magical mystery gift

UPDATE: We got a SECOND box filled with more bowls and a return address. holy crap, thanks Andy!

last night, we got a big box of all of our dinner and salad plates and bowls from Dillard's, but there was no note! can anyone tell me who sent it?

the deed is done

Wedding completed! It couldn't have gone more perfectly for us. I'm excited to do the wedding recap, but I'm going to wait till I get the professional photos back from Kristina before I do them. Next week!

Meanwhile, we'll just enjoy being married, and do alot more of this:

marker

there are a few ways that i like to mark events. one of the earliest ways is to look at the expiration dates on milk. since it's usually 2 weeks out, it's a good starting point.

"i'll be in mexico before this milk goes bad!"

"i could drink out of this carton two days AFTER christmas!"

there are other markers:

the week mark: "i'll be on an airplane in exactly one week from right now!"

the grocery store mark: "can i eat this many green beans before i leave?"

the social events mark: "i'd love to come, but i'll be gone..."

one of the best markers just happened for out wedding day. the 10 DAY FORECAST marker.

what does the wedding day weather look like? partly cloudy and 73 degrees. cloudy means good pictures, 73 degrees means happy outdoor wedding guests.

i couldn't be more excited. let's just get married already, ok?






(from my bridal shower last weekend, Chad came for the last portion of it and we revisited some rather suggestive paragraphs that the girls wrote. this is a shot of our collective embarrassment. it was awesome.)

duh, invitations

We finished (mostly) invitations this week finally. these were all taken on the night that we rocked through what? 120? it was a long night. but i'm happy with the results. now, i know i can't do anything remotely different without someone saying, "OH, THAT'S SO WENDY. SO ZANY." the photo we chose is a bit abstract, and you can't see our faces that well, but what can you see? chain link, industry, awesome color blocks. that's all we want you to see, guys. plus, you'll see so many bloody pictures of us at the wedding, your heads will spin. I'm including a few photos from the same shoot that didn't make the cut, but almost did. did we make the right decision on the photo? you're welcome to comment below, but be warned, the deed's done, so be nice. plus, we love it.

Alot of green

As we move closer and closer to the actual wedding date, i find myself not posting anything and actually DOING things. Things are looking really great for now. I just bought the last of the candy for our candy bar online.

Here you can see 6 of the 8 glass containers, curious george and my dad dutifully taking off one of the labels.

Bought the green ties for the groomsmen, which upon delivery, my mom said were VERY green. excellent.

Secured bow ties for the little guys in the family. i'm particularly excited about this detail.

Finished bridesmaids' necklaces. this was my first foray into jewelry making, and i'm pretty proud of myself. like peas in a pod, these girls.

post script updated!

Here's our list, updated. it feels really good to have so much stuff done. that blasted crinoline is taking forever for me to make. mostly because it's not really that fun to make... behold, how good we are at doing stuff: (not the added first bullet point, while i did say my dress was a teensy bit small, i failed to mention that it was actually a lot too small. so i said goodbye to sugar and hello to 2 hour gym visits and lo and behold, it zips!

to do:

DONE fit into dress
DONE print invitations
DONE mail invitations
DONE get rental plates
HALF DONE make jewelry for bridesmaids (about halfway done)
HALF DONE finish making crinoline (multi-colored! awesome!Update: SO HARD TO MAKE)
DONE figure out extra silverware/napkins
print polaroid photos
take direction photos (eat this, sit here, etc.)
DONE write down cake recipes
DONE buy ties
DONE order flowers
get rock candy/white mints
DONE book hotel for kristina/jared
HALF DONE buy music on itunes for em, email em/figure out music
ceremony things, figure it out...traditional? procession/recession music?
cut/sand/stain wood photo-holding blocks


not so bad for 5 weeks, no? my mom's list looks something like this:

DONE order food
DONE put on quilts
DONE sew napkins

flowers- no bouquet holder, no throw away
bouquet of stems- 1 bride, 6 bridesmaids- no holders-
2 mini for little girls
9 bouts- ??
mothers- 2 (11 pins) (have boxes)
decorations? vases?
11 vases?
24-25 centerpiece vases

Lemons and limes and grapefruits- Sheri- lemons, Ann- grapefruit and oranges
Orange juice with club soda and ice cream for creamsicle drink
6 acrylic scoops
basket for candy cones

2 long tables for food
2 rounds for candy and cake
projector screen
glass containers for drinks
punchbowl
call Sharon about flowers
Music??

so much stuff. so much awesome. i can't wait!


chad, the barbarian. me, the librarian.

