Taking a trip to Build a Bear Workshop

Saturday before picking my grandmother up from the airport, my mom, sister, aunt, and cousin took my flower girl to Build a Bear to make her gift, or I should say, her distraction. Shylee is three and doesn't have a very big attention span so her new bear friend will (hopefully) distract her during the wedding.

It didn't take her long to decide on the pink bear. :-)


Shylee chose to put in a heartbeat (although I don't think she knew that's what it was) and then it was time for stuffing.


I'll also say here that she wanted to put a sound in her bear and promptly chose a song from iCarly. Not that I have any problems with that, but I didn't want her bear bursting out into song in the middle of our ceremony. Instead we got her a giggle, which could very well have everyone giggling on our wedding day. Oh well.

There are SO many choices of clothing in that store it is amazing.


My mom found the two wedding dresses in the store and Shylee chose one of those before seeing the rest of the store (we would have been there ALL DAY).




25 days!

Where has the time gone!?

Nick and I only have a month left! A lot has happened in the last week (see my last post for something truly exciting!) so we'll start with my first fitting on Thursday.

First let me just say that this seamstress is awesome and very inexpensive! I didn't need a lot done with my dress, just tightening the straps, tucking the lining of the dress in at the top, and the bustle. So I am only being charged $40 for my alterations!! Yay!!!

In this picture, you can see the top of the lining along the top of the dress. The seamstress is going to tuck and tack it so it won't show.


Here is kind of what my bustle will look like, right now it is just pinned in place.


Shannon was goofing off with my veil since she had her fitting before I got there.


Silly girl :-) (If only she had known then, and if you don't, see my last post)


I also got my shoes that day. I love how they are two-tone like my dress!


This last week we also decided to change the reception centerpieces from fruit to flowers. This is just going to be less stressful all around because we won't have to make them two days before the wedding (yes, that was the plan, but no longer). So I have been calling around and haven't been able to find a place that can get me 24 potted white lilies. If worse comes to worse, we will use fake calla lilies as the centerpieces, but I'd rather have live ones so that I can plant them after the wedding.

Yesterday we met with our photographer to get her paid and the details finalized. She said I was super organized (must be my OCD) and the appointment took all of 20 minutes.

I was going to post this on the one month mark, but that was two days ago and I couldn't very well write this post while Nick was here because of my dress pictures. Here is my to do list for the next month and what I have finished from the last list (again, updates are in bold):

-Finish buying decorations (almost done with this one, still need the taper candles and vases for the ceremony, a couple more candy dishes, and about 100 more little umbrellas)
-Finishing etching our toasting glasses & sand vase
-Contact our reception venue to see about setting up the day before the wedding
-Plan our rehearsal dinner
-Get our engagement announcement into the local newspaper
-Check on insurances
-Buy a card box
-Get marriage license
-Get our music selections to the person that will be doing the sound for the ceremony
-Finish buying our dessert plates and napkins (I was able to get everything else at Costco)
-Order our food
-Finishing gathering supplies for our photo guestbook
-Buy yellow roses for Grandpa's memorial table
-Finish buying our favors (still need the Multiple Sclerosis bracelets and M&Ms)
-Get our music list to the DJ
-Pay for our videographer
-Pick out our engagements pictures we want printed to put on the tables
-Finalize and print our programs
-Finalize the day of schedule and send to everyone involved in the wedding
-Call non-RSVPers
-Confirm that everyone in the wedding has what they need
-Gifts to the girls
-Honeymoon itinerary to our parents
-Pack for our honeymoon

So, a lot to do in the next month, but it will get done.

26 days! So exciting!

My sister is engaged!!

She came running in to my room last name at 1:00 AM saying her (now) fiance proposed at their midnight picnic! Yay! I'm so excited for them both and now I get to plan another wedding!!!

The happy couple :-)


Her ring is gorgeous!

My sweetie is wonderful!!

Nick brought me flowers at my work today!! They are gorgeous red roses and Stargazer Lilies (as if you couldn't tell)!!



29 days!!

Yippee! Another giveaway!

