Clovers

I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate green on the tables, which are going to be predominantly black and white. At the moment, I am planning to have a black table cloth with white plates and napkins and a black on white damask centerpiece of fabric. The damask center piece I'm talking about will look like this (without the vases):



My mom picked out these as the actual center pieces to go on top of the damask fabric:


But this still left us with no green. I saw this cute Martha Stewart craft punch on the Michaels website that punches out little clovers. I went to the store today and picked it up, along with a couple shades of green cardstock paper. A little time spent punching and I now have LOTS of clovers:


I'm thinking what I'll do is sprinkle them on the damask around the centerpiece so it will add a little punch of color and incorporate the fact that we are both half Irish:


Anyway, I'm having fun playing with all the little crafty details. For one of my next projects, I bought some vellum paper that I am planning to print with a damask design to make these cute little votive candle wraps I saw on Etsy:


More updates later! :)

THE Venue

So we decided that we are going to have the wedding a little earlier. Originally, we were aiming for September/October. However, Brian's mom brought up the good point that if we did it then, Brian's brother (best man) and his family would not be able to come out for more than just the day of the wedding because his sister in law is a school teacher and would be back into the new school year by then. They live in New Hampshire, so this would make it really difficult for them. By bumping up the date again, not only will they be able to come out, but they will likely be able to visit for a week or so, giving Brian's brother time to attend his bachelor party.

So this is where it got complicated. My cousin James is getting married on July 3rd, and my cousin Holly is getting married on August 29th. To top it all off, we are all in each others weddings as bridesmaids/maids of honor/grooms men. I wanted to pick a date that was far enough in advance for us to save money and plan, that was not during either of their weddings, and was no later than the middle of August.

SO, we knew we had to start looking for a venue right away. After a few weeks of searching (and much stress from my divorced parents wanting to go two completely separate directions with things) we came across a place in Saratoga called the Saratoga Foothill Club. It is a really pretty venue with a nice little garden area for the ceremony, and a really pretty historic craftsman style building for the reception. I finally got the parents to agree to be on the same page, and was able to book the venue for Saturday August 7th. What I like about this place is that they only hold one wedding per day so you can choose your own hours, and they allow you to BYO alcohol with no corkage fees. Super score!


The best part is that the wedding package we signed up for takes care of the food, drinks, cake, DJ, linens, set up, and take down. All I'm going to need to do is choose the food and cake I want, pick my linen colors, and give the DJ the music we want to be played (since we are SO not having typical cheesy wedding music.) I feel SO much more relieved that many of these details are taken care of. Especially since I start my final semester this coming week, and will not have time to do a ton of wedding planning.

Anyway, I love the dress and the venue. I feel like this four day weekend was very productive! We have an appointment with Brittany to do our engagement shoot this weekend. She has very generously offered to do all of our wedding photography for free, and I couldn't be more excited. I can't wait!

THE Dress

I found it!

We had an appointment at Trudy's Bridal last Saturday and I found a dress that I absolutely fell in love with. Not only was it the one I loved the most, but it was also the lowest price of all the ones I tried on. Score!

I think at that point, it was about the tenth dress I'd tried on. I had tried on gowns that looked good, but none of them really did anything for me. This was the first gown I got truely excited about as soon as I put it on.

I had another appointment at David's Bridal after the one at Trudy's. I figured that even though I found a gown I loved already, it couldn't hurt to look at a few more. However, after seeing really high quality gowns at Trudy's, it was hard to like any of the ones at David's. Especially since they make you wear that stupid long line bra and petticoat to make the dress lay right. At Trudy's, you don't need to wear any of that stuff with your gown!

Not only that, but David's double books their consultants on weekends. This means that the lady puts you into a dress and then goes to help another bride. If you hate it, you're stuck sitting in the dress till she comes back to help you, because they don't want you doing any of it on your own. In an hour an a half appointment, you only get to try on 5-6 gowns total. Total waste of time. At one point I was stuck for about 10-15 minutes in a heavily beaded gown that was SUPER heavy and hurting my back. No bueno.

To top it all off, my consultant at David's was super rude. I told her features I liked in dresses so she could get an idea of what to pull for me. She put me in a HORRIBLY cheap taffeta gown that felt like a plastic table cloth. When she returned from helping the other bride she asked me what I thought and I politely told her it wasn't quite right for me. She proceeded to say "well you know that this is the dress you told me you wanted, right?"

WTF??? Just because I told you I like these certain features doesn't mean that this one dress is the one that puts them all together just right. What a B.

Needless to say, she didn't get a sale from me that day. For anyone out there who is not married, my advice is not to go to David's when that time comes. Not unless you want to end up in an itchy petticoat that is going to make you sweaty and uncomfortable all day.

Anyway, right after that appointment I went right back to Trudy's and ordered the gown I loved in my size. I'm so excited!!!

Sorry followers...no pictures or descriptions of the dress. Wouldn't wanna ruin it for the hubby to be ;-)

First Wedding Project

I saw these really cute wedding card boxes on Etsy. As cute as they were, I wasn't willing to drop $60-$160 bucks on one. I went to party city right after Christmas and found a set of three boxes for 50% off. They were a little dinged up, but it didn't matter since I was planning to cover them up with fabric anyway.

