Just a quick note...

I don't have much going on right now, outside of trying to get through this last day of work before a little holiday we're going to get to have (Jesse and I will be going to my dad's house for Christmas, thank goodness! I can't wait to spend a bit more time with dad and everyone for a couple of days...), and that sort of thing.

I did want to point out that I have added a "blogroll" that links to other sites that I love, love, LOVE, and will be adding to over time. They are wedding related and/or party related, and have GREAT tips and ideas for how to decorate for a party, or what to give a hostess/host at a party you attend, or just sharing pretty dresses that they've found in online searching. A couple of them run contests now and again that are fun to compete for, but for the most part, I visit them just to look at pretty things and get ideas for decorating and entertaining.

Hope everyone has a happy holiday, and I'll be back next week to share some stories of our trip home. Yay!

Okeydokey smokey...

Alright, all ye (hopefully) happy people. Not much to update on today, except to let you know that the photos of the wedding are up at the photog's website.

I'm in a terrible mood today, so I won't go into the way I feel about the photos much. I will say that I was expecting more of a professional photojournalistic style out of them, and I don't think that's what we got. I also asked specifically that they avoid taking pictures with the angle thing going on in them, and that didn't happen.

Oh, and don't even ask what the deal is with the pictures of the food at the cocktail reception is about. It was very hard to stifle my laughter when those popped up in the slide show when we saw it at the photographer's studio on Wednesday night, and when I looked at Jesse's face, he had a serious "WTF?" look that I hope Lori didn't see! They're weird...I think we can all agree on that point.

Otherwise, there are some fabulous shots in there, and I'm mostly happy with the way they turned out. If we can all just ignore the way my eyelashes looked throughout the "Bride" section of the photos, I'd appreciate it. The one on my right eye wasn't put on correctly when my makeup was done, I think. It came off of the corner of my eyelid during the photo session, and Miranda had to put it back on when we got back to my room to eat some lunch after we were done with those photos. Thank goodness my stepmom had some false eyelash glue with her! (Although I really wish I could have just taken them off. I feel like such an idiot looking at the photos now...)

Anyway, go to Van Deusen's website, and enter to the main page of the site. From there, you go to "Viewing Online", and then choose "View Wedding Images." Click on the drop down list and choose our wedding (not posting the names here because they work through last names on the site, and I don't generally release that info via the internet), and then the password is our wedding date: 10/27/07.

Have fun! Talk to you all next week...

Y'all are peachy, you really are...

Ok, I know there are still some of you out there reading this thing now and then, and I have to thank you for bearing with me when I have the downtime between posts. I know how sucky that can be, being an avid blog reader myself, so I plan on updating the blog soon to include some regular wedding/decor/party-throwing blogs in what we call a "blogroll" that I also love to read, and which will give you some material to look at between my posting here. Hopefully. Look for that update sometime next week.

But now, what you've been waiting for! (Ok, maybe not...but still what I promised to post earlier this week!) Here are the photos that document the big change to the little room in the house that we did on Sunday and Monday/Tuesday.

Here's Jesse as he does his fabulous cutting job around the doorway. See what I mean about reaching high places without the stepladder? The only thing he used it for was when he was cutting along the tops of the doors and the window in the room, so he was sure he wasn't totally missing spots or painting all over the top of the molding.

And here's the one wall when I was done painting it. You can't see in this picture really, but I did a terrible, terrible job. I'm just not meant to paint. I'm pretty good at scrubbing dishes, though! So I'll stick to that...(Jesse also wound up painting that door white. It needs another coat, but even in it's uneven whiteness, it looks worlds better than it did when it was cream!)
Here is the room after we finished painting and were able to move furniture into it on Tuesday night. Yay! (I've ordered curtains for the window that should match better than the older ones that have been in that room for the past 4 years. They should arrive today at the house, I hope I hope I hope...)
Love the new carpet, though! We ordered it before the wedding, so we could use it in the kids' section at the reception. It worked out perfectly with our color scheme for the evening, and it also worked out perfectly for the paint Jesse picked for the small room! Yay!

