Whoopsy Daisy

So, you know what's great? When you *think* you were only slightly a slacker & haven't posted anything since you shared the final version of engagement pictures, but in reality - that post never really hit the internet - so you're even more of a slacker than you thought you were. Yay!

Yeah, that's me. :-)

So, soon I will post more pictures along with thrilling stories about our engagement pictures & family pictures. I think I need to do it from home, though, because the wifi connection on the train is strongly reminiscent of the dial-up we had in St. Louis in 1995.

In the meantime, though, I wanted to tell everyone that I'm back! I did take a break from wedding planning (but not wedding-thinking) over the holidays. While it was always on my mind, I got very little done - which was nice (thinking about random little details counts as fun in my book - yes, I'm a sicko) and frustrating (because I didn't get any sense of accomplishment).

In general, the break was good & necessary. We had a great holiday season, got to see lots of family & got to spend good time together as a family. We found something that all five of us like to do (skiing/snowboarding); which, while not the cheapest sport in the world, is incredibly awesome to do together. Yay!

And now, the wedding is less than 3 months away. So, I have to start doing. The list of things to do is as long as my arm - but hopefully that means I will start posting some fun wedding details on the blog.

The first things we have to do are finish invitations & favors. There's some pre-work we can do for the centerpieces that we'll have to do. Also - a head's up - soon we will need addresses from everyone! Although, if you're reading this, you probably got a Save the Date & we don't need your address. So, you can ignore the head's up - it's all of the people not reading this that need to be prepared. ;-)

This is kind of a nothing post, but I wanted to let everyone know I'm out here & haven't forgotten about the blog. As a reminder for the out of town guests - don't forget to make your hotel reservations! The discounted rates will go away soon.

Happy New Year to everyone out there...here's to a great 2010!

Kids Aren't an Accessory

I believe I mentioned this earlier, but one of my biggest issues with the Wedding Industry* is how they treat children. In general, children are treated like accessories. I read posts about how cute little girls will look decked out in tutus, fairy wings or insanely expensive dresses. Or articles about dressing little boys in little suits with baby Converses, or preppy sweaters and khakis.

All of this outfit obsession makes sense - wedding planning has a tendency to make a person pay attention to the craziest details. It makes me kind of sad, though.

The thing is, clothes are all people talk about regarding the kids in many situations. Or, they obsess about what could happen if one of these little people doesn't perform as the bride expects.

The thing that no one is talking about is the fact that these are kids! They're not trained animals or dolls to dress up and set on their way. They're little people who have feelings, and to include them in a wedding is not just adding one more accessory to the bridal party.

For us, having kids in the wedding has meant involving them in both the planning process & the ceremony. I'm frequently trying to find the right balance between having the kids involved and making sure the things that are very important to either one of us happen the way we want them to.

To start with, we picked something for each of the kids to help us with & then asked them if they'd help with that item. Now that we've settled on what they were helping with, they have pretty free reign on what that will look like. It also gives us the opportunity to really work closely with them. S is going to be helping us pick out the food for the reception. That's something we'll all get to do together. P is building the candy buffet & we've already had some fun brainstorming the different types of candy. C is going to really own the kids area & I'm hoping to get to work on some DIY projects with her for that.

We've also involved them in other activities beyond their "assigned" ones. We took them with us when we went cake tasting, listened to their opinions & made decisions based on them; we include them in random wedding errands & listen to their opinions. I'm not always good at this, I have a tendency to make up my mind & then be stuck in it & not listen to any other ideas.

It breaks my heart when I hear about a little girl who fell in love with a beautiful dress, but it wasn't exactly what the bride wanted - so they spend time & tears convincing the little girl that she can't have it. I wonder if it really matters - is it more important that the bride loves the dress or the girl wearing it loves it?

I would love to see brides thinking more about the kid involved & how to make them feel like a special part of the wedding. Dressing a child up & sending them down the aisle doesn't make them feel like a special part of a wedding. Letting them choose their dress, their basket, having them help you choose the ring bearer pillow they'll carry, does include them. It tells them that their opinion is important and takes them from being an accessory to contributing something substantial, that they may remember for years.

*When I say "Wedding Industry", I mean the websites, magazines and blogs that I've read. I'm generalizing, based on my impressions of what I've read. As we all know, generalizations can be a bad thing & frequently don't apply to at least one individual reading the generalization. My apologies if you're that individual. Just assume I'm not talking about you.

Rethinking the blog

Wow! It's been a long time since I posted...time goes by so quickly.  I feel so old when I say that; I remember being a kid & hearing adults say that and think they were crazy...time went SO slowly...I couldn't wait to be an adult.  And now, here I am, and it all just slips away - that probably says something about how many things there are on my to do list vs how many there should be. ;-)

Anyway.

Part of the reason I started this blog was to do what I've been doing so far, share wedding planning with all of you out there that aren't in my head. I wanted to be able to provide everyone with as much update as they wanted, without overdosing anyone & talking about the wedding constantly.

The other driver was a blog I'd been very inspired by, Weddingbee. In fact (and this is reasonably unlike me) I wanted to be a contributor. I think that I have a really unique perspective, because the transition I'm going through isn't just about K & I, but it's about S, C & P too. I wanted to share that with people, because I don't see a lot of my peers out there when I read blogs. Kids are treated like a decoration or an accessory, not an important piece of a new family. I wanted to share a different perspective.

Getting back to the point - in order to apply to blog at Weddingbee, you have to have a blog.  So, I thought I'd give it a shot. I wrote for awhile, trying to post what I thought you'd care aboud and what they'd care about. Then, late last month, I submitted my application.

