#29 The weekend

The boy has been practicing his bike riding skills for our wedding ride-off. Pretty nice eh? I think he is excited. 

In an effort to clean out the garage before our wedding (I believe that was part of the deal? haha) the boy picked up this pretty sweet tool box half off from Sears. Check out this organization?! I didn't know it was in him! See more here.

The boy got called off work today so we did some yard sale shopping. We found 5 beautiful glass vases today! It's been great. I think we might almost have enough for all of our centerpieces. So cheap too. Love it. I also love this image. Such nice design for a welcome table. I think I may steal it. Sorry, I got it so long ago I can't remember where I found it. Beautiful though!

Also, I sent off for a quote from a new caterer today. I haven't been able to get in touch with the lady I was hoping to use, so I had to start looking for someone else. This looks yummy...

and...I also touched base with the lady who is probably going to do my hair and make up. We'll do a run through here pretty soon I think. :) Yay! Things are moving along...

#28 Engagement shoot scheduled

October 19, 2008 baby. Ooooh I can't wait.

#27 Dad

Today marks a year since my dad's passing. I know that if he were still around today, he would have so much advice and suggestion for my wedding. So today, in honor of my dad I'm going to start a tradition. 

Each year, on this day, I will do two things:

#1 I will give my car some good love.

He gave me the bug and he always loved cars. I have fond memories of washing cars with him and watching him enjoy those pieces of art.

#2 I will bake something new. 

During his years of treatment he developed a real love for cooking. I think he always enjoyed cooking, but there was something about that time that made him really want to give. He was never able to enjoy the food through taste (due to his feeding tube), but he enjoyed it through smell and giving. I wasn't sure how to think of this day, but now I'm excited to bake and cook things I've never made before, in honor of my best friend.

#26 Further info

Thank you for your input Jeff. Excellent questions. I forget readers haven't been in my brain regarding this wedding. :P

1. Our wedding will be at about 5ish p.m. Sometime in the later evening though, I doubt much earlier. The girl getting married before me is getting married at 7 p.m. (so the chance of setting up Sat is none).
2. As far as I know I don't think we will need access to the place prior to the day of. Of all our vendors I can think of...I don't see it being a problem. The only thing I would miss is I was planning on bringing all the dresses and other clothes during the rehearsal on Friday and leaving them there in the house until Sunday. But not that I think about it maybe I should keep all those in case of a disaster...(fire?)
3. I think the decorating will be minimal. We are having a buffet and that will be taken care of by the caterer. Flowers we are doing ourselves but nothing too fancy. I've got 2 fabulous ladies heading that up. Then other miscellaneous things like candles and maybe some lights/lanterns (haven't put anything in stone yet).
4. As far as coordinating, I haven't asked anyone yet, but I do have some in mind. This is DEFINITELY something that I am planning on having. From all the brides I've talked to all have said to make someone else in charge...that way you can enjoy the day and just trust that it will be beautiful.

Hope that helps...
I'm looking forward to your responses!

#25 Help!

My vendor called yesterday regarding out wedding site. We have the place reserved for our day, with an agreement that we can have the rehearsal Friday or Saturday. She called me yesterday and told me that there is another girl who wants to renew her vows on May 16, the day before our wedding. She said it's up to me, since I get first dibs. The lady who runs the lake house has done this before and she said it usually runs smoothly. There are a few pros and cons to this situation and I need help.

PRO: If I let her share the weekend, we can share the price of chair rentals, which would save about 100. It may even save us more money if she is using the paper lanterns in the barn (this would save $50 if we split).

CON: If we did this, we would ONLY be able set up on Sunday. No Friday or Sunday set up since she will be there before the boy and me.

Doesn't seem so bad...but is it nice to be able to set up the day before? I'm not sure how much set up there will and I'm not sure there will even be time to set up before. Has anyone been through this route and have advice? Please help!

#24 Shoes

Oh my goodness if only I could FIND these shoes...they would be the ones. I spotted these babies on the Bliss Event Group blog.

#23 I won!

I'm an avid reader of the blog Brooklyn Bride. I've mentioned it before, as that's where I found out about Blurb. (btw I ordered a book to try it out and I was really impressed. I still think we may use it for our albums).

Anyway I was pretty busy this weekend and didn't go online until tonight. Well guys, guess what?! I won! She was having a giveaway for this awesome "bridal emergency kit" from Hallak (they preserve gowns and such) for the 5 best cleaning tips. Here was mine:

Of the 74 other comments, I made the cut. Woo hoo! Haha, anyway I'm pretty stoaked (FYI - i just found out stoaked isn't even in the dictionary. I hate when I find out that I have been using a non-existent word. What gives?) This is what the kit includes:

I'm trying to remember if I've ever won anything before. I'm not sure but this is really exciting. I've officially entered myself into the blogging world, yes? Haha.

Better yet, I've saved money. I alloted a little bit for a bridal emergency kit because you never know. Plus Martha highly recommends one and she knows best. :P

#22 The Registry Starts

We've registered! Well at least we started the process. We headed over to Bed Bath & Beyond today and went to town with the scanner. How fun! We mostly registered for kitchen things. We'll do bedding and towels somewhere else, so there is some variety. We also still need to find some nice dinnerware that we like. We did find some flatware we liked though. I just figured we had time today, and it feels good to get another thing done...started anyway. I think the boy had fun too.

