more pretties

More pretty pretties! My mom just keeps on making such pretty arrangements. It's going to just blow people away at the wedding, everyone is going to be asking to take them home!!! We could never, NEVER in a million years have ever hoped or expected for our flowers to have turned out so incredible for our wedding. It's more than we could have dreamed. I am so lucky to have such an incredible and talented mommy. :)















I can't wait to see them all set up and pretty at the wedding. They are going to be so stunning!

favors

So we had wanted originally to do little favor boxes as favors for people, but then we were stumped with what exactly to fill them with. We didnt really want to do candy, since there is already going to be a candy buffet, and everything else just seemed like something little that people wouldnt necessarily appreciate it and expensive. Not to mention the cost of the little boxes, which were alot more than we anticipated, and we know that few, if any, people would actually keep them and the majority would end up in the trash.

So then we started to throw around ideas of something "fall" that we could do for the favors...while we dont want the entire wedding to scream FALL, we do want to incorporate some elements into it, and we are having alot of things at the dessert bar that are "fall themed" so we wanted to do something fall themed for the favors, too.

At first we had wanted to do the caramel apples as favors, but the cost and time that goes into those are a bit high, especially when we figure that not everyone is going to like them. So we are still having them, but we are having them on the dessert bar so people who want them can take them.

Then I came across a picture of people who did mini jars of hommade jam as their favors. The couple made them themselves, and they were super cute. While I didnt want to go as far as making JAM (that just sounds hard) we finally found the perfect solution--

APPLE BUTTER!




It is totally fall, and totally simple (or well, it looks that way) to make. We are going to get the little mini canning jars, and make it in the slow cooker, and then fill up the little jars. We'll tie a ribbon around them, get some personalized labels, and voila! Hopefully they will resemble something close to this, only with ribbons and such...





And the good thing, is that these can totally be made before the rush of the week before the wedding. We can even start them now. YAY!

the tree

This is probably one of my favorite pieces for the wedding. I remember seeing centerpieces like this at different weddings I've done and LOVING them, especially for fall weddings, but they are so so expensive to have made. Well, I mentioned it to my mom, and one day I get this picture text with a picture of a giant tree branch she found while out, and I started getting really excited.

After many weeks of debating just how to secure this sucker into a vase and the technicallities of it all, the plaster of paris came out, and the end result is so pretty!!! I know this going to be pretty incredible all lit up at the reception, and I am so excited for it! My mommy is so creative.





YAY!! We get to have an amazing tree branch centerpiece!!!

flowers!

So many new goodies today! YAY!!!!!! I love them all!! And they are all so different from one another, that is my favorite!

flowers again!

More pretty arrangements!!!


I LOVE THEM!!! Yay for talented mom!!

flower goodness

More goodies from my super talented mommy!










They just keep getting even more amazing!

more crinny fun!

So I was pretty productive today and actually placed the order for the bridesmaid's crinnys! I am so excited. I've been working with 2BirdStone from Etsy and she's literally been amazing. She's giving us a discount for doing so many and is custom making the color to match the shade of brown! I had them shipped directly to her today, so I am super excited to see the pictures she will send me soon. They will probably get to her early next week, so I should have pictures soon! I'm really anxious and I hope they look as good as I'm hoping!!

Speaking of crinnys, I guess this has just become a "thing" for the wedding, since my mom and I decided that she needs to wear a Husker red one at the wedding- since it will be game day, AND they will be playing Texas. Yes, we are having our wedding on Husker game day. My mom got some SUPER cute rhinestone Husker flip flops from Victoria's Secret while we were in town and I think it will be adorable for her to have her slip and the flip flops at the reception. So once she decides for sure on a dress, we are ordering hers. Ha- looks like this girl is getting alot of business from us! We are also going to make Skyler one too, probably brown like the rest of the girls! I'm so excited.

It's hard to see, but those are total bling-ness on the straps!

Hey, some wedding parties have the converse tennis shoes, we have the dyed crinnolines!! ;D

card box excitement!

Another dilemma I have been having lately is whether or not to make our card box. I've done so many weddings where the couple has this amazing and elaborate card box on their gift table at their reception, so their guests can put cards inside and they can just take this large box with them after. The boxes are made to look like a wedding cake- literally, 3 tiers, decorated in fancy fabric made to look like a cake.

