The Fabric Effect

I absolutely love the look of draped fabric. One of the first things I thought of after choosing our venue was draping fabric across the room. Our high school always had crazy decorations for homecoming, but every year they had fabric draped so that it looked like the night sky. I loved it!

I wish I had a better picture of it, but you can get the idea if you look at the top of the picture. They have tons of it, since it draped across the whole gym. The woman in charge of decorating for homecoming every year has been a family friend of our's for several years, so I know she'd be more than willing to let us borrow it if we wanted to.

It's just that I've seen so many pictures using white fabric. I think the black would be too dark since the ceilings at our venue aren't nearly as high as the ones in our school's gymnasium. Here's a picture I found on our venue's website of another reception that used draped fabric:

 

 Source

I wish I was able to see the professional pictures from this reception. I bet it was beautiful after it was all set up, and the pictures were probably gorgeous since they were taken with a decent camera.

After searching for more inspiration, I definitely think I'm drawn more to thicker pieces of less sheer fabric, more like this:

 Source

Or using more pieces like this:

Source

The transformation in the last one is amazing. It's incredible how big of a difference some fabric makes! My mom and I are going to start looking for fabric (probably chiffon) to go on sale. She knows way more about fabrics than I do, so I think I leave the type of fabric up to her. I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives to chiffon.

If we do decide to drape the fabric like the inspiration pictures I posted, I don't think we'll be able to use the paper lanterns. It would definitely be too busy with both. However, I think it'd be more do-able if we draped the fabric more like this, across the whole length of the room:

Source

*Can you believe that's a garage?!*

What do you think? Can we somehow incoporate both? Or do I need to stick with one or the other?

Long Distance Relationships Suck.

You know how sometimes you just feel yucky and want nothing more than to snuggle and rest with your hunny? I've had one of those days weeks. I just wish David was here. I went to Wal-Mart tonight because I was bored out of my mind and couldn't just sit at home tonight without doing something productive. So I tried to go find some supplies for a few of the projects I've been wanting to work on. I couldn't find a single thing I needed, so I left frustrated. On the way to my car, I saw this cute couple all bundled up in their coats and scarves holding hands as they walked into the store. I almost started crying. Uh, seriously?! Ridiculous, I know. I don't even know what it was - I think just that I don't feel good, I'm worn out, and I just miss my fiance! The terrible thing is when I'm in moods like this, I take it out on David. So I get snippy and, actually, downright rude sometimes when he's done nothing wrong. Sometimes he'll get frustrated with me, which just makes it worse (although I brought it upon myself!). But usually, he'll just try to reassure me that everything will get better and that we'll be together again soon. Because he's patient and amazing and so stinkin cute.

Photo by FSIL, editing by me

It's times like these that I question why I ever chose to leave our hometown and go to KU almost 2 and a half years ago now. But I know I shouldn't do that because I realize (when I'm thinking rationally) that, aside from the great program I'm in (the main reason I came here), being in a long distance relationship has been so good for us. We dated all through high school, so by the time we graduated, we were spending almost all of our time together. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be spending all my time with him now, but at that point in our lives it was necessary that we were able to find ourselves and grow up on our own a little. We've definitely matured as individuals, but I had no idea how much deeper and more meaningful it would make our relationship. We don't take anything for granted now, especially the time we spend together. And our communication skills have improved dramaically. I know that's something that will be a huge benefit in our marriage.

Photo and editing by FSIL

With just one more semester left after this one, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll graduate and move back to our hometown (where my parents and David are) in May, and we'll be married less than a month later! Then we'll not only be able to see each other everyday, we'll also finally be LIVING together! Everytime I think about the fact that I'll get to wake up next to him for the rest of my life, I have a huge smile on my face. I am soo so excited to be his wife, and when I'm honest with myself, I'm soo so thankful for the knowledge, maturity, and perspective we now have because we've been in a long distance relationship. So maybe they don't completely suck, but they're definitely not fun!

For those of you in long distance relationships, do you have nights like this? (Please tell me I'm not the only one!) Are you thankful for what you've learned from your LDR? Do you agree that there are benefits that will be helpful for marriage?

