Things that are awesome - lazy Tuesday edition

It's a slow day. And I've perused the internets for home decor and holiday shopping inspiration. Enjoy.

Amanyara, the bananas amazing resort that we visited on our honeymoon, for dinner and drinks with our honeymoon friends, the amazingly Southern-preppy-cute Martha and Luke. Check out the picture tour. Love the clean lines and amazing scale of the architechure.

My parents were awesome. Love this idea.

I had a dream with a piano and found this post the next day!!!

What to do with my huge seashell collection? Spray paint!

Menswear inspired goodies from J. Crew:

how fun is this lighting?

Happy Thanksgiving!

And I----e----I will always love you

As much as I love love love my wedding dress to somewhat unhealthy levels, I have decided to put it up for sale. Sigh. I am a bit sad, but perhaps my lovely dress can be worn and enjoyed by another lucky lady. It feels v strange to turn so quickly from obsessing and loving to slapping on a price tag and hoping for someone to take it away. But, it's for the best. Do it quickly, like a band aid.

For those pondering whether to sell, here are my top reasons in favor:

1. It's like recycling. Recycling is so hot right now :)

2. Wedding dresses take up a lot of space. I need this space for my clothes/shoe/handbag habit

3. As awesome of a dress as it is, I will never wear it again. And neither will my hypothetical future child, who would need the dress approximately 30 years from now. Let's review fashionable wedding dresses from 30 years ago:

Exactly.
4. Plus, let's be real, I can think of a lot of things I will do with the $$. Like buy expensive wii bundles, or unrealistically tall cole haan boots. Or both.

It's a tough decision, but I think I will be glad. I'll just hang a 4 foot picture of me in the dress in the entryway. just kidding.

ps - shameless plug. i will be posting the dress on weddingbee and ebay very soon. if you know any brides who are interested, let me know!

Mrs.

First post as a married lady! Still getting used to the name change--for now I will answer to any variation of my names. Long pause when I left a voice message for our office IT guy today: Um, this is Emily Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Um.....
I don't really know how to begin to express my gratitude, but I must make an attempt to tell everyone how thankful A and I are. We were absolutely OVERWHELMED with all of the love and support during the week of the wedding. We really couldn't have pulled it together without the help of so many friends and family (most of all, mom, of course). The ceremony and reception were beautiful. Flowers by mom = awesome. And thanks to my lovely wedding party for braving the cold for our photoshoot and for helping me keep it together during the emotional parts :)
I've said it before and I'll say it again--our wedding photographer, Kristen Overbay, is amazing! Love her style and so fun/easy to work with. The website is overbayphotography.net, and you can view two wedding sneak peeks and the bridal sessions on the blog now. Uh-mazing. Unbeknownst to Kristen, I have a long history of obsession with collages. Picture a 10 year old me, on my bedroom floor with old copies of Vogue magazine, diligently cutting and pasting away. So, you can imagine my delight with this lovely sneak peek collage that she put together for us, while we wait. A's response--"That is our wedding??? Cool."
Will try to update the blog with wedding/honeymoon recaps (and photos, when available) over the next few weeks. Then, I believe it's time for a blog makeover. Blog 2.0. Given that my friends and family have incredibly awesome taste, I am going to post some photos of our new home and suggest options for home renovations (comments/suggestions welcome!). A and I have purchased a 1965 brick home--3 bedrooms, 2 baths. Given the somewhat questionable taste of the previous owners (um, floor to ceiling mirrors in the living room, really???), we have a lot of work ahead of us. And who doesn't love a good before and after?

Calm before the storm (make that non-storm, please!)

At the start of this journey, I wasn't quite sure I could pull off the wedding of my taffeta-and-lace dreams with a less-than-six-month engagement. But, the people I trust and love the most promised me it could be done. I am a planner, so this was a hard-sell. Less than a week away from the wedding, I think I can say we've done a fab job. We're the bomb.com. We've (and I strongly emphasize the we, since I could never have done this by myself without going a bit crazy) organized what I hope will be a beautiful wedding with lots of meaningful details, with the help of many of our family and friends.
In hindsight (if it's not too soon to see from the hind), I'd definitely recommend a short (6-month) engagement, especially if you have amazing helpers (like my mom). My only regret was that my mom didn't get to participate in the dress shopping, due to our time concerns for ordering the dress. She was able to consult via emailed photos (what did people do before the invention of digital photos and email???), but it wasn't exactly the same experience. Kind of like swimsuit shopping online--you have to see the look up-close and under warm dressing room lights to get the full effect (although wedding dress shopping is infinitely less depressing than swimsuit shopping, I think you'd agree). Side note: skinny mirrors are genius and should exist in all dressing rooms.
But, it worked out with the dress, and the short engagement has many perks, the primary one being a shortened period to rethink (and second guess) your wedding ideas. I went with my gut and we knocked out most of the major details in the first two months.
The timing of everything in the past few weeks has been hectic (understatement), but I'm feeling calm. I'm writing now from the dining room table in our packed-up apartment. We've packed for the movers--to haul our belongings to the house we just bought--and we're also all packed up for the honeymoon. When we get back, we'll have a new chapter to start, a new (to us) house for our new (married) life. I can't wait.

Gorg.eous

How lovely and elegant is this?

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Am loving Katie Holmes with this 'do. Retro and pretty.