And I was rejected. :-(

Total bummer.

Around the same time - I think it was after I'd submitted my application, but before I heard back, I started to get slightly burnt out on it all, Weddingbee especially.  I thought that maybe it was just that the contributors I liked were married, so they weren't contributing as much & so I "missed" them. I also just felt less interested in posting here. I knew that was silly; I was getting great comments and this was what I thought I wanted to do.

So, I let it percolate, as I often do when faced with something that doesn't feel right.

Recently it hit me.

The reason I liked those contributors was because their posts were about more than just what color flowers they would use in their centerpieces. They had those posts, but they also talked about how forming a healthy marriage was hard. They talked about tough situations within their family and pre-marriage counseling and money. 

I was sitting over here prattling on about girlie things - which is great - but totally isn't me.  I mean, don't get me wrong,  I really liked sharing about the cake buying experience & my many, many, many interations on centerpieces. It's just not all of me, though, and it got to the point where it didn't feel like me at all.

So, I'm going to try to make this blog more "me".  More of a mixture of the meaningful stuff & the pretty stuff. It will still be all about the wedding - but I'm going to stop avoiding how S is handling the wedding, or how K & I are still trying to figure out communication.

This feels a little wierd, to be honest. I have an idea of who's reading out there, but I'm not sure of everyone. I am worried about either offending someone or feeling like I have to censor myself to the point that the whole thing is pointless.  I'll figure it out, though.  I will warn you, though, there may be some posts where I don't allow comments. I'm hoping that will let me feel more comfortable just putting my thoughts out there, without worrying about how it will impact the reader.

So, we'll see...but that's the plan. :-)

PS - if you're interested, one of my absolute favorite Weddingbee bloggers now has a personal blog: Not Quite Betty Crocker

You are cordially invited....

Part of our November 15 list is to have the invitations completely designed. Since we did the Save the Dates together, we're planning on doing the invitations as well. I want to get them done early in case I do the same about face I did with the Save the Dates & get the urge to completely redesign them after I think they're done. :-)

I've been having fun, playing with paper and colors and postcards and pictures and all kinds of lovely things.  The place I've gotten stuck, though, is the wording.  Who knew there were so many ways to say "please come to our wedding"? I know I want to start with:

Together with their parents

M's full name & K's full name

And this is where I get stuck. I could do something really formal like:

request that you honor us with your presence

or

  invite you to join us as we are wed

or

ask that you join us

Then, there is the question of how to say "when we're married".  There are so many ways to say it!  And some of them sound so hokey:

as we become one

or

as we are married

or

as we exchange our wedding vows

or

as we are joined in marriage

or

as we are united in marriage

Sigh...I don't like any of them.  I'm also trying to include our "celebration of love, laughter, family & friendship" tagline into the invitation.  So, I'm playing with things like this:

Together with their parents

M & K

invite you to join us 

as we are married at a celebration

of love, laughter, family and friedship

or

Together with their parents

M & K

invite you to a celebration of

love, laughter, family and friendship

as they are married

 

The "as they are married" part sounds dorky to me, though. Although, at this point, I'm frustrated enough that I'm tempted to say:

Yo, M & K are getting married

You should come

It'll be a big party

And then I wonder if anyone will actually read those words anyway, or will they skim them to get to the good part that has the date & time & stuff on it?

What do you think? Anyone have any recommendations for less hokey wording?

The Center of Attention - Part 4

Last time I talked about my inspiration for our centerpieces.  Thinking of the table runners, I started looking around at fabrics. And I found these....

(source)

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I love them!  Love, love, love, love, love.  I showed them to K; he likes them too. Of course, he also knows me well enough to know when I love something & so he may just be humoring me. :-)

So, I took pieces of each of the inspiration pictures and put together our plan. Or, at least, our current plan. :-) Curious?  The current plan is to have two long tables at the venue with runners made from the fabric above along the table. There will be arrangements of spider mums along the tables with candles around them.  Plus, I want to try to put together table numbers using pictures from our childhoods. 

I wanted to get an idea of how it would all look together, so I used my trusty tool, MS Paint to put it all together.  And I came up with this:

LOL - it cracks me up.  But, this is the idea.....what do you think?

The Center of Attention - Part 3

Centerpieces are becoming the bane of my existence.  Who knew so much thought could go into the center of a table?  I'm not sure if anyone will even notice them!  (Hint to everyone out there coming to our wedding: notice the centerpieces....please....)

As you may remember, originally - well technically not originally, secondly, we were going to have table cakes on half of the tables and a lamp from Ikea as a candle holder. We'd thought about it & liked the idea, but we had to find sneeze guard ...ahem... I mean bell covers. Plus, I had to figure out how to make a lamp into a candle holder.

So, the last time we were at Ikea, I bought one of the lamps that we wanted to use. I sat down while we were watching Iron Chef to try to figure it out. I was working with pliers & got a little too enthsiastic. And...surprise, surprise...broke the lamp. Gar!  (I'd have a picture here, but it was deleted in the great memory card debacle of 2009)   Since it was broken anyway, we took a better look at the lamp & realized we weren't going to be able to make it work.

At this point, we were back to the drawing board and I was getting frustrated. We had also talked about the table cakes and realized that for it to look right, we'd end up with way too much cake. I decided to look around for more inspiration. As I went through my old bookmarks, I found this picture:

(source)

I'd bookmarked it awhile ago and I absolutely love it. There's something about it that makes me so happy.  With that in mind, I hit Project Wedding to see what I could find.  And I found some great stuff; check out these:

(source)

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(source)

So, K &  I took all of this lovely inspiration and made a decision (we think)...this has been the most difficult decision we've had to make so far.  I'm really happy with what we've decided right now & so I think I'm going to start shopping for this stuff and then it will just be tweaking instead of completely re-designing. :-)

Oh! You're wondering what we decided on?  Well, you'll have to wait until my next post for that. ;-)

The November 15 List

I think I've referred a few times to the "November 15 list" recently. It's become a part of my daily vocabulary & so I thought I'd share what I'm talking about.

