The invitation saga

So I know I've been pretty much MIA recently, but when you hear about my story you'll understand why.

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy.  I moved out of my apartment and into the one that K and will eventually share.  I've also been fighting with the woman who's been designing our invitations for the past 4 months.  Yes, that's 4 months I said.

To fully grasp the craziness that ensued, I will have to start from the beginning and tell you the entire saga.  Back in April of this year, I started looking into invitations.  We found ones we LOVED from this one designer but she was super expensive and we just couldn't justify spending that much on invitations.  So I started looking on etsy to see if I could find a reasonable alternative and I stumbled upon a shop that had gorgeous invitations.  So I contacted the seller and told her that I loved her invites and asked for more detailed pricing.  I told her we were on a budget so wanted to stay as inexpensive as possible.  She sent me pricing and we eventually came to an agreement. 

We asked for references and contacted them, did a lot of searching to see if anyone had written anything negative about this seller and things looked pretty good.  So we decided to go ahead with her.

Now, I thought she would set up an individual listing on etsy so we could purchase it through them but she said she doesn't take PayPal.  She only takes check or money orders or a credit card for a 15% up charge so we decided to just mail her a check.  Okay, in hindsight and since you all probably know the ending of this story, you'd say that was our first mistake.  I'm inclined to agree with you looking back.  But at the time, we had no reason to suspect her and had gotten reviews from people who used her without issue. 

As soon as she received payment she started working on our proofs.  This process was a lot slower than I has expected but we still had plenty of time to get the invitations.  Our wedding is in October and it was still April.  Over the course of the next 3 1/2 months we finally came up with proofs.  I had originally told her I wanted to send them out in mid-July so I expected to have them in my hands by then.  But July came and went, and still no invites. 

After August 1st rolled around, I started to get nervous and angry.  We had paid her in full and she had no sense of urgency about this.  About 3weeks ago she told me that she sent a paper proof and the envelopes so I could get started on calligraphy.  About 1 week ago, I received the envelopes but still no proof.  After a couple heated emails, she finally sent me an email with a delivery confirmation for the invitations.  She told me that she'd refund my money for anything I hadn't received to date so I told her that I'd like my money back for the programs and thank you cards.  I had already purchased thank you cards at Target and contacted another woman in Georgia to finish up the rest of our paper for the wedding since, clearly, this woman is incompetent. 

I checked the delivery confirmation later that day and it wasn't in USPS's system.  I figured maybe she sent it too late in the day and checked the next day.  Same error message.  Pretty sure she sent me a fake confirmation number because she never actually sent the invitations.  So now, she is no longer responding to my attempts to contact her.  Her etsy shop which was ExposuresPD has closed and she has opened a new shop called EXPandD.  She's also on facebook as Exposures Photography.  Her name is Nicole Price.  I want everyone to know about her so that this doesn't happen to anymore brides.  Planning a wedding is stressful enough without having to deal with this.  We do plan to take legal action against her. 

Here's the thing, after googling her now we've found a lot of information that we somehow didn't find before.  She apparently has been scamming people on ebay, selling designer purses and then either sending a fake bag or not sending one at all.  While I think that's a terrible thing to do, I'm going to say that my story is much much worse.  It's not just screwing someone out of a couple hundred dollars and a purse.  She's messing with my wedding.  Clearly this woman has no heart and no conscience. 

I have since found someone on etsy who she sold program fans to who actually received the product that she paid for.  Guess we're just unlucky.  I'm not sure if she set out to scam us from the beginning or if she just used our money and then didn't have any money left to print and send our invitations.  Either way, we're out quite a bit of money with just a bunch of envelopes to show for it. 

So, we're dealing with it.  Yes, it sucks and yes we're both upset and mad at this woman.  But we at least have a solution and are taking care of it.  So for those of you who haven't gotten an invitation from us yet, this is why.  I realize they are very late and my sincerest apologies for that. 

I will say one more thing.  The woman that we've contacted here in GA has been AMAZING.  She just opened her small business in the past year and has completely taken over for me.  I've told her my whole story and all she wants to do is make it better.  So, if you're looking for someone to do your invites and in you're in GA her website is here:  http://www.especiallyyoursdesign.com/  and I HIGHLY recommend her work.  She really has been a pleasure to work with and has put my mind at ease. 

Groomsmen, Suit Up!

