The Chagrined Bride

Just a couple of quick pics

2009-02-25T18:44:00.003-05:00

I'm not dead!

2009-02-25T18:35:00.002-05:00

I feel bad because I hadn't realized that there were people that were even reading my blog here so I didn't think to update when things got crazy right before and after the wedding. I'm fine! And married! And despite a few hitches, it was an awesome and beautiful and amazing day! The week after the weddding got kind of crazy - my Mom has a heart attack (she's fine now!). Then my husband's dad (I still keep calling my husband my boyfriend!) developed heart problems, my Mom broke her ankle, my husband's Mom and grandmother went into the hospital and we had to refinance our house(and since it's an old ramshackle historic house, this isn't as easy as just going to the bank). Things have calmed down though and I'll try to post some pictures of the wedding after this weekend. We actually have a keg of beer left from the wedding so my hubby and I are throwing a Mardi Gras party and having a whole crowd of people over to help us drink it. I need to make some gumbo and clean but I promise to get back with vendor reviews, pics and such next week. Thanks for caring!

Spiffing up our invites - the envelope liners

2008-09-25T23:50:00.000-04:00

One of the ways that I thought we could jazz up our invitations was by adding an envelope liner. I've always thought that envelope liners add a nice touch and they didn't seem difficult to do. Since I was getting my invitations from HelloLucky, I asked Sabrina if she could send me a couple of blank envelopes so I could measure them and figure out what I'd need to do to make envelope liners for them. I ran to AC Moore and Hobby Lobby and found a bunch of cute papers I could use. Now all I needed to do was to cut out the liners and see which one looked the nicest. First tip - make the shape as easy as possible. If you're picking your own envelopes out, pick the plainest ones you can - the liner will fancy it up plenty. If you can simplify the liner shape, do it. When I first started cutting mine out, I was trying to add a tiny bit of a curve. After driving myself insane, I realized that if I followed the outline of the glue pattern, I really just needed straight lines. Another tip - don't use an instant drying glue. It's nice to be able to slide the liner around a little to make sure it's in the correct place.

After making several test liners, I ended up deciding that I wanted to get the actual invites before deciding on a final liner. I'm glad I waited - some of the liners I liked the best by themselves actually didn't look as well with the invitations as the final liner I went with.

Here's the liner we went with in the end:

Last tip - when making these, don't stack them in a pile while drying. I managed to stick several together because I was dumb enough to do this.

Beware of wedding invitations!

2008-09-24T23:39:00.000-04:00

Ready to mail!

2008-09-23T23:41:00.003-04:00

We've got 54 invites ready to go into the mail tomorrow! We'll be hand delivering about 8 to friends in our neighborhood and we still have to get ten more addresses. It's such a relief though to know these babies are going out! A little scary too!

Assembling invitations is exhausting work!

I'll have pictures and directions for the rest of the parts of our invites tomorrow.

My weekend project

2008-09-21T21:14:00.002-04:00

I've been busy putting the finishing touches on my invites so we can mail them tomorrow and Tuesday!

Our Cake Topper

2008-09-19T13:55:00.000-04:00

How adorable are these?

Oilpainta will be making our cake topper. There are so many cute cake toppers on Etsy but I was definitely smitten by her toppers. She's also not crazy expensive. What I love about her toppers is that she sends you a very extensive questionnaire asking about your wedding details and about things that are important to you. We've asked her to include some kitties at our feet. We're going to have the Sunsphere and our 1894 Queen Anne Victorian in the background. She's adding flowers in our wedding colors and we sent her pictures of the tuxedo Marcus will be wearing and pictures of my dress for her to copy on the topper.

We will be having a doughnut cake like above (ok - maybe a tiny bit smaller) on our junk food buffet at midnight. I'm on the hunt for a rather large vintage cupcake topper in a wedding theme to throw in the top - the uglier, the better. Anyone else looking for something fun for their cake?

Hot Chocolate & Hot Apple Cider Bar

2008-09-17T01:01:00.000-04:00

For our wedding, we're having a hot chocolate and hot apple cider bar. If we get lucky, we might even have a chilly evening so we can all sip these drinks by the fireplaces. Since I'm a neurotic online researcher, I had to see what chefs and other people online recommend. I couldn't find anything for a hot cider bar but I did find a bunch for hot chocolate. Here's a list (what I'm planning on serving is bolded):

MIX-INS:
•Coffee options - instant espresso powder or Espresso Shots
•Crumbled up candy bars (Heath, Milky Way,3 Musketeers, Snickers, or Butterfingers)
•Truffles (cappuccino, dark chocolate, raspberry)
•Miniature baking chips (semisweet, peanut butter,white chocolate, butterscotch or mint)
•Caramel syrup or caramel squares
•Peppermint candy pieces, smashed
•Eggnog
•Flavored syrups of all sorts by Torani or Da Vinci
•Peanut Butter
•Red hot candies

TOPPINGS:
•Cinnamon sugar
•Candied ginger
•Orange twists
•Chocolate shavings
•Cocoa powder
•Fresh mint leaves
•Grated nutmeg
•Cayenne pepper
•Marshmallows (regular or chocolate ones or try online for coconut, cinnamon, caramel and peppermint)
•Whipped cream (regular and flavored - see recipe below)

STIRRERS:
•Rock-candy swizzles
•Peppermint sticks
•Pretzel rods (dip them into melted chocolate and coat with candy sprinkles)
•Cinnamon sticks

LIQUEURS:
•Grand Marnier (orange flavored)
•Kahlua (coffee flavored)
•Frangelico (hazelnut)
•Godiva chocolate liqueur
•Malibu rum - sounds weird but tastes heavenly!

Flavored Whipped Cream: Whip 1 pint of heavy whipping cream to the soft-peak stage. Add 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and the flavoring of your choice. Store chilled (up to an hour) until ready to use. Here's an example of a flavor combination: To make chocolate-pecan whipped cream, add 1 tablespoon pecan extract and 1 tablespoon cocoa powder.

I couldn't find much for hot cider. Of course you've got to have cinnamon sticks for stirring. I did find a few liqueur suggestions. Any other ideas?

•Hotdamn!
•Applejack in cider is my go-to fall thermos sipper. It's great for hay rides and haunted houses!
•Whiskey
•Apple brandy

Email woes

2008-09-17T00:10:00.000-04:00

Today we were working on the Google spreadsheet that contains addresses for our invitations. We were testing the form feature on it and I sent it to my email address. Nothing came. After trying a couple more times, I sent an email from our business email to my personal email. Still nothing. On a whim, I turned off my spam blocking at ATT and resent all of the above emails. This time everything arrived. Sooooooo...if any of you have tried to email me in the last couple of weeks, I'm not ignoring you! Please email me again or reply in this post. Thanks!