What's One More Project?

I've had this picture saved in my inspiration folder for quite some time now. I just love it!

*I don't have the source - Sorry!*

I don't think it'd be too terribly hard to do, especially if we were able to just prop the letters up against something. I think all it would take is a big sheet of plywood, a saw, and some white spray paint. I'm thinking maybe we could cover the sign in front of our venue with something (fabric?) and prop the letters up against it. That way they'd somewhat serve a purpose - Letting people know they've come to the right place! :)

Source: Venue's website

My own photo. Sorry for the poor quality -

I think I took it as I was driving, and I edited out the text on the sign

Ok, you're gonna have to pretend with me on this one. I attempted to put the letters in front of the sign like we would have them and I tried to make it look darker, closer to what it will look like the evening of our reception. What do you think?

It would be the right initials of course and we'd need some sort of spotlight, but I think I like it. This is another one of those fairly inexpensive, fairly easy projects that would have a big impact! (I'm a big fan of those, in case you can't tell!) 

What do you think? Would it be a worthwhile to at least attempt it? Do you have a favorite inspiration picture that you're going to try to recreate?

Question of Etiquette

Ok, I've been wondering about this, and need some outside opinions. Our venue's max capacity is 300. Our guest list, as it stands right now, is at almost 380 people. And there may be more added to that after we get a list from David's parents (although we tried to think of anyone who would be on that list while making our's). We knew we'd be having a big wedding - After almost 6 years together, we have a lot of people that we're either close to as a couple or that we've gotten close to as individuals while at different colleges. I know people always say you can expect at least 20% of your guest list to either RSVP no or just not show up, which would bring us down to right at 300. I'm guessing it will be even more than 20% since we're getting married in the summer, although we are sending STDs, so I'm not sure what impact they'll have. Anyway, all that to say, we really can't be adding more people to the guest list. We should be going through it eliminating guests (that sounds awful!) if anything.

Here's what I'm not sure about: If someone who wasn't originally on the guest list talks to you specifically about the wedding, is it against etiquette to still not invite him/her? The last time I was at home for the weekend, David and I ran into one of our classmates from high school. One of our mutual friends reads my blog, and had shown her some of my ideas/projects. She said she loves everything I'm doing and was super sweet about it. The thing is, we hadn't originally planned to invite her because we hadn't really stayed in contact with her since we graduated. This has happened a few other times with people who we weren't planning to invite asking about details (date, location, etc.) or commenting on how excited they are for us. Are we "obligated" to invite them if we talk to them about the wedding? Of course, I'm not saying we should start conversations with people about our wedding if we don't plan on inviting them, but I don't think we should try to make room for people that we aren't as close to solely because we were polite when they asked about our upcoming nuptials.

What are your thoughts? Have you run into this problem? On another note, what percentage of your guest list are you expecting to decline/not attend?

I would definitely recommend using WeddingWire! We're starting to collect addresses to send our STDs and it will definitely help in keeping me organized (read: sane!)

Another One?!

You girls are too sweet! I received the Sugar Doll Blogger Award from Morgan at Handcrafted Hitching Post, Miss Pug at Miss Pug's Pawfect Wedding, and Stacy at You Can't Take It With You - Thank you all!

 So now I have to come up with 10 interesting facts about myself and pass on the award to 10 other lovely bloggers. I wish I could've done what Stacy and Miss Pug did, and have David come up with these, but he's reffing and isn't able to. :( So I'm not sure how interesting these will be, but I'll try!

