Saturday, July 30, 2011

New Direction with Flowers

For some reason last night, something hit me and I have completely changed my mind on what I want for my flowers. Previously I had been wanting calla lilies for my bouquet and hydrangeas for my bridal party. Well, the hydrangeas are still going to be for the bridal party, but they are going to be in a different color, and I am now wanting hydrangeas for my bouquet as well. 

Picture this in a dark pink
This all started last night when I was looking through some pictures online. I don't know why I was looking through them, I guess boredom, but I came across a picture of pink hydrangeas with pink roses in a bouquet together and I fell in love. When I looked at this bouquet I could just see me with it and not only that, but I could see the three butterflies that will be placed in the bouquet to represent my Grandparents that can't be with us that day. I could just see it! 

Now, originally I was going to have the bridal party have pink hydrangeas because I feel like the bouquets should be symmetrical and so I thought that the hydrangeas would be perfect, well, I still feel that way, but I am going to have there hydrangeas be white instead since I am having pink ones in mine. Or maybe even a mix. I will talk to our florists and see what she thinks would work best. Our first meeting with her is on the 13th of August, so I will have some updates on this after that point. 

What are you doing for your flowers? Have you changed your mind about them a few times?

I like this one but in a darker pink
for the Hydrangeas


Again, picture this in a darker pink

This one is fake, but it represents
the overall idea of what I am
going for

White Hydrangeas for the Bridal Party

*All pictures were found using Google Image Search

Friday, July 29, 2011

Odds N' Ends

I know, I have been a horrible person and have not really posted much within the last week. Sorry about that! I do have a few updates on a couple of the small details of our wedding. 

We picked out this cake cutting set last weekend while we were doing our registry. I love it. I love the simplicity of it. I may add a ribbon to the handles, if I do anything at all.

Cake Cutting Set
Via

We have also picked out our toasting flutes. Now, we have actually had these picked out for a while but they have been out of stock on Waterford's website. Well, they aren't out of stock on Bed, Bath, & Beyonds, so we will probably be ordering them through them instead. And actually, Aran was the one that picked these out. He did a great job!


Toasting Flutes

Via

Guest Book

I have not found a guest book that I have fallen in love with yet. I keep looking on Etsy but they are either too expensive for what I think is an acceptable price, or they just don't jump out at me. So, I am still on the search for this. If you have any suggestions for where I can get a great guest book, please leave your suggestion in the comments.


Jewelry

Ahhhh jewelry. This is going to be the most difficult thing for me to pick out. I have been looking all over the place and nothing is really "speaking" to me if you understand what I am saying. I went to Nordstrom's last weekend with Aran's Mom and didn't find anything there either. I have been searching Etsy and again, nothing is just jumping out to me. Luckily, Aran's Mom suggested that we go to this place called Bead It and make my jewelry. At this point I think that is the only option, because I know that I will truly love it then. Oh and if you are wondering what I am looking for, I am looking for something that has pink pearls and comes to a point with something that drops off of that point if that makes any sense. I think this will look best with my sweetheart neckline. So something along the lines of this, but with pink pearls in it instead of all diamonds or jewels.

Found via Google Image Search

Any suggestions for where I can find something like this but with pearls? And I would really like to try it on as well. I don't want to order it online because I feel like you just don't know until you try it on. 

Have you found any of these things for your wedding yet? Where did you get yours? 

Monday, July 25, 2011

Wedding Registry

On Saturday we set out to try and take care of our wedding registry. Little did we know, it was going to be one of the most exhausting things we have ever done.We went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond with Aran's Mom on Saturday afternoon for what we thought would be kind of a fun thing to do, and really it was more tiring than anything.