My hair trial will be next weekend (in Kingsport) and I'm pulling some inspiration photos for the hair stylist. Here are some of my faves:

Images above from theknot.com and weddingbee.com

Will probably go for a simple high bun, with the veil over the top of the bun (not underneath). No hair flowers, but pretty sure I will wear a non-tiara-y sparkly headband. I hope the hair guy can make my hair look bigger and thicker than it is!

The dress has arrived!

It's been several months since I found THE DRESS. The sample I tried on was quite a bit different that the order I placed--I wanted a lighter color, longer hem and waaay longer train. A girl needs a train on her wedding day. (The purpose of this silly extra swath of fabric? I'm not sure--but it looks awesome and dramatic, right?)

So, I was dying to see my dress in person after having tried to picture it in my mind hundreds of times. THE DRESS was supposed to be delivered to the store "around the week of September 24th" (ug, vagueness with details of this importance? seriously?). I called Houston Bridal & Formal on Thursday of this week, since I figured I had tested my patience enough. And as luck would have it, it had arrived that day! Me and the dress have a special connection that way ;)

They told me to hold off till Saturday to come in for a visit, since they were 'checking it over' (which doesn't reassure, but whatev). So, I came in at the dot of three, which is the earliest they take walk-ins on weekends.

Friends--it is even more beautiful and stunning than I imagined! The bridal consulant ladies had to watch me ooh and ahh for about five minutes as I inspected it from every angle. Color: the perfect creamy ivory, length: perfect, train: superfantastic! I even got a little teary eyed. And then I changed back in to my regular-girl clothes and grudgingly left without it so that they can steam and press it before I pick it up at the end of the month. Elation and sigh of relief and excitement to wear it on the big day!!!

I did discover that I will need some help in the bust area for some filling-out-itude. Hitting Victoria's Secret today to look for something that I'm not sure exists: strapless, padded, ivory, low-back (ish), push-up bra (but not too too cleavage inducing, which isn't really possible for me anyhow). Wish me luck.

As if that weren't enough of me being ridiculously happy for the day--I also found my perfect rehearsal dinner dress, after many hours of online shopping over the past few weeks (slash stalking of bananarepublic.com and jcrew.com for sales). I found it at Saks of all places (I do not shop at a Saks usually unless it is associated with some mega outlet discounts). Here is a sneak peak of the detail of the dress. And the back is super special and different! I will save the full reveal for later :)

Drumroll please...

After much deliberation and procrastination, we have decided to spend our honeymoon at the Turks & Caicos islands (!!!!). This was one of the lingering 'to dos' that was sorta stressing me out so I am thrilled that we've booked it and more thrilled about the destination! T&C is an ideal vacay destination for me (beautiful beaches and hot temps!) and A (fishing, diving, water-related activities!). There will be some relaxing by the beach and also some scheduled excursions for mr. cant-sit-still (this would def be A's Indian name--mine would be lays-by-pool).
In case you need a geography refresher (I did) T&C is a group of 8 major islands and 30 other islands and cays. It's nestled northeast of the Dominican Republic and just east of the Bahaman islands. Technically, it's not in the Caribbean, but is an Atlantic Ocean island. T&C gets gold stars from a fancy magazine I can't remember the name of (as a top beach destination) and the diving is supposed to be some of the best in the world.

It's not crazy touristy, which A likes about it, and the crime and poverty rates are extremely low. The blue of the water is insanely neon:

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I've been so excited for the wedding that I haven't had a chance to start getting excited for the honeymoon--but now that we have plane tickets and hotel reservations it's starting to feel more real! Am hoping that A will be exhausted from all of the wedding activities and will lay with me by the beach for a day or two :) Maybe we can even whip up some margaritas and guacamole...

Showers of Flowers

I was never really a 'flowers' girl. Didn't have a favorite flower. Didn't really get all that jazzed by flowers as gifts from boyfriends. They just didn't do it for me.

That was then.

Now that I have been thrust into the world of wedding planning--a huge (and seriously dumbly expensive) portion of which seems to revolve around many different flowers for many different occasions--I confess I have a major obsession with hydrangeas. When I walk by them in the grocery store, I linger a bit too long and inspect them with glee. And I confirm that I made the right choice in choosing this lovely flower as the star in my wedding day (and wedding stationery) floral plan. I'm not sure when or why it happened, but I love them. They are adorable.

Apparently there are many delightful varieties (70-75) of hydrangea and some of my favorites are the regular blue hydrangea and the bright green and antique green. Coincidentally (or not really) these are our wedding colors! A few inspiration photos that I've snipped for the inspiration board:

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Isn't this gorgeous?!

And bridesmaid's will have bouquets like this (but instead of white picture bright iguana green):

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Since my mom has amazing flower arranging skills, she is going to be doing all of the flowers herself, with the help of another flower arranging buddy. Many of the other flowers we are hoping to use will depend on whether or not a frost comes to East Tennessee before October 24th. Which it will likely. So, lots of game time decisions to be made on flowers in the couple of weeks before the wedding.
Since I'm somewhat of a flower novice, I am not quite sure what other flowers I like to go with them. What flowers do you think would go well?

Put a ring on it

Although I was kinda wary, picking A's wedding ring out of a jewelry store catalog worked out great! Isn't it awesome?! Very classic and traditional, but not boring. Perfect.
Took us all of about 15 minutes to look at the options and decide. It's a 7mm wide white gold comfort fit band. This shopping trip seemed way too easy for something you're going to wear every day. For the rest of your life. I've spent more time trying to find a movie at Blockbuster.
This photo shoot of our rings was my attempt at creative ring photography (see our invitation in the background?). Doesn't his size 10 ring make mine look so petite!?
As for my wedding band, I am leaning towards getting the matching band that goes with my engagement ring.
Finding the bands has been so much easier than picking out the engagment ring!

