Over-sharing

With the holidays here and many a family gathering to be had, I have to remind myself that almost no one cares about the wedding beyond any involvement that they may have. The exceptions are (as far as I know) my mom, my cousin (and the newest bridesmaid), Sarah and probably my future mother in law (if I saw her more often)
I love to talk about the wedding. I'm excited about all the little details, the tutorials for crafts I've found and the fact that I found the perfect source for tissue paper in the internet but others don't care and that's ok.
I'm sure people will want to know the basics: the date, the venue, the dress and maybe the rings. What they don't want to know or care about is the flavor of cupcakes we're having or the shade of lipstick I'll be wearing (which I can't actually tell you).
So family and friends, I promise you now, I will only answer questions that are asked and answer them directly. I will not go on and on about the tiny details only I care about. You'll probably enjoy the wedding better the less I tell you. ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This blog is supposed to be about the wedding but on a day when we are supposed to think of all the things we are thankful for, I'd like to take a moment to mention how thankful I am for my Lawrence. He is the most wonderful guy in the planet and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life. I am also thankful for the new family I've gotten because of him.
Love to all <3

The Dress Part Four

I broke the cardinal rule of dress shopping on Wednesday. I continued to try on dresses after I had decided what I wanted to wear. Now, it wasn't the end of the world for me because 1. I have yet to make any purchases and 2. the experience helped me define what I want.
I went to visit a friend of mine who has experience catering to get his advice on how to cater the wedding which put me on 6th Ave, the hip and trendy neighborhood in Tacoma. On 6th Ave there is a little wedding dress shop called the Wedding Bell. On a whim, cause I was there, I decided to stop in and see if they could put me in some dresses, just cause I could. The girl who helped me was really nice and listened to the things I was looking for in a dress. I told her I wanted tulle and for it to be short. She pulled the near perfect dress right off the bat. The sample she had in my size was long but of course it could be ordered in the shorter length.

Pretty right? I loved the fact that it had a tulle skirt and LOVED the way the bodice made me look. I was not in love with the detail on the skirt though. After trying on several other dresses that weren't as awesome as this one, I told the bridal consultant (cause you can't call them sales people) that my parents were the ones supplying my funds and I'd have to go talk to them. I did call my mom and asked her if she'd buy the dress for me but when I told her how much it cost, she said no (and I don't blame her).

What we decided to do is stick to the original plan (and by original I mean the most recent incarnation). We'll purchase the tulle skirt and make the top ourselves.
Mom seems to think we can recreate the bodice of the dress I tried on. I, on the other hand, am a little nervous about attempting something like that.
I've never done anything like it. I can't seem to find a sewing pattern with a sweetheart neckline that defined and I have only made one garment without a pattern. We'll see what happens.




In other wedding news, I feel like I've got everything planned and now I'm just waiting to start working on things. That's not entirely true. I need to get in touch with a rental company about securing a couple more tables and chairs and maybe catering equipment. I'd really like to get engagement pictures done to use for the save the dates. The wedding website isn't even close to being done and I have been procrastinating about getting it done. At some point in the next couple of months, we should register. And I should be gathering materials for all my projects. I guess I'd better get working. :-)

The Dress Part Three: Tulle!

So, as mentioned in my last post, I've been reading Offbeat Bride and the associated forums. On the forum, someone posted the following picture.

How I wanted that dress, but I put it out of my mind. A dress like that was probably too expensive plus it didn't really fit in with the style of the wedding. Then I found this wedding profile on OBB. The bride had a short tulle skirt! I decided then that I really did want a tulle skirt.
When I pitched the idea to Lawrence, I mistakenly used the word tutu. This brought on comments about how I might be perceived as silly and not taking the wedding seriously. I explained to him that what I wear does not dictate how serious I am about our marriage. In the end, he said he'd marry me if I was wearing a paper bag, so if I wanted to do it wearing a tutu, it would be ok.
With that settled, I moved on to how exactly to put together my vision. I figured I could make the skirt easily but was stuck on what to wear on top. After a search though sewing patterns, I picked out five tops I thought would look good. Truth be told, though, I didn't really swoon over any of the tops. Then I remembered that often in the special occasion/evening wear section of pattern catalogs there'll be mix and match patterns, where you have one skirt and several different styles of tops in one pattern. I found two that I really like.
I also found an alternative to making my own tulle skirt.Sisters of the Moon Designs on Etsy makes really cool tutus for reasonable prices. I'll probably get this one.
Now, dear readers, help me decide which top I should wear to my wedding.