As most of you know, K & I work in retail. Starting about now, things at works start to get a little crazy.  (Well, technically, my whole year has been crazy - but that was just a warm up)  As more people shop for the holidays, the systems we own start to be stretched & anything that can go wrong will. This is bad, because we want to make the best impression possible for all of those lovely shoppers who are helping America out of our recession.

All of this adds up to general craziness. Things get worse (as you'd imagine) after Thanksgiving & keep going until the week or so before Christmas. We've spent the past six weeks at work talking about how to be ready for this time of year, what we refer to as "Q4". (dun dun duh!!!!)

Since this is a notoriously busy time of year, we try to keep our personal lives as calm as possible about now. This isn't just a goal, it's a way of life. We take this so seriously that within the first hour of being engaged, the first thing I knew about our wedding was that we were not getting married anywhere close to Q4.  We chose our late March date so that there would be plenty of time to plan before Q4 & after Q4, so I wouldn't feel pressured to plan during Q4.

Which brings me to the Nov. 15 list....

There's a lot to be done left with the wedding. We're getting to the point where we're deciding on details and need to make progress on a lot of our DIY items.  So, we made a list of things that need to be done by November 15 (as close to Thanksgiving as I want to get).  I'm sure I'll keep working on wedding stuff throughout the year, and I have lots of things left to tell you about. Having the deadline is helping me focus, though, since the wedding still feels so far away.

Anyway, here is the list (Items that are crossed out are done. Items in italics are in progress.):
- cake figured out
- centerpieces figured out (watch out for an upcoming post on this)
- invitations designed
- talk to my brother about music (he's playing during the ceremony)
- rehersal lunch set up (oh! I should talk about that sometime)
- rehersal invitations designed
- send a Save the Date to our officiant (who's living in Zurich)
- meet with jeweler regarding K's ring (that's another blog post too!)
- make our hotel reservations for the wedding weekend
- get the group rate for the hotel near our house in Sumner
- move K's money from one account to another
- favors designed & ordered (I'm going to keep those a secret until the wedding)
- honeymoon squared away
- meet with our day-of-coordinator (Wendy)
- figure out what the guys are going to wear for shoes
- meet with the tux guy to finalize ties & shoes & shirt (we may order a custom shirt for K)
- order guys' ties
- update wedding website with updated travel info

Whew!  That's a lot to do in the next 15 days! It also gave me a lot of ideas about what to post about in the next few weeks. :-)

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Is there anything else you'd like to hear more about?

Let them eat cake!!!

I've been really looking forward to using that subject line. :-)

For the past few weeks, K & I have been trying to nail down the bakery for our cake. We'd started looking at cakes about a month ago & K called around to a couple places to set up tastings. It was an eye-opening experience. Some of the places he talked to charged an insane amount of money for the tasting - between $50 and $75. Of course, if you ordered the cake from them, the fee went against the cost of the cake.  But, if you didn't, it was some really expensive cake.

K also mentioned bringing the kids along to a couple of them & they weren't really sure how to handle it. Some of them said things like, "Well, we can only fit 3 or 4 people in our tasting room." So, they're charging you $50 and they can't fit more than 4 people in the room? You've got to be kidding me.

Of all of the possible wedding tasks, this is the most kid-friendly. How could we not include them? Neither one of us wanted to work with a vendor that wasn't flexible enough to work with kids.

So, we kept looking...

A few weeks ago, we decided on Saturday morning that we'd see what places were available to have tastings that afternoon.  We found one in Tacoma, Celebrity Cakes. They were flexible enough to work us in, which was really nice.

When we got there, the baker took us over to the "Wedding Room" which had some small 2 - 3 person tables in the middle and a lot of cakes around the room. It was great to see so many of their cakes in person. The baker also had a tray of cake that looked like this:

***screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech*** (insert the sound of a record scratching here)

So, I had some great pictures of the cakes & the plate after we ate them. I could tell you the flavors & what we liked about them.

But, Tuesday, as I went to download them to put them in this space - I accidentally deleted all of them.  Ugh. I was so depressed that I didn't post; I couldn't face the poor, pictureless, boring page.

I've finally moved past it, but this post is going to be less exciting than I wanted it to be.  I'm sorry. :-(

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

***screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech*** 


The plate was a square gold plate with about 8 different slices of cake on it. The cake slices were about the size you'd see at a wedding - two layers of cake with a frosting in between & buttercream frosting. Our favorite cake was the red velvet & there was a white cake with a really good eclair filling. The carrot cake was pretty good too. Overall, we liked the cake but weren't completely blown away by anything. So, we left without signing up for anything.

One other thing K realized later was that all of the cakes in the room were decorated with fondant, but we didn't get to taste any of the fondant. It doesn't surprise me, because fondant doesn't generally taste that good. It seems like they should include it in the tasting, though, if that's what they predominately use to decorate.their cakes. Do you agree?

Last weekend, K and I took the kids to Sugar Rush Baking Company. We'd seen them at the Tacoma Bridal show we went to last month & really liked the personality of the people in the booth and their taster cakes. Plus, they work with Herban Feast (our caterer) a lot.

