Why, Hello!

Sorry about the rampant disregard for blogging. Projects, school, work and generally being miserable have consumed my life the last few days. Wedding plans have been put on hold aside from planning my trip.

I'll start with the trip: I am going to Seattle in June to get married. Yes, that's right. You heard me.

You are all thinking to yourself, "But, Sara, you told me the wedding was in July?!" Never fear, my trusty followers. The July wedding is still on. However, we are getting legally married in June. A civil ceremony. Why, you ask?

Well, I'm not sure how much you know about military life, but as a civy (yeah, I'm hip and cool with military lingo-- that means civilian, non-military member, etc.) marrying into military life, I have a whole truckload of paperwork that comes due after getting married. Not only can we not get housing on base, but I can't get health insurance, access to base, etc, without being legally married.

Why June? Well, it's late enough that I can make it out there, but still a month or so before I move so we'll have time to get paperwork and housing before we actually make the long journey out there. Plus, if any of you are familiar with 'Gilmore Girls' will understand my love and excitement for a legal ceremony on June 3rd, our target date for said nuptials.

The important thing is, the Texas wedding will still go on. The ceremony there will be more about our families and us than just about getting paperwork done. We've actually agreed to not wear wedding bands (shocker!) until our July wedding out of respect for our families getting to see at least some vows taken before them. I love this idea, and the more I think about it, the better I feel about moving up there. I've already been stalking airfare and I've found an airline that has pretty good fares to Seattle from here. I'm excited.

On another note, it's been pretty hard trying to compile a playlist of songs for our wedding. I've had to think about what our first dance would be, but listening to "our songs" is too hard at this moment in life. I have just tried to compile it from memory, or choose songs that I like to dance (or awkwardly twitch) to. However, this moment in life has also gotten a LOT easier. I received these beautiful flowers this morning:

(personal photo)

This morning, I got a knock on the door at my mom's house. Awkwardly, I opened the door to a man holding these out to me. He says my name... stupidly I raise my hand like I'm back in grade school. I take the flowers in the house thinking maybe someone sent me some congratulatory flowers for the engagement? I don't know. I open the card, and they're from him. Tears well up, but do not drop. I am ecstatic that (1) he remembered my favorite flowers from oh-so-long-ago when I told him, (2) that he SENT me flowers! (3) he planned this before he left and got his mom to help figure out to what address they needed to be sent. A lot of effort went into getting me these flowers and I can't wait to hang on to them until they are moldy and dead.

I love flowers.

Let Them Eat Cake! And Flowers...

I am at a loss for words for the title. So much has happened, and yet so much has yet to be done. This weekend was another marathon wedding weekend.

This weekend started early, with a meeting with a florist early on. We ended up booking the florist, and thankfully, it was a pretty painless process. I brought in my "inspiration" pictures and he looked at them, discussed what I liked, and he made a plan from there. My bouquet will have Revel roses, gerbera daisies, tulips and hypercium berries.

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My bouquet will be mostly pink, in fact, I think we decided on ALL pink. No white flowers for me! I know some of the above pictures are white, but my girls will be carrying white flowers with a bit of pink, as mine is mostly pink with some (or no) white. And, the gerbera daisies are kinda reserved for me. They're my favorite flower and the florist suggested only using them in my bouquet since y'know... I'm the bride. :)

Then, after the florist, it was cake tasting at Market Street (quickly vetoed based on the flavors of cake) and then shopping at Target. I got a new floor lamp for the apartment with Trenton and a dish rack for the apartment with Trenton. My mom and I also showed my future MIL other things I registered for, but we couldn't find my shower curtain! I think they've decided to take it online only, so I may have to watch for it.

On to the cake! We tried lots of flavors, ordered the cake, and we're pretty excited! The cakes are going to be delicious. I can't wait to try it. Or to save my top tier for next July! We're doing a simple bridal cake with just white butter cream frosting and a simple ribbon trim around each tier. Then we'll also probably get some flowers from the florist to make a topper type... thing. 

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Think that without the Swiss dots. And... flowers only on the top. But, that's the basic look. It's going to be delicious and yummy. I think Trenton will have to hold me back from just... devouring the entire cake. No hands, just face.

No clues on the flavor of the bridal cake or the grooms cake. You'll just have to wait until the wedding to try what we've chosen!

TGIF

Holy cow. This has been one looooong week. Seriously. Between full-time work, plus a bunch of school work and getting bronchitis, I'm just a train wreck. I'm ready to have two days to sit in my apartment. (I'm contemplating not even leaving this weekend.)