Option A

Option B

One Year to Go! A post about cupcakes, decor and the venue.

A year from today, if all goes well, I'll be married on on my honeymoon with my husband! Exciting isn't it?
I realize that I haven't posted in over two months. I hit a planning dry spell but since I recently started having an excess of free time (the nice way of saying being unemployed) I have restarted my planning efforts. An aide in rekindling my planning fire is Offbeat Bride and the Offbeat Tribe (their planning forum). I have gathered many a DIY tutorial, creative ideas and pieces of advice, as well as motivation to continue to plan this wedding of awesome.

Yesterday was the actual pre-wedding anniversary and I spent the whole day doing wedding related things.
To save space on the main blog I'm going to put a cut here. Behind it is a lot of really cool pictures so read on.

The Flowers

When I began to plan this wedding I had recently stumbled upon this tutorial for paper flowers. I thought that it was such a good idea. Paper flowers don't wilt, you can make them ahead of time, and they're probably cheaper than real flowers. Then I made some. I really didn't like them. So, real flowers. I did some research about which flowers would be in season in August. I thought daisies would be cute and playful but when the ladies decided on black dresses, I was at a loss as how to add blue to their ensembles. More research turned up the only naturally blue flower, the hydrangea. I searched the Knot and found the best of both worlds.

I was thinking of having my ladies carry hydrangea and daisy bouquets and I could carry a bouquet of just hydrangeas. This whole time, I've been planning on having my mommy grow the flowers and figuring out how to make bouquets then I started to wonder how much would it cost to have a florist make four bouquets. Nothing set in stone yet but a florist would have the resources to find the blue hydrangeas and it would save me some sanity. I will have to do some research.

440 Days and counting

I have a count down on my desktop. It's actually 439 days to go today but 440 sounded better.

On Saturday, I went to Paper Zone to pick up some paper to make another mock invitation. When I arrived, I found that the store was closing and everything was 50% off. After a quick call to my mom to confirm that she would reimburse me for the cost of the paper, I went in and bought all the materials needed for making the invitations, including envelopes. I did have to make a change due to the lack of choices but the invitations still look good. Now I just need to find a balloon stamp and design address labels.

I also made more cupcakes on Saturday. Orange vanilla from cake mix. The cake was good but I wish I could have made the frosting taste more like oranges. I think I'm going to get orange extract for the frosting next time. I much prefer this recipe to the Martha Stewart one because it's more orangecicle-y and easier to make. The frosting, on the other hand, is labor intensive but one batch of frosting frosts multiple batches of cupcakes. The frosting is, if you recall, a Swiss meringue buttercream which requires you beat egg whites until stiff then beat in butter, one tablespoon at a time. My arms get really tired using only the hand mixer. I've got to find someone with a stand mixer to help.

After much discussion about the menu, Lawrence and I have decided to go with Mexican food instead of BBQ or picnic food. Mexican is something I know we can easily make ourselves, offers vegetarian options (my dad doesn't eat meat), and is a menu that has lots of room for people to help out. I need to get a hold of a friend of mine who has worked as a caterer. I really need his help figuring out how much to buy and how much to make of everything. Another thing on the food to do list is find out what it would cost to rent or buy those food heating things for serving (I'm sure they have a name, I just don't know what they're called). If it'll be too expensive to get those, we'll probably end up using Crockpot borrowed from friends and family.

Bridesmaid dresses and a veil

During our trip to David's Bridal, Rebecca, Jessica and Kat tried on bridesmaid dresses. Rebecca found this nice black halter dress that she loved and looked pretty good on her. She bought it. Jessica pulled a bunch of dresses to try on but didn't really like any of them. Kat found this really cute black sheath dress and though she didn't buy it, it was settled that because we were doing black bridesmaids dresses, the ladies were going to buy their dresses instead of making them.

