I'm still on it!

Glancing at my blog this morning, I realized I haven't posted at all this month! It's been a busy month, but that doesn't mean its been without wedding planning.

This month I finalized my desert menu. As many of you know, we are not having cake. Instead guests will have a choice of three types of pie. Officially, there will also be ice cream for some pie a la mode!

I also found a hair stylist (I hope!) I have a trial next Saturday, I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

I guess that's it for this month, I think next month will be more wedding-ful!

The Hunt for Dresses is On!

As the colorful spring fashion lines start popping up in stores, it's time to start thinking about bridesmaids dresses. My plan from the start was to let my bridesmaids pick out their own dresses. I gave them three colors to pick from and a dress length. The rest is up to them. I figure this way they will like their dresses, the dresses will be in their budget, and I don't have to worry about shopping for dresses I'm not going to wear. The colors I gave them are orange, red, and yellow. Now that those colors are starting to show up in stores, my bridesmaids have started shopping! Bridesmaids "I" and "S" and going to wear red dressed, bridesmaid "D" is going to wear orange, and bridesmaid "W" is going to wear yellow. I'm really happy that all three colors will be used. I think the autumnal range of colors will look nice. It's fun to get emails with links to dresses or chat with them about it on the phone. What was really great, though, was getting to go shopping together in person a few weeks ago!

Since I am making my own invitations, I had an invitation making party and invited my bridesmaids down to help me out. They came from as far as Boston! We had a great time hanging out, blasting through the invitations (we made, addressed, and stamped all 90!!), and having girly time. We also got to go dress shopping. "D," who had decided to wear an orange dress, was having a hard time finding any online. Neither of us really thought about the fact that it's a rare color. But at the Columbia Mall, we stumbled across this one and it fit great! "D" got it! So she wins first bridesmaid to have her dress. She's going to get a different belt for it and I'm sure she will find some great shoes to wear with it, too. Even though bridesmaids "S" and "I" didn't find their perfect red dresses to wear, we all had fun trying stuff on and hunting through the racks.

It was a great weekend and I'm so grateful to them for coming and helping out.

Different Types of Flowers

Ever since getting my dress I have been passively musing about the accessories for my wedding day. I've gone back and forth about necklaces, earrings, and what to put in my hair. Now that I've gotten all of the vendors figured out for the wedding, I felt it was time to start filling in the details. Intermittent poking around online is over. I started looking for shoes back in the fall. I am very picky about the comfort of my shoes and wanted to wear flats. I found Zappos to be my best hunting ground. It took me a couple orders and returns to get it right, but I eventually settled on the Kimball2. I wasn't 100% sure about the neutral color and the texture of the fabrics, but when I put them on, I was thrilled. They are linen with a big suede flower on each toe. The softness of the shoes makes the pearly dress shine even more. Plus, I think they are fun, while not being overly noticeable.

Beyond shoes, I want to get my other accessories handmade, as much as possible. I love Etsy and shopping on their site is so much fun. I scrolled through page after page of hair flowers, boleros, and earring. There are so many good looking vendors, but Clark and Diversey really stood out for having some unique flowers. I ordered this hair flower, but they are replacing the rhinestones in the middle with pearls. I really like the combination of different materials. I do have to laugh at myself, though. I spent so long looking at every detail of all these different flowers, but at the end of the day, all anyone will see is a big white flower.

From Clark and Diversey

With these two details squared away, I have begun contacting vendors for a bolero. I also have an appointment to show my dress to a seamstress on Saturday! The "look" is coming together.

Pretty Papers

First of all, I hope you like the new look for my blog. When I started the blog, I wasn't 100% sure of what I was doing and just picked a super simple format. After spending more time on Blogger, I decided it was time for an update. Now my blog matches my invitations!

If you haven't already figured it out, I love DIY projects, especially when it comes to arts and crafts. Making my own invitations was something I wanted to do even before I looked at costs. Needless to say, making my own invitations is going to be a lot cheaper than having them made. We are talking about literally half the cost. So with that knowledge, it seemed like a no-brainer.

About a week ago I headed back over to the Paper Source and picked out my invitation colors. It hadn't even crossed my mind that they wouldn't have enough paper in the store. After deliberating over R.S.V.P. card colors and envelope sizes, I made my choices and went to collect all the items I would need. It was then I realized just how much paper I was buying. Of course they didn't have 10 sets of envelopes in the color and size I wanted! Not to mention the 5 sets of special printing paper. The women at the Paper Source were great as usual, though. With a deal on free shipping I left the store with an order confirmation for my paper and it came in the mail less than a week later. Here's what I got!


To help me get a head start in putting all the invitations together, my bridesmaids are coming for a visit. I'm so excited to see them! So not only is my invitation making a fun project, it's also turned into a great reason so see friends.

Flowers are a lot of Fun

When I started the process of planning my wedding, flowers were at the bottom of my list. Bouquets did not seem nearly as interesting as stuff like music and food. Well, I stand corrected. After spending the last few weeks scouring the Internet for florists and examining pictures of bouquets, I have to admit, flowers are a lot of fun.

