The long-awaited recap

Obviously, I sort of let this blog fall by the wayside. But I'd hate to think you just never knew how things ended up, wedding-wise.

Odds are, most of you already know me in real life and were there and/or are friends with me on Facebook, so you probably have a pretty good idea what it was like, but for the 2% of my readership who just happen to find me interesting despite not being an active part of my life, here's a snapshot.

I know almost every bride thinks her wedding day was awesome, but...well, mine was just perfect. I mean, stuff went wrong and there were the annoying things you have to do, but when I think back on it, there was just so much good.

I woke up the morning-if at exactly 7 a.m. I had set my alarm for another hour and a half later, but my body was operating on wedding time now. I was so. Freaking. Excited. After forcing myself to eat some toast, the day started with hair and makeup for the girls. My sister-in-law did almost everyone's looks (shameless plug for her salon here!), and we all left the hotel looking mighty attractive.

Then my favorite parts started. First, there was the first look for Joey and me. I was so excited to see him, and he looked so good. Our fabulous photographer and videographer were in hand to capture the whole thing ( and seriously, these guys are AMAZING. I'm not just saying that. They travel, too, so if you're looking, hire them. They're also positively delightful in person.), and then we did our bridal party pictures.





Then it was ceremony time. I know the ceremony can be kind of boring when it's not your wedding. But this was honestly my favorite part of the day. It was just really...meaningful, I guess. I cried like a baby, but only because he started it. Sigh, husbands, right?

After that, we were married! That's the craziest part. It's like, one second, single. The next, poof, married! Crazy in a good way. After the obligatory family photos, it was party time.

We tried really hard to make sure we enjoyed our reception, but it is a little challenging. Everyone wants to talk or take a picture with you or, ahem, take a shot with you, but you also have speeches and table visits and to spend time with relatives and friends who came all this way. It's a bit much.

But I can honestly say it was one of the best days of my life so far. There was so much love and happiness around me the whole day. Sorry to be a mush, but I can't help but get all goo-goo eyed when I talk about it.

Feel free to check out Megan's blog for more photos and AJ's site for the video clip (links above) if you need more. Hard to believe we've already been hitched for a month! Here's hoping for a lot more "one of the best days of our lives."

Mom found her dress!

My mother purchased and returned about four dresses before she finally found her dress for my wedding.

Now, I should say that this doesn’t surprise me. I have three married brothers, and I saw her go through the same struggle with their weddings. (And with my sister’s wedding in October, I’m sure she’ll do the whole thing over again for that.) To be fair, the parents of the bride and groom are under scrutiny during the wedding. They have to walk down the aisle too, and everyone will be looking.

Fortunately, my mother is a stylish lady, and I had no doubts she would find something fabulous.

The winning dress came from Dorothea’s Closet, a vintage store in Des Moines, IA. The shop has been open since 2007 and sells high-quality vintage clothing, accessories, lingerie and bridal attire. Fortunately for those not in the Midwest, there’s a website too.

I don’t want to spoil the surprise of her dress, so I’m not going to show it, but know this: It’s gold, it sparkles, and it looks great on her.

According to my Knot ticker, we’re only 26 days away from THE day. That is insane.

Favors and Food

We check quite a few wedding tasks off of our to-do list this weekend!

First, my bridesmaids and I and our good (and crafty) friend Heather got together to wrap the favors. Here’s a shot of the team (minus Megan, who had to leave to meet her husband. She’s such a good wife!):

We wrapped up about 160 favors before we had to quit (wrapping favors is surprisingly exhausting). Here’s the whole bunch:

The actual wrapping is a little basic, but I our linens are a pretty blue color, so I think the brown kraft paper will pop on each place.

Speaking of the linens, the fiancé and I went to The Riviera to pick them and our menu. Vicki was super helpful, as always, and even gave us an extra food station because our meeting started a little late. (Free food will always win me over.) The Riv has been really great about taking care of all of our requests, and I’m so excited to have them in charge on the day-of (and to take the pressure off of the fiancé and me!).

