Other Wedding Stuff

What seems like eons ago I posted about possibilities we were considering for our wedding guest book.  John ended up making the decision and it was likely the most expensive of the options (especially since we haven't used the camera since).  But here are a couple of pages of the book...

Our wedding guest book

Originally I picked up a large scrapbooking album for Michaels hummed and hawed about the size of it for about a week and decided I likely wanted to go with something else... but what that something else was I wasn't sure.  Then while wandering the aisles at Michaels (on one of my twice weekly Michaels visits... seriously... they basically sponsored our wedding and weren't even aware of it!) I found a small 3 ring binder (the outside of it was a plain white fabric and we never added anything more to it) with a bunch of pages and envelopes included.  It was probably about $10 which was a fraction of the cost of the original album (I don't recall the cost of it.. probably at least $30).  We set it on a table with 2 of our friends manning it to take photos of our guests and left pens, markers, and glue sticks out for them to decorate and write a message.

I don't think I ever shared what we did for our table seating chart either.  We also kept this pretty simple.  In fact, the hardest part of the seating chart was finding a frame that included a bunch of spots for photos... that I actually liked.  I actually just came across this as we were moving (yes, the seating chart came with us... I'm sure we might reuse it for something other than a seating chart sometime!).  Anyways, I found this frame at JYSK for a good price... we decided on the black frame versus the white because the tent and so much of the decor was already white.  The paper was scrapbooking paper from Michaels.  Did you know you can pretty much return anything to Michaels?  A potential guest book that you decide is too large but lost the receipt for and even their open stock scrapbook paper.  

Our wedding seating chart

We hadn't used our engagement photos at all (other than the one that was on our invites) and so we used some of the extra spots to in the seating chart to add some of our engagement pictures... whether people spent time looking for more than their name is beyond me but we did it anyways.

 The venue had an easel we could use so we set this on the easel by the guest book table and everyone seemed to find their spot.

Also, to see some much better quality photos of our wedding click here

Wedding Pictures!

It hasn't quite been a year yet...

Despite it being in October the weather was pretty decent (yes, our guests had to wear their jackets but I don't think anyone froze and we certainly didn't boil in the heat!)

All of these photos were taken at the venue (in fact, it was the only place other than where my maid of honour and myself got our hair done that pictures were taken).

Our wedding album

We've had our wedding album for a few months now.  We (ahemIahem) made it on Shutterfly and then waited for a really good deal to order it! I opted for the more expensive layflat option because then you could put a large picture across 2 pages and have it still look perfect along the spine.

Fun fact: Did you know that by signing up on Shutterfly they give you 50 free prints?  Because they do... or at least they used to!  We made our parents a smaller version of our wedding album for Christmas (I had a fabulous friend give me a code to get one of those for free too) and when we ordered our parents albums we ordered our 50 free prints (because they were still going to charge shipping on those prints)... all with the exact same photo.  We used them as our thank you's.  I think I printed about 10 to 20 others at London Drugs because 50 wasn't enough.

Anyways, enjoy some pictures from our wedding!

Our wedding ceremony

One of my favourite shots!

Why wear fancy heels when I can wear comfortable flats all day!?!

My wedding shoes (and earrings and ring)

My sister made our wedding cake

Our wedding cake

John cut some trees down at the lake to make our centerpieces (or maybe he used trees that had already fallen over?  I don't recall).  Then he burnt the tables numbers onto the wood.

Our wedding centerpieces

Our reception was in a semi permanent tent on the property (if it was too cold or rainy we were going to have the ceremony in here as well).  They had options to pump in heat in case it got too cold... not sure if they had to or not though.

Our wedding reception

Our favours were succulents.  I loved the idea but hardly anyones them made it through the winter!

Our wedding favours

Also, because purchasing and dreaming about changes (and making changes) to the new home has occupied much of our time we have't figured out a single thing to do for our first year anniversary!  Give us some ideas in the comments!

The Perfect Homemade Wedding Shower Gift

That's right I said perfect.

Perfect for the couple that likes to eat.

Perfect for the couple that likes to spend time outdoors.

Perfect for the couple that likes picnics

It's... A... PICNIC BASKET!