Teaser--we've made a decision (and booked flights) for the honeymoon! More on that later in the week.

i heart Snippet & ink

Snippet & ink is one of the more inspirational wedding blogs I've come across in my wedding planning journey of the internets. Such beautiful photography and inspiration boards. Wonderful little slices of perfection like this:

source: snippet & ink

How cute are those straws?! How precious is the nerdy beaker for a flower vase?! And a perfectly salted margarita?! I am squirming in my seat with inspiration. Which is again making me want to realize my initial dream of having margaritas (a favorite drink of mine and A's) at our wedding. Perhaps it is better to step away from the wedding blogs and magazines once the bulk of the planning is complete. Too much temptation to micro-plan every last detail to Martha-Stewart-perfection. Le sigh.

Here's the dilemma on the margaritas--we have decided to have a classy and tasteful selection of wines and beers, only. A few reasons for this: Most people are entirely happy with one of these two choices (or will drink both). Plus many of my family don't drink at all for various reasons, and wine/beer seems like a nice compromise from the all-out full bar. BUT, I am also torn with the idea of having a signature cocktail. Something personalized and fun (like margaritas--with our Mexican/Latin food, how perfect!) to spice things up for the party. Also to consider--the extra hassle of having margarita glasses (not necessarily the margarita glasses-glasses, but some extra barware), plus salt and limes, plus time for the bartender to fix up cocktails to order.

All things considered, it is probably best to stick to wine and beer. Thoughts? Maybe margaritas will have to wait for the honeymoon :)

My friends are the bomb, yeah I said "the bomb"

I have been too overwhelmed to post much in the past few weeks. My brain has reached a point where it says 'stop. overload. please hit me with your new info in...about a couple weeks.' Seriously, I can't even remember my computer password at work. Source of overload: mega-work-busy-ness, major movement on the house-buying front (which is exciting and scary and super complex), my birthday (and A's), my awesometastic bachelorette festivities, oh and this wedding thing coming up in less than two months.

Weirdly, everything is just HAPPENING at the same time and I have been very relaxed this week, which is shocking, considering my track record with managing stress.

Last weekend my amazing and hilarious friends planned some bachelorette festivities for me in Austin. I just showed up and laid (layed? ug i hate that one) by the pool and drank pretty drinks and ate good food. All of my friends meeting each other was awesome! I was like 'whoa, you don't KNOW each other? But I know you all! Worlds colliding!'

Austin was a great destination bachelorette party location and I am so ecstatic that many of my friends made the trip from as far away as San Francisco, New Jersey, Chicago, Virginia, and Tennessee!

Let's see a few pictures from the suprise lingerie shower! I was so surprised!

After the shower, we headed out on the town, with my lovely DIY wedding-color-coordinated veil--thanks Amanda!!! Many people commented that we were a 'classy' bachelorette party, which I have to agree :)

SuziQ

My maid of honor is married but we are both (thankfully) in agreement that the word matron is tragic. It does not say chic and young and awesome AT ALL, which she is. So it's settled.

She will be called maid of honor, which really doesn't sound that great either, when you think about it (right?), but it is way better than matron. Uck.

Susan and I have known each other since middle school and we have our own slightly gangsta lingo, which we still use around each other, like it's normal. Suzi looks adorable in our bridesmaid's dresses, don't you think? I am in love with this color and am so glad that we decided to go with these JCrew dresses. They will look awesome with the bright iguana green bridesmaid's bouquets we are planning.

In other news--invitations go in the mail tomorrow!!! That means we are two months out! These invitations were a labor of love (with extra love from Mom)--I will let you know how we made them later. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise...

From Russia with Love

Excuse the blurry picture. This is my recent makeover attempt, with Clinique. Although I normally wear hardly any makeup and have mimimal makeup-application skill (despite my collection of makeup and beauty coffee table books) I am tackling DIY wedding day makeup. I've made this decision mainly out of fear. Fear for looking like a Davy Crockett High School prom (sorry for the East Tennesse inside joke) at the hands of a mystery makeup artist. I know I could do a 'trial run' with someone but the idea of saying 'sorry, I think you're terrible and I won't be seeing you again' makes me jittery. And I think I would probably hate it, given my history with makeovers.
My lovely maid of honor did her own makeup for her wedding and it turned out great. So, I am copying her by visiting Clinique and MAC to get some instruction and products.
I was fairly happy with the results at Clinique. And the older Russian lady who was helping me was absolutely adorable--she had an endearing way of alternating between chastising me for my makeup/beauty habits (you must drink more water--no more Coke! you wash your face morning and night!)and showering me with compliments that was hilarious, especially in a funny kind of Russian-English.
So, I bought some foundation (yikes!) and some other fun products like liquid eyeliner and am practicing every day. I am looking forward to going to MAC tomorrow, to see what they suggest for my eyelashes (am hoping for a greenlight to proceed with fake eyelashes!)

Money in da Banq

Our reception venue, Banq, is a recently renovated 1920s bank building. Everything is very very new and super cool on the inside. When we visted the space in July it still smelled like paint and several things were still under construction. They just opened up for events within the past month and they had their first wedding reception last Saturday. I am dying to call them (clearly I am a stalker) to see how it went--more info on that later in the week, hopefully.