Are you changing your name after you get married? Head over to Miss Pug's Pawfect Wedding and check out the name change kit giveaway from Name Chance Express! This would be an awesome addition, making changing your name SUPER easy!

Even if you are not changing your name, check out the blog anyway!

36 days!

Mail time!!

I've received a bunch of stuff in the mail the last few days, but today I finally got our cake topper!! It is so pretty and will really add to the tropical theme we're going with for the reception. :-)



38 days!!

Awesome giveway!!

Looking for a Valentine's Day present for your SO? Head over to With this ring, I thee blog and enter the "Spreading the Valentine Love" giveaway. You have 13 chances to win!



These cards are so cute and an awesome way to show your love. Giveaway ends February 5th at 8pm PST so hurry over!

I'd have to say that I wouldn't be looking forward to the "Anything" card because I know that Nick would use it to make me drive his manual transmission car to the beach. I know I need to learn (I've gotten that lecture many times), but I'd prefer to learn in my own neighborhood.

45 Day Update

I posted this list at the beginning of this month, now let’s see what I’ve done (updates are in bold):
-Write Pampered Chef shower thank yous
-Nick needs to finalize and reserve the guys’ tuxes
-Assemble, address, and mail invitations
-Finalize what decorations and how many flowers we'll need
-Finish buying decorations
-Contact the seamstress that one of my friends recommended - My first fitting is in two weeks!
-Get my other shower guest list to my aunt
-Finishing etching our toasting glasses & sand vase
-Order ring dish from Paloma's Nest on Etsy
-Order orange tablecloths and table runners (since we couldn't rent them)
-Contact our reception venue to see about setting up the day before the wedding
-Plan our rehearsal dinner
-Decide for sure which crinoline I am using and send it out to be dyed (if it can be) - Chose the crinoline I can’t dye. Oh well, can’t win them all.
-Get our engagement announcement into the local newspaper
-Start looking for a place to live - We found a cute little house and get the keys tomorrow!!
-Check on insurances
-Make a mock up of one of our centerpieces
-Figure out what we’re using for a card box – I originally wanted to make one, but that may not happen
-We can get our marriage license anytime now, but will probably wait until the end of February
-Get our music selections to the person that will be doing the sound for the ceremony

Still a lot to do, but we're getting there!

Our house!

Nick and I have a house!! Well, we have found one to rent anyway. It is so cute and has two bedroom, a fenced backyard (for my dog), and a garage! We sign the papers tomorrow and then get the keys on Thursday. I can't believe how fast we got it too! I found it in the newspaper on Monday, Nick and I went and saw it on Thursday, and they called yesterday and told us it was ours! Yay!! Thank you Lord for letting this happen so quickly.

I'll post pictures as soon as I can. :-)

49 days!!

I have to tell you the joke Dad & I played!!!

Dad and I went to Mr. Formal to pick out his tux and get him fitted.

Oh, here's some background: Dad does NOT where pants (only shorts) and even worse is anything resembling dress clothing. He has been in a tux about four times in his life and had to be forced every time. He wears shorts everyday, even in snow, and his only nice pants are jeans which get worn at funerals and weddings ONLY.

Okay, so back to the story, we went to Mr. Formal (his 5th time wearing a tux) and when we were getting ready to leave, we thought it would be funny if we told Mom that we ordered him tuxedo shorts. The gal who helped us was AWESOME and printed us a fake receipt with tuxedo shorts on it!!

The look on my mom's face was PRICELESS when she saw that receipt. It was hilarious!! We had to pull out the real receipt pretty quick or she would have went into hysterics, but it was great!!

I LOVE Etsy!!

More specifically, Paloma's Nest and the lovely ring dishes they make!!



I was about 90% sure about using a dish instead of a pillow, but seeing mine with our date on it? Now I am 190% sure!!



Seriously, if any of you are considering using a ring dish, I highly recommend Paloma's Nest on Etsy. Amazing!

And They're Off!!!

No, I didn’t go to a race track (although that does sound like fun). I finally finished our wedding invitations and mailed them off! They are officially out of my hands and into the ones of our trusty (I hope) post office.