Boo-kay-hey-hey

I wrote something last night regarding the garter/bouquet toss for another piece

No. no, no, no. It’s fun when you’re 14, but once you exit puberty, there’s something so base about scuffling with other single women for some cheap prize that you don’t really even want. As for the garter, it’s hard to make a guy reaching up a girl’s dress and pulling off an undergarment look anything other than...what it is.

I don't really feel quite that strongly about it as all that, but I do wonder what all the hoopla is about.
I realize that I'm probably opening up a can of something here, as my three married siblings did it (one as recently as a week ago)...but I'm wondering. Married people: did you do the garter/bouquet toss at your wedding? Why or why not?
Unmarried people: Do you like it? Love it? Is anyone sort of ambivalent? As married folks, is it more fun to watch or participate?

while i've been away

toiling in the 70 degree heat to work on a couple of wedding projects, chad has been busy at work fashioning our cake stands. behold:

we're going to assemble them on their multi leveled pedestals, but not until we get here, so they're easier to ship. also, we won't need to buy ourselves a power drill just yet.

but seriously, don't those look awesome? i'm stoked.

thinly veiled

guess who made her veil tonight?

if you guessed me, you'd be correct, sort of.

my mom did most of it. and it looks awesome. i'm glad i read somewhere that another girl who made her own birdcage veil said it took her over 2 hours to get it right, so the 30 minutes or so it took us wasn't bad at all. (pardon the crappy iphone photo) also, i'm wearing black yoga pants and a white hanes undershirt, which i've found is my default outfit choice when i'm home.

Meet the Parents

Chad and my parent's met for the first time while we were home. we all ate tortilla soup and drank white hot chocolate. Chad's dad suggested we finish the napkin rings we bought with some vegetable oil instead of stain and my parents did the project last night and they allegedly look totally awesome. good work, moms and dads.

dresses dresses everywhere

dress drama was rampant over the last week or so. i bought two dresses on eBay, both vintage, both really pretty. one was twice as much as the other. the cheaper, less awesome of the two was shipped to my parent's house while i was home, so i tried it on. it didn't fit. not only did it not fit, it REALLY didn't fit. like, no way could i fit into it in a month fit. granted, it was christmas and i was stage 5-ing, so i was at the tip top of my regular weight range, but still. i was crushed. so, so sad. i had no recourse if the dresses didn't fit. i cried for a whole day.

my mom asked me to go and talk to a lady in her ward who makes wedding dresses, who could mock something up for me or have me rent one, but it was all still too raw. i didn't want another dress, i wanted the dress that was shipping to seattle that was perfect and vintage and awesome and way, awy too small for me. (the measurements were even smaller than the one i'd alreaady tried on)

so, i come back after christmas and begin shopping. addy told me that there was a big sale with lots of white dresses at nordstrom rack, so i went. after much digging, i decided to get this dress (from a no name italian designer, an unlined cotton dress that retailed for $800! insane) for about $50. i was going to add a tulle skirt for a bit of frill and to make it dressier)

note: it was freezing and snowy that day, so yes, i am wearing knee socks with under-armor.

as a whole, it's a little nurse-y, but i thought with a new skirt, it would do just fine.

then. the clouds part.

my other perfect dress comes in and i try it on for kicks. it's so so gorgeous. no cotton to be found, all chiffons and taffetas and silk. so i try it on. and what? it fits! i could still stand to lose a few so that it looks perfect, but it was awesome. so, so, so great. i, for one, couldn't be happier.

not, all i need it to add dozens of layers of tulle to the crinoline i got this weekend and bam! the perfect dress.

i spelled comparatively right on the first try. take THAT, college!

i am now the proud owner of two spectacular wedding dresses.

vintage? yep
cheap? comparatively
awesome? yes
exactly what i wanted? yes yes yes

too bad i showed chad the auctions, so he already knows what they look like. maybe i won't tell him which one i choose. awesome? awesome.