In the meantime, I am pumped to see this jazzy little YouTube video they've put together (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQsy1S7y3BY). Can't wait to see how it will look with all of our lime green and blue accents!

PS the bathrooms are kind of amazing. I enjoy high end bathroom fixtures :)

Happy Sigh

At the risk of sounding somewhat ridiculous I have to admit that it was love at first sight. Trustworthy Google pointed me in the right direction (http://perfectdetails.com/2420.htm?Category_Code=flats) of these amazing wedding shoes that fit all of my criteria to a T. Instantly I knew they were THE ONES.
Huge. sigh. of. relief.
Just looking at them makes me giddy. I can't wait to see them in person.
And, the fabric is dyeable! Do you think I should dye them ivory (classic, sweet, timeless) or, should I dye them one of my wedding colors--lime green? I think a hint of lime peeping from under the dress would be super cool and fun. What do you think?

Shop till you drop

There are several things that I consider awesome under any circumstances--going to the movies, eating gummi bears, laying out by the pool on a 95 degree day, outlet shopping...

Pause on that last one. Shopping is for me (like most ladies I know) a thrilling hunt for (highly-discounted) treasure. Nothing really compares to that high you get when you find that amazing, figure-flattering, oh-so-gorgeous 75% off dress among the racks of JCrew. Nestled between last season's madras shorts and mismatched bathing suit pairs. Somehow that really just makes my day. One of my favorite activities (seriously) when visiting my home town is perusing the shoe store that sells pretty top-quality shoes for $15-$25 (mostly samples or worn-once returns).

Come to find out that shopping is not always so euphoric. Huh?

Over the weekend A and I had a mission to find three items at the Houston shopping mecca--The Galleria. Shoes for me to wear at the wedding, shoes for A to wear to nice occasions, and lime green and blue ties for the groomsment to wear at the wedding (and keep as a gift). After three to four hours of scouring Macy's, Saks, Dillards, the other Macy's (yep, did I mention this mall is ridiculous), Banana, Nordstrom and various random shoe and men's stores--nada. We even stopped for a pizza break and that didn't help my mood. Shopping when you have an extremely narrowly defined goal and extremely picky people (guilty) is torture.

And A was very amused at my short attention span for this particular style of shopping. He explains this is how men feel while shopping at any time, since women shop for fun and men shop to find things they NEED. Shopping for needs is not fun, it's frustrating!

So anyhow. We found none of the three items and to salvage the day, we stopped at FedEx/Kinkos to do a bit of productive wedding invitation prep.

This picture is of A helping to size the paper for our pocket folds (cute). Isn't the paper an awesome color???

Anyhow, I have decided that we may just stick with our backup plan for the groomsmen's ties, which are plain lime green ties to be worn with a traditional two-button tux and ivory shirt/vest. I think this will look great and the men probably don't want lime and blue ties as gifts anyway.

As for my shoe situation--the hunt continues. Am currently considering an option of either ivory low-heeled sandals or lime green ballet flats (which I'm sure exist although I haven't seen them yet). Or perhaps ivory ballet flats with a DIY green flower pinned to the toe!

Yay for fun new things with a $0 price tag

My office and home computer have an annoyingly bo-ring selection of fonts. This is clearly upsetting to my vision of having wonderfully modern and cool wedding stationery. Be still my heart--I have located (thanks to the amazing powers of Google) this amazing website, www.1001freefonts.com. And yes, they deliver exactly what they say--free fonts! I vaguely knew that this sort of thing existed and now that I am fully aware of how dumbly easy (and completely free!) it is to download and begin using these amazing fonts--I feel silly for not having discovered this before.
A quick tutorial for those who are skeptical of the easy-ness of this amazing free font magic (this would be helpful to the me of roughly 20 minutes ago):
1. Go to www.1001freefonts.com and search around for the font of your dreams
2. Click "Download font" (this takes approx 2 seconds!)
3. Select "Save" (and create a new folder on your desktop or wherever) and then open the zipped file (if you don't have WinZip you will need to download)
4. Right click on the .tff file and select Extract
5. Extract to the C: drive (somewhere that you will remember)
6. Now, go to your Start Menu-->Control Panel, and click on the Fonts folder
7. Go to the File Menu (at top) within the Fonts folder, and select "Install New Fonts"
8. An "add fonts" meun will appear. Select the file that you saved somewhere on your C: drive and click "OK"
9. Done! Next time you open Word, your new font will be in the drop down menu. Success!

I just downloaded Dragonfly--it is a super cute cursive-y font. And I've mocked up our goody bag stickers with Adine Kirnberg Script (see above). Now, I am armed with the font-power to make my stationery vision come true! So fun for $0!

