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.