wedding prototypes

These are some trials I've worked up for potential paper based decorations... I'm really excited about them. I'm picturing the paper chains lining the aisle, and perhaps draped along the long tables with some ivy. The hearts might look nice hung above the cake table... and the books will probably have numerous uses! These are all things I can be working on way, way ahead...
Can you tell I'm starting to get excited here?

Crowdsourcing. The wisdom of crowds.

You know, in order to crowd source, you need a crowd. I really need to tell more people about this blog.

However, in the meantime, I'm trying to decide what we will use in place of an altar area, as we aren't getting married in a house of worship. I love the idea of having the ceremony outside, but I know it might rain in April, so it has to be something that could be easily put together indoors or outdoors. So I thought we could use an garden arch (purchased in part with an amazon.com gift card I earned taking surveys), and then drape it with ribbons or flowing fabric (Imagine the photo on the right, only floor length and hanging from the arches). So I found a couple of contenders... what do you all think?

First off - a little reminder of what we're working with here.
The lovely terrace where we might have the ceremony:

The lovely interior where we might also have the ceremony:

With me still?

Now for the arches.
In this corner, a lovely little three dimensional number.

Its got a lot going for it. The three of us (the officiant, Mr. Adorable, and I) could stand underneath during the ceremony. However, its the most expensive, at just under a hundred dollars.

And in this corner, the champion (price-wise).

This one is a clear winner on price. Its only 36 dollars. As far as garden arbors go, that's pretty low. So I am drawn to it strongly. I could see it with a wall of ribbons hanging from the back, fluttering in the breeze.

And finally, this corner holds my favorite:

I love the square(ish)ness of the corners, and... I just like it alot. Its priced moderately, at 68 dollars, but I'm quite drawn to it. Again, with fluttering ribbons, or perhaps the floaty, drapy fabric angle.
I like the idea of being married under an arch like one of these - its evocative of a chuppah - a Jewish wedding canopy. As a little girl, I didn't dream of my wedding much. But when I did, I pictured it looking a lot like the wedding scene from Fiddler on the Roof. So it would be particularly meaningful for me. And I floated the idea by Mr. Adorable, and he's for it. He's the best of all possible future grooms. His opinion is generally either "I'll defer to your judgement" or "I want you to be happy." Makes planning pretty easy. He has yet to weigh in on the "which one" issue, but he's fully on board with the idea. He's so loveable.

Sunrise, Sunset.

Dress giveaway!

Just found a perfect example of what I talked about in the previous post! Plumage posted about a dress giveaway from Bonny Bridal! They have some really pretty dresses, and it would be such an awesome thing to win. Any other brides out there, there's one more day to enter! Wish me luck! Unless you're another bride out there, and then I'll understand if you don't do any wishing of luck.

So...
I havent been doing much wedding planning lately, since I started thinking there was far too much time before it was really necessary. I started thinking I was crazy to be doing any planning at all at this stage. Plus, I've been trying like mad to pay off my credit cards, so there hasn't been much money for doing things like silly wedding planning, I told myself.

However, this weekend was the going away party for a dear friend of mine, who is moving to Japan. And I decided that I need to do a better job of keeping people updated on what's going on. Maybe its narcisistic of me. But I don't care (is that irony? Or just appropriate?). And I need to start sharing this with people, so I actually have a reason to post.

So today I'd like to talk about sneaky ways I'm earning wedding money.
As previously stated, I'm paying down my credit cards. Yay me! And I'm also trying to save for this whole wedding thing. Its not easy, since Mr. Adorable was out of work for a while - damn the economy, and the economically worthless English Degrees that we both hold! - and has now gone back to school again for further certification. But I've been doing a couple of things that I really hope will pay off in the end.

First, I enter every giveaway I can think of. Maybe this will net me nothing in the end. But it costs me nothing but a few seconds of my time, and usually no personal information is even exchanged - most wedding blogs offer giveaways where all you have to do is leave a comment to be entered. I may never win anything, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Next, I participate in some services that allow me to earn points by either taking surveys, or clicking on links in emails. I can then use the points to get gift cards from certain merchants, like amazon.com or target. Takes a few minutes of my time each day, and sometimes I even get products to evaluate at home. Once I got a bottle of mouthwash, another time a shampoo. And once, a t.v. pilot. Anyway, I just traded in some points for an amazon gift card, which I hope to use to buy an wrought-iron arch (the sort that's found in gardens) to use as a sort of homage to a chuppah. Or maybe I'll break down and use it to buy books.

Best laid plans...

I did NOT go to scrapbook garden. In fact, the nice, relaxing weekend I had planned turned into a hectic, run-around-crazy-and-do-too-much-stuff weekend.

But I got two new tires and an oil change. I've only needed tires for about a year. No big.