A little hot glue and some fabric and voila!



I cut out the bottom of the top two boxes so a card can be dropped in the slit in the top and will fall into the bottom. Layla of course helped me along the way...


Once I decide on the shade of green I am going to use (I've gone back and forth a lot) I'm planning to tie them all together with a green ribbin, kinda like you see here:


This one is pretty damn cute, but at least mine won't cost $125!!!

The Details

The Proposal:

He went around and took pictures of places that were significant to us. The place we first met, the restaurant we went to for our first date, my old apartment where we spent much of our time together....things like that. I came home to find an envelope on my nightstand that said "Hint 1 Lets Play..." When I opened the envelope there was one of those sentimental photos, as well as a photo of a place in my apartment where I had to go to find the next clue. When I went there I had to compare the photo to the current location to find what was different. This is where I found the next clue.

At one point, the clues led me to the kitchen. On our first date, I had made a joke about the fact that he was eating off a very pink plate. He actually went to that restaurant and asked them to buy one of their pink plates for this hint. When I opened the cabinet I saw this very out of place plate that let me know my clue was here.

Eventually the clues led back to the living room where he was and this is when he proposed. I of course started to cry before he even got the words out of his mouth.

The Ring:

The ring is a round cut solitaire from Tiffany & Co. in the classic Tiffany setting. Unfortunately, I only got to wear it for 2 days before I had to take it in to get sized down. They said it is going to take 2-3 weeks. Bummer :( So, besides the pic on the website, all I have to show you is this cell phone shot:



He did such an amazing job with the ring. I have never even talked to him about my likes/dislikes for engagement rings, and he did this all on his own without any help from my friends. I love that it is a classic style that can be paired with any wedding band when the time comes. I can't wait to get it back so I can wear it all the time!!

At the moment, we are thinking of getting married some time in September/October of next year. I don't have a big budget for a big grand wedding, so I don't see the point in having a prolonged engagement. I've also decided that my wedding colors are going to be black and white damask with green accents.


These aren't the invitations I'm going to use, but this image is a good representation of what I am going for. I'm going to try to do as many DIY projects as possible to cut the costs. The great thing about damask is that it is easy to find in fabrics, papers, and all sorts of fun things.

So now the planning begins. I bought a couple of bridal magazines to get some ideas, signed up on theknot.com, started working on a wedding website, and ordered a bridal bootcamp book that I'm hoping will help me get back into shape for the big day. I already have a gym membership, so I am hoping it will give me some ideas of routines I can do on my own without a personal
trainer.

The next step is finding affordable venues. So far, even budget weddings are looking like they are going to cost around 10k. I really can't justify spending this much on one day, seeing as we would like to buy a house as soon as possible. If it comes down to it, we may just skip the traditional reception all together and opt for a rented space in a restaurant for all our guests after the ceremony.

Well, that is all for now. I'm on vacation this week and have been enjoying the time to research wedding details. I'm planning to start looking for wedding dresses next month and hopefully will be closer to finding a venue. Stay tuned!

Big News

I'm engaged!

That's right folks! As of Christmas Eve, I'm an engaged woman!

I'm so excited!

Noisy Neighbors (updated)

My neighbors upstairs have been driving me absolutely insane lately. The guy stomps around cursing at his partner and calling her all sorts of vulgar and offensive names. I hear crashes and bangs that I believe could possibly be part of domestic violence, but there is no way to know for sure when you can't see it. I've called the police on two separate occasions because I figure that if I have any reasonable suspicion, it's my responsibility to give her the option to send his ass to jail. Nothing has resulted from any of the visits, so I'm assuming that there was no physical violence and they left, or she lied and chose not to press charges.

It just pisses me off because I hear the terrible things he says to her. Verbal and emotional abuse causes trauma that lasts so much longer than a bruise or a broken bone....but you never see anyone getting arrested for it.

Argh.

I had to go up there a little while ago and ask him to turn his music down as it is ELEVEN PM and I am trying to sleep. The music was so loud that it was literally vibrating my walls. C'mon....you're in your friggin 50's...do you really need to blast music at eleven o'clock at night?

I also asked him to quit stomping when he walked around. Currently, the music is off but the stomping continues. I'm so glad I don't have to get up early tomorrow morning.

I've devised a cease and desist letter to present to him. I've been too afraid to go up and confront him when he is in one of his rages, so I figure the letter is the best way to let him know it's time to shape up or ship the hell out. They are section 8 tenants, which means that if they get evicted, they could potentially lose their voucher from the county, and won't able to pay for housing.

On one hand, I don't want to see someone lose their housing. I work with baterers every day, and I know people are capable of changing their abusive behavior. However, it is absolutely not ok to let this behavior continue just because I don't want them to lose their housing. I'm hoping this letter is enough incentive to make him knock this crap off. If not, it's on him, not me.

Ugh...apartment management sucks ass.

**UPDATE***
So at 1am last night, I was woken up by someone saying "get the fuck off me!" I looked out my window only to see the female tenants practically dragging his sorry ass across the sidewalk because he was too drunk or high to even walk. Then he had apparently lost his keys and they were making all kinds of racket trying to figure their shit out.

Well that explains a whole lot...