Kat and Rebecca in their dresses (Jessica refused to photographed in any of the dresses she tried on)

I also tried on a couple head pieces with the dresses at David's Bridal. At the suggestion of Lawrence's mom, the consultant brought me some fifties inspired head pieces. This fascinator was perfect except for the $99 price tag. After examining the hat, I decided that I could make something very similar for a quarter of the price. We even went to Jo Ann's afterwards where I found feathers and a flower that work.

It did look really cute on me (though I can't seem to take a decent picture)

The Dress Part Two: Commercial vs. Handmande

So I've been procrastinating about posting (amongst several other things completely un-wedding related). I'm here now though and will probably make a couple posts since Lawrence and I have made some headway in making decisions.
On April 30th, I thought, for fun, me and my ladies would go to our local David's Bridal so I could try on dresses. I invited Kat, Rebecca, Jessica, my mom and Lawrence's mom, Maria and all of them showed. I of course was not intending to purchase a dress but what's the use of having a wedding date if you can't use it to try on dresses? So we riffled through the plus size racks (I admit it, I'm plus sized) and pulled the allotted three dresses for me to try on. Let's call them dress A, dress B and dress C.

Dress A

Dress B

Dress C

Now all these dresses were pretty. I especially loved dress C because of the length. My bridal consultant also pulled a dress that everyone seemed to love.

Dress D

Dress C and D were top contenders but the $500 price tag of both made them unattainable. Honestly, I was a little confused. The dresses were beautiful and looked good on me but even if I had the money, I wasn't sure either of the dresses were what I wanted. As I was mulling things over, I got a call from my dad. He had seen the pictures of me in the dresses and loved dress D. To my surprise, he offered to buy me the dress! Thing was, though dress D was pretty and made me look pretty, it was not what I was looking for, it didn't fit the feel of the wedding I've been planning. By the end of the conversation with dad though, I got him to agree to help pay for whatever dress I decided to wear.

I now had commercially made dresses as an option. Though I wasn't set on buying a dress, I started looking around for dresses that fit my vision that were also around the same price as the David's Bridal dresses. On The Knot I found Dolly Couture, a designer of short wedding dresses that were just a bit over the $500 price point. Then an epiphany! At the beginning of the dress search, before the Vogue pattern, I had Unique Vintage bookmarked. When I had initially looked, their selection was limited but my second look yielded more results. In fact, I found the perfect dress. I also found a great dress to change into at the end of the night! Now we just have to order the dresses.

Cookies, Cupcakes and Craft. Oh my!

The wedding planning has kinda stalled. We are at the point where we have a lot of things planned and now we just have to wait to make everything. Though there are still things we need to decide on.
We need to:

• decide on a ceremony site
• decide on our first dance song
• plan out the ceremony
• decide what the guys are wearing
• bunch of other little things

I spent this weekend doing wedding stuff. I had a long weekend, having taken Thursday and Friday off work. I started with a trip to Jo Ann for some crafting supplies. While wandering around in a part of the store I never visit, I found an isle dedicated to weddings crafts. It amused me. With invitation kits, veil making kits and little flowers to tie onto favors, it made me wonder what kind of bride would shop this isle? A truly crafty bride, like myself, doesn't need to shop for kits but makes everything from scratch. I just hope anyone who buys those kits knows that whatever element they made from that kit will not be unique to them. Anyway, I continued on to the scrapbooking section of Jo Ann and bought several blue papers and a small dowel for center pieces. I also stopped at a grocery store for ingredients for strawberry lemonade cupcakes, a different strawberry lemonade buttercream, marshmallow fondant and spritz cookies.

The Invintations

Admittedly, we have over a year until the invitations have to be mailed out but when you're doing everything yourself, the sooner you get things done, the better. I guess I started designing the invitations during this outing I went on with my future mother in law, Maria, near the beginning of the engagement. Maria and I went to the fabric store and Paper Zone. At Paper Zone, they have idea boards. On one was a three layer invitation; a background card stock, a medium color and the main paper. What a novel idea. I liked it. I picked out paper. Maria bought me samples. We even discussed size and looked at envelopes. After that outing, though, I left the invitations alone. I didn't need to worry about them for months, a year even.