However! This weekend, I have renewed plans for a nice relaxing weekend! They involve:

• The Merriam Turkey Creek Festival
• A wedding project! I plan to make a card box out of these hollow, paper mache books

• Baking. I'm going to try a yeast raised bread of some kind. I'm thinking of either these donuts, some sort of kolache, or a homemade version of those delicious hawaiian sweet rolls you can pick up the grocery store. What do you think?

To the garden!

This weekend I am going to SCRAPBOOK GARDEN in Wichita.

This was one of my mother's favorite places in the world. She was crazy scrapbook lady. Also crazy card making lady. And crazy camera lady.

She was a lady of many crazies.

I will be gathering wedding project ideas (including looking for inspiration for one particular project that I will tell you all about soon), and looking for sticker remover - you know, that stuff that loosens the adhesive without damaging the paper underneath. This is because I've started collecting pretty books, which I will hopefully incorporate into awesome wedding decor one day.

Source

However, many of them have price sticker or even worse, a library bar code! Can't be having that. Bad enough that they'll have a "discard" stamp on them. So special, expensive, archival quality adhesive remover it is.

Stuff smells like oranges.

location, location, location

Mr. Adorable and I are getting married in Kansas City - its my new home town. Besides, we found the most amazing place, without even trying. We briefly considered getting married at the corn maze where we met. We even toured it. But they didn't have much in the way of facilities. Nothing, in fact. We could have it for free, but we'd have to rent tents, chairs, tables... everything. And it was kind of remote. But the woman who showed us around told us about the place she got married, and we decided on the spot to check it out. It was, in a word, beautiful.

James P. Davis Hall, Wyandotte Count Lake Park

There's a terrace.
French doors!

I love this place.

Even Caleb loved this place. We had no sooner snuck in the doors than we both decided that this was the place we would become "We". We had to sneak, as there was a family there getting set up for their own wedding. Its apparently a popular spot. But we quickly made friends with the father of the bride, who was a good old boy and halfway to drunk, and poked around and fell in love with the place. I'm all full of ideas and I can't wait until we get a little closer to being married, so I can start making them reality!

All photos from this flicker set

A blessing (and a curse)

I just discovered weddingbee.com. Where has it been all my life?! Its amazing. Its a blog, yes, but its not just one person - there are many wonderful brides and newly marrieds posting about their experiences, their planning, their ideas. And they all have cute psuedonyms, like Miss Guinea Pig, or Miss Starfish, or Mrs. Dauchound.
And they're like me. There's such an assortment that some of them, at least, fall into my categories. Plus size brides? Yes. Financially challenged ones? Check! Moderately crafty women and their friends? Check check.

It is, in a word, amazing. Its the sort of resource I'm so glad to have found.

On one hand.

On the other hand, I now am obsessed with it - I read it all evening at work (while still managing to get my work done, of course), and I'll probably be reading back posts long into the night (relatively speaking).

On the other other hand, I am now getting all kinds of ideas that I really shouldn't pursue. I really probably shouldn't fall in love with Gocco'ed invitations - I don't have a home gocco machine - I barely know what one is, except that it's expensive and makes pretty printing.

But I am coming up with some great ideas to solve the problems I've been encountering (non-floral decor, etc).

Anyway, back to WeddingBee! If you need me, you'll -probably- be able to pry me away.

Special Correspondent

I should be getting things done.
Its a Friday morning, I don't work, and there are things to be doing.
For instance, I should be washing my sheets, and raking the yard. Or walking to Starbucks and then to the little florist up the street that I've been driving past for months and planned on actually stopping in on today.
Or I should be getting ready to meet a friend at the community college bake sale and then grocery shopping.
And I probably will do all those things, at some point. But right now I'm writing letters.
Oh yes. I write letters.
I'm bringing back the art form. Plus, I have a creative writing degree. Gotta keep those chops up!
So instead of doing all those things right now, I'm writing a letter. Because there's something so sinfully delicious about sitting around in my jams at 11 on a beautiful Friday morning writing to Mr. Adorable.
Yeah, I write to my fiance.
Why don't you write to yours?
There's nothing like putting a king of hearts stamp on that unexpected missive to your adorable future hubs, talking about all the things that have happened since you last saw each other. Even if it was yesterday. Best part? He writes back. And the things we say to each other are enough to make the most hopeless of romantics go "those guys are so gross".
We tend to have that effect on people.
So back to my writing.
Now that my hand is un-cramped.

The Miscellaneous Bride cooks! And bakes! And does other things of a miscellaneous nature!

Yes. I am a woman of many talents. I'm also doing laundry and watching the office, and, well, blogging. Daylight Savings Time has apparently spurred me to new heights of efficiency.

