Rings and Things

So, I have a ring dilemma. My engagement ring is curved toward the bottom, so a straight ring won't fit up next to it, unless it is curved to fit my engagement ring. If it is curved to fit my engagement ring, it will look funny to wear without my engagement ring. And, I am planning on leaving my engagement ring behind when we go travel around the world. So, I am contemplating buying two rings--one fitted and just a simple band for traveling. My fiance isn't thrilled about this idea. But I really can't think of another solution. Any thoughts?

I wonder if this band would work with my engagement ring, but even if it did, it isn't quite as plain as I wanted for traveling around the world.

I'm baaaaaaaack...

Whew! That was a wonderful whirlwind weekend/ week. The best part was showing my Mom our venues on Wednesday. It was actually the first time I had seen our hotel, Church, and reception venue all at once and it was very exciting. I can actually finally see things coming together and the details all seemed really manageable, in part, because our venues don't require much in the way of decorations.

We also went to go hear our band play on Sunday night. It was a small crowd, so we got a chance to hang out with them during their break. They are going to be great! And I am really glad we got a chance to get to know each other a little better before they perform at our wedding.

It seems like our last big decision is... catering! Less than four months out and we still don't have a caterer, but we are working with a couple people to come up with quotes, so I think that will be resolved soon.

Farmer's Market Breakfast

I love Farmer's Markets!! I think maybe it's that you are actually buying your food from the people who put their energy, heart, and soul into growing it. So, I am really excited that our Farmer's Market is open and I can get fresh fruit and veggies and other yummy things. This breakfast from Saturday shows off my fresh whole wheat honey bread with sunflower seeds and strawberries--unfortunately, we missed the eggs so these are just what I had from Whole Foods. I hope you are enjoying fresh fruit and vegetables, too!

Wow... time flies

No updates today--I have been rather, er... distracted at work lately, so to get myself back on track I am swearing off looking at blogs at work. But I am ahead of schedule today (wow! not looking at blogs really gets me working), so I have about five more minutes to poke around. We are going to be doing LOTS'o'wedding stuff this weekend:

- Friday I fly to Chicago
- Saturday we are checking out Farmer's Markets to see about ordering our DIY Flowers, meeting with our priest, I have a make-up trial, we are going to look at rings and take a dance lesson
- Sunday we are meeting with the music director at the Church, checking out venues to get goodies for getting ready, Sunday "brunch," rehearsal dinner and welcome drinks, swinging by REI to check out packs for our RTW trip, and checking out our band
- Monday we are going sailing with the future in-laws and doing centerpiece trial runs
- Tuesday we have our tasting and our parents are meeting for the first time
- Wednesday my Mom and I are going to check out the Church, hotel, and reception venue (she hasn't seen them yet)
- Thursday morning I return to Memphis (early!)

Whew!! But it's been really nice to have this long weekend to get wedding stuff done. For the past couple months we have been adding to dos for the weekend and now we are pretty booked. Hopefully, it will be productive.

On Wedding Dress Shopping...

One of the best things to me about blogging is the opportunity to get support from so many women and to get a glimpse into their own struggles and triumphs in wedding planning. I have finally realized that those aspects of wedding planning that trip me up the most are the same things that trouble me in my daily life, just magnified many times. Yes, one of these is choosing what to wear. I am not terribly stylish or hip, but I do care about looking nice and like "me." Some days this means more than one tried and rejected outfit lands on my bed or floor before I head out the door for the day. When choosing what to wear on a normal every day outting can cause this much angst, no wonder choosing what to wear on my wedding day has caused even more. And after realizing my deep-seated fear of committing to a wedding dress was part of the delay I got worried that this signaled a deep repressed fear of committing to marry my dear sweet honey. Yes, I am scared (terrified even) of getting married and of being married. But I realized it was less about my fiance and more about the huge momentous event this was in my life. I do not believe that it will be or should be the best day of my life, but on this day before God, our society, and my community I will be transformed from a single woman into a wife and a life partner. This people, is a very big deal. So, no wonder, after searching high and low, I have not yet spied the perfect garment to wear on this day--I believe that, for me, there simply isn't a dress that could match this momentous occassion. After all that, here's a link to see a sneak peek at what I have chosen.

Invitations: Ordered!!!

Printemps Invitation by Bella Figura

As promised, this is my next invitation post and I am writing to say that we (finally) picked out and ordered our invitations. Yay!! I am really very excited about this decision. I have to admit, that I fell in love with the Bella Figura invitations when I first checked them out. But, they were out of our price range, so I searched and searched for what I wanted instead. I sent my dear sweet patient fiance chasing links to many many invitations. The conversations would go like this:

Me: "What do you think of this?"

Him: "I like it."

The next day....

Me: "Hmmm... I don't love it."

And the search went on. I cannot even tell you how many invitations I have looked at, all I know is that it was WAY too many. A few weekends ago when I was in Chicago we visited Paper Source (there isn't one here) and picked this design. The positive--we could get our invitation letterpressed and the reply card flat printed, saving us money. Pricing it out, it came out to more than we had originally budgeted, but at that point we were willing to pay that price to cross one more item off of our list. And I was satisfied. But not excited. I was happy to have one more thing checked off the list. But I wasn't looking forward to having them arrive in the mail and looking at their prettiness.

We had already decided that we didn't need any enclosures except a reply card, because all the details are on our website and all the enclosures increase the price in muliples, plus it wastes paper. We are hoping that our guests will RSVP online, which left us wondering what to do with our reply cards--do we address and stamp them all knowing that only a few will get returned because most of our friends and family are pretty tech savvy (my grandfather RSVP'd once he received our Save the Date). So, fiance suggested including RSVP information... on the invitation. Gasp! Really?! More paper saved. More money saved. So, I looked--what is the price of a Bella Figura oh-so-pretty letterpressed invitation if all we ordered was the invitation? Slightly cheaper than our Paper Source option. And, Bella Figura's etiquette page has this to say about adding reply information to your invitation:

We've seen this idea become more popular as clients approach letterpress wedding invitations with both budget and the environment in mind. Printing your reply information in the bottom left hand corner of your invitation is an acceptable alternative that can save you money. Reply cards are a relatively modern invention, so by placing reply information on the invitation itself, you are still being traditional.

Sold! Oh, and they are eco-friendly, which also makes us feel like the invitation reflects our values as a couple. The invitation we ended up picking (pictured above) is more traditional and romantic than the designs we had previously entertained. But, I like it and fiance likes it. And I am excited to see them arrive at my door. So, today we ordered our invitations!!!

Thank you for your support as I have struggled with this decision. Now, I just need to figure out what DIY tasks I will take on to get these in the mail: envelope liners? calligraphy?

My fiance spoils me

I just got back from lunch and these beauties (courtesy of the fiance) were waiting for me. Beautiful. I am so lucky to have such a sweet and thoughtful future husband :)

Gah! I bought my dress

I bought my dress this afternoon after four hours in the biggest bridal shop that I have ever seen and I have already fallen out of love with it and back in love with it in the five hours since! Did you have bridal dress buyer's remorse? Is this normal?