WEDDING PHOTOS OMGEM

What's that?

Oh, just awesome photos from our wedding.

Totally no big deal.

Except it totally is.

We got married!

This is the face of a happy lady, for so many reasons.

And oh yeah, it's up, folks. 

So go read Emily's post.

Thank you, Emily and Aaron. Thank you so much.

I have so much love for this woman.

One Week

I've been thinking about coming back with a little wedding recap post, a "hey everyone, I'm back!" post...but the truth is, I've been recovering all week. Weddings take it out of you, man. In the best possible way, of course, but even when you're about to explode with joy, a long weekend spent entertaining family and friends (not to mention celebrating until the wee hours of the morning several nights in a row) is bound to leave a girl reaching for the pillow.

A few nights with 10 hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep helps. A nasty head cold doesn't. But we're on the up and up over here now, and even had some friends over for our first (hopefully) semi-regular puzzle night last night. But I do want to share stories and photos, so I'll just ask you to be patient for a little while as I continue to settle back into life.

It's our one-week anniversary, life is starting to return to normal, and I am filled with a renewed sense of optimism when it comes to playing housewife. I want to use my new toys (waffle iron! juicer! ice cream attachment for KitchenAid!) and start on some of the home-projects I've had on my list since before the wedding, and some new ones too. My Pinterest boards are filling up with non-wedding ideas, and I even created a bulletin board on top of my craft dresser that I'm going to fill with projects. My goal is to do one per week, no matter how small (bags in closet? check! well, mostly).

So hello, folks. I'm back, and ready for action!

A little wedding photo sneak peek from our fabulous
photographer, Emily Scott (Gem Photo).
(via Instagram for iPhone)

The Fog of War (Guest Post by Lyz Lenz)

While I'm out of town for a few days gettin' hitched, I've lined up some blog posts from some truly lovely bloggers and friends of mine.  The theme: love, marriage, relationships...or whatever they feel like writing about.  I hope you enjoy, and check out their blogs as well, because they're all awesome.  I'll be back next week as a married lady!


Today's super special guest post comes from Lyz, one of the most hilarious women I know.  She makes me laugh on a regular basis, and I'm proud that we went from internet-stalky-how-did-we-even-find-each-other friends to pen pals to Real Life Friends (this past year at BlogHer).  If you haven't already, please do go check out her blog at www.lyzlenz.com.


The Fog of War

It didn't take Dave and I long to find our dream home. Built in 1925, the house had newly refinished oak crown molding and floors, an antique crystal chandelier original to the house and it was tucked snugly away in a picturesque neighborhood. We both loved the same things about the house. "Oh, the stairs!" we both cried in our young-couple in love unison, holding hands and staring gooey-eyed at one another. The only things that needed fixing were the pastel rainbow painted over the front door and one of the bathrooms. It would be easy, we rationalized.

The Lenz home in the fall.
Ed note: I hate them.
Also see: jealousy.

On move-in day, Dave placed his hands on the dining room walls and declared them to be “crooked.” Dave is an engineer and “crooked” is probably the lowest insult and engineer can bequeath, well that and “illogical.” “Is that hard to fix?” I asked. “No, I’ll just do some replastering. Should be easy.” Four weeks later, Dave was still slapping plaster on the wall, letting it dry, sanding and then declaring the walls “still crooked.” Plaster dust is a fine material and has a way of making itself omnipresent. Despite sealing off the room, for four weeks, I’d been coughing plaster dust, spitting plaster dust, tasting plaster dust. I was finished.

“You have two more days,” I threatened. And on midnight of the second day, while Dave was still sanding, I ripped down the plastic barrier, picked up the tools and hauled in the shop-vac. This project was over. “You are just going to have to get used to the fact that nothing is going to be perfect,” I yelled and then flicked on the shop-vac. Whoosh! A huge cloud of plaster dust exploded throughout the house. Later investigation would show that I had the shop-vac set on “blow” instead of “suck” and boy, did it blow.

Coughing, I slapped blindly in the dust, trying to shut the vacuum off. When I finally hit the switch, it was too late, the billowing cloud of mess was disseminating through our house. I sat down on the floor and began to sob. “It’s everywhere! On our furniture. Our new couch. You did this!” “I just wanted our house to look nice,” he said. I sobbed harder. “It doesn’t! It’s worse!”

Through the haze, I saw Dave turn to me and smile through his plaster mask. "Do you know what this is?” He asked waving his hands in the air. “This is the fog of war!” He laughed, doubling over and grasping his sides. It was midnight, we’d been working since 6am and we were going crazy. I started laughing too. My eyes stung with dust, my throat hurt from breathing, but we couldn’t stop laughing.

