#66 Encouraging thoughts

I saw this on 2000 dollar wedding and it helped me relax. I've been quite nervous thinking about being in front of so many people and being the center of attention. I know I don't seem like a very shy person, but when it comes to big audiences, my stomach hurts just thinking about it. Anyway, this helped, and I thought it was quite sweet. It was written by the bride as a wish to future brides. This is how I want to feel. :)

Look at how relaxed I was. Fully present in the moment. Basking in it. Soaking it in. I was not saturated in stress.

My shoes and dress were comfortable enough for dancing. My beauty radiated out of me; it was not applied to me.

I got to spend quality time with my friends and family. I was myself, not a show. In fact, I was my fullest expression of self.

I do not remember whether the invitations were letterpress or whether the flowers at the ceremony were the same ones at the reception.

The wedding favors or the fanciness of the food did not make memories. The sincerity did. The connection did. The time together did.

It did not matter whether every last detail conformed to the signature colors. Instead of saying, “What a beautiful bouquet,” the guests said, “What a beautiful love.”"

#65 Inspiration boards

The more and more I think about the wedding, the happier I get about our color scheme. I decided to stay with the girls' pink shoes. After all, they are only shoes and it doesn't mean that the entire wedding needs to become pink. It can be a beautiful splash color in flowers or ribbon. Here is a pretty yellow, white, with some pink (and a bike!) in inspiration board from Snippet & Ink.

Here are some more yellow boards. How fun are they? I'm planning on making my own wedding board with the bridesmaids dresses and shoes, flower ideas, and more. In the meantime, I like these:

[images via Snippet & Ink]

#64 Merry Christmas!

I'm up the the snowy mountains of Southern California this Christmas. I wish everyone a merry merry Christmas. Jonathan is flying out from Tennessee tomorrow so it will be fun to spend time with him this holiday. Enjoy the holidays and remember the reason for the season!

Love,

Monika

[image courtesy of little brown pen]

#63 Honeymoon

Oh man, good thing our passports are current...COSTA RICA here we come!

Off the coast of Punta Uva beach is a beautiful tree house in the jungle. The "beach house," as it's called, is less than 300 feet away from the shore. The entire house is built from reclaimed wood in the forest, all very eco friendly.

Jonathan had been thinking about cruises, but after reading many reviews, the food options looked to be marginal. I can only imagine what it would be like being vegetarian. :P

Anyway, a close and awesome friend of ours, Shannon, mentioned that the tree houses in Costa Rica were really cool and reasonably priced. We looked it up and were instantly hooked. We watched nearly every video on the website (including two spots from HGTV: Most Extreme Houses) and loved it. Looked into tickets and found incredibly reasonable direct flights from Atlanta, GA. Fabulous! Well, we both decided to sleep on it, read some reviews the next day, and booked the following day.

I'm really excited. I think it will be a grand adventure sleeping in the forest amongst the monkeys and iguanas. We have scheduled canopy tours (zip lines), forest tours, iguana adventures, white water rafting, and more! I think it will be really fun and special. Neither of us have been to Costa Rica so that's another plus.

Here are some photos of the place: For more info visit costaricatreehouse.com

Beach

Patio | If you look at that little hole with an X in it - that's the beach. Apparently you can also see the water from the upstairs bedroom.

Bathroom | Glass ceiling in the shower, so you can look up into the trees. :)

Upstairs bedroom

Fully stocked kitchen, with beautiful wood I might add.

Cozy downstairs bedroom

[images courtesy of costaricatreehouse.com]

#62 Invites

The invitation progress is great. I have felt quite uninspired to work on them so I've been procrastinating. I got started today and I ran with it—the design just worked. I really only have finishing touches to make otherwise most of it is done. Next thing on the list is to find a printer when I get back to Chattanooga. I would post a teaser but I'm too excited to spoil the surprise. :) However...I like these.

 

#61 Ties at Target

I love this photo. I think the pine cones are a perfect look for a winter wedding. I found this picture on Once Wed and that tie in particular drew me in. I left a comment wondering where in the world they found that tie - and come to find out...Target! Who would have thought? I guess I'll just have to wait until Spring to find that yellow and white tie. Right now everything yellow has to have blue in it too. Ha. We'll we're just a few months away from Spring. :)

[image courtesy of Once Wed]

#60 Dishes

Right before finals last week, Jonathan's mom, Bodil, came to visit for a couple days. Jonathan and her worked on banners with Jonathas's plotter/sticker maker and we had dinner a couple times together. One night after dinner at Mormor & Morfar's, Bodil handed us a card. We eagerly opened it and it said "Merry Christmas, go look up stairs."

