Flip-flops on sale

Just a quick note - Walgreens has their flip-flops on sale for 75% off. The prices run from $1.99 to $5.99 a pair. This is a great way to stock a flip-flop basket if you're planning on having one. I got 10 pairs yesterday for around $14 and six pairs today for $4.

I thought cleavage was a good thing!

I guess it is - as long as it's not back cleavage. Sigh. Apparently, my ass had a small baby and it traveled up to live on my back.

As I posted the other day, I bought a wedding dress that was too small. Yes - I know. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But I loved it and it was the only one. I'm watching my calories and exercising up a storm so that it will fit but I thought it would be wise to help Mother Nature along. I bought a Hollywood Dream Corset from Frederick's of Hollywood. I've read several testimonials about how awesome it is so I thought I'd try it. I got a very good deal on an ivory one from ebay. It arrived today so after a riveting afternoon registering at Bed, Bath & Beyond, I thought I'd try it on.

I snapped it up front and then grabbed onto to a heavy piece of furniture while The Boy cinched me in. Of course he had to be a smart ass and put a foot on my back while cinching it. It definitely took off an inch easily without too much pain. But it seemed to flatten my chest (which does not need flattening) and it gave me a small case of back cleavage. I'm wondering if an underbust corset might be a better option.

I have never in my life spent so much time worrying about my underwear as I have in the last few months. All I used to care about was if there was enough elastic in them to stay on. Now I'm ordering lingerie like a stripper gone wild. Hey - at least The Boy is happy about it!

Gorgeous Bouquet!

I just wanted to share this real quick for anyone getting married soon or for next summer:

I think that's perfection for a late summer or early fall bouquet. I found it at Jessamyn Harris's blog.

Scratch the church

I've been concerned for a while about how hectic our wedding day will be. I know there's some things that will happen that I won't be able to control but I also want to do everything possible to help things run as smoothly as possible. When I first started planning my wedding, I was sure I wanted to be married in a church. Obviously, it would have to be a church near our reception site so we looked and looked and finally found a pretty united Methodist church in Sevierville. It also felt like a church, not a wedding factory which you have to be careful of in the mountains.

We had a couple of small scares. At first, we weren't sure if our officiant would be acceptable because quite a few Christians don't consider members of the Unity Church to be christian. I got myself freaked out over nothing - they were totally fine with our minister. Then The Boy noticed that we couldn't play popular music according to their guidelines. One of my few requirements in getting married was that after we were married, I wanted to walk down the aisle to Abba's 'I Do, I Do, I Do'. Again - not a problem.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking about whether or not we should just get married at Brothers Cove instead of trekking to the church and back - a 30 minute drive each way. The Boy and I really don't want to see each other before we're married so we'll have to make time for pictures after the service.

I think this is one time where a longer engagement period would have been helpful. I thought that I wanted to get married in a church but the longer I thought about, the more I realized it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was. The Smoky Mountains are so special to me because when I'm there, I can feel God in my surroundings. In a way, the mountains are our church.

If it's pretty, we'll get married outside. If not, my heart won't be broken. The view from inside the lodge is gorgeous and we have four huge fireplaces that will be roaring if the weather is chilly. When The Boy called to cancel our reservation of the church, I felt a little sad but I also feel relief.

Here are some pictures:

Cute idea for a rustic aisle runner

This was done with cork cutouts mounted on a rolling pin. It would also be gorgeous as a table runner. Get directions here.

It's a wrap!

I apologize in advance for my horrible cheesy post title. Sometimes the dork inside me escapes.

I want to give Pashmina wraps to my bridesmaids since it will be November and in east Tennessee it could be gorgeous or it could be chilly. I also have a bridesmaid flying in from Arizona so my guess is that she'll have her butt parked in front of the fireplace constantly.

My bridesmaids will be wearing chocolate brown dresses and my maid of honor will be wearing a cranberry red dress. I'm not sure which will look prettier, dark red or brown wraps. So, I ordered one in each color from ebay. They were $8 each with shipping. I have serious doubts as to whether or not they're really Pashmina but that's not important to me if they look nice and are warm.

I'm going to get a wrap for me as well. I saw this picture right when I started doing wedding research and I fell in love with it:

How gorgeous is that?

Shifting into a new phase of wedding planning

We've got almost all of the major pieces in place for the wedding. The only thing left to do is find a videographer and hash out details with all the other vendors we've hired. I'm now starting to focus on all the DIY projects that I'd like to get done. My gocco is ready to go and The Boy is starting to get nervous!

