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....

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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:

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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:

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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?