While these are really pretty, I wasnt sure if I wanted to spend the minimum of $75 that I was seeing for these suckers (upwards of $150 if you wanted them in your wedding colors!) and the process of making them, while not overly difficult, just didnt seem like a fun project to me. I mean, I'd never use this thing again, I mean it's not like you can easily display this giant cardboard cake in your living room.

So I began searching for alternate means. Some people that I've seen go the cheap route and just get a basic wicker basket. I thought of this, but I wanted something a bit more than just a basket for the gift table that screamed "CARDS!". I'm also working insanely on our wedding invitations, so I dont want to spend oodles of time making something.

Then I found this on BravoBride:










It's perfect! I absolutely love it, and while it will be functional enough for the card table, it is also super cute and vertsatile enough to be able to use again for decorations. It had been up on the site for a while and I was worried it wouldnt be availble (since she was selling it insanely cheap), but luckily the girl got back to me ASAP and it is! I'm getting a shipping quote from her and will hopefully have it purchased by the end of the week! I am so excited. Another thing to check off the list of insanely mundane details that need to be gotten for the wedding!

hair feather!

Have I mentioned how Etsy is my best friend?

I've gotten quite a few things from Etsy, and my most latest purchase is the hair fascinator that I will wear to the reception. I've known for a while now that I wanted a fancy, feathered hair piece for the reception, since I've always liked the look of these but would never just wear them for any occasion. Since this is my only real opportunity, I was very excited, and spent months finding the right one- since I wouldnt be wearing my veil to the reception, I wanted something fun! Etsy has so many talented people who create these things, and after much searching, I absolutely fell in love with this one from BellesandCrystals. This girl is amazingly talented, and this one-of-a-kind hair thing was just what I had been picturing, and it was made around an antique broach, which made me oh so happy. Of course it happened to be on the higher end price-wise, and more than I had wanted to spend, but after many weeks trying to find something better and failing, I decided that since my dress was all of $15, and I was getting such a great deal on my veil, that I could splurge a bit. So I've been making payments on this bad boy for a while and just finally got it paid off, and it arrived in the mail today! It is WONDERFUL! I'm so excited.

It came packaged all pretty and fun!

Here is is! I hate how my cell phone makes the pictures look blue. I still cant find my card adapter to take better pictures!

I am so excited. Now I am ready for my hair trial...hopefully I can find someone who has an awesome idea on how to wear it that wont require me changing my hair style up after the ceremony!

tonic

I felt like I needed to take more pictures, so I started taking them of the drive to the Tonic, since Adam was being unreasonable about having his picture taken.

I forgot to mention that while we were in Springfield Adam and I finally got to see the Tonic where the reception is. We had pretty much decided on this place through pictures and my mom's opinion since she was the only one to see it, and so we finally took a few minutes to walk in and actually see what we had gotten ourselves into.

We were REALLY happy with it, to say the least. I think they were a bit nervous with us, since we didnt order anything and just kept walking around the place pointing at various things, but oh well. It has a very unique layout, and we definitely arent a fan of the bar height tables that are included, so because the dance floor takes up quite a bit of room, we will have to work with the other space to put rented round tables. We did find out where we wanted the head table and the dessert bar, and I eye-balled everything to make sure our tables will all fit, and I think with the wedding planner's help we will be able to make it all happen. I am DEFINITELY a fan of the lounge area- that is pretty much amazing. It's filled with couches and comfy-ness and will be an awesome place for people to hang out that isnt just a still table. And the decor is really neat, the ambiance of the place is exactly what we were going for and though we are going to have to talk to photographer #2 and our videographer about the lighting (well, there basically isnt any) I think it's going to turn out really well. We have the meeting with them to talk catering and what not in August, so hopefully that will turn out well.

We are a bit concerned about parking, since our wedding party needs somewhere to park during the day while they are getting ready and taking the limo bus around after the ceremony. We were going to have them all park at the reception place early that day, but unless we can see if the lot owned by the college will let them park there, we may have an issue there. We will work it out, but since it is "downtown" there isnt really alot of room.

