Let The Stalking Begin

Mr S. is obsessed with weather. You know the type, you're running away from the tornado and he's trying to see how close he can get with out pissing his pants. Yeah, that's him.

Maybe it's the fact that at least 12 times a day he checks the weather, either via his blackberry or laptop that I decided 8 months ago I needed to know what the weather on our wedding was like in the past. It was not a good idea, with how I tend to panic. My checking that, is pretty much the same thing as me jumping off a 10 story building, just to see if it hurt when I hit the ground.

Basically, to sum it up, it has rained on our wedding date every year for the past 5 years. Needless to say I have been waiting for the ability to check the 10 day forecast for quite sometime.

Remember the "jumping off a building" analogy? Yea, I just took a flying leap.

Here's the weather forecast for the wedding day and my outdoor luau rehearsal dinner which is on the 21st.

Now, I know. Weather people are often wrong. And just because it says scattered doesn't mean that it will be all day, in fact it could only rain in the early morning hours. And I wish that knowing that in my heart of hearts calmed me a little. But it doesn't. Not even a little.

Needless to say, I will be stalking the weather website every day, several times a day. And praying as hard as I can that I have a bright sunny beautiful day! I don't know what I will do if I have to take all my wedding pictures inside.

I don't care if they say that rain on your wedding day is good luck. I'm convinced that's something a wedding planner came up with at one point to calm down a panicking bride to be! It's crap!

Get It Together!

I was sitting with Paige this afternoon, watching something or other on Disney Channel, when the phone rang. The caller ID said it was the church and figuring they were calling to go over last minute details I answered.

It was the Wedding Coordinator for the church curious as to where we were, because it was 3 and our rehearsal was starting and we weren't there. Dumbfounded, I asked her what she was talking about, our rehearsal is on the 21st at 3, not the 14th at 3.

She said her paper work indicated that this was the day that we requested, and I explained that it was the FIRST day we requested but due to out of town and out of country participants in the wedding it was impossible and we changed it. I even have the paper work to back it up.

She looked over her calendar and said "Okay well the 21st isn't going to be a problem" Damn skippy there's no problem! Had she told me we couldn't do it now I think I would have went Bride-zilla on her!

This isn't the first time she's made a mistake. Last month she try to charge us the remaining $800 for the church fee -AGAIN! Thankfully I had the receipt and the paperwork to prove that as well.

To be honest I can totally see why she screws up so much, first of of all she's like 70 and I don't discriminate against the elderly at all - but if you have a job and a really important one at that....ugh! And she's only in the office for 2 days a week for 2 hours at a time....

I'm laughing about this now, only because it worked out.

How Cute!

FMIL got the littles mans suit off eBay today! $20.00! Unbelievable bargain shopper this woman is! Here's the suit! Too cute huh!?

This will be for Connor, my ADORABLE little 2 year old Nephew-To-Be! Here's a picture of Connor (middle) Cameron his brother Cameron who is the Ring Bear, and my daughter Paige who is the Flower Girl. This was taken at Christmas time, hence them in their little jammer jams!

I'm also happy to announce that ALL my guys have their suit orders in. I am so relieved that I could jump up and down. I was really worried that someone would falter on it, especially since 2 are out of state and one is out of the country! But my guys have it going on!!!

Things are coming together so well, I'm so happy!

Day Of Coordinator

This is Jennifer:

Isn't she pretty?! I snagged this from her Flickr album..so you all could see the amazing girl who is saving my LIFE!

I made Jennifer's wedding invites not to long back, in fact she was my first bride I made invites for after doing my own.

ANYWAY - Jennifer is going to be my Day of Coordinator for my wedding. She's working for a discounted, undisclosed amount of money ;-) And in turn saving my budget and my life with all the chaos that I know is going to go down that day.

I'm meeting Jennifer for coffee this evening to discuss the details. I'm thinking about bringing "mug shots" of the people she will need to keep an eye on. LOL.

I can not wait to meet her! And see all the awesome wedding pics she's bringing to show me as well!

Time to Face The Music

Okay - well today I finally meet with the church about the music. Wait, you say! Didn't you do that yesterday? Oh no. In grad tradition of this church, mere hours before the meeting, she canceled. Something about picking up a sick sister in Iowa.

So today at 1 pm I finally get to hear my music and hopefully find out if it's approved so I can move forward with my programs.

Song's I'm brining with me are:

• God Bless The Broken Road - Rascal Flatts (I'm walking in to)
• If You Believe - Jim Brickman (Bridesmaids walking in to)
• I Will Be Here - Steven Curtis Chapman (unity sand song, sung by my Uncle)
• The Keeper Of The Stars - Tracy Byrd (Prelude)
• Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles (exite song)
• In My Life - The Beatles (postlude)

Fingers crossed I get approved, and that she actually lets me listen to my music....