We looked at each other, then sprinted up the stairs. Jonathan's parent's got us our dishes! I couldn't stop smiling - Jonathan too. :)

It's really fun to think about planning our home together...and to see it unfold. Also, I love Crate & Barrel. 

#59 To do

School is officially done for the semester and off I go to California tomorrow. I hope to find time to catch up on wedding plans.

The goals are to:
1. Create invitations
2. Come up with food ideas/options
3. Maybe find new shoes...I keep having this reoccurring dream that I hate the girls' shoes. Maybe they are too pink? I don't feel like pink is really a favorite of mine, at least not the color they are. Don't get me wrong I really like them, but I'm starting to think of perhaps more of a red. Shortly after we got engaged I was enjoying dinner at a friends out and saw a bouquet of red and yellow gerber daisies (my favorite flowers). I was immediately inspired but somehow the color red fell out of the picture and morphed into raspberry...then pink? Maybe this Christmas I'll do some awesome outlet shopping and find pretty red flats for my girls. We'll see.
4. Create the vision for the flowers at the ceremony and reception.

This seems ambitious, but then again we are only 5 months out. :D

#58 I like.

Wouldn't this be fabulous?! A white canopy strung up by helium balloons. I think it's quite dreamy and happy. I can see it now–all of our lovely guests sitting under a white canopy surrounded by trees and woods. Oh man that would be joyous. Pretty pretty.

[image courtesy of a cup of jo]

#57 Untitled.

Today I wish it looked like this outside. Today I'm in the mood for sunshine and blinding snow to play in.

[image courtesy of little brown pen]

#56 RSVP...early?

Yay it's Friday! (In Tennessee at least).

I know we haven't sent out invitations yet, but Jonathan and I thought this was a good idea:

We have some friends getting married in Seattle next June (yay Eric & Courtney!) and we were looking around their website today and saw a very good idea, so we think we'll test it out too.

In an effort to figure out who all might be coming for the wedding...do you, my lovely readers, mind sending an email to jonathanandmonika@gmail.com once you know for sure whether or not you can make it to the wedding? Knowing how many out-of-towners are coming has been hard to guess, with schedules and the economy, which in a sense makes planning a little more difficult...but none the less it would be fun to know who may be coming. :)

So, if you are hoping to travel to beautiful Eastern Tennessee next May, do you mind dropping us a line? We'd LOVE to hear from you. :D

Happy weekend!

jonathanandmonika@gmail.com

[image credit unknown]

#55 Ha

Who am I kidding? I loving blogging and prefer it waaaay over that homework stuff. ;)

This is for Jonathan:

Love you Édes!

[image credit le love]

#54 Today

Thanksgiving was extremely nice. I relaxed, hung out with Jonathan, Kaitlin and my housemates. I slept in, everyday. Then Sunday came and I realized I only have 2 weeks of school left until finals. I also realized that while I was being extremely organized after break, I deleted a design project that I spent hours and hours on. It was quite saddening, but I've mostly recreated it by now.

Jonathan and I embraced Black Friday by my sleeping in and Jonathan buying a chainsaw. Later we went to Hobby Lobby and EVERYTHING Christmas was 50% off. We decided it would be fun to make a wreath. We bought all sorts of berries and apples and such, all for under $10. Amazing! When I get around to it I'll post the picture, but for now it's on Jonathan's camera miles away from me. Well, only 2 miles but it's freezing outside.

Anyway, as far as wedding plans...

Save the dates are shipped off! We only sent them to out of towners, in an effort to aid in making reservations and such. If you got one, how did you like it? I must say, the mailbox has never been so full. :)

Now, next on my agenda is getting some music in order for the ceremony and reception. Our MC, Zach, is in town this week and he stopped by my office while I was working tonight. Eager to help, he said he'd put some ideas together for me as far as what kind of feel I want at the wedding. Traditional...fun...funky...pretty....etc. Anyway I'm looking forward to his help.

I'm also working on invitations. It's a lot harder than I thought! I'm even more critical than usual.

Well, over the next two weeks I think I'm going to take a break from blogging. At least until this paper...presentation...test 1...project 1...project 2....project 3...and test 2...plus work 1 and work 2.