I've chosen my 'maids!

Not much wedding planning has been happening since the save the date cards went out. In all honesty, I've been overwhelmed with homework. Only a couple more weeks to go, thankfully. Then it's wedding wedding wedding!

I did finally choose my bridesmaids! After months of waiting and anticipating, I am delighted to present to you my lovely bridesmaids: 

• Maid of Honor - Donna
• Bridesmaids - Sierra, Chelsea, Becky, Chey, Courtney

Yupp, I've decided to have them all. 'Cause it's my wedding and I'll have as many bridesmaids as I want to! I'm so excited. They all are too, I think. And we have arranged dress shopping in December. I can't wait. We'll have to go suit shopping in December too while Chris's groomsmen (Mike & Eric) are in New York for the holidays.

I told you I'm gonna be in full wedding mode soon! That's about all I've got!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered...

They're yours! 

Sort of. Except, they're not really signed, but they are sealed, and ready to be delivered! So they're practically yours.

We spent our Halloween evening sealing our save the date envelopes with wax seals. Christopher, of course, was happy to play with the torch:

Playing with fire on Halloween seems appropriate, right? We are pleased with the final product. It was a little harder than anticipated. The flame would get too hot close to Chris's hand, so Chris ended up holding the "wick" with pliers. Eventually the wicks would fall off of the wax cube. Anyways, it was a little disastrous but worked out in the end. The seals are white so I had to take the photo without the flash:

Doesn't look too good in the photo here at all... Oh well, it looks better in person. Putting the finished cards in the mail tomorrow. I am still lacking some addresses, so unfortunately they won't all go out at the same time. But I'm already a week behind sending them out, so they must go!

Finally... An Accomplishment!

I have finally gotten a start on our save the date cards! I'm only a couple days overdue...I'm hoping to get them out by the first of November. That's my goal...

Here I am with two cards, hot off the press. Hopefully you can't see them too much...

And here I am, again, hard at work. Here, I am putting the labels on the envelopes.

I'm not going to post a picture of the final product because I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Here's the cost break down:

Card from Michael's: $9.72 (40% off coupon) = 0.25 each

Envelope from cardsandpocket.com: = 0.12 each

Label from Office Depot: $10.26 for 250 = 0.04 each

Stamp (which I haven't purchased yet): = 0.44 each

Grand Total: 0.85 per save the date.

Woohoo for DIY and Michael's....

COUNTDOWN = SIX MONTHS!

Can you believe that six months from today I will be Mrs. Herron! Ahh! Thrilling. Exhilarating. Scary. Crazy. All of those things at once, pretty much. I just can't believe it. We have been engaged for over fifteen months, and we're almost there!

I feel like there's just so much to do still. And there is! I was looking at my "Wedding Countdown" that has been hanging on our refrigerator for a couple months now, and boy, am I behind... Still need to:

• Pick an officiant. But I've been told you can find one in like two months, so I guess I won't stress too much about that one.
• Choose the wedding party. I'm still waiting to hear back from Eric to finally figure out my bridesmaid situation.
• Enroll in a bridal-gift registry.
  
• Shop for bridesmaid dresses. Again, the above dilemma. More to come...
  
• Pick a photographer. More like, make a final decision if we are going to hire a pro or go with someone we know... Decisions, decisions. 
• Mail save the dates. I'm actually working on this one!
  

That's all the stuff that should have been done by the six month mark. Oh boy.  At least I have good excuses for everything....

Back to bridesmaid dresses... I have been doing a little research on them. I know I'll have to plan a trip with my bridesmaids (whoever they may be) in December when everyone is home for the holidays. I've been thinking about the trip, and the dresses. Here are a few dresses I like.

Option 1: Short dresses

Both dresses are cotton sateen. Sierra tried the first dress on when we went wedding dress shopping and it looked amazing on her. My only problem with short dresses is that the wedding is in April, so it could be kind of cool to begin with. Secondly we moved the wedding to the morning rather than afternoon, so chances are it might be even cooler. Basically, I don't want my girls to freeze.

Option 2: Long dresses

These three dresses are jersey material, so basically, my girls wouldn't be freezing and they would be pretty darn comfortable, as well.

So those are the dresses I'm liking right now. Ya never know when I'm going to change my mind though. Also, we might see other dresses when shopping. Oh, and the dresses are all in watermelon pink, as that is what color we have all decided on. Woohoo.

Alright, that's about all for today.

Save the Dates!

I purchased our save the date cards from Michael's yesterday. This is what they look like (blank, of course):

My camera wouldn't let me take a very good picture of it. It is 3.25 x 4.75. And I'm working on several options of what to print on them.

That's all for today!

Breakfast Buffet...