Kissing Ball

I dropped into my florist yesterday to double check the color scheme of roses I chose and to change a few things. I'm glad that I did because I had a shade of pink that I really didn't want chosen. I also really wanted to change the Flower Girls flowers from a fairy wand made out of a rose - to a Pompadour or as my florist calls them a "Kissing Ball"

Initially I wanted this, but the florist said "Oh, all the kids do it whack each other with them and roll them like a bowling ball"so I went with option to - a tacky flower wand. Even though the Kissing Ball costs more, she's make more off it - still trying to talk me out of it. WTF!? Why do vendors do this. If you don't like what you sell - stop selling it! Simple as can be....

SO when she fainly finishes round two of the "It will be trashed" speech, she than said "Well you don't want it out of roses do you? That would be really expensive" which is fair enough, but why assume I can't afford it? Sweet lady, people skills lacking a bit.

The rose one is $75! So no, I'm not getting a rose one....I'm getting carnations. But...silly me I ordered it with out seeing one made out of carnations - and the florist didn't have a photo of one. Go figure. So I looked one up when I got home and I think it's going to look great. It's still going to be $45 for it, but at least this way if it does get trashed I wouldn't feel too badly about it.

Here it is - what do you think?? I think in the pink shades I picked, it's going to be great!

Round Two with the Music Man

Well I got a response from him today and while he apologized for being unintentioanlly rude, he went on to say that he didn't want a "Secular love song undermining our service"

Ahem.

Ok.

1 - I'm not having a "service" I'm having a (say it with me now) wedding CEREMONY. I've already given my life to Christ in church many, many years ago. The ceremony is for me to give my life and love to my husband....I'm not trying to convert people here and there's nothing "service like" happening during this. Besides, this is a Lutheran church, normally laid back folk - what did he slip, fall and get Catholic all over him? God isn't going to strike the church down because "Here Comes The Sun" is played on the piano.

2 - If he wants to go a few rounds toe to toe with someone about "secular musice undermining anything....I'll be more then happy to replace my simple and lovely Beatles songs with the following Christian band from England The Band With No Name (a.k.a TBWNN), who I happen to quite like - and I will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that even Christian music can "undermine" a wedding...(or at least be totally inappropriate for that type of day - now the reception...bring it on ;-)

Please note a visual here, you must envision me in my wedding dress skipping to the alter doing the "PUT YOUR HANDS UP" motion the whole way down.

(PS Props to my soon to be COUSIN CLAIRE and UNCLE DAVID because David shot this video and you can see Claire jumping around somewhere in the foreground)

Play us a song, you're the Piano Man....

Ugh RETRACTION - what it should say is "Play us a song you're the uptight, meanie, jerk head piano playing poo head who's pissed me off!"

And that's the "G" Rater version, suitable for a family blog. You should hear what I really think right now....

Okay, I'll explain. I paid $1200 to get married in this church and not only did it take until like 3 weeks ago to get a Pastor to marry us, due to poor planning on their part - now the piano player (who's not even playing at my wedding, mind you) is acting like my needing the music info to print in my programs now, is a horrid thing and I'm rushing him.

UH -Hello Mr Piano Man! God called and said that there's only 71 days to her wedding and it's going to take over a month to pull this together, so give the woman what she needs before she blows her tiara off her pretty little head!

The guys exact words to me were:

"Are you leaving the country? Are you in the military? Is there an extreme reason you need this now because I have never heard of it taking 2 months to print programs"

WTF!? You got married like 4 decades ago, of course not - they were carved in stone then!

I'm so freakin' irritated right now. Aside from the fact that I get things done ahead of time, this isn't "getting it done too early" it's on time and why why WHY would I wait when I can get it done and out of the way.

So help me, if he declines ANY of my chosen music due to the wording - I will flip out worse then this!

Where's my wine......

Updates...updates...and only 11 more days.....

Don't panic...not until the wedding, until the invites go out...are they ready....um....not so much. I'm waiting on some more RSVP's from good ol' step dad to arrive and I'm assembling them until then.

The 2x2 sticker I bought to replace my seal I created (for the belly band) , may not be here on time and I'm a bit anxious about that one. I'm watching my mailbox like a hawk!

Oh! We met with our pastor last night, funny story - know how the first two bailed on us, one canceling hours before the meeting....this one tired the same thing LOL! Canceling that is, not bailing. Once she found out she was Pastor numero tres she gladly stuck with the original time.

