the royal treatment

I received an annoucement from our wedding/honeymoon hotel that they opened a building entirely committed to giving you the "royal treament" in massage. So of course I HAD to book a side-by-side massage appointment for us, post-wedding. I don't care how much it costs, I will have earned it.

y-yesss!

thank you for your patience...

I have loads to post about and a party to prep for, but instead I've been immersing myself in:
I promise to get back into gear and post regularly... next week. Until then, I'm enjoying the escape.

When I come home in the evening
Planning to work on my wedding delights,
I instead am drawn to another,
Into the arms of my obsession- Twilight!

I finished the first book in no time at all
The second even quicker still.
The third with barely the blink of an eye
And now the fourth- I’m getting my fill.

My invites are needing attention
I have so many things to do.
But being a bride is put on hold
Until Edward and I bid adieu!
poem from here

75 days to go!

Today I'm playing catch up, but i will post soon about my dress fitting, diy veil tutorial and our first official wedding gift!

2-months-2-weeks-2-go

Before I even begin today's freakout, the Regas NY invitations I just posted aren't that different from some of the designs I first came up with.

I just need to simplify my original design, possibly buy an istock seamless pattern, and come up with a cute belly band inspired by the seahorse suite.

That should be easy enough, right? *deep breaths*

It's like someone went inside my brain...

...and created this invitation suite based on all of my jumbled thoughts.

I am still struggling to design my wedding invitation suite. I do realize that the invites should be in the mail by 8/20 which leaves me less than a month to get my act together. However, in my defense, I have ordered paper and evelope samples and designed the events/information/accommodations inserts. I really liked these inserts until today...
This invitation suite has everything I wanted to incorporate in my wedding invitations: seahorses and a very specific Beatles quote.
I may have to scrap what I have and use these as inspiration... oh, eff.



*le sigh*

a good morning pick-me-up

I've been stuck in a wedding/personal/spiritual rut lately. Jess LC posted a wonderful quote this morning and I found it particularly inspiring.
photo from here

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles

M.I.A.

Sorry I've been a little M.I.A. (missing, not "paper planes") this week.
We've been painting and prepping for our upcoming party and on top of that I've been burning through the Twilight saga. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I'm waiting on book 3 to come from the library or a friend for this weekend... maybe I should get back into wedding mode?

In wedding news, we received our first wedding gift and my shower invitation came in yesterday's mail! My MoH used PaperSource supplies and they couldn't be cuter. Thanks, Megs! My mom found my veil - whew! Last but not least, I received the envelope and paper samples for our invitations so I'll be experimenting with those this weekend.

Happy Friday all!

heh, heh, nervous laughter

I got an email this morning from my mom:

Rachel, I woke up this morning stressing about the veil—do you have the tulle and crystals? I was thinking we took them back with us Father’s Day, but I don’t know where they are. Love, Mom

I know she took the veil supplies back home, but where it went after that, I don't know! I'm sure it will turn up...

cookware: a conclusion

First of all, thanks to everyone that shared their thoughts on the stainless steel vs. non-stick cookware debate. We decided to go with stainless steel so I researched "the best" (All-Clad) and "the best value" (Cuisinart Chefs Classic) and ended up selecting the Cuisinart which happens to be sold at Macy's... and it so happens that the 17-pc set is being downsized to 10-pc.
We went to Macy's to register for it and we were told since it's a discontinued set the in-store price is $30 and it can't be added to the registry. Yes, you read that right $30 from $670... Unfortunately, no Macy's stores actually have it so it has to be purchased online for $250. Which is a steel ;) if you ask me!

Engagement Photos - Finally!

We've only purchased 4 so far... and here they are!

yay!

Amanda just gave me Twilight and New Moon... this weekend might not be so productive after all.

3 months to go!

Happy Friday... and holy crap!
Only 3 more months until our wedding day!

I feel like I have a million little things to do, but I'm getting more excited since it's the fun stuff! I have some MAJOR DIY projects lined up for this weekend and we're also trying to paint the halls before our engagement/housewarming party, but I promise to share the process with photos.

Vendor Review - eIinvite - A

I ordered our Illinois Save the Dates from www.eInvite.com (through Costco.com). As a Costco member you received 25% off your total which made sending STDs affordable and within my budget. The personalization of the interior portion of the order was tricky. You have to play around with the spacing and lines, but I finished the design in about 10 minutes. I was surprised I was able to edit the front of the card and add a line to the design in order to achieve the look I wanted.

When I submitted the order I included special instructions to see a digital proof before printing. I *highly* recommend requesting a digital proof whenever possible! I've avoided catastophes at work and with my own save the dates. I got the proof back within 24 hours (awesome turn around) and within that time we decided to remove the required password from our website. I called customer service before submitting changes to the proof to find out what the cost would be. eInvite was quick to answer my call and to my suprise they don't charge for proof changes! (Most companies charge anywhere from $10-$30 for changes to the design.) I removed the login/password info from the design, submitted the revisions and received our new proof the same day. Amazing.