Variations on a theme

I am a huge fan of theme parties. Give me a pirate eye-patch or some eighties oversized t-shirts with those cincher clip things at the hip. Love it. Sign me up. Theme parties = guaranteed fun times.
So I'm struggling a bit with a 'theme' for our wedding, or whether a theme is really needed at all. What do you think? Have you been to a wedding with a subtle or not-so-subtle theme?
Before you start thinking I've lost my mind, let me explain. I'm not talking about a Victorian princess wedding with huge bustles and powdered wigs or anything--just something that Martha might approve of, like an apple-themed wedding in a rustic apple orchard in Washington. Or, a sweet nautical-themed wedding in Nantucket. Or similar.
The main reason I am hoping to come up with a somewhat subtle theme is that I think it could add a very personalized, meaningful touch to the day. And it would be a way to unify all of the hundreds of moving parts which are all starting to seem somewhat muddled in a huge tornado of blue, green and tulle. I want to have a clear, unified look for the day so that the pictures will all look like they came from the same wedding. But not too matchy matchy.
So far, the only visual that the guests have seen is the save the date (btw, which looks really super cute on my friends' refrigerators!). I might be able to use the flowers and leaves from the save the dates on the other stationery (programs, table cards, etc). Plus, the DIY invitations are coming together really nicely (more on that later) and my mom is hand painting blue hydrangeas (my fave flower) on every invitation! I love the blue/green flowers--so pretty. We had also thought about incorporating some fish somewhere (maybe on the table numbers, to tie in A's love of anything fishing-related) but I'm wondering if the look will be too visually scattered, with hydrangeas, fish, plus the H crest (!).
I am probably worrying too much about this, but I want everything to look great. Should we drop the fish idea and stick with the florals?

Shoe search

You would think it would be somewhat easy to find appropriately dressy, non-frumpy low-ish heels to wear with a wedding dress. for less than $80. i am not super picky--they don't even have to be dye-able white satin. they could be gold or silver or nude or even a light color blue. does everyone either wear super high stilettos (um, can see blister nightmare occurring) or ug ballet flats (or worse--flip flops. but may be excusable if you are married on/near a beach)? My search has included my closet, my mom's closet, multiple shoe stores and malls and the internets (alllll of the internets). Have even considered a DIY shoe project involving feathers. Not much luck.
OK I will step down from my soapbox (um, shoebox?) now. But seriously, I want to be comfortable and I am nearly as tall as A with any kind of heel on. Of course I am used to being taller than everyone else, but on my wedding day I want to look petite (well as petite as 6' can be) next to A in pictures. Is that so much to ask?
Other considerations--I have heard that the guys' tux shoes will add height. Yay! Also, my dress was ordered so that it would be just long enough with a roughly 1-1.5" heel.
Enter Zappos.com. Clearly the best selection of wedding appropriate shoes for a low-ish heel. Believe me, I have looked. Unless you are considering spending $200 or more (oh, Louboutin how I wish my budget could afford you), this is the place to be. Am considering purchasing these dyeable shoes which are slightly more than I wanted to spend, but not sure if I will really need to dye them. My dress is a light ivory (not white).
Thoughts? Do you like these shoes? Should I dye them ivory?

The Crest

My graphic designer friend, Emily, and her husband both have last names that are common nouns, like A and I do. She thought it would be so funny if A and I came up with a family 'crest' that incorporated both of our last names (Hammer and Spears). At first, we all kind of laughed and dismissed it, but then I really thought about it some more--why not incorporate this somehow in our wedding stationery? We could do it in a way that would be fun, but not too too cutesy. Just a small monogram-type image on the invitations or programs (or both).

Will need to discuss with Emily again, to see if she might be able to help us. My design skills are very poor although A professes an expert status in using Paint :)

Crests kind of have that royal, British thing going on. Thoughts? Is this idea over the top?

Planned and tanned

Wedding summit = huge success! Not only did we get to eat guacamole 18 times (how could we ever say no,when it was there at every meal, tempting us in its avocado yumminess?) but we successfully and thoroughly organized lots of wedding planning details.

In case you were wondering what the Spears ladies actually do, during our yearly mom/daughter vacations, it is always pretty much like this, with little variation:

7:00 wake up

7:00-8:00 - walk on the beach (this is 'strenuous exercise' so we are justified/encouraged to eat mexican food steadily for the remainder of the day)

8:00-9:00 - 1st round of mexican food, including guac, of course (duh--guacamole and chips are breakfast food)

9:00 - 5:00ish - remain fixed on beach chair unless to apply sunscreen, read fashion magazines and/or entertaining books or cool off in the pool when demanded due to the ridiculous amount of HOT sun that shines on mexico (also, eat more guacamole as needed)

6:30 - 10:00 - dinner (no description is needed, i assume you have caught on) and relaxing, perhaps walking around. maybe we have some champagne.

10:00 - lights out/heat exhaustion

This is our kind of vacation. It's not for everyone, but absolutely for us. Being the good worriers/planners that we are, of course my mom and I were considerably more productive during our vacation this year, and were prepared with notebooks and pens at all times, for jotting down ideas for table assignment cards, floral arrangements and invitation styles. Don't worry though that we spent our entire vacation 'working'--we had so much fun doing it.

Today, we had some time in Houston before my mom's flight, and conducted an impromptu cake tasting at Barnaby's. Dark chocolate, carrot, toffee and french vanilla. Barnaby's has great cakes--the sight of four BIG pices wrapped up in to-go boxes made my heart beat a little bit faster. Hands down winner was dark chocolate with brownie layer, so I am going to talk to 'the cake lady' sometime early next week to see if she can perhaps allow us to sample some of her chocolate cakes. (Our caterer has a cake lady, who will apparently bake us any type of cake we want and decorate it however we choose--this seems almost too good to be true, and I am anxious to hear what she thinks about some of my ideas). Dark chocolate cake, ivory buttercream frosting, layers of chocolate ganache...i am in love already.