I've always been jealous of guys.  Yup.  I said it.  Not when it comes to the majority of things, but when it comes to clothes that green eyed monster rears it's ugly head.  Guys have it so easy!  Am I right?  Their pants come in sizes based on the size of their waist and the length of their legs.  They can walk into pretty much any store and buy pants off the rack without trying them on.  And then there's women's pants.  You can be a size 2 in one store and size 10 in another, easily.  And it's no mystery to any woman who has recently tried on bridal gowns that this phenomenon carries through into the bridal salons as well.  I know I tried on dresses in at least 3 different sizes that all fit me well.  And the dress I eventually purchased?  4 sizes larger than my typical dress size.  No, that's not a typo, 4 sizes.  Guys have it so easy.

So my expectation for suiting up our guys was that it would be quick and easy.  Turns out that dressing the guys was simple and yet not.  There are really only so many options for guys in weddings if you want a more formal look.  Tuxes or Suits?  Cumberbunds or Vests?  Black, gray, or brown?  Ties or bowties?  What color vest/cumberbund/tie/bowtie?  Yup.  That's pretty much it.  Sounds simple right?

One fine Saturday the mister and I walked into Men's Wearhouse and sat down with a consultant.  Unlike dress shopping, we were in and out in less than an hour and could check this completely off our to-do list.  So. Jealous.  After deciding on the type of formalwear the guys would be donning, the color swatches came out.  And this is where things got a little difficult.

You see, the girls are in eggplant.  I love the color, I think it's gorgeous.  But to my lovely fiance, it's purple (read: girly).  I tried showing him photos like this one:

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Just to show him that it could be much, much worse.  But we were still at a no go on the purple for the guys.  Looking back if I had pushed him on it, I'm sure he would have given in.  But I just didn't feel that strongly about the guys wearing purple.  But we still had to figure out what they were going to wear, if not matching the bridesmaids. 

After playing with color swatches, looking at photos and debating over it for awhile, we came up with a pretty good compromise.  The guys will wear champagne, a nice neutral color, and the boutonneires will match the bridesmaids flowers.  So, we still tie things together but my guy gets to go through his entire wedding day without being harrassed by his friends.  Well, at least not for the color they'd all been forced to wear.  

Anyone else not having girls and guys matching?  How did you tie everything together?

My Non-Floral Centerpieces

When we first started planning the wedding and were looking at our budget and how much everything we wanted to include would cost, we decided we had to prioritize.  We looked at all of our "wants" and made a list of our top 3 priorities.  This came with the disclaimer that anything not on this top 3 list we would be willing to compromise on.  As you can imagine, this wasn't an easy task.  But we did it.

One of the things that didn't make the cut for us was flowers.  Although I do love flowers, there were other things we wanted to put our money towards that meant our flower budget would be low.  So this means no large arrangements around the room and no floral centerpieces. 

The good thing about our venue is that they have large arrangements already in place on the buffet tables and along the walls in the reception space.  They're silk, but they're free so I can't complain.  But the centerpieces are a different story.  After doing a lot of searching I came up with a few ideas. 

I knew that I wanted something that wasn't too large or bulky.  We've all been to those weddings where you have to do jedi moves in your seat to see around the centerpiece to talk to the person across the table from you.  Not fun. 

Even though I know that with my family, this might be a bad choice, I wanted to incorporate candles in the centerpieces.  At my cousin's wedding, the family members at my table (who will remain nameless... ahem... you know who you are) managed to set fire to the table number that was gracing the table.  With a tealight.  We were able to quickly put it out before the bride and groom realized there was a small fire at the corner table.  So, with this history, you can imagine my apprehension.  And yet, we push on.

The first idea I had was floating candles.  Something like this:

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Another centerpiece I liked was the submerged flowers with candles.  Kind of like this:

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But once a theme emerged for our wedding, these didn't seem to fit anymore.  I still love them and think they are gorgeous, but we had to rethink our plans.  Since our venue has gorgeous trees, we've been going with a tree theme.  So it made sense to include this theme in our centerpieces in some way.  This is where I fell in love with manzanita branches.  For those of you who don't obsessively read wedding magazines, message boards, and blogs, here's some imagery.

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I love, love, love these centerpieces!!  They're so pretty and they go so well with our theme.  But, (of course, there's a but, right?) the branches are pretty pricey.  To do all of our centerpieces the branches would be a couple hundred dollars.  Most of what you're paying for is shipping because these grow only in California and have to be shipped so they don't break on their way to Georgia. 