Cleaning the house took months. And if we’re being honest it, actually, took five years, because the plaster dust wasn’t totally out of the cracks in the dining room floor until this fall, when Dave refinished them.

And when I walk through the dining room, I still think about those crooked walls and part of me wants to punch Dave and part of me wants to kiss him. But that is the daily story of our marriage, some days I wonder how I got into this mess and other days I can’t imagine anything else. But it’s always those moments of eye-burning frustration, when we find the redemption that we need.

In the end, our dining room still has crooked walls, but now, instead of fixing them, we just hang pictures over the dents and tell everyone about that time we tried to make everything perfect.

The Wedding Budget Competition (guest post by Well Heeled Blog)

While I'm out of town for a few days gettin' hitched, I've lined up some blog posts from some truly lovely bloggers and friends of mine.  The theme: love, marriage, relationships...or whatever they feel like writing about.  I hope you enjoy, and check out their blogs as well, because they're all awesome.  I'll be back next week as a married lady!


Today's lovely guest post comes from Well Heeled Blog.  We've been blog buddies for a long time, and I'm so pleased that she took time out of her busy blogging (and wedding-planning! she's getting married in June!) schedule to write a guest post for me!  Check out her blog at http://wellheeledblog.com

The Wedding Budget Competition

As a personal finance blogger who is planning her wedding, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. In the Real World (or certainly the Beautiful Wedding Blog World), there seems to be a competition on how pretty and meaningful and personalized your day is (all judged on the beauty of the photographs, of course). From the joyfulness of your photos, to the uniqueness of your reception, to the loving touches that perfectly captures "who you are as a couple," it's enough to make even the most confident and laid back of brides feel inadequate. Most of these efforts take a fair amount of time or money, or both!

I think most of us, especially personal finance bloggers, can agree that such a competition to Have The Most Perfect And Expensive Wedding Ever is pointless and maybe counter-productive. A wedding is about love and celebration, and a smaller budget doesn't mean there is any less of those two qualities. Your chances of staying married and in love isn't higher in a $2,000 dress than a $200 dress.

In the Personal Finance World, however, there seems to be another competition going on.

It's no surprise, personal finance bloggers can be a goal-driven, competitive bunch. This competition is about who can spend the LEAST on weddings, who can more loudly proclaim that The Wedding Is Just One Day, and that it's ridiculous to spend over $X or $Y. But a wedding is about love and celebration, and a bigger budget doesn't mean there is any less of those two qualities. It certainly doesn't mean, as I've read in some comments on other blogs, that an more expensive/elaborate wedding means the marriage will fail. And if a bride and groom (or bride/bride & groom/groom) want to rock a $2,000 dress or band or venue and it's important to them and fits their budget, they SHOULD!

It's funny, because there is such an emphasis on spending on experiences in among personal finance bloggers, and one could argue that a wedding is the biggest experience of them all. It's the day that two people pledge to love and honor each other, in view of friends and family. It's probably one of the biggest and most important events a couple will host. So why the disdain for an expensive wedding, when we cheer on folks who spend the same amount, or more, on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, or on a down payment for a bigger house? There is so much judgment surrounding weddings, when in fact it really shouldn't matter what people spend as long as its reasonable for their situation. Some people get more joy out of a beautiful wedding than travel or a bigger piece of real estate. I say, more power to them.

If a couple manage their wedding budget according to their priorities and resources, there is no wrong way to have a wedding, regardless of how much or how little they spend. The only three things I'd never do to pay for a wedding would be to (1) take money out of retirement accounts, (2) take on debt, or (3) ask guests to pay. After that? It's all personal. Just have the wedding you want with a budget you can afford. 

--
Well Heeled Blog | Personal finance blog at the intersection of life, money, and happiness

Read: http://wellheeledblog.com
Follow: http://twitter.com/wellheeledblog

Less Than A Week...

This time next week, we'll be married. That's totally crazy, in that "it makes perfect sense, of course we're getting married, this is a huge deal, I'm not sure what it will feel like, will it even feel different, soon I'm going to call him 'husband' and he will call me 'wife' and it will be for real, forever, like adults or something" sort of way. Every so often, he looks at me, and says "soon we're going to be married," and I get that warm, fuzzy, happy feeling inside.

There is still a bit to be done (finalizing programs and table assignments, dress fitting/pick up, emailing some guests, ordering Top Dogs, picking our ceremony songs, and Reed's knitting one more tie and crocheting buttons for cowls and finishing boutonnieres, and Aly's picking up more jars and printing table assignment signs), but I'm confident in our ability to do it.   It sounds like a lot, considering we're leaving for Tahoe in three days. THREE DAYS. But we can do it. We can.

