Lawson Gardens

Anyone interested in seeing the ceremony venue? It's gorgeous. This is just a quick little video, I have approximately 10 tons of photos, too, which I may upload when my computer is being less slow.

Obligatory Shoe Post

My shoes came, my shoes came! I am doing a little "got a package in the mail" dance, its a shame all you blog readers can't see it.

Item #1: uncomfortable as all heck, I knew they would be, but they were advertised as containing "shoe petals," which I thought might work. They do "absorb shock" as advertised, but don't do anything for my wider-than-average duck feet. They are also ridiculously tall...that hidden platform in the sole is misleading. I hunched while wearing them for fear I'd hit my head on the door jamb (slight exaggeration).















Item #2: love love love. So cute. So sassy. So red! I need to put my own Dr. Scholl's brand "shoe petals" in them, and I probably won't be able to dance the night away in them, but there's no way I'm returning these bad boys! (In fact, I sorted the recycling while wearing them. I didn't want to take them off.)




I've been trying to keep with a "DIY" theme for recent posts, and I certainly didn't make any of these items... but I DID make up the idea. Ok, that's a lie too, I subconsciously stole it from this wedding. Oh well, I still love my shoes!

Jill Does It Herself (JDIY)

More craftiness from Jill - DIY Programs! The original plan was to post them on the wedding website and the guests can print them themselves, because I know I never really want a program and just end up making paper airplanes out of them. But I chose the cheapest (cough, free, cough cough) wedding website host, so I can't post pdfs. Oh well. It'll cost a few dollars to print them at Kinkos. This particular one is clearly a work in progress, I promise the "official" programs won't have purple colored pencil writing all over them (maybe).

I think I need to buy a bigger ribbon...

Crafty Jill Strikes Back

Observant readers may notice wedding planning isn't my favorite. I would call myself a details person, but when the details themselves don't interest me, my short attention span wins the battle and I stop caring. But there are aspects of wedding planning I enjoy. I'm getting in touch with my inner crafty self.

(I can hear veterans of my craft projects groaning, but I swear I'm only making little things, not anything structural, heavy, or capable of collapsing and injuring anyone.)

My recent foray into Do-It-Yourself-Land resulted in flowery hairclips. They're not exactly like what I was oogling online, but they haven't fallen apart and I think they're cute. The hair stylist thinks I need to have a giant flower in my hair, but I'd rather not be bonking friends and family in the face all night with a giant fabric gardenia.

Six Weeks

It was brought to my attention that:

1) there are six weeks until the wedding, and
2) I haven't updated this blog very much at all, even though it is linked to our personal wedding website.

My response to both observations: I don't want to hear about it. Cue pouting.

I'm not exactly overwhelmed by wedding planning. I'm a hard-core list maker, and according my calculations and checklists we are right on track. The best summary of my wedding planning emotions right now would be underwhelmed. I don't care about napkin colors, or tea light brands, or the daily (natural!) fluctuations in my weight. It will all take care of itself. I just want to see all my friends and family drinking and dancing together. Bring on the party!

I'll probably be singing a different tune in 5 1/2 weeks.

Status Update.

As many may know by now, the invites are sent. The garden and restaurant are booked. Menu is set. Cake is reserved. Dress is bought. Photographer is under contract. Flowers are being consideration.

I think it's time for the surprised face again.










All that's left to do now is little stuff, like reserve hair appointments, buy gifts, and set the wedding day schedule. The stuff that I am worst at. Bleh.

The Brains Behind the Operation

I would like to dedicate this post to the planning tool that makes my life easier. You're more portable than the internet, have more storage space than my brain, and never make judgmental comments about my planning choices.

Best of all, I bought you at a thrift store for $1. Don't be embarrassed about this. That $40 wedding planner/transformer at the craft store has nothing on you. It didn't even have pockets! Your thrifty background makes me love you even more.

You came with a pen that didn't work very well, and usually just scratched holes into the paper rather than transfer ink to them. So you promptly let it slip out of the holder, never to be seen again (it's probably still floating in the dog's digestive tract). Now your pen loop holds my favoritest pen, the one that says Kikkoman, and I smile when I use it.

You're stuffed with papers, yet your closure strap never complains. The funky lined paper in the back is perfect for making budgets. The vaguely blank tabs are actually perfect for customizing for my own needs.

Your ugly pleather exterior actually matches our colors, without even trying. Thank you, thrift store planner, for all that you do. I should have picked up your 5 siblings while I was there.:-P

Wedding Financing the Weird Way

Someone I work with used to own a wedding store and had boxes of leftovers they were willing to give me. Never one to turn down a handout, I gleefully loaded up Josh's car with leftover wedding gear. Some if it wasn't to our taste (no 80's tuxedos at our wedding) and some of it wasn't usable (I'm sure Brian wanted his wedding album back), but they did donate one big ticket item - a wedding dress.

