Crafty

I'm busy at work and trying to finish things up for the long weekend (I took off tomorrow as well!), but I just had to take a second to post the inspiration image that kicked off my centerpiece idea... which will be coming to life tomorrow at my first "Wedding Craft Night" that I'm hosting at home for my mom, Manda, gramma, aunts and girl cousins! I absolutely cannot WAIT to hang out and chat with all of them, and mostly - I cannot wait to see some of my wedding visions actually happening instead of just being in my head and on my blog.

I blogged about this project ages ago and am giddy that I finally have a chance to give it a shot!

Have a great holiday weekend! I'll be back with pictures and a recap from our craft night after tomorrow :).

Weeks

Seeing as tomorrow marks a mere 4 months til we say I do, I was starting to panic a bit about my centerpieces. We are officially at a point that I can count down til our wedding in weeks and not months.  Yikes! So, I decided to get up at a halfway decent time on Saturday morning and made a promise to myself that it would be a productive day. We picked up Manda and headed to the Farmer's Market for donuts and some herb garden shopping, and then I convinced her and Dan to tag along to the Oak Park Economy Shop for some vase hunting. To say that our trip was a success would be putting it lightly - Manda and I scoured every room and every shelf and found a TON of vases in an assortment of shapes and sizes! Since almost every one was 50% off the already low prices, I spent less than $20 and walked out with 3 big bags full of goodies. We picked so many out of one specific room that the ladies said they wanted to hug us!

While we were at the Farmer's Market I got the email I'd been holding my breath for - our engagement pictures were ready and online for us to check out!! So, after rushing home to check them out we picked up Gramma and headed to lunch at Panera with a laptop in tow so she could see them right away too :).

Our disk is in the mail this week and I'm sure I will plaster my facebook account and this blog with the photos just as soon as I have them... but for now I took a quick screen grab of my #1 favorite to put as my desktop background and post here because I absolutely LOVE it.

(Photo by Studio 6.23)

After oohing and aahing over our  photos, more errand running led us to a Goodwill store that I hadn't been to yet, which was another jackpot for vases! Manda has expressed to me that she wishes she was able to help more with wedding stuff, so it was great to have her there with me helping to pick out pieces for a crucial part of our decor.

Among other little things, I also tried my hand at another paper flowers tutorial that I found online, and I couldn't be happier with the insanely simple directions that resulted in an insanely cute little flower. It's easily customizable in size and color and will be a perfect project for the first flower making get together I'm going to have this weekend while Dan kicks off what he's referring to as "Bachelor Party Summer"!

Teamwork

We fulfilled a wedding requirement last weekend by spending our day in a church school cafeteria for pre-cana. While typically run by a married couple in the church, our session was run only by the husband of the team, as his wife had to work that morning. To say I was disappointed in the lack of a female perspective throughout the day would be an understatement, but there are worse things. Regardless, our guide was engaging and honest (sometimes almost to a fault), and I loved that he used personal examples to help expand on different topics.

If I'm being completely honest, I wasn't looking forward to the day in general (having to be somewhere at 9am on a Saturday - and paying $195 for it - is not my idea of a good time), but thanks to some nudging from Dan I attempted to approach it with a positive attitude. Although I didn't get nearly as much out of the day as I was hoping and expecting to, there were a couple of key things that really struck me, and will continue to as we prepare for marriage together!

In a morning small group activity, we were tasked with coming up with the 4 top things that are needed for a successful relationship. Most everyone threw out the typical "honesty", "compromise" and "humor" answers (which I agree with, don't get me wrong), but when Dan said "teamwork" some others at the table almost looked shocked. I realized quickly how right he was though - and maybe it is more a "thing" of ours than it is with others - but we really and truly are a team! A word that has been drilled into our heads since kindergarten - teamwork - and how crucial it is! I loved that Dan dove deeper into the exercise than any of the rest of us in the group, searching for components of a relationship that are absolutely necessary but not the first things that often come to mind. And, I always love a reminder of just how perfect our little team of two is :).

Prior to lunch we were told to write letters "from one lover to another". While the title is just about as cheesy as they come, I knew I would LOVE this exercise as I adore any little physical memento of our time together that I can get my hands on. I save ticket stubs, plane tickets from trips we've taken together, hotel key cards from nights away. But the things I love most in my box of saved memories are the written pieces - the list of things Dan loves about me that he gave me on a retreat 2 years ago, the note he left on my car the afternoon of our first date telling me what time he would pick me up, the torn sheet of paper that he scribbled "come over if you want bacon" on. So, we wrote letters to each other and read them over lunch - where I promptly got all teary eyed, Dan made fun of me, and we went on with our meal :). But, you'd better believe I've read that letter a solid dozen times in the few days since, and I will continue to read it for years to come. The letter was a perfect reminder of just how blessed and fortunate we are, and sometimes, those reminders are exactly what I need. He pointed out our luck in both having jobs in a rough economy, our awesome puppy Louie Louie, the house that we OWN together and have put so much of ourselves into, and most importantly - our relationship, which has grown so much over the years and will only continue to do so.

I could go on forever about all of the incredible things about Dan (aww), but as I know a long post without any pictures can get boring quickly, I will end it here. And, in the months to come when I'm stressed about wedding planning or any of the other things that come with life, I'll read my letter and remember that I am a part of a really incredible team.

Stand Up

Bridget braved the nasty cold and rainy weather with me yesterday for a run to Goodwill and a trip to the city to check out a paper store that was not nearly as exciting as I was hoping it would be. We found a couple more $1 vases at Goodwill for the centerpiece collection, but I'm sort of at a point that I think I need to start venturing out to other places or I won't end up with the "collected" and varied look that I'm going for. An excuse to go to more thrift stores is not a problem, so hopefully I can check out a couple others next weekend. And, with the Farmer's Market opening this coming weekend as well, I'm hoping that means nicer weather is coming and I'll start seeing more garage sales in the neighborhood and can find all kinds of vases for next to nothing!

