#100

This is my 100th post. I have to tell you I wasn't sure if I was going to stick to blogging or not. I didn't mention it to my friends for a few months. I also wasn't sure in the beginning if I was going to give out much detail. But that's kind of hard not to do. I'm so glad I do. I enjoy reading the details of other brides out there and I hope that I can help or commiserate with others.
I also thought I'd take some time to talk about how people find my blog. I use Google Analytics which I love.
I know that most of you come to my blog from a referring site. I would like thank those sites that refer people to my blog: Don't Be That Bride, Tie the Knot, Weddingbee, A Bride in the Making, Budget Dream Weddings, Erin's Wedding Blog, In This Instance, Rookie Bride, My Husband Hates Veggies, Glamor This!, Tying The Knot, All That Blooms, $10,000 only, Junebug, Blogher, Stumbleupon, Kitchen Illiterate, Wedding Style Diva, and Manolo for the Brides.
Twenty-four percent of people find my blog using a search engine. Here are the top ten searches with the number of searches in parentheses:
1. Mrsmew (44)- one of the knottie bios I posted about back in January.
2. silly little mischief blog (37)- probably people who were looking for my blog.
3. rivet and lace wedding blog (26)-probably because I have Rivet and Lace on my blog roll.
4. silly wedding dresses (4)- not sure what they were looking for. I wonder if they found it on my site.
5. trash the dress(3)-I do reference the trash the dress website and I talk about trashing my dress. Makes sense.
6 & 7. 10,000 wedding blog & 10000 wedding blog (4 together)-Again because I have A 10,000 wedding on my blogroll.
8. How the hell did I get so old (2)-Two people out there are thinking the same thing I am.
9. ilovemycoastie3(2)- from the same post as mrsmew.
10. knottie brides 2008 diy (2)-probably looking for advice and help! I don't blame you one bit!
Then there are the searches that don't make much sense. Here are some that make me giggle:
1. how to steal peoples watches-This really isn't what my blog is about.
2. can wearing my hair in a ponytail help it grow faster-no, honey it won't.
3. silly wedding invitations-goes along with the silly wedding dresses.
4. lyrics a little bit marriage excellent song-not even sure what this is.
5. husband hated my wedding gown-poor thing. I hope Tai doesn't hate my dress. I might not like it, but it's not ok for anyone else to hate it!
6. paint a wedding dress and trash it-WTF?
So far about 860 people have viewed my blog. Thank you for checking out what I have to say. I'd love to say that I write this little blog for myself, but I'm lying. I like knowing that other people read what I like. And those of you that leave comments, thank you! I read each comment you write. I try to respond, but forgive me if I don't. And if you would like to comment but not publicly, feel free to email me. I always like hearing what other people are thinking. Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to read!

150!

According to the knot, it’s 150 days til the wedding. I can’t believe we’re down to that many already. It feels like yesterday when we were over 300 days. My little counter moved so slowly. But now it’s going to move faster. I was thinking that 140 days is only 10 days from today-February 29. And 120 days is March 20^th! See how fast everything moves after 150?

So I thought I’d update everyone on where we are and what’s coming up.

Done:

1. The venue. I need to make another trip out there and measure the barn and count the number of tables there. Dad wants to go and see it too. I think we’ll make a field trip out of it.
2. The photographer. He called a few weeks ago to touch base. Too bad I was in a foul mood otherwise I would have gone over some stuff with him.
3. The caterer. I can’t wait to eat our yummy salmon!
4. The guy’s clothing. I sent Tai and Jamie’s measurements to Jeff over the weekend. Hopefully he’ll order them soon so they guys can have them by May (?).
5. Bridesmaids’ outfits. Marta and Ashley have their dresses and they are looking for shoes.
6. My dress. You already know about that.
7. Drinks for reception. We lucked out and bought 36 cases of Jones soda (cola, diet cola, and lemon lime) for $38! Our local QFC was having one hell of a sale. We’ll also buy water and juice at Costco before the wedding.

In Process:

1. The invitations. This weekend my wonderful fiancé gave me an out. Since we “saved” money on the caterer I didn’t have to make my own invitations. We could have them done. I’m kind of torn about this. It’ll save me a lot of time and effort. Time I could spend with Tai and effort that I could concentrate elsewhere. But I kind of had it my head to make them. I want to make them. We still don’t have the budget for letterpress. I still am wavering on my decision.
2. The florist. I have an appointment this Saturday to meet with the florist at Whole Foods to see if they can do our flowers. I’m pretty excited to have checked off.
3. The favors. I have about half of them bought. I need to make tags which shouldn’t be too bad especially if I don’t make the invites.
4. The desserts. We’re not having cake but I don’t think we made a final decision on this.
5. Centerpieces. Finish finding lanterns. I almost have enough. Get more buckets for flowers. Buy more silk flowers.