Courtesy of Google Image Search

When we first got there, we decided to just browse the store a little to kind of get a feel for what we liked and what we didn't like. Aran's Mom walked us through the pots and pans section and kinda gave us the 411 on pots and pans and gave us a few suggestions of what we should get. After that we found our way back towards the Dinnerware and browsed that area for a little while before we decided to finally go talk to the people about registering. Once we filled out the necessary paperwork, the lady walked us through all of the dinnerware and talked to us about the different types and what was good and what we should stay away from. She was really helpful and we ended up picking out some dishes that we both really loved and the good thing about the dishes that we picked is that they are open stock so you can pick and choose what pieces of the set you want to register for. You don't have to register for the place setting and get a mug or something that you may not use. I think I am most excited about the pasta bowls that they had in this set. I think if we only got the pasta bowls and nothing else, I would be happy, haha!

Next, it was on to the flatware. This proved to be pretty difficult only because Aran and I couldn't agree on what particular set. I liked one set and he liked another. In the end, I let him decide which one he wanted because to me they are just silverware and he ended up picking out the cheaper ones anyway which I was quite all right with. At this point, you could tell that we were all really starting to fade. We made our way over to the glasses and serving dishes. I picked out quite a few serving pieces that I really liked and Aran agreed that he liked them just as much. Sweet, that was easy is what I was thinking and then came the glassware debate. Of course I liked one thing and he liked another. So we ended up putting both sets on there. Compromise!

Again, we were starting to get more and more tired by this point, but we decided to continue on. We went over to where more of the kitchen gadgets were and we spent a good twenty minutes in that area and put quite a few more things on the registry. After that, we were done and decided that it was time to leave so that we could eat.

By no means are we probably even close to being done with this. We are definitely going to have to go back because we didn't even get pots and pans on there. And of course we have other places that we want to go register at. Williams Sonoma has been calling our names! For any of you who haven't done this, I would highly suggest splitting this up into a couple of days. I would make a list before you go in and decide on what you would like to look at that day and then for the second day and so on. And if you are going with Bed, Bath, & Beyond you can go to their website and print out a list that will help you with this. You can find that here. I do not recommend turning this into a marathon event. Take your time and remember that you can always add or delete things later.

Something else I am trying to really be conscious about when we do this is that there is a wide variety of prices. Not everyone will be able to spend $100 on a gift for you, so I am trying to make sure that there are enough items that are on the lower end as well. I think this is very important when you are thinking about what to register for. We were also told that we should register for about two items per guest.

Have you done your registry yet? Did you find it difficult to choose what to put on there? How many places are you registering and what are they? About how many items are you putting or have you already put on your registry?

Friday, July 22, 2011

Bridesmaid Dresses

I am very excited to tell all of you that a decision has been reached on the Bridesmaid dresses. You may remember back in March that I talked about a particular dress that I loved from The Dessy Group (You can find that post here.) It is called a twist wrap dress and it really does flatter every body type. Why? Because the dress has a ton of different styles that you can do with it. You aren't stuck with just one look. It really is an amazing dress and my girls loved it when they tried it on (You can look at the dress and all of its options here.)

Originally our thought was that if we liked the concept of the dress and how it looked on everyone, that we would try and find it cheaper on Etsy. Well, the more we talked about it, there were just too many things that would have to factor in to us deciding to purchase it on Etsy. Some of these factors were the fabric that it would be made with, finding the right color of brown, the price, how long it would take to get here, etc, etc. While all of these discussions were going on Aran's sister actually ordered this type of dress from an Etsy shop. And the dress was amazing, but there were two things that had me really stressed about ordering from Etsy. First, the price. The one that she bought cost about $180 and it was probably worth every penny. I mean the quality of the dress was amazing, but that is a lot of money to have to ask someone to spend on a dress. The second thing that had me a little stressed out was that it took her dress forever to get to her for the occasion that she needed it for and almost didn't have it in time. Granted, a large part of this was due to the fact that the Etsy shop owner was in Canada and right around the time that she sent the dress was when the Canadian Postal strike happened. So her original dress was stuck in Canada, so the lady had to make her a new one and re send it using a different carrier. 