She's AWESOME, by the way. Love her to bits! She was dressed all cute in a denim skirt, ABOVE her knees (SHAME! LOL) and likes non-religious music. She's totally a pastor for Alex and I. She even at one point said she'd like to make the "fist pound" the new national handshake among Lutherans. Hahaha! LOVE IT!

Mr S and I got to hear a little about our PREPARE class, quiz thingy we did. We are fully compatible. Thank you, Hold your applause ;-) It's tough being perfect you know...hehe.

Um what else, what else....I'm hunting for a calligrapher for the seating arrangements for the tables, figuring out the guest list and crying over how OVER we are (it's going to be a hell of a party) and all in all trying not to lose my mind with so little time until the wedding.

Next month, when people ask me when I'm getting married....i can say NEXT MONTH. Trippy.

Let's Make Beautiful Music Together Part #2

And because I can't for the life of me get to different you tube videos in one blog (tired all day yesterday and now most the morning today! LOL) I will do a separate blog for the song I will walk in to .

I am walking into Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flatts, which is arguably just as common now as Here Comes The Bride and Cannon in D; however, this song has great meaning to Mr S and I, and since they are also my favorite band and it's one of my favorite songs...so it all works out.

But before you get you knickers in a bunch, don't worry I'm not brining along my Rascal Flatts CD for them to toss in, I will be walking down to the piano version.

Give it a listen here:



Next blog Maybe the song we will be exiting to......keep a look out for Part #3!

Lat's Make Beautiful Music Together Part #1

Let's give this blog another try, I tried to do this yesterday and it went all crazy on me. And no, it wasn't the blog operators error! Very funny!

Anyway, back to the blog from yesterday....

Here' Comes The Bride and all that mess, I certainly will not be walking down the isle to that. More power to woman who does, but it is not me in the slightest!

And you know what? Making a list of the songs I refused to have a part of the wedding was much easier then making a list of the songs I did want in the wedding.

Eventually I landed on a great song for my bridesmaids and a great song for me
For my Bridesmaids they are walking to "If You Believe" by Jim Brickman, it's actually a holiday song from what I've been told, but you can't tell by simply listening to it and it's so beautiful I could care less if anyone knew.

Give it a listen:

Someone is willing to marry us?

Yeah, finally - I have a pastor to marry Mr S and I. I am highly considering taking out a legal and binding contract with her that states she must marry us with out backing out otherwise she will pay us 1 million dollars and buy us each brand new, matching BMW's.

Sound like a bit much? Well you won't think so when you hear what we had to go through to get a Pastor!

We're getting married at a Lutrean Church, what has 6 Pastor employed. SIX, as in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, - in total SIX!

They ask us to pick one, so we do . Pastor #1 Come On Down, you've been chosen to wed the happy couple.

Pastor # 1 stayed our pastor for a month, yes thats it. I guess he is going to be on a sabbatical the month we get married. Can't blame the guy, so we move on and choose another pastor.

Pastor # 2 Come On Down, you've been chosen as a replacement to wed this happy couple.

Pastor #2 stayed or Pastor for 6 months, actually until 2 hours before we were supposed to meet him for our first pre-marital consoling. And since I'd called months earlier and he asked me to call back after Easter to book something, I was now more enraged at the fact he was bailing because he "claimed" to just realize he won't be in town that weekend. Nope, he will instead be doing a bike marathon of some sort.

3.5 months to the wedding, we've not been in for the consoling and we didn't have a Pastor.

Not to mention the 400 year old woman who is the church's wedding coordinator is almost NEVER in the office and has no clue how to work e-mail.

SO finally I get a call that says one has been chosen for us, but she has yet to call and set anything up with us.....which just makes me more angry....but at least we're on someones calendar for good.

Ug, who would have thought that would be an issue???

Programs - Take One!

I spent the majority of last night working on the programs. My eye balls hurt and I pretty much hate Photo Shop now. But after some cutting, printing, adjusting and ribbon cutting I came up with this:

(Never mind the wrinkled monogram on top, I used the wrong glue but it worked to get the general idea.)


The program is really simple to make and was really quiet inexpensive, when all is said and done each one will cost roughly .70 or less!

SUPPLIES

• I bought black linen card stock in 8.5x11 size, and folded it in half. That made the outer portion of the program.
• Next, though the sample is on regular printer paper, I ordered metallic text paper for the inside. I cut those pieces after they were printed, to 8x10.5 - just a half an inch smaller on the inside so that the edges didn't hang out when assembled.
  