1. I am a terrible procrastinator. It amazes me that I'm getting anything done ahead of time for the wedding!
2. I wear flip flops pretty much year round. I try to avoid wearing them when there's snow on the ground, but any other time is fair game!
3. I cannot wait until David and I buy our first house so I'm able to decorate it aaand we can have a dog!
4. I never wear earrings. Sometimes I see cute ones that make me wish I did, but after having my mom try to force earrings through the closed holes the night of my freshman homecoming (my first 'date' with David, btw!), I'm never trying that again.
5. My ring and my bracelet from David are the first (and only) pieces of jewelry that I really care about and wear every day. Actually, I guess I do wear my ring that says 'Anything is possible' on the inside and 'when you have faith' on the outside almost every day. But that's it! 
6. My friends would tell you that I have a closet stuffed full of cute clothes (which may be true!) but I wear sweats and tshirts to class every day. Hey, when you work with infants, there's really no point to look cute.
7. I've always been kind of shy, but I'd like to think I've gotten more outgoing. David is WAY more social than I'll ever be, though! 
8. There has to be cold air blowing when I'm sleeping so I can snuggle up under blankets. 
9. I love hearing/reading peoples' stories even if I've never met them before. I guess that's probably why I like reading blogs so much!
10. I love sleep. I wish I got more of it! 

Ok, now for 10 lovely bloggers! I tried to throw some new ones in there, but I'm sure there are some repeats. (And those of you that have already received it 2 or 3 times, know I read your blog too!!)

These are blogs I particularly enjoy in no particular order:

1. Random Reflections of a Perfectionist  
2. Wrapped in Happiness 
3. Seaside Smitten 
4. Lynsey @ Lynsey and Brian 
5. joy is the best makeup 
6. Happily After All 
7. Nicole @ Darin and Nicole
8. Burning River Bride 
9. A Colorado Cupcake 
10. A Very Gator Wedding
    

Thanks again, ladies, for the award! You guys are the best!

Engagement Pictures, Part 2!

Are you thinking, "Wait, I didn't know you took more engagement pictures,"? Well, I didn't know until a couple days before whether we'd be able to take them or not, so I didn't even have a chance to blog about it! If you remember, I was disappointed that we didn't get any pictures at the campanile after our last shoot with FSIL. This past Saturday was the only chance we'd have to get pictures there with the beautiful fall colors, and I'd say they were pretty darn beautiful:

And with my editing:

With my editing:

 

With my editing:

FSIL said she wasn't sure how many of the pictures turned out well since the lighting wasn't great. (We decided to take the pictures after the football game, so it was cloudy and the sun was setting.) I love the 3 I've seen so far, though, so I'm not worried if not all of them turn out! I love the last one at the campanile - It makes me so happy! I can't wait to see the rest of them.

Was your engagement shoot somewhat spontaneous?

A-freaking-dorable!!

I think the majority of you who read my blog are Weddingbee readers, but just in case you're not, you've GOT to see this proposal that Miss Frozen Yogurt just posted about! It is precious!

Bakerella is an adorable baking blog that I read occasionally, although I never have time to try her awesome ideas, unfortunately. She helped a guy (whose girlfriend is an avid reader) propose a few days ago - You can read the original post here and the follow-up with the details here. I gave me goosebumps picturing the girl's face when this came up on her computer screen:

  

Soo cute! What's the cutest proposal story you've ever heard?

**PS - Believe it or not, there's a third post still coming today! (I am at home sick, but I already had 2 scheduled and just had to share this, too.) It's a little surprise, so be sure to check back! :)

Opinions, Please!

I blogged previously about the display of our parents' and grandparents' wedding pictures we'll have. I love watching this project come together as I gather the pictures one by one. The last time I was at home, my mom and I went through my parents' wedding pictures. I don't think I'd ever seen all of them before, so it was fun to look at all of the little details! My mom looked absolutely gorgeous on their wedding day! I can't decide which picture to use, so I'm turning to you guys again. Which do you like better?

  

I think I'm leaning more toward the first one, but I love both of them! The first one may work better since I'm using 5x7 reprints of them and its resolution is higher. What do you think? Do you think I should wait to see the picture David's mom chooses and see which one coordinates better? Or go ahead and pick a favorite of the two? (And Mom, feel free to give your opinion, too if you've decided you like one more than the other!)