With that two days, I'm going to get a whole bunch of school work done, maybe some laundry, and a nice little mock-up of our invitations. Y'know the ones I showed you earlier? (http://saraandtrenton.blogspot.com/2010/01/invitations-again.html)... well, they're changing. Again. I know, I know. Indecision wracks me.

But, I found some pre-cut postcards to possibly use as our response cards (cheaper postage, ftw!) if they'll work with my printer/Word. And, I decided to go against the green background and do a pink background on the invites and use a green belly band and a green envelope(since I really don't feel like hand addressing each envelope, which I would with black envelopes). The green is super bright, not lime or anything but pretty bright, but since it's really only an accent anyways, I don't mind it. I really want some bright pink gerbera daisies (my favorite flower!) for our centerpieces, but we'll have to mess with those later.

swoon

How amazing are those!? I love gerbera daisies, so I would love to do something like that, but maybe not so intense. (I can't imagine that doing something like that for 12ish tables would be budget friendly.)

Le sigh. Lots of thinking still to do. And lots of looking. Interwebz stalking here I come.

Wedding Weekend Pt. II

Seriously. That last post wasn't a joke. It just continued today! Wedding weekend has continued into a two parter. So, to continue...

Today, the mother, me, and the future-mother-in-law met the sister to look at a venue. I've stalked this venue online for what seems like ever. I just keep looking and looking and memorized the price chart, the capacity, etc. But, man. Seeing it for real, in person; actually getting to visualize how my wedding could look was just amazing. I really loved it. I liked everything about it. It doesn't look like much on the website, but really... it's a great site. Very versatile. I can do a lot with it and it's so gorgeous on its own that I won't even have to do much decorating. Super plus for me.


Main Room for the reception.

Deck for the outdoor ceremony.

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The picture doesn't do the venue justice. It's got a huge deck out to one side, a fabulous view all around it, nice lighting. Oh, it's going to be amazing. Plus, a really reasonable price, tables and chairs included, 6 hour rental, free set-up, a bridal room, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a small storage area where I can go drop off some decorations a few days before. Oh, and did I mention I get to bring in my own catering and alcohol?! Huge savings to me.

It's got a gorgeous outdoor stone pavilion in the front for some really great photo backgrounds, and because I'm renting the venue, I can take my bridals up there whenever I want, I just have to let the wonderful wedding coordinator know. So, after signing some papers, dropping a check and walking away a happy bride, we all left to go get lunch. The sister had things to do, so it was me and the moms! We left to eat delicious meals, I had a rather "wild" salad... too wild for me, but I had a delicious dessert thing. We discussed wedding plans, logistics, etc all lunch. Amazing. I already have the most amazing mom ever, but I'm so excited to be getting such an amazing (non-psychotic, as so many are) mother-in-law.

We then went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to finish my registry. We spent oh, Lord, probably two or three hours just doing registry. The bridal registry lady was IN-TENSE. She wanted me to register for TWELVE sets of towels. TWELVE! Who needs twelve sets of towels? Also, she suggested three sets of sheets and two sets of eight place settings for my table. I was like... uh, Lori... you're crazy. We had a blast though me, my mom, and my future M.I.L. We found everything else I would need and even found some stuff I liked better than what I found at Target. So, the registry= complete. All I gotta do now is kinda putz around with various things, taking of double registered items and such.

Even after the registry, my mom and I ran to DSW to see if we saw shoes we liked, Charming Charlie's (an accessories store here in Allen) and then home. We later ran to Hobby Lobby to buy some things for a mock-up hair piece for my wedding, also to Kohl's to get napkins- which we found! Then finally, after a day of productive wedding-ness, we went home. I also got some really, really excellent news from my amazing future-in-laws.

They are going to pay for our cakes and for us to get our flowers done. That means saving me time from having to do them before the wedding. Not having to spend the money, and they gave Trenton and I a huge gift that I could not be more thankful for. I have the best in-laws. I had definitely already found a way to do my cake and flowers on the cheap for my budget's sake, but this. Oh, this was huge. I almost cried when my future M.I.L. told me she wanted, not to pay for my bulk floral, but for someone to do them for me. I couldn't believe it. AMAZING! I could not be more thankful and I have such generous family and I can only hope that they have as much fun going on cake tastings and floral meeting business as I do. It was such a blessing to have that taken off my shoulders. Gah. I can't even tell you.

The wedding is almost done. I can't even believe it. Now I really need to send out my Save-The-Dates!