Spiffing up our invites - the leaf inserts

2008-09-16T01:06:00.000-04:00

I want to start off by saying that I'm not a very artsy person, meaning that I can't draw to save my life and walking into a Michael's store tends to overwhelm me. I'm not a complete crafting reject but Martha Stewart would never worry about me. I tend to be too much of a perfectionist so I get frustrated very easily. I'm telling you this because I want to encourage those of you who look at a lot of wedding DIY projects on blogs and think "I could never do that". We're not doing anything super-fancy for our invitations but I think what we came up with is very cute and it really wasn't hard to do. A little tedious at times, but not hard. I was very nervous when we started out but printing with the Gocco is very, very easy.

Here's a step-by-step guide to our leaf inserts. We wanted a way to spruce up our invites and include our website information so we came up with the idea of a leaf.

The first step is understanding that no matter what it is, a cat is going to be a part of it:

That's our design template. We traced a leaf from the maple tree outside our house and scanned that in. Then I used Illustrator to add text - I wish I had thought to use Photoshop because it's so much easier for me to use. We printed it out and since our inkjet printer is broken, we had to print it on our laser printer. That meant we needed to take it to Kinkos so that we'd have a carbon ink based copy. The Boy shrunk it down to three different sizes because I was being a spaz about it fitting in the envelope. The one above is the size we went with.

That's the Boy burning the copy onto a Gocco screen. I suggest ordering extra screens when you buy a Gocco. It's much less nerve wracking if you know you've got several backup screens at the ready.

That's the image burned onto the Gocco screen!

Cutting the paper we're going to print on. If you don't already have a paper cutter, I'd strongly urge you to get one. It made so many things easier because we had it. Buy one with the 50% Michaels coupon.

Inking up the screen with gold ink. We bought this ink from Northwood Studios.

This is peeling off the protective paper layer on the screen.

Printing the first one!

Getting into the groove now. That's the drying rack with cards stacked up. If you're going to be doing a lot of big Gocco projects, you might want to think about buying one or two more.

That's a leaf that's been printed and cut out. We used scissors on the first few but quickly changed to an exacto knife.

This is the finished product - all that's left to do is cut it out.

This is where the Boy thought he might need to reink the screen.

As you can see above, using the Gocco wears your ass out!

LESSONS LEARNED:

First lesson learned - don't ever let the Gocco close once you've got it inked up. What a bleeping mess! Also, the cleaner from Northwood Studio works so much better than the cleaner that comes with your Gocco kit. Use this and paper towels to clean things up.

Start with a smaller project to build your confidence. Don't try to do a complex design with four different ink colors for your first project.

If you're going to cut out a shape, if it wouldn't be a hard shape to line up with the words on the screen you burn, cut the shape out first, then Gocco it. Since we were going to have to squeeze our words into our leaf shapes, it seemed easier to just Gocco the leaf shape on the paper as well. That almost made it impossible to cut out the leaf shape with scissors without leaving some of the gold leaf outline around the edges. We remedied that by cutting out the leaves with an exacto knife. This isn't quick but it does look nice and the Boy watched football while doing it. The differences aren't really noticeable in pictures but they are in real life. The leaf we cut out with scissors was also fussed over several times, just to get most of the gold outline gone. The exacto knife takes a little longer at first but then it's done.

Above is the scissor leaf

Above is the exacto leaf

Remember that the ink you use will dry to a slightly different shade. This worked out well for us because we used the gold ink on cranberry red paper - the lighter color actually shows up better.

Unless it's a huge mistake, please don't sweat the small stuff. I realize that I'm being quite the hypocrite by saying this but I did try not to let the little imperfections bother me and for the most part, I succeeded. You're creating a one of a kind work of art, not something that's mass produced so please keep that in mind. That being said, make about 15-20 more than you need so you can weed out the worst offenders.

We did the printing over two nights. The first night was to test which paper the ink looked best on when it was printed. Then we ran to the store the next day, came home and printed some more. We stored our screen in a ziploc bag in the fridge.

Try to make your design so that you don't have a lot of detail work close to the edges of the screen. This is where you're most likely going to deal with spotty ink so don't frustrate yourself by putting detail work there. I'd stay far away from borders around the edges - you'll get spotty ink and you'll be able to see easily if your card wasn't lined up exactly right.

Try to stay away from tiny print. There may be some secret way to do this but I haven't found it yet.

If you can find one, I'd recommend getting one of the PG11 models if you're planning on doing more complex printing jobs involving multiple screens.

I'm sure I'll think of more tips and pitfalls later but I wanted to get this posted since we're all done with this part of the invitation, except for cutting some of the leaves out. I've been working on the envelope liners, the address labels, the monogrammed belly bands and the leaf envelope seals.

Cute casual wedding dress

2008-09-14T23:12:00.004-04:00

$228 at Anthropologie

Bird cage veil plans

2008-09-14T18:50:00.002-04:00

Since I'm having a reception dress made, I wanted to get something cute to wear in my hair with it. Thanks to a very sweet lady at WeddingBee, I found some french netting for a bird cage veil. What makes it even more perfect is that it has polka dots and it's only $3.85 a yard!

I am a Photoshop idiot!

2008-09-14T18:11:00.004-04:00

I gave up on Illustrator yesterday. My 30-day trial was coming to a close and the program just made me feel dumb. I know that with some classes, I could learn how to use it but I don't have the time to do that right now. A few years ago, I messed around with Photoshop a little. By messed around, I mean I really had no clue what I was doing but could figure out enough to have some fun. So I thought I'd download it and see what I could do. I spent the better part of this afternoon messing around with the program. I figured out pretty easily how to take an existing monogram and add my initials but I really didn't want to go this route - it seemed too much like cheating. So I downloaded some free brushes and patterns and I was able to come up with this:

I am so freaking proud of myself. No - it isn't perfect but it's all mine!!! I still need to tweak it a bit but I am so psyched that I could do this in just an hour or two. I always see these gorgeous graphics on wedding sites and I drool over them, knowing that I could never do them because the people that do them are graphic designers. I am FAR from being a graphic designer but I still managed to create several cute monograms today. If I can do it, anyone of you can do this. Seriously - just download a copy and start messing around.

I'll try to post the places I found the patterns and brushes I downloaded tomorrow. Now I'm off to see the Yard Dogs Road Show!

Alert! 50% off Michaels Coupon!

2008-09-13T23:07:00.003-04:00

I rarely see the 50% off coupons so get this while you can!

http://www.michaels.com/coupons/1000thstore/coupon.html

Good through Sept 20th.

Some gorgeous photos

2008-09-13T11:23:00.000-04:00

From Susan Stripling's blog:

Dingbat Press Invitation Giveaway! $900 value!

2008-09-13T11:04:00.002-04:00

Enter here! There are some gorgeous invitations at this site.

To be given away:
A Dingbat Press Wedding SuiteLetterpressed Invitation/Reply Suite of 100 (one hundered!)

Specs:
2 color, 5x7 or 4x9 letterpressed invitation.
1 color, Return Addressed Outer envelope.
Printed on our thick stock 110# cotton rag paper.
AND
2 color, 3x5 reply card (or thank you).
1 color, Return Addressed Reply Envelope.
Printed on our thick stock 110# cotton rag paper.