The wedding summit

Every year my mom and I take a relaxing vacation to somewhere tropical where we can indulge in our favorite activities, like laying in the sun all day, walking on the beach, reading magazines and eating guacamole. Lots and lots of guacamole.
We've had this year's trip planned for months, and we leave tomorrow for Cancun! I'm beyond excited because I've been really stressed lately and I can't wait to sip margaritas and not think about work for a full week. I'm calling the trip THE WEDDING SUMMIT becuase we are likely to talk about wedding planning 24/7 all week because we love weddings (in general, and planning mine, specifically) and still have about a bazillion things to decide and plan. So, I am hoping we have internet access at the hotel so that I can update with fun ideas from the summit :)
Am also planning to reread Eat Pray Love becuause it is such a thrilling book and a great beach read! So excited about that too!
Turning on my out of office now and preparing my stomach for mass guacamole consumption...

Cornflower Blue

The TX Art Supply store has a surprising amount of fun materials that may soon assemble themselves together for pretty pretty wedding invitations. Assuming I will develop enough confidence to tackle a project this intense.

Images here are a close up of the amazing 'cornflower blue' hand-made paper. And the zoomed out shot of it, along with a pretty textured blue card stock that is also hand-made. I loved these enough to bring home a sheet to look at some more, to hopefully inspire some invitation-making creativity.

Mom and I have been doing some research on Weddingbee to learn how to make pocketfolds and belly bands. So fun!

Step by step

So, I think a lot of major wedding websites might want to steer you away from do-it-yourself invitations because they are supported by advertisers who want you to spend big bucks on fancy letterpress custom invitation packages. Maybe that is just my cynical outlook from being in the ad industry myself. Regardless, it was pretty hard for me to find much of anything on the web for DIY invitations. Yes, I mean doing it YOURSELF. The horror.
I've thought it over a lot and I think I will try to do the invitations myself now that I've had a trial run with the save the dates. It was amazingly inexpensive (which I love) and turned out super cute. For those who are interested, here is how you can do a save the date card (or invitation) all by yourself. Minimal craftiness needed (trust me--this is time consuming but you don't need to be martha).
1. Locate graphic designer friend with access to Illustrator or similar software. I realize not everyone has this at their disposal, but even if you pay a friend of a friend to do the design for you, it is probably worth seeking out someone who knows what they're doing and knows how to prep files for printing.
2. Let your designer know what you're generally thinking about style-wise and provide wording. Give samples of the colors you want.
3. Review 5+ options from your designer
4. Revise and pick a winner
5. Go to an art supply store and pick out really cool paper. I got some that was textured and cream colored. Comes in big sheets (22"x30"). They can probably help you at the store. Paper is cheap. Make sure to get enough (5 sheets made just enough for 90 4.25x5 cards).
6. Cut the paper down into sheets that will fit in your printer (note on printer quality: we used my friend's Epson printer. It worked just fine but we did have a few issues with 'streakiness', but it was no big deal. any good color printer should work fine.)
7. Have your designer prep the files with bleeds so that you can print 3-4 cards on each printer sized sheet that you've cut down. This means that you can have some extra color 'bleeding' off the edge so that when you cut it down to size, you don't have to be exact.
8. We had to feed the paper into the printer one sheet at a time. My paper was kind of thick.
9. Use an exacto knife and a ruler (to give a straight line) to cut to the size you want for the cards. I also used a scrapbooking exacto slide cutting tool, which was way easier if you aren't too steady with the exacto, like me.
10. Stuff into envelopes (ordered from Paper Source, online) and you're done! Total project cost very minimal.

If you're still reading this, sorry. That was long. The project was not too too hard and it was fun to work on the designs. I may choose to get a 'professional' printer to do the printing/trim for me for the invitations. Depending on the cost :)

Save the Dates!

I am beyond thrilled with the awesome designs my lovely graphic designer friend Emily sent through last night. She sent seven options and these three are my very favorites. So pretty.

Hopeful that I will be able to get these in the mail this week. (note: the website is not correct on these. the website is under major construction this week, hopefully to be somewhat presentable by Friday.)

Just ordered some light blue A2 envelopes from Paper Source. I have my fingers crossed that A will be finished compiling the addresses by the time the envelopes arrive so that we can start addressing right away.

Friday night frights

OK, hopefully I'm not the only soon-to-be-bride in history to have extremely disturbing, awful, worst-case-scenario dreams about her wedding. This happens to me several times a week, and I feel like I just got started with this wedding-planning thing. Last night, I had a dream that I was marrying a prince (but he looked just like A, with a little crown) and of course I didn't know all of the royal wedding etiquette--do I bow, curtsey, lead/follow in the processional? Plus, my dress was delivered just a few minutes before the ceremony and it was ALL WRONG. It has these just awful sleeves, plus the sweetheart neckline was covered up in dreadful black/red silk to the neck. For some reason I was wearing awful pantyhose (which I despise) with black peep toe shoes (uggg!) and absolutely no sign of a veil. Papparazzi were attacking me, asking "who are you wearing?"
Of course, I use my very limited knowledge of psychology to explain to myself that this is just my stress manifesting itself in my subconscience (does that even make sense???). Thankfully, it was just a dream.
Yesterday was A's and my 4 year dating anniversary. He was very sweet to get me surprise beautiful lilies and a cute card. Plus, he has offered to schedule me a spa visit to de-stress from the wedding planning. Yay!
Today, I am considering fun table decoration ideas. Since the colors will be iguana green (thanks Sooze!) and ocean blue, we might bring in some elements to tie in A's and my love of all things ocean, water, beach, and fishing (well, I enjoy fishing mainly when it involves boats and/or laying out in warm weather). Mom came up with an idea for having a colorful fish in a small, stable bowl as a part of the centerpieces on some tables. I think this is brilliant. Do you think it would be weird to eat on a table with a fish in a bowl??

