Crafty

We've received a few wedding gifts and though Chris is out of town, he knows me well enough to know that to sit a present in front of me for three weeks to stare at hour after hour is not going to go over well...so over the last week I've been thinking about how to do our thank you notes.

It really wasn't hard because of some items I had purchased for the invites. The invite envelope was pretty plain so I bought a cute palm tree stamp and some green ink from the craft store. We stamped the back of the invitation envelopes (kind of like a seal) and then just to add some color to the front, I also stamped the bottom left corner of the envelope. The stamp and ink were on sale that day so I think it all cost me less than $7. But I wondered if I'd ever use it again. Turns out I did!

Yesterday I went to A.C. Moore and got some plain white note cards with envelopes. This actually was a lot harder than I thought because A.C. Moore is like a craft overload and I couldn't find anything, much less anyone to help me find anything. I found super cute thank you cards for about $6/10 pack which wasn't bad, but I had this desire to make my own and I didn't want to admit defeat yet! Finally I came across some plain white ones but they were still hovering around $5-6/10 pack, and I knew for that price I'd rather get the cute decorated ones. Finally, I found what I was looking for...of course, near the floor where I had to like reach my fingers in and pry them out...but a pack of 25 cards and envelopes for $7. Yippee! I also should mention that it was easier to find larger cards than smaller ones. I wanted 4*5 or thereabouts and I seemed to come across a lot of half fold sheets of paper as well as postcard type note cards.

Now my original thought was to get another rubber stamp, like the palm tree, that said "thanks." I thought I'd stamp that on the outside of the card, and use the palm tree like a seal on the back of the envelope OR maybe do the palm tree on the front with "thanks" underneath it. Well, I found a "thanks" that was the right size for the ink pads I already have but really I wanted a thank you. So, I settled for the "thanks" stamp and went up to pay for my items but felt a little unsure. The stamps in A.C. Moore are not easily priced. They seem to have alphabetical stickers on them indicating a price range...this "thanks" stamp was a "G" and according to the "G" legend it was $12!! I thought "that can't be right" and took it up front to check out.

Well, the bad news was it was right. And when the girl rang it up she said "do you know this is $12?" like why in the world would you spend that much on this. I agreed that it was robbery but I bought it anyway thinking, well maybe my budget thank-yous will at least still be cheaper than the others...though maybe not as worth it to make my own. The disappointment was tempered when the card packs rang up at $5 each! So $15 for 75 thank yous seemed pretty good. Now what was I going to do about the stamp which almost doubled my cost?

As you can see, I decided it wasn't worth it. The cards didn't need to say thank you on the front and when I played with the stamp (inkless of course) "thanks" was too small by itself and with the palm tree there was not enough room on the card. So on my to-do list today is "return stamp."

I practiced a few times with the cards as my initial thought was 1 palm tree on the outside. But I couldn't get it centered! So I added 2 on either side and now as I stamp the cards, if I'm not quite centered with the middle one, it doesn't look as atrocious. When people read the inside they'll know it's a thank you card, and can probably guess what it is when they see it in the mailbox.

I'm really happy with the design, the budget, and with the fact that I can use the palm tree stamp and extra green ink that I bought for the invitations. It's not that I want to be miserly, especially as I am really sincere in the thanks that I am giving but I don't want to be wasteful or consumerist just for the sake of being so. Or being a bride as the case may be.

Some cheese with that whine?

It seems that because our wedding is so close, I really dove in and got A LOT done in the first 6 weeks! Now, it's a wait-and-see type of situation. Everything that needed to get done, has been done and it'll be another 10 days/2 weeks until we get into a crunch situation again. So here I sit at the computer, just desperately needing something to do!