Sugar Rush is in a coffee shop, Coffee to a Tea, in West Seattle where they serve cupcakes & mini-cupcakes. We had a lot of fun at the tasting. We sat down & talked to the coordinator, Jillian, some about our colors & our ideas for the cake. Then, we showed her our Save the Date to give her a better idea of what we were looking for. Once we were on the same page, she took us to the display case and we got to pick out what we wanted to try.

(In this case, you should picture a pretty glass pedestal with a bunch of beautiful mini & big cupcakes on it)

I loved everything and I think K & the kids did too. The cake tasted really good, and the frostings were really flavorful and tasty. Some of our favorites were the red velvet, the coconut and chocolate. The white cake was really good too, as was the vanilla.  The frostings were all delicious; they had a great chocolate ganache and the mint buttercream was good too - which are more unique.

After all of the tastings, K, the kids & I unanimously agreed that we should go with Sugar Rush.  So, we talked some prices. They were reasonable so we signed the contract & put down our save the date deposit.  I am SO totally & completely excited. Not only is it one more thing off the list, but I really feel like this was a great choice for us.

One thing we talked about before we left was what we wanted the cake to look at. We decided to have a square cake and we're going to alternate the design on the layers between a piped decoration that looks like the branches of our tree and dots with a ribbon around the bottom.

As far as the size of the cake, there are two different ways we could go.  One is a six-layer cake that is insanely tall and (not surprisingly) more expensive.  It's pretty cool, though; it reaches over the head of the lady who sets it up. Sweet!  The other (more practical and cheaper) way to go is to get a four-layer cake and then (depending on the number of guests) possibly get a sheet cake as well. This is definitely less cool, but more affordable & it will still be a really good, beautiful cake.

What do you think?  Four layers or six?

I have one thing to say: sashay shante, shante, shante, shante

A few weeks ago it was the whole family's turn to go in front of Kris' camera and let our inner supermodel out. Not surprisingly, each of the kids has their own amount of super model in them. :-)

There was a long debate about having pictures taken in the park vs. a more urban setting. P wanted the urban setting, but she got out-voted. So, we ended up at the park. Of course, about half way through the shoot C decided that she wanted to change her vote & do "city pictures" but then it was too late. In the end, I was glad we were at the park because the wedding pictures will be a lot more urban. This way we'll have a great mix of pictures.

Not only did we get some great pictures & let Kris and the kids get to know each other, but I came out of the session with some great lessons learned. I'm partially recording them to share with you, but I'm also putting them here so that I can come back to it before the wedding & give myself a refresher course. :-)

Lesson 1: The kids have 30 min of good pictures in them. Not a minute more. - Kris' process is to take all of the pictures, go through & pick the best and then send them to us in an album online. Then, we can go & choose the ones we want. When I went through the pictures Kris sent us, they were almost all from the first 30 min of our 60 min shoot. The best ones are definitely earlier in the shoot. Hopefully, I can structure the wedding day so that the kids don't have to be there for all of the pictures or can take breaks to go hang out and then come back.

Lesson 2: P is a camera lover - This isn't all that surprising, but I'd forgotten the degree to which it's true. P wanted to be in every single shot. She was delighted to spend the entire time taking pictures & wanted to make sure they were all good. On the supermodel continuim, where 0 is hiding behind a tree and 10 is Giselle, P is about a 9.5.

Lesson 3: C will try to direct the shoot  - Anyone who knows C knows that she's a girl who knows what she wants. She has strong opinions & wants to make sure they're heard. As she grows up, she's learning the right way to communicate those opinions & lead others, which is really cool to watch. How does this relate to photography, you ask?  Well, she had a lot of ideas about where she wanted pictures taken & how they should look. There were a few times that she was either directing Kris or one of us. Taking that forward to the wedding, I think she'll enjoy the pictures more if we find a way to include her in the planning of the shoot.

Lesson 3: The good pictures happen - Family pictures usually end up being stressful for us somehow. I know that sometimes it's because I put pressure on all of us because I want those cheesy happy family pictures that you see a lot. You know - the ones where everyone's piled on top of each other & smiling and looking like they're all so happy and they love each other and never fight. For this shoot, I decided to try to let go of that. I told Kris that I wanted her to capture us how we are - and if we were killing each other, then I wanted her to capture that. We ended up with some great pictures; I think if I can just relax and go with it, we end up with good pictures.

So, that's it...my lessons learned and some of my favorite pictures from the shoot.  If you're interested you can also check out the slide show of the pictures here.

Do you have any other tips for getting pictures taken with kids?

The Most Expensive Article of Clothing I'll Ever Buy

Of course, I'm talking about my wedding dress. :-) I figured that since I've been talking about what the kids are going to wear & I've already mentioned what K is going to wear, I should round things out & post about my dress. I'm not going to post any pictures, or give any hints, because K wants it to be a complete surprise. I thought it might be interesting, though, to talk about my experience shopping for the dress.

Over Labor Day, I went to St. Louis to go dress shopping. Both my Mom & Maid of Honor (MOH) R live in St. Louis, so it seemed like a natural choice. This is really the only piece of planning I'll be doing out of state, so it was an interesting experience. I can't imagine how hard it would be to plan an entire wedding from out of state. The benefit (that I didn't even think of ahead of time) is that since they'll be shipping it to me here in Seattle, I don't have to pay sales tax! Yay!

Figuring out where we were going to go shopping was a lot more complicated than I expected. I'm didn't even realize how much living in Seattle has changed the way I shop; here everything I look for has a lot of information on the internet. We've used the internet to find vendors, find reviews of those vendors & ordered the raw materials for our invitations online so far & I expect we'll do more, including ordering our favors online.