It is a lovely Maggie Sottero gown, something way out of my price range and not exactly my style, but its in perfect condition and I hate to send it to Goodwill to languish on the racks amongst old t-shirts. So, if anyone is interested in funding a cheap wedding and getting a good deal on a dress in ONE transaction, call now! (or message me, that might work better)

Size 12, corset back (so it can go up or down a few sizes) Maggie Sottero "Memories" gown

** Note: these are photos of dresses very similar to the one donated to me, as there are no tags or style number in the dress, I can't tell exactly what it is. **

Blatant Self Indulgence

You know what the problem is with the internet? Anyone, anywhere (well, close enough to anywhere these days - McDonald's has wi-fi!) can post whatever pops into their head at any given moment. You don't even need to have a computer handy, with the advent of mobile uploads. But never mind my luddite tendencies.

My point is, there is an absolute dearth of "last night I dreamt..." posts. Try searching for that phrase on Twitter, and you will be both amused and horrified for hours. Seriously people, despite that fact that I just admitted to spending time reading these things - nobody cares! Boring!

In the spirit of contradicting myself for this entire post, last night I had a dream.... No seriously, this is pertinent. I dreamt that I woke up one morning and it was THE day. The BIG day - the wedding! And I had forgotten everything. I'd forgotten it was the wedding day, I didn't have my sash, I didn't have shoes, there was no cake, half the people showed up. I was slapping make-up on my face and burning myself with curling irons. We made it to the ceremony site and there were no chairs. And you know what? It was still awesome. People were still happy for us. We were still celebrating. My subconscious had graciously provided food for the reception, at least.

I think that pretty much encapsulates how I feel about my wedding, and any wedding. It's not the perfectly coordinated sash, or the perfectly made-up bride. It's not chair potpourri and themed meals. It's celebrating the lifetime ahead of you with the people closest to you. Who knew dreams could keep you grounded.

Kitschy is the new cool

A story from this weekend:

The Polaroid film came! Cue geeky dancing and box ripping.

Much film is wasted "testing" the camera. "What does this button do?" *snap-whirrr* "What about this one?" *snap-whirrr* [repeat all weekend]

Attempt to upload pictures to blog. Realize that Polaroids do not "upload." Hang head in shame.

Relearn how to scan pictures.

And now for your viewing pleasure, the polaroid photos. This guest book is going to be awesome. I don't know what it is about film that prints immediately and looks like it was taken in the 70's, but I can't even stop looking at these. So you all better start thinking about clever things to write on our Polaroid-guest book, because I promise its something we'll peruse for years.

inDesign Wizard

A major part of my new job involves inDesign, a pretty simple design program. There was a learning curve of a couple days, but since I'd kind of been thrown in the deep end with Canvas Graphics as a grad student, I feel like I picked things up pretty quickly. The program can actually be pretty fun to work with, and if you're OCD like me, finally getting something to come together is one of the best feelings of a work day. "But, Jill, what does this have to do with cheap weddings?" you might be asking.

I created some seriously kick ass invitations in inDesign. I wish I could post them here for you all to ooh and aah at, but I want people to be at least a little surprised (and impressed) when they get them in the mail. A big thanks to Bryce and Keely, though, who were forced to admire them - I appreciate the oohs and aahs!

We'd been pricing out invitations and suffering a little bit of sticker shock - even with the 40% off Michael's coupons that company is so kind as to send anyone who signs up to receive their e-mail newsletters (and then promptly unsubscribes). I have the feeling those invitations you print on your own wouldn't turn out like they look on the box, and home-made cards on Etsy were out of our price range - even when you buy a pdf and have Kinko's print it for you. But the pdf idea got me thinking - why pay someone to make something in inDesign when I know how to use it. It was kind of an "aha" moment, and I'm a little sad it took me this long to think of it.

So I took the time, scrounged the internet, and made an amalgam of all the invitations I've been envying but could never afford, with the added bonus of the perfect wording, the perfect size (no extra postage!) and getting all those bits and pieces I thought might be luxuries. Like matching thank you cards, name cards, place cards, address labels, coasters, matchbooks.... ok, I might have gotten a little inDesign slap happy.

Long Time No See

I'm ba-ack!

I haven't posted since October, and there has been a lot of blog-guilt associated with starting this puppy back up. I fell off the blog-horse - can I get back up? And I'm done with the metaphors.

In reality, I haven't been posting because there just wasn't anything to post about. I started a new job, which took up a lot of my time, and without the finances the wedding planning was relegated to the back burner. But thanks to some gracious donations by our collective loving parents, the wedding planning is back on! And going at full tilt, believe you me.

In the past month or so, we have set a date, reserved the reception space, had our first session with our pastor, bought polaroid film, and, the most surprising development yet, I bought another dress.

Let me just say, I fully acknowledge that now I am one of those women, one who buys a dress indiscriminately and then has to replace it. It made me feel selfish and greedy, but then I would look at myself in the mirror again and knew that this new dress was worth all those feelings. I was also told it made me look like a 1960's Barbie doll (in a good way) and that sealed the deal. This dress makes me excited to stand up in front of all my friends and be the center of attention for half a day. The other dress made me wonder if all the guests would be looking at my arm fat.

I am also pretty excited about the polaroid film. My original idea with the polaroid pictures was cheap, kitschy fun for the guests - but then a month after I bought my polaroid camera, the company stopped making the film, so the prices on E-Bay skyrocketed. It may be the most expensive part of the wedding (not counting the food and alcohol), and guests may not be able to snap tons of cheap, kitschy candids - but it's still going to be fun. And that's what counts.

More updates to come - and there will be more!