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to display 200 cupcakes at the reception, and officially decided against trying to find or build one huge tower of some sort to hold them all. Instead, I'm envisioning a tablescape full of painted DIY cake stands... which I started collecting materials for at Goodwill already over the weekend. My gramma will likely panic a bit when and if she finds out I've added yet another project to my ever-growing list, but this one isn't necessarily new as I'd talked about it before, and it would be replacing the project of getting Dan to build a giant tower... so I think it's ok :).

Here's a picture I found somewhere out on the web that's hopefully a good indication of what my pieces will look like...

I'm traveling for work this week and excited that will provide some much needed time to sit down with my laptop and work on our invitations. Bridget did some brainstorming with me yesterday and I have a couple new ideas for them, so I'm hoping the inspiration will start pouring out on screen and I'll have a solid design going in no time. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Lately

I am pretty much obsessed with all things type these days, as I start to design all the little random elements for details that will make our wedding truly us. I've been working on cupcake toppers, and stickers for the boxes that extra cupcakes can be taken home in. Little pieces of welcome "kits" for the hotel have been started. I haven't been entirely successful in terms of a solid design, but have opened up my invitation file several times to see where it takes me.

As I'm sure I've noted both here and on my other blog before, I tend to find a ridiculous amount of inspiration on the web, scrolling through my favorite blogs and doing random image searches on google and flickr.

So, since I don't have anything specific to post about today, I'm instead using this space to corral some of my latest favorite images involving type!

Happy Feet

Dan and I had a pretty typical Friday night to kick off our weekend - I got home from work, we picked up Manda, and we spent the evening just the 3 of us and Louie Louie. I absolutely love witnessing the relationship that Dan and Manda have grown to have over the last several years - they truly do act like brother and sister already, and it couldn't make me happier.

I insisted on starting off our evening with a trip to Target, which was thankfully successful and left me with these for all the guys! -

Argyle socks in gray and turquoise? Perfect! (Manda is a great model, huh?) :)

The rest of the weekend was full with a family party Saturday and Mother's Day yesterday, but since we were in Bolingbrook already after lunch we took my mom, Manda and Mr. Lawler to see the hotel we have our wedding block at! We ended up sitting at the bar for quite awhile chatting with the bartender who swears he will be there the night of our wedding to ensure we have the best after party possible. We got a TON of details from him about all the fun things the hotel offers, and found out that there are 4 other weddings with blocks there the same day that we'll likely be partying with late into the night. Saying that I'm insanely excited would be an understatement.

I also made a weak first attempt at paper flowers on Saturday night, and it was a total disaster. But, I've watched some tutorials online and done some further reading on tips and tricks, and I'm ready to give it another shot and get those going this week. Wish me luck!

In Between

I've gone back and forth a million times trying to decide if I want to wear a veil or not for our ceremony. Based on my hopes for my hair being in a slightly messy bun of curls off to one side and adorned with some kind of flower, I sort of felt like a veil wouldn't quite work. My seamstress suggested a birdcage veil, but I immediately shot that idea down by stating matter-of-factly that "I am not trendy enough".

Then I saw today's featured wedding on Style Me Pretty and fell in love with the gorgeous bride (not to mention every other detail of the wedding), and considering her hair is literally EXACTLY what I want mine to look like and it looks incredible... I'm officially kicking around the idea of a birdcage veil. It'd be easy to remove for the reception if I wanted, and it's a simple little "plus-up" that I think would add a touch of style to otherwise unstylish me.

I went through the entire gallery for this wedding and saved every possible image of the bride's hair, and will be emailing them to my stylist stat. Now I just have to figure out if I can DIY the veil.

Meanwhile, this blog post link from a friend and yet another image from the wedding above have me seriously considering a "first look" moment for Dan and I prior to the ceremony.

I have always been in the "We cannot see each other before the ceremony!" camp, but the thought of a bit of private time for just the two of us (well, and our photogs) before 200 of our closest friends and family members see us just sounds so... perfect. And, let's be honest, for as panic-stricken as I can get, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to calm my nerves about seeing Dan for the first time BEFORE I have to walk down a huge long aisle without tripping.

One Down

Flats for the reception have been ordered! And thanks to a generous Christmas gift card to Kohl's from Mr. Lawler that we'd yet to use, I didn't technically spend any money on them. Sweet!

These pretty little sandals ran me under $30 after tax and shipping - no complaints here! And though I have yet to see them in turquoise, I did try on the shoe in black in store and love them so much I just might drop my hunt for heels and stick to my original plan to wear only flats. Now I just have to convince myself not to wear them all summer so they're still in pristine condition when the big day rolls around.

We're meeting with one of our groomsmen's brothers tonight to chat DJ business, as he and a friend have been running the dance floor at weddings and parties for more than 15 years. Tomorrow night, we're heading out to meet with our caterer again and hope to finalize our menu selections so I can get those designed and ready to print. Bridget spotted paper lanterns in the dollar spot at Target last night that are literally a perfect color match to the bridesmaid dresses, so 5 of those have been added to the growing pile of wedding stuff on our front porch. AND!!!! We had our engagement picture session with the fabulous Ben + Mindy last Friday and it was a blast. We should have our pictures in just a few weeks and I absolutely cannot wait to see them.

Oh, and I settled on a font for all the wedding goodies! I know this is likely not something that stresses out "normal" people, but as I've hinted at before, choosing a font to use for everything from invitations to cupcake toppers has been a major decision for me. I couldn't manage to find a free version of my font choice anywhere, so it ran me $29, but since I used a gift card for my sandals that's pretty much like breaking even, right?