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...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.

Say Yes to the Dress

Okay, so I'm not the biggest fan of the show by the same title, but I do think it's a cute name. The show is just more than a bit too stressful and likely to provoke doubt and envy.

Because I already have my dress. I picked it out when Andrew and my parents helped move me to Kentucky from Missouri, and Andrew, Mom, and I went to David's Bridal, which was supposed to be the first of a couple stops. But while I already had ideas that I wanted a chiffon, floaty-type dress with many layers but no beading or embroidery.

Well, the dress I found fit one category but not the other.

No embroidery or beading, not overly complicated, just simple satin a-line with a punchy blue bow that my bridesmaid dresses will match. I'm still not sold on how the petticoat makes the front look (I think it creates something of a shelf when I walk), but ordering it can wait.

At least with David's Bridal I know that if I have a problem with the dress I bought in Kentucky, I can take it to the one in Kansas City for a quick fix. Or possibly a ribbon in the right shade of blue to make everything okay.

New Year, New Plan

To start out the new year right, and hopefully keep people a bit more in the loop than I've had luck doing previously, I'm starting a wedding blog. (Clue #1: This is aforementioned blog.)

For friends, family, kindhearted strangers, etc. to peruse my wedding plans as I try to wind down the next five and a half months without becoming a bridezilla or otherwise mentally snapping. Though it's not easy to plan a wedding in Kansas City while you're living in Lexington, KY and going to grad school full time and working a full assistantship. Add to the fun that you're not actually from Kansas City (your fiance is) and he's still going to school full-time in Missouri to finish his undergraduate degree.

But there are good things. Like being engaged to the right guy. And having temporary custody of our psuedo-child, Archimedes (Archie) the shih tzu. I love my job and mostly my classes, so it's a pretty good life right now.

To start off the blogging fun, I figured I could catch up to where I am in planning and post pictures of what I have so far. Let's get started, shall we?