Busy Being Creative!

Since I like things that are custom, I’ve pretty much spent the past nine months teaching myself how to use a program that is similar to Adobe Photoshop (except the program I use is free) so that a lot of our stuff for the wedding can be exactly how I pictured it in my mind. Plus, it’s saved us a lot of money!

Since I’m still a novice at this kind of stuff and a perfectionist it takes me a long time to do one design; so these projects have definitely not saved on time. Ha! But either way, they’re done and I wanted to show them to you!

The table numbers I designed for each table…

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The seating cards I designed for the head table seating assignments…

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The dinner menus I designed…

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And the rehearsal dinner invite I designed for the wedding party and family (personal and location info omitted for privacy reasons, of course ;) )…

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I’m pretty proud with how it all turned out. :)

The only thing I have left to do is the seating chart, but that won’t be for another week or so.

I really enjoy doing this and I’m hoping I can do more of this for friends and other occasions once things settle down and life gets back to “normal.” Ha!

Feeling crafty,   

Wedding Hair and Makeup Trial Run

On Sunday, Mom and I headed to San Luis Obispo (SLO) to have my wedding hair and makeup trial. It was so much fun! I told my hair dresser (Stefani) that I think the last time I was all done-up was for prom in high school! Kind of pathetic, isn’t it? ;)

I was so pleased with the end result. Here are some pictures I had Mom take so we could remember it all. Stefani doesn’t do eyelashes in the trial, but I’ll have fake eyelashes for the day-of. Also, I think I’m going to have her bring the chignon a little more to the right so it’s a little more noticeable from the front.

Stefani “setting” my hair. It was so cool the way this whole “setting” thing works. I’m going to try to do it myself for a wedding we’re going to on Saturday.

 This will probably be one of the only times you’ll ever see me on this blog without makeup. Ha!

Makeup all done!

The ‘do…

 I love this sparkly hairpiece that I found. It goes perfectly with my dress and I think it contrasts well with my dark hair.

 

When I was getting all gussied up, I was getting so excited for our wedding. Little butterflies were creeping up in my tummy – but they were good butterflies.

Only seven more weekends until the big day! Eeek! :)

Excited,

Some Stuff and Your Opinion (it all matters)

1. Hope you are all enjoying your Friday. Can you believe it's June!?

2. Given that it is June, I would love for it to be sunny and nice outside. However, that is not the case. Instead, we have weather that's forcasted to be raining this weekend. What the eff?

3. I used dry shampoo for the first time this morning. I've been hearing some good things about it so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's different because you feel like you're spraying a bunch of hairspray all over your hair. But once you let it set and brush it out, it's actually not too bad. My hair doesn't feel too greasy and it looks decent. I'm going on day two of not washing my hair, but I will definitely need to wash it tomorrow. This is the kind I used:

4. I have absolutely no motivation to work today. I'm so behind at work that I'm just sitting here not even sure where I should begin. Overwhelmed doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling.

5. On a happier note I got a lot of wedding stuff ordered this week!

6. Among my order, I accidentally ordered 36 wrist corsage holders! Who in the world needs 36?! Apparently, I didn't read the description thoroughly when I went to order them because I'm only in need of six. Looks like I'll be returning five packets of those along with the ten-too-many packets of floral wire. Ha!

7. Mom and Grandma Ruth are coming up to our house this evening for the weekend because my future MIL and SIL are throwing me a bridal shower tomorrow. :)

8. This is the dress I plan on wearing to the shower. I got it at Forever 21. I like.

9. I've been tanning this week (judge away), and boy does it feel good to have some color again!

10. Tuesday night I had a hard time falling asleep. At one point I realized that Kahlua was no longer sleeping next to me, so I took out my phone and turned the screen on to use as a flashlight so I could find which crevice of our bed she snuggled in to. This is where she decided to post up for the night. Ha!

11. I NEED YOUR OPINION! I keep going back and forth about our centerpieces. Originally, I wanted to have three different-sized vases, fill them with water and put a red rose in each vase and then put a floating candle on top of each, and also have some tiny tea-light floating candles around the vases. Here are some rough examples...

However, I had a different idea to have just one large vase on each table, and put on top of it a red pomander (aka kissing ball), with a little bit of red crystals at the bottom of the vase, and then some tea-light candles around that. Some rough ideas...