So I've decided to use these kind of as a template, but to collect branches on my own.  It's actually not as easy as it sounds because the branches have to look a certain way to work for the centerpieces.  But I do have a first round centerpiece to show you guys.  I think it turned out pretty good and am excited to make the rest of them. 





I'm thinking I might do two branches per centerpiece because it looks a little sparse.  But overall I think it turned out pretty well for the first one!  What do you think? 

   

The Venue Search: How I Stayed Organized

When I first started planning my wedding, I was overwhelmed really quickly with how much there really is out there.  There are a TON of ideas, venues, vendors, etc. and months and months of searching wouldn't even put a dent in everything out there.  When I started calling around to different vendors and venues, asking questions and getting quotes, I had no freaking clue what I was doing.  What questions do you ask?  What's important to ask now and what can wait until later? 

I came up with a lovely way to stay organized, so I thought I would share this with you all.  After searching around and discussing our priorities for the wedding, we came up with a list of questions we would ask a prospective venue.  Since I am a planner to the core, I took it one step further. 

I made a Word document.  Each page of this document was for a different venue and had the information for the venue and all of the questions we wanted to ask written out.  I printed out each page and put it inside its own plastic sleeve which then went into a 3-ring binder.  Inside the same sleeve I put any business cards or additional information I got from the venue.  So whenever I got a phone call returned or an email from a venue, I filled out the informaton on the sheet and put a copy of the email in the sleeve.  It made for a much easier comparison between venues and helped us narrow down our venue and find the perfect place for us.  So here's the setup I had for each of the venues we contacted.   

Venue Name & Address:
Distance from Atlanta (mileage, time):
Phone Number:
Email:
Contact Name:
Nearest Airport (name, distance):

1.  Is the site available on (insert dates here)?

2.  How many guests can the site accomodate?

3.  Can we hold both the ceremony & reception here?

4.  What is the site fee for the ceremony?

5.  What is the site/rental fee for the reception? 

6.  What do these site fees include? 
       a.  Ceremony:
       b.  Reception:

7.  Do you have any wedding packages?  What is the cost and what's included?

8.  Is there lodging available at the facility?  If so, how many people can stay?  If not, is there lodging nearby?

9.  Is there transportation available to hotels in the area?

10.  Do you cater?  Do you allow outside catering?

11.  Do you offer both options of either buffet or plated meals?

12.  Do you have alcohol packages?  Is outside alcohol allowed? 

13.  Is tax and gratuity included in the quoted price?

14.  Would you host the rehearsal?  Is there an extra cost for this?

15.  Can you host the rehearsal dinner?  What is the cost for this?

16.  Is there a wedding coordinator or planner that works with your venue?  Is this included in the package or price? 

17.  Is there a florist your venue works with?  Is this included in the package or price?

18.  Is there a DJ your venue works with?  Is this included in the package or price?

19.  Is setup and tear down included in the cost?  If not, what is the cost for this?

20.  How long do we have use of the facility?

21.  How many weddings or events are going on at the same time?

22.  Do we need to purchase event insurance?

23.  Do we need to purchase a liquor license?


How did you or are you staying organized with your planning?  How did you keep track of everything you asked the vendors/venues? 

Gift Giving: Buying for 200 people

The whole gift giving process is difficult.  It's hard enough to find the perfect gift for one person that you know they'll love, cherish and most of all, use for years to come.  It gets even harder when you're buying for 150-200 of your closest friends and family.  What do you get for said crowd that won't break the bank but also won't end up in the trash can on the way out the door?  The options really are limitless.  There are so so so many great ideas out there, it's just so hard to choose!

I really didn't want to just give something that people would never use.  The whole jordan almond thing is nice and traditional, but not for me. 

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I've also been to a few weddings where they gave out M&M's as favors.  Either personalized or not.  I think it's a cute idea, especially the personalized ones, but I wanted something more original than that. 

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I guess the first thing we needed to decide is whether we were going to DIY or not.  I'm still on the fence about this but for a large wedding, it just doesn't seem as feasible to DIY favors.  There are just too many of them and the benefit of saving money and having a bit more personal of a favor just doesn't outweigh the time cost in my eyes.  But I still swoon over pictures like this one:

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My original idea was to make sugar cookies in the shape of fall leaves (for our October, tree themed wedding) and decorate them with icing.  Something like this.