Left to do:

1. Rentals of tables and chairs. I have a couple of places to call. I want to go out and count the tables there first.
2. Buy our rings. We picked them out. I just have to order them.
3. Plan rehearsal dinner. My original plan isn’t going to work. Boo!
4. Find shoes!
5. Reserve town car for Dad and myself. I’ll probably do this closer to the date.
6. Buy a tent and inflatable bed.

Most of the stuff I have left to do is making calls and placing deposits. I hope to have the first 2 done by this time in March (120!) and the other things will hopefully just get done by the end of June. I really want to have those last couple of weeks to relax. My plan is to have everything done by July 1. If I need to do small things, that’s ok. But I don’t want to be finishing the centerpieces the night before.

Yeah, The Dress

I don't think I've really mentioned my wedding dress. One reason is I really don't think about it. And I don't really think I like my dress.
I had some requirements: floor length, strapless, no train, and beading on the bodice. I didn't want to pay a fortune and I didn't want white. I liked the idea of being different.
Maybe it's the idea that I like. Anyway, I bought this dress:I got an awesome deal on it. It's a gorgeous dress. It's a little too big right now. It fits pretty much all the things I wanted. Or so I thought.
I keep having visions of something more bridal.
Don't I want the one chance to wear something that looks lot more weddingish or bridal? Will I look at my pictures 10 years from now and think, what the hell?
I never got that moment of this is my dress. None of the David's Bridal dresses gave me that feeling. I remember at Victoria's Bridal Salon, thinking, I'm going to get married. I'm going to wear a fabulous dress. Yea!
I keep thinking I need to look some more, but we're coming up on five months til the wedding. I most likely will not be able to order a dress and have to buy off the rack which I'm fine with.
Should I get hung up on the color of the dress? Because I think that's the only thing I don't like about my current dress. I should be completely happy with my dress. I'm going to keep an eye out for another dress, but I'll be ok with wearing that dress too.
Once I get it altered I'll post more pictures. Perhaps that will give a better idea on what it actually looks like.

Big Check!

For months, the Knot Checklist has been reminding me. You don't have a caterer. See:
Those little exclamation marks mean overdue! For us, finding a caterer was a little daunting. When I first started looking last month, Tai shot down a ton of them. Too expensive, too fu-fu, etc. Plus I had to make sure they were appropriate to our site and to our dietary needs. Sure, Mexican sounds like a good choice, but all the cheese in most Mexican dishes would send Tai to the bathroom all night. An all pasta selection sounds yummy but we have a couple of ceilacs in the bunch-mostly in our wedding party. Dishes that involved dairy or wheat could not be the main focus.
I really wanted some place that would serve grilled meats (chicken, pork, and beef) and have a selection of salads or veggies. I found most places wanted to plate items-grilled chicken with rosemary and rice pilaf. That just didn't make sense to me. I knew a buffet would be the best choice. And most caterers would have cooked the food and dropped it off. There was a possiblity that the food would be cold.
Ok, enough of my bitching. We hired a caterer yesterday. I can now check off that reminder on my knot checklist.
We met with Larry of Larry's Smokehouse. We took Jill and Jamie with us for another opinion. Larry brought out a full plate of food for each of us. We decided on the salmon, lemon chicken, and pulled pork. For sides, there will be coleslaw, cornbread, baked beans, and green beans. The food was delicious. Larry cooks the food right at the site. Nothing will get cold. People can have some of each or just a huge portion of one thing. They have these huge portable grills. They were really accommodating of the food allergies. Plus they bring veggie lasagna for any one who is a vegetarian. I found the price to be reasonable and it definitely fit with in our budget.
When we were leaving Larry handed us these:A bottle of their BBQ sauce and a piece of salmon. He gave one to me and Tai and one to Jill and Jamie. I really feel like they treat you right as a customer. I'm pretty excited to have this checked off.
Now on to the next exclamation point.