Here's Jesse over by the desk after we put everything together. He wanted to be in all the pictures, for some reason. He's so funny!
And here is what the old office used to look like. It's not usually THAT messy, but it's close. We had piled everything in there from the little room, so it was more messy than usual. I can't wait to finish the project by painting this room and getting it set up as (a) our additional "media" room for now, and then (b) our additional bedroom in a couple of months when it's time to put the house on the market. Woohoo!
I'll take more pictures of the bigger room once we've completed that transition as well. And now, as it's closing in on 5 p.m. my time on a lovely somewhat snow-covered Friday afternoon, I'll bid you all goodnight and good weekend. Later!

Taking breaks!

Sorry for the delay on posting around here. I've been thinking that I don't have much to post, but I've also been working. And then trying to fill out thank you notes here and there. And that takes up a surprising amount of my time, I've found! Tomorrow or Thursday, I'm hoping to have some photos to show the home improvement project that we're (hopefully!) finishing up tonight. We finally cleaned out the little bedroom and got it painted (I helped a little, but Jesse did most of it. It's so much handier being able to paint a whole wall without having to use the step ladder half the time!), and tonight I'm hoping we can finish it off by moving the furniture in there that we intend to put in. We're trying to envision different layouts with the desk and the little couch, or the desk and just a chair and a lamp. Or the desk and me lying on the floor in a puddle of frustration because I wish that room just had an extra foot and a half added onto it! (Seriously, the yard is huge...why didn't they just make the house a teensy bit wider when they built it? Makes no sense...) Anyway, I've taken before and during-the-painting pictures, so I just want to get some after photos, and then I'll be ready to post some stuff about it. It'll be fun.

In the meantime, how 'bout some more honeymoon photos? Here is a (very, very dark) photo of the "activities room" we tended to hang out in at the resort at night. It's also where we took the Yahtzee game from for the week, since that was our main source of entertainment in our room, and all. Hopefully no one else wanted to play it! Not that I care, because if we didn't have that? I would've been a wreck by the end of the week! Anyway, that's me on the big couch in front of the t.v. If you can squint a bit, you can see that I was busy watching the end of the game that was on before the KU game came on that night. I can't remember what it was...Ohio State, maybe?


And here's a picture from the path that we were on when we were at The Baths on Friday. Very pretty! But there were very few places where it wasn't single-file. We were alone on the path at that particular moment, but there was a lot of waiting in certain spots when we ran into groups that were coming from the opposite direction...
Oh, this picture is out of place, but it was the picture I took of myself as we left the resort FOREVAH!!! I was very excited to be headed home.
And this is me in one of the grottos at The Baths on Friday. Yes, that's me in a bathing suit, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it. My sister-in-law said I was brave to send out photos of me in a suit. She's skinny, and she doesn't seem like she'd do such a thing. I don't give a flying fig. That's mah belly. Love it or leave it! (My personal trainer does NOT love it. He's currently working on eradicating the belly, and I don't like him much for it.) You can't really tell all that well due to the shadows, but my ass looks fabulous...:D
And here's Jesse at the foot of one of the little path-helper thingies that are sprinkled throughout the path at The Baths. We had to climb the stairs, crawl through that hole in the rocks, and then climb down the stairs on the other side to continue on the path. There was a way around this path-helper that was a bit more treacherous, but we did it one of the times in order to avoid the massive amount of people waiting in line to get through the hole. Believe it or not, this was one of the easier path-helpers! My favorite was the slab of rock we had to climb up with the help of a rope...it was fun.
And that's it for now! More pictures this week, I promise. Hope everyone is having a good one!

Virgin Gorda, and other things...

Ok, so the home project isn't going too well. Nothing has changed, which is sort of disappointing to me, but I'll deal. I need to call the cable company to come out and switch the lines under the house for us, as Jesse isn't able to switch them himself. (He didn't want to crawl over to where the line is for the cable modem, and we're not sure if the other cable line for the t.v. will be able to reach as far as we need it to, anyway. He didn't want to crawl under there and try it all without being able to complete the process, seeing as that would leave us without a computer for several days...)