I've been a lot more self-aware when it comes to my need to obsess...most of the time :) But wow, it sneaks up when I least expect it. I have, thank goodness, begun to recognize it by the butterflies in my stomach. Yep, if I get too carried away with what type of wine we need to get and start mixing and matching cases for individual people's wants/needs...I shut the browser. And once I have a moment to think about it (logically) I realize that I already HAD the right answer 45 minutes earlier, but I passed it over for something more complex and usually more expensive. Take the wine for example...I've been to 100s of parties/dinners/get-togethers where we have Yellow Tail. I LOVE Yellow Tail. It got me through graduate school. But today, searching through online wine outsources, I came across Yellow Tail and had the thought:

Perfect

But, alas, my integration does not work quickly and I continued searching out different wines from various exotic locales. Searching, searching...what would be universally liked and within my budget...searching, searching...stomach knotting, sweat beads as I added wine to my cart seeing the exorbitant shipping costs...searching, searching...and then it hit me:

Yellow Tail

I love Yellow Tail. Until my encounter with my favorite Italian who introduced me to Sangiovese, any type of Yellow Tail had been my staple. I've never been embarrassed to offer a dinner guest Yellow Tail - why would it be any different at my wedding? Yet somehow, it snuck up on me - that little caricature of a horned, pitchfork holding Martha Stewart or an editor of The Knot (or worse yet, one of its readers!) sitting on my shoulder, exasperated and shaking their heads at me that I didn't pick that highly rated Chilean mix, renowned for its versatility and clean taste. For once, I gave a good shake and Martha was gone, along with her minions. Yellow Tail it is. Maybe Shiraz and Pinot Grigio - it will be September in Florida, I'm not sure a Cabernet and Chardonnay would go down well in the heat. Maybe I'll make Sangria...or maybe I'll set out some sliced fruit and ginger ale with a sign that says "Poor Couples Sangria."

That sounds better.

P.S. - Check out this bouquet of sunflowers. I love it! But do not remember where it came from! Sorry! I think this, with some sprigs of fresh rosemary from my garden will be perfect!

Trying to do it myself...

Sonny supervising the cupcake tree project

So besides the invitations, which weren't half bad, the next biggest item on my list thus far was ::drum roll, please:: the cupcake tree. We're doing some fun stuff with the traditional cake idea and I needed a cupcake tree. The only ones I could find in stores were way too fancy...I don't need 7 sterling silver cupcake trees hanging around my house for the next few years...

Following a never ending interweb trail I ended up here looking at tons of different photos for decorate-able options. Now they may be marketed as "eco-friendly" or "recyclable" but in the end they are corrugated cardboard - and right in my price range!


When thinking about how to decorate I remembered I had 4 rolls of a cool surf themed wrapping paper that I had intended to use as a wall covering (before I learned how hard it is to get texture off of walls) and now was just sitting around. As part of this project, I had learned a little bit about decoupaging...but certainly not enough. Anyway, I thought why not decoupage the tree? So I did.

It really wasn't that hard. I simply traced the circles of the tree onto the wrapping paper and cut them out. I tried to stay on the line (thanks nursery school!) but wasn't too careful...and later on I realized it was actually easier to go back and trim after everything was pasted on.

Speaking of the pasting, that was trickier than I thought. I decided to paste on the brown, reverse side of the circles but I got a lot of ridges. I thought this would be solved by pasting on the white side...but it wasn't really. I blame my lack of experience with the technique. Also, when the paste/decoupage glue dried on the cardboard with the wrapping paper covering, the circles curled. I had to work hard to straighten them back out in the morning and they never were completely flat again. If I had to do it over (and I know this because I accidentally did) I would cover the brown reverse side in the glue as well. The one I did (accidentally) as well as the top tier (which had two sides of wrapping as I was trying to figure out which was better) stayed nice and flat.

Another area where I wasn't too happy with the result was with the decoupage on the paper itself. I got a lot of ridges where I brushed it on. Again, I blame my newbie technique, though I did see the instructions allowed for a 400-grit sanding between coats of glue. I was too lazy and unwilling to spend the cash on 400 grit sandpaper for my bargain application, but before I do any further decoupaging I'll give it a shot. Nor was I patient enough to get out all the air bubbles...but that's neither here nor there...