Ok, so, we still don't have a budget (I promise this is relevant to the topic). In an attempt to figure out how much money we'd need for this wedding, I went out one Saturday and looked at the prices of things. I went to Cash and Carry to price dishes and food, Jo Ann to price fabric, ribbons, and brownie making things, and went to Paper Zone to price things for the invitations and the flowers (more on that later). I wandered around Paper Zone, notebook in hand, looking at the paper I had already picked out, envelopes and the like. It was then that I happened upon the square idea. I found square envelopes and thought “Hey, what a cool idea.” The next day I was reading iDIY, a do it yourselfer's wedding blog, and in a post, they had a link to a set of Photoshop brushes that really appealed to me and the style I wanted for the wedding. I then spent the rest of the afternoon downloading every font I found that also appealed to me.

The next weekend, armed with fonts, brushes, and new paper from Paper Zone, I set to work designing the invitations. With the help of my parents and little sister, I narrowed down the font choices from 30 to 3. By the end of the afternoon, I had a mockup of a 6.5”x6.5” invitation. The next day, I found out that a square envelope costs more in postage to send. I did the math, it would cost us around $10 more to send the square invites than rectangular ones. So now I've designed a 5”x8” invitation. It looks nice. This weekend, I'm going to print up a mockup just to make sure everyone likes the look, after another trip to Paper Zone of course.

The Cake

What's a wedding without a wedding cake? We'll have to find out since we're not actually having a big cake. A popular trend in weddings is to serve cupcakes and I'm taking it to the next level; mini cupcakes! I don't know why or how the idea got in my head but from the outset of the wedding planning I knew I was going to make mini cupcakes (not just mini cupcakes but a plethora of mini desserts actually). At first I wanted to make mini cheesecakes, mini pies, brownies on a stick, several flavors of truffles and the mini cupcakes to serve at the wedding but I have since thought about the daunting task of making all that (and the possible cost) and narrowed it down to the cupcakes, brownies on a stick (which I found a tutorial for here), and spitz cookies since my mom had gotten me a cookie press for Christmas this past year.

With the dessert list made, Lawrence and I had to make that huge decision every engaged couple has to make; which flavor of cake would we serve? I narrowed it down to two flavors and three recipes. Because we had already provided for the chocolate lovers with the brownies, I thought it best to have non-chocolate cupcakes. The fist cupcakes I made were orange vanilla bean cupcakes from Martha Stewart, though my test batch didn't include the vanilla bean because I could not find any at the grocery store. Lawrence loved the cupcakes and the Swiss meringue buttercream so we had cupcake number 1. I also wanted to have a strawberry cupcake since I absolutely love strawberries (so much so that I have them tattooed on me). I found a recipe for strawberry cream cheese cupcakes and one for strawberry lemonade cupcakes. I tried both. The strawberry cream cheese cupcakes were too moist and had seeds in them but the strawberry lemonade cupcakes were to die for though I somehow botched the frosting so that when I attempted to pipe frosting on to the cupcakes, the strawberries separated from the butter.

These are my attempts at cupcake making

The frosted orange vanilla cupcakes

What little strawberry lemonade cupcakes Lawrence left me to frost

The mostly frosted strawberry lemonade cupcakes

My first real attempt at piping. I couldn't pipe in a circle,

 there was always a side that ended up flat.

My spiky cupcake. I put a dot of frosting then pulled away.

I think I've finally decided that it will be ok if I don't pipe all the cupcakes and just use a knife or an offset spatula to frost them. No matter how the frosting gets on there, they'll still taste great!

Oh yeah, if you're asking "But Amy, where are you going to put a cake topper?" I have thought about this. A lot of couples who sever cupcakes in lieu of a big cake have a small cake made to cut but I thought that was silly (and out of my skill set). My plan is to make one regular sized cupcake of each kind of cupcake and put a bride pennant on the strawberry lemonade cupcake and a groom pennant on the orange vanilla one.