• The ribbon in the sample is Light Pink 5/8 doubles sided satin from Michaels Craft Store, I paid $3.99 for 5 yards, and it's a huge rip off so I searched the net and found Favor Frenzy had some, but not in my color - so I popped over to Ribbon Retreat for Pink in 100 yard spool for about $10 or so. I suggest 3/8 ribbon - I used 5/8 and find that it's much too big and the program likes to stay open because of it. (Check Favor Frenzy first as their prices are cheaper)
  
• I picked up a 2 inch reach hole punch by Punchline (McGill Inc.) at Michaels, and found that the hole size was a bit big so I will be going back to get a 3/16 hole instead of the 1/4 I'm used for the sample.
• The pink backing to the monogram on the top is from scrap from my invites. The monogram will be printed on the same white metallic paper as the inside.
  

TIPS AND TRICKS

Cut the ribbon in 1 yard pieces, this will give you enough to comfortably tie the bow, and trim off edges to make the ends nice and crisp.

I punched the hole on the black outer part first. I simply put the 2 inch reach punch as far as it would go and punched once on the top and once from the bottom. Directly on the crease of the fold!

The after I printed and cut and folded the inner part, I laid it inside the black outer piece where it should sit, flipped it over and used a pen to mark through the holes where to punch on it. It's a putsy process but it worked like a charm every time.

* Let me know if you have any questions about how I made them or anything! They are still in the "mock up" stage but as soon as my product arrives I'm going full force on them!!!

What does it take to get a dress in this town!?

Finally we have a Bridesmaids dress!

Phew!

You have no idea what it took to get this. This is dress number 3, at store number 3 and I can say whole heartedly say I never want to look for a brdiesmaids dress, again. Ever.

Let's start at the beginning shall we. I take you way, way back in time - back when my wedding party was in it's original stage and no maids had been given the boot yet, or dropped out - back about 3 months ago...

I found the most perfect Jasmine B2 dress online, love at first sight. I called a store in the area and went in right away with my sister and then maid -of -honor (MOH) Stef to give it a look. We all agreed it was perfect, and I ordered some swatches from the shop Bella Bridal as I wanted the dress (see photo to right) Black with a pink sash and I needed to see the available pinks.

A month or so goes by and I've not heard from Bella Bridal on the arrival of my swatches, so I call. They have no idea who I am, or that I have ordered the swatches. I'm a bit put off as I've personally spoken to the sales gal there 3 times and 2 of those was in the shop itself.

I simply make the decision that I will get this same dress elsewhere as any store that can't keep a swatch order straight, probably won't get the dress order right either.

By this time a maid has backed out of the wedding, and one has been booted for good reason. I've not got to replace 2 maids and then find a new shop with this dress.

I come across Our Shop, in Stillwater MN. They have the same dress AND it's centrally located for all my girls. I start getting excited - they are all going to meet and we're going to have a blast!

Upon arriving at the store, I looked for my dress in the millions of others hanging from the racks. When I didn't find it I asked a sales guy for help, as they told me they had the dress when I called. He pulls out this teal and white number which he says has the same style number on it.

I'm not convinced. My sister, who has tried it on swears on her pregnant belly - it's not the dress. All my maids are making this face like someone farted and I decide we need a new dress.

We settle on this lovely little number by Bill Levkoff, a bit more expensive but it has 2 great qualities. 1 - it's flattering and 2 ALL the girls loved it.

We go through the horrendous task of measuring everyone in a packed, over booked shop. Out seamstress was losing her mind and my girls we're all getting hungry. After an hour, we start the task of checking out, another 20 minutes PER GIRL, and the worst part is the woman in the shop are not even measuring right and the dress sizes they want to order for each girl is completely backwards.

Example, they wanted my tallest and biggest girl in a dress smaller then one of my smaller girls and the small girl in the big dress!? I had to have faith they knew what they were doing, after all the shop had been there for years, they had to be doing something right.

A day later my girls tell me they aren't comfortable with the shop either. So I called them up, got the money back as nothing was ordered yet (waiting on my 5th our of state gal to call in) and proceeded to look for a new dress, at a new shop!

Stressed out, and really sick of Bridesmaids dresses, I go back to looking at Davids Bridal, which is where I got my wedding dress. After an hour on line looking and 2 hours on the phone with my Bridesmaid MJ, we settle on one dress. Knowing it's the ONLY one there I pray to the God of Dresses and Sanity that it will work, and I scoot off to the shop to peek at it.

So there it is, hanging on the rack. It looks great.

Looks can be deceiving. I reach up and carefully check the price tag, figuring as it looks nice it must cost a fortune, right?

Phew! Cheaper then both of the first 2 dresses.

