get 20 hydrangea stems for $55, which is about 2.50 a stem, awesome!  Roses are fairly cheap too, around $0.55 each.  I can’t afford someone else to do it so I will be doing it myself, florist charges are ridiculous, I get they make a living that way, but goodness!

I will basically be making 4 bouquets for each table.  They will be placed in small vases around the larger vase that will be holding the tree branches.  I’m hoping to get at least 10 hanging votive holder for each table, I love the candle light.  Our venue can be rather dark:

This is a pic taken by Joshua McCoy during a wedding at Lost River and a lot of the picture turned out this way because there just wasn’t enough light.  It has lots of light at the top but it gets lots by the time it gets to the floor.  I want crazy amounts of candlelight, hopefully we can get enough candle light!

I love the idea of the little bouquets so the only extra bouquet I will have to deal with making will be mine, my 3 bridesmaids will just carry 3/4 of a table centerpiece and we’ll be good to go!

Next up is cake!

Only 124 days to go!

This whole wedding planning process really brings out the indecisiveness in me….about everything!  I’ve saved way to many inspiration pics to count and then delete them all when I change my mind…it’s ridiculous!  i have an idea in mind that I want to create, but it’s hard to do so on a budget and without making some huge to do.  Hanging stuff from the ceiling isn’t really an option since it’s probably 20 ft high…. I’d love to have something hanging down behind us, not really blocking the beautiful view just adding to it, like some little buds and some sparkles, similar to this, but less flowers and more so crystal sparkles.

Here is front wall of the cave, which will be where we will be getting married:

The pic on the left is coming down the aisle, this will basically be our set up, hopefully with the tables push more out of the way, but they will still be there.  The trees will not be there but the lights will, I might attack them with ribbon to make them prettier.  The pic to the right is a close up of the wall, not pretty, will definitely need some work!  We may have ferns, it depends on if they buy them this year and if they last until October.  These were taken last year I believe.  These ferns were huge and beautiful and they lasted until sometime in October and we’re in the beginning!  I think the hanging sparkles and tiny buds will dress it up a lot.  I believe I will use the candlesticks my mom bought for my centerpieces here as well to give a little bit of color and some candle light.

The biggest is about 15″ tall, smallest around 10″, rough guesstiment haven’t actually measured them.  I have 3 sets of the red and 2 sets of the clear for a total of 15 candlesticks.  They are beautiful with a candle in them and maybe some rose petals in the clear ones to give them a little umph and coffee beans in the red ones just because they are so dark you really can’t see what is in them, just for height.

The aisle I’m still thinking about this is my inspiration pic and I love the way it looks.

I had planned on decorating our entire wedding with tissue paper pomanders then decided against it, I don’t want anyone making comments about the cheap decoration, but I will be using the tissue paper pomanders in our aisle decor.  I’m unsure if I want to use some organza like they have here or if I want to use rose petals like this

Or maybe, I’ve been thinking of doing the red petals on a white aisle runner or vice versa up til the chairs, then start the organza…I’m not sure.  This would be a DIY project, as is everything in my wedding basically.  I can only use real petals in the cave to scatter, a member of our wedding party works at the cave so no rule breaking!  Even with the real petals I have to be conservative, don’t want lots of petals getting into the cave and upsetting the ecosystem there.  But if I sewed fake petals onto the aisle runner like they offer here, I believe I could get away with it!  Crazy labor intensive, but you only get married once!

I would like to put something on either side of us during the ceremony, something similar to this

Our ceremony is at 6:30 and sunset is timed at 6:19 so a candlelight ceremony should be AMAZING!  This would add a little more light and romance.

Now the final decoration idea for the ceremony is bows on the back row of chairs to dress that up a little bit

Not necessarily with a flower, but I love the wrap around with the ends trailing down, maybe to the floor and just kind of drape on the floor.  I think it would be lovely!

I love being able to share all of my ideas, so I will be posting more often, just to show you what I’ve been up to and what I’ve decided on so far.  Next up is centerpieces!

Only 125 days to go!

Finals are coming to a close, luckily I had none today, but I have my last one tomorrow which I should be studying for.  Not much time for wedding crafts the last week or so.  Good news is the cave has drained and they are finally able to get in and see what all happened.  They are having to replace the ugly wooden bathroom stalls so that is a good thing!  Chandelier is fine, just muddy so hopefully they can get that all shined up again, if not they’ll buy a new one.  What a relief, now I can get back to buying those invites…first I gotta find my debit card….that might be a good thing

Still working on my tissue paper pomanders, those will take me forever!