So, when I was looking for dress shops, I sat down to do the same thing. I'd already added some pressure to the situation because we only had Labor Day weekend to go shopping and I didn't want to drive all over the St. Louis metro area. Unfortunately, I was really surprised when I sat down to start looking. Most bridal shops didn't even have websites. The places that had websites weren't always very good or useful. Plus, there were almost no reviews at any of my usual haunts! Everything came up blank. I even looked for a site specific to St. Louis brides & there was very little information.

Desperate, I started Googling the shops that I was looking at.

Which is how I found all of the hidden reviews. They're all at Citysearch! I never, in a million years, would have guessed that Citysearch was the site to go to. Well, it turns out, for St. Louis it is. After all of the searching, I found three places for us to go visit:

Karen's Wedding Boutique - This place was in a strip mall that I've driven past about a million times between where my Mom lives & where my Dad used to live. None of us had any idea it was there!

The store is about a medium size. It's run by a lady & her mother; when we were there (a Saturday morning) it was only the two of them plus the seamstress working. They were really busy. In this store, you walk around & pick out dresses that appeal to you. Then, once you have a good stack (I think I had 10 back there), you go back into the dressing room & try on the dresses. If you like the dress at all, you come out to show your audience.

This was a really interesting way to shop as my first stop. Since I hadn't tried on dresses at all, I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. Plus, I knew I didn't want a poofy dress, but they're all so big it's hard to tell what's going to be poofy & what isn't. They also had me put a petticoat on; this went directly against my "no poofy dresses" desire. I thought I'd give it a try, though, before I vetoed it completely. After a few dresses I asked the lady I was working with about going without the petticoat and she said that you need it to hold the dress out so that it looks right. Without any prior knowledge, I assumed she was correct & went with it.

In the end, I found a few dresses that I liked at Karen's, but nothing that I loved. So, we went on to the next stop, Town & Country Bride.

This was definitely the nicest place we went to; when I called to make the appointment, they asked me my price range. Once I told them, they said I was going to the right store. Their other store had dresses from $3K and up. Wow! Talk about out of my price range (especially for St. Louis prices).

Interestingly, when MOH R and I walked into the store, we almost walked out. I think all of the consultants were coming off of lunch (our appointment was at 1), but we didn't get any help at all for a good 5 or 10 minutes. In that time, we saw another bride & her mom walk in and get helped immediately. I was seriously unimpressed.

Luckily, MOH R took charge & got us the attention we deserved. They apologized & I got to meet my consultant. She was wonderful, so helpful & listened really well. When I told her I wanted something plain, she started out with really plain & then gradually changed things up when I wasn't feeling the dresses at all.

This was a completely different experience than Karen's. Not only was the consultant pulling the dresses for me, but the entire set up was a lot nicer and more relaxed. Another difference was my reaction to the dresses, though. At Karen's there were a lot I liked somewhat, but nothing I loved. At Town & Country, there were several dresses that I just wasn't interested in at all. They didn't feel like me.

Then, my consultant walked in with a dress. I immediately melted; I remember gasping "Oh, that's beautiful". I tried it on & as soon as it was on, I knew that was the dress. As stereotypical & dorky as it sounds, I just knew it. I didn't want to take it off at all (a pretty good sign that I liked it, don't you think?). It was lovely.

Once we'd found that dress, I was pretty much done shopping. My consultant recommended that I go to the other place I'd planned on going to just to be sure.

So, we ended the day at Robin's Bridal Mart. They didn't take appointments; the combination of that & the name "Bridal Mart" should have clued me in that it wasn't the nicest place in the world. It really wasn't, it was kind of sketchy. It was another place where you pick the dresses off the racks & then try on a bunch. I think if you knew exactly what you were looking for, you might be able to find a good deal there.

In my case, though, I just put some random dresses on & thought "nah, I like the other one better" every single time.

So, on Tuesday, before my flight back, Mom & I went back to Town & Country to purchase the dress. I tried it on again; Mom took some pictures (that I drool over when K's not around). And I bought it!

What do you think? Have you ever fallen in love with a piece of clothing so much that you didn't want to take it off?

Dressing for Success

I have to admit, I never realized how much wedding planning involved clothing.  I mean, I always knew I'd need a dress - but I never really thought about all of the outfits you have to pick out. It doesn't seem like that much when you start to list it: girls' dresses, guys' tuxes, my dress, his tux.

But, then, there are all these perfectly valid questions that people are asking us - what color shoes should they wear? What color should K's mom & my mom & stepmom wear? It hasn't come up yet, but what about my brother who's going to play guitar during the ceremony?  I honestly never thought about all of the things before people started asking me about them.  Dude, I have enough trouble dressing myself!

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I really appreciate that everyone is asking & interested. I was a bridesmaid once & the bride wanted to be flexible, so she kept telling us to do whatever we wanted. The problem was that our goal was to create the picture she envisioned, and we couldn't do that if she didn't communicate it.  I love that people are excited enough about the wedding that they're already starting to think about it. I know I don't normally plan this far in advance. :-)

One of the decisions we haven't made yet is what the kids will wear. That's really a post-Q4 decision, so I haven't spent too much time on it. I do want to be prepared, though, so the kids & I can work together to find something that works well in the wedding.  Here's what K & I have thought about so far:

S - One of S's biggest concerns about the wedding was that he really didn't want to wear a suit or a tux.  At all.  Not even a little bit. No matter what K & I pointed out to him about having never worn a tux before, he wasn't interested. So, about a month ago I told S he can wear whatever he wants to the wedding. We want him to be happy; we want him to be there & in to what's going on. That is SO much more important than what he's wearing. We did tell him that we're going to rent a tux for him - and he has to get measured for it - just in case he decides that's what he wants to wear.  He told us it's a waste of money & we told him we're OK with that.  So, we'll see.  I don't think this will be decided until we're in the moment.