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I wanted to do a couple different shapes and give each person 2-3 cookies.  Which I am realizing means that I need to make up to 600 cookies to make this happen.  In order to really keep them fresh I'd have to ice them the week of the wedding.  Although I've never done this before, I have a feeling that week will be packed full as it is without having to carefully decorate acorn, pumpkin, and leaf shaped cookies.  So, FI and I decided to rethink this whole DIY favor thing.  We've come up with an idea that I like even better than the cookies and I think will work really well.  I'm super excited about it and I really think our guests will love it.  I'll tell you all about it... on a later post!

Have you gotten a favor at a wedding that you just loved? 



Engaged = Single?

I went to a wedding in March of this year that completely confirmed one decision I've made about our wedding.  Here I am sitting at my table having idle chit chat with the people I've been seated with and minding my own business when all of a sudden, people around me started saying my name.  I did everything I could to ignore them but it was just not possible.  In fact, even the girl with the stupid microphone up front who I definitely don't know started saying my name, calling me up there.  What did they want you ask?  Well, all these girls were lined up waiting to catch the bouquet.  And for some reason, the bride (and everyone else in the room) felt that they couldn't possibly do the bouquet toss without me.  All my attempts to hide behind my cake, under the table, or in the bathroom were to no avail.

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They all knew my name.  The bride wouldn't throw her flowers without me standing in the crowd with the single girls, also known as the people under the age of 21.  I didn't realize that the ring on my finger only counted if it was double stacked.  According to all of them, I was engaged but still single.

Let me tell you all a little secret.  I'm the next one in that room to get married.  I didn't need to catch the stupid bouquet to tell me that.  Unless the 8 year old next to me gets engaged and married by the end of the summer I think my position is safe.  So, I did what any other self-respecting "engaged-but-still-single" girl would do.  I hid.  Yes, I hid in the back behind the 8 year old.  And while all the girls were fighting over the bouquet, I hightailed it out of there back to my table. 

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And this, my friends, is why we're not doing a bouqet toss.  Or a garter toss.  I hate it as a single person and I think I'll hate it once I'm married too.  No one wants to stand in front of a crowd of married people and be like, "hey look at me, I'm still single!"  No. one.  And for that matter, there's no need for my pastor, grandmother, and the children I teach Sunday School to, to see the Mister with his head up my dress as he takes off the garter that's only purpose is to make me uncomfortable and itchy. 

So, sorry to all of you who love this tradition but it's just not happening at our wedding.  And to all the single people who are planning to attend:  You're welcome.

I'm in love with Kusudama Balls

When I starting planning this wedding I had no idea how involved this planning process would be.  I saw lots (and lots) of things that I loved and desperately wanted to incorporate into my wedding.  Kusudama balls were just one of those many details.  Don't know what I'm talking about?  Well my original inspiration came from Miss (now Mrs) Cardigan on Weddingbee.  Here are her photos:

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I think I'm in love.  I love the simplicity of her ceremony decor and the pop of yellow is just awesome.  There's a great tutorial for making these kusudama balls here: part 1 and part 2). 

So I've recently started on this project and let me just say that as gorgeous as these little balls are, they are evil.  Pure. evil.  I didn't really consider how much time and work was going to be required of me to make enough for our ceremony site.  If we have 200 guests (the max that our site holds), that's 10 rows of 10 on each side.  One ball per end chair in the aisle means I need to make 20 of these things.  Doesn't sound too hard right?  That's what I thought, but oh how misguided I turned out to be.  Here's the sequence of events that goes into one of these little balls. 

First, I had to cut all of the paper into little squares (3x3).  Since I started with 8 1/2" x 11" that means I get 6 squares out of one sheet of paper. 

Then, you fold.

And fold (and fold, and fold, and fold)....

Then, you take each of these folded papers and glue them into petals.  I don't have a personal photo of this, but here's generally what a petal looks like:

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Then, once you've made enough petals and the glue has dried, you glue 5 of these together to make a flower.  Looks easy?  Yes, you'd be wrong again.  Getting those petals to line up perfectly... it's just... well, not easy.

Then, you do it again

And you do this until you have 12 flowers.  Yes, that's right.  If you've been doing your math along with me that means that you need 60 small pieces of paper to make 1 ball.  A little more math tells you that to make 20 balls, I will need to fold, glue, wait, glue, wait, glue, etc. with 1200 of these petals.  The enormity of this task didn't really hit me until I started making my first one last night and saw how long these steps actually take.  The things we do for 1 day.  A very special day, but 1 day nonetheless.