This is the front door of the Tonic- we need to figure out how to line up to do the sparkler exit..hmm...I think next door the theatre is on the corner, perhaps the limo can just park at the edge of the corner and we can have people line up along the side?

more pretties!!!

Yay! More amazing and beautiful arrangements from my wonderful mommy. I was showing these to Adam tonight and he is especially fond of the burgundy and green one. I am partial to the cream and brown (it's my favorite so far!!!!). He was saying how everyone is going to be so impressed at the reception, because the flowers are so good. He said they are all going to think we went all out and spent so much money on everything. :) I can't wait to see everything all set up at the actual reception. If they look this good sitting in my mom's dining room, think of how amazing they will be actually set up and decorated!!

My favorite!!! Isn't it so beautiful! I love, love LOVE the feathers! And the colors
are just perfect.

This one is Adam's favorite. He says it looks really elegant and rich. :)

I love how this one is so bright. They are all so uniquely different- I love it! Definitely not
something that we could have gotten anywhere else. YAY!

I cant wait to see more. She's starting on the smaller, table arrangements now and I cant wait. Apparently there is a smaller vase that matches the vase in my favorite arrangement. I am excited for that one...

more centerpieces!

More centerpieces!! And they just keep on getting better! I'm so excited to see them all in person in a week. My mommy is just so talented!









So excited! And I'm LOVING the feathers! I can't wait for the branches she's going to start using!!

flowers!

As many of you probably already know, my wonderful mom is in charge of the flowers for the wedding. I never thought twice about it, she is so incredibly talented and her stuff is so beautiful that I wasnt worried at all about how they would turn out. We went out last fall and picked out the flowers and some of the vases and I was so excited! She's in charge of making all of the centerpieces for the reception and whatnot.

Well, I was sitting at work this morning and she sends me the pictures of the first arrangement! It's the biggest one, and it is absolutely STUNNING!

Isn't it just AWESOME?!?

The back view!

I can't wait to see the rest of them!!!

first dance

We have had our first dance song picked for a long time, and we are sort of incorporating the song into alot of our other elements for the wedding, including the name of this blog (there's your only hint!). We are also getting a part of it inscribed in our bands, needless to say we are a big fan of this song.

The problem is that this particular song was never released, hence the copy I have of the song is the only tangible copy that I own and can find. The problem is the fact that over the years this particular CD has gotten damaged and scratched, and out of the whopping 4 songs on the entire disc, the only one that is affected is obviously this one. So it skips profusely for one line. Just one line, but nothing I do can make it stop. Grr. So I have spent the past few weeks trying desperately to find a copy of this song elsewhere out in the wide wide space that is the internet.

Thanks to Google and many hours of searching, I actually found a full version of the song this afternoon! Before I had only been able to find a short 30 second preview, so this made me INSANELY happy! I have it safely tucked and saved as an MP3 on my computer, so provided it lets me burn it, we will be good to go.

What's the name of the song, you may ask? I'll let that be a secret. I dont want to give EVERYTHING away from the big day. Now that I finally gave this blog address out to people and I may actually have viewers I can't give away all my secrets ;). If you are one of the 3 people who actually know, DONT TELL! :-D

pretty

I really like this centerpiece. I keep hounding my mom to start making them so I can post pictures!! I'm excited, because I know they are going to turn out so nice.

dessert bar!

Since we already decided that we dont want a big cake and that we are doing a dessert bar, we've been trying to come up with various desserts that we can lay out. We are thinking of maybe doing a bunch of different tortes and goodies and of course my mom's cookies and peanut butter balls! I picked up something similar to this that I think might be a good idea for the chocolate goodies...



And then of course we are doing the candy buffet! We've been super lucky and I was given a ton of candy buffet things from one of my amazing brides, and the rest we found for super cheap on Craigslist (which, btw, I am in love with.). We are planning on setting it up in our colors, so the fact that all of the fall/halloween candies will be out the month of our wedding just works out amazing. And saves us money!



And then I came across this idea. I am in love.



