Celebration Station

Today I'm headed on a much needed family vacay. I set up a few entries to post while I'm away, but I'm gonna be honest and say there's going to be a week or so with nada. I am handing you a virtual hanky to dry your tears.

Try to cope.

In the meantime I'll be doin' a little of this:

Image courtesy of TheStar.com

Some o' this:

 Image courtesy of MyNewOldSchool.com 

 And yep, a little of this action too:

 

Image courtesy of JewelryBlogUncovered.com 

Viva la vacation!

Veiled Excitement

My mom picked up my veil for me this last weekend.

There is a veil - MY veil, the one I'm wearing to GET MARRIED - hanging in the guestroom closet of my parents' house right now.

It's all getting a little more real...

Princess Di - Not my inspiration, but one serious veil, nonetheless.

Image courtesy of VintageGown.com

Plate Tectonics

Plates are becoming the bane of my existence. As I mentioned before, I had NO IDEA how hard it would be for me to choose some for our registry.

Sadly Discontinued Plates - Image courtesy of ShopStyle.com

Then, once I'd finally settled, poof! They're discontinued. Gone before I even had a chance! So, around I went again. Luckily (unluckily?) since I'd grown attached to the Martha Stewart's I'd picked before, it was a little easier going in to find a replacement, rather than starting from scratch.

Oh, domesticity.

P.S. Sorry, east coasters for the earthquake themed title.... But it was just too good to pass up. :)

Meet My Vendors: Lord Hill Farms

Swoon.

Ready to see where The Day is going down? It's Lord Hill Farms. Not only is it the place Nate and I first met, but it's a magically re-done dairy farm, complete with views of horses in pastures and the Cascades. Dreamy, dreamy, dreamy, I tell ya.

 Ceremony Space ~ Image courtesy of JaredMBurns.com

It's an all-in-one venue : Ceremony upstairs in the pseudo-suspended "hay loft" with floor-to-ceiling windows, reception below on the main floor. They also do their own catering, and I need very little decor to make the reception space gorgeous thanks to the rustic beams, abounding white lights, and crispy white linens.

'Maids Outside at Lord Hill Farms ~ Image courtesy of ChrisSollart.com

Bride & Groom Exiting Lord Hill Farms ~ Image courtesy of BeccaHowell.com

Reception Space ~ Image courtesy of Events.BanquetEvent.com

Swoon.... Again.

Meet My Vendors: Dana Pleasant Photography

The top three questions I've been getting lately :
1) Have you set a date?
2) Where is it going to be?
and
3) Do you have a photographer yet?

Although I haven't kept up as of late, I am a former scrapbooking enthusiast. I also pretend to be an amateur photographer (VERY amateur), so it makes me happy that other people care about the wedding photography as much as I do.

Enter : Dana Pleasant Photography .

 

I found Dana through my venue's website (we'll get to that in a later post), and fell . in . love .

If in some other life I become an actual photographer, hers are the pictures I would love to emulate. The best part to me : Everyone in her photos look so relaxed and like their true selves. If you've ever had any portraits taken, you know the likelihood of a few awkward moments ('you want me to put my hand where?!'). Plus, you have to put all your trust in the person behind the lens to tell you your hair doesn't look like Don King in the wind that just kicked up, and no, your double chin is not making an uninvited appearance.

Oh yeah, and these are the pictures you're going to look back on FOREVER and know it's probably the best you'll ever look.

No pressure.

I have full faith in Dana, and cannot wait (seriously, jumping out of my skin, here.) for our engagement photo session which will hopefully be happening in September or October, and of course, The Day itself, and all those little whirlwind moments that will be captured for me to look back on.

All images by Dana Pleasant (www.DanaPleasant.com)

Felt Flower Fiesta : Threepeat

I'm running out of titles.

Not much to this post but an update shot of the felt flower pomander in the works. Coming right along! Oh and um, please ignore the dog toy destruction in the background. I do vacuum, really.  Enjoy the view from the top... of the flowers!

Ring-A-Ding-Ding

Have we even talked about the ring??

Odds are good I know you, so therefore... We have. You've seen more pictures than you'd like and you probably want to barf that I brought it up AGAIN.

Deal with it. Gratuitous ring photo....................Now.

Felt Flower Fiesta : Part Deux

Sorry, mixing my languages up top there. What can I say, I'm equal opportunity.

The felt flowers are moving right along - I'm making them production style, a throwback to my former job of handbag creation. And I've decided to leave a little magic in the process here too - I still want y'all to come into the wedding with a little wonder, so if you're looking for a step-by-step, this ain't it (mmkay, that felt harsh. If you really have need to know, email me and we can discuss).

So first I'm cutting out stacks (and stacks and stacks) of strips and coils of felt. This felt:

And then, armed with my trusty sewing machine, glue gun, and little popsicle-toothpick hybrids called Woodsies, I'm doin' a little of this action:

Those little blue starburst-like flowers are actually "table confetti" (seriously, this world of wedding merchandise has EVERYTHING) I found at Michael's craft store and attached Woodsies of a different form.

Nate wins serious fiance points for trekking through said craft store with me, toting a really embarassing haul of felt and styrofoam balls, and then waiting for me to use coupons for each one. Oh and the felt has to be scanned individually.

And he still wants to marry me. #Winning (shout out to my pop culture fanatic friends.)

Bottle Neck

I am 99.9% sure I have laid claim to the most patient guy on the planet.

Because while the Felt Flower Fiesta is in full swing, so is the creation of what I'll refer to as... "holders". I'm not really into the flower-with-votive-on-mirror table decor I've seen at a million and one weddings, so I decided to go a bit of a different direction. Yeah, yeah, I know you're just shocked.