This will be for a CUSTOM design (4-6 week turnaround, no RUSH available on this giveaway)3 custom designs will be produced, winner will get 3 additional rounds of proofs.

TERMS:Giveaway to last 1 week, to close at midnight on Friday 9/19, winner will be announced Saturday 9/20. This package is valued at over $900 and one lucky winner will take it all! I'd also like to offer a 10% discount to all wedding invitation purchases made in my Etsy shop through the end of the month, they just need to mention code DP10 when purchasing.

ENTERING: Leave in the comments a link to your blog. You need to blog about the giveaway and create a linkback/pingback to The Dingbat Agenda. All successful posts/linkbacks will be officially entered.

Spiffing up our invites - the plan

2008-09-12T14:33:00.008-04:00

As I posted back in August, I won 100 letterpress invites from HelloLucky. I was thrilled! I really wanted letterpress invites but I couldn't afford them so I was planning on doing something with pocketfolds and thermography - probably from MyGatsby.com. When I found out that I had won these invites, scary Martha Stewart-ish thoughts ran through my head. I could take the letterpress invites and use them in pocketfolds. I could Gocco the other parts, like maps and RSVP cards. Oh - and I could wrap them with adorable ribbon and accessorize them with leaves.
In my younger years, I would have run with this line of thought. I'd either kill myself and end up getting them done (making myself and all those around me miserable) or I'd realize I'd overshot the moon again and have to settle. I've learned it's better to be upfront with myself and settle to begin with. I'm a scary perfectionist and "settling" for me usually means that everyone else in the world thinks whatever I've done is great. So I thought about how I could take my invites and spruce them up a bit - preferably stuff that could be done before I get the invites because I'm cutting it close and the invites need to go out in the next few days after I get them. So here's what I decided to do:

First, here are the invites I won:

Aren't they pretty? They're from HelloLucky's Marry Me line. I went with this line for a couple of reasons. One - I wouldn't have to worry about rush shipping. Two - they're less expensive than their other invites which means I could afford to buy the matching RSVP cards. That would mean less stuff I would have to make. Sabrina from HelloLucky is who has been helping me and she has been wonderful! So sweet and very quick to respond. I'm very impressed with their customer service so far.

I really wanted pocketfold invites but that's a dream I had to let go. If I had had a longer engagement period and realized how much DIY goodness there was out there, I might have been able to make that happen but I have to deal with what I can realistically do. So here was my spruce up plan. I love the chocolate brown but I wanted to figure out a way to add some red to the invite and I also needed a way to give people more information about the wedding, like maps and accommodations info. I thought that it would be cute to cut out leaf shapes and Gocco our website address on them. I also thought that envelope liners would be another easy way to add color and spiff things up. I considered adding a belly band around everything to hold stuff together. And finally, I thought about how to address them quickly (because I should get them next Wednesday and the majority of them need to go out on Friday).

I'm going to break each of these steps down into a post and give you pictures and information on what worked and what didn't work. I'll post those over the next few days as I get them finished - the belly band and addresses won't be until later this coming week. I'm a Gocco newbie and have never done scrapbooking or card making so if I can do these things, you all can do them as well.

Gocco-ing with cats

2008-09-12T14:20:00.004-04:00

I'll try to get the rest of my pics from our first gocco experience uploaded tonight but here's a teaser:

Small details

2008-09-10T12:02:00.003-04:00

Rose petals speared by high heels - for some reason I just love this photo.

Source

Gorgeous Fall Flowers

2008-09-10T11:38:00.002-04:00

From Michelle Ragos' blog.

Weddings and Sock Monkeys

2008-09-08T15:22:00.004-04:00

Actually, this post has nothing to do with weddings but everyone needs some sock monkey love every once in a while. And hey - if your love for sock monkeys knows no bounds, the sock monkey dress might be THE DRESS for you.

Sock Monkeys in a Meat Grinder

Sock Monkeys in a blender

Gorgeous Summer Drinks

2008-09-08T12:31:00.003-04:00

I think these would be perfect for a summer wedding! This picture is from TDiddy2's Knot bio.

The Boy's boutonniere

2008-09-07T11:39:00.010-04:00

When I was researching ideas for The Boy's boutonniere, I knew I wanted to find something a little quirky. I heard about the cutest idea that someone did for a wedding at an organic farm - they used little broccoli florets for boutonnieres. That would be a little informal for our wedding but the idea is great because The Boy and I love to garden. So I started thinking about what we could use that would be more seasonal. Persimmons came to mind but after thinking about it, I realized that even on his best days, The Boy has issues keeping food off his shirt. It would be kind of cruel to go and put something that was juicy and smashable on his tux on purpose.

I kept thinking and then I had this genius idea! What about a fishing lure? We both love fishing (The Boy introduced me to it) and it would be a little different. Most lake fishing lures are pretty large but a fly fishing lure would be perfect. GENIUS!!! Then I did a quick Google search and realized that of course 80 million people before me had also had this genius idea. Sometimes I hate Google. But hey - I've never seen on or heard of this before so it was new to me. Here are some pictures I found for inspiration:

A couple of weeks ago, we headed to our favorite fly shop in the Smokies, Little River Outfitters. When the guys there asked us how they could help us, I felt like a little bit of a dork telling them we needed something to go with our wedding colors but they thought it was a great idea and helped us pick some flies out. One of the flies we saw did match our wedding colors almost perfectly but the idea of The Boy wearing faux fish eggs on his lapel all day cracked me up. I figured we could tell all of our guests that it was some ancient pagan rite to promote fertility but The Boy overruled me on that. Here's what we ended up with:

I do want a little bit of flower in it so our florist may add a small cranberry red mum or coffee berries to it. I think a brown fern fiddlehead might look cool as well. Our neighbor ties flies so he said if we want him to add a splash of red to our fly, he'd be glad to do that.

Lovely Bouquet

2008-09-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

This is from Snippet & Ink.

Big sigh of relief over here

2008-09-03T19:46:00.004-04:00

While at the seamstress today, I went ahead and tried my dress on again. I wanted to see how much further I had to go to fit into it. When I bought it, there was a gap of about 2.5 inches keeping it from closing. The last time I tried it on in late July, there was a gap of about two inches. Today.........drum roll please............................half an inch. Whoo-hoo!

I've been watching my calories, using the rowing machine and lifting free weights. In the last couple of weeks, my weight loss has slowed down and I was getting really nervous. I think I must have been putting on muscle though because today the dress was that much closer to fitting. In fact, the seamstress said that if need be, she really could have zipped it up and we're close enough that she could sneak in a small panel to make it fit without binding me.

I know I've said this before but don't ever buy a dress that's too small if you don't have to. If you're in that situation, you can do it. It hasn't been easy but it can be done. Now you'll have to excuse me. Krispy Kreme has the hot doughnut sign up and it's calling my name.

Frankly my dear - I do give a damn!