Although I'm worried about the messiness of an open ice cream bar...I'm thinking that just sounds like alot of melty ice cream and toppings everywhere. So I went to Dippin Dot's website, and low and behold THEY SHIP! And they are affordable! How awesome would that be?! Get the disposable martini glasses and have a Dippin Dots bar! Ahh! I dont know the details or how that will exactly happen, but if it's possible, oh, it's happening.

finally!

Ahhh!!!!! So my mom went to see the possible reception site and she says that it's pretty much perfect. Granted I haven't seen it, but the price is EXCELLENT (honestly, one of those 'way to good to be true' moments) and it fits exactly the amount we need. And the even better thing? It INCLUDES catering, AND a DJ! At this point I'm not being super picky about the DJ. I'm planning on giving whoever it is a list of songs we want played for sure, quite a few of them actually, so they really need very few to fill in.

So my mom says to book this place. I trust her, we have pretty similar taste and she seems to get and understand the sort of "look" Adam and I are going for. I showed the pictures to Adam and he freaked out- it was literally the most excited I have seen him about wedding plans! He says it's great- so we are sending in the deposit. I just need this all finalized and know that we have a place.




About the place! It's called the Tonic Ultra Lounge (yes people, it's a bar.) and by the looks of it, it looks incredible. It has lounge/couch type areas to chill out, a dance floor, and a bar that looks like it stepped out of old Rome (yeah, you heard me.). It's awesome, and the other great thing is aside from the tables, very little decorations will be needed since the place is already pretty decorated. The only drawback is that with the tables they have we wont be able to do the traditional round tables, people will have to sit in the tables that they have, which are typical to a restaurant, but if that is the only drawback t the place I'll be happy. As long as we can find some place to put the head table, I'm good!







Ahhhh I'm just so excited!! Once we mail this in, that means that we have the ceremony and reception hall BOOKED!!! YAY!!!

maybe?!?

I think we might have found a reception site. Nothing is set in stone, and my mom is heading to look at it for me soon, but if it really is like the pictures, I will be one HAPPY, happy camper....

pretty pictures

I swear I went through about 50 different photographers for the ceremony. Apparently all photographers in Springfield are either ridiculously expensive, or charge a flat fee for all day coverage. I just wanted someone who would be there for about 6 hours, get the getting ready and the ceremony, edit the pictures, and then give me all of them on a DVD. No albums, no extra frills- I know what that all costs to make and when I can do that myself, I'd much rather put that money elsewhere. I finally narrowed it down to 3 different people, and in the end decided on Heather Hoadley. Again I feel so lucky, because I think I got really, really lucky with her. She worked with me on the price, mostly because she is fairly new to the wedding scene (she specializes in portraiture) and is giving me all of the images on a DVD with a release. I'm really excited. I chose her in the end because she just seemed like the nicer person, was open to changing things up, and I'm a big fan of her editing styles. It's incredibly hard to find someone who works with textures in their editing who doesnt charge thousands of dollars. So this major hurdle is over, thank god.

Now we have to concentrate on the reception site. This is becoming an absolute major headache...I'm really starting to worry that we wont find anything down there and it's really depressing me. So far the art galleries have been a bust...there is one I want to look in to more, but the others are either too small or dont rent out their space.

We are much less than a year out now, we definitely need to decide this!!!

reception? anyone?

We are still hung up on this reception site. I swear I have looked in to possibly every possible venue in the Springfield and Branson area and nothing just screams WEDDING to me. The one place that we were so excited to see turned out to be an absolute bust, with the actual "hall" being in a storage garage- literally. In fact, they used giant sheets to cover the garage doors. The pictures on their sites made it look so pretty, but in person it was just...not. I wanted to cry- I had such high hopes for that place. Now I'm resorting to some..unconventional means and emailing the local art galleries, hoping that they might rent out their spaces. This is why we wanted our reception in Kansas City, everything here we can find and it's just absolutely perfect. But everything here is expensive, and we dont really want to shell out a minimum of $20 grand (yes, I said $20 GRAND) on food. But honestly, how perfect would this place be??



Guhh, I just LOVE it. It has the modern, urban style and the rustic feel of a fall wedding. Too bad they arent flexible with their menus, and for the SMALLEST plate, still comes out to be close to $15,000 for 100 people.

Hopefully we'll hear back from the art galleries soon.