License to Wed

Thankfully it was a relatively slow-ish day at work, and I was able to do quite a bit of research on the process for obtaining that little slip of paper that allows you to make the marriage official. apparently, just saying 'I do' in front of a church full of people doesn't do it for the states of Tennessee or Texas. Let me break it down. First of all, county clerks are not too skilled at website design or clarity of message. After much back and forth and emailing to the county clerks, it seems like I will have to get a license in TN since the TX license is only good for getting married in the state of TX. But, the TN license must be purchased 30 days or less from the date of the wedding ($100, ugg. i am cheap and hate that it is $30 more than the TX license). This means A and I will be booking it to the adorable Jonesborough city hall (see pic) for our license just a couple of days before the wedding--since we'll be in TX until just before the wedding. I can picture a cute photo op on the steps of the city hall.

Stress meter somewhat high, but I think it will work out fine :)

Success!

Sooooooo I was waiting until everything was official to announce it--the wedding will be on October 24th in Tennessee! So excited to finally have a date/location so that I can really start planning! And I have ordered the dress. So funny, I never spend more than $100 on my credit card at a time, so Citi called me within 30 minutes of the purchase to ask about 'suspicious activity'. haha. good work Citi.
Next project is Save the Dates! My lovely and talented friend, Emily, will be lending her graphic design expertise for my save the dates. I am so lucky to have such creative and awesome friends.
Am currently loving the font Papyrus. What do you think?

Make it work!

Big news! I have chosen THE DRESS. It is 04/05 for those who have seen pictures of the top contenders. Gorgeous. Paloma Blanca. As I am abnormally tall, I will be ordering extra length (samples are made for 5'9"ish) and, why not, an extra 3' on the train. Mum may add some extra lace to the bottom, if we decide it will be a good look.

Of course, I tried on around 60 dresses (no kidding) and this is one of the first ones I tried on. That is my way. Sigh.

And, also very 'me'--I even managed to haggle them down on the price a little at the bridal store!! Awesome.

I am so so happy and relieved to have that out of the way, although I am sad mom didn't get to share in the fun of champagne-sipping bridal boutique shopping.

No news yet on the date of the wedding. I am slightly over-anxious and can hardly restrain myself from stalking my amazing cermony violinists (my teachers from age 10-18). They are the only thing I need to confirm before I can book everything. Fingers crossed that they call me back today!

Posting a picture here of the wedding colors I am thinking of going with.

Crunch time

We are getting married in Tennessee! While at first I was not a huge fan of this idea, I've come around to it and I think we will have the most beautiful and fun wedding in TN!!! Best of all, my amazingly talented and crafty mom will be able to help lots with the planning. And, we will have lots of opportunities to do fun wedding-planning things together over the next few months. Fun. Love it.

So, while I was just getting excited about the Tennessee decision and regaining control of my stress-induced teeth grinding--I decided that since A really really wanted to get married in the Fall why not try to pull this wedding off for October??? When I've called vendors and wedding dress shops they're like 'October of THIS YEAR???' Srsly?
Apparently pulling a wedding off in around five months is pretty unusual. It's still TBD on the confirmation of a couple of things, but I am pretty sure it is a possibility, with the help of my amazing mom and friends!

Other than booking all of the vendors and setting the date, my main concern in life is THE DRESS. I have been to five shops so far and I've found a couple of dresses that are really great. This is a huge decision, but I will probably make a choice in the next week, since dresses need to be ordered and shipped like 5 months in advance. Which is now. Crap.
Dress shopping is kind of awesome. I will send you pictures of the frontrunners if you are interested--just dont want to post them because of that random tradition that the groom shouldn't see you in the dress before the wedding. I think this is probably a brilliant rule though because lost of dudes know zero fashion and if it were up to them we'd probably all be wearing some kind of typical princess gown. or that really unflattering white color. ugg.

Hopefully an update tomorrow or Friday about the location and date! So excited!

Celebrity Sightings!

Went to LA last weekend to visit my amazingly funny and awesome friend, Sam. She is one of those people who can strike up a conversation with anyone in an elevator and have a funny story about it later. Usually involving mimed butt grabbing of strangers or something equally embarrassing (shame).
My main goal for the trip was to see some at least B-list celebs. Because I love celebrities and spotting them in their natural habitat: West Hollywood. It is like anthropology. Not shallow at all. Previous to this trip my best celeb spotting was with my mom at the Palms in Vegas when we were IN AUDRINA'S ELEVATOR. I died.
My other (secondary) goal was to eat some good food. Accomplished. Check out Village Idiot (http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-village-idiot-los-angeles) and Toast (http://www.yelp.com/biz/toast-bakery-cafe-los-angeles). Very hip and very very tasty. Also had fun at a wine tasting event at Bacchus.

So, about the celebs. Winston's luckily let us into their bar on Friday night. They were having a 'semi-private' party and seemed to think we were non-sketchy enough to allow in. haha, they might have changed their minds if they knew how much celeb-stalking-tourist capability I have. anyhow, we took a seat at a table and AMANDA BYNES (from Hairspray and other Nickelodeon-type movies/tv shows) sits down right across from us with a tall hottie date. She had really great hair/makeup but was kinda boring all night. The semi private party was for Jamie Lynn Sigler's (Sopranos) birthday party. She was there, looking very cute in a coral dress, with the entire cast of ENTOURAGE. Everyone--Adrien Grenier, Jeremy Piven, Turtle, Kevin Connoly, and Kevin Dylan. They were all very short but exciting to see. We also say Channing Tatum and Britney Snow (Prom, Hairspray, Gossip Girl). Britney and I will prob be best friends now, since we chatted in the bathroom about how old the song was that they were playing and how it reminds us of middle school!!! haha. I am such a nerd.

