Signature platters

I didn't want to do the traditional guest book, but wanted something for our guests to sign. I used to go to a place called Glazed & Confused with some ladies from StlWed. They have some wonderful wedding signature platters.

Unfortunately, G&C is quite a ways from me. I didn't have time to drive out there and back (about an hour each way) to pick the design and then back another time to pick up the platters. There is a paint your own pottery studio, The Painted Zebra, in St. Peters on Mid Rivers Mall Drive.

We picked 2 different designs. Yes, I know they don't go together at all. :-) We wanted one that had the Chinese double happiness character and one that had our monogram or initial. Here is what we decided on:

Double happiness




"L" - green, black, and white - our main wedding colors.

DIY Unity Candle

A lot of the unity candles in stores nowadays are way too elaborate for my taste. Either that, or they're too expensive for a candle for 1 day!

I wanted something simple, but not expensive. A plain white candle was too simple, though.

I decided I would go the DIY route. It took me a while to find a plain, unscented white pillar candle that was tall enough. I found one at Hobby Lobby for around $5. What a steal! I also found vellum at Hobby Lobby. I don't remember the price, but it was very reasonable. While there, I decided to get some thin (1/4 inch) black ribbon. Our colors are black and white, with touches of green and touches of red (at the reception).

I designed the design for the candle using PowerPoint. The scroll design is the same design that is used on our programs. It is fairly similar to the design from our invitations. We did not design our invitations, so we weren't able to use that design for our programs/unity candle.

The vellum was really easy to print on. The ink dried fairly quickly. I used double sided tape to adhere the vellum to the candle. Then, I used the tape to stick the ribbon onto the candle.

It was quite simple, and I love the results! Simple and elegant.




Close up of the design.

Various wedding items

I finally got around to taking photos of the OOT bags that we put together. We had about 25 bags to make. FI and I went to Costco to get a variety of snacks. We also included a St. Louis magazine and map. I also made a timeline to put in the bag and included a list of fun facts about St. Louis that I got from another bride. (Sorry, I don't remember who, though!)



I created the "sticker" for the bags in PowerPoint, print it out, and then made it sticky with a Xyron machine. They're very handy!



I decided to get a hair comb to put in for the reception. It's the Double Sweet Maria comb from Naugi. Sorry for the blurry pic. I couldn't get my camera to take a clear picture - even without a flash!



This week, I also picked up FI's wedding band. He just wanted a plain, simple white gold band.

Make-up colors?

Warning - this is kind of long. Sorry!

I'm still debating what color shadow to do on my eyelids for the wedding.

Yes, I had a trial. However, the gal seemed rushed (even though I was on time for my appointment). She did not seem to want to redo my eyes when I didn't like them the first time. They were WAY too much, with the shadow (gray) all the way up to my brows! So, she wiped some off. It was a little better, but I still wasn't sure if it was "me." Instead of taking it all off and starting over, she just quickly took it off one eye and tried again in brown. It was ok, but wasn't great because she didn't spend a lot of time on it. It would have been nice to see both eyes with the brown.

I'm debating either going with browns or with gray with a hint of purple (but only on the lids!). I put a faint purple shade over my other eyeshadow (usually a brownish shade) quite often.

I like these 2 photos that I found over on Weddingbee.



Here are some photos from my make-up trial. (Sorry for the blurriness...I'm not good at taking photos of myself!) As you look at the picture, the eye on the left is the gray shadow, and the right is the browns. Also, it seemed heavy on the blush to me. What do you think? I definitely am asking for none on my nose. I'm not sure why she put some on my nose, because my nose is already redder than the rest of my face and gets red easily.





My hair is darker than in the trial photos. It is more like the shade of the second photo in this post.

So, what do you think?

Gray, with a hint of purple? Or browns?

Too much blush?

What do you think of these?

Special tables numbers were on my list of things to do if I had time. I made up 2 examples.

Please be honest - what do you think?

Is the font ok? Is there too much on the "page" or is is just enough? I think I would glue them onto black cardstock so there's a little black border.

Less than one week!