 The beginning stages of the 3-4 day puff paint application... I drink a lot of coffee.

Enter : Bottles! It's my belief that basically anything looks great if it looks deliberate. For instance, slap a sticker on a piece of paper and it looks like a random sticker floating in paper space. But add a few more around it, and boom : Deliberate cluster design. Catch my drift?

So - obviously - I'm coating every interesting bottle I can get my hands on with puff paint and matte white spray paint. Totally the next logical step, right? Ha.

A batch finished with it's puff paint application(s).

It's working really well though, and I got the idea from this tutorial on the blog PS...I Made This. I figure each table will get a minimum of two bottles, one large and one small. The small will have one of the styrofoam/tulle creations resting on it, while the tall will have the really-cool-table-marker-I-haven't-created-yet in it. Or you know, something like that. It's a work in progress, per usual.

Freshly sprayed with 1st coat and drying on the mantle on a hi-tech protective tinfoil bed.

And back to that Most Patient Guy award from the beginning of the post? All three pictures are in his living room RIGHT NOW. Like, all happening at once. I didn't follow one group through it's stages, there are just three stages happening sometimes at all times. Seriously : He wins.

Not the Dress

Does anyone else have a different body in their brain then in reality?

I went wedding dress shopping a week ago, and ended up leaving super happy with MY dress (Squeeeee! Ahem. Excuse Me.), but the one I went in to try on that I thought would be a slam dunk was hor-ren-dous. Like : I was a man in a dress. A linebacker. Positively the most unflattering thing I've ever put on my body! The silver lining, however, was since it was the first one I put on, it could only go up from there.

And it did. Thank goodness. Some other girl is going to look so great in this guy though - Super cute, right?

Decidedly NOT my dress.

Felt Flower Fiesta

I don't think I've mentioned here yet that I'm making my own flowers. No, you read it right : Making them.

And here's why :
1) I'm cheap and sentimental. Therefore it's tough for me to drop big bucks on something that will last a day, and on the same note I'd like to have a souvenir to have at home.
2) My thumb is not green, but it is crafty.

I landed on this idea after coming across a tutorial to make paper flowers (and determining paper crafts are not my thing), and then seeing a pillow in the store Z Gallerie on a girls' weekend.

Notebook Paper Flowers

 Z Gallerie Pillows

So, to make a long story short, things are percolating. I'll make this project a bit of a series so I don't get any nasty-grams regarding your horrendous finger cramps from having to scroll through a legion of photos. Now that you've seen my inspiration attempts/photos, you'll have a better idea of where I'm coming from. 

Just don't try to figure out my brain works. That will lead to no good for anyone. 

regLISTry

I think my lists have lists at this point. I've always been a crazy list-maker... And yes, I sometimes almost always add the stuff I've accomplished prior to making the physical list down just to cross them off. It's crazy.

Crazy satisfying, that is.

 

Anyway, a registry is just a glorified list, right? And now you can do it all online. I'm nearly done, and haven't even had to drag Nate to the stores once (apparently the one kind of shopping he's not interested in doing). But I had no. freaking. idea. that there was so much STUFF to choose.

I mean, do normal people know that there are 5 billion "casual dining" sets out there? Yeah. There are. Let me tell you, the one thing I never thought I'd struggle with: Plates. We've ended up with off-white, because I'm afraid I'm going to be so sick of the color/pattern in 10 years that I'm going to smash them Greek-wedding style in my kitchen.They are square though, so that's something.

Image courtesy of Phillips.blog.com

New table linens are cheaper than new plates, so therefore, white = best choice. Ahh, logic. I feel better now... Don't tell me otherwise.

Anyway. I was all set to be bothered by the fact that Nate didn't want to go fake shopping with me with the scanning gun, but really... I'm not. He had one request: A bright green Kitchenaid. Does he bake? No. But he would like one to sit on the counter and look pretty, please. So here we are, registered for goodies to fill a home.

Still working on that whole "home" part.... but whatever. I'll go fake shop for my fake guestroom now. 

Balls & Tulle

Today I owe the world a geek dollar.

 I am wriggling-in-my-desk-chair excited over 6" green foam balls and turquoise tulle found on eBay for a frikken' STEAL. Because guess what? At the top of my list of Things I Never Knew I Cared About sits the price of styrofoam balls - Rather, the astronomical price.
When you want say... 20 of these puppies, the craft store ticket of $6.99 per ball causes some serious sticker shock.

 Hallelujah eBay: $1.50 per. Seriously. I bought out the sellers lot for the price of a Saturday trip with Nate to Starbucks ($10.50 plus $5 shipping).

And the tulle I found this morning? Five yard bolts of turquoise tulle for under $6 per bolt. Um, yes please. Thirty yards plus shipping of one super-bulky box (I don't envy the eBay-er that has to tote those to the post office) for $40.

For the record, yes, the tulle and balls will come together in a hopefully happy marriage (ha) of craftiness... But we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

As always, in my head it looks awesome. Cross your fingers.

All images courtesy of PhotoBucket.com

Let's Begin.

It's occurred to me that someday I may want to look back on the time I was engaged. To remember the little ideas and projects that came of them. Moreover, to turn an eye toward the past and think "geez, I worked my a** off and it was totally worth it!"... That's the hope at this point, anyway.

Hopefully you can get some inspiration for your own home/wedding/crafty-wild-hairs if nothing else.

So if you'd like to see my attempts at getting crafty and making it look like I didn't, saddle up. I think I'm in for quite a ride.