Apparently this level of awesomeness is not a normal occurence and I shouldn't expect this every time I come to LA. Too bad. But thrilling for my first night in LA.

We also saw Leona Lewis when we were shopping for jeans on Sunday afternoon!! She is such a talented singer. Contemplated taking a picture but settled on wearing my shades and staring for about 5 minutes. Not obvious at all.


On the wedding planning front--there are a few new developments on the selection of a location. I am now reconsidering a wedding in Johnson City (TN). Here are the pros for a JC wedding:

1. Everything will be much much cheaper (including venue, food, drink, music, photography)
2. Could get married on a Saturday night
3. Could have ceremony at mom's church
4. Would be able to mom's expert wedding planning skills in full effect
5. Could have great location for reception with good food
6. Less stress for me
7. I could come home several times to help plan
8. I could have Tim/Kim (my awesome violin teachers) play for the wedding!!!
9. Hotels would be cheaper for visitors. Could put together a list of fun activities/food/sights for the out of towners. Maybe even a shuttle to/from the hotel?? Just a thought.


Cons are the location inconvenience for some (cost of flights and transportation issues, plus JC is just not as exciting as Houston). And, some pretty major issues with the guestlist and alcohol at reception (I'll just leave that vague). Oh well. I am going to think about this for a while and make a decision pretty soon.

Perpetual Christmas

Yay for my first post, post-engagement. Being engaged is (so far) like waking up to Christmas morning every day. I am super jazzed excited for all the fun planning. Trying to contain myself so as not to become the quickest Bridezilla in history.

So, I've heard it is normal to have the overwhelming/distratcing impulse to stare at your new ring while trying to do everyday things (typing, driving, walking. well, anything really). I am this way. I am in love with my ring and I think it is so perfect. Good job, A.

Many friends have asked for a photo. My digital close-up photography skills are about on par with my basketball commentating skills, so the pictures are BAD. But here it is anyway. Kind of looks like I have a claw-hand. Need to see it in person to get the full effect. Shoutout to Judith Ann Jewels (http://www.judithannjewels.com/about.htm), in the Galleria area. They were so nice and helpful and the store has such wonderful lighting I might just move in.

More info on wedding plans to come. So far, all I know is that we've selected a location (Houston) and a general timeframe (March-ish April-ish 2010). Hoping to do a lot of research on venues in the near future.

Irony

Went with a coworker to House of Blues for lunch--which is pretty funny considering the type of week I've had. This just opened up a few months ago and they have delicious comfort food staples like pulled pork sandwiches (smoky yuminess), mac & cheese, cheese grits (did I mention cheese?) and sweet potato fries. Just perfect for lunch and it's right across the street.

Service was just OK, but I wasn't in any big rush to get back to the office, so whatev.

Change is good

So, I was at the eye doctor yesterday and they asked me how many hours per day I spend in front of a screen. Totaling my computer screen time (work, and home internetting), tv screen time (oh trashy mind-numbing tv how I love you) and random other assorted screens that cross my path on a daily basis, I am putting that figure at around 10ish. Yes, a full 10 hours of my day I am dedicated to responding to emails, reading articles, Facebook stalking, watching America’s Next Top Model, and texting (very slowly). Which brings me to my point: What am I doing with my life? What is this sedentary screen-viewing about? Don’t get me wrong, I love TV. And, of course, the internet. I would be lost without these things (Hurricane IKE has proven this point). But. What can I possibly be learning and gaining from being in front of a screen for 10 hours a day?
I frequently find myself at work--or trying to fall asleep at night on my Tempurpedic wonderfulness, or shampooing my hair--pondering ‘How did I end up here?’ What have I achieved? What is my purpose? Who am I? What’s the deal?
I’m sure I’m not the only one. Actually, I know I’m not. These are strange times. I know lots of people are stopping and thinking about their lives right now--their careers and what keeps them going. Maybe this IS time for a change. And change is good.
I am a people-pleaser to the core. Maybe it’s my only child-ness. I want everyone to be happy and comfortable and to like me. I rearrange my words and sometimes even my accent to hopefully make you like me more. Why do I do this? Not sure. But I know that if you talk Southern to a Southerner, they’re nicer to you. And if you say “I’m keen to” to someone in the UK, you get your point across more than saying “I’d like to.” Mimicking behaviors (or behaviours, depending) is something I’m pretty sure I do without even noticing. So, when I sat down to start this blog I thought—how do I want to present this? How do I want to frame this? I am not able to be Southern, and girly, and snarky and nerdy all at once. I will just be me. 100% me. Which is really freeing, ya know? For now, this is just an outlet to say what I want to say.
I am having a particularly STRANGE day today. It’s been one of those days. Where I feel particularly lost about my place in the universe and what I should be doing to find my place and be contented. And writing seems to help me feel more connected, more me.
Some of the most fabulous and exciting people I know have their own blogs. And they inspire me. So I am jumping on the bandwagon, hoping to figure this all out and find what I’m looking for…