More Wedding Show and Tell

I've been busy buying lots of wedding related stuff. Let me show you!Yes more buckets. These are so cute and little. I thought these would adorable with a few flowers in them. I'm starting to change my mind about flowers.
I bought these at the Goodwill. I like the green one. It's so cute. I hope I find a couple more.
I found this beautiful antique lamp at Value Village. It's gorgeous. It obviously needs a little cleaning, but it will be fine.
I bought 10 of these from eBay! Yeah for eBay!
I bought these 2 easels. I'm not sure what I'll use them for. I was going to use them for table numbers but I decided I don't want to do that. Perhaps for menu cards.This is the middle sister of the lantern that looks like a bong. I like the shape of this one a lot. I think I bought 3 like this.
And these are the baby sisters of the above lanterns. I bought 6 of these. When I was buying them people asked if I was expecting the power to go out. I tried to explain to the cashier what I was doing (these are for my wedding), but he didn't get it. For the record I explained it to the woman behind me in line who asked about an expected power outage too. And she didn't get it either. I'm beginning to think I'm insane. I thought this was a really interesting bucket. I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for but I really like it. Any ideas?
This is why I'm thinking of flowers in the buckets. I bought these fake pussy willows a few months ago. I thought I might use them for the bouquets, but I think I like this. I'll buy floral foam and actually make it look better. This is just a mock-up. I'm thinking a couple of lanterns and a bucket of flowers on each table. What do you think?

Inspiration Stolen from Other People!

Since I have tons of free time at work, I've been looking at knot bios and saving my favorites. There are lots of knotties who's bios get much love, but there are tons that don't. I attempt to bring you those that are overlooked.
LittleHowell
How adorable is this couple? I freaking love them.They have customized aprons for the cake cutting. I have never seen this before. What a great idea! Tai and I decided we're not doing the cake smashing (we might not have cake. Another post entirely), so we won't need these. I can see the usefulness of these though.
DoingItRightI love me a sassy bride. This was taken at her trash the dress session. She's got a bunch more in her bio if you are looking to do a trash the dress session in an urban setting.
What to do with those engagement photos? Make a collage!
MrsLB
I love the petal aisle and that she got married on concrete. I don't see a lot of weddings on concrete. The petals really stand out on the gray concrete. Plus I love the gazebo in the background. I bet that where most people get married. I like that she choose a little differently.
Hey look lanterns! I love the color combo here. So elegant and beautiful!
MrsPinkAJVSo lucky to have this great vintage car. It's a wonderful idea for a getaway car. I remember one wedding at a historic mansion. There were engraved invitations. The bride wore a very expensive dress. I remember the prime rib and the caviar too. At the end of the night, her and her groom got into a rented Ford Taurus and drove off. I remember thinking why didn't they get a bigger car? Why didn't they use the limo from before? The bride's dress really didn't fit in the car and the groom started shoving it so they could leave. It was pretty funny. We'd all made fun of her dress all night. It almost ate a few small children; It was so big.
Don't let this happen to you. If you are making a big getaway from the reception, find something special! Or wait to everyone's left and go home in your own car.
I love her dress! And it has cap sleeves and I normally hate cap sleeves! Perhaps it's the lace.
Well I hope you find these knottie bios useful. I enjoy seeing what other people have done. But mostly I love how happy they look. No one looks pissed off (or they don't post those in their bio). Everyone looks beautiful and happy. That makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too.

Sparkly!

I promised to show you sparkly things so here we go!
First, the bracelet I kind of mentioned last week. Look how pretty she wrapped.I'm totally going to use that bow again! I almost didn't want to unwrap it, but I knew that something even prettier was inside.
My gorgeous bracelet that I bought from Kris' mom in her etsy store. She's adding new stuff as time goes on. The bracelet's perfect though. I think this will serve as my something blue!
And the line of sparkly things continues. I bought these shoes:
I like the silver sparkles (which you really can't see in this picture), but I'm not sure if I like the peep toe. If they don't work out, no big deal. I'm sure I can find a use for silver sparkly shoes all the time. I bought the earrings and the hair comb from a knottie. I don't know if I'll use the hair comb or not, but I thought it would be good to have. I love the earrings too. They aren't pink. Just look pink in this photo. But they sparkly and aren't too heavy. Can you tell I like sparkles? If I wear the earrings and the hair comb together that will probably be too much bling, huh? Probably should choose one or the other.

