WOW

I just found the ultimate source of Wedding Porn. I am so excited! After I scour it a bit for my favorites, I will be sure to share highlights! Wedding planning = addiction!

Outdoor Wedding Possibilities?

Living in Houston, there is a limited amount of time every year that one can comfortably spend outside. The crazy weather, mosquitos, humidity, and extreme heat make much of the year completely unbearable. I love the idea of having an outdoor reception, but it seems completely unfathomable. That is, until now (possibly). Today I got an email from Campbell's Catering about an Open House they are having at The Patio on Mercer on May 28th. Apparently this is a brand new venue that is a completely climate controlled patio for "intimate" weddings and other events. It may not suit our needs, as I don't see 120 people as intimate, but we want to check out Campbell's anyways, so we will see. But, my life and planning are not the point of this post; the point is the abundance of cute, easy, and cheap centerpieces that are perfect for outdoor weddings or engagement parties. I have found these just tonight:

With This Ring

Simple! Cake stands and apples with flowers as accents. I would be super paranoid that someone (probably me in my giant dress) would bump a table too hard and knock all the apples over, so I would probably secure them with toothpicks. This is also a great idea because the apples could be prepared a few days in advance and the cake plates would make great "Thanks for being there" extra gifts for bridesmaids, moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters, etc.

Joyful Weddings and Events

I love the orange slices lining the vase in the background. I have never been a fan of orange, but in looking at all of this wedding stuff, I am opening my mind to it a little more. I think it adds a fun detail to what appears to be (*gasp*) a vase of carnations!

Rachael Ray

I am a tiny bit embarrassed to include this one because Andrew hates Rachael Ray. I never knew that she had taken a foray into the decorating world, but here we have it. I think this could be done for super cheap and I can imagine it would be great to scour Target/Ikea/Garden Ridge or go to Goodwill and antique stores for glasses. Then the glasses could be reused for other parties or events. I completely cannot stand the color combo used here, but the general idea could really work! One of my great aspirations is to get to have the honor of being a Weddingbee blogger. In order to do that, your wedding day must be in the next nine months and the selection committee looks at your current blog to see that you write to the general public and not just about the minutae of your personal wedding planning. So, in anticipation of a) picking my wedding date 100% for certain and b) being within the set time period to become a blogger, I am going to pretend that more people read this than actually do. Which will involve me asking questions at the end of each post. If anyone wants to humor me and play along, that would be great, but if not, that's okay too :). So, with that said, how would you jazz up outdoor tables on the cheap?

Back to the Blogging world!

Part of me wanted to start an engagement blog as a "creative" outlet. Something to make me think every day. The other part was in order to remember this time in our lives. Since this time in our lives may be a bit longer than I first thought, instead of getting mad, I should embrace it. I should keep researching wedding stuff to get more ideas so I really can personalize and perfect my day. Because it will happen, although it may be later rather than sooner. So, I am going to work to blogging with a purpose. I am either going to write about wedding ideas, or recipes Andrew tries, or goals, or restaurants, or something! Let's see how I do at actually trying to say something. First thing's first- here are some things I found that I loved, pre-"put the wedding on hold and have a pity party:" So simple, and most likely cheap. I think you can get all of these candleholders at Ikea. This would be great if we could have long, rectangular tables. I'm not sure if I would like them clustered on round ones. I am pretty sure this is what I want, only maybe branch-ier. I don't need to have flowers, but I love the hanging candles. Unfortunately, I priced the manzanita branches, and they are not cheap. Maybe I can find some fake ones that are more affordable? I will be on the lookout. As I have already mentioned, we want to put TONS of candles in our potential wedding venue. If we have candles, we need candleholders. Say hello to the world's cheapest candleholder: a white lunch bag accented with a page edger for scrapbooking (which, of course, I already own!). This is what they look like lined up. Pretty, no? And, finally, I found this tonight. Pretty pretty. It is a taller version of something Andrew and I have seen before and loved. I especially like it because I could use 1-2 hydrangeas per table and therefore not spend TOO much of my flower budget. Genius, right? I am off to go do exciting things like scoop the litter box and watch Bones in bed with the honey. I am off all weekend so I plan to do a trial run of my mom's mother's day gift and take Andrew somewhere special for a treat. He finished culinary school this week so I think he deserves something special!

on hold...