I don't recall how I came up with the idea for a picnic basket.  I think I went searching for a shower gift at Winners and saw picnic stuff but thought I could find something better than what they were offering.  It turned out I could find something better than what they were offering and the price tag for better was indeed quite a bit more.  So I travelled down the interwebs hole of picnic baskets and eventually found a DIY one that I thought was perfect on Lovely Indeed!

Her instructions went flawlessly for me.  

BUT for the love of everything... make sure you get your basket of choice from Michaels and make sure you use at the very least a 40% off coupon.  I was lucky and went when there was a 50% off coupon because baskets are expensive!

Once I had the basket all put together I searched stores for the perfect dishes.  To be honest I think Superstore had better ones but I wanted to fill my basket with so many wonderful things that I went to Dollar Tree instead (Dollarama was more expensive).  The cutlery was the cheapest set from Ikea (it's picnicing people not dinner with the queen!)

Inside my basket I included:

4 bowls

4 plates

4 knives

4 spoons

4 forks

4 plastic wine glasses

napkins

reusable ice cube things

fancy juice

I considered also including some kind of platter, table cloth or picnic blanket, a snack, and I meant to add in some kind of game (like a frisbee)... I just forgot to pick one up.

I wasn't sure whether to include stuff for 4 people or 2 but went with the larger number in case stuff breaks or goes missing or they want to invite a couple of friends out for a picnic.  But I only made space in the lid for stuff for 2 people... 4 just wouldn't have fit.

I asked my friend the other day how it was all holding up and apparently everything is still intact so the glue that is recommended is absolutely the right glue for the job!  I'm mostly surprised about the button on the outside not coming off... apparently I did a better sewing job of that then I thought.  

Sidenote:  That button was a hard choice... was I getting the right kind, I wanted white but not glossy white so we painted it but the paint wasn't sticking... really though... who would have thought the hardest part of making your own picnic basket would be the button choice!

Oh, and I added the lovely flower on top because I wasn't wrapping it and thought it needed a little something extra.  You can make your own flower... just search "tissue paper flower" and I'm sure no less than 50 Youtube videos will come up.

10-14-2016

It's been just over a week since we got married.

We haven't jetted off on any honeymoon (yet)

... or even moved in all of John's things.

What we do have is a bunch of sneak peeks at our wedding photos though!

(which we actually got about a week ago because our photographer is so fantastic)

Here are the two that I've been sending/showing most people

Bachelorette Party

Despite what many people may think about a bachelorette party needing to be wild and crazy mine was not.

(and nor does it have to be)

What did I do?

I found a fantastic person that was willing to come to any location (I chose my sister's house because she had the space) and teach myself and 14 others (yes 14!) how to paint a beautiful painting.

You'll find the artist, Amber, at Painting on the Prairies and I highly recommend that if you are from around these parts and wanting to do some painting you contact her.

Why?  

First off, she told me that since I booked my party far enough in advance she could do a custom painting just for me!  What!?!  I felt so special that if I didn't see anything in her selection that I loved she would do something different for me (I went with the custom painting - which is apparently a huge hit now!)

I may be marrying outside of the Mennonite heritage but you can't take the Mennonite out of me.  I needed the best deal for a private party.  I didn't want my party at a bar of any kind and didn't want to have to find a community center to rent out.  With Painting on the Prairies all you need is 10 people and it costs $350 (of course you can have more... any additional people are $35).  If you have under 10 people the cost is still $350 which makes sense.. you gotta pay the artist for her time!  And she'll gladly attend your party at your house.

Amber was so easy to work with!  The plan was to possibly paint outside (weather permitting) but the weather did not permit for this.  So instead we painted in 3 different rooms.  All the rooms were on the same floor but still separated enough that Amber had to show the same thing 3 times.  And she did a fantastic job working all 3 rooms.

Clean up was also super easy... to be honest I didn't even realize it happened.  

Anywho, I'm beginning to sound like Painting on the Prairies sponsored this post and I'm just not that popular for that to happen... I'm just letting you all know that you should consider it! 

All in all it was a fantastic afternoon and evening and I feel incredibly blessed that so many people wanted to come out and spend time with me and bless me with my upcoming wedding.  

I couldn't have imagined anything better!

Bonsai Beauty

3 MORE DAYS!

Marriage Councelling

Over the last 2 or 3 months John and I have meeting with the pastor that is going to marry us and going through this book:

But guess what?

