Silly Inner Envelopes

Archie went to stay with his daddy for a couple of weeks since I intended to fly out for my spring break (since Andrew would be driving to Kentucky anyway a week later for his own break, it didn't make sense to drive). While he's been away, I've been trying to get the invitations put together.

Things I have learned:
1. Tying ribbon bows onto 125 folded invitation cards is extremely tedious.
2. I cannot tie a bow as nicely as Martha Stewart. After spending several hours trying to match her classy knot, I settled on the nicest bows I could tie, which involves the hangy part being on top of the bow part on one side and the entire bow lining up against the top of the card. Not exactly what I had in mind when I ordered the invitations, but I figured I could spend the next month on grad school or tying perfect bows.
3. Because the entirety of the bow is at the top of the card, the flaps on the inner envelopes will not stay closed.
4. The flaps not staying closed annoys the hell out of me.

So what to do about the flaps (not to mention putting 100 more of the 125 invitations and reception/info cards into envelopes)? Where there is a problem, I shall find an impulse-buy solution.

I've thought about using photo stamps for the invitations since square and ribbon=expensive postage the USPS doesn't actually make stamps in the denomination required. If we do that, I'm thinking about putting a bow tie on Archie after his next grooming visit and using that picture for the stamps to involve him in our day (more later on the complications of wanting to share wedding with puppy pseudo-child).

So what did I figure out to do? Keep the picture love going!

I ordered Kodak photo stickers, after cropping one of our engagement pictures to a square, and selected the "Sea Glass" border option for the 2" x 2" Martha Stewart stickers (30 on a sheet for $3.99 at KodakGallery.com). I shipped them to Andrew's house in Fulton (where I'll be for the next week on Spring Break--so exciting, I know) via the FedEx 2-day option.

Hopefully they'll arrive early next week and we'll be able to deliver them to all our college friends (who hopefully won't mind that they're getting hand-delivered invitations). In addition to packing for my flight tomorrow and doing last-minute laundry I need to go over our guest list and figure out how many invitations I need to take with me in all-but-done format to hand out/get postage cost estimated for the rest of the batch.

Now back to the packing planning for the rest of my work time, since I have to finish up tomorrow morning early and have yet to determine if I'm going to check two or carry-on two (the definite carryon is my backpack). Since I'm taking three flights to get from Lexington to St. Louis, I don't want to have to haul excess baggage through my two layover airports. However, I also don't want my luggage to not make a plane transfer at some point in these journeys, so I'm still conflicted about what to do, especially since I'm flying Continental for 2 flights but American for the last leg. Too easy to see stuff going horribly wrong, but discomfort of constantly dragging stuff around is also not appealing.

Engagement Pictures for all to see!

Finally! I got the cd for the engagement pictures we took at the beginning of January, freezing in snow at Keeneland Park in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to check them out, look at our website's Multimedia Gallery at the album "Engagement Pictures." Here's a small sampling:

Yes, we are freakishly pale.

I love how the space between us in this one kinda looks like a heart.

What do you think?

Finally, Engagement Pictures

I just got the link to our engagement pictures in an album online, and as soon as I get the cd of the images I'll load them onto the wedding website in an album everyone can see. Or maybe when I get home I'll post the instructions for how to navigate the password protected website.

Soon you'll be able to see them, is what I'm trying to say.

And they're...okay. Andrew and I are not the most photogenic people in the world, and we took these pictures outside with snow on the ground, freezing our tails off. But I do like them, overall.

Right now I'm thinking of getting an 8"x10" to hang over the fireplace in the apartment. As soon as I get the cd, I'm going to start working on a photo album guest book of Andrew and I growing up to our engagement pics, leaving blank pages for people to sign with Sharpies. Meaning someone will have to be at the table to make sure everything doesn't get closed when wet and smudge, but I really like the idea of having a guest book that serves another purpose as well.

Something that I'll actually go and look at in the future, instead of packing into a box and forgetting somewhere.

Engagement Pictures, Slightly Delayed

Today was the last day our engagement photographer originally gave us as when our proofs would be online by. They aren't, but at least she's apologized for the delay and assured me they'll be online by the end of next week and the cd soon afterwards.

My grandma reminded me to get the stuff together to send to my hometown paper. If they ever get my subscription straightened out I might even get to see it in print.

She gave me the subscription as a Christmas present, so I can stay caught up on what's going on in my tiny hometown, including what my little brother (a junior in high school) is currently up to. So far I've gotten to see a picture of his drumline, showing them playing trash cans but in a shot that makes it looks like he's playing another guy's butt instead of his trash can.

It doesn't hurt that my grandma works for the paper, putting the ads into the weekly edition every time it comes out. Thus she knows all the breaking news, whether or not it's fit to print. She's amazing.

But hopefully I'll soon have a picture and an engagement announcement to put into the paper, for all my high school friends to hear about and my former teachers to see.

Engagement pictures...Waiting to Exhale

As we hit the end of the three week time frame our Lexington photographer gave us for having online proofs of our engagement pictures, I'm getting rather anxious.

Primarily, I want to make sure there are at least a few where it looks like we're having fun together rather than me forcing Andrew to stand outside in the cold and freeze to death.

What I want to do with them is to create a photobook to serve as a guestbook, with pages showing us growing up to the present. The problem with starting that idea is that I don't really have all that many good pictures of Andrew. He's not really a picture sort of person.

I'm trying to hold out and wait patiently for the photographer to email me, because I'm also testing for how much fun it would be for her to take informal pictures of us in our gear after the wedding, possibly even a sort of trash-the-dress session but unlikely to do permanent damage. I'm not really a roll-on-a-sandy beach sort of person, wedding gown or not.

Patience, however, is not one of my key virtues.

Suffering for our...engagement pictures

Last Friday before Andrew headed back to Missouri for the start of the semester, we took engagement pictures in the freezing cold at Keeneland Park here in Lexington. For those of you who don't know, Keeneland is the local horse racing track, and is set on some beautiful rolling hills near the airport at the edge of Lexington. Several of the early stone buildings are still preserved on the property, including a small stable and what appeared to be a few caretaker homes at one point in history, and these were where we took the majority of our pictures. The photographer was Jaclyn Johnson.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you about the cold. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and a stiff breeze that didn't make acting relaxed and comfortable any easier. Andrew gets kudos for being a total trooper during the whole thing, even though he'll probably look like he's shivering/freezing to death in almost every photo. He was praying for location changes just so he could get back in the car with the heater blasting.

While I don't have anything to show for it yet, I should get notification of the pictures being up on the web sometime between January 18-25th. After that, I'll get a cd of the images and put them up on here for people to see. Even the ones that show how freezing cold we were.