Once you have your 12 flowers, you start gluing them together, giving them time to dry in between. 

Until finally you have half of a Kusudama ball.

And then you make another half.  After both halves are dry (or pretty dry if you're impatient like me), you glue the ribbon or whatever you'll use to hang these to the inside and glue them together.  After this step is where I went to bed and let the glue dry overnight.

I woke up to a nice, dry, fully-put-together Kusudama Ball.  KittyBean was really interested as you can tell from the first photo. 

I'm really happy with the way it turned out.  Not too thrilled about the prospect of making another 19, but what's a girl to do?  What do you think of my first attempt? 

Compromise is a Beautiful Thing

or "How we annoyed our venue enough that they finally gave in to make the phone calls stop"

After all of the i's were dotted and the t's crossed on our contract with our venue, we asked a question that we neglected to ask prior to signing on that bottom line.  It's our own fault really for not asking earlier as we had at every other venue we interviewed.  But we were just so excited about finding the perfect place that... well.. we just forgot. 

So the conversation went a little something like this:

Venue:  Now that we have your date set we should discuss when you want your rehearsal.

Me:  Oh, yes.  Friday night.

Venue:  Typically, our policy is Thursday night rehearsals.

Me:  Yes but 95% of our wedding party is coming from out of town so we need it to be Friday.

Venue:  Well, we schedule weddings on Friday evenings so 3 weeks before your wedding, if there isn't a wedding scheduled, we can change it to Friday.  Just keep calling once a month up to your wedding and checking on the status of that Friday night.

Me:  .... ummm... oookay 

Needless to say, I wasn't happy with their "policy".  Now, I'm not trying to go all bridezilla on you all but I feel like they were being completely unreasonable.  The mister called them later to discuss this further.  Their conversation went something like this.

Mister:  I wanted to check on the status of October 14th and see if there was a wedding scheduled.  We'd like to have our rehearsal on Friday night.

Venue:  That's not our policy.  There's no wedding but there are still people booking dates in October.

Mister:  What about Friday morning?  We'd be out of there before the wedding and it would mean that people could fly in late Thursday and not take the day off work.

Venue:  So sorry sir but from our experience this doesn't work.  People show up late to the rehearsal and it cuts into our time to set up for the Friday wedding. 

Mister:  Okay, I guess I'll call back in a month or so.

And he did... and here's how that conversation went: 

Mister:  We're about 5 months out from our wedding and we wanted to see if we could have our rehearsal on Friday night.

Venue:  There's no wedding scheduled but our policy is rehearsals on Thursday night.  Three weeks before we can change it to Friday if there's no wedding scheduled.

Mister:  Okay, but our wedding party are all flying in and need to purchase their flights.  Thursday night forces them to take another day off of work.  Friday night doesn't.  Many of them won't be able to be present on Thursday night.

Venue:  Let me transfer you to the owner.

Mister:  Okay.

Venue Owner:  (basically repeats everything that person 1 told us)

Mister:  Seriously, we need to schedule it before 3 weeks before the wedding.  People need to buy flights.

Venue Owner:  How many of your wedding party are coming from out of town?

Mister:  All of them.

Venue Owner:  Even parents and grandparents?

Mister: Yes.  Even them.

Venue Owner:  Okay, in 1 month call back and if there's no wedding we'll schedule it for Friday night.

And I'm sure the mister wishes the conversation above was that short or even that pleasant.  But unfortunately, it wasn't.  But here we sit 1 month from that conversation and the mister makes yet another phone call.  Still no wedding scheduled.  They're a business, I get that, so they want to make as much money as possible on Friday night.  A wedding is much more money than our rehearsal.  But the way I look at it is I'm paying almost twice as much as a Friday or Sunday wedding so that I could have my wedding on Saturday.  I did that so that the many many people coming from out of town wouldn't have to take more time off work.  Since we're paying more, they should be willing to compromise.  We were fine with a Friday morning rehearsal.  Just not Thursday night.  What I should have done is directed all of the phone calls and emails I was getting from family and friends who were unhappy with the Thursday night rehearsal to the venue.  They probably would have compromised much sooner if they had to listen to the complaints as much as I did. 

I will tell you that finally after about 5 conversations with these people they decided to be reasonable and let us do the rehearsal on Friday morning.  So, I'm happy with the compromise.  But seriously, what a hassle!  I've definitely learned from this experience though.  Ask all of your questions before you sign on that bottom line.  Even if it's the perfect vendor, make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. 