I cannot believe there are only 34 more days. Here’s what we have left to do:

1. Tally up the RSVPs (deadline was Saturday, but I know I still have some calls to me) and give a headcount to The Riviera.
2. Print and assemble programs.
3. Pick up the fiance’s suit; get my dress steamed.
4. Confirm hotel/honeymoon plans.
5. Finish our table numbers.
6. Finish corsages.
7. Final payments (ugh).

And seriously, I think that’s it. All together now: SHRIEK!

"Showered" With Love

Ok, I’m taking a quick break from thinking about other people’s weddings to talk about my own, because this past weekend was PACKED with wedding activities.

First, Saturday I had a surprise bridal shower! And I really, truly was surprised. I thought the fiancé and I were meeting up with some friends for lunch, but when we walked into the “restaurant,” everyone yelled, “Surprise!” I actually thought maybe they were surprising someone else. (I was REALLY surprised!)

The best part? My mom flew in to surprise me too! It was so much fun (after I recovered from the initial shock!), and I felt truly loved to have so many people go to the trouble to put it together for me. Here are a few photos of the highlights!

 {photos courtesy of bridesmaid Megan}

Next up: Suits! The guys FINALLY got them. I’ll give you the deets later this week.
And after that: APARTMENT! We found one we love and we’re signing the lease tomorrow. Woo, adulthood!

Brown Paper Packages

Our wedding favors came in! I don’t want to spoil the surprise for our guests (though I will tell you that they came from the Knot Shop!), so instead I’m going to talk about ways to wrap up favors.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I bought all those favor boxes way back when for $5 at our prop sale, but the favors we ended up with are too big for the boxes (oh well). So now I’m back to square one on the wrapping front.

Here’s what I know: I want to wrap them in brown kraft paper. My bridesmaids and future in-laws have been saving brown paper bags for me, so I should have enough. (Plus, future mom-in-law has a random roll of brown kraft paper. Perfect!) Then I either want to tie them with this pretty blue baker’s twine I bought on Etsy (surprise, surprise), like so:

{source}

You know I love a good doily. Or maybe use a witty sticker of some kind?

{source}

I’m not sure. What are you brides doing to package your wedding favors?

Can’t Hardly Wait

When you’re planning a wedding (at least one that you’re actually looking forward to), time seems to move incredibly slowly and incredibly quickly at the exact same time.

Case in point, my Knot wedding ticker.

I know, I know, it’s cloyingly cute, but the colors looked good on my Knot bio, so…there you have it. Anyway, look at that thing.

The little love birds are practically on top of the birds at the end of the ticker! The fact that my wedding is so close blows my mind sometimes. I mean, I feel like we just got engaged.

But then I look at the info underneath the ticker. One month, three weeks, and three days left to go. Now, this is not a long amount of time. But still, a WHOLE month, THREE weeks, AND three days left to go?

The fiancé and I often discuss how we could have probably had a shorter engagement. But then we console ourselves with the fact that we would probably have been much more stressed and not had as much time to find good deals.

But when your wedding day is going to be as awesome as ours is, sometimes you just wish those birds would quit dawdling.

We Like Cake

We had our cake tasting last night! Both the fiancé and I had really been looking forward to this part. (Um, hi? Free cake? Three different kinds of free cake? Sign us up.)

Not only is our baker, Liz, incredibly sweet and easy to work with, she also makes some out-of-this-world-good cake.

We sampled French vanilla, red velvet and lemon cakes, and strawberry preserves, eclair cream and cannoli cream fillings. Though they were all amazing, there was a clear winner among the sweet little group: French vanilla with cannoli cream. Seriously, I actually feel bad that we can’t invite every person we’ve ever known to the wedding, because you haven’t lived until you’ve tried this combo. (Of course, I’m a sucker for a homemade baked good.)

Put it this way: The fiancé is verrrry discerning when it comes to Italian food. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have worked out if I couldn’t throw together an impressive vodka sauce. And when he tasted that cannoli cream…let’s just say the contest was over.