Now I know that this is probably a one time thing with the shipping incident, but I decided I didn't even want to deal with the stress of trying to purchase 5 dresses on Etsy. Especially since I would have to requests fabric swatches to see the color and the feel of the fabric. It just seemed like too much work and too many things to stress about. With that being said, I have decided that we will be going with the dress from the boutique from The Dessy Group. Now the dresses from The Dessy Group are originally $140. But, the boutique where I ordered my dress gave me a folder with all kinds of coupons and great deals on local vendors and in there was a coupon for 10% off each of the Bridesmaid dresses. Score! So they will be around $126 which is a pretty good price if you ask me. I paid more than that for some of the dresses that I have worn in my friends weddings.

Courtesy of The Dessy Group

I am so excited that we finally decided on a dress and I really do hope that everyone loves it since they can make it look however they want. What have some of your stresses been with picking out a bridesmaid dress? Did you buy your dresses from Etsy or somewhere else online? 

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Candy Buffet

Almost two years ago in August, I attended my friend Sarah's wedding. At that point Aran and I were no where near getting engaged or talking about a wedding, but I am a girl and we think about things like weddings even when we are not engaged. So of course I was taking in everything and gathering thoughts and ideas for when the day would come that I would actually need them. The one thing that stuck out the most to me was the candy buffet that they had set up as a favor for the guests. I thought it was the cutest idea in the world and not only that, but I had never seen one before. Ever since that day, I was determined that I would have one at my wedding, whenever that would be.


Well, of course when Aran and I actually started talking about the wedding, the candy buffet was one of the first things out of my mouth. And Aran of course had no problem with this, well because lets face it, who doesn't love candy? So the planning process began. First we talked about how many different kinds we should have and then of course, what should they be. That part to me was the part I was not worried about. Picking candy? Easy! The part that I am having trouble with is how should I decorate this table? Where can I find some cute labels to label the candy? Should I spruce up the jars? Where can I find the jars? Should I put some type of table runner or pretty fabric for the jars to rest on? A million questions and ideas kept running through my mind and I wasn't sure where to start, but then I figured we might as well start at the beginning and try and find the jars first.

I called my friend Sarah and asked her where they found the jars that they used and she told me that they bought them at Ross. So we started searching for them. Well one day I received a text from her with a picture of a glass jar and it was from Sarah informing me that one of the Ross stores in town had some of the jars again. So Aran and I ran over there to see what they had. I believe we ended up buying 3 jars that day and two of them were on clearance! Even better! Since then we have found another two or three and I believe that we have decided that is enough. We will see though. Knowing us we will find more on sale and decide that we could use more of them.

I love the tags on these!
Found via Google


I have also found the little favor boxes that the candy will go into. At first we were thinking that we would use the little chinese take out boxes, but we couldn't find any that we liked enough to want to spend the outrageous amount of money on that most people were asking. Then one day the best friend/Matron of Honor and I went to Michael's and were browsing the clearance section and there they were, these cute brown and cream colored favor boxes. And of course I couldn't pass them up so I bought enough to have 100 boxes total. When we got them home and actually put them together, they were smaller than I had imagined they would be, but the more and more we talked about it, we decided that they were actually about the right size. The only modifications that we will be making to them is that the ribbon color will be changed on them. The ribbon that came with them is a cream color and we want to add a little bit more of a pop to them so we are going to change the ribbons to pink and teal. They also came with little cards that you could print your name and wedding date on that attach to the front of the box. I have searched and searched for a picture of these, but alas the internet has failed me today. I will try and take one myself here soon!

So things are finally starting to come together on this project. Of course we still need to decide on and buy the candy and the scoops, but that is basically it. Now, I just have to figure out how to decorate this table and we will be good to go!

Are any of you doing a candy buffet? What kind of candy should we get? Do you have tips on how to decorate this type of table? Or do you know where I can find some cute labels?

Monday, July 18, 2011

Worst Move of My Life

Let me just start by saying that I had a meltdown last night because of how stressful this move has been. And when I say meltdown, I mean full on crying and freaking out meltdown. Yes, I am one of those people that when they get to that breaking point, I cry and cry and cry. Pathetic? Probably, but trust me, if you had to deal with all of the crap I have had to deal with in the last five days, you would probably be doing the same. This may turn into a huge long rant by the time I am done with this post, but I have to get all of this off my chest so I am sorry in advance for the bitchiness that may ensue and also how long this post will be.

