#244-243

The color scheme via colorlovers.com . Really this is an amazing web site. You can search through other peoples pallets or create a brand new one all your own and name it. The green is really only for the leaves and such for flowers since I'm making all my own or at least that's the plan.

We have 3 more sites to visit this week. I'm excited about tonight's, the Cultural Arts Center, it's just a pretty old building and the reception would be in the gallery space with local art on the walls. Then we're going to see a Country Club, and the Sanctuary which we never actually went to the last time I posted about them. :)

The Athenaeum just got back to me and said for the rooms we're interested in they only have Fridays available. Has anyone traveled out of town, like 3 hours, on a friday for a wedding? We'd save a little money on the space, and probably on food too since less people would come. Hmmmm.....

#254-245 Sorry I suck

Wow. I've been terrible at posting anything at all. There has been quite a lot going on in our lives non-wedding related, but that's really not a good excuse.

So where we are in the planning... Geesh the days keep slipping away so quickly. We went to visit an absolutely gorgeous facility last night. The Columbus Athenaeum. My fiance is in love. We're both very visual people, which is sort of funny. We're the type of people that have a vision in their head, but find it very difficult to verbalize to another person, we just have to see exactly what it is that we're looking for and when we do we buy it. I hope someone else out there understands what I'm talking about. My mom experienced this for the first time ever this past year when she was shopping for an outfit to wear to my brother's wedding. In her head she knew exactly what she wanted and didn't want to settle for anything else. She called me one day and said "I finally understand why you're so difficult to shop with." Well any way WE just loves this place, and I do too, but I'm a bit more practical about it than he is, I think we should see a couple more places and then decide for certain. http://www.columbusmeetings.com/index.php?PageID=14

I've also finished all my puff balls, well I think i have at least. I'm not considering buying yet another color, a sort of Magenta to go along as a intermingler from the red to the purple. Have I mentioned that I'm an artist. :) I'm not famous or anything, but I do paint and draw, and things have to be visually just right as far as colors go, especially when they're analogous like reds and purples are.

I'm also considering making a small print/ painting as the favor to our guests. Something meaningful to the wedding but not something cheesy with our names and wedding date that would just get tossed out after being in the garbage drawer in the kitchen for a number of years. We're doing the Beatles sort of theme for music, and I think I want to have the base theme be "I Want To Hold Your Hand" so maybe something with hands. I did a art therapy project on hands in a metaphor and meanings class in college, they've always sorta meant something special to me.

Last but definitly not least I've ordered and recieved my paper flower kits as well as a paper butterfly kit from Paper-Source.com the most amazing site ever I think. I haven't started putting them together yet, but I'm extremely excited about them. And I'm considering using the butterflies for my bouquet.


These kits only run about $14 a piece and come with the patterns so you can make them any colors you like. There's also assorted flowers and such on the web site.

Okay, I'm off, to all of you happy planning.

#255, 254

This past weekend I also decided that I was going to start a scrap book of all the things WE and I have done together. He was my inspiration since he likes to save ticket stubs from everything, and has done so for years. We've traveled so much this summer, and I've got lots of trinkets and maps, fliers, whatever from all of our adventures. I found a really cute covered scrap book on crazy sale at Michael's crafts store while I was shopping for wedding crafts. I can't find a good picture of it though, so I'll wait till I have it started and post some pics.

#258, 257, 256

Apparently I got a little distracted over the weekend and forgot to post. Football season is in full swing you know, and my beau who I thought was only a hardcore baseball fanatic apparently thinks that all we will do till February is watch football on the weekends. At least it gives me time to go out with my girlfriends dress shopping and crafting and whatever else.

Since this is a 3 in 1 post I'll fill you in on our weekend if that's okay, as if you had a choice ;)

Friday we went to dinner with WE's (that's my fiance) cousin and his wife, both of whom I love. They're older than us, but you'd really never know it, and they're just the coolest people I think I've ever met, we really don't get to hang out with them nearly enough. They have also helped qualm WE's fears that we can't do our wedding without spending a gazillion dollars. It's setting in more and more in my own head that we can have our wedding however we want it, and it really doesn't matter what anyone says at all. You should have heard the fear in my mom's voice when I mentioned that I was thinking of wanting some color in my wedding dress. It was worse than the paper flowers idea.

Saturday was Notre Dame football day (well and OSU, but we really only watch in hopes to see them lose.) WE was about to lose his mind after they lost. I agree that there were definitly lots of bad calls against ND, but I had no idea of the drama it would cause. I did get to spend the entireity of the OSU game making pom pom flowers. They don't look like much right now, but I think they're going to be great in the end. I'm thinkint of doing different center pieces at different tables. Some with the pom poms, some with over-sized paper roses (which will also decorate the aisle), and some with fabric flowers, but that's probably getting really ahead of myself. I'm also thinking about candles, with rice paper paterned covers......hmmmmmm.