The Food

I'm a really picky eater. I always say I have the pallet of a 5 year old. I don't eat a lot of veggies and I detest fruits that parade around as veggies (such as tomatoes and cucumbers). So I guess it makes sense that I'd like buffets in terms of wedding food, there wouldn't be anything on my plate that I didn't choose. Truth be told, I don't think I've been to a wedding reception that had a sit down dinner. The most recent wedding I went to, my cousin Jaina's, had build your own burgers and salads. The two before that were receptions for my cousins Josh and David, each with a buffet of home made salads and meat and cheese platters. Perhaps it's my picky pallet or the lack of experience with a sit down dinner but I've always wanted a buffet at my wedding.

After much thought and a book from the library titled Cater Your Own Wedding. I decided that was the way to go, as long as we kept it simple. I had a very simple plan and menu. Store bought, or even home made, platters, meat and cheese, veggies, and fruit, with a build your own green salad and several other salads (macaroni, pasta, fruit, potato) made by various family members (those family members reading this, be prepared to be solicited for help in about a year, maybe sooner). Of course, this was all in my head and when I wrote it down and showed it to Lawrence, he made a change. Instead of meat and cheese (effectively sandwiches), Lawrence wants barbequed meats. Not the end of the world, and we know someone who makes good barbeque.

To drink, I figured we'd serve Thomas Kemper (or other brand) soda, lemonade and water. I'm still not sure about alcohol. A large part of the guest list won't be drinking for various reason (Mormons, children, recovering alcoholics). So I'm stuck with the dilemma of whether or not to serve alcohol for the other portion of the guest list that does drink. I'm a little worried that some people won't get out on the dance floor without a little liquid courage but maybe I'm wrong. When I told my bridesmaids I was thinking about having a dry wedding, both Jessica and Kat were incredulous. I keep wondering how tacky it would be to say (not anywhere official) BYOB or perhaps we will end up buying a couple bottles of wine and a case of beer or have a rum punch of some sort.

The Girls

What's the bridal experience without an entourage? I've actually got a tiny one, consisting of three gals.
Jessica, my little sister.
Rebbecca: coworker and good friend.
Kat: again, coworker and friend.
Each lady brings a different skill set. My sister knows my history. Rebecca has experience, already being married and planning her own wedding. Kat brings playfulness, the other day she had an epiphany that we should have bubbles at the wedding and she would be in charge of procuring them.
A couple of weeks ago, we all got together for lunch. You'd figure we'd just chat and throw out ideas. Nope, not with me around. By the end of lunch, each of my ladies had picked out their dresses. Each gal is a different body type so I didn't want to throw them all in the same dress. I also knew the price of "bridesmaid's" dresses but still wanted a cohesive look. What I decided was to have the ladies pick out patterns. So by the end of our first bridesmaid's get together, their dresses had been picked out. After lunch, Jessica, Rebecca and I went to our local Jo Ann Fabric store to browse fabrics. As the three of us walked up and down the aisles of fabric, I kept pointing out the color of blue I wanted them in, and Jessica and Rebecca kept saying it was too bright (though Jessi also kept saying it was my wedding and she'd wear whatever I wanted her to wear). I was then faced with a tough decision. Either stick to my guns and put them in a color they'd never wear again or compromise on the brightness of the color. I really didn't want to do either so I came up with a middle ground; they'd all be in black with the bright turquoise as an accent somewhere. Jessi's dress has a yolk that will be turquoise, Rebecca's a bow in the back, and Kat's a sash.
By the way, here are their dresses.

Kat's dress (she's as skinny as a stick)

Rebecca's dress which I absolutely love

Jessica's dress, it has pockets.

I've got three gals I can count on in the next year and a half and who I can't wait to have stand up for me when I say me vows. Now to start planning our next outing.

