Headcase

Here's a preview picture of me in my veil and tiara, learning how hard it is to take a good picture of oneself in a tiny apartment with weird lighting conditions.

I had a very good buying experience ordering both off of ebay from a vendor called veilsbylana. I still need to leave feedback, but I'd like to go ahead and say that they arrived together in great, sturdy packaging and exactly as described.

The vendor even lowered the total shipping cost since I ordered two items rather than just the one.

An excellent seller and very easy to work with.

Now to let my veil breathe after its travels, it is currently hanging over my movie rack and slowly losing wrinkles.

Invitations

To continue the color-branding of our wedding, Andrew and I picked out invitations from David's Bridal that featured ribbons in our shade of blue, to match my sash, the bridesmaids dresses, the cake, and all the other blue stuff.

Here's an example of what our invitation looks like:
Except on ours the reception cards are crammed with our website information (where we want people to RSVP) as well as the reception information. For the non-tech-savvy I'll print everything from the website off and mail it, but I figure everyone is much more likely to not lose a website that has all the relevant information.

I'm waiting until the wedding to spring on people the orange accent color that'll be the color of all our flowers, predominantly roses. Or maybe I'll get an orange dress to wear to the rehearsal dinner, which I'll be looking for tomorrow when I go to test my wedding dress to see if it still fits. Except that it'll also be the dress that I'll wear to my friend Nicki's wedding in March, and so orange might be a bit much.

Ceremony Site Freak Out

So last night I had a major freak out about our ceremony site, after actually taking the time to sit down and read the pricing requirements instead of freaking out about how much control a religious ceremony at a religious site takes control away from me.

I'm already a little lost at sea in the wedding planning, partially because we're having it on my fiance's home turf rather than in my own small town. Because my home town has one hotel, three stoplights, and way too many banks.

And we needed an airport, and hopefully more hotels and other options.

So now I have way too many options, and have no idea without Google Maps how far apart everything is in Kansas City.

But Andrew wanted to get married in the church he was raised in and that his parents were married in. With a ceremony in the denomination he wants to be a minister for and with a minister he admires...but who is always insanely busy and hard to get ahold of.

A couple weeks ago we finally got a pamphlet about the policies and procedures for having a wedding in said church. And not-really-religious but raised Catholic me thinks, "I stopped going to mass because everything was entirely too formalized. This makes me itch."

I admit it. I'm a control freak.

But last night when I picked up the pamphlet again I'd been reassured by Andrew that the minister wouldn't really oppose most of my customizing options, and so I looked at the cost. And freaked out.

We're looking at almost a grand for the ceremony, where'd I'd been expecting more of a token cost since that's they way things are in my small town.

Right after I ordered the invitations, of course, so there's no going back now (more on the invitations later). I'm still annoyed, but am coping by deciding that Andrew can handle most of the ceremony details. He shall be my emissary to the religious world.

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.

Cake Me, Baby!

Just kidding. He shoves cake in my face and he will spend our wedding night on a couch somewhere. I think he has the same stance on the issue of cake/face smashing, though, so we should be okay.

Speaking of cake, Andrew and his mom met today with the cake lady I found online over Christmas Break. She's just set up her website and was in the process of adding a gallery when I contacted her. Honestly, I've never had someone respond as promptly and happily as I do to an email before, but she did. Wonderful.

And she answered all my questions without dithering, and added in more relevant information regarding her history and practices. I wish I could go to the tasting with Andrew and his mom, but I'm going to have a hard enough time making the drive to Missouri as much as I am this semester, and I really wanted to have a tasting and book her as soon as possible.

Cake is one of my wedding extravagances. I could really care less what the rest of the food is (but will probably be appetizer-based since it's a wedding reception later in the evening), but the cake was important. My friends Julie and Matt had absolutely divine, mystical wedding cake for their reception this past July, so I just told Andrew before he went to see if the cake this person made was equal to that.

He has just reported back that it was. I am thrilled, and thrilled that he called me about ten times while actually at the tasting to discuss ideas and plan out a summary that she'll send to me as a basis for a contract/cost estimate.

Here is my inspiration for the wedding cake:

The blue will be matched to a blue sample provided by me to match the sash of my dress and the bridesmaids' dresses, and the words will be my favorite E. E. Cummings poem, or at least the last two stanzas (first line: "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"). White wedding cake with vanilla buttercream icing and filling...sounds heavenly.

Andrew's Groom's Cake is going to be a stack of books (The Bible, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and one other philosophy text I can't remember at the moment). Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing and filling. Maybe a little tried-and-true, but it suits him. He's already more traditional than I am anyway.

Just another example of how you can blend modernism and traditionalism if you really want to.

Rings for Everyday Wear

When I told my mom that these were the rings Andrew was ordering for me for everyday wear, she thought I'd lost my mind. After all, we're poor college students, and he's going to seminary after he graduates at the end of this year. We will not have money for a very long time.

But that doesn't take away my sparkly yearnings.

I just had to learn to redirect them to an affordable medium. Because this gorgeous ring set to the left is from Kohls, available only through their website. And they're cubic zirconia set in solid sterling silver.

At least, they claim it's solid sterling silver. I'll find out eventually, because I'm allergic to most of the metals they use as bases for costume jewelry. Only silver, surgical steel, gold, and titanium seem to be okay for not causing my skin to break out in a rash. Apparently my body has expensive tastes in jewelry that I didn't have an input in.

We won't be using this set for the actual wedding ceremony, though I may still have the day-of photographer take some shots of them. That place is reserved for my great-grandmother's engagement ring that my aunt had reset, but it's so delicate and special that I wouldn't want to wear it every day and risk harming it.

The engagement ring I wear is on loan from Andrew's mom. It's her original engagement ring, and I've tried to take excellent care of it. But I needed rings that would look really great, but I wouldn't feel incredibly guilty if they had to have something fixed on them, and these fit my desires.

I love princess cut stones and the channel settings are so sleek and modern. To me, the impact is more important than the cost estimate. This way I get the best of both worlds: engagement and wedding rings steeped in family history and love, and a new set to show off who I am as a person, who is much more modern than traditional.