Sunday while the boys were watching yet more football, at least it was professional this time, I went to the book store and also the craft store. To my dismay I've discovered that none of the craft stores (and there are a few) carry large crepe-paper. This means I have to order online, I don't really like this option because I can't see the colors first hand, and I have to wait for shipping, and quite frankly I've never played with large sheets of crepe paper and definitly not double sided crepe paper. So if anyone knows anything about crepe paper I'd appreciate the info.




The first one is my pile of pom poms that I have so far, I'm going to start working on red, white, lilac. The second are from Martha Stewart.com, I want to hate her, but she posts templates on her web page, that means they're free, and on my budget that makes me love her. Happy Monday everyone.

#259 venting....and looking for ideas

I've been reading other blogs, and I agree with a few of them, I really prefer being annoyomous in my blog. And todays post will be a good example of why. This last summer my brother got married. His wift is the know-it-all sort, and i do my very best to put up with her, but sometimes the two of them combined brings me to tears.

Last weekend we went home to visit and show off my ring and basically let my mom get some of her excitement out of her for a minute (I can't even explain how happy she is.) I had to listen to brother and SIL tell me all about everything I should avoid and how they know everything about planning weddings now. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I talked about making paper flowers

thanks GabriellaDesign @ etsy.com

I mean really? These are just gorgeous, and I like the slightly cartoony feel to them. I've always been artsy anyway, why wouldn't I incorporate that into our special day. I think they'd be even more fun with a printed paper, and variety of color and texture.

Anyway the day before yesterday I asked my brother how much the total was for their wedding, the whole shabang honeymoon and all over 33K. I know I really shouldn't have asked, but i was sort of curious, they were pretty traditional about the whole thing, and I've always been pretty untraditional about everything. When I tell him we're trying to do it for $10,000 it's completely unfathomable to him (and most likely his wife also) and he spends a good half hour trying to tell me how expensive everything is and that what I'm planning is impossible. He even goes so far as to tell me that their reception site was free (except for the $65 a head they paid for food cake cutting and dj-not including the booze, and for 150 people.) Then yesterday he texts me with the figures for the rings (13K) dress (1.5K) etc. I'm super mad and I ask nicely for him to please stop being such a skeptic and try being supportive and stop bragging, and he tells me he's just being realistic. Meaning that I'm not being realistic. Thank god for best friends, cause I was ready to drive 3 hours to punch himin the face. She calmed me down in about five minutes, and cheered me up, especially after I told her that I'm planning on $50 on sale off the rack dressed for the brides maids.

I'm through with venting, and I'm absolutely serious about the brides maid dresses. People talk about brides maid dresses that they can actually wear again, what baloney. How many formal occasions do you go to a year? I bought a dress that I loved on super sale last year and the first time I wore it was the night my fiance proposed (that was 2 weeks ago.) I need to figure out who the other 2 girls are going tobe before I decide anything about dresses though. Something like this...





Though this is probably a bit more than we want to spend. Also I'd add a red sash.

Okay that's it for today. Happy planning to you.

#260

Tonight we're going to look at out very first venue. It used to be a church (obviously) which is sort of convenient for having the ceremony and also the reception. I''m nervous, we can't afford much, but this place is relatively inexpensive, we'd still need a caterer, but this place provides all the tables and chairs.

I'm so all over the place with the planning. Theknot.com and several other sites talk about what you're supposed to do in what order, but if I'm making the centerpieces myself I feel like I need to get going on those. I know the venue is important, but we don't even have the money for the deposit right now so I can't even get excited about them.

I'm feeling extremely distracted so i think I'm going to go practice some yarn pom pom flowers, have a great night.

#261

My now fiance asked me to marry him 2 weeks ago tomorrow. I've been on cloud 9 ever since. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me (every girl says that though.)

Neither one of us wants a super long engagement so right now we're planning for May 29, 2010. That gives us 261 Days till the ceremony. Which in all actuality is practically no time at all.

Everything I've read has said the first things you need to do are figure out a budget and how many guests there will be, after telling family and friends of course. I have absolutely no idea how we're supposed to figure out a budget, so I decided we're going to do it as inexpensively as we can, $10,000, and that's for about 200 people.

I'm going to admit first thing that I've also decided we need a $5,000 buffer just in case. But I'm confident that we can pull it off for $10k. I'm a do it yourself kinda girl with a keen sense of sale/ discount shopping.

So I'll wrap up day one with a list of ideas I have so far, I've come up with most of these from my past 2 weeks of reading the internet, which is why I started this blog actually.

• I love jewel tones, so I've decided on a few shades of purple, and also red, and pale lime for our color scheme. Adding drama with color is inexpensive.
• We both love love love the Beatles so their music is going to play a big role
• We're desperately searching for a venue to host both the ceremony and reception (we have a lot of out of town guests on our list) that will provide a unique setting and hopefully not have any florescent lighting, without costing a lot of money.
  
• I'm planning on making all the invitations, center pieces, bouquets and boutonnieres, and possibly favors myself (of course with the help pf some talented friends)

Have a fantastic hump day.