Centerpiece Changes

Per usual, I can't just stick with an original idea. If you've followed my blog since the beginning, you remember my first plan for the centerpieces. Well, the topiary centerpiece transformed into this. And now, the alternating centerpieces have transformed into something slighty different. With my original inspiration, we'd be using submerged flowers. I was already struggling to find a relatively inexpensive way to achieve the look I was going for when I decided to change the other centerpieces. With the changes I made, the two options really didn't coordinate at all. Since I'm using tulle in the first centerpiece option, I was trying to think of some way to incorporate tulle into the other option. I somehow came up with this:

 

 I couldn't seem to get a good picture of it with the flash on

I'm going to use submerged pink tulle (still with a floating candle on top) to tie the two options together. I didn't have any pink tulle on hand, so I just used the white I already had to make sure it would work. We'll still have three vases, so the center vase will have the tulle and the two side vases will have pink beads/pearls at the bottom and ribbon around the middle with a floating candle on top. That way, the beads/pearls that I'm adding to the tulle pomander centerpieces will be similar to the beads/pearls in the vase, and the same pink ribbon will be used in both centerpiece options. I'd already found the two (shorter) side vases we're using on Dollar Tree's website, and I happened to check back and find taller ones we could use for the middle one! I was originally planning on buying the taller ones from Wal-Mart, but we saved money this way, and they work just as well. We'll also be saving a lot of money using tulle rather than flowers.

I'm really excited to see how it all comes together. I'll hopefully be doing a full centerpiece mock-up soon, so I can make sure my vision turns out as well as I'm picturing it. I've also never seen this done before, so I'm glad it'll be totally original! The only thing I still need to figure out is where to buy the floating candles from. Do any of you have suggestions or recommendations? I've found 72 2" floating candles for $35.99 - Do you think I could find them cheaper?

Are you able to stick with your original plans? Or do you find them slowly transforming into something totally different?

Crisis Averted

You might recall that I started on my flower pomanders using off-white mums. It wouldn't have been a big deal, except for the fact that I ran out of mums after I finished one large pomander and about 3/4 of a small pomander, and the Hobby Lobby here hasn't had any in stock for the last month. When I was home a week and a half ago, my mom and I went to the Hobby Lobby there and they had the mums in white! That was what I wanted originally, so I was happy to find them, but wasn't sure how I'd solve the problem of them not matching. My mom and I went ahead and picked up about 8 bunches of them since they were 50% off. Yesterday, I came up with a brilliant solution - I'd take apart the one large pomander I'd made and use the off-white mums to make 2 complete small pomanders. I won't be using the off-white pomanders as aisle decor, but instead like this:

I might hang a string of pink beads down from the pomander so the vase doesn't look so empty, but I haven't decided yet. I think we'll use the two vases as the decor on the bar, so there won't be much stark white decor around them. (I'll be posting about the vases soon, as they're also part of the other centerpiece we're doing.)

Now I just need to buy another large styrofoam ball, and probably 2 more of the smaller size since I'm not using these 2 as aisle decor. I finished one of the small white pomanders tonight, and I think I like the stark white much better to use along the aisle since there will be a white aisle runner, which I hadn't thought about before.

Everything worked out, and I knocked out another project by making the off-white pomanders into reception decor! Have you encountered a 'crisis' and had it work out better than your original plan?

**If anyone is interested in a pomander tutuorial, please let me know! I have pictures and would be more than willing to type one up, but I know there are lots of other similar tutorials out there. :)

Another Great Weekend

It was another great weekend! Celebrating David's birthday was so much fun. We went to dinner Friday night with 8 of our friends that live up here, and then came over to BM S's and my house afterward. I think David really enjoyed himself, and so did the rest of us! We had one GM, GM J, and BM S there, as well as one of our ushers. I told David on Saturday that I'm so excited for our wedding weekend because I know we'll be laughing the whole time - We have so many hilarious people in our bridal party!

I'll leave you with a few pictures of the weekend. I'm working on a bunch of posts for this week - I've made quite a bit of progress with our decor projects recently! I hope you all had as much fun this weekend as I did!

 

 Our traditional birthday picture!