So what's a bride to do when she has so much happening?  Why, she throws a small Super Bowl party (because we needed to be home, taking care of business, and not out at someone else's house all day), complete with filet mignon and baked goat cheese ('cause we're fancy), and bagel bites and pigs in a blanket ('cause we're not that fancy).  A few friends, some football (and some Puppy Bowl), and some booze, of course. It turned out to be a lovely, un-stressful day, and I'm glad we took a little time to lay low and chill out a bit.

Ah, but in addition to the chilling out, there was also boutonniere-making, hairstyle-testing, house-cleaning, bouquet-fixing, and print-material-typing.  And just now, at 11:30pm, I decided to make myself a "toss bouquet". For those not familiar, a "toss bouquet" is a separate, sometimes smaller, bouquet that a bride throws during the bouquet toss if she doesn't want to throw her bouquet (usually because she wants to save it).  My bouquet, while totally awesome, is a little...not great for throwing, since it's a little heavy and a lot delicate, and I'd like to save it and not let it get ruined by being thrown through the air and probably landing on the floor and being grabbed at by crazy women :)

I was proud of myself, using the techniques I observed (learned? maybe?) from Reed during the bouquet-making. I think it turned out nicely! It's a decent weight for tossing, it should hold up well, and it looks pretty, too. I even used up all of the leftover flowers! Woo! I wonder who the lucky recipient will be...  ;)

Top view

Side view - the lighting is weird, so it's hard
to tell, but the stem is wrapped in silver
ribbon and yellow yarn, a slightly different
version of what my bouquet looks like.

Have you ever had one of those burst-of-inspiration moments, where even though you should maybe just go to bed, you decide to make or do something?

Bridal Shower and Baby (Visit)

This weekend featured a quickie trip down to LA, for a few fun little things.  Makes me glad that home isn't too far away :)


I got to visit my old friend Myles and meet his awesome wife Laurel and their brand new baby, who is now officially 3 weeks old.

The baby is skeptical of my double chin.
Don't worry, Fenton, it's just because of
the face I'm making.
Photo courtesy of Myles' Blog

I also had a super wonderful bridal shower, thrown by two of my oldest friends.

Alyssa, me, and Colette. Friends for like, 16 years.
No big deal.

We played a game where they had (secretly, previously) asked Will to answer 20 questions, and then I had to guess what his answers were, The Newlywed Game style.  :)  I am pleased to say that I got almost all of them correct - even the ones that contained qualifiers or secondary answers, like "he would probably say this, but it's actually that".  BOOYA!  After 7 years, I guess I know him pretty well.  See also: I'm awesome.



Colette and Alyssa, thank you for an awesome, awesome* shower.  It was just perfect.

Family and friends, enjoying a delicious lunch :)

Oh, and Alyssa made cupcakes.
She's good.

*the word awesome is used gratuitously in this blog post.

Defying Gravity

Like most brides, I bought a lovely dress that I absolutely adore, but that needed to be altered just a bit.  It's so common, I bet bridal gown manufacturers purposefully make them so that they'll need to be altered.  They probably have a deal going with the seamstresses.  Just kidding; I'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist.  But seriously, I don't know many brides who can wear their dress as-is when it arrives.  I was prepared to go in and put my dress under the knife seam ripper.

I happen to love my seamstress.  She lives in a house up in the hills with a beautiful view, and together, we have deconstructed bits of my dress and reconstructed them so that A) the skirt is not a big puffball, B) there isn't a train, and C) the dress actually stays put.  Or as I like to call it, defying gravity.

Not sure if you're aware, but even with a bit of boning, strapless dresses don't uh, stay put.  Not if you have a little bit of, uh, an hourglass shape?  (I can't vouch for other body types, as I never wore strapless anythings when I was a pre-pubescent stick figure, and have had zero success in my post-pubescent hourglassness)  So we've been getting creative.  Adding "waist belt" elastics, additional boning, and finally last night, a "waist cinchy sort of belt/corset piece of stretchy but tight fabric thing". And we seem to have found a solution.  It's very exciting, raising my arms and feeling like the dress stays in place, even when I lower my arms again!  Now she just has to finalize the hem (don't want to finish a hem before you figure out where the dress is going to sit on your body), let out the back a little (you let it out so there's more fabric to tighten it back up without squishing/pinching your back fat), take in the sides of the bodice a tad, tack on the sash, and complete the finishing for the top of the bodice!  Easy peasy in 2 weeks, right?   Ann is awesome.  Have faith in her.  I do.

Second part of the story...This is a picture of me, in our office/guestroom (someday), holding a giant bag of tulle.  This bag of tulle is all the tulle that is no longer in my wedding dress.  We removed a lot of tulle.  Four layers, to be exact.