We did the WHOLE invitation process by hand and what an experience that was! Not one that I think I’d want to do again, but at least I’ve done it once. Let me walk you through it, shall I?

Step One: Gather supplies
Here is what we used:



-Invitation backing: red/white two-sided card stock (super cute red hearts on the white side)
-Printed: ivory shimmery paper
-Ivory envelopes
-Envelope labels: full page labels (these worked awesome, I’ll talk about them further down)
-Three different paper cutters (one would have worked, but I tried two others first)
-Tape stick (found on the scrapbooking aisle of Wal-Mart)

Step Two: Print invitation, RSVP, & direction wording on shimmery paper



Once I had all of the wording the way I wanted it, I took all of the shimmery paper and my flash drive with the files on it to my mom’s work and printed everything on their giant printer. It was awesome and you wouldn’t know it wasn’t done professionally!

Step Three: Cut paper



One piece of red paper made the backing of one whole invitation. I cut the paper in half and then cut one half in half again (confused yet?) so make three pieces.



The shimmery paper was easier because I had printed lines showing where to cut. All I had to do was cut on the lines and trim the edges a little bit. Piece of cake!

Step Four: Assemble pieces



Pretty straight forward, use tape stick on the back of the shimmery paper and then stick it to the red side of the backing. I did the same with the RSVPs (leaving the white/heart side blank so guests could write us a note) and then the direction cards were double sided.



Step Five: Place invitation in envelope and seal

Voila! You have assembled your invitation! Now you just need to paste the label on the front of the envelope and…hmm, I mentioned full page labels didn’t I? I found the template for our wrap-around labels online (love the Internet), but couldn’t figure out how to get them on the envelope without messy glue. So I went to my local Office Max and found full page mailing labels. Great! They were super easy to print the labels onto and then I just cut them down to size!

Step Six: Place label and stamp on front of envelope.




Yes, I am sending an invitation to Mickey and Minnie Mouse, I couldn’t resist. :-D

I made sure to assemble one invitation beforehand and took it to the post office. I wanted to know exactly how much postage I would need before I started this whole endeavour. What luck! Our invitations were only going to need one $.44 stamp. I couldn’t help but buy the king and queen of hearts! They are so gosh darn cute!!

Step Seven: Place in hands of post office.



On another note, WE'RE GETTING MARRIED IN TWO MONTHS!!! I am so excited, I really wish it would come faster, but good things come to those who wait right?

Gotta Love a Guy in a Suit

Or tux as the case may be. I FINALLY got Nick into the local tux rental shop to pick out tuxes and get them reserved for the wedding. It was really fun to watch and my does he look handsome in a tux!

These lovely pictures were taken with my phone so bear with me.





I don't have any pictures of Nick in the tux he picked out, but here are pictures I found online at Mr. Formal (where we are renting them from). Nick will be wearing Andrew Fezza "Cannes" in white and the other guys will be in black. Then they will all be wearing white shirts and red vests and pocket squares.





So sexy!! (I mean Nick, not the guy in these pictures)

Heigh-ho heigh-ho...

It's off to working on invitations I go. *whistle whistle whistle*

I've been hard working on the invitations for about a week now and they are almost done! I can't wait to show them to you, but that won't happen until they have been sent off. I'm so excited!!

61 days to go!!!!

Happy New Year!!

Okay, I'm a few days late, but it has been a BUSY few days!

Nick and I had our first bridal shower on Sunday, a wonderful Pampered Chef shower, and it was a lot of fun! We had a cooking contest against one of the great couples from my church and they won. Now I just need to write out my thank you cards!