So last Tuesday I called our new apartments and double checked to make sure that we were still good to move in on Wednesday. They told me yes and that we could come in as early as 9 am to sign our lease. So Wednesday rolls around and we show up at 9 to sign our lease and the lady in the office can't seem to find our apartment keys. Well, come to find out the maintenance people still had them because they were still  working on our place, but that they would be done within a few hours. So we went ahead and finished signing our lease and they gave us our keys so that we could at least drop off a few things that we already had in our car.

We headed over to our new place and made our way up the stairs with our first load and walk in the door to find the person who was supposed to be cleaning the kitchen and everything sitting down talking on their cell phone not doing anything. I understand taking a break every now and then, but it was frustrating to see it. Not only that, but none of the doors were on the hinges, the light and socket plates were all off, there were paint cans everywhere and not to mention that the paint job that they did was pretty crappy considering that you could see streaks everywhere! I know it may sound like I am being super picky or something, but you have to understand that we were supposed to move in on the 8th and they pushed the date back to the 13th because they had a lot of stuff to do in the apartment. The fact that I called the day before to verify that they were ready for us and to be told yes and then to get there and find out they weren't, was very frustrating for us.

After we dropped off a few things, we had to go back to work until 5. After work we went and picked up the rest of our stuff and the kitties from Lou's and headed over to the new place hoping that everything would be done by the time we got there. When we got in to the apartment, all the doors and light and plug covers had been put back on so I was relieved about that. But, a lot of other things that should have been done were not. The kitchen counters weren't wiped down and neither were the inside of the cupboards. The floors hadn't been swept in the kitchen or the bathroom and when we moved the fridge to the other side of the kitchen like we were told we could do, there was a big spot of greasy stuff on the floor where the fridge had been. And not only that but they didn't bother to move the fridge and sweep underneath of it either. It was nasty! At that point, I was just pissed!! I kept trying to tell myself not to worry about it because we were staring at an almost empty apartment and that it would be better once we were able to get the rest of our things in.

Well if you are wondering if things got better, yes and no. Once we were able to get everything into the apartment, we didn't notice a lot of the little things that bothered us, but then we started having bigger problems. First, our U-Haul broke down. We were on our last trip to the storage unit to get our grill and the U-Haul wouldn't start. So we had to wait almost two hours for someone to come fix it for us. Luckily we were at the apartment so we were able to go back inside and wait for them. After they fixed it we were finally able to go get the last thing out of our storage unit and turn in the U-Haul. We also had to transfer over all of our services for cable and internet and when I spoke to them, they said that everything should be working, well of course it wasn't so that was a super ridiculous process involving me yelling at them and refusing to pay the service charge for the guy to come out when it wasn't anything that we did wrong. I threatened to cancel all of our services with Comcast and call DirectTV and so they promised me I wouldn't have to pay for it, and turns out the technician agreed with me because it was all problems that we could not have fixed on our own! Take that Comcast!

On Friday I went to go turn in our check in sheet and to talk to the people in the office about how we found the apartment when we moved in. Luckily the people in the office were awesome about it and completely understood why we were so frustrated. I also had to inform them about one other little problem we had recently stumbled upon. I hate even typing it because it grosses me out, but we have mice! Ewwwwww! Our cats have been having fun though. They have already caught one and I keep encouraging them to catch them all because it is absolutely disgusting. Terminix is supposed to be out ASAP to take care of this. And they better be or I am going to be raising hell!! Our little friends were the main reason for my meltdown last night. I want to finish unpacking the kitchen but I am completely grossed out by the thought of them running around all over our utensils and other things that I freaked out and started crying and was ready to kill someone all at the same time.