Now I have a giant bag of tulle, and if I don't think of something to do with it, I'll just give it back to Ann, since she will surely need it someday to insert into the dress of a bride looking for a poofier dress than I.

Of course, I could make myself a tutu (or as my grandpa would say, a three-three).  Swan Lake in my backyard, anyone?  No?  Yeah.  I don't really need a tutu.  Could be used for a great Halloween costume at some point, or I'm sure Reed could find something to do with it...but the reality is that I probably will not find a reason to use it.  Though the cheap Jew in me is all, "But I paid for this tulle! It's part of my dress! I bought it! It's mine!",  I do kind of like the idea of bits of my dress going to good use, helping some other bride who wants a fluffier skirt.  

What would YOU do with a bag full of tulle?

Who Cares About Chairs?

Ah, the great chair debate. I don't understand how the WIC (that's Wedding Industrial Complex, for anyone not in the crazy wedding planning phase of life) worked it's weird WIC magic and made it so brides would freak out about chairs (read the comments; they're full of smart ladies, this one in particular), but uh...hi.  I am an otherwise perfectly sane human being, and I am a bride who has freaked out about chairs.  Twice.

First it was the reception seating.  Our venue provides these perfectly fine, albeit somewhat conference-center-esque, chairs.  For free.  They mentioned that we could rent chair covers to match the linens if we want to, and that a lot of people do that to make it all look nicer or whatever.  Sure, sounds easy enough.  But, uh, chair covers? They don't come cheap, yo.  That's a minimum of $4 per chair, $5 if you include a chair sash - or just $1 if you only want a sash, but uh, that would look odd. Why tie a ribbon around a normal chair? It would just call attention to the fact that we didn't get chair covers, I think.  And that all just seemed silly.

I took this picture when we checked out the venue.
Chairs are fine. They're just chairs.

We thought back to weddings we'd been to, and couldn't remember what kind of chairs were in the reception room. I had to look at pictures of the wedding I'd been to barely a month before to remember what kind of chairs they'd used (I looked - they used fancy chairs, that we were being quoted like, $7.95 per chair for. Yikes!).  So I finally said, "Screw it.  Nobody is going to care if we don't get fancy linen covers for the chairs.  Besides, they kind of coordinate with the carpet (which we also don't love, but who's gonna be staring at the carpet)? And also, who cares about chairs?"

So, no on spending $400-500 on chair covers.  Yay!  Ah, but the Saga of the Seating was not over yet!

We had planned to rent wooden benches for the ceremony, which is going to be outside (hopefully in the snow, fingers crossed, though the forecast does not look good).  Ideally, it would look like this:

So woodsy! So wintery! So quaint!

But alas, renting enough benches for our guests (even assuming some choose to stand on the deck above) would cost us around $500.  And now that there may not even be snow, it seems silly to rent wooden benches, just because they look cute.  We can't even rent the ones pictured above (they don't have enough, and they are being super flaky), so we'd be renting slightly less cute ones anyway.  Harumph.  Bridal whine.  But I'm over it.

You know why?  Because the venue provides perfectly fine white folding chairs, for free, that we can use, for free, and they looked perfectly fine when we saw the venue the first time, when there was no snow, and hell, I'm sure the white chairs would look fine in the white snow if the weather cooperates.

With a view like this,
who cares what kind of chairs you're sitting on?

Why did I get it into my head that white folding chairs would just be awful?  That it was just laughably silly for us to use white chairs?  That of course we were going to rent benches, because duh, we could. They were available, and look how cute they look in the pictures! And obviously, they're cute, and it's easy, and we are doing it!  Without even questioning whether we needed to (ha! it's our wedding! we can do what we want!) or really cared about it (very important) in the first place.  Personally, I'd rather take that $500 and use it towards the honeymoon.  Or saving for a down payment on a house.  Or anything other than benches that people will sit on for 15 minutes.  Even if they do look really cute.

We have been emailing back and forth for the better part of a week, trying to figure out what company to rent the benches from, and how many benches to rent, and what's going to happen if we don't have enough benches, and well, it just all feels very silly to me right now.  I just want to get married to my best friend, and have a fun party with our family and friends.  No matter what they're sitting on.

I'm a Bachelorette

Ok, so last night's bachelorette party was awesome, and I want to publicly thank (in counter-clockwise order, starting with the lower right corner of the photo) Nicole, Danielle, Katherine, Rachel, Emika, Andrea, Reed, Paula, Dana and CC.  Because this group of ladies is awesome.

I mean, seriously. They're rad.
So is Cafe Sport in San Francisco.
If you like Italian food, go here now.