On Friday we finished our last session!

Guess that means we are ready to be married.

Huzzah!

To anyone debating on whether to do marriage counseling or not my vote would be to do it.  In fact if you have the choice I'm not sure why one would opt to not do it.  There were a lot of questions and things John and I talked about because we went through this book that we likely would have never thought to talk about before getting married.  Hopefully we just dodged a couple of big arguments because we did it.

17 more days

We've Registered!

.. A while ago

And let me tell you... I've noticed a few things that you don't realize when you are always the person purchasing items off others' gift registry's and never making your own.

1.  I distinctly remember thinking someone was crazy for putting a $30 (or so) paper towel holder on their gift registry once... now I understand... we just scanned stuff at the store and often tried to go with the cheapest option (when we weren't concerned about colour and what not) but it isn't like there is a wide range of prices at just one store.  So we scanned the items anyways knowing that we weren't attached to any specific brand and if someone found that citrus zester for $5 instead of the (probably) $15 one we found... we would probably be perfectly happy with that $5 one too.

2.  I got reprimanded by one of the sales ladies at one of the stores we registered at for checking prices because... see above.  I just don't want anyone to think that the $150 waffle iron is the one I want and no other will do... when the one right next to it was only $40 and would definitely do just fine!  So I continued to check prices... I just did it a little more sneakily.

3.  Neither of the stores we registered at sold a Swiffer Wet Jet and I really want one.  I don't like sweeping/cleaning floors at all (in fact I've already told John - and I'm sure he's forgotten, that the floors are his job to clean!)... maybe the Swiffer will make me want to do it a little more often though.

4.  I also couldn't find mustard yellow bath towels (bath, hand, and face clothes).. I want a yellow and grey bathroom... someday... maybe.

5.  Pots and Pans are expensive!  Our plan was to go with some open stock pots and pans but... do these even exist?  We couldn't find any.  So we didn't register for any.  The 2 places we register offer us discounts on our registry after our wedding for up to a year.  So when we find ones we like we'll just add them to the registry and go purchase them ourselves.

6.  You know what else is expensive... Kitchen Aid attachments.  I registered us for an ice cream maker attachment though because it was on sale for under $100.  Then it went back up to regular price and I sort of felt guilty about leaving it on there...  Another purchase to make with our discount cards!

7.  Our most expensive item is a lovely Dyson vacuum that would be oh so wonderful to have but we aren't expecting it... that might be a purchase that we use our savings card on within a year after our wedding.  Otherwise, everything else is pretty reasonably priced (I hope!)

8.  We've had some people get stuff not on our registry and I (we) don't mind that either.  The games we received are awesome!

9.  We've also had people get stuff off our register from a different store.  I (we) don't mind that either!  I just go online afterwards and remove the item from the gift registry myself then.

10.  Finally, John had some fun while registering for items.  So on our list you'll find 1 hula hoop, maple syrup (which we actually got), an Olympic sweater, a pizza maker (which is apparently a serious addition despite what I may think), and I think there may be some fancy cloth napkins on there as well.  I left them all on though until our most recent shower... when I went on an updating spree and deleted things that we had received and deleted things we didn't really need (like that hula hoop).

And just a tip... before we headed out I looked up a list of things online that people register for, regretted registering for (because they don't use them), and wished they would have registered for.  This really came in handy and I made a list for John and I (before looking these lists up I had like 5 things on my list and was stumped.. so it was a HUGE help!).  Once we registered for an item that was on the list I checked it off so that we wouldn't forget and register for a second one.

But what's most important to note with our gift registry is that we don't NEED anything... Nor do we expect anything.  We are super grateful for the showers that we have already had and for everyone's generosity.  And we hope you feel like we appreciate them.  Because we do!

In fact people have been VERY generous.  My spare bedroom is now officially the present room... until we move into a place with a much larger kitchen that can hold all these precious things.

I've already used the breadmaker (which is why it is out of it's box)

Psst... want to know a secret?  If you look closely you can catch a glimpse of part of what we are giving away for favours.  I've been spending my evenings tracing and cutting out 150 circles just for them!

My Closet

A week ago I picked up a little something, something and hung it up in my closet... can you guess what it is?

The People at the Wedding

I usually do this on my other blog but today I'm doing it here and linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching to tell you 5 different types of people at our wedding.

