October 25, 2010

Woohoo!

soooo....I'm officially a full-time employee! Salary, benefits, etc. at basically my dream company to work for, doing something I totally love. Ahhhh! It's such a weight off my shoulders. All the craziness and stress and anxiety and long-distance from Fiance...it feels all worth it. It's so comforting to have this security to enter into our marriage with (4 months from tomorrow!!). And for me to be in a position to support us to allow Fiance to pursue his creative endeavors in the future.

So in other news, Fiance updated our wedding website thingy. He's adorable. Here's a quote from the "about us":
"The relationship has survived four years of prolonged distance, two regrettable break-ups, and one's sophomoric obsession with the inevitable and tragically unplanned for zombie apocalypse.
James and Jessie are undoubtedly committed to one another through hell or high water, thick or thin, global zombie takeover, or the less likely Mad Maxian, road warrior, Australian outback type of post apocalyptic landscape."

I should probably have him do a guest post, as he is much much more eloquent than myself (even with the tally of how many times he can use the word 'zombie' while still sounding romantic)

October 20, 2010

golden

so my mom met with the florist. Who we knew would be all kinds of amazing, just from their email correspondence. She's all over the lavender/herbs/italy-inspired thing. Apparently she's really sweet and totally accommodating. She loves the very organic, natural looking flowers, non-perfect arrangements. We are going to have lavender, herbs, olive branches and non-traditional white flowers galore. Also, the lily-of-the-valley bouquet that I had my heart set on? Totally in season. It's happening, yay! She's be arranging bouquets, corsages, a couple boutonnieres for the dads and grandpas (fiance is not a fan...) and she's making a flower headband for my soon-to-be niece. adorable! The rest of the flowers she'll be supplying to us in bulk for ms. suzy to arrange. They will be well hydrated and carefully delivered.

edit:
(this post has been sitting open for about 2 days...) So we got an estimate back! Everything is incredibly reasonable except...holy crapola the bouquet I want costs as much as my dress. I kid you not. There's no way I'm paying that much. I really just like the aesthetic look of the flowers. but I have learned that apparently Jackie O, Princess Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn (and Barbra Streisand?) all had lily of the valley bouquets, so I suppose they are popular for those reasons. So plan B=pick. different. flower. plan C=get silk flowers? I've seen many rounds of the great artificial flower debate. I must do some soul searching, if I really have my heart set on the look of lily of the valley, then silk it will be. because they are only about 2% of the cost of real ones. even for high quality artificial. Plus apparently these flowers are not very sturdy and they die super easily. so outrageous sum of money for mayyyyybe 4 hours? uh, no. as dear cousin/maid of honor asked? are they dipped in gold?!?! sigh, wedding sticker shock.


so life is busy, and I am still awaiting details on a certain subject. patience is not a strength of mine friends.

October 13, 2010

la dee dah

So my mom and her bff Suzy played hooky from work today - so that they could go do wedding errands. They're the cutest! They hit the thrift stores. And put together tablescapes, when I finally talked them after work they were on about idea number 23. Suzy has become the wedding planner. she has a billion ideas and they're all fantastic and she doesn't mind taking on a million DIY duties. She lives for this stuff. My mom has been trying on dresses. She found some awesome glass beverage dispensers at TJ Maxx for under $20 each. You guys, delegation is a godsend. I solidified and explained my ideas early on and now I have let go of the reins. I trust my mom and Suzy and I know from experience that beautiful things will happen. and I'm getting so excited just to be marrying fiance that I'm not even worried about the rest.

In other news, I finally sent the save-the-dates!! They're only about a month and a half late but...shhh no one else knows that. Lessons learned: a) I'm printing address labels for the invites. fo sho. also (as my mother pointed out) then we can reprint the labels for thank you cards! genius! b) I need to get one of those sponge-y things for sealing envelopes. Because licking them was getting gross. Why has no one at least made that adhesive stuff mint flavored or something??? c) Undecided on postage. I mailed them on my lunch break and there was a huge line so I just went to the little kiosk and got 3 packs of the ugly liberty bell stamps. I know myself well enough at this point to know that I won't be scouring ebay for vintage stamps. But I know the post office at least offers some with slightly more visual interest than brown bells? I also know just about no one looks at stamps and those darn 44 cent things get thrown away. we'll see how pressed for time I am when it comes to the invites.

Also, I have some exciting news, just waiting for all the details to come next week before I spread the word... :)))))

October 10, 2010

love actually is...

so I am watching love actually, it's been awhile and I totally forgot about this part at the beginning:
 Keira Knightley has just gotten married and is walking back down the aisle when a gospel choir pops out and begins singing "all you need is love" and practically a full orchestra comes out of the pews. All arranged by the best man.

Can I please have a gospel choir (hint hint friends)? Fiance and I love gospel music and I've been in love with this photo below from a wedding photographed by Millie Holloman. So so much joy and happiness.
We can't afford it to hire a group and I don't personally know any gospel singers...but it's nice to dream.

October 5, 2010

so...I added another bridesmaid*. It was really oversight on my part that she wasn't there in the first place. But I swear it ends here. And now we have 6 and 6. Which means our bridal party is approximately 10% of the guest list...but hey, we've got a lot of really close friends, people who have really influenced our lives in major ways. Also fiance wanted equal numbers...

I also kind of have some "honorary" bridesmaids, 7 to be exact. Girls that I became close with when I studied abroad, and we still keep in touch and are great friends, even over 2 years later. But I had to draw the line somewhere, so they're still invited to all the shower/bachelorette stuff and I'm inviting them to come get ready with me morning of. They're talking about getting matching outfits, different from what my girls are wearing, but they just love me :)

*I know "bridesmaid" is so not the progressive term to use these days. But I haven't seen a term that I can really get on board with and no one would know what I mean if I said "my bridal brigade"...The less I have to explain myself these days, the better.

October 2, 2010

JKLM....blah blah blah

So...I've finished all the "L's" for addressing save the dates. I'm kind of ready to give up now. Which is bad because my last name starts with M, as well as the majority of my family and a large number of friends end up later in the alphabet. So I'm not even remotely half way through. It's getting a bit boring and tedious. I see why printed labels are gaining acceptance. I don't even want to think about how I'd have to do all this AGAIN for the actual invites. Unfortunately I also don't have a printer at the moment...it is stored away in a box at fiance's. Nor can I afford the ink.

I tend to do this a lot with big projects. Plan and imagine to my heart's content. Make lists, spreadsheets and cover every possible surface with post-its containing well thought out and logical ways to accomplish ideas. When it comes time to actually DO it, I lose patience quickly and immediately find the easiest way out... not a very good character trait.