Two Confessions

These are food related confessions. I'll talk more wedding stuff in the next post. Promise.
Confession #1. At work it's known that I like to bake and I'm pretty good at it. But my specialty is my peanut butter cookies. My coworkers love them so much, they'll pay me to make them for them. No lie.
I refuse to tell them my secret. They beg me to let them copy the secret. They beg me to teach them how to make the best peanut butter cookies. I refuse, but oblige them by making more. But today, here, I'll give you my secret:
Yes, I use a mix. No I don't add any special ingredients into it. I follow the directions on the back and make them exactly like the package states. But my coworkers love them. Tai, eh, not so much. He didn't think they were peanut butter-y enough. He has high standards :)
Confession #2. Making roasted chicken as always been difficult for me. I don't know why. It never comes out tender enough, or brown enough, or sometimes it won't even be completely cooked! But this week, I have succeeded!
I found a wonderful, fabulous deal on chicken this week-$.99 a pound on split fryers. I bought 5 packages and decided it was time to try roasted chicken again. I took my large roasting pan, and poured 2 boxes of veggie stock in, along with bok choy and green onions. I softened some butter and stirred in some garlic, fresh thyme, rosemary, and sage. I rubbed the herbed butter all over the chicken and roasted it. It had a nice flavor to it. The skin turned out all nice and crunchy. I can't wait to make it again!
I didn't really use butter. I used Earth Balance buttery spread. You could use butter or olive oil instead.
So those are my confessions. I feel better getting those off my chest. Although the peanut butter cookie recipe is just between us. Don't tell my coworkers. They won't keep paying me for cookies.

Help Me Decide!

Again with the flowers! I've come up with 4 choices for the flowers for our wedding day. Here are my choices. The choices that I need your help with.
1. Costco:For $430, I'll get more than I'll get more than we need for the wedding. But the 20 piece set gives us the right number of bouquets and boutonnière .
2. Whole Foods option #1: Go to Whole Food this month or next and actually talk to someone and see if I can order bouquets and boutonnières ahead of time.
3. DIY: Buy silk flowers and make the bouquets and boutonnières myself. I bought stuff to make boutonnières but it proved to daunting for me to do at this time. Perhaps someone can give me some encouragement.
4. Whole Foods option #2: Go to Whole Foods the day of or the day before and grab a few pre-made bouquets and screw the boutonnières.
I think either #1 or #4 are my two favorite choices at this point, but I think I'm just apathetic right now. Perhaps I'll care in a few months. Perhaps I could wait to make this choice. All of choices would be still be possible probably into June, right?
So what do you think? What would you choose?

See How Girly I Am!

Since I've confessed how girly I am, I thought I would share my other idea for a wedding I wouldn't be having. A toile wedding!This is completely do able. I choose black and pink toile. I love the toile invite.
I love toile. Unfortunately too much would look crazy. But I would go with the bridesmaid's dresses and the chair covers. But I like the toile tote bag. If you are having a black and white wedding or a white and any color, toile might be a wonderful accent.

Fiddle-dee-dee

I've been using my free time productively. I decided to try my hand at making inspiration boards. I'm not good at making one for our wedding, so I thought I'd make one for the weddings I'm not having.
When I was younger I was much more girly than I am now. I was downright prissy. And at that time Gone With The Wind was my favorite book. I did like the movie. Actually the costumes. And when I think back to that time and what my wedding would have looked like it would have resembled this:
I wanted a dress like Scarlett's back then. I had a hat like hers at one point. I think it might still be at Dad's house. I think I wanted a wedding dress that looked like that. Very full ball gown with lace and cap sleeves. I wanted a debutante party but sadly I live in the wrong part of the United States for that. I kind of assumed that if I didn't get that dress when I was 16 or 17, I could have it when I get married.
I'm not so girly now. I don't think I'm prissy anymore, but I still can be about certain things. I would if I could pull of a Gone With the Wind wedding? Don't worry, M & A, I don't envision hoop skirts and lace dresses for you too. In my fantasy I am Scarlett. This might be best as a fantasy.

I Like Shiny Things

I've been considering what jewelry to wear for the wedding. I have some stuff, but I'm going save most of that for another post. Today I'm going to obsess about earrings.

I was trying to decide on what to do for my something blue. While looking at some astrology information I saw that Tai's birthstone is Aquamarine. Aquamarine is blue so perhaps that will work.

How about these $3500 beauties from Tiffany's? These are way out of my price range but so pretty! These are from Amazon and much more reasonably priced($10), but not what I was looking for.

I definitely like these from Kay Jewelers. On sale right now for $150, I think these would be wearable again.

These are the most reasonably priced that I found, but I don't want a post type earring. Picky, I know. I want something dangle-y especially if I wear my hair up. Oh, these are from Kohls ($40).

I might not need something blue. I bought something and when it arrives I'll post pics plus tell you where it came from.