2008-09-03T18:25:00.012-04:00

First, I want to introduce you to the inspiration behind my reception dress:

Behold - the loveliness that was known as Michelle Roth's Maya. It's no longer being made but even if it was, there's no way I could afford it. And even if I could, I wouldn't be able to stomach paying lots of money for a reception dress. So I looked for alternatives. Here's a copy done by Julius Bridal:

This is only $354 when you factor in shipping. I've read several reviews of Julius Bridal and some people have been very happy with their dresses, while others haven't. I still felt slightly queasy spending that much for a reception dress so I talked to my seamstress and asked her if she could make me a dress. She said that for under $100 (plus the cost of the fabric), she could definitely do that. I just had to find the fabric - white polka dots - not to hard to find, right?

Wrong. I searched through Joann's fabric department. I asked several internet savvy sewers to see what they could find online. I scoured ebay. Nothing. So on the advice of some friends, I headed over to Mill Agent fabric store. They sell fabrics for home furnishings. I automatically started imagining something like this dress, just in white:

I spent about two hours looking through at least 60 fabric sample books. I knew it had to be sheer so I only checked the sheer curtains books. When I walked out of that place, I was covered in lint but had found about four different fabrics that might work. I brought those pattern books over to the seamstress and she told me that two of them would work for the dress. One was a tiny swiss dot material. The other was this:

I liked this material but it was a fairly dark ivory. I really had wanted something that was more white and something that wasn't $24 a yard. But it looked like I might have to settle because it takes 6-8 weeks to get this material ordered. I ran by Jo-Ann so I could check out some patterns and get an approximate idea of how much I need to order. Here I am pretending like I know how to read patterns and sew:

I decided to look in the fabric section for material for the dress lining and on a whim, checked out the home decorators fabrics - something I hadn't done the first time I visited. The Boy was the hero and spotted this:

Score! $24 a yard with 50% off of that price! And this fabric only takes two weeks to get in. I walked out of there feeling so relieved. I hadn't wanted to spend a lot of money on a reception dress because it seemed so frivolous - who the heck needs two wedding dresses? If I can do it cheap though, I don't feel too guilty. My regular wedding dress weighs a ton and there's no way I can bust a move into the dawn hours in a huge, heavy dress. The only thing left to do is pick out the lining material and the crinoline netting (I'm thinking dark red) and I'll be good to go.

Who Needs a Movie? We do!

2008-09-01T11:46:00.003-04:00

We didn't think we'd be able to fit a videographer into our budget but my mom has graciously offered to pay for it so we're doing a last minute hunt for one. There's really no nice way to say this but the majority of videographers in this area suck. Their videos look like something a high school video editing class put together. Or something like this:

Except not as amusing.

Flip-flops on sale

2008-08-30T11:50:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-08-28T17:51:00.003-04:00

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!

2008-08-27T14:59:00.004-04:00

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

2008-08-27T12:42:00.005-04:00

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

2008-08-26T16:20:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-08-25T13:13:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-23T21:37:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-21T17:34:00.000-04:00

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!!!!!

2008-08-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

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!!!!

2008-08-18T13:31:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-16T08:36:00.001-04:00

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

2008-08-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-12T08:20:00.001-04:00

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!

2008-08-10T09:41:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-04T17:24:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-08-01T21:22:00.000-04:00

The weird bond of brides

2008-07-30T11:22:00.000-04:00

I think it's so funny how just the act of planning a wedding helps you forge relationships with people who you might never really interact with. I'm getting laser hair removal before the wedding. I'm 34 and I've gotten several coarse hairs on my chin in the last few years. I've christened them "man hairs". So I'm trying to kill them.

The esthetician who I'm going to is not someone who I'd normally click with. She's much younger and as awful as it sounds, I can just tell by the way she dresses, the clothes she wears, the amount of botox she appears to have used and her general demeanor (and please note that I'm not saying I'm any better than her - we just seem very different) that we don't have a lot in common. Except weddings. She just got married and she's been an absolute doll as far as giving me tips and helpful advice. I do think part of it is that she gets to talk about her wedding again but I also feel like there are a lot of brides who want to help others

Am I a lush? Hell yeah!

2008-07-28T10:43:00.001-04:00

This will be only the second wedding for Marcus's family that has alcohol served at it.

So why am I serving alcohol even though I know some members of his family will freak?

1) I figure it's a great way to get extra prayers for my soul.

2) If we did everything the way his family wanted us to, we'd be getting married at the courthouse because it's so unseemly to have a big wedding when we've been living together for so long. They think it's a problem we need to take care of - not celebrate. Although, to be quite honest, if we did what they REALLY wanted us to do, they'd have my fiance moving back home into the protective arms of his mom.

We are keeping it to beer, wine and champagne to appease them a bit but this was one of those things my fiance and I weren't willing to compromise on. Our friends are older and tend to be pretty well behaved at parties so we're not worried but his grandmother will be there at the reception counting each drink every person has. And that's ok. We've made accommodations on some things but this is one we're not going to worry about. Cheers!

The careful art of trashing other people's weddings

2008-07-26T13:48:00.001-04:00

First, I guess I want to throw out there that there are a lot of things that make me vomit. Dancing with your Dad to the song Butterfly Kisses. Making your bridemaids all wear the same shoes and pairing them up with groomsmen by height. Tiaras. Brides and grooms singing songs to each other during the wedding ceremony (especially "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong"). Flowergirl dresses that match the bride.

But you know what? Who the hell cares what I think? You certainly shouldn't. If you've always wanted to sport a rocking tiara - please, wear one and get down with your bad self!!!

The reason I bring this up is because I sometimes find myself censoring a bit about what I want or don't want in my wedding based on who I'm talking to. My wedding planner's daughter just got married and I find myself being careful of what I say because I don't want to offend her inadvertently. It's also strange how worked up people get over wedding etiquette. I run a message board and some of our nastiest spats have been over things like dollar dances and wedding registries. I guess I don't understand why people get so emotionally invested in some of these things. If you get a wedding invitation with eight registry cards enclosed with it and you're offended, don't go to the wedding. If you had a dollar dance at your wedding and other people think they're tacky, who cares? I once had someone tell me that if you were going to offer alcohol at your reception, you had to have a full bar or it was tacky. You know what? I thought to myself "I'm so glad we're not friends and you're not coming to my wedding!"

This is our WEDDING cake, not our normal cake!

2008-07-23T00:07:00.003-04:00

The Boy says the guy in the video is me.

Bridal Bargains - buy this book

2008-07-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

Can I just say that this is one of the best books I've ever bought? I bought a few other wedding planners but except for the DIY Wedding, I plan on returning the others because they've really not been of much help.

One of the things I love most about the book is that it helps you be an informed consumer. One helpful tip was when you call a reception venue or a caterer, don't tell them it's for a wedding. Tell them it's for a family function. The prices for two of the places we looked at were cheaper for a "family function". Needless to say, they got marked off my list. Another helpful tip was to be very aware of salespeople trying to put you in a much larger dress than you need. This happened to me once - I tried on a Maggie Sottero dress and it was too loose in the bust. The saleslady tried to convince me that going up a size could fix that because then the dress could be tightened more with the corset laces?!!! Ummm...that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I used the questions they provided when I interviewed my photographer, wedding planner, DJ and florist.