Liz was even kind enough to send him home with a container of the leftover filling (pretty much making her his new favorite person). How much did he love the cannoli cream? I think this says it all:

I Heart This Idea

Ok, so since Monday is the end of proposal season, I know there have to be a bunch of newly engaged girls out there. Will at least one of you steal this super-awesomely-cute engagement photo idea? Pretty please?

Found here.
Photos by Laura Leslie Photography (LauraLesliePhotography.com)

Wedding Invitations Revealed

Well, the invitations have reached Iowa, so I think it’s safe to say that they’ve all been received everywhere else (sorry, Midwest, but your mail system is not the greatest). And that means I can share the design with all of you without spoiling any surprises.

Just as a reminder, here's what the outside looked like (except the color is much prettier in person, I promise):

Next, here's what our guests found when they opened the outer envelope:

It's us! Cute huh? I used PersonalizationMall.com to make the stickers using one of our engagement pictures and wrapped the whole thing in gold baker's twine. The colors turned out to be perfect.

And here's what was inside:

Again, the color is a little off in the photo (I probably should stop using my phone camera for everything), but I love, love how they turned out. Doesn't that scripted font look hand-written? And the gold backing papers added just the right amount of fanciness (in my humble opinion). 

Here's a close up of the RSVP card and envelope (stamped lovingly by the oh-so-helpful fiance!):

 

We also have a reception info card, but I forgot to take a picture of that. So that's it! Everyone has given us positive feedback so far (though I guess if someone hated them, they would probably just keep it to themselves...). We've already started receiving response cards. Which, I'm sure you can imagine, thrills me.

We're under 60 days away now. Hooray!

Fondant Dreams, Sheet Cake Budget

Oh, you guys! OK, I know that pretty much every time I book a vendor I come on here and gush about how they're the greatest vendor in the world, but you know what? Maybe that just means I've hired the greatest vendors in the world. I'm OK with it.

Speaking of amaaaazing wedding vendors, we hired our cake baker! This was actually a fairly trying part of the wedding planning process. Even though our fairly go-with-the-flow style of wedding planning has generally worked out so far, when it came to the cake, we hit somewhat of a breaking point.

Now, I like cake. Desserts and I are very close. But, like flowers, my wedding cake was never one of my wedding priorities. And yet, also like flowers, when the time came to start making decisions, the thought of having an eyesore of a wedding cake absolutely killed me. I may have cried in the car after a bakery consultation. Twice.

Because I think if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that weddings are expensive. Like, really expensive. Unless you simply elope, even a small wedding is going to cost you a pretty penny. And it doesn't help one bit that I happen to be planning my wedding in one of the most expensive areas of the country. So here's how it all went down.

First, I made the mistake of falling in love with a cake design. This is good and bad. It's good because it means I know what I want and I can go into the bakery with a clear direction and request. It's bad because if I can't afford the thing I love, everything else seems vastly inferior by comparison.

This is my dream wedding cake (a phrase I honestly never thought I would say):

{source}

I'd say "yum," but that word kind of gives me the creeps. Don't ask.

But seriously, is that not the prettiest little thing you've ever seen? It's elegant, rustic, fashionable, and still fun. Basically our wedding theme made out of sugar.

I envisioned pairing it with a sweet little cake topper, like this:

{source}

Totally adorable, right? We'd get the groom a little seafoam tie, the bride would have a flower in her hair like I will…totally perfect.

Then we actually went to the bakeries.

Our venue has a "cake included" policy, but it requires you to order your cake from one of two recommended bakeries. Otherwise, you get a modest credit to go somewhere else. I did some research, and I wasn't impressed with what I read online about the two recommended places. So we got more recs from friends and planned to visit two highly recommended bakeries.

What follows is what I like to call the heartbreak of my wedding. The first bakery quoted us at about twice what we wanted to pay, and this was actually a reasonable fee for our area. (And yes, I realize that means we probably should have been expecting it, but I still had high hopes that we could find a bargain.) Then the second bakery quoted us for more than TWICE what the original bakery had wanted to charge. Cue second panic attack. Over a cake. When did I become this girl?