Then I simply hot glued some aqua (or "pool" for those keeping up with my "theme") grosgrain ribbon to cover the cardboard look. That was easy, and very unstressful after my glue issues.


So voila...the final product. Not too shabby! If I had to do it again (for anyone that may be interested):

1. Glue both sides of the tiers
2. Get the special decoupage tool (or buy some Popsicle sticks) to smooth out the air bubbles.
3. Be certain you are opening the holes for the feet in the separators in the correct spot (oops)
4. Don't use a foam brush to apply the glue (just like with painting - the better the brush the better the outcome)
5. Paint the separators...I simply glued grosgrain on the edges to cover the naked cardboard but it really didn't do that much. Maybe a coat of a neutral or darker paint would add to the illusion of substance

So that's it! Off to bed!

Yikes!

Time is going by fast! I will post later this afternoon...summary...made AWESOME cupcake tree (if I do say so myself), went on a whirlwind trip to St. Augustine, and today off to pick up a BM dress and see some sunflowers in person.

Back to Basics

If nothing else this week, I've become aware (more aware?) of my tendency to over-control in times of stress. Normally, I'm a pretty laid back gal. But gosh, get me in a situation where I'm not quite confident and it looks like I turn into a control freak. I wouldn't have guessed that about myself. Other people probably would have!

So I've sworn off all bridal websites except for the one I'm using where all my guests are listed. Yesterday, an email from the photographer set off another controlling frenzy of "oh, what if we miss this picture or that picture..." Ya know what? We're going to have pictures out the wazoo. As long as I have some nice ones of Chris and I, my brothers, and mom and dad that'll be fine. I don't need 20 shots of the bridal party. I'll look at them, put them in an album, and there they'll stay - is that worth my stress? Nope.

Yesterday I went on the boat for the first time in a few weeks. It felt so good to be in the water. It felt better to be in the water laying on the board, waiting for the boat to circle back around then it actually did to ride, which was strange. Even though we were wakesurfing instead of wakeboarding, and in and of itself that's more chill, the riding was too intense. I just wanted to lay and float. It's been a little cool here for about a week and the water was chilly to get into but perfect after a few minutes. But between stationary computer geeking and trying to lose weight quickly, I didn't have much stamina. Here I was trying to relax and I couldn't! Too stressed to enjoy my current favorite water activity. So I came home.

I did some non-wedding things. My town - for whatever stroke of brilliance - decided to cancel their recycling pick-up program. Genius, right? But I kept my recycling bin and when it gets full I take it down to the public works where there is a large recycling container in the parking lot. But man, what a chore! It had been at least 6 weeks - maybe 8 - since I took that thing...bad idea in the summer time! And worse, during those 6 weeks we had 3 or 4 sets of guests so the recycling was full of beer bottles. And of course the stale beer had fermented in the sun...it was only a 5 minute car ride to the public works office, but it felt like eternity. I had to put all the windows down. When I stopped for lights or traffic, in those moments the stench wafted up and then as I started to move again, the movement of air cycled the stench throughout the car. I thought I was going to puke. Retelling the story later to Chris he said:

"I've never seen you gag. I'd like to."

Great. Then nasty liquid of some form leaked onto my car interior giving the pleasant smell a lingering only wet carpet can have. I got home, cleaned the car, gave the recycling bin a pitiful shower of vinegar (being that I haven't been to the grocery and am out of all other disinfecting essentials) and all-in-all felt better than I had even on the boat! Moving slowly back to being me and not the bride-to-be. And felt better about it all!

Irony

Just the fact that I am writing - or about to write - about this particular topic is ironic...but here goes...

Yesterday (if you read) I about had the worst nervous breakdown I have experienced in 31 years. Really. All over flowers - their inclusion, exclusion, color, and hue. FLOWERS! I am a smart, capable, adult woman. But I was almost brought to my knees yesterday in insecurity and self-doubt. So after hoola hooping the majority of the anxiety away (my new moment of meditation) I started asking myself the hard questions. Like what is up? What's really going on? It can't possibly just be flowers - and that's where I got some of the insights I posted on yesterday. But today, still at a height of wedding frenzy things seemed to have taken on a different hue themselves.