So last night I was on my iTouch theknot 911 application (which I'm completely obsessed with if you didn't already know) and one bride-to-be posted that she is having a morning wedding and thinking about serving breakfast rather than lunch or dinner. I immediately adored the idea and told her so with some awesome ideas. And then this strawberry shortcake came to mind that I'd seen in a Martha Stewart book before that would be simply perfect for her breakfast buffet.

It was all I could think about all night, I loved the idea so much. When Chris woke up, I told him about this bride-to-be's idea... And I think we might be stealing it :)  I texted Mom this morning and she is on board. I am so excited about this! Plus, it'll probably save us some money in the long run! Woohoo. I'm stoked! The cake that inspired me:

Other wedding news...

Invitations. I got the cards and pockets sample I ordered over the weekend. And it's nice... But I still like the Michael's idea better, thankfully.

Honeymoon. We received a recommendation for a all-inclusive resort called Palace Resorts and were looking at one in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Also, I did a Google search for "couples resorts" and was led to a few all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica. Both are considerable cheaper than Sandals. So we're still on the look-out.

Save the Dates. I think I will stop at Michael's tomorrow after work to buy the save the date cards. I have a 40% off coupon to use! I will take pictures and share them.

I'll keep you posted!

I changed my mind...

AGAIN!

I'm talking about the invitations, of course. You see, I had some spare time yesterday so I decided to go to Michael's and wander around. I haven't been in there in awhile, and boy, how I am obsessed with that store. So anyways, besides my obsession, they sell wedding stationery there... Kits similiar to the cards and pockets. But simpler. Easier to assemble. More decorative. The list goes on... I showed them to Chris last night and he likes them better too! So I'm 99% sure they're it. This is the kit:

It's perfect. It doesn't come with an envelope (you use the card as the envelope) but I'm going to buy a pink envelope to spruce it up. Also, I found some inspiration on a wedding blog that had these invites and put a cute little gem on the seal... I would do pink again. And maybe replace the brown ribbon with pink... We'll see. I might be going a little overboard.

Oh, and the greatest part is it's a set -- Michael's has matching save the dates, rehearsal dinner invitations (not that I am going to use them), programs (pondering those as an option), thank you cards, escort cards, table numbers, etc. And it isn't going to break the bank. Especially if I save up my 50% coupons I get in e-mails. It's will cost less than $65 probably. Woohoo!

I'm glad I have finally made a decision though. Especially because STDs (save the dates... Chris reminded me last night that normal people don't know that STDs can be good too!) have to go out at the end of this month. So next mission (besides purchasing the stationery): collecting addresses. Oh boy.

Decisions, Decisions...

Less than 200 days to go until the big day! Woohoo!

I think I have finally decided on what I want for our invitations (cards and pockets). It looks like the coolest thing since sliced bread. I just ordered a sample from them today. I'm excited to get it and check it out. I hope it works out for us. Especially because we need to send out our dates at the end of this month. Yikes. It's coming up so soon. I have it all planned out in Microsoft Word.

As for updates to the previous post -- I don't think we'll be going to Sandals. We've concluded it's a bit out of our price range. Well, Chris hasn't eliminated it yet, but I have. We're looking at NCL cruises again. There's one that goes to Bermuda from New York the day after the wedding (which is exciting) and there's also a Mexican Riviera one that leaves from L.A. I also want to look into Couples Resorts.

There's still so much I need to do though... Find an officiant, most importantly. And also decide on if we want to get a professional photographer or not, and if so, book one. I feel like I still have all the time in the world, but really I've only got a little more than six months! Ahh.

This was brief, but there's not much to update this time around.

211 days...

Less than 7 months to go until the wedding :) It seems so far, yet so close!

So I haven't updated in almost two weeks... Not that too much has happened. Only a few things:

First off,

I GOT MY DRESS! 

Well, of course I already bought my dress last month, but it's home with momma now! So I can look at it whenever I want. Of course, I don't ;) It hangs in the closet in the guest bedroom. It won't fit in our huge walk in closet with the shelf unit and all of Christopher's clothes, hehe ;)

More great news.... I got a call from Zimmer Brothers, from Brian (our "jeweler" I suppose) last Friday because they had a few rings for me to look at fitting my "dream band" description. Thankfully, he was so much better than the lady the previous week. Brian had me trying on all different types of bands... And I found one I love! It's round diamonds instead of princess cut. What we learned: Princess cut diamonds are less expensive solitaire, yet more expensive in clusters because princess cut diamonds are deeper than round diamonds. So moral of the story is round diamonds are less expensive (and shinier) in a wedding band than princess cut. So my band will be diamonds half way around, full frontal glitz :) Here are the rings together.... It was taken on my cell phone, so it's a bad quality picture, but if you look from a distance it's real pretty:

 

