Please RSVP

Dear wedding guests,

Please RSVP whether or not you are coming to the wedding. I included a pre-stamped and pre-addressed envelope with the RSVP card, so please dig it out of your weekly piles of mail, check the box yes or no, and pop it in a post office box, please?

Thanks so much,
THE BRIDE

Anyway, our cake server and flutes arrived in the mail today. Pretty fast shipping. They are very delicate looking. Ooh la la. We need to figure out if we want to get them engraved, which is more money to pay, but probably worth it. We'll probably have them engraved just so we can show our children all our wedding keepsakes.

In other news, there are less than ten items left to buy for the wedding and this makes me so excited I could just squeal! We need to get the marriage license, which is only $18. We need to get mints for the cake table, M&Ms for the favor boxes, and a couple other little odds and ends. Nothing too extensive, or expensive. Oh yeah, and the rest of the venue bill, which is hopefully down to three digits!

Bridal Shower Success

Today was my bridal shower and it was a wonderful success! My mother, grandmother, sister, aunts, and cousins were able to come, as well as my future mother-in-law, her mother, and her sister and a few of my friends from work. There were games, prizes, fresh snacks, homemade cider punch and best of all, the cake...ok, well, the gifts! But the cake was UM-azing!

September was a super busy month with my friend's bridal shower and wedding, all of our wedding planning, and just generally busy days of this and that. My lilac satin padded hangers came in the mail, but I am still waiting on the paper purple lanterns. We also ordered the cake server and flutes yesterday, which made me very excited!

I had to add another table to the guest seating because I invited more people to the wedding after meeting some at my friend's wedding. In five years, I've hardly made any friends, but in 2 months, I've made a half a dozen new friends that I want to invite to the wedding, but money just doesn't grow on trees. Which brings me to other good news...

On Friday, September 30, my mom and I met with the wedding coordinator of our wedding venue and we were able to give him a large chunk of money, which has knocked the bill down a lot! We are down to only owing three digits now, hopefully. We also picked our chair sash color and linen napkin color. I was also able to convince him to let us do aisle seating since it's a small group. Oh, and we also finalized the menu.

I've been hard at work on D-I-Y projects for the wedding, as well as filling out job applications like crazy, and looking for somewhere to live once Kevin and I are married. It's been a really busy (and sometimes very stressful) year, but one of the best years of my life! We got wonderful gifts at the shower, and we've got wonderful friends and family to share our wedding joy with!

eBay Goodies

Right now eBay is doing free shipping on a bunch of stuff. So, I bought five satin purple hangers for the bridesmaids dresses and my wedding gown. That will look so much better in the pictures rather than just plastic or metal hangers. They were only $6.99 with no shipping costs! They look like this:

I also ordered 10 purple paper lanterns for only $12.99 with no shipping costs! I am so excited about these purple paper lanters that I could just squeal! They will be placed at different lenghts with fishing line above the guest seating tables. We are not allowed to hang them from chandeliers or anything like that, but I will definitely figure out a way to get them hanging from the ceiling. They look like this:

Lastly, I want to say congrats to my friends for getting married this last Saturday. It was a beautiful, carnival themed wedding and so much fun! They had a candy buffet and hot dogs and cotton candy and an awesome cake! I told the bride not to be surprised if I copy some of her ideas for our wedding. Hopefully I can make things look like I actually thought of the ideas myself. Wink!

Marriage Advice?

Why is it that the only people that want to give you marraige advice are the ones whose own marriages are falling apart? Does this ever happen to you? First, I don't even ask people for marriage advice, but because they know I'm getting married in 50 days, they feel it is their duty to wax philosophical on me. It's one thing when you are giving tips on how to make your marriage work and be a success...

It's a completely different situation when you are telling me that I need to be the one that rules the marriage and that I should make all the decisions and my husband just needs to accept that and always put me first. Well, I don't really feel that way because, silly me, I feel that marriage is a union between two people and that both of those people have a say in the major decisions that will affect the couple.

Thanks for your advice, but maybe you should see someone professional if you think that's how a marriage is supposed to function. While I don't agree with you on the above mentioned "advice," I also don't think I should pretend to be June Cleaver and make sure I have my pearls and high heels on while I do housework. I believe that things like housework and major purchases are not something one person in the marriage has to be in charge of.

For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer...

To Candy Buffet or Not to Candy Buffet...

I've been thinking a lot about whether or not we should incorporate a candy buffet into the wedding reception. This has been on my mind off and on for weeks. First, I'm not even sure that our venue will allow for a candy bar since it's something we would have to pay for and bring in ourselves and they have a strict policy that no outside food can be taken in or out of the premises. Blah, blah, blah. Plus, it adds up to buy the jars and candy to display.

Here are cute ideas for candy buffets that I would love to copy.

I Will Not Stalk My Registry....

I have to chant this over and over because now that the bridal shower invites and wedding invites have been mailed and arrived at their destinations, I am anxious to see if anyone has been purchasing anything off of them. I have this fear that no one will even look at the registries and buy anything. I must not check my wedding registries because it will take the fun out of opening the gifts. I may need Kevin to say something to me about this every day until the wedding. Eeeek....

In other news, I have begun working on the wedding programs. I don't know if I like them or not. Big sigh... I always second guess my work because I'm not sure if I actually like it once I complete it and I worry that other people are going to think it looks tacky or stupid. I have all these ideas for things, but I don't want to over do it. I really need something else to take my mind off the wedding... LIKE A JOB!!

Someone please hire me.

Napkin Situation

A good friend of mine recommended stamping my own napkins instead of ordering them and paying so much money. I thought this was a great idea so I got online and ordered a customized stamp with our names and wedding date on them. The website I used was rubberstamps.net. I chose an Art Mounted stamp with the size .5" x 1", which was only $3.95. You can put up to three lines of text and choose the font you want the stamp to be. I chose a Script font. In total, with shipping, the cost of the stamp was less than $9.00.

Kevin and I purchased four packs of napkins in dark purple and light purple. They came in packages of 50 napkins and were only 1.99 each. Two days later, I received the stamp in the mail and was very excited. The ink I bought for the stamp is called Stazon and it was $7.99 at Michaels. (Use a coupon!) I chose the color black for the ink. They also had a royal purple available but I didn't purchase it because I was worried that it wouldn't show up on the darker shade of purple napkins.

Well, I tested the stamp on the napkins and I didn't like it. I was very disappointed in the way it looked on the napkin and it bled a lot. The reason I chose the Stazon ink is because it is waterproof and won't smear when the napkins get wet. Maybe I am stamping the napkins too hard with the ink. I stamped a whole pack of light purple napkins to see if it would look any better and I ended up throwing the whole pack of fifty napkins away. I really thought it was going to be a great idea and I was very happy that my friend recommeded it, but I guess it was not meant to be.

At this point, I am thinking about just putting blank purple napkins on the buffet and cake tables. I don't want to have to do that but in the end, the napkins will be thrown away. I always like to keep engraved wedding napkins as souvenirs, but in years' past, I have ended up putting them away somewhere and losing them. So, I am still working on the napkin situation.