I've only had this book for 6 weeks and it looks pretty beat up which proves to me how much I've used it.

THE DRESS!!!! (drumroll please!)

2008-07-19T17:31:00.000-04:00

The first picture isn't of my exact dress but the style is almost identical and it's the only one I can find of the back of it.

The designer is Judd Waddell and I wish there was a way you could touch this dress through the Internet. The fabric is so amazing! I bought it in ivory. It's strange. I usually look better in white than in ivory if I'm wearing a shirt. I'm very pale and have almost no warm tones in my skin. When I tried on wedding dresses though, every stark white dress looked awful on me.

I think it's funny that all the bridal mags and fashion sites will tell you that if you're petite, don't pick a ballgown because it will overwhelm you. Ballgowns were the style that looked best on me by far and the simpler dresses didn't look very good at all.

Anyway - that's THE DRESS!!! I never had that moment everyone talks about when they just know it's the dress for them. I think part of that is because I'm very critical of myself. I'm a very passionate, emotional person but it took a while for me to commit to this dress. Now, I love it more and more each time I see it.

We've picked our caterer!

2008-07-16T21:05:00.000-04:00

I'm so glad I decided to go with a wedding planner. We never would have known about this caterer if they hadn't told us about him. In a strange twist of coincidences, he's the best friend of my hairdresser of ten years. He actually has two businesses. The first is catering for events like weddings. He also caters for celebrities that come into town. He catered meals for Allison Kraus and Robert Plant when they were in town for a concert.

We had our tasting and the food was delicious. We're didn't want to get too exotic with the menu because there will be people there who would be uncomfortable with overly "fancy" food. It was also important to me that we stay with mainly seasonal foods. There are so many wonderful fall foods that it seems silly to have shrimp and strawberries.

Here's our tentative menu:

Pre dinner hors d’oeuvres
*Fresh seasonal fruit and berries with domestic and international cheeses attractively displayed. *Baskets of gourmet crackers
*Grilled vegetables and antipasto display with Homemade blue cheese dressing
*Artichoke and sundried tomato dip with toasted baguette rounds

Buffet dinner
*Organic mixed greens with dried cranberries, feta cheese crumbles, candied pecans and Balsamic vinaigrette and Ranch dressings
*Pork Loin roulade with an heirloom apple stuffing
*Chicken Piccatta with a white wine lemon sauce and capers
*Butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter sage sauce
*New red mashed potato and mashed sweet potato bar with sweet and savory toppings to include butter, sour cream, scallions, bacon bits, blue cheese crumbles, chopped nuts,brown sugar, and marshmallows
*Haricot vert with sliced almonds
*Squash dish with the heirloom squash you will provide
*Artisan bread with butter and herbed olive oil
*Ice tea with lemon and pitchers of water included
*Freshly brewed coffee, hot spiced cider and hot chocolate
*Hot dogs with buns and appropriate trimmings for the children

One thing that I'm pretty excited about is that he's going to serve my Habanero Gold jelly at the reception. I can a lot and I can unmodestly say that it's the best hot pepper jelly I've ever had. Thank you Ball Canning Cookbook!

The Wedding Dress Death March!

2008-07-14T18:05:00.000-04:00

After going on several shopping excursions in Knoxville, I still hadn’t found a dress I was in love with. I had found plenty that I liked but none that I loved. So my mom and I went on a road trip.

At the end of June, my Dad had a high school reunion in Nashville and a priest that was a family friend retired so we all trekked down there so we could go to his retirement mass. So began what my Mom and I both call "The Wedding Dress Death March". We hit six stores in two days and I tried on 51 dresses.

I got to try on gowns at the same place where Eli Manning's wife bought her gown. The Bride Room was a wonderful place to look for a dress. They carry pretty pricey dresses (all designer) but it was a great experience. First of all, they were willing to accommodate me with a last minute appointment. The ladies that work here were so nice in a very genuine way (I can usually smell BS a mile away). They were upfront about what worked and what didn't work for me and they made my desperate dress hunt a fun experience. Charlotte is the lady who helped me and I highly recommend her! I found several dresses I really liked here. I'll be honest and say that I felt bad that I ended up not getting my dress here - they were that helpful and nice.

My next stop was SugarDrop in Brentwood. The lady that helped me was very sweet and I actually found my runner up dress here. She was very helpful and extremely patient with me while I tried on lots of dresses. I will say that it bothered me that I was told that the dress designers require them to cut the tags out of dresses. I understand that the lady that helped me was probably told to say that by the owner, but it did contribute to my decision not to buy my dress there.

Our next stop was Bridal Warehouse - lots of dresses to choose from at very good prices. The girl that helped me was very sweet but I had quickly turned into a fabric snob and didn't fall in love with anything here though.

A couple of our stops will be nameless because they were either rude or not helpful.

Our last stop was Faccio Bridal - This is where I found my dress! It was a Judd Waddell sample and even though it's a little snug, it's gorgeous. After looking at a million (it seemed like!) dresses, I've really become a fabric snob. Alissa is who helped me here and she was a real sweetheart, especially since I showed up without an appointment. I decided after I got home that I wanted to get this dress so they sent it off to the cleaners for me and shipped it to my house.

My new purchase

2008-07-10T00:28:00.000-04:00

I stole the idea from a Victoria Secret's tank top. Get it at CustomizedGirl.com. They have specials every week and frequently offer 10% coupon codes. I got this shirt and a rhinestone bride tank for $26.30 shipped.

My love affair with the shoes that might kill me

2008-07-06T18:37:00.000-04:00

I bought my shoes to go with my dress before I bought my dress. I loved them that much. They're sex-on-a-stick and complete flowery goodness all rolled up into one high heeled package. Without further ado, I introduce.....THE SHOES!

Sigh! I FLOVE these shoes! But wait, it gets better!

And even better? They were only $80!!! Now the heel is kind of scaring me. Not only is it 3.5 inches tall but those heels are spiky! I can just see me gliding down the aisle and doing a face plant halfway up. I did order some of these but they don't fit very tightly on them. That sucks because I think the concept is genius.

I probably won't ever wear these shoes outside the house again (ahem!) but they're so perfect for me! I will have to find another pair with the same heel height to dance in for our first dance but even that hassle can't dim my love for these babies.

Double Wedding

2008-06-30T00:05:00.000-04:00

How to sync my wedding with my values

2008-06-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

I love the current trend in eco-weddings. The cynical part of me (admittedly a very large part) rolls my eyes whenever I see a new blog story about them because I think they're very trendy right now and that quite a few people have them just so they can brag about them to others. As in "My wedding is so environmentally conscious. I have letterpress invitations done with soy based ink on recycled paper made from used condoms."

Unfortunately, many aspects of the environmental movement are out of reach for most people. Although I buy free range meats for my FH and I, there's no way I can afford to do that for a wedding. My Mom was telling me the other day about this great story in Martha Stewart Weddings (groan!) about a menu that featured free range beef and chicken. I said "Mom - that sounds fantastic! Do you have any idea how much that's going to be?"

