Christmas in July!

We got our first wedding gift in the mail!!!**

And THIS is where it ended. Jacob won't let me open it until after the wedding. =P Bah hum bug! lol

**THANK YOU MEGHAN!! =)

How I Spent My Weekend

Remember having to write those "How I spent my summer vacation" essays in school? lol... sorry, random, but I thought of that with this post title. =)

It is almost 90 degrees outside right now, so I have decided that it is a good time to spend some time in the coolest room of our apartment (the living room) and get some hands on wedding shit done. I'm feeling pretty accomplished right now, albeit a little sore from the sitting and bow tyiing (I went not built for this kind of repetitive work). So, without further ado, here's "what I did on my weekend":


(If you are coming to the wedding and want to be completely surprised by the decorations/favors , read no further!)






Table numbers and various menus/signs! Thanks to your comments on my earlier post, I decided that assigning tables is not going to be a waste of my time. So, via the powers of Microsoft Publisher I created table numbers as well as signs for the guest book, cake flavors, and wine selection. I printed them on index cards and then slid them into acrylic frames that I got at Micheal's! Woo hoo! Originally I just had the text on there, but they looked really empty, so I decided to add different photo of Jacob and I together for each number. I'm really happy with the way these turned out.

I also did some....

Wedding favors! I don't want to go into too much detail about what these consist of, but I do want to say that I SUCK at tying bows... so this task has been pretty time consuming and daunting for me... so, if you're coming to the wedding, you better appreciate! lol Unfortunately...


I am FAR from being done... *sigh* I may develop arthritis by the time I'm done with all of these. My kids will be wearing Velcro shoes until they figure out the bow tying thing on their own! lol

We have 20 days left until the big day. Last weekend I was feeling very down and emotional about everything wedding related. This weekend I've felt a burst of "get shit done" energy... and I'm definitely thankful that it found it's way back to me! I will also be thankful when I can finally get all of my piles-of-wedding-crap (PWC) out of our kitchen and living room!

I think the cat is probably looking forward to getting his area back, too! =)

Video Games

I'm not a video game playing person. I haven't regularly played a game since the FIRST Mario brothers... so, I was a little confused when I saw a game disc in my stocking the other morning (we did "Christmas Morning" on New Year's morning with Jacob's family). I thought for sure that I'd accidentally gotten one of the kids socks... but, no, it was for me. My FMIL saw my confusion and said, "Don't worry... you'll understand".

And I sure did... lol... the game was:

Wedding Dash! Rings Around the World!

The point of the game is that you have to plan and cater weddings for multiple couples in a game about a wedding planning reality show... and you don't want to get voted off by Mr. Biggie! lol You deal with picky guests you don't want to sit next to certain people (or REALLY want to sit next to others), screaming children, pigeons picking at food, people choking, grandfathers who can't remember what and when they ate... all while keeping the bride and groom happy and making sure the photographer gets the right photos (I actually got a GROOM-zilla at one point... lol... I was REALLY sucking at that level!).



This game may keep my occupied for awhile... lol... you really need to pay attention though, and I can't say that's my strong point after a full day at work and/or writing a thesis!

P.S. Jacob was watching over my shoulder for awhile and kept laughing at me when people started to "boil" (what they do when they get upset because I didn't seat them next to the hot guy or it took to long to serve them their cake!) and just kept saying "you're cute". lol

Thank You!

I've been a bad blogger and let this post slip to the wayside for WAY too long!

About a month and a half ago Girl With a Ring was hosting her second Uprinting giveaway for a poster print. I entered this one hoping that I'd be able to use it to create a "Thank You" sign to use for pictures for our Thank You cards after the wedding. I got the idea from this blog post from Becoming His Mrs. I just LOVED the idea.... here's a couple samples from her blog post:





So, after I won (yay!) I set to work designing a sign for us to use. After whittling down all the possible fonts and scanning the internet for sufficient graphics, we came up with our sign, submitted it and, a few days later, received it in the mail.