Personal Taste and Tradition: Two Worlds Colliding

I've been looking for the perfect song to play when I'm walking down the aisle.  I love the sound of the traditional music but I really wanted something a bit more modern.  I'm not really a formal, traditional person so it's hard to find an appropriate balance between the whole "this is the only wedding I'll ever have so it better be good" mentality and the "I want my personality and taste to be clear in all the details" mentality.

As with most people who are planning weddings, my fiance is not my first boyfriend.  I've been on both the giving and receiving end of the pain that comes with ending relationships.  This thing that I have with my FI is real.  It's amazing and I'm so excited to start this next chapter of our lives together and leave behind my past.  So I was looking for a song that really spoke to my history and our relationship, without being too cheesy.  Which, in the world of love songs, is a difficult task. 

The first song that came to mind is probably not one that anyone would ever guess.  When we first started dating, we used to just sit and be together while we listened to music, just enjoying each other's company.  A band that made an often appearance in this time together was Snow Patrol.  So the song, Chasing Cars, has a lot of really fond memories for both of us.  If you aren't familiar, take a listen.  Just a quick disclaimer: I don't own this video or the music contained with in.  I'm just sharing it with you all!

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As much as I love me some Snow Patrol, it doesn't scream wedding ceremony to me.  So I moved on to other songs that might be a bit more appropriate.  I had pretty much settled on God Bless the Broken Road by Selah.  I know Rascal Flatts has a very popular version of this song but the Selah version sounds so much less country and so much more wedding appropriate.  Take a listen.  Again, I don't own the music, video, pictures, or anything contained in this video. 

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I still love this song because I think it really speaks to our relationship.  But I will say that I would be quite a different person today had I not dealt with (and dealt out) the heartache in past relationships.  It made me who I am today and brought me straight to my mister.  I am thankful for all of the pain I endured over the years because I'm finally with the right person.  Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.

A few weeks ago I was browsing through songs on youtube because there was still something that just wasn't right about our ceremony music.  I felt like the lyrics of the song were perfect but it just wasn't.. perfect.  I stumbled upon an instrumental cover of a popular song.  The band performing the cover was Vitamin String Quartet.  They do a TON of covers of popular songs and I love the idea of instrumental music in our ceremony.  And so I was on a mission to find the perfect song that they'd covered.  After making a list of about 8 songs that I'd be happy with I stumbled upon this.

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You can't even begin to imagine my excitement when I found this song.  So guess what folks?  This is it!  This is the song that I'll walk down the aisle to.  It's the last song I'll hear as a single person.  And you know what?  It's perfect.

 

Event Insurance: Is it worth the money?

Sorry for the lack of posting.  My life has gotten considerably more busy so it's been tough to sit down for a moment and collect my thoughts.  But, rest assured, I'm still in full swing planning mode.  So what project am I working on currently?  Well, if you ask theknot.com, my checklist has about 53 overdue items.  So, I'm really trying to figure out how much of those things REALLY need to be done right now and how many can wait just a little bit longer.  Needless to say, there are quite a few things on that list that probably should be done sooner rather than later.  So, I'm multitasking.

One thing that we are researching right now is Wedding/Event insurance.  Our venue recommends it and it's not super expensive or anything, but I'm just not sure if it's a cost that is really all that important.  I understand that if something happens to my dress or if a vendor goes suddenly out of business, our insurance kicks in and covers our butts.  But what if we're paying money for something that's already covered by our vendors?  I mean, even though our venue recommends it, if their roof caves in because of hail, certainly they have insurance to cover that.  I guess it just protects our investment so that if a tornado picks up our venue and moves it from Georgia to France we're not stuck on 6 hour plane ride so we can still get married without losing all of our money. 

So what's your advice?  Would you purchase the insurance?  Or if you're already married, did you purchase the insurance?  What made you decide the way you did?

I'm frightened...

Save-the-dates are out (yay!) and this means that the people I've invited from work are now talking about it.  But there's one problem with this.  I didn't invite everyone from work.  I only invited people that I'm friends with.  Now, that shouldn't be an issue with most people because I really don't think the people who aren't invited would expect to be invited.  But I've learned that when it comes to weddings, people will surprise me.

You see, as with any typical workplace, there's this one guy at work who is extremely... well, let's just say difficult.  He's very abrasive and manipulative, and we just don't get along.  At. All.  So when it came time to draw up a guest list, there was no way he was going to make the cut.  Ever.