C - We haven't talked a whole lot to C about what she wants to wear. She brings it up periodically; she's concerned because she's not really a dress girl. I remember being about her age and trying to figure out who I was & what kind of clothes felt right to me. (Sorry to my parents for all of the money they wasted on clothes I didn't wear while I was trying to figure this out) Plus, she's a little big for girl sizes, but she's not quite mature enough for junior clothes. In the end, though, we're just going to have to look around & try things on to find something.

I've told her we want her to be comfortable and that everyone else will be dressed up, so she might be more comfortable in something dressy. I pointed out that she can wear a shirt & skirt instead of a dress as well. I just went to a few websites and found a couple dresses that I think might work well for her, but I'm not sure if she'll like them or not:

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P - The first thing P told me about her outfit for the wedding was that she wanted to wear a big white dress. I told her white probably wasn't going to work, but that we could find something pretty. As I'm looking around, I'm surprised by how difficult it is to find blue or brown dresses for the girls. There are a surprising number of black dresses, which seems too old for the girls. Here are a couple that I found to run past P:

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Please Don't Wait to Save the Date - Part 2

Now that you know how we got the design and what the final product looks like, I'll show you how we put them together and a few other things we've included.

The first step was printing everything out.  We got all of our paper at Paper and More. I ordered what I hope is all of the paper we need at once to save on shipping.  I'll probably need to go back and order more once I figure out what our invitations are going to look like, but it shouldn't be too much. For this project, we used the cream card stock, copper card stock and navy card stock (that I can't find a link for).

I printed all of them out on our home printer &; then K got to cutting.  We knew that we wanted to layer the two papers under the Save the Date, but we weren't sure about the layout. Did we want to center it, line up the bottom left corner? Do something crazy where one layer is centered & the other is off center?  We played with that a bit (and of course I forgot to take pictures), and ended up with the one I showed you earlier. In case you've forgotten it's this:

Then, K got to cutting lots of paper & putting them together:

While I was fighting with our printer to get it to print on the envelopes correctly:

It took me forever to get it lined up.  Then, it didn't like feeding multiple envelopes so I had to do them all by hand. Then, I noticed that for some reason it was randomly putting little lines on the return address instead of doing it all nice & pretty.  Some of them were completely unreadable.  Argh! 

I will admit that I said a few choice words at the computer that night. I think K was glad he was in the other room with the paper instead of sitting next to me. lol

I finally got it clean enough.  I figured that no one except me would notice if they were perfect, so I made sure they were all legible & went with it.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet, but we're also going to have a reception in North Dakota the summer after we get married. Most of K's family lives in North Dakota, Montana & Minnestoa, including his parents, and we know that some of them may not be able to make it out to Seattle. I thought having a separate reception would mean they'd get to celebrate with us & take some pressure of some people who may have wanted to come but felt like they couldn't.  So, I also made a small note that I slipped into all of the save the dates for K's family indicating that we'll have something in North Dakota & an invitation for that will follow separately. I forgot to take a picture of one before I closed the envelopes, but here's one of the less pretty ones:

Once everything was ready to go in the envelopes, K stuffed and sealed them one night while I was in St. Louis dress shopping (which is definitely another post). We also had a custom stamp made of our logo from Impress Rubber Stamps and we used brown ink to stamp that on the back of the envelopes. It's not exactly the brown we wanted, but we had trouble finding ink we liked in the right size, so again - I just went with it.  I'm trying not to let my perfectionist tendencies make this wedding more complicated than it has to be.  Anyway, so here's what one envelope looked like:

And here's the front, just for fun:

Here are all of them laid out on the floor. We sent about 85 Save the Dates out. 

What do you think? Did everyone's get there OK?

Please Don't Wait to Save the Date - Part 1

K & I decided to send Save the Dates to our out of town guestlist. We wanted to give them the opportunity to start making travel arrangements before we send out the invitations in February; we also didn't want to go crazy and spend more on paper & stamps & such than we absolutely had to. So, we figured that sending Save the Dates to only the people on our guest list who live out of town was a good compromise.

Our Save the Dates are completely self-made (which I'm very proud of). I used a free program I found called Inkscape to design the Save the Dates & I'm very happy with it. There was definitely a learning curve, but it does everything I need it to do and the price was right. :-)

Our design process went through a couple steps.  We iterated on one design until we found something that we both liked; I showed it to various people & we were ready to go.  Then, I said I felt like something was missing.  I didn't feel like it was as *good* as the Save the Dates I saw on the internet, nor did I feel like it represented us.  I don't have the original design with me, but I'll update the post later to include it.

So, I started searching around and trying to figure out what was missing from our Save the Date.  I found this invite and showed it to K:

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We both really, really like it, and so I used it as an inspiration for ours.

I put together the basic layout and then I started looking for a quote to put at the top.  Except, to me this couldn't just be any quote - it is *the* quote. As I see it, this is the quote that sets the mood for our wedding. It's the first thing many people will see (this is before we'd finished our wedding website). I was looking for a quote that defined us & what we wanted our wedding to be.

Yes, that was a lot of pressure.

Yes, it's likely I was being overly dramatic & I could have put any quote and no one would really have noticed.