I signed on to StlWed this morning just to check out the boards. I'm a wedding of the week!! Wow - less than 1 week away. Crazy! There are quite a few other ladies from the board getting married that day. The only one I know of that has a blog is Maria.

I want to do a Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue drink menu. I made one up last night.

What do you think of the drink choices?

I know a Crantini isn't super new. A Blushing Margarita was new to me since I'd never heard of it, so that's why I put it on there. We're limited in our choices for alcohol. Otherwise, I would use a flavored vodka, but they don't have it at WOW.

For Something borrowed - I found the Sprite-tini on someone's blog. The FL sunrise...well, we could say it's borrowed from FL! :-) FI went to law school in FL, so I thought that was a cute one to choose.

Sorry the picture is so small. I made it large, but this is the way it showed up. Oh well...you get the idea!

One more thing to stress me out!

Sunday evening, I started to itch behind my left knee. I thought I had just been bitten by something, because my skin reacts a lot, even to mosquito bites. It didn't seem like a big deal.

Well, Monday morning, behind my right knee started to itch as well. What are the odds of being bitten behind both knees? Probably slim to none. I looked in a mirror, and the back of my knees are quite red with bumps!

At first, I thought maybe hives? Then, Monday evening, the top of my right foot started to itch.

I did some searching around on the internet for red, itchy bumps behind your knees and on the tops of your feet. My guess was that I have a type of eczema.

Tuesday morning, I tried to go into a dermatologist, but couldn't get an appointment that day. I had to wait until this morning, Wednesday morning.

I was right! I have a form of eczema that is stress induced. WONDERFUL! Luckily, he gave me some strong cream (hydrocortisone isn't strong enough). I've put it on twice today, and I think it does look a little better. The itching is definitely better. The doctor said to watch it closely and call on Friday if it seemed worse. If it doesn't seem better by Monday, I should call and get another medicine. It sounds like a sort of steroid. Not prednisone (sp?), but a pill form that works faster.

Luckily, it has not spread since Monday, so that's the good news! My dad has eczema, so it wasn't a total surprise that's what it was. I know I've been stressed out before, but I've never had anything even remotely close to this! I guess it takes a lot of stress to cause it!

Please cross your fingers that it goes away quickly! I don't want to look awful in my rehearsal dress and cute shoes!

This sounds like me

I found the following on the Creative Organizing blog:

Believe it or not, perfectionism is a very common cause of disorganization. Seems counterintuitive that a perfectionist could be disorganized, doesn’t it? Well, the desire for perfection is often so strong that it creates immobility, both at the onset of your organizing projects, and anywhere in the process if you begin to realize things aren’t turning out perfectly.

If you feel that perfectionism is getting in the way of your desire for a more organized home and life, the first step is to recognize this fact. Then, look for ways to take small steps in the direction you want to go. Give yourself permission to organize imperfectly by focusing your attention on progress instead of perfection.

This sounds a lot like me! I'm quite particular about wedding things, stuff at school, etc. My mom says everything can't be perfect! She doesn't understand, then, why my house is messy. I think this kind of explains it.

It's hard to start organizing/cleaning things when the task is huge. Plus, I know that things aren't going to look perfect in the end.

I'm going to work on hard on focusing on progress, rather than perfection, now as I'm organizing and cleaning the house this week and next!

Those already married - please help with my timeline for the photog!

This is a post for all those who have already gotten married.

My photog will be with us for 10 hours. The guys are going to take pictures at 12:30 before the 2:00 pm ceremony. If she didn't start until 12:30, the photog would be with us until 10:30, which she said is quite late.

I would kind of like to have her take some "getting ready" photos of us. I was wondering how long before the ceremony you thought I should allow for those kind of photos?

I was thinking maybe she could swing by my house (where we're getting ready) at 11:30, which would put her leaving the reception at 9:30, which is still a good amount of time.

Any thoughts or advice?

How did the DMV miss this?

Here is a link to a quite interesting license plate from Virginia. How did the DMV miss this one? I wonder if they didn't realize the person ordered a Univ. of VA plate instead of the regular VA plates?

