An Invitation to a Shiny New Kitchen

I have house and wedding updates today!

House first I guess. As you may or may not know, our house was built in 1931 and the same couple lived there for 60 of it's 81 years of life. They grew old and passed on there which is evident by the lack of updating over the decades. So this week Rob and I decided we should start tackling some stuff in the house to make it more "presentable" for when people come in June for the wedding. Last night we started off simple by buying and beginning to add new hardware to the cabinets. It already makes a huge difference. 

That was all last nights efforts. Today I went home for lunch to find Rob on the floor installing the last two handles. Pictures from that will come when I get home from work. 

**Here it is!

Our net step is the floor. Hopefully we can go right over the existing vinyl with new roll on. Church's sells fiber glass roll similar to vinyl that floats, so we might go that direction. We're still deciding if putting it in ourselves is doable or if we need to bring in my parents floor guy who works for cheap under the table. Our main concern is the radiator feet, the huge plug bolted to the floor for the stove and the hole we run our lovely extension cord through for the fridge. Cause we're classy folk like that. But no, sometimes you have to make the best out of whatcha got. 

As for the wedding... our invitations showed up in the mail on Saturday! They came out wonderful and holding them makes it feel insanely real that we're getting married soon. 

Aren't they pretty! Tonight I might work on divvying them up and assembling them as well as stamping our return address onto all the various envelops. Addressing them will be for when I get back from DC in two weeks. 

Anyhoo, I think that's about it. Everything I've ordered as late, like my accessories, my garter set, the rock candy, it's all showed up. We still have A TON left to do and I'm starting to stress a bit about how much of it is left compared to the time left. But I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. 

We're down to only 124 days left. That's 4 months and 4 days to go!

Engaging Wedding Checks

I don't know what I've done since my last post. My brain is soo jumbled with wedding garbble right now.

The most exciting wedding related news is that Andy (Rob's best man) proposed to Emily (my maid of honor) on Friday and they are engaged! I'm so pumped about it and I can't wait to see Emily in two weeks for our girls weekend. 

On the side of my own wedding, we've been mostly productive. Friday we met with Dana form DTO's about catering our rehearsal dinner. Rob's mom is taking the lead on that. But we picked a menu out and I'm very excited. Our rehearsal dinner is going to be laid back and outside in the park for a good, fun time. And everyone is invited, so it's like weekend long wedding festivities abound. 

Trying to think, trying to think. Urrrmmm. Yeah, that's my brain. I bought a bunch of stuff.  I purchased four pounds of loose rock candy in our colors to bring to Lori to decorate our cake with. I have no idea what four pounds of rock candy looks like or how much that really is, but hopefully it's more than enough. I bought my own accessories  I want one more thing then I think my attire will be all taken care of. 

I had one of my fellow June 2013 brides from TK design our invitations. I wanted the ones that match our save the dates but it would cost me like $600 to get them through Wedding Paper Divas. She, in her infinite awesomeness, recreated them and made them even cuter than the WPD ones and only charged me $35 for the invitation, all the information typically found on a separate card on the back, and two rsvps (one for the rehearsal dinner and one for the wedding). I bought a Vista Print groupon and all said and done I probably saved like $500-ish. So I'm pumped about that and those should show up in about two weeks. 

I feel like there's more, but I honestly don't know what. All I know is there's still a ton left to do and we're very quickly running low on time to do it all in. 

There's only 130 days left. That's 4 months, 1 week and 3 days to go. 

Accomplishments Abound

Holy cow, we're getting a lot done lately!

We had a menu tasting and details meeting on Friday at our venue. Our new coordinator is awesome. She's young and full of ideas and caught right on to our sense of humor and what we wanted out of our wedding. 

We set our menu. We're going all out with the plated dinner and I think people are going to be very happy with the choices. Everything tasted amazing and I can't wait. We bought some extra appetizers too so people should be nice and well fed. 

Our hotel is booking up fast! I had to beg for them to set 10 more rooms aside. I also booked a suite for me and all my girls for Friday night since all the guys are staying at our house. 

I ordered place cards that match our save the dates. A girl from the June 2013 board on TK is designing our invitations to match as well for a fraction of the cost from what the website wants, so I'm pumped about that. She sent me a first round of drafts to pick from last night and I'm excited to hopefully order those next week. 

