5 weeks from today...

... we are getting married!!

Wedding Day is fast approaching. Now if "normal life" would just stop happening we could make some progress on the planning. I was hit hard this week with Bronchitis, a sinus infection, and an ear infection which left me unable to do anything for several days. Seriously, I couldn't even do any blog reading let alone wedding related tasks or even the massive amounts of school work I need to get done before the wedding. But I am on the mend. Yesterday I was feeling better - not enough to do any much needed writing - but enough to return shoes, get some supplies and finish the candy table sign. I am afraid a few projects will be left unstarted. I have made peace with it and not even going to mention what they were because no one would even miss them. But overall making progress and it is exciting to see so many RSVPs returned.

Major Wedding tasks still to do:

Dress fitting - Friday may be my last??
Shoes - got plan, now just need to purchase
Invitation for Friday Toast and Roast for out of towners - since we will already be married we can't really call it a rehearsal
Purchase Candy
Make appointments for hair/makeup - narrowed down timeline so now can proceed
Finish Papel Picado - about half done
Get photo lists to photographer
Purchase rest of alcohol
Pack up all stuff that needs to be delivered to venue
Keep up with Thank You notes

and probably a dozen or so other tasks...

Amazing Bouquet and Flower Alternatives

I am a little afraid that my bouquet and Matt's boutonniere will not last from our ceremony on Thursday to our reception on Saturday. Times running a little short but these flower alternatives would be great options to make sure that we have flowers for both our events.

This bride made these fabulous beaded flowers.



from Martha Stewart Weddings

Maybe Etsy has some less "involved" options.

I love the idea of clay flowers.


from Midoridesigns

or perhaps a felt and button themed arrangement ...


from Princess Lasertron on Wedding Bee Pro also on Etsy

It is likely that if our flowers fall apart we will run out and DIY a new arrangement - or use some of the tissue paper flower arrangements which would be more fitting for our theme. But I do want to keep in mind these other ideas for upcoming projects. The more I look at Princess Lasertron's work I fall more and more in love with it! She is also from Nebraska which makes me love her more and more.

Real Wedding Inspiration

You know I love weddings with color. Check out this amazing Scottish wedding shot by Lillian and Leanard Wedding Photography. See more here.








I don't know what I love more, her dress or the yellow and fuchsia tissue paper pop poms. Absolutely gorgeous!

More Cake Love

Over the weekend my fabulous friends had a bridal shower and bachelorette party for me. It was great fun. One of the best parts was the cake my friend Steph made.


She was inspired by the Mexican flags from our invitations and I think she did a great job! She also designed, in cahoots with Matt, an NPR inspired Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me bridal shower quiz. Instead it was called Mate, Mate, Don't Tell Me and luckily I won the prize of our dissertation committee member's voice on our home answering machine. This may sound like a lame prize but if you knew us or him it would be hilarious.

Luckily the gals didn't do to much to embarrass me. Although I did sport around a "veil" later in the night.

Cool Find of the Week

Wouldn't this make and unusual and amazing wedding cake?



Imagine a gorgeous all white tiered cake covered in fondant. With detailed piping and maybe even some white sanding sugar to make it sparkle. And once cut the amazing bright colorful center is exposed! I think it would make for amazing photos and cause everyone to be surprised.



You wouldn't have to go all out for the Rainbow theme. Doing just a few of the wedding colors would also be great.



All photos and cake tutorial from the fabulous Hostess with the Mostess

More Wedding Comics

I posted the comics leading up to these here.

From PhD Comics.





This last one is particularly funny because we had just finished writing out vows before we saw this. I wonder if we should include some of this wording...

Blog Award

Thank you Jess from Project: 10K Wedding for this Lova Ya award!




“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”!

In no particular order, I'm passing this on to:

Krista @ Canadian Bride
Blablover5 @ Introverted Wife
Jeana @ My Dream Ring (thanks for the giveaway!)
Jenny @ Happily Ever After
honey my heart
jessica @ Mason Jar Bride
jemmessica @ Wedding Peephole
Hannah Noel @ That Engaged Girl

DIY Project: Cupcake Stands

Continuing with the DIY projects....

I turned this cupcake stand from Martha Stewart Celebrate products sold at Walmart

photo from here.

into these for our Sprinkles cupcakes:

The stands are really affordable (only $7.88 each). I didn't use the included paper garland as shown in the photo above. I used my favorite edge punches from Martha Stewart (you sense an obsession with her?) to make mini papel picado banners that I used on the invites, and some ribbon in our colors.

A quick review comment: Don't be fooled by the photo. The edges of the cardboard are not white but rather unfinished brown cardboard. It probably was fine but I thought it was unsightly so I painted the edges white to match.

I also made matching signs to point out the different kinds of cupcakes. I was going to pick the top 3 from the blog quiz I posted for our final flavor selections. I know that the quiz is officially on-going but I needed to get this off the list so went ahead with what currently was in the lead (which also was what we wanted anyway). My choice was Chocolate Marshmallow, Matt's choice was Chocolate Peanut Butter, and the blogosphere's choices were Red Velvet, Coconut, and Vanilla Milk Chocolate.