With the finalized order confirmation the estimated ship date was noted as 7/15, exactly 1 month later. I was bummed but loved the design so I figured it was worth the wait. Fortunately, I received everything much earlier and was able to mail out the STDs on 7/1 (nearly 4 months before the reception) which allows out-of-towners enough time to make arrangements.

Overall, I am very please with my eInvite.com experience; they offer many options (both price and style), great customer service and the turn around time was impressive and the end product is of high quality.

Here's the proof - I took actual photos but haven't uploaded them yet...


Rating: A

Confession: I ordered invitation samples from eInvite loooong before Andy and I were even engaged...

back away from the cupcakes

Since we've confirmed our bakery can make all of the delicious cupcake flavors we have in mind (it's a surprise, for now), I was contemplating making a little sign identifying the flavors, but somewhere in my blogger addiction I remembered reading about a wedding where cupcakes were served instead of cake and the guests decided to help themselves during the cocktail hour. Horrifying, right?!
So here's what I whipped up last night:

I hope it'll help, because if any family is going to go nuts and eat cupcakes early, it's my family - gotta love 'em!

Bonus: MS Weddings website featured this article on Cupcake Ideas!

e-photos coming soon!

I got a call last night during my future nephew's birthday party - our photo prints are in! I just have to drive all the way out to the boonies to get them. Don't worry I'll post them as soon as I get them!

a new record!

Apparently Andy and I set a record last Monday at our engagement session - over 400 images! They did their magic and culled it down to about 200.
Tonight we narrowed it down to 150,
then 60,
then 27.
We decided upon 4 portrait prints (1 was free as part of our "package") and a guest book/photo portfolio; then we got the total. At least we weren't the first couple to set a new record with the bill ;)
I'm convincing myself that these photos are an investment and will be gifts to our parents and will eliminate the need for a register of signatures that I'll never do anything with... so a couple birds, a couple stones.

This is completely NOT wedding-related, but I'm still reeling from the event so I feel the need to share (and why I'm up past my bedtime). We've been dog sitting and as part of our duties we stopped by to let Elvis out. The poor little guy was in a dead sleep when we pulled up so we startled him which induced a seizure. Andy held him and I tried to keep him conscious. Luckily, the episode was short (not a grand mal this time) and he came out of it okay. So scary and thankfully his parents came home about an hour after it happened.
Here's a recent photo of little Elvis - keep him in your thoughts:

Freedom Cupcake

Here is my GIANT patriotic Wilton cupcake:

Since we're going cupcakes instead of wedding cake, I wonder if the top tier should be this giant cupcake and the lower tiers all minis... like this:
via cupcakes take the cake
What do you think? Does it take away from the cuteness of the little cupcakes? Also, this cupcake is about 10" tall, so it would dominate the cake table display.

Not wedding related: in my experience, the bad thing about this cupcake pan was that the top half was finished baking long before the bottom (the stump) and I had not choice but to sacrifice the top by baking it longer so that the bottom wouldn't be raw. Luckily, enough frosting can fix anything. I'm sure professionals could bake it without an issue.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Google Reader users may not have noticed, but I've changed the main font around here using this super tutorial from kevinandamanda.com

I also added the feature below so you can leave a little sumthin' without having to write an actual comment. (Full disclosure: I'm too lazy to leave comments on all of the posts I love, but I love to show give a little feedback with a checkmark.)

People are beginning to receive their Save the Dates so I'll post a photo and details of those soon.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start!

w00t! w00t!

There's so much to do, but today I'm reflecting on how excited I am to marry my best friend and enter into a new phase of our lives together. We saw UP last night and I couldn't help but get excited about our growing old together (and cry, like, a dozen times) and the adventures we'll share as a married couple. I know he's the one; when I looked over in the darkness, he also had tears in his eyes.

eek!

Hooray! the STDs went out in today's mail
Boo! Macy's has discontinued our cookware:

Luckily, it's a holiday weekend so we can drive up to "the good Macy's" and check out the new style or make the switch to All Clad. I'm torn about getting nonstick pans... I hate our melange of college student pans (stainless) everything sticks and then burns. Anodized/Teflon pans have that wonderful nonstick feature, but with a side of cancer (or so I've heard) and typically require hand washing.
Looks like I'm just going to have to do some cookware research tonight re:nonstick verses stainless and see if anyone's reviewed the new Calphalon Unison...

So, are you a non-stick or stainless type of gal?

engagement photos

here we are driving home from our 2 hour long photo session...

we are recreating the photographer's suggestion to bite each other's noses. Totally natural, right? Can't wait to see what they look like since we it was incredibly awkward... and I love awkward photos. We also did a "headpile" but it's a bit difficult to recreate that in the car... while driving.