Hopefully I’ll be back this week to show some progress!

We recently had a crazy 100 year flood this past weekend.  We were not hit as hard as Nashville was, but we did get hit.  Our venue is a cave, it’s a young cave and the river still flows through it.  If it rains a normal amount the cave floods to the point they can’t give tours.  I don’t believe many weddings get canceled, but it is a possibility, the rain can get up to the dance floor and flood the space.  Well with this flood, we got a ton more rain that usual, obviously, but the cave flooded majorly…..majorly.

This is the space, random picture I took one day while I was down there:

That is the water you see in the bottom left corner.  That can get much high as you can see the dance floor which can get flooded.  Well, this time it flooded completely, as in the water is above the metal shelter and quite a ways up the trail.

They aren’t sure how long it will take for all the water to drain out of the valley, I went on Tuesday and it was only 1 foot down from Sunday when the flooding stopped.  It is 20 feet deep in many place….at one foot a day that would 20 days before they can even really get down there to see what has happened and what all needs to be repaired.

Luckily I have 5 months to go and hopefully every thing will be mostly fine and repairs will be quick and make it much better than it would!

Here’s our lovely venue as it should look

I can’t wait til it’s here and I get to marry the love of my life.  Hopefully we won’t have to relocate it!

We had originally planned on having just 2 attendants each.  I had an attendant to drop out so as to not hurt feelings we moved one of Fi’s female attendants to my side and had her husband stand in.  Fi is close to both of his attendant’s husbands, but closer to them so their husbands were going to be ushers.  We thought he would take it better being a stand in than another girl would have been for me, girls are so stinkin sensitive!  Having one husband, fi really wanted the other but never would straight out tell me.  I had a girl I wanted to add but didn’t want to think she was replacing the girl who dropped out because she really wasn’t.  I decided to just do it and fi got to add his second guy, so now we both have 3 attendants and I guess that is ok!

We went 3 days after I asked and bought a dress, we move fast around here

After about 20 dresses that all looked pretty darn good on her we decided on this one

So now we’re all outfitted, we just have to get the men into tuxes, but they aren’t doing that for several more months.

and I thought I was a slacker in the last post….now I really am!

I have been having a really hard time staying motivated to lose weight.  I’m really convinced it was the birth control medicine I was on.  I had no motivation to do anything at all.  I craved junk food all the time, never wanted to go to the gym…it was horrible!  I’ve changed the medication and now I’m kind of back on track…as much as you can be for dieting for over and year and going to the gym and not losing much and what you did lose you gained back during that stupid birth control snafu.

We’ve been doing well the last few days, but this week is my birthday and we’ve been celebrating and not to mention that it’s flooding outside, I just don’t wanna do anything today!

For my birthday my mom got me a new laptop!  I was really tired of duct taping my screen up so I could use it…really annoying.  I got a Toshiba, it’s 16″ it’s awesome!  I love Windows 7!  Now I just have to get microsoft office downloaded so I can finish working on my lab reports, I have 2 practical/written lab finals next week, boo

As far as the wedding is concerned…I’m a little nervous.  We have a beautiful venue at Lost Rive Cave.  It has been raining since Friday night and the end is not in sight.  The cave is completely flooded, not that unusual, the way the cave is made it if rains just a few inches it is impossible to get into the cave without getting really wet, but we’re not talking just about inside the actual cave…

The venue is located on a dance floor that is outside of the mouth of the cave, there is a dance floor and a beautiful chandelier that decorates the ceiling, both are under water.  I don’t know if it’s ever been flooded this bad, but it makes me nervous.  Our wedding is 5 months and a few days and if the chandelier is ruined I’ll be really upset, that really gives the venue its beauty!  I’m thinking the worst and what if they have to cancel all weddings this year?  What would I do?  I have no idea!

I’m not worrying about it too much yet, and I hope I don’t have to worry about it later, but I feel bad for any brides who are supposed to get married any time soon, hopefully they get everything cleaned up very quickly!

I will be changing this to a wedding/weight loss blog, but primarily wedding.  I will update you on what I’ve done and will be doing!  Stay tuned, I’ll get better at this, i promise!