My dress came in! It came in last week, so I went last night to try it on. It looks great in white as opposed to the ivory of the sample gown. I also bought cute dangley earrings to wear and we ordered me a veil last night too. So that'll be come in in about a month or two. But my dress is too big, which I knew was going to happen. I knew I should have ordered the sample size. But it is what it is and in April I'll have them take it in for me. 

Friday Rob's mom is coming to see us and we're going over to DTO's to pick out our catering menu for the rehearsal dinner. 

Rob's cousins said they think they've found potential flower girl dresses. All my bridesmaids have ordered their dresses. Rob and his guys are going to start looking at suits the second weekend in February. 

Emily and my girls seem to have my shower pretty underway and invitations for that are apparently going out at the end of the month. Glad we got all our registering out of the way two weeks ago. 

Ahhh, things are moving right along. It's amazing. It feels so close and soooo far away at the same time. 

We only have 136 days left! That's 4 months, 2 weeks and 2 days to go. I can't believe it!

Engagement Ring Revamp

Sooooo, wedding rings. A debacle we've been torn on since we first got engaged over a year ago. I think Rob has finally decided he definitely wants a meteorite ring. I think he should get one. He needs to love whatever he gets because he's the one wearing it forever. 

For me, it's been more difficult then yes or no to one ring. It's been, do I just wear my current ring since it's technically two? Do I switch it to my other hand then wear only a wedding ring on my left hand? Do I find something or have something made that fits around it? Or do I have the guard taken off? After a lot of debating and "deciding" on every decision possible at some point or another. But we decided to have the guard taken off so I can wear a wedding ring and my engagement ring all on one finger. I got the engagement ring back today and it looks sooooo different with the guard off. But I love it. It looks really pretty and perfect.

So there it is. Shiny and lovely. And now I can officially find a wedding ring.

Also, tomorrow morning we're meeting up with my mom to go register. So that should be fun. Then a week from today is our menu tasting and details meeting at our venue. And I found someone to recreate the Wedding Paper Divas invitations I want for a fraction of the cost. Then I can print them from Vista Print and save a crap ton of money. Score. So much to do still, it's crazy!

Only 148 days left. That four months and four weeks to go!

The Ever Growing To Do List

Happy holidays! They're coming to a close, but wedding stuff is picking up for us.

We've discussed details further. We're trying to nail down a lot of the smaller details like centerpieces, decorations in various places throughout the venue, favors, etc. My mom and I met up with Sharon, her florist friend who is doing our silk arrangements, and picked out ribbon and the last of the silk flowers. 

All five of my girls have ordered their dresses and they should be in by mid to late March, which leaves plenty of time in case anyone needs alterations. 

Emily has booked my shower venue. She was asking me stuff about my registries today, so it sounds like she's getting started on doing invitations already too. 

Speaking of registries, we started a small Amazon one a bit ago. And now on Saturday the fifth we're going to huge Bed Bath and Beyond on the Boulevard to do our big registry. We're both pretty excited about it. Our menu tasting and details meeting is in only two weeks as well. So things are really starting to come together. 

Next week I plan on taking my ring to the jeweler too, then hopefully we can finally order wedding rings and be done with that whole debacle. 

So that's what's going on for the next two weeks. Then after that it's going to ordering invitations, making place card and escort cards, getting my silk arrangements done, buying favors, a cake topper and the other cake decoration we need to purchase for the baker, buying the last of the decoration things, schedule and have my hair and make up trial, figure out a card box things, figure out the flower girls dresses/baskets/flower/etc., put together welcome bags... just everything else. So yeah. Still quite a bit to get done.

Just 156 more days to go. That's five months and five days!

Is This What Stress Feels Like..?

Okay, so it's been a while now since I last updated. Things are rolling right along, sort of. 

We've gone back to looking at rings. It's been quite the trying issue to make a decision here. But we've got some solid plans in the works. Rob is planning on getting his meteorite ring. I'm having the guard removed off mine after the new year so I can purchase a wedding band. Then that should be all set on both accounts. 