Anyway....one night K & I were talking about this. I figured out that in order to find a quote that defined our wedding, I needed to know what we wanted our wedding to be like. I asked him what he thought, and he said something along the lines of "I want it to be a celebration. I want to celebrate our love, family, and friends. I want it to be a lot of fun with a lot of laughter." He nailed it.  That's our wedding - that's us.  (By the way, have I mentioned lately how much I love this man? How many guys would respond with something like that?)

So, I decided to give up on quotes from famous people & use a quote from one of the key people involved in the wedding - K.  When I showed him the next design, with his quote at the top, I think we both knew this was it.  It was exactly the feel we were going for:

(picture by me)

Next post...assembly!

The Center of Attention - Part 2

Last time I blogged about the cake centerpieces that half of the tables will (probably) have (We reserve the right to change our minds - it's already happened about 500 times in the planning process) and I left you with a pitiful depiction of how the people at the other half of the tables might feel if we didn't do something to address their centerpieces.

The problem is, we're still not completely sure what we'll do.  We could most definitely do flowers.  I've tried to look around for floral centerpieces that I like, but I haven't found any yet.  That's probably not a good sign for any florists that want my business.  To be fair, though, I haven't looked a ton and really should spend some time digging around for inspiration.

Another wedding favorite is candles.  I like candles a lot.  I originally wanted to do something like this:

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We bought some wax & did a test run. They came out great, but small....like tea light small. I tried to figure out what it would take to make them about the same size we expect the cakes to be (8" - 10"), but I couldn't come up with anything. We're also concerned about any restrictions from the fire marshall.  (Note to self: send email to venue asking about candle restrictions)

I know that you can have candles at Sodo Park because they had a lot at the open house. I really liked them and I think they added a lot of warmth to the space.  I'm hoping that we can do these luminaries as small tea lights around the space.  They're so cool looking, I'd hate to not do them at all.

My most recent idea came to me when we were at Ikea over the weekend.  We were swinging through the lamps - well, to be more accurate, K was moving me along because he'd just about hit his Ikea quota for the day - and I spotted these:

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Aren't they pretty?!?!  Not only do they come in the size we want, but they also come in a smaller size that would be great for the small tables during the cocktail hour.

The only problem is that they're lamps.  I'm reasonably confident neither Sodo Park nor the fire marshall would be crazy about us stringing extension cords across the floor of the venue to light our centerpieces.  I'm wondering, though, if we can take the lamp part out & make them into candle holders somehow.  We have to go back to Ikea soon to return some things we got & I think I'm going to pick up one or two and see if K can work some magic on them.

What do you think? Should I keep looking for flowers? Anyone placing bets on whether or not we can make the lamps look like candle holders?

The Center of Attention!

One of the things K & I have been looking at a lot lately is the centerpieces. I mentioned the table cloths we found at the Sodo Park open house that we really liked.  As a refresher, here they are:

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We'll probably do navy long tablecloths under those. Then, we're thinking we'll do Sodo Park's standard white china. The question, then, is what do we do for the centerpieces?  Since I realized that I really don't need a bouquet, we've been trying to figure out what we want to do for flowers.  I've thought about everything from hiring a florist to create the centerpieces & all of the decorations to buying vases & sending someone to Pike's Place Market on the morning of our wedding to get flowers for the tables that need decoration.  The Market has beautiful bouquets of flowers at incredible prices.  Check out these:

(photo by Joe Mabel, taken from here)

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And the big bouquets are all around $20. What a great deal!

Am I brave enough to leave it up to chance, though? Am I willing to accept whatever flowers are there instead of planning my own? Can I give up the control?

For those of you who know me, you can imagine what a challenge that might be! :-)

I think I could only go with this option if we decide to have non-floral centerpieces. I'd think like to have flowers decorating the gift table & bar, as well as possibly having some flowers around the seating areas.  That way, we could take some of the money that we don't spend on flowers and spend it on lighting like they had at Sodo Park for the open house. 

I'm sure by this point you're wondering what we'd have for centerpieces if we didn't have flowers...(ok, you're probably not wondering - but humor me). At this point, it looks like at least half of the tables are going to have...cakes!

I was browsing through my Real Simple Wedding Planner (this one) and it mentioned having table cakes as the centerpieces. We looked around at a couple bakeries and found some great samples. Check these out:

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I love this idea. One of the bakeries we've talked to recommended having some covers over them. This would be perfect because it will keep people from touching the cake before it's ready to be served. Plus, it protects the cake from being sneezed on or something gross.  So, that's the plan for half of the tables.  I'll let you know how our search for a bakery goes.

But wait! There are still half of the tables left centerpiece-less....I can just picture the people at those tables now, wondering why their tables are so plain. In my next post, I'll tell you what we're thinking about for them...

Watch Out Tyra! Here We Come!!!

About two weeks ago, K & I met up with our photographer Kris for our engagement pictures. While we may not quite be America's Next Model material, we had a lot of fun.

We decided to take some pictures by my office first. Pac Med is on a hill that overlooks downtown Seattle, which leads to some distracting views during meetings - but it was great for pictures. It was definitely odd kissing & hugging while Kris snapped away; we didn't have a good idea of what we're supposed to be doing & the traffic was loud enough that it was kind of hard to hear her. We didn't stay there too long; instead we walked up the hill to a park that looks over the stadiums. That was much quieter & we got a couple really good shots - like this one:

After that, we headed to an area of Seattle called Fremont.  Fremont is where I lived when I moved to Seattle & when we started dating.  We spent a lot of time in Fremont, walking to shops & restaurants, going to the outdoor movies & going out at night. I love Fremont so much & it was a lot of fun to walk around again and get our pictures taken there.