Let me guess...the car belongs to a guy?! :-)

Aw, how sweet!

I had my final dress fitting yesterday. My seamstress, Connie, is absolutely amazing! You would never know the dress was at least 3, if not 4, sizes too big when I went to her less than 2 months ago. It is stunning and fits like a glove. My mom came to the final fitting yesterday with her good friend to learn how to do my complicated double bustle. There are 10 snaps and 15 ties, I think. Luckily, Connie was able to color code the ties to make it a little easier, but it's still pretty complicated! The double french bustle is gorgeous - it reminds me of Marie Antoinette or other French royalty. Love it!

The main point of this post is a sweet email I got from my dad this morning:

Mom said your dress is beautiful!!! I'm sure even more so with you in it :)

Love,
Dad

Isn't that so sweet? I'm lucky to have such great parents. My mom sent me an email last night, too, telling me how great I looked in the dress. All the hard work of watching what I eat has paid off!

Label lust

Oh how I wish I had unlimited funds for shopping! I recently received a J. Crew catalog in the mail. These are just a few of my favorite items.

The Lulu leather peep toes are such girly shoes! My favorites colors are tulip and dark cloud.

I really like the Silk tricotine Rebecca short dress. I think I would want it in all 5 colors.


The Owen Hobo purse. It's yours for only $395. Wow - for one purse!


For some reason, I have really been coveting winter coats in a variety of colors. I like both the Greta (the shorter coat with double buttons) and the Tulip (the longer, single-button coat). I would get the Greta in black, sea salt, and deep persimmon. I would get the Tulip in sea salt (my favorite), deep persimmon, Mediterranean blue, chocolate, and black. The coats are $330 and $365. They're so cute...wish they were MUCH cheaper!

Tartine cardigan - $88 (yikes!). I love the ruffles at the collar and the hem. If I had unlimited funds, I would order this in a lot of colors - black, chocolate, light pewter, snow, maize, and bright rhubarb.

Lots going on

Sorry for my lack of posts lately!

I have been at school quite late this week. Two days I was there for 12 hours! We have a new Literacy program this year, which we're still getting used to. Also, report cards are due by the end of next week as we have conferences the third week of September. Our report card is quite different this year, so we're all still figuring it out. The good news is we only have four and a half days next week (Wednesday is a half day for the students) and a four day week (with 2 long days due to night conferences) the following week. Then, we have 3 weeks off! YEAH!

I've been having trouble sleeping again. I think it's due to all the stress between work and home with wedding things. Luckily, I have some sleep medicine that helps. Unfortunately, I don't have enough to last until the wedding, so I figure I will kind of ration it out.

This morning, I'm off to play in a wedding at the Piper Palm House. Then, FI and I are meeting my parents at Lockhaven C.C. (the site of our rehearsal dinner) to decide on the menu for our rehearsal dinner. Tomorrow, we're having our final meeting with our photog. In between, I will be doing other various wedding related tasks, going grocery shopping, and cleaning. How fun!

On the weight loss front - I have been able to move all my clothes excepting some pants (still working on the bottom half) from my "too small" closet to my "regular" closet. Now, I have a lot of "new" clothes that I haven't been able to wear in a long time. How nice! I can't wait for it to get even a little cooler so I can wear some cute light weight jackets/blazers I have.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I have to go get ready for the wedding. Have a great weekend! I hope to be able to post about some things I've accomplished for the wedding soon!

Dogs instead of kids

I saw a picture of this cute dog on some blog I was reading. I feel bad for the poor thing - all dressed up like that! Although, it honestly doesn't look like it dislikes it. I decided to check out the link to the post the picture is from.

Post.

I'm not going to copy and paste everything from the post. The gist is that in Japan, it's becoming increasingly popular to have dogs instead of children.

Take eye surgeon Toshiko Horikoshi, 46, who pushes around her teacup poodle and her Chihuahua-Pomeranian mix in a pram. (They get tired quickly, could get stepped on, and many department stores don't allow dogs on a leash.)