I've made a list of all of the DIY projects that we're planning on doing and I'm pretty excited. Here's a list of a few:

Homemade apple butter - favors
Homemade hot pepper jelly for our appetizer tables
Peach butter and sour cherry jam for cake fillings
Cat table numbers
Programs
Seating Cards
Flowered initials for the doors
Fun with gourds - candles, monogrammed, all kinds of pumpkiny goodness
Decorative votives
DIY photobooth

and lots more...if time doesn't run out!

I'll be posting pictures and progress reports over the next few weeks.

All good things come to those who procrastinate

When I was 16, I had a huge Poly Sci paper due the day before Christmas vacation. Our teacher at the time, told us the day before it was due that the only excuse for turning it in late would be death, namely our own. I asked him what would happen if there was a blizzard and school was cancelled. He said "Kristina, if you can make it snow, you can have until the end of vacation to get the paper in".

Since I hadn't started on this paper yet, I promptly went home to do a snow dance. Rather than be smart, I didn't even bother starting on the paper. Instead, I parked my little behind in front of the TV and watched the weather. We got a snow shower that kicked up around 8pm that night but it petered out. Around 10pm, another one started. And it kept going. And going. And going. Do I really need to tell you that school was cancelled the next day? Woot!

Guess what?!! The rogue procrastinator scores again!!!

I've been putting off ordering my invites because what I really wanted was pocketfold letterpressed wedding invites. I bought a Gocco for myself, thinking I could make my own but I quickly realized how stressed out I was going to be doing this. In the meantime, I entered a contest over at the Southern Wedding Style blog. You had to describe your dream southern wedding and if you were chosen, you'd win 100 free letterpress invites from HelloLucky. Here was my entry:

My dream southern wedding involves family, friends and lots of kids. Sweet tea is a necessity and BBQ is required at some point during the wedding weekend. Fall is the perfect time for a southern wedding because it's warm enough that all of your northern friends are jealous but your hair should stay under 3 feet across because the humidity has improved since August. You need at least one aunt or grandmother to be scandalized because you're serving beer and wine. Someone at some point needs to tell the bride that she's "as pretty as a picture". A dream southern wedding needs at least one mother asking the newlyweds when they're going to finally give her some grandchildren. After choosing the date that conflicts least with most of your guests favored football team, you still hear plenty of discussion that this year could be the year if only the coach was replaced. A southern wedding wouldn't be complete without someone telling the groom they remember when he was knee high to a grasshopper. A dream southern wedding means wearing your Mom's pearls and wrapping your MaMaw's handkerchief wrapped around your bouquet. Most importantly, a dream southern wedding needs lots of love, tears, laughter and joy.

I won!!!!! Obviously, I couldn't go the custom route since time was so short but I am getting 100 of these gorgeous invites! Of course, the OCD Kristina started planning out how I could make them fit in pocketfolds and how I could Gocco RSVP cards to match. Then I slapped myself, ordered the RSVP cards to match and now will only be wrapping the invites with ribbon and putting in a small insert card that I'll gocco with our wedding website information.

Did you know? It's my SPECIAL DAY!!!!!

I must have heard this phrase 8 million times while I was at the Knoxville Bridal Show this past Sunday. 7 million of them were from one very enthusiastic videographer. My tshirt was a hit though. It's kind of funny to see how far Knoxville is behind the times - photobooths are just making the rounds now. There was only one vendor there but they were mobbed the whole time. I sent an email to my photographer and told her she should think about jumping on the bandwagon with a smilebooth of sorts.

Tip for brides-to-be: If you do decide to jump into the bowels of bridal shows, bring along a sheet of address labels so that you can just stick one on any contest form rather than having to fill out a million of them.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

This is totally a tentative thing but we may have a 1936 Rolls-Royce for our getaway vehicle.

My cats are going to be in my wedding!

I have a lot of cats. I mean, like an embarrassing number of them. As in, I won't actually tell you how many we have because you'll think I'm a complete weirdo. Our cats are the main reason why the beautiful 1894 Queen Anne Victorian we live in still lacks walls in many of the rooms. Several of them have medical issues so the vets at University of Tennessee vet school know me very well and know my bank account even better.