1.

The wedding party

We are having an uneven wedding party.  I'm still unsure of how exactly I feel about this but in the end I knew John wanted 2 and I only had 1 for my side so... why not?  Really, what's important is that John and I get married; and not how many people are in our wedding party or attending.

2.

The guests

We kept our numbers to under 200 so far we've got a grand total of 43 people coming.  Should be a nice, small wedding if people don't start RSVPing.  We are using an online service to keep track of our RSVP's that is working out well BUT I don't think people understand that they have to go on it and say that they aren't coming (if they aren't)... we clearly have a bunch of unknowns!

3.

Photographers

Yes I said photographerS... there is more than one so you best get ready to have your photo snapped and always look top notch and keep your finger our of your nose.  People will be are ready with cameras!

4.

Videographers/Audio

In case you somehow are able to escape the photographers there will also be 2 videographers... we should have our day well captured in the end.  Our plan was to only have 1 videographer but then she asked if she could bring a second shooter (which isn't actually costing us anything!)... we couldn't say no!  The audio person is to help capture audio for our videographer... you might not even see him.. he has a pretty easy but important job.

5.

The bride and groom!

That's right, John and I will be attending our wedding!

Oh, and of course, all the staff at the event location.

If you haven't RSVP to our wedding yet (and have your invite sitting on the counter, stuck on the fridge, or tossed on the floor... what are you waiting for!?!  I'm looking to order you all some prezzies for attending and I'm guessing I'll have approximately 120 or so people leaving without a favour at this rate!

First Dress Fitting

A week ago I had my first dress fitting and there's some good news.  I still like the dress!

Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling too great the day of the fitting so I walked in there looking a bit like I just rolled out of bed to get there.

RSVPing

I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again... we are using an online service to keep track of all our RSVP's.  In my very limited experience with keeping track of a large quantity of RSVP's this seems like the best option (not that I've ever done it before or anything).

The service we are using is AnRSVP (just in case you are interested in using it too)

First, the problems.

Everyone on your guest list has to have a different first and last name combination.  This didn't work out for us.  So, say for example you have 2 people you are inviting that are both named John Smith... that's not allowed.  We had not 1, not 2, but 3 instances where people had the exact same name.  It was an easy fix for us though.

One of the places this came up was with a child having the same name as my grandpa.  To fix this problem I grouped my cousin with the rest of his brothers and sisters.  So instead of it just saying "John" on the first name spot it says "John, sisters name, other sisters name" and I gave that line an invite count of 3.  I know that family can't make it already so I wasn't too worried about how I set it up.

The other problem was with John's side.  He has an uncle with the same name as his grandpa and an aunt with the same name as his grandma.

The solution to this was also an easy one.  John told me that his grandparents wouldn't be RSVPing for themselves anyways so for the first name for his grandparents I put Grandpa *his first name* and on the next line Grandma *her first name*.  This way the aunt and uncle (whom will likely have enough knowledge of the internet to RSVP for themselves) can RSVP for themselves using their actual names and we can just do it for his grandparents.

The other annoying part was that I put the names into the online program in the order that I had them listed on my list... so according to families.  The program jumbled them all up into an order I couldn't understand.  So eventually I just put them in alphabetical order to make people easier to find.

I also put the names in individually,,,  I know you can also do some importing of stuff but I figured I would have more control over the names if I just did it myself (plus, on the document we were keeping track of their names I also had written in if they were my aunt/uncle/grandparent.... I would have just had to do some editing anyways.  It took a bit of time... not a lot.  What did get frustrating was that I missed some people and then because the list wasn't ordered the same as my hard copy it was hard to see who I missed putting in.  But I eventually figured it out and now our RSVP list matches our hard copy list.

The benefits

The program keeps track of your RSVPs for you!  I don't have to worry about forgetting to mark someone down as a yes and what kind of allergy they have.

You can make your own questions to accompany your RSVP.

We have just 2 questions...
1) If there are any allergies (our caterer is willing to work around these)
2) What kind of song(s) they would like to dance to that night.

The program also lets you know how many invites you need to send out.  I think we ended up with 94 that were going out.  It helps when you need to know how many invites you should be printing or how many envelopes you need to buy (it's just too bad John didn't have his list finalized before I ordered the invites and envelopes).