Which idea do you like best?? I can't decide!

Thanks for your advice, and have a great weekend!

You're Invited...

To take a peek at our invites! :)

Invitation

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RSVP Card


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Additional Information Card


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I took out some of the information for privacy sake. I really want to show you our wedding website, but I think I'll do that once we're married. But just so you know, I was able to find a wedding website design that matched perfectly with our invitations.

Since the invites only came in black and white, I had the inner envelopes lined in red. I also sealed them with red wax and the initial "P." We got a lot of compliments on that little touch.


Not the best picture. They looked better in person, but you get the gist of it.


Kevin liked the wax seal because he said it reminded him of the red wax that's on the Maker's Mark bottle. Ha! Men...

I got two of these baskets at my bridal shower (that I'm still trying to get to post!) and they have come in so handy for keeping all the invitation stuff together!

We've already received some RSVP's so that makes me happy. :)

If you're not married, let me just tell you that when you get engaged and get ready to send out your invites, round up some helpers because it's quite a process. Kevin was sweet enough to help fold things, but I think in our case the wax seal was what took the longest. I may or may not have finally stopped about halfway through to watch a YouTube video on how to use the wax and seal. But that's beside the point. ;)

Hope you all enjoy your three-day weekend!

Worries, Jitters, Nerves...Whathaveyou

I have some posts that are just sitting waiting to be posted, but I need to explain my worries first.

It's finally hit me this week that I'm. Getting. Married in 79 days! And that people will be looking at me on my wedding day. Being anxious about this doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. Along with this anxiousness I've been worrying to no end about the following:

1) That people are going to give us grief for not inviting children (already experienced a bit of this from a family member...grrr!).

2) That no one will RSVP.

3) That people won't have fun at our wedding.

4) That the decorations will look cheap (I know they won't but it's just a fear of mine).

5) That I won't feel pretty on my wedding day.

6) That someone will get too drunk at our wedding (no one in particular, but we'll be having an open bar for beer and wine).

7) I'm not going to be able to lose the last of this weight before my fitting on June 25th (I've started WW again as of today).

8) That I'll have a headache the day of the wedding (my headaches ruin everything for me).

9) That I'll be a nervous wreck and not take the time to enjoy our special day.

10) And I can't think of a 10th worry, but that's probably a good thing.

I'm a worrier by nature. It's what I do. It's part of who I am (unfortunately). It seems that this week it's all just hitting me! I'm hoping I can get all this worrying and anxiousness out of the way now, so that on my wedding day I can just enjoy everything and everyone. I've been waiting for this day for so long that I don't want anything or anyone to ruin it and I want to be able to enjoy it fully. I have to remember that our wedding is all about Kevin and me, and the only thing I need to think about is marrying my man.

I'm also thinking that I might want to ask my doc to up my dosage of anti-anxiety meds though, beforehand. ;) Ha!

Worry Wart,

They’re Finally Here!

We’re so pleased with how they turned out!

Overdue for Some Updates!

Hope you all had a great Easter! I haven't done an update in quite some time so I think I'm due.

1. I wish I had today off. I am dragging and I have about 1,239,064 things to get done this week; both at work and at home.

2. We got our engagement photos in and we love them! What a relief. I'm going to share them with you all as soon as we get the digital ones in from our photographer.

3. Remember when I asked you guys about your wedding song? Well, we decided to go with the one by Tom Petty. We even practiced dancing to it for a quick minute at home one night and I almost started crying. Not a good sign of my emotional state come the day of the wedding. Ha!

4. Kevin and I officially put our finances together on Saturday. I think it'll work out great for us. :)

5. We get our invitations on Wednesday. We won't be sending them out until the middle of May, but I'm just itching to show them to you! So I will probably give you a peek a week or so after we send them out, once most of our guests have received theirs.

6. I was in a HORRIBLE mood on Friday. I'd go into details but it would turn into a small novel and I know you guys have more important things to do than read about me complaining. ;) The whole day I just kept trying to remind myself that Jesus died. on. the. cross! And what I was dealing with was nothing compared to what he did for all of us. Perspective, people.