After the fiancé had calmed me down, we just agreed that we would go with one of our venue's recommended bakeries and take what we could get. Farewell, perfect wedding cake.

Then the next day, I drank really strong coffee for breakfast. And got this super-charged idea to look on Craigslist for a cake baker. Because aren't I always reading stories about brides who found some on-the-side wedding vendor who is just starting up their business and turns out to be amazing?

And that's how I found Elizabeth.

I probably love Elizabeth way more than I should love someone I've never met, but she is SO sweet and helpful, and I have a hunch she's going to be great in person too. She's a stay-at-home/certified pastry chef who started an occasion cake business out of her home when she was pregnant with twins. Her company, Todaro's Exquisite Cakes, not only has amazing prices (she was also frustrated with the cost of typical wedding vendors when planning her own nuptials, and she vowed to be different), but the level of service is extremely personalized. I mean, we're going to her house on Monday to do our tasting. She does all her own sugar work, which both of the other bakeries were going to have to send out for (which, ahem, is part of why their costs were so much higher). She even had a cake featured in the 2010 winter issue of The Knot!

I could not be more excited to see how our cake turns out. We're adjusting the colors slightly (seafoam instead of lime green and gold instead of black), but otherwise it should be pretty similar to what you see above.

Interested in hiring Elizabeth? You can reach her through email at silverangel0679@aol.com or by phone at (718) 209-1425 or (646) 238-7830. Or, check out her fan page on Facebook.

One Night Only

Well, we have a few more awesome wedding tasks to check off the list! Stay tuned later this week for news about our cake baker, but for now…

We’ve been trying to find a nice place to stay on our wedding night. We wanted to stay somewhere near our reception venue, but also close-ish to the airport since we have a flight the next night. We also didn’t want to spend too much money since, you know, everything else is still getting paid for, but at the same time, we want something nicer than the Holiday Inn.

Then one of my friends discovered The Allegria Hotel.

The pictures looked lovely, but this isn’t the type of thing I really want to leave up to photography and then be unpleasantly surprised about later. So we planned a bridal party outing to the hotel’s swanky bar.

{bridesmaids}

{groomsmen}

{us}

First, the place is just as pretty as it looks in the photos, and the rooms are super modern and plush feeling. Plus, the prices were pretty reasonable for the area. Seems like a pretty great place to start this whole “married life” thing!

Our wedding invitations are done!

We sent our wedding invitations yesterday! I think only other brides can understand what a relief that is. From cutting down the guest list to the endless gathering of addresses (Total disclosure: I was not as organized as I should have been, so I had to do this several times. Oops.), the wedding invitations are a great source of stress in a bride’s life.

Of course, the fact that I had such gorgeous invitations did help to alleviate that stress. It took the fiancé and me two nights of assembling, but when they were finally all put together, I think we were both pretty pleased with the result.

Speaking of which, have I mentioned how helpful my fiancé is with wedding planning? I’ll be totally honest and admit that there are some things I’m too much of a perfectionist to let him do, but for the most part, I’m extremely willing to pass off stressful projects, and he always steps up to do whatever he can to help.

In the case of invitations, this meant a lot of stamping and sticker-ing. My future mother-in-law, Chris, bought us a rubber stamp with their address for the RSVP cards (saving us the trouble of writing it out 90-ish times), so the fiancé set to work stamping each one and applying a mailing stamp.

He also added the stamp to the outer envelope and a return address label. (I’m pretty sure there’s a rule somewhere that you’re supposed to hand-write everything on your wedding invitations, but let’s be real here -- I do not have the time and the patience after I’m already writing out everyone else’s addresses. Besides, I bought pretty gold return labels, and they looked just fine, a-thank you!)

After he did that, I assembled the pocketfold and sealed them.

Then Chris stuffed the outer envelopes and sealed those. Theeeen, I hand-addressed (see? I handwrote something) all of those with a pretty gold pen. And, ta-da! We were done!

Chris took them to the post office for us (where, unfortunately she discovered they each needed about 16 cents-worth more of stamp…grumble…), and now they’re all in the mail. Phew.