What I haven't done is go through all the brochures and fliers from the bridal show I went to on Sunday. I went with fellow bride, Kat, who actually is the one to have the honor of saying she introduced me and Mr. Adorable. What can I say, she has an eye for these things.

But anyway, I came home laden with brochures and price lists, four or five pounds heavier from all the cake samples they throw at you, and even more in love with the crazy fabulous, crazy expensive Blue Rue Studios. Also, they're crazy nice people, it turns out. But there's no way we could afford them. Unless I actually do decide to turn to drug running... in which case, heck, lets move up the wedding. I could do it next month!

I also found a BBQ place/caterer I'd love to use, but catering is way out of my budget. So... what I'm thinking is... buy a bunch of potato salad from Sam's Club, and some brisket, cook it ourselves, and hire a high school kid to make sure the buffet is stocked. Its a plan. Except, I think Mr. Adorable hates potato salad.

So, the strangest thing about the bridal fair was the fact that at pretty much every booth, they would pay attention to either Kat, or I, but not both. Even though we both had "bride" stickers on, they assumed that a)one of us was a friend or bridesmaid or b)that we were "together", though I'm not sure which. And usually it was me getting the attention. Kat says its cause I'm blonde, I say its cause I'm a take charge kind of bride. But it got a little annoying. It was if they hadn't ever seen two brides be friends before.

And then there was the girl from David's Bridal, who just about attacked Kat as we walked by. They try and get you to sign up for a consultation with the lure of a 50 dollar gift card, and they're very pushy. This girl crossed the line from pushy to shrill - and slightly creepy. Luckily, I was able to tell everyone who seemed like they might be overzealous that I already have a dress. Kat had trouble with that one. So when this girl started in on "Do you already have your dress?" Kat tried to demure, but this girl persisted. Kat said she already had a dress in mind that wouldn't be covered by the gift card, the woman said "what if the store is out? What if What if its backordered? WHAT IF ITS DISCONTINUED!"

And with that, we just walked away.

A little inspiration...

Everyone in the wedding blogging world seems to be all about these inspiration boards - so I thought I'd make my own. This is a bit of what I want my wedding to be about.

Grape Hyacinth Bouquets. That's all she wrote.

Ever since I was a little girl, grape hyacinths have been my favorite flower. They popped up all over my grandma's garden and yard, and I'd gather them up in little bouquets. I may have even tried to eat them. But I loved the way they smelled, and felt, and looked.

So when I saw the above picture in From Hello To Hitched (originally from Instyle Weddings), I knew this was going to be my wedding bouquet. Or some variation thereof.




I've always liked garden flowers. Tulips are my other favorite flower. Closely followed by gerber daisies, because that's what Mr. Adorable likes to bring me. Probably because he can pick them up cheaply at the grocery or gas station, but at least he's thinking about it!
So, Grape Hyacinth, also known as Muscari, apparently, also comes in white. Which as much as I love the purple, is a better color for my scheme (yous guys tie the broad with the white flowers to the railroad tracks, and we'll get the cash, see?)
Hm... maybe a tulip AND grape hyacinth bouquet...

My birthday!

Tomorrow is my birthday, and if I could, I'd spend it sleeping in with my darling fiance, then snuggling up on the couch eating leftover frosting all day while we watch Season 3 of the Tudors and listen to NPR. Possibly Dinner would be made for me. Possibly there would be flowers. I wouldn't have to go out in the snow, I wouldn't have to go to work...
But instead, I'll be working all day. And not just working - teaching a computer class to seniors, which can be very taxing! And then, home to chores, most likely. I might get dinner made for me, though.

And my fiance did get me a fantastic present: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. He got me Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for Christmas. It brings me joy.

You know what else brings me joy? He does.

First Wedding Purchase!

Today my grandma and I went to Good JuJu to pick up something I'd seen there the last time I went. This store, by the way, has to be one of my favorite places in KC. Kind of a resale/vintage/flea market type vibe, but everyone who works there is happy and helpful, the merchandise is of good quality, and the prices are really reasonable, especially on furniture.

We were looking a a set of vintage white clutches, and the idea occurred to us that they would make great bridesmaid gifts when the time came, and even better, a bag would be a cute alternative to carying bouquets... and so it was decided. And since my spending philosophy is of the "buy as you go" variety, I picked one up. Ok, my grandma bought it for me, as a birthday gift. Its gold and cream brocade, and its beautiful.

I've seen these bags all over the last few years. Maybe they're really vintage, maybe they're not. Does it really matter? I've got a few years, so finding five or six of these to give probably won't be all the difficult, and will most assuredly be less expensive than full blown bouquets. I'm excited to have finally started spending towars the wedding, even if it was only a few dollars. It really feels like its happening, now.