I don't have photos of the decorated hotel suite or the crafts, or my ridiculously rad headbands, or the thousands of nail polish bottles (or champagne bottles) or goody bags, or any of the other stuff they put together, but I know other people were taking pictures (I was just being a bachelorette).  When the pictures go public (but uh, not all of them, ok guys?) I'll share them here.  Let me just say that these ladies went all out and it was so lovely and I love them all.  It was a super, super fun evening and night, and I honestly have some of the best friends ever.  Oh, and we got a pseudo-strip show because the folks in the apartments across from our hotel room did not think it necessary to close their blinds. Good times, folks.  Good times.

Next weekend, I'm flying down to LA for my bridal shower, where I'll get to celebrate with a whole other group of amazing ladies.  I am seriously one lucky bride, y'all.  I've never felt so showered with love, and it's a little overwhelming, but I think I'm getting used to it  ;)

This week: more crafts, more knitting, and hopefully some home-organization!

Bonus Crafting Post! Guest Books!

Earlier today I promised you a bonus crafting post...and like I said, I don't like to make promises I can't keep!

Inspired by this pin on Pinterest, I decided that we should have one small guestbook on each table, rather than one big guestbook in the entry/lounge area.  I love the idea of having a special book to open on each anniversary for the next twelve years, a little memory of the wedding for the first twelve years of our marriage (twelve tables, twelve books, twelve years, and whoa just realized, getting married in 2012...ooooh spooky?).  We're going to provide a stack of card stock and pens at each table so guests can write messages to us and put them in the books.  

Some of the books - Andrea came over and helped me trace
the numbers from a stencil and color them in with silver
Sharpie.  It actually went a lot faster than we had
anticipated, and they turned out really well!

I decided to go one step further though...the books I bought are art portfolio display albums (yay acid free!), and we're going to put a disposable camera on each table so people can take pictures to go with their notes - we'll print the photos after the wedding, and have friends help us insert them into the right places in the albums (so we don't read the messages until the appropriate anniversary, of course!).  It should be really fun to look back on the photos people took of themselves as the years go by, a nice balance of unprofessional/silly/lower-quality photos to have in addition to the undoubtedly gorgeous ones Em and Aaron (her husband and co-shooter) will be taking (which will go in the fancy shmancy wedding album I'm making from Photobook America, thankyougroupon).

Aly found these "classy" black disposable cameras that
turned out to be cheaper than the standard yellow or
green ones anyway! Score!

We might print labels or photos to go in the spines of the albums, so that when they're standing on our shelf, we can easily grab the one we want.  You can kind of see the empty spines in the picture at the top - the paper included for the label was such a bright white that it seemed a little jarring.  Looks better without.  Maybe I'll just write on the plastic with Sharpie to mark the books if we don't think of a good idea for a photo/label insert.  Maybe we'll print little labels with the art from the invitations.  We'll see!

All that's left to do is print up the little signs to explain to people what to do and gather the pens and cardstock :)

PS ooh! idea! We'll also take a picture of us on each anniversary, print it, and put it in the book that year.  oh, I am a genius.)

Wedding Knitstuff, Part...One?

I promised a post about knitwear, and ye shall receive a post about knitwear!  I don't make promises I can't keep...I promise!

And now, it is my pleasure to present to you...The Completed (so far) Knitwear for the Wedding!  (yeah, the title could use some work)

Beautiful, beautiful hand/wrist warmers,
for the bridesmaids,
knitted and embroidered by Reed.
In the background, you can see the
bouquets and bouttonieres :)

I messed with the contrast because it really
shows off Reed's embroidery. 

While Reed was working on the hand/wrist warmers (and
a bunch of other stuff), I knit 6 scarves.  Yes, six.
Did you know that scarves take a long time to make?
I am about 3 months behind on The New Yorker now, but
I'm pleased with the way they came out!
Each one has a different stitch pattern, length, width, and
ratio of yellow to gray.  Coordinated but not matchy matchy.

So far so good, eh?  Reed's working on my hand/wrist warmers now, and is starting the dads' ties this weekend.  I'm about halfway done with the first mom cowl/neck warmer, and starting to think about whether I want something knit in my hair (decorative bobby pins? headband? hmmm) as well.

And that's the knitting update for ya!  Up next: a bonus wedding craft post!  I know you can't wait!

This is Happening, Guys

Ok, so we're T-22 days to the wedding (WHAT? CRAZY! also: 22 is my favorite number), and shit's getting real.  Sorry for the language, but it is.

The dudes' scarves are done (minus weaving in the ends on 3 of them, but that'll get done while I watch 30 Rock tonight), the ladies' wristwarmer glove things are done (thanks, Reed!), I just started the moms' cowl neckwarmer scarf things, and Reed's about to start the dads' ties.  I'll do some knitwear posts soon, cause why not?