{the color is really wonky here...stinkin smart phone camera}

After everyone receives them (and promptly RSVPs, of course!), I’ll post more pics.

And please excuse my deathly pale skin. Here's a sneak peek of our invitations to distract you!

65 days!

Bridesmaid Hairstyles: Part 1

Today is the first day of February. I don’t know if you know this, but after February is March, and then it’s April. And, again, this might be a surprise, but my wedding is in April. So basically what we’re talking about is February, March, WEDDING.

Are we all on the same page? Good, moving on.

My lovely sister-in-law, Abi, founder and owner of Umami Salon & Spa in Loveland, CO, is doing my hair and makeup for the wedding. She is also doing hair and makeup for my bridesmaids, so I’ve had them start sending photos of what they’d like so I can send it along to Abi.

Megan was the first. Here’s a remind of what Megan looks like, along with her desired hairstyle:

Totally cute, right?

Also, the girls all have their dresses! I’m just waiting to get mine back from the tailor, and then we’re going to have a dress party. Where we try on our dresses. Again. And dance around in them.

I cannot wait.

How do your flowers grow?

Remember that time a million years ago when I promised you a post about our bouquets?

Well, all I can say is this has been a crazy week at our office, and a have a bunch of huge deadlines today and Monday. As if planning a wedding wasn’t a full-time job already.

But today, it turns out, is actually a quite fortuitous day for me to tell you about my wedding flowers, because I was just assigned as The Knot’s flowers editor. (Can I get a what-WHAT?) (I’m so sorry.) That basically means I’m the staff go-to for all things flora.

It may seem kind of funny since I said that my own wedding flowers weren’t a priority for me, but the flower images are actually my favorite part to edit when I’m reviewing Real Weddings in our gallery. It’s probably staring at all of those gorgeous petals that, in the end, made me up the ante with my own blooms.

I think I’ve posted about three different flower looks since starting this blog. (Hey, it’s a bride’s prerogative to change her mind.) My main priority was getting something pretty on a budget, and for the most part, I had been acquiescing to the budget side of that a lot more than the pretty.

I still think these baby’s breath bouquets are lovely, and I still think I could have done my flowers myself (I’m craft, darn it!), but a couple of conversations I had right before I put in my flowers order changed my tune.

First, I decided I had to have dahlias for my bouquet. My favorite flower used to be tulips, but in the course of looking at all those aforementioned wedding flower photos, I fell head over heels for these fluffy, springy blooms.

I mentioned this to my sister-in-law (the one doing my hair and makeup who also happens to know a lot about flower arrangement), and she warned me that dahlias are a soft flower that can be difficult to work with if you’re not a professional.

Ok, so there went the DIY idea. The last thing I want to be worried about on my wedding day is the lump of soggy stems I’ve just destroyed, leaving me with nothing to carry down the aisle.

My future mother-in-law, Chris, went with me to the florist while the fiancé was out of town because she wanted to get us a ceremony arrangement. We went to Flowers by Phil, The Levittown Florist, which is a different florist than the one providing my centerpieces. Flowers by Phil’s prices are better, and one of the fiance’s cousins had used them for her wedding with great success.

Anyway, I showed them some pictures of what I liked, explained my plan for the baby’s breath bridesmaid bouquets and the ceremony arrangement, they quoted us an extremely reasonable price, and we left so I could discuss with the fiancé before signing anything.

Cue the second conversation that changed my mind: The next day, Chris and I were talking about the bouquets and how even though the flowers themselves die in a few hours, the pictures (and the effect flowers have on the pictures) will last forever.

So later that day, I called the florist and asked how much the budget would change to swap in dahlias for my girls. And you know what? It wasn’t too much of a difference.

Here’s the gist of what we’re getting:

My bouquet will be a mix of blush and ivory dahlias like this:

{source}

With dusty miller around the flowers similar to this:

 {source}

The girls will carry basically the same thing, but a little smaller and with ivory flowers.

And after I confirmed the order and hung up the phone, I was suddenly SO EXCITED about my wedding flowers. And isn’t that how a girl should feel about her wedding flowers?