So other than the above, we are slowly but surely getting unpacked. I do wish it would go a little bit quicker, but it only goes as quick as I unpack it so, it is going to take a few weeks I have a feeling, haha! I would love to hear some of your moving horror stories or am I alone in the horribleness of moving? I hope that everyone has a great week and I will continue to update you guys on our unpacking progress. Also, be sure to look out for a few wedding posts within the next couple of weeks! Thanks for listening to my rant!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Storymix Contest

I know I said that I would be MIA for a while, but I had a little bit of free time this afternoon at work and since what I am about to tell you is time sensitive, I figured I should probably get my butt in gear.

Today I was contacted by Caitlin from Storymix. Storymix is a company that specializes in custom wedding videos. They currently have a Facebook contest going on and they have asked me to blog about it to get the word out. Up for grabs is a $500 package. Here are the rules:


  • You must like there facebook page, which you can do here
  • Then you must fill out the entry form that can be found on the left side of the page and it is titled Free Wedding Video
  • Leave a comment on their wall telling them why you want to win 
  • Tell all of your friends on Facebook to go and leave a comment on your post. Each extra comment counts as an extra entry.
  • There are also 10 bonus entries if you post a video on their wall telling them why you want to win their package. 

Entries close on the 15th of July, so you only have a few days left to enter. So if you are interested in having video at your wedding, make sure you go and enter this contest and tell all of your family and friends to go leave a comment so that you get the extra entries. If you want more information, visit their facebook page for all of the details! Good luck!


Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Moving Day!

Over the next few days I will be MIA as we begin the second part of our move tomorrow. We FINALLY get to sign our lease tomorrow and get the keys to our apartment. Yay!! I am so excited. This whole not having your own place to live has been super stressful. Thankfully we have amazing friends who have let us stay with them, but it is still stressful not being in your own place. Especially for me because I am such a worry wart and I worry about everything way too much and I have been so worried about stepping on someone's toes that it has made these past two weeks even more stressful than they should have been. And with having the cats with us, it makes it ten times worse because I'm so worried about them getting into stuff that they shouldn't or tearing things up. And like I said, I worry way too much sometimes.

Tomorrow morning we are going to go and sign our lease and get our keys and unload what we have in our cars.  We still have to work tomorrow so once we are off work, we will go get the kitties and whatever else we have left at Lou's and then head over to the new place. We are going to try and get all that we can out of storage tomorrow night as well. Then on Thursday morning we are picking up the U-Haul that we reserved and we are going to unload the rest of the storage unit. I am so glad that we decided to get the U-Haul because it should only take us one trip with the U-Haul, which makes me even more happy that we don't have to make a million trips and rely on people who have trucks to help us. 

Well, wish us luck on the move and I promise I will get caught up with everyone's blogs as soon as I can and I will update you on how the move went and the progress of unpacking. Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Megan

Monday, July 11, 2011

Wishing Tree Tags

So a while back I saw a post from Laura at Saying I Do about a wishing tree that she was having at her wedding. I thought it was such a cute, creative and thoughtful idea. If you have not heard of a wishing tree, to put it simply, it is a small tree that you provide at your event along with some tags that ask your guests to leave well wishes or even small pieces of advice. From the moment that I saw this post, I was in love with the idea. 

One day I was telling Aran's mom about the idea and she asked me what I would be doing with the tags after the wedding. It was a great question because I hadn't thought about it and I realized that if I was going to do this, that I better have a plan in mind for the tags afterwards. In other words, I didn't want to create a project for myself if I was not going to be doing anything with them afterwords because lets just face it, that would be pointless and would probably just add more stress to an already stressful situation. So, I decided to email Laura and ask her what her plans were for her tags just to get some ideas. 