Bouquets are done, boutonnieres are scheduled, and I've been ordering supplies from SaveOnCrafts like it's my job (my night job).  I've had three dress fittings, and am going again tomorrow morning (we're currently trying to solve a physics problem related to getting the dress not to fall down. seamstress says: solvable!) with my sisters.  I've tried on the dress with my boots, my blue glittery TOMS, and my cardigan.  And various strings of pearls.  And a scarf.  And one of the bridesmaids' pairs of gloves.  I'm all set, yo.


This weekend is the bachelorette party, planned by my sisters and close friends.  I am happily out of the loop, knowing only that I'm meeting them tomorrow at a hotel in Union Square.  I thought I'd share this dream I had recently...clearly some manifestation about my desire to control everything (even though I really am excited about this surprise weekend, I swear!).  Also, I had just watched something about vampires, so maybe that's where it came from.

In my dream, we had rented a cabin somewhere for the bachelorette party, and my sisters had hired Twilight-themed strippers, who came stalking up through the woods like vampires. We freaked them out and sent them away, but one came back and he was the stripper and it was super awkward...but I was really really drunk, so it wasn't horrible I guess?  Later, we were mostly sobered up, and we were opening presents (what, was this a bridal shower all of a sudden?) and this super drunk chick came stumbling up to the house wanting to get in.  Eventually, we let her in, and I think we became friends?

Dreams are weird, and this wedding is coming up!  Stay tuned for (hopefully) more posts on crafting and such as I finish up projects (with massive help from friends).

Crafternoon: Wedding-Style

Today was a big day in weddingstuff, and craftstuff in particular.  In fact, I'm even adding a new label for this post (partially in hopes that it will push me to craft more often).  Today, my crafty girlfriends and I made the bouquets for the wedding.  "But Kim! Won't the flowers die?"  A-ha!  No!  We are awesome!  Magical, in fact!

Ok, not magical.  But we did get all fancy with the flowers, using wooden flowers and dried filler, (inspired by Brit's post on her bouquet, here) which actually feels more appropriate for our winter wedding in Tahoe than fresh flowers would.  They turned out beautifully, and we had a ton of fun (right?) assembling them.  Rather than bore you with big long explanations, I'll just tell you with pictures :)

First, we used hot glue guns to glue wire stems to the wooden
flowers, poking holes in them to get them to stick better.
(Thanks to Brit for the hole-poking tip! Worked great!)

Our supplies, spread out in various vases.

Don't forget the most important crafternoon supply: wine!
And an awesome team of can-do ladies:
Emika, Andrea, Rachel and Reed

Emika and Andrea, assembling small bunches of flowers,
later to be bundled together to create my bouquet.
Many small bunches put together = one lovely bouquet!
(note: while Brit did 3-4 bunches of 10, we did
several bunches of 4-5, and then added more flowers
and filler around the outside as needed to make it bigger)

Reed works on a boutonniere.
Pinecone, mini flower, knit flower "poof".
And yes, it says "wire cutters" on her hand,
a reminder to me to buy them at Michael's.

Emika, with a few nearly-finished
bridesmaid bouquets. Tiny and adorable!
All that's left is to wrap the stems with yarn!

I based my supply list on Brit's list: Natural Cedar Roses, Sola Shell Flowers, and Sola Roses, but my preserved Caspia arrived smelling rather fishy.  No, literally, it smelled like rotten fish.  Fast forward to this morning, when we found some fantastic replacements at Michael's -- white Caspia-looking stuff, some ivory Caspia-looking stuff with dried thistles and paper-thin flowers, and these crazy things that kind of looked like pussy willow, but with tiny papery roses instead of pussy willow puffs.  The little roses looked very similar to the Sola Shells, and worked perfectly in the bridesmaids' bouquets and the boutonnieres.

A finished boutonniere.
Freaking adorable.

Bridesmaid bouquets and two boutonnieres.

And ta-da! My finished bouquet!
My stem is wrapped in silvery gray ribbon,
and I'll be winding yarn around it
to tie my wooden ring to the stem.

I'm really pleased with the way they came out, and I love that they'll last for years and years to come!  

And as for the rest of our wedding-crafting?  Reed's going to make the remaining 4 boutonnieres (oh shoot, I think it's actually 8 more.  Forgot about boutonnieres for the parents), finish my hand warmers and start on the dads' ties.  I have to finish Will's scarf and make the neck warmers/cowls for the moms, maybe make my dad's tie if I can, and stencil the numbering on the guest books (one for each table, more on that later).  And soak the labels off some jars.  And buy some more jars/candles, probably.  And...something else I'm forgetting?  Good thing we have almost 4 weeks to go!

Let's Get Productive!