It started with a talk with my best friend. She's an awesome woman. If I gave you her name and you googled it, you'd see that she ain't no dummy. And in our talk today she said:

"You know Sarah, when I got married the internet was not what it is today. We got engaged and I went and got a few magazines and they were it for the extent of my wedding planning. All the ideas were either solely my vision, based on the magazines, or based on friends' tales of weddings they had been in or attended."

That's not how my experience is panning out. EVERYONE is a wedding expert and all this expert information is available for me, an absolute novice, 24/7. Websites, blogs (look irony again!), google image searches, florists, floral supply stores, DIY wedding extravaganzas...it's all happening. It's ALL happening. And opinions are truly like a(&^*les..everyone's got one.

So I'm barraged, I thought after, BFs tale. It's information overload...anyone in my position would be freaking out. But the truth is that I've allowed the overload. No one is forcing this stuff on me. I'm sitting in front of the computer. I'm obsessively searching. So why?

The truth is I'm absolutely petrified. Not with the flowers, and maybe not even so much with pulling off a good party. The truth is I'm tying up my life with someone else's life for better for worse. And things could probably get worse. As husband-to-be said today:

"This could go poorly."

But can I say that - admit my fear - without the sharp intake of breath, aghast at the thought...am I...doubting? Noooooooooooooo...no one doubts...do they? Surely a divorce rate of over 50% couldn't indicate something is awry with this lack of doubt, could it? Could it be that this massive industry for which I have willingly gone into up to my neck is purposefully all consuming and overwhelming? If I'm so concerned about the color of my wedding flowers, or if people have enough to eat, or if they're having fun, if I'm having fun, if you're having fun then there is simply no room in my pea brain to even remotely ponder the bigger issue - that things could go poorly. Not just with the wedding. With LIFE.

I love Chris for many reasons. Today I especially loved him because we talked about this. I shared. He shared. We were able to laugh about it. Together, we gained more understanding about our own hearts and our own journey because we were honest. He saw traits in himself lately that, though his own, are mimicking mine in many regards. Together, talking about our doubts, our fears, our concern of becoming just one of the legions of starter marriages, we grew closer.

Is that irony?

Who Gets These Ideas?

Ughhh...for the last 2.5 hours I have sat in front of this stupid computer...contemplating wedding flowers. I'm so aggravated right now.

See, my first thought was find something in season...looked around, figured it out, and lo and behold calla lilies are in season in September! Sweet! But in the last two days I've really rethought my calla lily plan. The calla lily plan had merged into calla lily and orchids for my hair plan. Then my mauve scheme turned into white for the bridesmaids and mauve for me plus white orchids for my hair. THEN...it turned into multi-colored callas for me...mauve orchids for my hair...and it was getting way out of hand.

Soooooooo...I scrapped it.

And this morning decided on gerbera daisies and sunflowers. More fun, more colorful, more casual...and cheaper (yay!). Now, one migraine later, I find myself searching color pallets online and trying to decide if the shade of orange and pink will get washed out by the aqua bridesmaids dresses and if the yellow of the sunflowers will really go with any of it...and...and...and...

Eff it.

I'm going to get the daisies. I'm going to get the sunflowers. When they arrive 2 days before the wedding I will look at them. They will be fine. They will be bright and colorful and hopefully loud. Yes, I think I've just decided right this second that the louder they are the better. I want to stand on top of the church and scream "I DON'T CARE!"

Wow. I'm really angry right now. I think I'm angry at myself for getting caught up in this wedding crap. I'm definately not happy that husband to be is out of town for three weeks - but that's really a minor issue. I can complain about him being gone and not able to help, but I think that's just covering up for a bigger issue. I shouldn't be freaking out over flowers. I shouldn't be freaking out over what people think.

Is that it?