I don't want to give up flowers just because I can't afford organic ones. I don't want to tell my friends and family that live out of town not to come because of the carbon wasted traveling. Even though I eat about 95% local in the summer and 60-65% the rest of the year, I can't afford all local meats and food for my wedding.

However, there are things I can do to that sync up with my values. The main one being that if I can buy it, rather than rent it, I will. I know that sounds ridiculous - how does buying more stuff help environmentally? My main goal for this is that I hope to reuse aspects of my wedding in my day-to-day life and I plan on passing the other things down to another bride after me. I also plan on buying used as much as possible.

I do plan on using some flowers in my wedding. I've already asked the first florist I've interviewed if I can use flowers from my garden - she thought that was a great idea. I'm also coming up with ways to reduce the amounts of flowers I need. I plan on using lots of votive candles and a farmer friend is growing heirloom winter squash for me that we plan to decorate with. We'll even be able to eat some of them later this winter!

Brothers Cove is one of the more environmentally friendly resorts in the Pigeon Forge area which unfortunately isn't saying much. However, they do make an effort to place their cabins so that they don't disrupt the natural beauty. They plant trees for any they have to cut down and use any trees cut down in the building of the cabins or in the furniture inside. They use building techniques like building on platforms to keep from cutting down more trees than is necessary.

We'll be eating seasonal foods and some of what we'll be eating will be from local providers. Cheese will be from Locust Grove Farm and several farmer friends will be growing produce for me. We'll be serving hot pepper jelly made from peppers from my back yard and the fillings in the cake will be from local fruit I preserved this summer. For favors, we're giving out apple butter made from local apples.

There are just a few things but I'm happy about them. I wish I could do more but then the rational side of me says to the perfectionist part "The perfect is the enemy of the good". We do what we can and we try to improve. And that's all we can do.

7 months is the shortest engagement period ever!

2008-06-18T14:17:00.000-04:00

I never realized that seven months of being engaged would be considered a ridiculously short engagement length. I've actually had people act shocked, like this was a shotgun wedding we were planning. We've been dating for 12 years - a two year engagement period seems a bit silly. Besides, I'm almost 35 and we're thinking about starting a family. If we're going to do that, we need to get moving so waiting forever to get married doesn't sound very wise in my book. I just think it's sad that so many people have such long engagement periods because they need so much time to plan a wedding and/or they need to save up money. I also know of at least two young girls who are having really long engagement periods because "they want to be sure" this is the person they want to marry. Whatever happened to waiting to get engaged when you're sure you know this is the person you want to marry?

I don't want to be overly critical of other people's choices, but it's frustrating when I've had so many people be critical of mine. Of course, we also have the opposite side of the spectrum - people who tell me they planned their wedding in two weeks so I can do it. You know what? That's great that they did that but I have this feeling that the wedding they planned for themselves is not the kind of wedding we want. The wedding we want will take some time and planning and that's ok.

Stick me on a wedding cake - I'm done!

2008-06-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be completely honest. I realize that there are lots of women out there who think trying on wedding gowns would be so much fun. I was not one of those women. I detest trying on clothes. Hate it, hate it, hate it. When I shop for clothes, I head to Marshalls or TJ Maxx and grab about 30 things to try on. It's something I get over with as quickly as possible. Objectively, I know there are a lot of people who would like to have my figure. I'm not overweight, I've got long legs for a short girl and nothing is out of proportion with anything else. Of course I want to lose the requisite 20 pounds (and I'm ashamed to admit this because I hate what our society does to women) but nothing awful to work with. However, I very rarely like the way I look in clothes. It takes me a long time to find stuff that I think is flattering and I was not looking forward to trying on THE MOST IMPORTANT DRESS I WILL EVER BUY and picking one out.

I was pleasantly surprised. I actually had fun. I went with my maid of honor and best friend the first time and we had a really good time. The first store we hit was White Lace & Promises. Lori who helped us was fantastic and I highly recommend her. She asked me what I was looking for and I told her that I really had no idea. I just knew that I didn't want an elegant, slip-style dress like you'd see J Crew models wearing because I knew I'd look stupid in it and I didn't want a dress with an empire waist because then all of my FI's relatives would whisper that I was pregnant.

So these styles were out:

She gave me a bunch of clips to put on the dresses we wanted to try on and we started looking. My first realization was that there may be more choices now, but there are still buttloads of strapless dresses out there. I quickly ruled out the more spangle-encrusted gowns. I tried on a mermaid shaped dress and my BF and I promptly cracked up at how dumb I looked. We decided that if I was going to go strapless, I looked better with a sweetheart neckline rather than one that was straight across. I found it funny because I expected my BF to pick out different styles of dresses than what she choosing, just based on what she personally liked. I asked her about it and she said that I was more "sparkly" so she was choosing based on that. For some reason, that cracked me up. I told her it was perfect. Sparkly could be used both as a compliment and as an insult.

We quickly decided that the more pouffy the skirt of the dress was, the better I looked. Nothing elegant for me - hook me up with a Donna Reed dress!!! Here's a pic of our favorite dress at that store:

Is that not one of the most ridiculous dresses you've ever seen?!!! Yet it looked really good on me. My waist looked tiny and even though I'm on the short side, it didn't overwhelm me. So a 50s prom dress was where it was at.

We went and fortified ourselves with strawberry margaritas - it was a girly day and we needed a girl drink! Whipped cream and all! Then it was on to our next stop.

Wedding Wonderland was next. This was not my favorite store to be blunt. I've heard from other people that they loved it but the girl who helped us was a snot. It's one of the more upscale bridal shops in town but Rodeo Drive it isn't. {rolling eyes} I had called and asked if it was necessary to have an appointment for a weekday and was told it wasn't. Our saleslady acted a bit put out by our just showing up. Then she asked me when my wedding date was - I lied and said October. Her eyebrows shot up at that. I'm sorry but I think it's insane that women are expected to shop over a year in advance for a wedding dress. I overheard another girl talking about how she was buying a dress for her wedding next May. No - not this coming May but May of 2009. Of course she was also having 14 of her sorority sisters be her bridemaids so I immediately quit listening and we started to shop.

I really like Maggie Sottero dresses. Some of them are (IMHO) hilariously hoochified. But after trying a couple on, they looked very good on me. I seriously thought the girl helping us was going to put her foot on my back to get the strings as tight as she could. It looked great though, even if I couldn't breathe. I also tried on a Lea-Ann Belter dress - I fell in love with the fabric. It made it look so rich and expensive. Here's a pic:

I decided that I had had enough of trying on dresses that weighed more than my cats so my BF and I decided we'd call it a day and I'd go the next round with my mom.

Wedding themes

2008-06-12T16:17:00.000-04:00

I explained to my mom last night about how all weddings need a theme now. Her reply?

"Isn't getting married enough of a theme?"

I love my mom!

Do I get my midlife crisis now?