Today's a big day in wedding-prep land!  We're going to look at suits for Will in a couple hours, and I'm picking up my dress AND having my first fitting!  It's the first time I'll get to try on my dress, the actual one (not the sample, I mean), and I get to wear it twice today!  Can't wait!  Eee!  I'll have two of my bridesmaids with me, and afterwards we will probably do a little shopping for the one who still hasn't found her dress.

Also on the agenda is (finally) unpacking from the holidays.  Want a list?  Ok, I'll give you a list!  So glad you asked!

NOTE: List updated as of 9:50pm

• Big Suitcase: full of gifts, clothes, miscellaneous stuff
• Three Boxes One box: full of gifts that didn't fit in our suitcases (parents had to ship)
• 3 Suitcases and 2 Duffels: will be empty and needing to go back in the closet
• Winter coats/ski clothes: need to be put in duffel and put back in closet
• Closet will need to be reorganized a little bit to make room for the suitcases
• 2 Boxes: Christmas/Chanukkah decor that needs to go back in said closet
• Dining room table: needs to be cleared
• Coffee Table: Covered in mail, needs to be filed/put away/recycled
• Recycling: needs to be taken out
• 1 box: wedding bouquet supplies -- unpacked; the dried Caspia smells like fish though, so that's a mystery that needs solving.

Bonus List!  Wedding Stuff I want to get done this weekend:

• Count scarves I've made, see if I have 1 or 2 more to make -- I have 1.5 more to make!
• Make a plan for dad's ties and mom's neckwarmers
• Make a plan for my handwarmers
• Find a dress for Katherine?
• Get Will's suit!
• Pick up my dress, go to my fitting!
• Sort through bouquet supplies to see what it all looks like -- as noted above...unpacked; the dried Caspia smells like fish though, so that's a mystery that needs solving.

I'm a little inspired by this post on The Hairpin...sometimes you need a little motivation!  I also want to get a bunch of laundry done (hey, Will, how would you like to do some laundry?) and organize the bedroom - there is a lot of stuff piled everywhere, and even a box I haven't unpacked from the move. In August. Oops.  Dang holidays!

I'm ready to rock though!  Do you have any Winter Cleaning plans this weekend?  Any events you're preparing for?  Tell me your tales of nesting and productivity!

On Productivity

This weekend has been quite productive, one of the most successful "getting things done" weekends I've had in a while.  And with a crazy work week last week, full of multiple to-do lists, none of which are remotely completed, I think I needed this boost of productivity self esteem.  It's amazing what accomplishing a few long-awaited tasks can do for my mindset; I feel just a little more invincible this afternoon, and while I'm glad it's only 4:30, and I still have quite a bit of daytime left, I don't feel quite as worn down.  ed note: It's now 9:50pm.  I didn't work on this for 5 hours; I took a break for dinner and falling asleep on the couch while "watching" football and such. Please note that I am feeling ready to tackle the week but tired enough to fall asleep before midnight.  Yay.


And now...

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS

WITH PHOTOS!

Christmas Tree

We got our tree!  We found it pretty quickly in the 6-7' section (closer to 7', of course), and the lovely folks at the Delancey Street Foundation sawed a fresh cut, removed and saved a few low-hanging branches, and tied it to our car.  But wait - the story doesn't end there! We got home and realized our tree stand was not wide enough to accommodate our tree.  Will then spent an hour trying to saw the trunk down to a part where it was slightly narrower, and trimming the little nubbins off the side...eventually we he got it down to size and we shoved it into the stand.  It's a little bit of a tight fit, which makes watering a little rough, but it works.  And Reed stayed over and helped us decorate, with hot toddies and our traditional "Will's Christmas Playlist" playing in the background.  We even added a new tradition: adding photos to the tree.  No, we aren't fancy enough to use photo-ornaments -- I just printed some photos (using my sweet "new" HP Photo printer that I won at BlogHer and dude, you can print directly from Picasaweb From. The. Printer. WHAT?!) and we stuck them in the tree. And you know what?  It's kind of fun.  This morning, Reed made us a really cool origami tree topper, and le tree?  She is done!

closeup on the topper

Invitations and RSVP Cards
I've mentioned it before, but we would not be able to pull off this 4.5 month engagement + destination wedding without the help of my amazing friend Aly.  She is our wedding planner, graphic designer, stationer, bride-calmer-downer, scheduler, and ummm breakfast provider?  This girl is seriously on top of her game; some day when she owns her own wedding planning and coordination business, she is going to make bajillions of brides so happy! Not only did she design and build our entire wedding website (if only you could see the silly thing I cobbled together at first), she combined Will's Uncle Bruce's beautiful artwork with some really lovely text.  And made the RSVP cards.  And designed the email Save the Dates.  And came over this morning, with bagels, supplies and an extra printer just in case, to lead the invitation-assembly charge!  We got them all done, and I am set up with a Word template for printing on envelopes when we pull together the last few missing addresses.  Which, btw, is super easy with my fancy new aforementioned printer. I love this printer, yo. Also, did I mention that the invitations are gorgeous?  (thanks to Taylor for providing the confidentiality censorship)