What's more, I just got back from a great meeting with Ellen, one of the florists from Local Color Flowers. Ellen and I hit it off right away (she likes Haruki Murakami!!) and had a great conversation about the flowers for my wedding. I plan to make my own center pieces, so I really only need a florist for bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. I found the above image on Local Color Flowers website and talked with Ellen about doing all the pieces in that color scheme (the bouquet on the right). As you can probably guess from the name, Local Color Flowers uses only locally grown flowers, which I think is pretty cool. Ellen said they buy from growers within and 100 mile radius, but a lot of the flowers come from growers in Baltimore City. I had never thought about growing that many flowers in a city! The only down side to Local Color Flowers is that they charge a pretty steep delivery fee. Alternatively you can have a friend or family member pick up the flowers for you. While the workshop is pretty close to the Gramercy Mansion, it still might be inconvenient have to worry about flower pick-up that morning. I'm planning to meet with at least one more florist to make a comparison.

On the note of center pieces, it just occurred to me that I haven't written about them. My plan is all about chrysanthemums. Each table will have five small terracotta pots of 'mums arranged on a leaf shaped place mat. I am keeping it simple but colorful. Guests will be able to take a plant home of they want. Plus, potted plants keep living after the wedding day unlike cut flowers. I've already talked to a representative at my local Lowes about ordering the chrysanthemums and it seems all pretty straight forward. I guess the real rush will be potting all of the 'mums the week of the wedding. Luckily, I have some great friends who have already volunteered to help.

Now that I'm less than 9 months away, I feel like my wedding planning is in full swing. Look for up coming posts about invitations, dress fittings, and who knows what else!

Scanner Me!

According to the wedding time lines I've been following, now is the time to start putting together our gift registry. I know it seems kind of early, but as it turns out, this is no quick feat. I'm guessing it will take a good couple months to sort through all the options and really make our lists. Mike and I have already started a list of household goods on Alternativegiftregistries.org where we can ask for item made by local vendors at our beloved Eastern Market. This Thursday, however, we took the plunge and went to Macy's for the true wedding registry experience.

Image from Google Images

Before going to the appointment I had a couple ideas of what to expect bouncing around my head. On the one hand was the sappy scene from 27 Dresses where the main character lovingly picks up each item saying "And this is the umbrella holder he'll put his umbrella in when he comes home from work..." *gag* On the other hand, I couldn't help thinking about a former colleague who told me it was really stressful to register. I think he's comment was something like: "This is the stuff you'll have for the rest of your life! It's really stressful to pick!" I have to say, my experience was somewhere in the middle. For one, we did not go through the store scanning every item that caught our fancy. Mike and I only went for an hour on Thursday and only looked at cookware, and that was really enough. We had a great time comparing sets and cracking each other up. However, it was kind of stressful; you don't want to get a set that's going to fall a part or not work as well! We ended up selecting three sets, we'll have to read the reviews and warranty information before narrowing it down to one. I hope we can make easier decisions for the rest of the list... I can't imaging spending more than 10 minutes on towels. I guess I shouldn't jinxes myself, though.

Listen to This!!

First off, I want to apologize for going MIA. My intention was to write at least once a month in my blog- clearly that didn't happen. But to make up for it, I'll be posting twice in a row!

Photo of Drymill Road Band from their Myspace Page

December was a busy month with the holidays and traveling to see family. That said, I trudged on in my search for an upbeat, fun, and easy to work with bluegrass band. I totally gave up on my plan to see bands live over the summer. So I spent a lot of time in December sorting through Gigmaster.com and other sites. After emailing back and forth with a number of different band leaders and even conducting a couple phone interviews, I narrowed it down to the Drymill Road Band. This band has some great music posted online, is responsive and flexible, and has played weddings. My favorite part of the phone interview was when I asked my contact, Robert, if the band knew Hava Nagila. Robert laughed out loud and admitted that they had never played it. That said, he was sure all of the band members would get a real kick out of playing it on their bluegrass instruments and would love to learn it for our wedding. After our chat on the phone and contacting a couple of references I was ready and happy to book them. So, I did it! I found my bluegrass band for the wedding! Now I just need to figure out what songs I want for the ceremony, first dance, and other important moments.

Also in December (I said I was busy!) I finished making my Save-the-Dates. In my last post I wrote about the materials I bought, and in December I finalized my wording and put them together. It was a lot of fun and I think they came out well. Most people got an email Save-the-Date, though. That I did in Power Point. I found Power Point to be the easiest program for layering and manipulating the images without the file getting too large. Once the Save-the-Date was all set I saved it as a pdf and embedded it in an email. It was so much fun to make that I told Mike, "I should make all my party invitations like this!!" Maybe that would be a bit much...

Well, that's my update for now! Check out the Drymill Road Band and stay tuned for Update #2 coming soon!