Couple of things I'm concerned about: 1) it's a glossy finish so I'm worried that it might (like it did in this photo) cause some problems with the reflection and, 2) it's on photo paper. For some reason I was expecting a thinker paper (I really don't know why, I just was). So we'll have to figure out some way to thicken it up... maybe paste it to poster board or something.

But, all in all, I'm very happy with it! =)

Thanks to Katrina from Girl With a Ring!

And don't forget to enter MY Uprinting giveaway for 100 custom postcards! Contest ends Sunday night!!

Stupid Trick or Treaters...

Didn't come to my house!! We live in a HUGE apartment complex and we only got ONE SET of trick-or-treaters! What's up with that? We bought lots of candy and we were all set!

I got bored sitting around waiting for the knock on the door that just did not come... so... I went shopping from the comfort of my own couch (Yay e-bay!) I bought some new earrings for me (perhaps for the wedding?... check them out below) and then something for my bridesmaids... which I won't reveal here 'cause at least two of them read this blog! (Sorry guys... you'll just have to wait until AUGUST! haha!)

Good News, Bad News... And More Good News!

Good News!!

I got my paper samples today for invitations! Which means I actually got to play and SEE what my concept is going to look like! So, I went to Target and had a copy of my photo/invite printed.

Bad News =(

The print job SUCKED. lol They only had the option of glossy (I much prefer matte) and they printed it REALLY dark. I'm starting to think I'll have to take it to a print shop rather than going the cheap way and getting it photo printed... or, may have to just print them out at home... the problem with that is that I'll have to figure out how to adjust our printer for paper size... and I don't know how much the ink will cost us! lol

Good News!!

While I was at Target looking around I found the PERFECT photo album to use as our "guest book"! lol So I bought it... and I hope Jacob likes it... and I have one more thing to add to my PWC (With 10 months to go! lol). See, for the guest book I have this idea. Instead of doing an actual wedding Guest Book, I want to have a photo album with a selection of index cards. The photo album will be half full of photos of Jacob and I (interspersed throughout) and then each guest will sign and/or write a note on the note card and slip it into one of the empty slots in the photo album! I think it's going to be fantastic! =)

And did I mention that I LOVE the album that I found? It's a faux tan suede...


With both horizontal AND vertical 4X6 photo (or, in this case, photo AND index card) slots!


AND, what makes it even better, is that I used a gift card that we got as a house warming present last weekend... so it didn't cut into my wedding budget AT ALL! =D

Now I just have to do something about those invitations...

Pre-nniversary Present!

I got my first Pre-nniversary Present! lol.... Thanks so much to Rachel Jasper and the Thirty-Something Bride! =)

The BUDGET

When I originally thought about our somewhat meager budget, I didn't think it would be THAT big of a deal to fit everything in... but then, with the help of some internet sources, I did some calculations and got a little nervous... (I REALLY shouldn't have done all this at 11:30 last night... I was up half the night thinking about it).

I found this Wedding Budget Worksheet that shows an idea of what percentage of your budget should go toward each of the (apparently numerous) expenses. As well as a free download-able spreadsheet to input your expected costs and your actual expenses (Yes, I realize that I am somewhat overly organized... but it's only going to help in the end, right?). After doing this I see that I have exactly $45 to buy "gifts" for 10 people (I have put bride-groom gifts to the wayside at this point). So... if you're in my wedding party, I need to know what kind of cookies you like! lol (Holly has already put in an order for peanut butter lol).

I've never been a big "do it yourself" type of person... but it looks like I may need to figure some stuff out pretty quick! lol I read an article online about a women who tried to barter for her wedding on craigslist... she posted an add talking about her circumstances and how she really wanted a nice wedding day for herself and that she was willing to trade her services in home design/repair for wedding expenses... the next day she had a DJ, a videographer, and a guitar player for the ceremony! Maybe I should give that a try! lol