The online service gives us a unique (but easy to type in) URL that we included on our invites so that guests shouldn't have too hard of a time RSVPing.

According to the site as of right now we have 17 people attending our wedding.  Should be a small and intimate wedding with only 6 songs people want being played during the dance portion.  People likely don't realize that we need them to respond with a no if they aren't coming.  But, about 3 or so weeks before the wedding we will get on all these people that haven't responded and likely just do it for them.  Hopefully, we get a lot more responses to make this job a little easier on us!

Wedding Invites

Our wedding invites have all been sent out so I guess it's safe to talk about this now...

I wanted to make sure we used our engagement photos somehow because sometimes you never end up seeing a single engagement photo of a couple at their wedding.  Since we aren't using any of our pictures for our guestbook it was an easy decision to use one in our invites.  We had TONS of great pictures to choose from because our photographer is AMAZING!  Click here to see some other photo options we considered for our wedding invites.

The design.

John and I decided on all the wording for our invites.  We knew we wanted a Bible verse somewhere on the invite as well and I really didn't want the front of the invite to be too wordy (I was looking at some examples and one in particular just seemed too jumbled with words).  Because our wedding venue is outside of the city just off a highway we also decided it was important to include a map to where the venue is.  BUT, we didn't want the map on another piece of paper because that just adds to printing costs... so we made sure that got on the back of the invite.  Other than the important information for date, time,and location the only other thing we needed to include was an RSVP date and how they could do that.  We are actually using an online service for our RSVP (hopefully it works... I'll talk more about that next week).

But in the end we did not design the invites.  I have a very talented cousin that was (hopefully) more than eager to do this for us.  All we had to do was pay for printing and get some envelopes that would fit our cards (we had our cards designed so that 2 would fit on a regular piece of paper to help cut printing costs).

We had them printed at Staples... all we did was drop off our USB with the file of the invites on it and explain what we wanted.  They charge you to open the file on the USB but it was only $2... and in my opinion to do that in store rather than online ensures that you are getting the invites done properly... well worth the $2.  I was warned about them charging a fee for cutting so John and I had already planned to go to his parents place on Monday to use their paper cutter.  BUT, then the employee at Staples told me the fee to cut them would be $3 to get them all done... so I "splurged" and had them cut it.  My reasoning (other than it only being $3) was that if they messed up on the cutting I'm sure they would reprint them free of charge (we actually might not even know that they messed it up) but if we messed it up we would be back at Staples paying to have more invites made.

So all in all we paid $5 extra to have them printed at Staples but we are pretty happy with the results.  PLUS, it only cost us $78.87 to get 120 invites printed (so 60 pieces of paper) which was well under our budget of $150.  When we added some envelopes (I just bought a pack of 100... so some people are getting invites not in an envelope - but we are handing some out so I think that's ok) it came to $103.46 which is still a good amount under our budget.

I didn't even look into any other types of wedding invites... I know that at Michaels you can get a package of them and you can design them online with their program. But even then you still have to pay printing costs and we would have likely needed to get more than one box of them (I'm guessing one box might have 50 invites or so)... so I still think we went the smarter route.

A huge thank you to my cousin for designing these beauties!

the front

the back

Wedding Florist

Psst... sometimes when looking for people to hire for your wedding you just have to ask the most recent person you know who got married.  That way they do all the hard work of pricing things out and seeing who offers the best stuff for the best price.

And that folks, is exactly what we did for our florist.  John's sister got married in February and she had mentioned how a lot of florists charge A LOT for flowers but she had found someone that was super reasonable.  So John and I didn't even look around.  We (okay, it was me) asked John's sister who they used and called her up.  Turns out her prices are really reasonable (am I the only person that gets excited when things come WAY under budget?).

We went in to see her not really having too much of a clear vision of what we wanted (or knowing if certain flowers even existed... ahem John ahem) and I'm confident she'll be able to put it all together into something beautiful for us.  After talking with her and corosponding through email a bit I think I do have a pretty good idea of what I want things to look like (and I think we are on the same page... I guess I'll see soon when she puts together the silk mock up for us)

What is she all doing for us?
Bouquets (mine, my bridesmaid, and one to toss into the crowd)
Boutineers (groom, groomsmen, and our dads)
corsages (for our moms)
Flowers for centerpieces

If you are in the area and want a reasonably prices florist let me know... I'd be happy to pass on her information to you.