A.J. hey hey

Alex is my friend. Alex is the best. Alex is, among other things, a wildly talented artist. We wrote each other while he was missionning in Austria and Switzerland and his letters were always a really big deal. one of my favorite envelopes he sent was my name and address in huge, black (with yellowed edges) gothic type. it was so ornate and interesting and seemed so...european. anyway, alex offered (or agreed to, i'm not sure which) write out our wedding invitations. i love the look of handwritten invitations, but i don't want fantsy pantsy calligraphy, as i don't think it'll match our more informal atmosphere.

i like the looks of these styles of fonts alot. it's going to look awesome. i ordered the invitation supplies today and we're humming the tune of about $300, not including the screen printing kit, paint, and TONS of stamps. not bad for 200+ invitations.



(pictured- the former trampoline hole and me at our reception site. note the nervous nail biting. some things never change)

love that

i just spent 1/5 of our budget flying kristina and her husband out to shoot our wedding (that's a testament to how small our budget is, not how expensive it was). i feel so, so awesome about that decision. man, talk about a weight off.

party in AZ!

napkin rings acquired. they're really simple, which is good. are they boring? i'm not sure. do we need hot pink puff paint to spruce them up a bit? YES.

sort of wedding-y update

i just got a recrunkulous flower and some feathery goodness to tackle my veil, but i've got an entire quilt top to sew. add that to the fact that i'm exhausted and still sick and you've got a recipe for daunting projects being avoided in favor of watching the several Colbert Reports that are inexplicably saved on my parent's Tivo.

UPDATE: didn't touch my veil, but totally killed the quilt top. thanks, merm!

har char char

so my veil stuff came in the mail this week while i was here. the week of thanksgiving probably isn't the best time to get thick russian tulle in a house full of jokesters.

thank you, family, for saving the plastic turkey netting for me, just in case i needed any extra...

at just the right time.

wanna see how chad secretly flew to arizona and surprised me and asked me to marry him? go look on youtube HERE.

everyone was in on it. which explains why my mom wondered why i wasn't planning on ironing my dress, why my sister asked me that morning if i was going to shower or not and when my other sister asked me to do her makeup in the hopes that i would get carried away and do my own makeup as well.

it was perfect. life is so sweet.

updates

in a very fruitful two days, i've acquired the following:
veil material (now i just need to sew it. ahh!)
25 centerpiece vases
napkin fabric (50% of it at least)
photobooth backdrop fabric
120 place settings of silverware
120 glasses (plus 60 little ones for good measure)
8 glass containers fo our sweet-as-heck candy bar (all awesome!)

things i will do tomorrow:
return a few things to C&B, since i found the same things at *ahem* rossdressforless for, well, less.
take my entire cavalcade of a family into tiffany and co. so they can see the ring that is not on my finger yet. (before dec. 6th my darlings!)

what i have decidedly not done:
acquired plates (we're going to rent these as the options were not what we want)
gone to the venue to poke around (this weekend hopefully)
ordered a wedding dress
flower consultation
catering consult/order

oh yeah, i should note that i am not actually engaged. i would tell you the sad story of how i was going to be engaged last week but our esteemed jeweler messed it up real bad. no matter.

i love getting things done. so so good.

big news

i am BESIDE MYSELF to introduce to the blahg, my friend and killer photographer, Kristina! she's offered to fly down and shoot our wedding! everyone should go to her site and look at every photo here. this is awesome for a ton of reasons:

1. she's giving us a killer deal

2. i love love her photography (interesting and creative without being artsy for art's sake)

3. she and jared get to be at my wedding!!!

seriously, if you guys don't have tons of talented friends, i recommend getting some right away.