Something old, something new...

Of all the traditions I've decided to use, this one is my favorite so far.

My Checklist:

• Something old: mom is covering it. She won't tell me what it is yet, though. She says I get it at my bridal shower.
• Something new: a beautiful silver and diamond necklace that Nate bought me for Christmas
• Something borrowed: still working on that one.
• Something blue: my garter! I was able to go through David's Bridal and get a garter that matches my dress perfectly. An advantage to falling in love with something from their signature collection.

We've been slowly collecting the little details we've been wanting to have. Our guestbook showed up today, and I'm quite happy with the one I ordered. Not only does it match my colors perfectly, but it has a page set aside for each set of parents to express their wishes for their newly married children.

Other than shoes, my attire is completely done now. The girls have their assignment for their attire, and now it's up to them. We have 7 months, so I'm not to worried yet.

We have yet to finalize anything for the guys, other than that cummerbunds are not an option for us. We both dislike them for one reason or another in a wedding setting.

I've gotten most of our Announcements sent out. I have a few left, and now that I have the last of the addresses I need, I can get that done.

Flowers are becoming less of a stress for me. My gardening whiz of a mom has decided that she's going to grow flowers for me. There is seriously nothing that woman can't get to grow in this weird weather black hole known as Ohio. I'm excited to know that her gift to me is to grow my flowers. I just hope they don't end up so large that they hide me!

I still haven't picked a cake baker or an officiant, though.

I'm pretty sure that isn't a good thing.

I'll get to it. Nate's sister-in-law is giving me so much strength and help, and his dad is practically chomping at the bit to make sure we get everything the way we want it in a reasonable time and at a reasonable price. The man is a brilliant negotiator, and his skills have come in handy for us.

I'm unbelievably grateful for the family and friends that are lending their skills to us. To me, that is so much more than just handing over money. Time and skills are harder to come by for my life anymore.

Here's hoping I can manage to find myself a cake baker and officiant before they're all booked up!

Guest Lists are a nightmare.

I've contemplated just eloping so much over the past couple of months. I'm just sick of everything, and we haven't even told the extended family about the engagement yet.

I had to do something quite heartbreaking with our guest list, however. I had to remove one of my bridesmaids and her date from our guest list. Not because of any kind of falling out, but due to the fact that my future sister in law passed away in early October. I just now got the strength to remove her from the list. There's something completely heartbreaking about removing someone your own age due to a death. It's not like it was great grandma who had been sick for years. No, it was Li, who had just called us two days before to confirm plans for dinner and shopping.

I almost don't want to tell everyone else about the engagement now, because it feels like I'd be encroaching on people's time to grieve.

Any help?

The Guest List: Round 1

We started working on our respective guest lists recently. So far, we are realizing how impractical it is going to be for many of our guests to make it to our wedding. I have the benefit of working for a small store, so I'm very close with most of my coworkers, and it's just impractical to think that I can invite everyone...after all, who would run the store? Fortunately, we are hiring before my wedding, so I'm hoping I just don't become good friends with the new hires.

Which brings about an interesting question: How do you decide who to invite? Nate and I are lucky enough to have a relatively small invitation base, due to being from small families and having only a few dear friends we want to share our day with; but I can't help but wonder, what about those people who are friends with half of the known world?

We do have a dilemma within our comparatively easy situation, though. As of right now, his brother and father are feuding. Nate is not a part of the fight, and is struggling quite a bit to maintain neutral without isolating everyone. Of course I want his family to be at our wedding, especially since we all get along so well.

But how should we deal if this rift between his father and brother doesn't heal? What would that mean for us? I realize how selfish that sounds, but we want our whole family to celebrate with us. I suppose we could seat them apart from each other, and I know for our sakes they'd all still come and play nice, but I hate putting people in situations I know make them unhappy or uncomfortable if it isn't necessary.

Anyone out there have any advice for me this time around? It seems like this is one thing I just can't figure out myself.

Why I Love My Fancy Printer!

In an effort to save some money, we decided we were going to see if it would be cost effective to just design and print our wedding invitations ourselves.

With a relatively small wedding (175ish people) I'm finding that it is in fact cheaper to just do it my way.

It helps that of the roughly 15 companies I looked at, none of them had exactly what I wanted.
I've gotten them designed. I need to finalize the wording (You know, once deposits and dates are firm), and then print them. The paper I want is only about $15 for a package of 250 sheets. At 2 invitations per page, that leaves me plenty to make the reply cards. Even factoring in having to buy envelopes and postage, I'm still well ahead of the game financially speaking. I'm probably going to go ahead and put the reply card envelopes as self-addressed/stamped just for convenience sake.

I am cutting a bit of cost with the envelopes, though. Since I'm doing SASEs for the reply cards, I'm committing a bit of a faux pas and not putting the invitations in a second internal envelope. I'm sure wedding purists are going to nip at me, but I'm trying to do all of this on a budget and within the style that Nate and I want.

I suppose my only problem right now is how to deal with making reply cards. I guess I'll just look up some templates and adapt it as I see fit. I'm just unsure of the wording that goes on them. There's my next project.

Following having everything designed, I suppose I am going to have to nail down a guest list, which may or may not go well for me.

Round 1: My Engagement

Officially speaking, I'm not engaged yet. We haven't told his family, and only my mom knows we're even thinking about getting married. In reality, we've already started planning. Our friends know, and I've already gotten...almost nothing done.

His family is dealing with a lot of drama right now, so we're waiting a little while to share the news with them, mainly so they can appreciate some good news and maybe even feel a little bit better to get some good news.

I've been pulling together every detail I possibly can without placing deposits down on things. You'd be amazed how much easier your planning goes when you eliminate all the things that don't fit the personality of the bride and groom.

I suppose this blog is just my way of ranting, raving, and airing out all the stress as I go through planning my wedding. Hopefully if someone else reads it, they can give me some pointers or even pick up on something from me..like learning from any mistakes I might make.

So, here we go. About 329 days to go until the wedding...and I'm braving it all pretty much alone. His view is that whatever I want, he'll be cool with. It's helps that our personalities and styles are pretty much identical.

The countdown is on...the adventure begins...how many more silly time cliches can I come up with in the next sentence....July 14, 2009...here we come!