Wedding Photographer

Selecting a wedding photographer was one of the easier things John and I had to do.  

First, I asked for suggestions.  My sister went through photography school and so I asked her who she thought would do a good job.  John's sister also recently got married so we [kind of] looked into who she used as well.

Out of all the suggestions I emailed just 2 photographers.  

How did I narrow it down?  That's easy and something you should know I always default to because of my Mennonite ways... price.  If they didn't have a price listed online I didn't bother to send them an email.. I mean they could have been really affordable but come on... list your prices so I have an idea of how affordable!  

One of the photographers was someone my sister had recommended and the other was an acquantice.  

In the end, we went with the photographer that I knew.  I knew that she would be easy to communicate with and because she knows me she is willing to do (in my opinion) so much more for us!  

Sometimes going with someone you know isn't the best option... they might give you a really good deal but take their time getting pictures back to you (I've heard of this happening) or they might give you a really good deal but be relatively new to the field.  

I feel like we are getting the best of the best for us and I'm looking forward to her (and the second shooter... that's right it's going to be like the paparazzi showed up!) capturing our special day.

We ended up using one of our engagement photos for our invites that we hope to have sent out (or hand delivered) by the end of the month but here are 4 photos that we also really liked that didn't make the cut..

and here is a much better shot of the ring... John zoomed in on it

Guest Book

We've come up with a great idea for a guest book (but I'm obviously not going to tell you exactly which idea that is).  What I will tell you is that I sent the following images to John to help us make a decision for what we wanted our guest book to be (and we decided on one of them).

1.

Wood

It goes well with our centerpieces and is pretty well free!

2.

Engagement Picture on Canvas

I feel like we need to find a way to use our engagement photos and show them off to people that attend the wedding.  This would be a great option!

3.

Polaroid Picture Scrapbook

We'll need someone manning the table to take our guests photos (we'll also need to purchase/rent/borrow a polaroid camera) but you have more than just a signature to remember the person by.

4.

Hearts in a Frame

Ok, I wasn't sure what to call this one but basically people sign the little wooden hearts (they can maybe write a message on it if they really squish) and drop it into the frame for us to have forever.

5.

Classic Wedding Guest Book with Engagement Photos in it

I didn't think a photo was needed for this one but it's also an option.  A great way to show off our engagement photos!

Feel free to venture a guess as to which one we picked.  Like I said we did pick one of them (but I won't be telling you which it was... you'll just have to stay tuned until after the wedding for that)

Wedding Day Accessories

The day I bought my wedding dress I also bought a couple accessories to go with it (mostly because I was for sure buying one of them and then the 2nd - a bracelet was half off).  I make lists for John and I to get through in a week or two and last week I had "buy shoes" (for myself) on my list of things to do.  

Luckily for me that same week Aldo sent out an email reminding me of the presale for shoes that are 50% off that I never even looked at the first time they sent it because I was 100% sold on the idea of getting my first pair of Toms to wear on my wedding day.

Why Toms?  I think they do great things and I found a pair that I liked (and I thought it was a great reason to spend $70 on a pair of flats).  Then when I finally found them in a store (I was just going to order them online if I never found them in store) I was uncertain on them.  $70 is a bit of money to spend on shoes you are uncertain on.

So, with this knowledge in mind and that reminder email from Aldo just sitting in my inbox I made the very short trek to Aldo to get some regularly $60 for $30.  Only, for Christmas I had asked for a gift card from there to buy a black purse (which I actually JUST bought for a wedding I went to recently - also half off) and with what was left I only had to pay about $14 for my shoes.  What a steal!

This week I've been wearing them around my condo to stretch them a little (I was torn between sizes to get.. 7 seemed almost too big and 6.5 seemed almost too small but the guy told me I had time to wear them around the house and return them if I didn't end up liking them).

I'm not going to be announcing which ones they are (I guess you can go online and make some guesses though) but I will tell you that I will not be wearing any kind of heels at the wedding.  John isn't too much taller than I am so I get to wear flats (which is exactly what I would have chosen to wear anyways).

Now I just need to decide on what kind of earrings to wear (or if I need to go out and purchase some) and I'll be all accessorized for the big day!