Yummy!

The signs were simple. I used leftover cardstock from the invitations, the Martha Stewart Crafts edge punches, and the Avery sticker labels.

The stands should hold about 4 dozen and we can reuse for the Nebraska Dessert Reception. But what to do about the 5th dozen? The reception venue has some trays we can use and since I am running out of steam this may be what happens. Normally I would care that I have no idea what they look like and freak out that they probably won't match. But I am in a new zen-bride kinda mood and going to let what happens happen.

Anyone else having cupcakes? What flavors?

An Omen?

One of the coolest things from my Bridal Shower in December was to have the guests write a piece of advice for me on a piece of card stock. My sister-in-law came up with this idea instead of a guestbook. She read some of the advice cards - many of which were quite funny. One of my favorites was from a friend of my Mom's. She said when your husband asks how much it costs reply "less than $1,000" and if it costs more than that, say nothing.

My mom took the assignment a little differently and wrote her wishes for me rather than advice. This is what she wrote:

Just notice the P.S. statement. We have talked for years about taking a trip to Italy together. I know that she would love everything about it.

Well the other day I got this in the mail.

I won it on a contest from Weddingbee. Perhaps the universe is telling me something?

Don't worry Mom. I will take you to Italy someday. But first I want to take a honeymoon trip with Matt.

DIY Project: Agave Favors

You may not be asking for wedding advice, but I am going to give it.

DO NOT try to grow your own wedding centerpieces or favors!

Unless of course you have a green thumb - which apparently I do not. I have previously posted about the pots with small agave plants that I am using to decorate the reception tables. Afterward the guests can take home and plant as a favor. I have really enjoyed this project but think I have killed at least half of the plants. There was a horrific storm a few months ago and my lack of attention caused many casualties. Not to fear because I have recently "obtained" some more small agaves with the help of some covert graduate students, long gardening sheers, and a recently bloomed agave plant on the ASU campus (thanks ladies!).

Recently I finished the signs that will go with each pot.


On the back of the sign I adhered a Thank You note and directions on how to care for the plant using the Avery sticker labels. Each sign is made from a colorful Lotteria cards (a popular Mexican bingo-type game) and a Popsicle stick. So even if I kill the rest of the agaves I will have something to display.


Another great thing about the lotteria cards is that our quests can learn Spainish while they enjoy a Mexican dinner!

Want an Inspiration Board?

Well your in luck because a small town bride is giving a custom board away to celebrate her 100th post! Enter here before Friday. Be sure to check out her blog as well, she has some really great ideas (not to mention some fabulous wedding shoes that I wish fit me!)

Blog Changes

I have been doing some blog changes. I updated my favorite blog lists and finally got around to posting a blog banner inspired by our wedding theme. If you have my blog listed on your page and I don't have yours listed here, let me know - at the very least I want to redo the shout out.

I also added a new quiz. Let me know what you think about dancing at a wedding reception. We are not huge fans of dancing so weren't going to have it formally organized. We want to just let it happen organically if people feel the mood to boogie. We get some weird raised eyebrows when we say this. So I thought I would throw it out to the blogosphere to get some feedback.

Hope everyone had a Happy Valentines!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't know if it is because it is Valentine's Day or if I am just so in love, but I am obsessed with having all heart shaped desserts at our reception in Nebraska. Here are just a few of my latest inspirations:

All heart shaped maybe just a little overkill. Maybe I will settle for these Conversation Heart Cookies.

all photos from Martha Stewart

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dress Fitting Success!

I had my second fitting this afternoon with my dress but it was the first time I had it on. Make sense? Probably not. If you have been following along, I got my dress a little over a month ago in the mail but was unable to fully put it on because the zipper was broken. To make a long story short there was a forgivable zipper mix up at the factory. All is taken care of and my local seamstress is amazing.

When I went to the seamstress the zipper was replaced and I was able to wear it properly for the first time and have fallen in love with it all over again. I am so relieved!!! and excited to wear it. There are still a few necessary alterations before it is finished. Amazingly it needs to be taken in (yeah Wii Fit Yoga). Unfortunately I didn't get any non-blurry shots of me in the dress but since people have been asking here is a little teaser of it hanging in the dressing room.

I want to take it home so that I can stare at it. But unfortunately I will have to wait a few more weeks. Is that creepy? Anyone else weirdly obsessed with their dress?

Invitations Are Out!

We finally got the invitations in the mail!! But after some delays because of a few days of constant rain (yes, it does rain in the desert) and not wanting to risk get the invitations soaked. For those of you we see on a regular basis - don't worry - we will hand deliver as soon as we see you.

Here is a shoot of the different labels we made using Martha Stewart's craft punches and the amazing Avery labels I talked about in an earlier post.

My favorite is the Doily Lace punch bought from Walmart (pictured on the bottom). Michael's Craft Stores also has the punches from Martha Stewart and the store seems to get new ones everyday. I wish we would have gotten this Valentine Lace punch before we did the labels.

The best thing about being available at Michael's is their 40% off coupons. I have one in my purse and maybe this weekend I will have to get this punch. Or this Mini-heart punch.

Tough decision.