Motion Sensor Light
A few months ago, I realized that at night, it's kind of hard to see the bottom few steps of the stairs that lead from the kitchen down to the basement (where we do laundry).  Especially if you're carrying a hamper and making extra shadows.  I asked our landlord if we could install a motion sensor light, and he offered to pay for it.  I immediately ordered it from Amazon and received it, and it sat in the house for oh, maybe, a month two months?  Ok, it's been busy, and too dark to do it after work.  But still.  Today I finally hung the damn thing, and I'm happy to say that it works perfectly for some reason it does not work.  Soooo ok fine.  But I got it hung!  Eventually I'll get it working?

Spice Rack
Back in August, I installed a DIY spice rack situation in the kitchen.  I was pretty damn proud of myself, but soon we ran out of room.  I bought some new mesh drawer liner things (uhhh over a month ago?) but had yet to install them.  It was annoying both to-do-list and practicality-wise, and finally today I took care of it.  Behold the wonder that is our even more spectacular wall of spices!  Now all of our cooking spices are within easy reach, right next to the stove.  The baking spices (cinnamon and nutmeg and such) are still going to live in the pantry though, because they are used much less often and hardly ever while cooking.

Kitchen Makeover and Office/Guestroom Plans
The brilliant Melissa (of Blitz, the design firm that did the Disqus office, of whom I am completely enamored) came over on Saturday morning to take a look at our back room.  It is currently an office (meaning that Will's desk is in there, along with a ton of boxes) but I want it to be an office/guest room. I don't have a lot of vision for this room though, because it is pretty tiny, and let's face it: I'm not a designer.  But give Melissa a measuring tape and a floor plan and girl can work magic!  For about $1,000 (sofabed, file cabinets, shelves, area rug, throw pillows), we can transform this room into a really cozy, library/study-inspired space, with enough room for Will's desk, a sofabed, and plenty of office storage.  Now we just need $1,000!

While Melissa was here, I gave her my "oh, so by the way, there's some stuff in the kitchen I could use some help with" tour -- and she had the genius idea of moving the microwave on top of the dishwasher (that no, I still haven't hooked up - but I will! I will!) to make room on the built in hutch for my pretty glass jars of grains (and the knives). There's enough room to set stuff down for prepping, and it looks much cleaner too.  And wouldn't you know it? The microwave fits perfectly in the space on top of the dishwasher.  And because I moved all those spices and things out of the way, there is more room on the kitchen cart for chopping and prep (and eventually, to open the dishwasher).  Love it.  So THANK YOU, MELISSA.


...and some bonus decoration pictures
Because...well...you made it this far, and tis the season and all!

Dining table centerpiece

The front (living room) window

You didn't think I'd forget about Chanukkah, did you?
Can you find the hidden Star of David?
What about the Mistletoe (ok, so that's more Christmas)?

Decorating is awesome.

Productivity is awesome.

Awesome Awesome Awesome.

Engagement Photos!

Oh jeez.  Has it really been two weeks since I posted the sneak peek of our engagement photo session?  (yes. the answer you are looking for is yes.)

The ever-wise Tricia pointed out that we are planning a wedding during Holiday Season - and I'll add that it is also during Open Enrollment and Benefits Renewal Season (HR people, can I get a what what? This is a little bit of work, no?).  We might be a little bit nuts to be planning this wedding so quickly, and in such a busy time of year, but honestly I like it this way.  I like that I don't have to wait a year (or more) to marry Will.  I hardly want to wait until February (luckily, the sentimentality of getting married the weekend we met helps a sap like me when it comes to waiting).

Anyway, we were lucky enough to be able to find time to take our engagement photos with Emily before the craziness of the holidays, and I am pleased as punch to be able to share some of our photos with you.  Emily wrote a beautifully sweet post on her blog about our session (as she always does for her clients, because she's fantastic).  Check it out, and check out her other posts, her other galleries, her beautiful website.  Because she is one talented photographer.

And now, photos! I'll probably post a couple more pictures when I get the CD from Emily...just because they're all so great and it's impossible for me to choose just a few favorites (and I can't figure out how to insert from the main gallery without purchasing them right now, and the full CD is coming soon).

For now, these are some of my "they give me the warm fuzzies" favorites from Emily's post:

Always good to start a photo shoot with Fenton's.

Go Pens!

We had so much fun running around Berkeley, taking photos in some of our favorite spots, acting goofy and laughing a lot.  Can't wait for Em to take pictures on our big day :)