Unless,,, I'm forgetting something (and it isn't hair that I'm forgetting about.. I'm just not talking about accessories for that.... yet)

Wedding Centerpieces and Wedding Cake

John and I had a hard time picking out colours for our wedding.  I initially proposed the idea of purple and orange to him about a month ago and he did not like it.  When I asked what he didn't like about it he said it was the orange.  So I let him hum and haw over it for a while and eventually we decided on the colours (by talking about centerpieces) and they are... purple and orange (I guess it was the wrong colour of orange).

Some inspiration for our centerpieces came from these photos...

We haven't picked exactly what kinds of flowers are going to be in them... I think John said some wispy kind of looking orange ones... a few purple, white (probably babies breath), and a bunch of green.  There is going to be one special touch that is unique to us that John wanted to include from the beginning (I just helped him come up with a more elegant way of including that special touch)

As for the cake... we asked my sister early on if she would be willing to do our wedding cake for us and so we kind of had to have an idea of what kind of cake we wanted early on.  So, we looked up some wedding cakes online (without fondant because lets be honest, who actually enjoys that stuff?) so we sent her these 2 pictures of cakes that we liked.

My choice for wedding cake

John's choice for wedding cake

My sister said she could make us 2 smaller cakes instead of one large cake so that we could both have our way on this one but then I mentioned to John that no one would believe that he wanted the fancier looking cake.

In the end we are going with my choice of cake.  

Why?

Because John said he cared more about the centerpieces then the cake.

We haven't decided on a flavour of cake yet... once we spot a great deal on cake mixes is when we'll have to decide on that one.

Life Lately

I interupt my usual talking about wedding stuff to tell you all about my life lately (because it's more than just cookies and wedding over here!)

School is winding down and my pool has officially opened (it actually opened about a month ago but this weekend was the first time I headed down there).  My friend and John's sister came over for an evening swim because it was just way to hot to do anything else.

Those same 2 girls that came over for a swim also went to a wedding with me (John also came).  It was for a friend from life group (and John's sister knew the bride).

the whole life group!

We (my sisters and I and all our significant others) took our parents ziplining for Mother's and Father's Day (because it was something that my mom actually wanted to try!)

just my sisters and I hanging out with my dad

the guys hung out with my mom

my mom even managed to climb this... and by the time we got to this point it was pretty windy!

I've got tomatoes, flowers, spinach, and swiss chard growing in my "garden" outside.  The tomatoes are an experiment John is doing because they aren't actually growing in any soil.  So far, lots of flowers on the tomato plants but no tomatoes.

And of course wedding planning, wedding planning, wedding planning.  We have pretty well made our way into the 7 month part of the checklist I found online which is nice... mostly because we have less than 4 months before the wedding!  I'm not too panicked about it though... it'll all get done.

The list for the next couple of weeks includes:

finding shoes (for me)

deciding on suit (for John)

finalizing the guest list

deciding on invites

deciding on a florist (pretty sure we already know who we will go with... we just need to contact her)

figuring out flowers for the centerpieces (ahem florist ahem)

make gift registeries

finalize the cake

The list seems long now that I look at it... but I think it'll be doable... most of the stuff we already know what we want we just need to make sure it's going to happen (or possible for it to happen)

And that folks,

Is my life lately!

The Venue

In case you haven't heard I got engaged!

And we picked a date for 5 months after the engagement.

So needless to say we've been doing a lot of planning!

A couple of weeks ago we officially booked the venue

We didn't have a whole lot of options because of the short timeline which was possibly a good thing.  I think I emailed about 10 venues asking for prices and dates and only 4 got back to me with dates and prices that we thought were reasonable.  So... a couple of weeks ago John and I set out to look at the 4 venues.

There were a couple things that influenced our decision as to where we picked to have the venue.

1)  Price.  Obviously.  It came into play when I was buying my dress so it came into play here too.  Someone told me that we need to invest into our futures and not just this one day.  So I think that's what we are trying to do.  PLUS, I really believe that we can throw a beautiful wedding and keep the costs to a minimum.  At least, I hope we can!

2)  Dates.  The venue we actually ended up picking didn't have the most desirable dates BUT we did eliminate some right away because they had dates at the beginning of September.  4 months was too soon.