By this time, we were getting a lot more comfortable with Kris, and with the idea of our pictures being taken.  I can totally tell our smiles are a lot more relaxed in the pictures, and there was lots more kissing. To be perfectly honest, this is probably the most that K & I had kissed in one evening for quite awhile. It's not that we're not affectionate, but really - when was the last time you spent 3 hours kissing someone on & off?  (FYI - that's a rhetorical question...)

Anyway, I think I'd kind of forgotten the value of kissing & how important physical contact is. We're so used to being together (since we're together all the time) that it's easy to take advantage of it. Taking our engagement pictures reminded me how nice it is to touch K all the time & to be close to each other. Here are a couple of my favorites from Fremont:

After Fremont, we went to a nearby beach called Golden Gardens. K & I went there on our first date, so it was extra special for us.  We walked around a lot on the beach and took our shoes off some. Kris loves feet photos - which is awesome because K & I do too (in fact, he has one of those credit cards where you can customize the background & he used a picture of our feet from our first vacation together). So, we made sure to get some good feet pictures too. I love so many of the ones from Golden Gardens; it's hard to choose only a few to show you:

 

 

Kris also put together this fantastic slide show with the full set of engagement pictures; of course, I can't figure out how to include the slide show on the blog - so click through to see it here.



*All pictures by Kris Allen of Kris Allen Photography.

So, I was planning on blogging about our engagement pictures tonite, but tonite we went to a tasting at our venue, Sodo Park, sponsored by our caterer, Herban Feast. I'm really excited to share about that, so I'll blog about the pictures tomorrow. The tasting was absolutely fantastic. Not only was the food good, but it was great to see the venue again. We also got to get a sense of what it looks like at night. That really helped know what kinds of light we might need.

Plus, they had floor plans from some of the weddings they'd done before, which was awesome. 

Wait...I'm getting ahead of myself...I'll start in the beginning...I haven't even talked about the venue here yet.

We're going to be getting married at Sodo Park in the Sodo area of Seattle. It's an old factory that's been refurbished and has great exposed beams, huge windows & some great character. It also has different seating areas, including a couch area with comfortable chairs that will be great for people who don't want to dance. Sodo Park is owned by the same people that own the catering company Herban Feast, so they'll be our caterers. Since then, Sodo Park & Herban Feast have gotten the 2009 Vendors' Choice Awards from the Seattle Bride Magazine for "Best New Wedding Vendor", "Best New Reception Site" and "Best Caterer".  Here's a couple pictures from their website:

 

When we signed the contract with Sodo Park, they told us that we'd also get to attend their regular tasting events. The events would let us sample the options for the menu, as well as get to see what the venue looks like at night. Since our wedding is in late March, though, we're kind of in between seasons for the food. So, the things we tasted tonite may not be available for our wedding; we'll find out what's available once we get closer to the date.

A few weeks ago, we got an email from our coordinator, Reese, telling us that the first tasting was coming up. We RSVP'ed as soon as we got it. Heck yes we were showing up!

You see, our caterers opened up a restaurant, Fresh Bistro, in May and we've been going way too frequently. It's absolutely awesome. 

Not only do we really enjoy the food, but the people there are so nice, friendly & genuine. The first time we went there, K was parking the car and dropped me off at the door. When I went in, they asked if we wanted to sit at the kitchen table.  Well, duh! Of course we did!

So, that evening, we sat at a bar, over looking the kitchen and talked to the chefs. That was the first time we met Dalis Chea, the executive chef and co-owner of Sodo Park, Herban Feast & Fresh bistro. Chef Chea sat and talked to us, answered our questions, told us about the food & offered us samples of the various things.  It was one of the best dining experiences we've ever had.

Since then, we've taken friends there, gone for special occasions (both of our birthdays) and attended their first wine tasting dinner. Every time we've gone the staff has been incredibly friendly and the food has been fantastic.

So, we jumped at the chance to try the catering menus, even if they wouldn't be the exact same as the Fresh Bistro menu.  When we got there, we were greeted and invited in. The hostess recommended that we try their signature drink (a lemon basil martini - YUM) off of the "drink tree" they have or grab a glass of wine at the bar.

 

Instead, we walked around a bit & then headed for the food. :-)  We didn't take any pictures of it, but boy was it good - as we expected.

Chef Chea was there; when he saw us, he shook our hands and was genuinely glad to see us. He took the time away from what he was doing and chatted with us for awhile about the food and the wine tasting dinner we went to recently. He also said not to worry too much about the food because they'd have a private menu tasting for us closer to the date. I thought that was the absolute sweetest thing. I feel honored that he remembered us; I know they serve a lot of people every day. The fact that he remembers us - he remembers that we're getting married there - and he knows that our wedding is between seasons & is willing to do something special for us speaks to his personality and customer service. Here's a picture of our favorite chef:

 
We sat and ate the food we chose and then walked around the venue to try to imagine what we'd want.  I think we now have a general idea of how we want the ceremony & reception set up, and where the kids area, candy buffet, escort cards, gift tables and DJ will go.

Plus, some of the rentals companies had binders there with sample linens and I think we picked out our table cloths!  We'll do these as an overlay over either white or navy floor-length table cloths.  I'm so excited. It's neat to see the copper coming out as a major color in our wedding; I was concerned it would become an accent against the navy instead of equal to the navy.

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K took a bunch of pictures of the venue with his cell phone (I forgot our camera) so that we'll remember what it looks like & get an idea of what we need as far as flowers & decorations. I've included some of them above, here are the rest. (Sorry that some of them are blurry, but you can get an idea of the space.)

 

 

So, what do you think?  Any ideas of how we could decorate?