Is it that suddenly my need to please people is coming to a place where I can't ignore it? I - like everyone else - want everyone to look at me and want to be with me or be me. I want them to see how cool I am, how beautiful I am, I want them to walk away saying that was the best damn wedding I've ever been to. And chances are high that just ain't gonna happen.

When I was a kid, I was painfully shy. I never wanted to stand in front of people because I was sure they would make fun of me. I never wanted to have a birthday party because I felt this huge amount of pressure on me that everyone think it was THE GREATEST party ever. The one party I did have (first grade) I was so stressed the whole time I didn't have fun. I was constantly checking the demeanor of the other kids and working so hard to please them. I think this might be the same freaking thing. Me obsessively checking the different colors of daisies and reading and re-reading the same stupid customer reviews over and over again this morning is not about making sure everything's alright with the wedding. It's about me trying to feel like everything's alright with me from an external, superficial, unimportant judge.

Wow. And I just remembered that 2 hours ago I brewed myself some camomile tea. I bet it's still sitting in the kitchen.

Slow Week...or...How a Theme was Born Part Deux

So, even though I haven't posted for a few days, the mad wedding craziness has been subdued this week. Which is good! Because I was starting to feel a lot overwhelmed. The wedding invitations went out a week ago today and we've already gotten a few RSVPs back. Exciting! And stressful! I think having an invitation in hand for a guest, or getting an RSVP back for us, makes this more real. It's not a dream, it's not something we're mulling over...we're really doing it...in 2 months and 1 day.

What's been cool is the response to our invitations. When we made this jump about 5 weeks ago, the first thing I looked for were invitations. I knew I wanted something modern, fun, casual, colorful...nothing with silk bows on the top and script font. But the price! Yikes! So my great idea was to pull in brother (who's a graphic designer) to do the invite and save money, but both he and I quickly learned that the cost is in the printing. It really wasn't substantially cheaper to have him design something and print it out through a printing company. So alternatives began forming.

Now, from this point on, I will admit (and I think I admitted it in an earlier post) that if I had to do the invites over again I would do it differently simply because I've learned a lot of options for invitations in the last few weeks. But with what I knew at the time I simply started doing a google search for invitations - not specifically wedding invitations. I was getting the feeling that you add the word "wedding" onto anything and the cost goes up by like 50%.

So of course, one of the top options is the ubiquitous Target. Ah Target. How I love thee. And I found these super cute invites right off the bat: Cherry Blossom Invite. I loved them. I love pink. I love how it wasn't an uber girly design...I just loved everything about them...most of all I loved the price. However, the BFF came home and wasn't as enthralled with their pinkness or their flowers as I was. Off to Target we went, only to have him come to a fuller conclusion upon looking at them that they were just too feminine.

But right next to my pink ones were two boxes...and two boxes only...of a very simple invitations with green border and a green palm tree. We grabbed them and took them home and you can see the basic result.

Very simple, but very us.

The invitations came with a link to a template software which I used, but wasn't fool proof. Though the wording looks centered in this picture, when it printed out it was definitely skewed to the left. And sometimes the d*$! things printed out crooked. And we had the only two boxes of these invitations I could possibly find. They weren't even listed on the Target website. So I was under a lot of stress to get as many correct as possible. You can also see pretty clearly in the JPG that the font is not quite the same color as the border - well, in the template software it looks exactly the same. When we first printed them out the font color was pretty darn close to the border color, but now I'm getting the RSVPs back you can see that as the ink has aged it has taken on a more yellowy-green hue.

Of course, I almost had a nervous breakdown. I had spent so much emotional energy perfecting the layout in the template software that when it wasn't coming out perfect I had this vision of every single person opening their invitations and laughing at me :) But Chris stayed more calm and simply looked me in the eye and said "If anyone doesn't like the invitation we'll simply uninvite them." And that's the attitude to have with this stuff. I was getting wrapped up in the commercialism - for the first time - and it was uncomfortable. I was second guessing the invitations that 2 days before I was totally stoked about. I was judging myself for things like not putting a piece of tissue paper in the envelopes or maybe I should've printed them on vellum so the invites would be layered or maybe I should've gotten a heavier paper weight envelope...