Alright, things are going good - so it must look like crap on. My FMIL (Future Mother In Law) makes me go try it on, as the black on is a 6 and it should fit. I slip it on and run to a mirror -

OMG - It's perfect, it's flattering, it's cheap IT'S THE ONE!

After 6 months, 3 dresses and 2 disaster at dress shops I have the one I need! I thought that you have this kind of anxiety over wedding dresses...lol...not bridemaids dresses!

I've contacted all the maids about the dress, and told them if they get it on and hate it - tough....lol, they are wearing it ;-)

Me and my "Buds"

When I thought about my wedding day flowers, I certainly wasn't the type of girl who envisioned every inch of the chapel dripping with baby's breath, rose buds and greenery. Or that I would carry down one those obnoxiously long and flowing bouquets that look like ivy over grown on an old building. In fact, to be honest if there wasn't a flower in my whole wedding, I'd make it through with out ending up on a therapists couch.

Of course the thought arose in my skattered brain one day, should I have no flowers, then what exactly would I carry down the aisle with me? I mean let's just be honest here, it would be rather awkward looking for me to walk down carrying nothing at all. A basket? Filled with what, flowers? Candy to toss to the adoring crowd? I think not.

So I ended up searching the internet for the perfect bouquet, nothing too frilly or over the top. A few things that it must be - beautiful, simple and filled with NOT RED roses. Aside from the simple fact that I'm not even having a red wedding, or red as an accent color, I despise red roses. It's a personal thing, they remind me of funerals - weird I know since they represent love. It's just a thing, I deal with it. You should too.

On my journey down the internet super highway here's a few of the bouquets that made me happy God made flowers.



I met with my florist in November and explained that I simply wanted roses in 2 shades of pink and white, with some "bling" (the new added theme to my wedding) I was really happy to hear that the price of my bouquet would only be $70 - I was told that all roses was going to break the bank, though I found it odd as they are so common and seem to be around all year with little to no issue.

The florist showed us her hand tie's which I wasn't too thrilled with - think tulle fabric ribbon wrapped sloppily around the stems...I will be providing her with both the photo in the bottom right corner for my hand tie (minus the black ribbons...thats wee too much) and the ribbon to do it. She said she can and will do it but rattled off some excuse of not being able to stick them in water because the ribbon wouldn't dry or something. After some simple research I realized that hand tied bouquets require being tied the day of or day before and refrigerated, not placed in water. Something that I'm pretty sure she knows.

Regardless of her lack of wanting to hand tie my bouquet with out some resistance, I fully trust her as does my future mother in law, who's used her for 2 other weddings that both came out beautifully. I can't wait to have a photo of my actual flowers, but that's still roughly 7 months away.

Sand Ceremony

Alex and I are skipping the tradition of the Unity Candle. We both find it a tad outdated and, though humorous at the other weddings we attended, we do not want one to blow out or not light on us. Not to mention, the candle would eventually simply wind up in my attic fighting off the sweltering heat of summer and sub-zero of winter never to be seen again.

In it's place I found a great alternative - the Sand Ceremony. A lot like the Unity Candle it signifies the joining of two hearts becoming one - though instead of uniting a flame, we will unite different colored crystalline sands. One the the best parts is we can include my 3 year old daughter by giving her a small vase filled with her own color to signify the joining of our family.

You can buy the materials for a unity sand ceremony at Wedding Star which is where we plan to get our sands from, Black for Alex, White for me and Pink for Paige. Instead of buying the monogramed vase set from them like we initally planned to, I am going to DIY (go figure) our vases by picking up some square ones and decorating them with ribbon and crystals in our wedding colors. This way it will be much more personal and save us some money.

The Sand Ceremony though thought to be new , is in fact a very old and honored tradition thought to have originated in Hawaii when couples would marry on the beach. At the right time in the ceremony they would reach down and take a handful of the sand from beneath their feet and join it together to signify their unity.

Of course here on the main land, we had to adjust it a bit, as not many places have sand as nice as Hawaii! Wouldn't it be funny if someone here in Minnesota were to join together piles of snow? Or gravel from the construction going on in their home towns! And if we were to get even more into that..what about Wisconsin folks joining together soy beans fro their crops, or milk from the dairy cows. In Hollywood they could join together real diamonds with rubies. In New York, subway tokens - it could go on and on!

And you don't have to feel compelled to use glass vases to pour from - use seashells, bowls and other items. Get creative, find something that is sentimental to you - if your a fan of tea, use cute little tea cups! Love baseball? Use those little plastic hats they give you ice cream in at the game with your favorite team on it, signify that you'll both try to like the others team while loving and honoring each other! The possibilities are endless!

Are you doing unity sand? If not what are you doing and how are you making it unique to your wedding day?