We have our meeting with coordinator coming up soon; January 11th to be exact. We have the big list of "things" we need to be able to answer by then, but I don't how much of it Rob or my parents have actually thought about it. I also have a running list of detail ideas and questions to ask. 

We went to Rob's cousin Daniel's wedding in Chattanooga over the weekend. It was nice to see a wedding in action with ours being so close now. And now that Daniel's wedding is over we can start thinking about our ceremony. Daniel is officiating for us, so now that his plate is clear of his own wedding we can start putting together out own. 

On top of that, going to another wedding has sparked Rob's interest in things he normally didn't care about having a say in. Things like centerpieces and escort cards. I originally showed him a picture of escort cards I wanted to make and he said they were fine and that he didn't care what they looked like. Now he wants to scrap that idea in lieu of another. Which is fine by me. I'm by no means going to have a disagreement about escort cards of all things. My only issue with this though is that some things he wants to change are things I have already invested money in. So I kind of wish he had wanted a say earlier, ya know, before I spent money. But it is our wedding, so I want us both to like it. 

I went ahead and made a partial payment for our DJ today too. He's about 50% paid off at this point and I'm hoping to have that paid off soon. He was by no means the cheapest in the area, but a great DJ was high on our priorities list, so we splurged. I also bumped up the price by insisting I had to have uplighting, which I'm still excited about, even though it racked the bill up some.

I got a sample invitation from Wedding Paper Divas, who I ordered our save the dates from. They can custom color our invites to match our colors for a small fee. That's fine though because I have yet to find anything else I really like and love the idea of having the matching set. So I'll splurge here too I guess. Money for everyone (except me of course). 

Finally, for now I guess, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, is that hopefully Saturday my mom and I will get out to Hobby Lobby. I really want to buy any more decoration things that we need. I'm starting to feel slightly stressed and panicked that things aren't moving along quickly enough anymore and feel like buying some detail related items will help quell those feelings. Hopefully. 

Alright, 5 months, 1 week and 6 days left. that boils down to 164 days to go. Getting there we are. 

Decisions

So, a lot of decisions being made right now.

First off, I scheduled our menu tasting and details meeting with our venue for January 11th. That give my parents enough time to make adjustments to their work schedules since it's a Friday. So this is exciting. Our new coordinator sent us a semi overwhelming list for the details meeting to make sure we have answers to when we meet. So I need to sit down with Rob and go over it as well as speak with my parents about a few of the things on it. 

Another decision we made was to switch from a buffet dinner to a sit down dinner. The package we want that has all night open bar and the works only comes as a sit down dinner. The next package down with a buffet option has a pretty limited time frame for the bar, and we want the roaring party after dinner, so bar time it is! I only wanted a buffet because I'm a picky eater, but since I get to dictate the menu, it doesn't matter. Plus, sit down dinners feel classier. 

The next big decision we made is wedding rings. This is something we've both waffled over since we first got engaged a year ago. Rob has finally made up his mind about getting a meteorite ring, which I'm happy about. It's what he really wanted and he has to wear it forever and be happy with his decision forever, so I'm really glad he finally said definitely to the ring. For me, I can't find anything that fits next to my engagement ring. Nothing. The ring is too big and to awkwardly shaped. When Rob's mom gave him the ring to give to me she offered to have the guard removed and he said to leave it intact. The day we got engaged she told me I could take it off if I wanted and said no, I love the ring as is. But when push comes to shove, it's very important for me to have a wedding ring that Rob and I go pick out to symbolize our marriage. So we've decided that I'm going to have the guard taken off and just wear the white gold, five stone original engagement ring and we'll give the guard back to Mary. When we brought it up to her over the weekend she sort of chuckled and said she was surprised I'd kept the guard on this long and that she didn't mind if I had it taken off. So that's on the docket for the end of this month after we get back from Daniel's wedding.

Speaking of, Daniel's wedding is in two weeks and we leave to drive to Chattanooga in a week and a half. I'm really excited to go, see Rob's family, take a trip together, and just enjoy someone else's wedding. 

Sooo, we passed the six month mark yesterday! We have 5 months, 4 weeks and 2 days left to go. That's a mere 181 days! Ahhhh, what happened to the 550+ days we started with!?