I was looking at my to do list yesterday and here is what I'd like to get done this month:

-Write Pampered Chef shower thank yous
-Nick needs to finalize and reserve the guys’ tuxes
-Assemble, address, and mail invitations
-Finalize what decorations and how many flowers we'll need
-Contact the seamstress that one of my friends recommended
-Get my other shower guest list to my aunt
-Finishing etching our toasting glasses & sand vase
-Order ring dish from Paloma's Nest on Etsy
-Order orange tablecloths and table runners (since we couldn't rent them)
-Contact our reception venue to see about setting up the day before the wedding
-Plan our rehearsal dinner
-Decide for sure which crinoline I am using and send it out to be dyed (if it can be)
-Get our engagement announcement into the local newspaper
-Start looking for a place to live
-Check on insurances

Whew! What a list!! This is going to be a busy month and I'm glad that some of those will be really quick.

My Christmas Epiphany (or Nick's Christmas Present)

I truly had an epiphany in November regarding Nick's gift. I'm not sure if I've talked about this before, but one of Nick's main hobbies is tabletop gaming. He plays one game called Blood Bowl, which is fantasy football in board game form. And when I say fantasy football, I mean it. His team is made up of dwarfs and there are also elves, orcs, giant rats, etc. (Hence "fantasy") Get it?

So I was watching football one Sunday (yes I watch football) and saw a commercial for NFLshop.com where you can customize any teams jersey. Nick's team is called Da Beards (dwarfs have long beards, get it?) and is Chicago Bears colours. I decided to get him a Bears jersey with his teams name on it.

Isn't it great!!?


I was so excited that I already gave it to him and he LOVED it!!! Yay!!

All right people, we now have 99 days, let's hustle!

That’s right, as of today we’re into double digits and there is so much left to do!!!



This month my goals are:
-Print, assemble, and address the invitations
-Reserve our tablecloths & candelabras
-Finishing etching our toasting pilsners (started months ago and I kept putting it off)
-Etch our sand vase
-Get the guys’ attire finalized and reserved
-Start planning our rehearsal dinner
-Confirm the cake design
-Figure out how we're getting to the ceremony, reception, and back home
*Finish Christmas shopping!!

There is so much to do and I am blessed with a wonderful fiance who doesn't mind helping and great MOH and bridesmaids to help too! I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas! Nick and I have been engaged for almost a year and it has FLOWN by!!

What have I done since the last time?
-We have finalized our invitation design, but you don't get to see it until they are all done and in the mail.
-We had our first counseling session last night. It was really interesting find out our strengths and weaknesses and now we know what to work on.
-Got together with my DOC and planned out the ceremony and reception layouts.
-I put in for time off from work.
-Our honeymoon is finally booked! Our we are officially going to (I know, there has been lots of discussion on where we're going) the beautiful island of Kauai, Hawaii.


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I am very excited, having never been to Hawaii, and this island looks absolutely gorgeous. *sigh* I'm so glad we only have 99 days left! I can't wait!!!

Have a happy weekend!

Getting pretty

Wednesday I had the day off for Veteran's Day so I had my hair and makeup trial and my sister (maid of honor) was gracious enough to come with me to take pictures to show you!

It took 1 1/2 hours to curl my hair and then about ten minutes to finish putting it up. Ha ha!! But it turned out absolutely gorgeous!!!






My makeup was interesting to do. It turned out great, but my eyes are sensitive so they watered a lot and didn't like the fake eyelashes, but I got used to them. The picture kind of looks funny, but I looked like a vixen (sister's words) with the hair and makeup.


It was so much fun and I can't wait for Nick to see me in hair, makeup, and dress on our wedding day!!!!

Hair today

After trying on my dress a couple of weeks ago (check out that post, the dress is AMAZING!!) Mom and I decided on a whim to go to Vancouver to lunch and the mall.

Let me just say that Golden Tent is the best Mongolian restaurant around and I would gladly drive the 35-45 minutes everyday for it's goodies (if you've never had Mongolian, you MUST try it!!! That is your homework). After lunch, we walked the Vancouver Mall (I'm sorry, Westfield Shopping Center) and I found my girls' hair accessories.

MOH and bridesmaids will be wearing these lovelies in their hair. They are not perfectly white, but very cute and I couldn't resist the feathers.


My two junior bridesmaids will be wearing these headbands that tie in to the others with the flowers.


And my adorable flower girl will be wearing this headband. There is not flower on it, but her dress will have red bows on it, so I think it will be a good match.