so, in case anyone was wondering, i have not planned a whole wedding without blogging about it, nor have i called the whole thing off; i am simply postponing it. put quite simply, finances are getting in my way! i can't justify planning a wedding right now when i have no way of paying for it and i am completely dependent on parents and credit cards to cover the costs. the way i look at it, neither of us are going anywhere, so i have some time. at least a little bit. i still want to get married in june 2010. i would love to keep that time of year. hopefully, i can find myself a teaching job by then and we will know that our amount of money coming in will increase, so i can get back to planning. plus, i only have 2 more car payments to make and our mortgage is going down, so it will FEEL like we have more $ coming in, even if we don't. as far as other matters go, i am still working to fit into my dress! i tried it on last week and it seems to fit a tiny bit better, but it by no means fits. i was doing well and running a lot, but my ipod broke last week and i hadn't run until today. i met vivian at rice and we did almost 3 miles. it was actually fun to have a running buddy! i have been going on job interviews and i think i have a problem in that i cannot be anyone but myself. i am not good at bullshitting and telling people what they want to hear. i need to work on that if i ever want anyone to see me as hire-able, i guess. i am now posting my nonsense on twitter, if anyone cares. not likely, though. until later...

AMAZING

I have it in my head that I would love to go back to Vegas for less than 48 hours, merely to take engagement photos together in the Neon Graveyard and to take my bridal portraits in front of the Bellagio Fountains. Were money no object, I would be on a plane the day I could fit into my dress! (I couldn't find any good engagement pics, but you get the idea.) Seriously, this took my breath away. Lame, I know. Damn those fountains! The hunt is on for a good photographer. Someone who can make two camera-shy people who are lacking in the photogenic gene look amazing on camera that I can actually afford. Like a needle in the proverbial haystack.

Falling Behind

Okay, so we really haven't done too much wedding stuff lately. Between me working and my thought that the wedding is a million years away and the fear that I will want to change my mind a million times between now and then, we haven't made too many plans. But, there are a few things in the works... 1) Get in shape! Did I mention that I have to shrink an entire dress size (or more) to fit into my dress? That alone is very daunting. I have always thought I could stand to lose some of my excess baggage, so even though the wedding is forever away, I am getting started now! Andrew and I have been eating healthier (fewer starches, no Starbucks [not like we can afford it anyway], less red meat, etc.) I have also developed an intense love of chocolate soy milk. I hate regular milk but this stuff is "delissy," as my future in-laws would say :). I have also started running! After seeing pics of Vivian looking amazing in her engagement party pics, I was motivated. It is hard, but once I change clothes, put on my ipod, and go outside, it's not all that bad. I even told Andrew that yesterday and today I have felt less flabby- could be a mental thing, but I will take it! 2) Honeymoon- We wanted to go to St. Lucia, but being that our current income is dismally tiny, something in the US may be in order. He is voting for Wine Country, but I am not so sure. We're still contemplating that one. We both want to go somewhere fun that we wouldn't be able to enjoy with a family, should we ever decide to expand ours beyond ourselves and our small menagerie. 3) This wasn't really in the works; it just happened. We went to an Open House tonight at the Gallery, another wedding venue. While it would be completely gorgeous for an outdoor ceremony, June does not lend itself to a nice, pretty time spent outside. Afterall, I don't want my guests to hate me! But, there was a caterer there that we can use if we go to Paraiso and the cake baker that we are seriously considering. I am a chocolate girl all the way, but the buttercream whatever the hell cake I had tonight was even better than the chocolate they had! This was the baker that made the Beatles Love cake, so I asked the man there how it came to be. Basically, it was a couple just like us who saw the show several times in Vegas and they wanted it incorporated into their cake. Andrew is still convinced this will be the best thing in the world for us. I am still not as confident, but you never know! We have Best Buy gift cards and we don't know what to use them for. We are thinking engagement video blog. Will anyone care besides us? Probably not, but it could be something fun to do. I am off tomorrow and we will likely get bored so we will see.....

bad, bad blogger

I haven't blogged in a while, mostly because we haven't done much wedding-related stuff. With me not working, there were 0 dollars coming in our house for us to pay bills with, let alone to save for wedding expenses. We have talked about a few things, and I don't remember what Andrew said, but he very nearly sold me on Paraiso Maravilla. That is the direction I have been leaning towards lately. And... I got a dress! I said I wasn't even going to start looking for one until June at the earliest, but I had a chance I couldn't refuse! My mom heard about how Weddings by Debbie (a bridal shop by her house) had roof damage after Hurricane Ike and sold a bunch of their dresses to a buyer who normally sells things wholesale because "they weren't up to their standards." The company couldn't find a buyer for the lot of dresses, so they sold them one by one to the public for $100 each! I emailed this to Vivian on a Thursday night. The sale was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She called me Friday morning (I was at work) saying to get down there because the good dresses were going fast. My awesome manager let me take a long break, so I picked up my mom and we went! Wedding dresses are sized tiny, and all that were left were good sizes mostly. I found one I really liked in a size smaller than what I need, but for $100 bucks, I thought I should get it! My mom agreed, so now, as long as I lose a dress size, I have a dress. Yay! Pics are on facebook. Other than that... nothing good and wedding-related is going on!