 

Get It On Video

Well, the Fiance was out of town on a guy’s snowboarding weekend, but I still managed to get a lot of wedding planning accomplished.

I don’t know if it’s just that our wedding is under three months away (eek!) or the fact that we’ve been finalizing a lot of major details, but I am getting SO EXCITED. Seriously. Booking vendors used to put me in a tailspin of panic about budgets and wondering if we made the right decision, but now I just get giddy when another detail is finalized. (Or maybe I’m just getting used to shelling out cash?)

Whatever it is, I am super over-the-moon about our latest two vendors.

First, we booked a videographer! This decision was actually somewhat of a surprise to me. I hadn’t planned on hiring one when we first got engaged. It was one of those things that I thought would be nice, but I also thought I could live without. Well, I guess you can blame working at The Knot, but my opinions started to change. Because seriously, a videographer can capture things at your wedding like nothing else. Your grandparents dancing. The best man’s speech. You and your new spouse saying your vows. I mean, you don’t get those things back.

Plus, one of my bridesmaids had a few people over recently, and for whatever reason we decided to watch her and her husband’s wedding video, and it was so. much. fun. I realized that if I didn’t get a video, I would regret it. Maybe not right away. But someday, I would.

Thus began the quest to find an awesome videographer who would also work in my budget. Naturally, I turned to my local board on The Knot’s Community page.

I always feel a little funny posting on the boards. I mean, part of my job is maintaining the Community page. It’s like the teacher wanting to hang out at recess. But the girls on both my local and wedding month boards have always been super welcoming, and it’s fun to see where everyone is in their planning process.

So anyway, there was a post on the local board from another bride looking for affordable videographers in Long Island, and two people suggested AJ Ingoglia. When I checked out his Vimeo page, my first thought was, “Ok, this guy can probably bench press me.” (I’m still pretty sure that’s true.) Then I clicked on some of his videos. Um…it’s pretty much exactly the style I like. Jackpot. Next, I scoured the internet for more reviews, just to make sure he was as wonderful as he seemed.

 {source}

At first, I thought it was kind of funny how many people emphasized how nice this guy is. I mean, how nice can someone really be?

Then I emailed him.

And, you guys. He is SO nice. And his videos are so good. (This is one of my favorites.) And considering how awesome his work is (and I see a lot of wedding videos), his prices are pretty incredible.

I mailed in my contract this morning. (And included a save-the-date to give him an idea of how much fun we plan to have at our wedding!)

I also ordered wedding flowers this weekend, but this post has already run a little long, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that. (Spoiler: It's nothing like what I've posted so far. Dontcha love a good intrigue?)

Two months, two weeks, and three days to go!

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman

Oh boy. We got our invitations. And they are bee-u-tee-ful. Seriously. Katelyn did the most amazing job.

Here’s the cliff notes to how she ended up creating our wedding invitations for us: Katelyn is one of those super fashionable/artistic/creative people who also happens to love weddings (she’s actually getting hitched about two months after us!). One day at her office job, she realized she was unhappy and wanted to find a way to channel her passions and talents into employment she would actually enjoy. So she bought fancy papers and a letterpress machine, downloaded a (ok, kind of sketchy) version of Photoshop, and her design side job was born.

When I first got engaged, she casually mentioned that if I wanted any help I should let her know. I am SO glad I did.

Not only are her creations entirely custom designs (and you know how fancy that makes me feel), she also gives you a few options. I sent her links to a few invitations I loved, along with my desired color palette, and she put together three options. The fiancé and I mixed and matched our favorite parts of each, added in some gold paper (*thrill*), and Katelyn made it all happen.

Plus, her prices are amazing. She actually ended up giving me mine as a gift (an extremely generous gesture!), but even if I’d paid for them, you’re not going to get this quality for less anywhere.

She doesn’t have a website (though I’m gently encouraging her to create one…), but let me know if you’re looking for invites or stationery and I can hook you up! Just leave a comment below with your email address.