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But... this is where the problem comes in.  Eventually, he's going to figure it out.  He's going to realize that almost everyone else from work is invited, save for a few random people, and he's not.  And the trouble with this particular guy is that in addition to his abrasive and manipulative behavior, he's just tactless.  I honestly wouldn't put it past him to ask me where his invitation is or why he's not invited.  And the worst part of it is that he has to know he wouldn't be invited and he can't possibly expect an invitation.  So his only reason for asking would be to put me in an uncomfortable position. 

Being the relatively non-confrontational person that I am, the prospect of having this conversation frightens me.  I can't imagine what I'd say if this happened.  I mean, the reality is that we're not in kindergarten anymore where all the kids in the class get in invite.

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I really shouldn't feel bad, but I do.  Even though he treats me so poorly and obviously has little to no respect for me, I still feel bad.  Not bad enough to invite him, but still.  The guilt is there.

So if you were me and he asked, what would you say?  Have you ever had anyone not invited who got confrontational about it?  How did you handle it?

Thank God for Zales Lifetime Protection

Seriously, you guys.  I am so so thankful that we got the protection plan at Zales when we got my engagement ring. 

About 2 weeks ago I took my ring in for its semi-annual inspection.  That's part of the deal at Zales.  They'll replace any diamond if it falls out, fix the prongs, replate, resize, etc. as many times as you need to for the lifetime of your jewelry.  As long as you have it inspected every 6 months. 

So we're off to a good start.  I took the ring in on the 6 month mark and they took my precious away from me for awhile.  But all for a good cause.  You see, when I had the ring resized back in November, it came back to me sort of misshapen.  It thinned out in the back and it just didn't look very nice.  So while I had to give my ring up for awhile, I figured I'd have it fixed since the bill was on Zales anyway.  Fastforward 10 days to last Friday.  We got the call, the ring was in!  Super excited me and FI drove up to Zales to pick up my ring and it looked amazing!  They even replated it while they had it, just for good customer service.  Couldn't have asked for better. 

But oh, the story just doesn't end there.  Monday morning, I woke up to get ready for work and I looked down at my shiny like new ring, and to my shock and surpise, a diamond was missing!  That's right, missing.  Two short days after we got the ring back from the expert jeweler a diamond had fallen out of my ring.  Now, I know that I have the protection plan so I really shouldn't worry.  And I wasn't worried really.  More... annoyed.  Yes, annoyed.  I had to drive all the way back to Zales to have them replace a diamond.  And give up my ring for another 2 weeks at least! 

But I did it.  Today we took the ring to Zales to have it fixed.  And to my surprise, they really didn't give me a hard time about it.  They almost seemed as disappointed about the loss of the diamond as I was.  So now, I'm ringless.  But I had to tell you all that the protection plan was so worth it.  Even for a small diamond like the one that fell out, it would be costly, for sure. 

Any of you ever lose a diamond?  What did you do about it? 

 

STD's are being spread

Sorry for that.  Couldn't help yet another STD joke. 

You may recall our hunt for the perfect STD and my poll of the audience to help us choose the perfect photo.  Well we ordered them, they came in, I taught myself calligraphy and addressed them, and yesterday they went out the door. 

So now that they are out the door on their way to our guests, I think I can safely show you what we decided to do.  Armed with our livingsocial deal for vistaprint, we ordered our save-the-date magnets.  Here's what they looked like, with last names removed to protect the innocent :).   

They look even better in person and they turned out really well!  I love the photo we chose to put on them and the design is perfect.  What do you think?

DIY Project for the Guy

Yup, that's right.  The mister has a to-do list for the wedding.  I know that a lot of times the guy thinks he just has to show up on the wedding day, but that doesn't fly with me.  And, to be honest, I think K likes doing things for the wedding.  In small doses, of course.

His list isn't very long and most of the tasks I've given him have been things I know he'll enjoy.  See, K really likes woodworking.  And so, anywhere I can I've tried to incorporate this skill of his into the wedding.  It's also really cool because it personalizes little things in the wedding a lot more since he made them. 

I know you are all wondering what he made.  You ready?

What is it, you ask?  It's a photobooth prop, of course!!  See, I just love seeing pictures like this one:

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And I've known from very early on that I wanted to do a photobooth at the wedding.  While the free-standing, old school photobooths are really cool.

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But there's one eensy, weensy problem with that.  It's WAY out of budget.  So,we're going the DIY route, fo sho. 