7. Last night I somehow managed to close the car door on my face. I saw stars. Then I thought I broke a tooth soon thereafter. My teeth are still intact so all is well. I have a killer bruise on my jaw though. Fun times!

8. I just went through my calendar, and it appears that I only have nine free weekends between now and November. *sad face* It is such a crazy year! I'll probably have less than that once more of my girlfriends schedule their showers. Oh well, it's just a season of life and I'm enjoying it. :)

9. The twins are doing great! Last week (after only one week old, and being born 10 weeks early) they were moved from "intensive care" to "special care." They are such miracles! One of the twins even got to wear clothes for the first time (preemies are usually only in diapers for a while, so that was big news ;))!

10. My first bridal shower is in two weeks and I'm so excited!

11. This weekend I'm volunteering at an all-women's trail ride. I don't do any of the riding of trails; I leave that to the professionals. But what I volunteer doing is working as a bartender for the weekend. It's my sixth year doing it and it's a lot of work - but always fun. I think this will be my last year though. Hopefully a baby will be on the way next year so I'll have a good excuse not to do it. ;)

12. I helped Kevin cut wood yesterday at his mom's house and I am so SORE today. It's a pathetic reminder of how out of shape I am. Today is the day where I start full-on exercise and eating right for the wedding and all the events in between. I know I keep saying that, but there really is no more time to waste considering we're coming up on three months now. Eeep!

13. I'm usually a nail biter (gross, I know). I was doing so well for the longest time at not biting my nails and they were nice and long. But as of late, I've been biting them a lot. Ugh! Looks like I'll be sporting these for a time until I stop stressing and can let my nails grow on their own again.

14. Kevin's gone for the week for work, so I won't be seeing him until Sunday night. :( I always have to make sure I don't watch any scary shows while he's gone. Otherwise, I really freak myself out when nighttime comes around and I hear strange noises.

15. Mom is back at work today after being on medical leave for two weeks. I hope she's able to take it easy.

16. Anyone ever do a spray tan? I'm incredibly pale and I don't want to fake-and-bake (not good for the skin) but I have events coming up that require dresses and I'd like to be somewhat bronzed. Have you had good experiences with spray tans? Let me know!

Hugs,

Playing With Flowers

The night of our flower shopping excursion we decided to see what kind of bouquets and such we could come up with.

Like I said, my wedding flowers are red and white (or cream) roses. Maygan’s wedding flowers are pink and white roses.

Some of the roses laid out. It took quite a while to rid them of the leaves and thorns.

I had originally thought that for my wedding I’d hold a bouquet of just white roses, and my bridesmaids would hold bouquets of just red roses. But after talking with Maygan she had a good idea to incorporate some white roses in with the red roses for the bridesmaids, and that my bouquet should be all red so it’d stand out more against my dress and that way it’d match the red shoes I’ll be wearing (which are so cute by the way – can’t wait to show you them).

Finished product

It certainly isn’t perfect. Keep in mind we had about four glasses of Bacardi and Diet Coke prior to starting on the flower making business. So I was a little tipsy and tired; but you get the idea. ;) The stems of the bridesmaid bouquets will be wrapped in black, satin ribbon. The stems of my bouquet will be wrapped in ivory, satin ribbon. I also have some pretty rhinestone things to put in the center of each rose to add a little sparkle on the day of the wedding.

Since we had a lot of leftover roses, I made a big arrangement in a vase. I’ll probably put a few arrangements like this around the ceremony and reception sites for my wedding.

Here’s an idea of Maygan’s flowers. Aren’t they pretty?!

I also tried my hand at making a couple boutonnières. I thought they would be a lot harder than they were. They were fairly easy to make, which was a relief.

Maygan’s attempt at a corsage. It turned out pretty nice. She would ideally attach this to a wrist thing and have a nice bow where her fingers are, to cover the flower tape.

Maygan and I are each doing our own flowers for our wedding because it’s much cheaper than going through a florist. I think if I was really dead-set on having extravagant centerpieces and bouquets that I would shell out the money for a florist. However, that’s not me. I am completely happy with getting our roses through Costco and having my family and Kevin’s family help with them. The flowers add a nice touch, but that’s not the most important part of that day to me.

It feels good to get this task out of the way and I’m so glad I had Maygan there to bounce ideas off of!