  

Me with BM S

David with GM J

Hair Inspiration

I've been gathering inspiration pictures for my hair since before we got engaged. I'm not sure why, but a girl's hair is usually one of the first things I notice in pictures, and I just love the look of loose, big curls. I know I want at least a section of my hair pulled up because my hair is extremely thick and will be hot in June. For some reason, my hair doesn't hold curl especially well (I don't know why since it's wavy to begin with), so I'm debating having a style that can be altered a little bit for the reception, when I'll be moving around/dancing my booty off/sweating! I'll be wearing a chapel length veil-which I'm making, so I'll post a DIY tutorial as soon as I do!-for the ceremony, but will probably wear a hair flower for the reception, so I'd like a style that looks good with both (or possibly that can be easily changed to look good with both).

My inspriation for the ceremony:

 

source for both

*I think this is the inspiration picture for the majority of brides that want a half-up style - I've seen this picture everywhere!*

 

*Taylor Swift has the best curls!*

 

*I like the poof in this one*

And for the reception:

 

**I don't have sources for most of these, so please let me know if you know where they came from!**

Ok, so maybe I need to even out the inspiration a little bit. Logistically, though, I'm not sure how it would work as I don't really want to be re-doing my hair just before the reception.

So, what do you think? Should I just scrap the idea of changing my original hair-do and hope my curls stay in place (or that I'll be too happy to care if they don't)? If so, should I still try to wear a hair flower with my original style? Do any of you have any inspiration pictures-since I'm obviously a big fan of them-of half-up styles with hair flowers? I need your help with this one!

Happy Birthday, Babe!

In honor of David's (21st!) birthday today, I thought I'd share some of the pictures from his previous birthdays. I can't believe this is the 6th birthday of his that we'll celebrate together. Where has the time gone?! I also can't believe that we'll be celebrating his next birthday as a married couple! Check out how much we've changed though the years:

I can't find a picture of David's 16th birthday, so this is from my 16th birthday

17th Birthday

18th Birthday

19th Birthday

We didn't get to see each other on his 20th birthday, but this is 5 days before it
(Have I mentioned how much long distance relationships suck?)

And this is us last weekend! He's coming up tomorrow to celebrate his birthday, so I don't have a 21st birthday picture yet. 

It's fun to see how much we've changed and how we've grown up together. And I love that, some day, we'll be able to show our kids pictures of all of the memories we've made with each other. This may be cliche, but it's like that quote (that a few people sent to me through a Facebook Bumper Sticker): "When I'm older, and my daughter asks me who my first love was, I don't want to have to pull out the old photo album. I want to be able to point across the room and say, 'He's sitting right over there.'"

David, I love you more than I could ever put into words. You're my closest friend, my true companion, and my first (and last!) love. I can't picture my life without you, nor would I ever want to. I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with you, sharing thousands more memories. Thanks for making me the luckiest girl in the world. Happy 21st Birthday! Can't wait to see you tomorrow! Forever and ever, babe.

To Look or Not to Look

Growing up, and even at the start of my wedding planning, I was sure I would follow tradition and not see my groom until the ceremony when I walked down the aisle. I still think that's so incredibly romantic, but I just don't see how it's feasible if I want fun pictures with our bridal party and I don't want our guests waiting for an hour for us at the reception site. But for those of you not doing a "first look," but who want to have an intimate moment together before the ceremony, how cute are these pictures?! I think an "almost first look" is such a cute alternative:

source

We've decided on doing an actual 'first look' with us and the photographer. I know it will still be an incredibly romantic (and emotional!) moment, and I'm hoping it might keep me from crying in our ceremony as much as I would've if I saw him for the first time at the altar. I'm also hoping that it will ensure that we'll have a picture of David's face when he sees me. I think it would be much easier to get one this way, rather than as I'm walking down the aisle. I thought I might have to almost talk my mom into it, but she's totally on board, especially after seeing pictures like these:

source

source

And the pictures from our photographer:

 

 

I can't wait to see the look on David's face when he sees me for the first time. I've told him-multiple times-that I really hope he cries. Ha, no pressure or anything, right? I'm so glad that we'll have great pictures of this incredible moment. And we'll still get to take the fun pictures bridal party pictures that I want so badly afterwards. (I'll be posting more of my inspiration pictures soon!)

Did you decide to do a "first look"? What are/were your reasons? And do you plan on it being just the two of you and your photographer or are you going to have family and bridal party members there to share it with you?