The Dress

I'll be honest, I had the dress picked out way before Lawrence and I became official. It all started with my weekly wedding night. Every Friday, TLC would (and still does) airs wedding shows, including Say Yes to The Dress. As I watched other women pick out their dresses, I started wondering what I might wear when Lawrence and I tied the knot. I checked out the selection of the salon featured on Say Yes to the Dress and found that I no longer wanted a ball gown. Perhaps it's because I didn't see my wedding as being a ball gown occasion. From there, I started to look for alternatives. I checked out a vintage inspired collection and, even though there were a lot of dresses, I knew where my dress had to come from. I fell in love with a Vintage Vogue pattern. It's a really pretty a-line dress with a full skirt and tea length hem. I plan on making the main color white (of course) with the neck, hem and belt turquoise. And without further ado, here's the dress.

The Wedding

So now that we've had the salad course, it's on to the main course of this blog, the wedding. Here are the basics:
Date: Saturday, August 11th, 2012
Place: We're still looking for a ceremony site but we're have our reception in a family friend's home in Steilacoom, WA
Size: The ceremony has a tiny guest list, only immediate family, my grandparents, our wedding party and their significant others. The guest list for the reception is at 85 though.
Colors: Turquoise and other shades of blue
Formality: dressy casual, I don't want to see jeans but I'm not wearing a ball gown or anything
Theme: playful, if you could call that a theme

The other big thing to know about this wedding is the amount of things I'm making myself or a friend or family member is providing.
The list includes:

• My dress
• At least one of the bridesmaid's dresses
• The flowers
• The invitations
• The food, including the cake
• The photobooth (the pictures will be the favors)
• Probably the decorations
• All the music
• The photography

So as you read on you'll learn about each element of the wedding then follow me through the next 16 months of planning. Right now, the wedding seems so very far away but I know with all the things I'm doing myself, I need all this time to create and practice. Wish me luck!

Amy and Lawrence

Lawrence and I met at a mutual friend's birthday party. Though our story began the previous summer when our mutual friend, Richard, wanted to invite Lawrence to a party I was co-hosting in an attempt to set us up. Sadly, Lawrence couldn't make it to that party but he was at one in November '09, invited by Richard. At the November party, despite not hitting it off right away (he berated me for invading his personal space), we ended up staying up all night talking. That night, we both knew that we had found our perfect mate. Lawrence didn't even balk at my questions about what kind of wedding he wanted or what to name our kids. At the time, I was living in Portland and had come up to Tacoma special for the party. In our talking, Lawrence and I agreed we would try a long distance relationship because we thought it was worth it but when it was time for me to go back to Portland, I just couldn't. There wasn't anything in Portland for me except a one bedroom apartment (the guy I moved there for dumped me and I had yet to find a job). With the lease up on my apartment the next month, I didn't see the point. After getting my things, Lawrence and I were inseparable. Even in those first weeks, we talked about running off to the courthouse and getting married. A year and a half later, we are just as in love as we were in the beginning. Though the proposal wasn't extremely romantic (“We should really get you a ring” “Is this one ok?” “Yup”), both Lawrence and I are looking forward to our life together and I', really looking forward to our wedding!

Amy

I've wanted to get married since I was in diapers. Maybe it was the dress. Maybe the glamor. Who knows. As a kid, I staged at least three weddings that we have proof of, with the neighborhood kids as my groom and attendants. I was always the bride. In high school, I was wedding obsessed. I read the bridal magazines and books. I even had plans of turning my obsession into a career by becoming a wedding planner (a plan which I thankfully did not follow). When I started dating, I dated seriously. I was looking for my soul mate, my life partner, my groom. And with each guy I dated, came a fantasy wedding. I imagined marrying Scott, my high school sweetheart, in our school's auditorium, surround by our friends. Max and my wedding was to take place in a garden, me in a big gown. Christoph and I were to wed at the Blue Mouse Theater, the $5 theater that plays the Rocky Horror Picture Show where he and I had met. I was going to walk down the isle to a remix of Pachabelle's Cannon and wear a beautiful ball gown with a sweetheart neck, cap sleeves, and black details. Even the Portland guy (so named because he lived in Portland causing me to move there), Chris, conjured wedding fantasies, even though we dated for a total of three months. But when Mr. Right came along, there were no wedding fantasies. Sure, I knew he was the one right from the start but I was more interested in our life together than the way would kick it off. Perhaps that's how I knew he was “the one.”