Still, I would never be without them. Each day, they make me belly laugh at least five times because they're so silly. I wanted to include them in some way in our wedding but preferably not like this:




I love what Miss Creampuff did for her wedding. Naming the drinks after her cats is brilliant. However, we won't be serving anything but wine, beer and champagne and we have more than three cats. My idea? We're going to name the tables after them! So when our guests go to get their seating cards, they'll find that they're going to be sitting at the Little Man table or the Annabelle table. What's scary is that we have enough cats presently for almost all of our tables. We will dig back into the past because the head table will be named for Bailey, the best cat to ever exist. It honestly makes me sad to know that we're getting married and she won't be there. {sniff}

In the next couple of weeks, we're going to set up a kittie fashion shoot and try to snap some pics of each of them with some fall flowers. Stay tuned for that report because I'm sure it will be interesting.

We'll actually have some of the babies with us at the resort. The wonderful management there is letting us pay the pet fee and stay in one of their newer, posh cabins. So Cleo, Little Man and maybe Emily will be with us. Little Man and Cleo were hand-raised by us so they're kind of our first born kids(which scares me for any future human kidlets we might have because I think we messed these guys up plenty). All three have medical issues that require meds and The Boy is a magician when it comes to pilling cats so it's easier to have them there. We'll get a pet sitter for the others.

It makes me happy to think that some of our furbabies will be with us. They're such a huge part of our lives that it would be weird not to have them with us during such a huge life event.

A very bad idea

Let's get married on roller skates!

My knees from the last time I went roller skating:

Do as I say, not as I do!

I am going to give you all some advice and I want you to promise me you'll take it! Never, I mean EVER buy a wedding dress that's too small. Just don't do it! It's a bad idea and you'll live to regret it. Trust me on this!!!

So guess what I did? That's right. I bought a dress that's too small. In my defense, we were getting down to the wire and I hadn't found another dress that I liked as much. The dress I wanted was only available in a sample size so I had no other option. But let me tell you, there's nothing like sheer, utter terror to get your butt moving!

I brought my dress to my seamstress two weeks ago and she confirmed what I had thought - there was no way to let it out easily because of the lace around the top. Now I'm not that far from fitting into it but it is putting a lot of pressure on me.

I have finally gotten my rear in gear and I've been putting in time on my rowing machine. Every day I add 30 seconds. I'm at 25 minutes now and I'm working my way up to 40 minutes every other day. I'm also lifting free weights and using an exercise ball and resistance tubes. I will never waste my time on weight machines again - I've actually got muscles now! I'm also counting calories and tracking my weight and measurements at SparkPeople.

My seamstress is fixing any loose beads and hemming my dress but she's not going to size it on me until mid-September. I'm nervous but I'm doing what I can. I've always felt better when I've exercised in the past so I'm glad I'm so motivated right now. If The Boy and I do decide to start a family right away, being in shape will only help us.

When I went with my MOH to try on bridesmaid dresses, I refused to let her order her dress a size smaller. I was kind of dictatorial about it because I knew she's dealing with enough stress from her job right now, the last thing she needed to do was voluntarily add more to her life with a do-or-die diet.

Slut shoes, white dress & Abba!

The night of my engagement party, my mom turned to me and asked me what things were really important to me for my wedding. I explained that I was pretty flexible with most stuff but there were three things that had to happen.

1) Red shoes - a must

2) A big wedding cake topper of a dress

3) Abba's 'I Do, I Do, I Do' playing for our recessional music.

I want to make it very clear that as much as I adore the movie, Muriel's Wedding, THEY STOLE MY IDEA!!! Not the other way around! When I was nine or ten, I used to listen to three things religiously on Sunday afternoons when my parents would nap(they were probably having sex). My dad's Moody Blues albums, The Annie Movie Soundtrack & Abba's Greatest Hits album. I don't have many wedding fantasies from when I was younger but one of them is that some day I wanted to walk down the aisle to 'I Do, I Do, I Do'! And now I'm going to get to do that! His family is going to freak when those saxes kick in.

My irrational hatred of calla lilies

I have a serious case of loathing whenever I see calla lilies. I have looked at so many bouquets that were perfectly lovely except for the calla lilies in it. First of all, they remind me of funerals. Second, they're ridiculously expensive. And last - they look like they eat bugs. Look at one! They look just like pitcher plants. I get this scary urge to chuck pieces of hamburger into them whenever I see them!

Getting way too excited about panties!

My nuptial undies! How freaking cute are they? And how disturbing is it that I've shown them to about six people so far today?!!

I have a girl crush!