3)  The Actual Venue.  The date we picked for our wedding (which I'll reveal in a later post) may not have nice weather.  There is a chance there could be snow.  There is a chance it could be beautiful.  There is a chance it could be somewhere in between the 2.  Because of this I wanted the option to have a nice indoor space to get married in (our venue has both indoor and outdoor options).  I wanted to make sure the guests would be comfortable (one venue we looked at had bathrooms outside... not heated and some didn't include heaters which concerned me because the temperatures will drop quickly one the sun sets).  

For us the choice of the venue was easy.  Our venue offers both in and outdoor spaces, a house to get ready in that is on the property, and the owner just so happens to also do the food (at some pretty reasonable prices).  Our guests should be happy and perhaps more importantly, John and I should also be happy with this choice (and we are!)

And... because I'm sure you're dying to see some kind of photo I snapped this one when John and I took our parents to see the venue.

and that's all you're getting!

...for now at least.

In case you missed it... I talked about Wedding Dresses last week

Wedding Dresses

Some people might think it's a bit crazy to get engaged one day and the next afternoon be out dress shopping with my mom.  But I knew I would need to order the dress soon because we are planning to get married rather quickly (but more on that later).

Anyways, I have found a dress.  It was actually the very first dress I tried on... I guess the consultant that was helping me really knew her stuff when I showed her the picture of what I thought I wanted.

BUT, I wasn't sure that was THE dress until I checked everywhere else first.

A number of things went into my decision to purchase this particular dress (that I will not be posting a picture of for hopefully obvious reasons).

1) Price

I don't think I had made a budget for John and I yet.. actually I know I hadn't because John said to wait until I saw what was out there before I limited myself with a budget.  But in my head I was hoping a dress for under $1000 wouldn't be unreasonable.  And it wasn't... I found many for under $1000.

2)  Style

I was fairly confident that I wanted a particular style but I wasn't 100% sure of it until I tried on other stuff.  After the first store I knew I didn't want a number of other styles... like I said my consultant was VERY helpful.

3)  Alterations

The fewer the better.  I had one place offer to make me the dress that I wanted using an existing dress that I liked the bottom of.  She told me all in (well, not including taxes) it would cost $850 which still seems like an amazing deal.  If this is an option for you and you fully trust the person doing the alterations than I say... why not!  I opted to not do this because I felt like I was paying for things I didn't want with the original dress... and well... I knew I already had one I liked.

By the end of the first day I had 2 options.  Going into the 2nd day of dress shopping I had 1 option and after the 2nd day of dress shopping I had 3 options.  Those 3 options were:

1) The dress that would need to be altered.

2)  The dress that I was showing everyone every store I went to.  I used an app called "Lookbook" by The Knot to search and save wedding dresses I liked... so I used a picture from on there.

sidenote:  I also used this app to decide on a ring style that I liked... and it's free!

The only problem with this option was that I had never actually tried it on.  BUT I was confident I would love it if the price was right.  Well, I never found out the price because they told me it wouldn't come in on time so that was an easy no.

3)  The first dress I tried on!  I could actually purchase this one in 3 ways.  The first being in store... easy and safe because they would take care of the ordering process for me.  The 2nd being online.  Not a great option because it was all in American dollars.  And the third being online though their sample sale.  I was seriously considering ordering it online though the sample sale.  They had it in my size after all and everything I had looked up about their sample dresses sounded very promising.

In the end I ordered it through the store.

Why?

Because they told me they were having a sale and everything would be on sale.  And well, can a Mennonite even resist a sale?  I don't think so.

So, as of Friday I have my dress ordered.  I'm hoping that with alterations it comes in well under my budgeted amount of $1200.

I had a number of other options to keep it well under budget.  A couple places had me trying on grad gowns... but I wasn't sure if I wanted a train or not and didn't want to have to not have one. Plus, it's hard to envision it being white instead of red.

And... if you are wondering if I'll be showing you the dress in person... the answer is probably no.  I haven't decided if I'm showing people it yet so I'm just not showing people.  Other than the 3 people that have seen it (my mom, John's mom, and a friend).

Psst... John and I set a date and booked a venue over a week ago!  Stay tuned for some details on that!

Miss The Proposal Story and want/need to read all about it?
Here is a picture of The Ring.