I haven't decided what to do with my hair yet. I'm going for a half-up do like these:




I will have a waltz length veil for the ceremony and pictures, but I want some sort of red flower for my hair for the reception. We'll see what I can find.

I love costumes!!

Last night was my mom's work Halloween party and I went all out on my costume. I was originally going to be a Victorian era vampire, with Christopher's outfit from Project Runway.


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But ended up looking like a saloon girl because my teeth weren't working for me, so I didn't wear them. So this is me and let me know which you think I am.


This is my mom (on the right) and her friend. They went as Evil Things 1 & 2 (my idea).


My sister and her boyfriend went to the party as professional thieves.


We also had a dead Billy Mayes at the party. It was a lot of fun, I love dressing up and I even won best costume!! Yay me!

Now I just have to decide what to wear on Halloween to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Hmm....

Save our date!!!

Well we officially mailed (most of) our save the dates last saturday and I can't wait to hear what people think of them!! We have a few stragglers that haven't gone out because of lack of address, but hopefully they will be going out soon. I am really pleased with how they turned out!! I made them through Zazzle and it was super easy and a great price (so if you are looking to make postcards, T-shirts, etc. check them out).





The only problem I have is that I have 400 of them!! I ordered 200 (and only really needed to order 150), but Zazzle sent me two orders of 200 so I got to keep the extra without being billed for it. Now I just have to figure out what to do with 250 extra save the dates. Wallpaper maybe? :)

149 days from today!! Whoopee!!!!

Registry fun

Nick and I spent last Sunday registering at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We had already pre-registered at a bridal expo back in January so all we needed to do was go in and scan items. They were very helpful, explaining everything, providing bottles of water, and giving us a new gun when ours ran out of batteries. They also provided us with those lovely registry cards that we can include with the bridal shower invitations (and only the bridal shower invitations).

Registering was actually a lot of fun. I kind of felt overwhelmed at the beginning because we don't have a place to live so we didn't really know what we would need. Bed, Bath, and Beyond provides a great checklist, which really helped (even if it did have a lot of stuff we don't need).

Being a naughty blogger (and not having a charged battery for my camera) I didn't take any pictures, but I do have to show you what Nick was most excited to register for.


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That, my friends, is a motion sensing soap dispenser. Haha!! Nick was so excited to put that on the registry and it's really funny because when we got home and I checked out the registry online, it hadn't scanned! So I had to add it in, but I thought that was rather ironic.

Did anyone else have as good of an experience registering as we did?

On a side note: I have 28 followers!!! How exciting! Thank you all and I hope you enjoy reading because I enjoy writing. :)

I just got the call part II...she fits!!

She fits! She fits! She fits!! I can't tell you how relieved I was when my dress zipped up all the way. Not that I had put on any weight or anything, but it's been four months since I ordered her and even longer since I had tried her on. Another thing I was so happy about was that she isn't yellow. I ordered ivory because white made me look like a ghost, but since I hadn't seen my dress in months (I think I tried her on in March) I couldn't remember what the ivory looked like. It's very subtle, but still looks amazing.

So without further ado...


I brought an ivory veil with me that I bought on eBay for $15, but it was too yellow and too long we decided. So I tried on a few different lengths and styles and we decided on a waltz length (54") with red trim to match the red in my dress (isn't she gorgeous!!).


Here is a shot of the beautiful detail on the bodice and the cute sleeves.


Showing off my beautiful shoes that I am not going to wear. They were a tad high and made me look like a floating bell. So I ordered a pair of shoes that were surprisingly comfortable and could be dyed to match my dress. The fun part about the shoes is that they will be two-toned like my dress with the ankle strap being white (since no one will notice that it isn't ivory).


Ah, the reason I fell in love with her in the first place. Look how gorgeous that train is. I spent most of my appointment trying to turn around to look at it. :D I love the detail and the shape of the red going down to the train.

There you have it, my lovely, lovely dress that I can't wait to wear.

On Tuesday it will be five months to go!!

I just got the call...

My dress is in!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!