Now, I won't tell you what she told me because I am pretty sure that she is working on her own post for that, and I don't want to spoil her fun. But I will tell you that she gave me some great ideas. Not only did she give me some great ideas, she was so generous and offered to send some of her leftover tags. She sent us a picture of what they looked like and aside from the string that she used to attach them to the tree, they were perfect. So, she sent them to us and we are so thankful and excited that she did that. It is one less thing that we have to worry about. The only thing that we are going to do with them is change the string to match our colors and then they will be ready to go. And luckily for me, Aran's mom has volunteered to do this for me, I just have to provide the ribbon. We also have to work on finding the tree, but we are going to speak with the people at our venue and see if they have one that we can use instead of having to buy one (another tip from Laura.) I am so excited that some of our projects and other pieces of the wedding are starting to come together. 




This blog within the next six months may turn more and more into a blog about a wedding, instead of my life, but what can I say, the wedding will be consuming my life for the next 6 months I have a feeling. I hope that this idea is something that others will be excited to stumble upon and hopefully make happen.

Megan

P.S.
If Laura does post about her plans for her wish tags, I will be sure to let you know so that you can check it out. 

Friday, July 8, 2011

Just Wanted to Say Hi Real Quick!

I just wanted to say hi real quick before I walk out the door at 5 for a much needed weekend! Plans tonight include Sushi, and a baseball game with the fiance's family who is in from out of town. Tomorrow we have our marriage prep class and a friends wedding to go to later in the day. Which reminds me, I still haven't found a dress to wear. Hopefully I have time to do that tomorrow morning, fingers crossed! Again, I just wanted to say hi real quick and I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend and enjoys the sunshine!! Happy Friday!!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

6 Months and Counting

Today is July 7th which means that the wedding is only 6 months away! Holy crap!!! I can't believe how fast it is approaching. I feel like there is so much to do, but I also feel as though I am at a standstill. According to some of the wedding websites and articles, I should probably be doing all kinds of things right now, but for some reason, it doesn't seem necessary to do anything right now. I think a big part of this is because we aren't having to search and search to find the vendors that we are using. We are using the same vendors that Aran's sister used when she got married and so a lot of that stress has been lifted, which is definitely a good thing. 


I think the next order of business is to do our registry. So far we have decided on Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target. We are considering Williams Sonoma, but I guess it will all depend on if they have something that we both love enough to put on the registry. I think this is going to be my favorite part of the whole wedding planning. Probably because we get to walk around stores with little laser guns, haha! Oh the little kid in me is really excited about this part. Hopefully it will be as fun as it sounds.

We also have a few other appointments that we need to make with the Florist, the cake shop that we are using and also with the guy that will be doing our invitations. I think as soon as we get moved into our new place and everything calms down we will be able to take care of these things. I have a feeling that the invitations are going to be one of the hardest decisions we have to make. I keep looking and looking at invitations online and Aran and I can't seem to find anything that we just absolutely love. For all of the other blogger brides out there, where did you find invitations that you liked and possibly even purchased? 


Well, time to get back to work. Be sure to look for a few more updates on the wedding as soon as we get settled from moving. Hope everyone is having a fantastic week!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Craziness Has Ensued!

Hello everyone! Sorry for my recent absents , but if the title tells you anything, you may understand why things are so crazy right now and probably won't be settling down for a few more weeks. Let me start by saying that the first half of our move is now over. And I say first half because we will be moving again in a week and a half. Let me back up for a sec. The reason we are having to move twice is because the apartments that we finally decided on couldn't have our apartment ready until the 8th of this month. Well then about a week ago we got a phone call saying that they had to push that date back until the 13th because they had to do more work in the apartment than was anticipated. Apparently the previous tenant trashed the place. Bad news: we have to wait longer to get into our new place. Good news: we should have all new stuff in our apartment. Yay!

So as of now, we have moved everything into a storage and we are staying with my friend Lou. Since we moved last week we have had so much to do. We had Aran's nephews baptism this weekend and Aran and I are his God parents. So we stayed up at his parents house all weekend and visited with his parents, his sister and his nephews. It was a lot of fun but I am worn out after having a 2 and half year old and a 4 month old baby around.

This week should be pretty relaxed until this weekend when we have a million things to do and then next week we will be moving AGAIN so hopefully after that some things will start to calm down and we can return to normalcy. Until then, let the craziness continue!

Megan
 
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