...but then I realized, no one cares. I care. But for everyone else, the invite is gonna get stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. It'll become invisible with children's paintings and candid snapshots and then...horror...it'll get thrown in the trash.

So if my wedding invite to you is a little off...well..so are we :)

How a Theme Was Born

We got engaged at the beach and that was only fitting. I live at the beach. I require sea spray and sand to maintain a healthy balance in my world. So when it came to dreaming the dreams of a wedding, OF COURSE I'd get married at the beach! Duh! Where else would I get married?

But I had never really given consideration to what that would actually look like. Sometimes I perused wedding websites looking at dresses but it was more to keep my mind distracted than in a for real way. So there I was 4 weeks ago, reading articles where a "budget" wedding was one that was less than $10K, looking at pictures of people I didn't know with weddings running the gamut of "carnival themed," "harvest themed," "black-tie themed," and then the (obviously extremely popular) "beach themed."

I was not going to have a beach themed wedding. My life does not have a beach theme - it just is.

As an aside - one day Chris (aka wonderful husband to be) and I walked out to the beach to meet some friends and maybe get in some kiteboarding. Most times, we go to the beaches where people aren't - just easier that way. But today we were at a very popular tourist spot. As we walked over the wooden boardwalk, following the beacon of the kite in the sky we were stopped and a group of ladies asked us to take their picture. I like when people do that so I was happy to oblige and I took a few from different angles (nothing is worse than getting up the courage to ask a stranger to take your picture only to realize later its blurry or simply the worst picture ever). As I handed back the camera, lady #1 said "Do you have a camera?" and held out her hand.

Now this is one of those moments when the power of the human mind is staggering. In the mere millisecond it took me to process I had a thought trail something like this:

"What? Why would I have a camera? And if I did, why would I bring it to the beach? My Blackberry already has enough sand in it. Electronics at the beach are just a bad idea..."

And then the neurons fired and actually worked allowing me to answer:

"No (smiling)...we live here. But thank you."

Lady #1 stood aghast at this revelation and numbers 2-4 simply stared awkwardly as we walked away. Chris was still wondering what my answer had anything to do with her question, which was clearly a yes/no answer. I continued walking down the beach on a normal afternoon in my beach themed life.

Why would I want a beach themed wedding?

Reason #34523

See...this is exactly why I'm trying to stay away from such traditions! Thanks to Cristina for waking me up this morning with a good laugh!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_fe_st/eu_odd_italy_bouquet_crash

Never thought I'd be a blogger...

...but I had pretty much given up on being a bride too. So whatcha know?! Here I am typing a blog to strangers AND trying to plan a wedding on a super limited budget with a super wonderful husband-to-be (I'm not really into fiance/fiancee mostly because I can't remember how to spell it properly and it's like I'm trying to be euro-hip every time I talk about him) who would like to invite all of his high school and college friends though they may not have spoken in...oh...three years.

We've been dating about a year, engaged about a month, and we are getting married in September. September 19th to be exact. There was just no point in waiting, ya know? So on the plus side I don't have a year (or years) to stress over this stuff, but for the time being it is all consuming. But in a fun way. Being on a budget, I'm having to learn and compromise, and I'm finding out I'm pretty good at this wedding stuff. Yet, my anxiety is pretty high and I need a place to detox from the wedding, so to speak, and get back to the things that are important to me.

So, hopefully you'll enjoy this ride with me! If you have any comments or suggestions, please post them! I've already learned so much in the past 4 weeks...for instance, if I had this last month to do over again I would've done my invitations TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY. But, that's the way this wedding stuff is. Maybe if you're as anti-bride minded as I am, this learning curve o' mine can save you some time and mistakes.

But no regrets, right? It's only a wedding for-the-love-of-all-that's-good!