Our BB&B Bridal Registry

#21 Music

While near the topic of MC, do you guys mind leaving me comments with music ideas for the recepetion? It would be MUCH appreciated. I'm up for anything...leave 1 song idea, 2, 100...it's nice too because then I can remember that you helped with the mix. Yay for friends and family, and weddings!

Let's bring on the iPod music mix folks, don't be shy.

Goodnight friends and thanks for looking.

#20 MC & bikes

Hello! I survived another week of school. Yes! You should visit my newspaper's website. Then you can see what actually takes up all my time these days...Jonathan and I decided that for our reception, we are going to have an iPod rockin station and skip the DJ or band. It's too much money for our budget, and we'd rather spend it on something else at the wedding. I knew that if we went this route, we were going to need to find a smashing MC to host the reception for us. I feel like I've spent months thinking about the perfect person and then the other night it dawned on me. There is no one better to host our wedding that Zach. He is funny, knows the drill, and has experience (This will be his 4th wedding MC job - I didn't even know we choose an experienced one! Haha). Anyway, I feel better knowing that our reception is in good hands. :) Doesn't he look like he fits the part? I hope he's okay with me posting this. Well guys, meet Zach, our fabulous MC.

On another note, fiance has picked up blogging. I thought about featuring him in various posts but now he has beaten me to it with a blog of his own! Check it out. His other interest is definitely bikes. He helped get me a beautiful cruiser for my birthday this year and soon after we got engaged I made this. It's similar to another save the date card floating around online somewhere. We never sent it out, at least we haven't yet. We'll see if it fits into the budget.

Anyway, since that card fiance has spun off into the land of bikes. He has been rebuilding/painting this super sweet 1960s tandem bike for us to ride away on (so stoked about this part). Check his blog for details and I'll try to post a photo or two once it gets finished...or maybe it will be a surprise? Eh we'll see. It might just be too cool to keep a surprise.

Here are a few bike photos that make me so so happy.

#19 The Blog

I updated some features yesterday in the blog. I also enabled the comments after I found out that some of you were having trouble. Now it's set up so that anyone can comment, even if you aren't a registered Blogger/Google user. 

I hope everyone has a great Monday!

#18 Our Photographers

Check these latest photos from our wedding photographers! I'm so glad we chose Erica & Ray from 35 atl. I can't wait! Speaking of which, we should schedule our engagement shoot pretty soon... :D

#17 Drinks

My fiance loves a number of things. One of those things is drinks. Especially juices and root beers. Tonight, he came home with some very fun things I had to share. Isn't this neato?

The two on the left are carbonated drinks that you have to open by pushing a marble down through the top of the bottle. Then you drink it with the marble trapped in the neck of the bottle. How creative is that? I love packaging. Thank you World Market.

The other drink is a yummy non-alcoholic ginger beer. We went on a survival trip a few years back where we made sassafras tea straight from the root. I don't know why, but the flavor reminded me of it. 

I'll get back to wedding things soon. :)

#16 Blueberry Muffins

I made blueberry muffins the other night. I have two friends who are leaving town this week and we had a mini breakfast date with some friends. I found this recipe online and went for it. I used frozen blueberries from Jessica's blueberry bushes. Yum :)

I made them so late I only made 9 when I was supposed to make 12. Oh well, bigger the better in this case! They were fab. I've never had muffins turn out so perfect. The consistency was great. Ha...anyway the recipe works if you want it. If the link doesn't work email me and I'll get it to you. I just don't feel like typing it all out at the moment. Yum I want more.

I'll miss you Ansley and Tiffany!

#15 Dress update

I'm just going to praise J. Crew some more.

So I checked my email this weekend I saw that J. Crew was having a sale, plus an additional 20% off. I went and checked the bridesmaids dresses and they had dropped in price from $129.99 so $99.99 plus an additional 20% off. Eeeek! I was so excited and frantic trying to figure out how to get the deal. Call J. Crew and ask? Return the dresses and reorder under a different name? Help!

Anyway with the help of Kaitlin she encouraged me to call and just ask J. Crew if they would refund me the difference. Well I did and the lady was so nice! I told her the situation and she said "Let me see what I can do" and put me on hold for a bit. She came back and said usually she can only refund me the difference after 7 days (it had been 8) but that she'd do it for me this time. Yay!

So we got the dresses for $80 plus shipping and tax. Thank you J. Crew I love you. So easy to work with. So helpful. Such pretty dresses. I couldn't be happier.

Well...I am getting married so I really couldn't be any happier right now! Yay!

K off to bed and school. I'll try to do some wedding things here on the side..in the mean time I like these photos. I LOVE yellow.

Oh, and Jonathan is working on a fabulous surprise. I'll give you a hint...it's going to be yellow!

#14 Winner!

Yahoo! Thank you UPS man for making my day. The dresses arrived today and they are perfect! This is Kaitlin and me (modeling in Leslie's dress). I can't wait to send it off to Leslie so she can marvel with the me and the other girls. Enjoy!

#13 Yellow

This assortment of pictures just makes me so happy. I just might make it my desktop background!

#12 For Fun

this video makes me happy.