I’m hoping to start putting them together this weekend so we can send them out on February 5th. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so you'll have to wait to see them until then. I know, I'm a tease.

The Ringer

We got our wedding bands!!! I may have actually jumped around the fiance's house for about five minutes after we got them. It's so exciting!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but the stones on my band are kind of special. I guess in cleaning out her jewelry drawer, my mom discovered an infinity band that she never wore, so she decided to split the stones between my sister and me. This is cool for two reasons:

1. I get a super pretty ring that has some family history (and can double as my "something old," if you're concerned with that type of thing).

2. It's super budget friendly!

As for the fiance, he's not really a jewelry guy, so he wanted something simple, but with some kind of detail that would make it special. I instantly loved the ring he picked as soon as I saw it, but I didn't say anything until he made his decision. But it turns out we both had the same favorite anyway. We're obviously meant to be.

Here's his:

And here's mine (ignore my weirdly wrinkly hand...winter is not kind to my skin. I swear I'm not actually 90.):

We both pretty much want to wear them all the time (I may have spent part of Sunday afternoon "trying mine on" again), but we've agreed to keep them safely tucked away until the wedding so they don't get scratched or dirty or anything. Le sigh.

We also ordered our centerpieces, picked our first dance song, and I'm almost done getting my attendant gifts. Meaning the only things left to do are:

1. Guys need to get their suits.
2. We need to order our cake.
3. I need to call the Riviera and tell them our selected menu.
4. Book our wedding night hotel. We're 99% sure where we're staying, but we're going to visit before we book (and grab some cocktails with our bridal party at the rooftop bar!).
5. Stuff and send invitations.

I think that seriously might be it. Only 83 more days until THIS happens:

Cute, ain't he?

Put a ring on it: Male edition

Guess who has been a very naughty Knottie blogger? (See what I did there?)

I have a few excuses for the lack of posting:

1. I was SO sick last week. As in, really-only-worked-one-full-day-due-to-leaving-early-staying-home-and-doctor’s-appointments sick.
2. I’ve been busy playing catch-up with everything I missed whilst sick.
3. Nothing especially interesting has happened wedding planning-wise.

Well, that last one isn’t entirely true. Our wedding bands are in! We’re going to pick them up this weekend after payday. (Ah, young impoverished love. Just kidding, but weddings are expensive, yo.)

{photo: The Source}

We are both crazy excited for the wedding bands. The Fiance wants to wear his right away. I told him it was fine with me, which actually sparked quite a discussion in my office about the topic of “man-gagement” rings. (It’s sort of an awkward term…it just looks like you're misspelling “management,” right?) It turns out that the vast majority of Knotties are totally ok with their fellas sporting their own bling pre-nuptials. And even wackier, more and more dudes are also into it. Kind of adorable, right?

Would your groom sport his own engagement ring? (Or does he plan on wearing a band before the wedding?)

DIY Wedding Boutonnieres

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend! Mine was pretty good, except that I came down with something that has me feeling pretty awful and coughing up a phlemy storm. (A lovely mental image, right?)

The fiancé had it a week ago, and his parents have had it ever since, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I succumbed. The only good thing about being home sick all day yesterday? I got some wedding DIY knocked out!

Remember my plan for our boutonnieres? Well, I actually did it! Here’s how it went down.

Step #1: Cut out two circles of fabric (one slightly smaller than the other). For our ushers, dads, and my bridal attendant, I made white flowers. The fiancé, groomsmen, and man of honor got blue.

Step #2: Fold over part of the bigger circle and sew into place with about two stitches. Do the same with the smaller circle, attaching it to the bigger circle. It should look like a flower now.

Step #3: Cut a trapezoidal(ish) type shape out of green fabric for the leaf. Fold the bottom part and sew onto the flower.

Step #4: Sew on the lapel pin.

Done!

Once I got in the swing of it, I could make each of these in about five minutes. I think they turned out pretty cute!

{they look kind of huge here, but they're actually about quarter size}

We ALSO ordered our wedding bands this weekend! They should be ready in about a week. I’ll post pictures when we get them.

97 days to go!