2008-06-09T11:34:00.000-04:00

Or do I have to wait until I'm 40? It's the big 35 today for me!

Reception Search - THE HOLY GRAIL!

2008-06-03T23:19:00.002-04:00

Ok, so Brother's Cove isn't the holy grail but it's pretty awesome. The night I got engaged, my Mom looked around the cabin we were in and said "Wouldn't it be neat if you could get married in a huge cabin somewhere up in the mountains?" I thought so and after talking with The Boy, we decided to focus on finding a reception area in the mountains.

Brothers Cove is fairly new and I can't even remember how I found it. I just know that I was Googling for venues and I came across pictures of their Countrymen's Lodge. I fell in love over the Internet. We saved this place for last because we were hoping it would THE ONE! Me being me, I know how much of a spaz I can be so the entire time we were driving up there, I kept telling myself "Don't get your hopes up! It probably sucks." The Boy and I got the keys to the place, drove up and walked in the door. We looked and each other and we both mouthed "Holy Crap!' This was exactly what we had envisioned. Somewhere rustic but still elegant. It looked perfect for a fall wedding and the fact that there were cabins on site(and very reasonably priced to boot) made it even more appealing.

Next, we checked out a cabin and they're stunning! I love how they're not stacked on top of each other and the views are amazing. The decor inside is some of the nicest I've ever seen. We're not going to be able to take a honeymoon right away but we knew that we'd be ok 'mini-mooning" at Brothers Cove.

We made a decision within ten minutes that we wanted to have our reception there. I called my Mom and gushed about how great it was. Now we just needed to see what dates were open. We came up with two - September 13 and November 8. Since it was May already, September seemed way too close and it would still be pretty hot. So November 8th was going to be our wedding day!!!

Here's a bunch of pictures we took that day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/catsofmanycolors/collections/72157604601691217/

A magical colored wedding dress

2008-06-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

When I was in my 20s, I used to ponder significant issues with my friends like "Wouldn't it be cool if everyone's wedding dresses turned colors based on how slutty the bride had been before getting married?" Now lest you think I'm being sexist, first let me say that I'm totally in favor of this being the case for the groom as well. The dress (or tux) would kind of be like a mood ring. It would go from white to red, merely based on how much the person had slept around before marriage. We all thought this was a fabulous idea because we knew we all would rock the hell out of our scarlet red dresses when we walked down the aisles. But then I started thinking that this idea was stupid because of the puritanical nature of it. I'd rather my dress idea target people who are hypocrites - those girls who make a big show of pretending to be pure but who we all know are sleeping their way to a 2 carat engagement ring. I'm always been amused at how so many people will look askance at me because I'm living in sin but somehow it's perfectly ok for them to sleep with their BF as long as they maintain the image of having their own place.

I only mention the mood ring dress idea because one of the finalists for my wedding dress has large amounts of red in it. Touche!

Reception Search - stop #2

2008-05-27T15:10:00.000-04:00

Our next stop was The Lily Barn. I'm a gardener so I was very interested to see this place. They have over three acres of perennial gardens and after taking a tour of the place, I have to say that it's beautiful.

Major strikes against it - you could only stay until 10pm. The reception area is an open-air barn which is very pretty. It does have sides that roll down in case of bad weather but you had to decide to do this a couple of days beforehand. Anyone who lives in East Tennessee will be sure to tell you that if you don't like the weather, wait an hour and it will change. It was also pretty pricey for what they offered. However, if you're looking for a place for a gorgeous garden wedding in the spring or summer, check them out. Check out this blog post for some more pictures.

Reception Search - continued!

2008-05-23T18:04:00.000-04:00

Our first stop was The Barn Event Center of the Smokies. This is a gorgeous place that looks like it's been here forever. It's actually very new. I have a deep and abiding love for cantilevered barns. The inside is very spacious and airy. The rental fees are reasonable and the catering fees aren't bad either. However, the latest we could stay was midnight and that included cleanup time. I also wanted to be able to bring my own caterer in and they charged extra for that. This was definitely an option but it wasn't exactly what we were looking for.

Why I hate wedding timelines

2008-05-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

I'm a bit of a procrastinator. I'll just be honest and admit it upfront. But it's frustrating to feel like the world's biggest slacker without even a chance to redeem yourself. According to the wedding timelines online, I haven’t even procrastinated anything yet and I’m already 6 months behind!

Reception Search

2008-05-14T13:28:00.001-04:00

We spent an entire day last week looking at reception venues in the mountains. Finding places to get married in the mountains is very easy. Finding places in the mountains to get married that I can afford and that aren't wedding chapels - not quite so easy.

Let's kick this search off with a completely off-the-wall-no-way-I-could-ever-afford-it choice. Blackberry Farms!

Absolutely gorgeous but outrageously expensive. I once looked into getting a room there for a romantic weekend for The Boy and I but it was over $800 a night and it's only gone up. Our wedding photographer, Julie Roberts, told us that she had found out that it costs $68,000 just to rent the lodge out for the weekend. That doesn't include anything but the lodging - flowers, catering, activities - everything else is more money.

Sigh. Maybe next time I get married. :-D

Photographer - check!

2008-05-09T10:21:00.000-04:00

Our photographer was the first thing we crossed off our checklist. My Mom has always stressed the importance of good pictures and I knew that a good photographer was a priority in our wedding budget.

First, I had to get over the sticker shock for wedding photographers in our area. That was hard to do but after pricing several different photographers, I realized we needed to just suck it up. I looked a few recommendations for cheaper photographers from some ladies on the local TN board for The Knot but I wasn't impressed with their online pics. The way I look at it is that if I'm not impressed by the pics they've cherry picked to show themselves off, then I'm not going to be impressed by anything else.

I paged through our local city bridal guide and one photographer in general stood out to me and to my FI - Julie Roberts.

I loved how she made people look so good. I loved her candid shots but I also liked her more formal ones. After reading her blog, I fell more in love with her pics. After showing them to my FI, he stood up, called her and made an appointment! He's certainly not a disinterested groom but that kind of interest speaks volumes to me.

Why am I chagrined?

2008-05-01T11:25:00.001-04:00

Why do I call this blog The Chagrined Bride? Well duh! It's because I'm chagrined about being a bride! :-D

Although I BMX biked with the best of them when I was younger, I'm still very much a bit of a girly-girl. I'd probably be more of one if it didn't take so much time. I'm also a feminist who's very proud to call herself one. I love wearing cute clothes but not so much shopping for them. I'm 35 with an insane number of cats. My FH and I have lived together for almost ten years and we own a business together. I'm from a part of the country that usually gets banjo jokes made about it. I'm not really the target audience for most of the wedding industry.

I think the wedding industry has gotten a bit ridiculous. We're subjected to all of these perfect, expensive weddings that are planned by professionals and we're supposed to figure out a way to do a champagne wedding on a beer budget. Botox is required and you might want to think about getting those boobs lifted while you're at it. Don't even think about skimping on the flowers or everyone will know how cheap you really are!