So, I think that K did such a great job making this.  I even tried it out.

But the best thing he did on this speech bubble chalkboard is the handle!  There's a nifty little handle in the back so it makes it easier to hold and see in the photos.  Like so: 

So what do you think of his first DIY project??  



Express Remedy for Cold Feet

When I was younger, I had this thing for fun socks.  I loved wearing socks that had fun things on them like monkeys, frogs, or just random colors.  So it's not all that surprising that I'm drawn to photos like this one:

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And this one...

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And I especially like this one but manly because I think the bride is wearing some really cute shoes. 

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When I saw these pictures for the first time, I knew I had to have it.  And surprisingly, it was much easier than I anticipated to convince FI that he wanted it too.  Score!   Especially because I love that the socks and the shoes in the last picture match.  I'm wearing purple shoes, so you know what that means.  Yup.  Purple socks for my man.  Not only for my man, but for both of our dads, the two best men and the three groomsmen.  All for a total of eight guys in purple socks.  It's going to be legen... wait for it...dary!  Legendary!  

And so started my hunt for the perfect pair.  And let me tell you, it's not easy out there!  There are soo many socks!  And some of them... well, let's just say they're not good.  And leave it at that. 

One of the first I found was a serious contender for awhile...

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And then there were some fun ones that FI pretty much nixed immediately.  But just for fun, I'll show you the losers in the bunch.  This next pair was just a bit too much pink.  And by a bit, I mean WAY too much. 

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Now this pair I thought was pretty cool, but like I said, Mister disagreed.  They remind me of the 80's.  Like something Zach Morris would wear.  Mmm... Zach Morris.  I had such a HUGE crush on him!  Oh, but don't worry FI, that was a long, long time ago.  I'm over it.  I think...

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Believe it or not, these are the only ones I found that weren't fantastically hideous.  But after all my searching, I finally struck gold.  So get ready guys.  At our wedding, you'll be donning these puppies! 

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Yes!!  And yes, they're from Express.  I can't even tell you how difficult it was to find 8 pairs of these in Atlanta, but I did it.  Turns out, they don't stock too many purple argyle socks at Express.  Guess they aren't super popular.  So if you're looking for these in any mall within a 20 mile radius of Atlanta, you might want to extend your search radius.  Just sayin.

I am so, so excited to get the pictures with me in my shoes and him in these socks.  Aren't they fabulous?  Anyone else go above and beyond for something just to get one photo? 

DIY Calligraphy: The Result

This whole calligraphy thing seemed a bit daunting to me.  In true form, Mamabean told me I should just hire someone.  She's of the opinion that if there's someone out there who gets paid to do something, you shouldn't do it yourself.  That's all fine and dandy for her and all.  But reality check:  we're on a budget!  And as I've said, people are just going to throw these envelopes away.  So, DIY it is.

I started off with the essentials.  My fountain pen with additional nibs, some plain paper, a pencil, ruler, and a good eraser.  

Then I started attempting Italics.  My pen set came with a few different ink colors so I started playing with red, since I thought I wouldn't use it on the actual envelopes.  My attempts looked a little something like this:

 And this...

Oh yes, and this:  



Watch out!  I'm getting fancy here.

So after practicing for awhile, I thought I could start tackling some plain white envelopes.  I don't have photos to show you, but let's just say that I went through quite a few before I was ready to start on the nice envelopes that matched our STD's. 

After what felt like a really long time and a lot of practicing, I finally started on my first envelope.  I started off by drawing lines on the envelope in pencil.  I did 7 lines starting 1 1/2 inches down from the top.  The lines were 3/16 of an inch apart, since I was using a fine fountain pen.  This distance changes based on the type of nib you choose. 

The 3/16 inch distance is basically to determine how large your lowercase letters are.  Letters like a, c, m, n, s all should fit in that space.  Letters like b, d, and p will have their "tails" above or below this line.  Uppercase letters end up taking up almost 6/16 inch, so two spaces. 

After drawing my lines lightly, I slowly started on my first envelope.  And I think it turned out pretty good!  After erasing the lines, the envelope looks like this. What do you think?

Could be better, but not bad for my first attempt! 

Since then I've done about 50 envelopes and let me tell you, my hand is hurting!  Each envelope takes a lot of time, a steady hand and lots of patience.  But after awhile, here's where I am.  I'm still learning, but I think I'm getting better!

What do you think??  Are you ready to tackle your own DIY calligraphy now?