Wedding Week #2

If you missed Wedding Week Post 1, we are saving my sanity by creating Twitter-quality updates about the upcoming wedding and my recent projects so that I don't feel like a bad blogger. Please do comment if you would like a tutorial for something, just keep in mind that it will be July before you see it!

1. Got my hair did
I went in last week with mom to get a trial-run done with the hairstylist for my wedding-day hair. Mom wasn't sure if she wanted to get her hair done, so she tagged along with me and we got dolled up together (and went to Applebee's afterwards looking incredibly over-dressed...or over-haired...or something). I'm keeping the back as a secret now, but just imagine a pretty white flower and bobby pins with pearls on the end and we'll see how close you get to the final product later!

2. Bought some wine

Not much to say here. We're having Yellow Tail (Moscato, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir), Franzia Chillable Red (Adam's Mom's fave :D), and SutterHome White Zinfandel (my mom's favorite). We're giving each table a bottle of Andre champagne for the wedding toasts. It's the kind that I always drink at New Years, so if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for my guests to get for free! Maid of Honor N requested her own special bottle, which I agreed to. She's been known to steal champagne bottles off of guests' tables, so we're going to try to avoid that!

Thankfully we have a good booze security system

 

3.  Wedding Favors

I made our favors using Hershey's kisses and cellophane candy bags.  It was a pretty inexpensive way to combine the candy rather than the mini-boxes or jars.  I bought some Washi Tape with hearts on it and used it to seal the bag shut on the back side and then put a sticker with our names on it (from the VistaPrint order) on the front.  If you're looking to do candy, the cheapest I found was at Walmart.  I looked online at some places, but Wal-mart matched or beat those prices.  I bought plain, caramel, and almond kisses and hugs to give the favors a little variety.  I really wanted to put little stickers on the bottom of the kisses, but the night that I wanted to bag them I didn't have the patience to go out and buy little stickers and delay the process any more.

 

 

4.  Grandma's Charm

I mentioned about a month ago that I wanted to get a charm of my Grandma's to put on my bouquet to carry with me at the wedding.  My mom and I went out to my Grandpa's house last week to look through some of her stuff.  She and my grandpa used to own a thrift store and so they have a ton of things in her house and jewelry was no exception.  Grandpa showed me to her costume jewelry first, but nothing really spoke to me and I wanted something that was a little more personal.  Grandma had some really old jewelry that was passed down to her from when she lived in Germany, but it made me deathly afraid that something might happen to it.  Then I found the perfect thing, a guardian angel on a bracelet chain.

It really has no value (monetarily), but my Grandma used to wear a pin each day on her shirt with this exact same guardian angel (or an American Flag).  She had a couple of extras, so my mom is going to wear one at the wedding and then we are going to give one to my mom's best friend who is also our coordinator for the day.

 

5. Copycat Success

A long time ago, I stumbled upon this image that showed up on Pinterest.  It links back to WeddingBee, and the image is from The Knot, but I can't seem to find the original source.

I knew I wanted to do these for the wedding, so I bought 2 vases at Hobby Lobby for 50% off, submersible LED lights, fishing line and weights and baby's breath and set to work.  I had some floating candles that I had inherited from another wedding, so I was set.  And we succeeded!  Check out what will be hanging out on each side of the bar:

The light at the bottom will need to be repositioned better for the real thing, but it's kinda hard to make these ahead of time and just drop the light in there and hope it works.  The batteries are supposed to last 12+ hours, so maybe I'll just cross my fingers on the wedding day and turn them on in the afternoon.  Well see!

 

And that's it for Wedding Week #2.  Next time you'll hear from me, I'll probably be a Mrs!





Good Things

Today's post is a photographic/screen shot collection of things deemed good enough to share.  Let's begin!

#1.  My Dress Came In!!!

I got this little email the other day.  Since the wedding is so far away, we paid to have it shipped to my mom's house and we'll keep it there for the next 10ish months until we go in for alterations.  This email just said that it was in Kansas City and was ready to be shipped to us.

Mom said the package came in on Tuesday in terrible condition.  I wish there was a picture of it, but apparently the box was caked with dirt, squished and the tape was coated with dirt and peeling off the box...nice! Thank goodness for purchasing the $10 garment bag or else I would have been making my first bridezilla appearance this week!

#2.  Country Stampede is NOT the same weekend as my wedding!

I have been a little bit worried about this because it fell on our pre-versary this year.  When we booked our wedding date, they hadn't release information on the 2013 Country Stampede, but today I googled it...and voila! June 27-30 which is the weekend after the wedding (and most likely when I will be on my honeymoon and far away from the craziness)!

For those of you that do not know about Country Stampede, read that little caption above, and also know that it is an awful time to live anywhere remotely in the area.  Every year it brings in tens of thousands of people.   It is held out at the lake on the last weekend in June, but it floods Manhattan with half-clothed, drunk, confederate-flag-toting (don't EVEN get me started on that), straw-hat-wearing country music fans and Manhattan only has a population of 50,000 to begin with.

Okay, enough bashing on CS. Truly, there are civilized people that go to this celebration, but they are few and far between all the crazies.  More than anything, I was worried about my out-of-town relatives having to pay more for hotel rooms, being able to find hotel rooms and having to fight ridiculous traffic and crowds if they want to do anything the night before the wedding. And the good Lord forbid them forget to bring something and have to go to Wal-Mart.  Also, there is a ton more police out - not that I am encouraging my relatives to drink and drive - but I would hate for something to happen to them when the hotels are only 2 blocks away.

#3.  My Hair

Now, this is my typical lazy day, makeupless 'do for the summer.  If you don't know me, this picture probably doesn't seem too amazing.  If you do know me...can you guess what's missing?

It's the headband!

Ok, pause for sad story:  My hair started falling out last summer.  Like a GIANT spot of hair - gone.  I got 3 rounds of steroid shots at the dermatologist's office and around September the hair started growing back.  I've been wearing headbands for the past year now anytime that my hair is in a ponytail.  The scariest thing was we really didn't know why it occurred (the doc says stress...idk), and we didn't know if I would keep losing my hair (I didn't) or if it would ever grow back (it did).

But now, this crazy mess is long enough to stay in a bobby pin and I don't have to wear my stretched out headbands...yay!

It's actually straight for once (since I put it back when it was wet), but just imagine curls exploding from that section of hair and that's what it typically looks like.  I've basically gone through 4 stages of hair growth this year and this one is definitely the best.  I've named them:
Stage 1:  Bald spot
Stage 2:  Baby chick hair (super soft and stands straight on end)
Stage 3:  Super Curls (hair that would dry curly in seconds and was too short for the straightener)
Stage 4:  Long Super Curls (I can reach it with a straightener or pin it back!)

Luckily, this traumatic experience (imagine you woke up with a bald spot...it's traumatic!) was offset by the fact that I wear my hair down 95% of the time during the school year.  It has covered the stages of hair growth quite well, something that I am SO thankful for.  Not only that, but by this time next year, I should have normal hair for the wedding!

#4.  New Camera

Source

Nothing too fancy, but I upgraded cameras.  This guy is 16 megapixels compared to my  4+ year old 7 megapixel camera that I bought in Mexico.  There are a lot more functions so hopefully I will get to beautify this blog with clear, crisp images! Hooray.

Has anything been particularly special for you in the past few weeks? Share your good things!