So obviously, I think the current obsession with weddings is a bit silly. I mean, how many damn TV shows can they have about every freakin' aspect of weddings?!! At the same time, I also get very pissed about the idea that there's all these Bridezillas running around, spreading their bitch-i-tude wherever they go. It's a very sexist name first off. It panders to the idea that while an angry man can be admired, an angry woman should be scorned. It's also a way to be dismissive of a woman with a legitimate complaint. It also hypocritical. The same wedding industry that has set these unreal expectations about how perfect your wedding should be has no problem producing TV shows that make fun of woman when the pressure gets to them.

I've found over the past few months that it's hard to find a happy medium. You either must be obsessively planning every last detail down to the monogrammed toilet paper or you must treat the whole wedding process with scorn and make fun of any woman who enjoys it or spends too much money on it. Thank God for the blogsphere! Wedding blogs seem to be the one of the few places where you can find a compromise. You're able to find women who know that the getting married part is actually the most important part but that doesn't mean you can't have fun and take time planning the rest.

I'm very proud that I'm going to be a bride and a wife. At the same time, I'm a bit chagrined at how I've gotten into my wedding planning. I haven't lost site of the important part - that I'm marrying the man that I love. But I also love window shopping at Etsy for the perfect wedding jewelry. I haven't planned my wedding since I was 12. In fact, I hadn't really had any thoughts about exactly what I would like even though I knew The Boy was planning on proposing soon. I'm having a blast planning it now though!

I'm engaged!

2008-04-17T10:59:00.002-04:00

I got engaged a couple of weeks ago! Here’s the story of how The Boy proposed.

It was a great weekend. I knew The Boy had been planning on proposing soon and I thought it might be that weekend because he had been planning a party. It's kind of hard to surprise me because I'm a PITA. He and I met at a Methodist summer camp. He had worked there for the three summers prior to that year and had come back to volunteer for a week. I had heard from several of my friends how funny he was and how we both had the same warped sense of humor. So he volunteered and we both liked one another. However, I had sworn off men for the summer because they were more trouble than they were worth. I didn't mind flirting with him though. He came back to volunteer another week and he showed up at few of the camp parties that we had on weekends. He showed up at one with his best friend, Jeff. It was being held at his friend John’s cabin on the Little River. It was kind of funny because it was obvious that Jeff had come to check me out and make sure I was ok for his boy. The Boy and I ended up talking for several hours down by the Little River. Of course we got all kinds of grief when we came back to the cabin. The Boy came back up to visit a few more times. One of my good friends had taken the “no guys” oath with me for the summer. I distinctly remembered that as I was leaving the end of the summer party, she looked at me, looked pointedly at The Boy and said “Just so you know – the summer’s over!” and grinned. And the rest was history……

So two weeks ago, The Boy said we were going to go away for the weekend. I adore The Boy and I think he’s awesome but one thing he’s not so good at is lying. He was spending an awful lot of time on the phone and acting very excited. So I went and got my nails done just in case. Does it make any less awful that I did that if I explain I’d been doing some heavy duty gardening and my hands looked awful? No? I didn’t think so.

I pack a bag, kiss the kitties goodbye and set off with The Boy to somewhere. He had been checking the weather all day and it was raining. What made this trip totally awesome was the fact that The Boy got four phone calls on the way up. Rather than converse with these people in the car, he pulled over each time, got out of the car (in the rain) to talk to them. I offered to stick my fingers in my ears and hum but he didn’t go for that. So we’re driving and we’re heading up to the mountains. We head into Townsend and The Boy has to pull over to have a heated discussion with my brother. He gets back in the car and I ask him if there’s anything I can do because he looks frustrated. He says “Imagine who out of all of our friends and family would be the most likely to be late. I say “My parents” and he nods yes and we both crack up laughing. “So we’re going to drive around for a bit.” So we drive around and I’m still trying to figure out exactly where we’re going. About a half hour later, we pull into the driveway of John’s cabin. We walk up to the steps where a lot of people on the porch are sitting and I see my best friend Dani who promptly yells “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” and we both start laughing. There are about 25 people there – friends from camp and friends from our neighborhood and there are a few I haven’t seen in a while so there were hugs all around. My brother’s also there, he hands me a beer and we sit down on the porch swing and chill. Dani comes over and whispers “he tried so hard to surprise you – it was adorable”. And I whispered back “Out of all the flaws he could have, being a crappy liar is A-OK by me.” A few more people arrive and then my parents show up looking a little frazzled. So we chill for a bit on the porch and hang out. After a little while, The Boy asks all of us to go down by the river.

It had stopped raining by this point. So we all go down to the river and The Boy starts talking. He tells everyone that there is a special reason that he asked them to come there today. He explained how we met at camp and told them all about some of the ways we had verbally sparred and teased each other – with me usually coming out the victor. He said he was very intrigued by me and wanted to get to know me better. He said “Some of you all know what it's like at camp. You try to flirt with a girl and get to know her and 30 seconds later, one of your kids jumps off the porch and breaks his leg.” He explained how he knew I was coming to John’s party and he had called his best friend Jeff (who was there) and asked him to come up and meet me. He explained how we had talked for hours down by the river and how he had decided at the point he was going to do whatever he had to do to keep me in his life. Then he asked me to marry him. Much kissing ensued while our friends and family cheered. The he said “Wait a minute – I’ve got a ring!” and all the girls there squealed. He put it on my finger and we smooched again. And at that moment, I whispered in his ear “It’s gorgeous – did you…” and he interrupted me and said that yes he had gotten insurance and that the other diamond was a conflict-free diamond. He knows me too well. Then everyone came up and congratulated us and all the girls checked out the ring. They all exclaimed how nice it was and I remember a good friend of The Boy said to him “Wow – that ring is gorgeous” with a note of wonder in her voice. To which The Boy replied “Always the tone of surprise!” My mom had bought me crystal toasting flutes that we’re going to use again at our wedding and champagne bottle were popped. I almost freaked because my best friend and her husband had gotten us a bottle of Dom Perignon. I remember trying to convince her that she really didn’t need to do that and she told me to shut it and Doug popped it open. Our friend Karen had brought a cake and we all celebrated. After a bit, we all got back into our cars for the second part of the surprise.

We drove through the GSMNP in a big caravan on the way to wherever we were going and I remember I started playing all of “our” sweet songs for us to listen to. Then I said – forget this! I’m too happy to play romantic music right now, The Boy agreed and we queued up the Pet Shop Boys and sang all the way to Gatlinburg. When we got there, The Boy started driving up a very twisty road and we pulled up in front of a gorgeous cabin. Everyone came in with food and drinks and we had a party! My Mom brought three cheesecakes! Some more friends showed up and we cranked up the music and started dancing. It was such an amazing time. He got a cabin with several bedrooms so people could stay over. I woke up the next day and ate jalapeño potato chips with onion dip and cheesecake for breakfast. We just hung out the rest of the weekend and on Sunday we drove up into the park and hiked a bit.

It was a wonderful weekend and I haven’t been able to stop smiling since. Now we’re trying to get things planned for a wedding this fall.