Invitation Inspiration

I should be working on our invites right now, but I keep looking for more inspiration. Otherwise known as wasting time.
I went to Paper Zone's Wedding Extravaganza over the weekend to look for more inspiration. I got their wedding catalog which is also available online.
The thing I like about this catalog is most of the invitations are under $2 to make. And I think they are classy and very beautiful. I saw the wedding invitation on the first page on the top left at the wedding show. It's almost perfect! But do away with that red ribbon. Maybe swap green.
These gorgeous invites were stolen from Kenzie Kate. I love the one in the middle. Isn't that bow beautiful? I like the simplicity of the red one. I'm contemplating something to "seal" the gatefold together.
I saw this on shortly after we got engaged. I found this on etsy. Sadly I didn't keep the artist's information and I looked and couldn't find it. I'm sorry!
My idea was to copy the monogram on the top, but I don't think our intials (L & T) look good in lowercase. In fact I think they look too similar and almost indistinguishable. I've let go of that dream. But I like the simplicity of these invites. Etsy is full of great designs for inspiration or to find someone to make them for you!These are from the Anna Griffin Printable Invitation line at MyGatsby. As you can see I'm fond of ribbons. Although I don't think I'll use ribbon to fasten our invites closed. I think I just like the way it looks. But I don't want to tie all those ribbons. I'm horrible at making pretty bows. Plus they are bulky in the envelope.
Alright that's enough invite porn for now. I'll hopefully start working on ours soon.

One Thing Decided

Yesterday, Tai and I were deciding a bunch of wedding things and talking over things we will still have to decide. I pointed out that we were still undecided on like the suits. Tai called a couple of his groomsmen to get their ideas. Two of them had no opinion. But Jeff did. I knew he would. Jeff wears suits to work on almost daily. Jeff knows where to get the best deal and how to look sharp. Tai trusts him.
Based on our colors, Jeff thought the guys should wear electric blue suits.
Um, no.
They decided on chocolate brown suits.
Originally I thought about chocolate brown tuxes, but they didn't look so good. I showed him the khaki suits, but Jeff and Tai didn't think they looked good with our color scheme. Not as good as chocolate brown. Jeff assured Tai that they would look good on everyone and everyone would look sharp.
So I have to get Tai's measurements to Jeff who is going to keep an eye out for a good deal.
I talked to Dad about what he's going to wear. I don't think his suit has to match the guys, so if he would rather wear a different colored suit he can. He was thinking purple.
What characters these guys are! I told Dad to leave his Prince suit at home and think about a different color. I think Dad will let me dress him in whatever color I want. Perhaps he should wear what the other guys are wearing.

Damn you Google Reader!

Every morning when I go to work, I have a schedule. I check my email and my work email. Then I turn on necessary work programs. Once I have those set up, I check the multitude of blogs that I read daily. Until recently. I read about Google Reader on Jessica's blog. I kind of put on the back burner. I was using Technorati but it didn't update the blogs fast enough. I would still have to check each site. I didn't mind. It took a lot of time to look at each site. I have plenty of time to look.
I decided to check out Google Reader. I liked the idea of being able to see all the blogs on one page. I also liked that it automatically updated when the blogs were updated. No more needing to go back to each blog and see if it had been updated since the last time I looked (sometimes within the hour).
But that also meant I didn't have to look at each blog multiple times. This has saved me about 2 hours a day of blog checking!
What the hell am I'm doing with those 2 hours? Especially since most of that time is at work. And don't say work?
I've been looking for new blogs to add, spending more time on the knot looking at bios. I have more bios to share with you all. I enjoy seeing what other brides have done. I especially like looking at all the happy couples.
Seriously Google Reader rocks. It's so simple and efficient. If you are reading more than a few blogs you might want to look into Google Reader. You will have to spend some time loading your blogs in but it doesn't take long and it's very easy to do.

Obsession: Buckets!

I have a serious obsession with galvanized buckets. It all started with this bucket here. Stolen from Mrs Strawberry on the WeddingBee. I saw bucket very early in the planning. Perhaps even before we were engaged. I thought it was terribly adorable. And I wanted it! But not in pink. I love galvanized buckets. That's really the theme I want. Buckets!
But what to put in the buckets. Back to the whole flower problem. Sigh. I do want buckets for the drinks though. Tai thinks we can just use coolers, but I rather have them displayed in buckets.
Here are the buckets I've purchased so far:I'm thinking I might mix the buckets and lanterns. Especially the small buckets. I think little daisies or even roses might look good. But not cream. I think that will look a little too bland. What do you think? A soft pink?
Oh that long copper bucket? I think that will use it for cards. I'll make a sign for it.