Next up, we did some honeymoon researching. At first we were thinking another cruise, as we had a good time last April and really liked Norwegian Cruise Lines. Problem: NCL doesn't have any cruises around our wedding date from New York, which we prefer to disembark from. I found a Royal Caribbean cruise that fit our time frame disembarking from New Jersey.... But we're hesitant to try Royal because we loved NCL's freestyle cruising. Now we are also looking at all-inclusive resorts. I ordered a brochure from Sandals out of curiosity and I'm pretty much in love. I love that alcohol is included, not an extra expense as it was on the cruise. We're loving Sandals Grande Antigua, it's been voted the most romantic resort:

And that's the suite we're thinking about. It's called the Monte Carlo Honeymoon Oceanview Suite. I like that it's called a honeymoon suite. It makes it sound even more romantic, doesn't it? And oh look, you can see the ocean in the picture from the balcony! And the bathroom has a whirlpool tub (that's basically why Chris loves it!).

In addition to ring shopping and honeymoon browsing aka the fun stuff, we also discussed some budget stuff with my mom last weekend. I think it's going to be completely do-able for about $4-5k. Which is about what we can afford, anyways. No more than that!

That about wraps up the past two weeks worth of our road to the aisle I'd say!

P.S. I'm liking this picture function! :)

A Few Minor Accomplishments

So we've accomplished a few "wedding things" this week...

First and foremost, I got an e-mail from David's Bridal last Friday that my wedding dress is in! So soon, too! They told us October 2nd! It's in almost a month earlier than anticipated! I scheduled my first "fitting" for this upcoming Friday. Mom and Grams are coming with me. I hear we're also going out to lunch :)

On Monday we took a walk on the farm to check out locations to hold the ceremony and reception. We had four different options:

1. The place where we will build our future home. Probably in 2011/2012.
2. A field a little beyond the future home; a flat area that used to be an "airstrip" for remote-control planes.
3. A little secluded field, close to the woods.
4. A field close to Chris' parents house/right next to the pastures.

We immediately rejected option #1 due to closeness to the road (although it was my favorite idea) and think we may have narrowed it down to option #3. The only problem with the location is the distance away from where people are parking (Wynn & Judy's house), if people wanted to leave early. But c'mon... Who would really want to leave our party early, anyways?! Also, one of the perks of option #4 is the possible use of the house bathroom instead of renting a port-a-potty... I think I like the complete seclusion of the little field best though :)

On Friday (our three year anniversary! ♥) we went to Zimmer Brothers to get my engagement ring cleaned and to look at wedding bands! Chris found the one he wants; it's a metal called tungsten. He's pretty excited about it. Originally he wanted titanium but was put off at how light-weight it is. Tungsten is a little heavier and just as durable it sounds like! As for my wedding band search.... It was a little upsetting. My engagement ring is quite unique (the gorgeous setting, that is). We remember when we went looking at engagement rings, there was a brochure/pamphlet that I saw the ring in and liked it, and then Chris ordered it for me (I didn't know what he was getting me though, I just showed him what I liked). We also remember there being pictures of accompanying wedding bands in the pamphlet. However, Zimmer Brothers did not have the pamphlet anymore, nor any record of it in my file. The guy who we dealt with, Brian, wasn't there when we went yesterday so we're hoping maybe he remembers. The lady we were dealing with seemed a little flaky. Think we'll make sure Brian is there next time we go. Anyways... I looked at some other rings, which were really pretty but just didn't feel right with my engagement ring. The manager came out and asked exactly what we're looking for and said he was going to try to search to see if they have anything similar and if not to estimate the cost of making one. Yikes! Sounds expensive to me... It's hard cause I have exactly what I want pictured in my mind...

Also, Chris finally asked his brother to be his best man! Whew. I've only been bugging him about it for the past month! He also asked Eric to be a groomsmen, but Eric is unsure if he'll be able to make it or not due to school and finals. So I think I have to re-adjust my number of bridesmaids... 6 and 2 is not going to work out well, plus it will look a tad bit silly. We'll have to see!

I'll keep you updated!

Welcome!

Oh, hi! Glad you found the blog :)

This is going to be my "wedding journal" to keep our close family and friends up-to-date with the planning process, hence the additional password.

Finally got the wedding website almost complete! It has as much information as I do now, anyways. I think I'm too obsessed with it though. I'm spending more time on planning our wedding website than the actual wedding planning... Don't even get me started about the lack of homework I'm getting done... Just kidding, Mom, I'm getting it done!

I really don't have too much to write at this point... So far we've got the ceremony and reception venues (the farm!) -- although the particular area is still undecided. I'm going to scope the farm this weekend and see. And I bought my dress last month! I love it! Also, I started working on making some save the dates and invitations earlier this week. It's probably a little too early in the planning process to have them done, but they're just ideas. I'm sure my ideas will change in the next 232 days!

Stay tuned!