So! In the meantime, I will post pictures from the honeymoon in order to make things right in the world again. This is the beach that belonged to the resort we stayed at:

The beach was a 15 foot walk from our room's back door. Weird fact about Little Dix Bay Resort and Spa: We didn't get a key to our room...no one does, apparently. When you leave during the day, or whenever, you leave the room unlocked. Strange, no? (There was a safe in our room that we kept all our "valuables" in, so that helped a bit with the oddness of it all.) Here's a picture of our "king sized" bed:
It was really 2 full beds pushed together, which we thought was very klassay. Also, it rained super-hard on Wednesday night while we were there. As we played Yahtzee in our room and drank rum and Coke/Diet Coke, we noticed that there was a sizeable puddle on Jesse's side of the bed. By the time we went to bed, it was all the way over on my side as well. We called the front desk twice about the issue, and they seemed not too worried about it. The next day, and the following two days after that, they worked on finding the problem. Fortunately, we didn't get another rain like we had on Wednesday while we were there, because I really didn't want to find out if they'd managed to actually fix the problem.

Wednesday night before the rain moved in, we went out on the sunset cruise the resort offered to guests for a "small" (read: not small, but sorta worth it) fee. It was hot, but the views were lovely. And once the breeze was able to get to us inside the boat (the back end that was open to the ocean was full of guests, so Jesse and I stayed inside the boat and enjoyed the breeze coming through the windows, as well as the easily-accessible appetizers that were part of the cruises offering to us), it felt really nice in there...

On Friday, we went out to The Baths for a visit, taking advantage of one of the free things that the resort offered us in their boat-taxi to the area. We also took along a picnic lunch to eat while we were there. Oddly enough, chickens and roosters roam free about the island, and one in particular has made his home there on the beach we were dropped off at and on which we ate our lunch. Jesse was really bothered by this rooster. I decided to snap a picture of them together, since I wanted to remember my husband behaving in the way I usually do when people annoy me on the road or in the supermarket. It was awesome!
Sorry for the finger in the picture. We'd bought a disposable camera for that trip so we didn't have a chance to ruin our digital one, and it was hard to tell when you had your finger in the shot!

Here's a picture I managed to take that didn't get my finger in it...

Those rocks are the end of a trail through The Baths called The Devil's Bay trail. I have pictures from inside of it, but they'll have to be put up in another post! (Bandwidth, etc...) It was a gorgeous day for a visit there, as you can see, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I think Jesse would have enjoyed it more if he hadn't gotten a sunburn a couple days before from snorkeling without putting on sunscreen first. His back was really red, poor thing!

Anyway, more to come in the future. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for bearing with us when it comes to our lack of ability to fill out thank you notes! (I don't think we're the worst offenders when it comes to this tradition, but man, we aren't the best on the list either! Sorry for the delay on them!)

I know it's been a while...

Well, here we are, 3 weeks past the wedding, and me being all loser-ish about updating the blog. So here we go!

Jesse and I are doing well. Settling into our jobs around the holidays, since it's new for the both of us in our respective positions, as well as settling into the house now that we don't have any entertaining or anything going on in the near future.

It's kind of weird!

We have all kinds of new things we'd like to use for entertaining, but here we are on the verge of winter without the use of the space on the deck, and so we can only have small parties if any at all. So those new glasses and dishes will all have to wait to be used! (As does the leftover alcohol from the wedding, bless its heart.) I keep saying to people that I'm looking forward to having them over in the spring, but then I remember that we want to put the house on the market in the spring...and hopefully be in a new one in the spring. So, yeah. Housewarming party, anyone? :D

The honeymoon went well. It was relaxing as a honeymoon can be, the peoplewatching was fantastico, and the travel was long and arduous making the eventual destination that much more appreciated and happy to arrive at both in the case of the lovely hotel and our lovely home. I'll post pictures from the vacation over the course of the next couple of days. Warning: they are often jealousy-inducing! (But I can assure everyone that as beautiful as it was at our honeymoon location, it was also very, very expensive. VERY. That didn't help much. At all.)

Right now, I'm gearing up to head home and see what kind of progress has been made on the "switching rooms" project we currently are undertaking. Jesse had the "fun" task of climbing under the house to switch out the cable lines that run into the small bedroom and the front bedroom today. See, we're converting the small bedroom into the official "office" of the house in our attempt to properly stage things for when we put the house on the market in March. As far off as that may seem, I might just need the next 3 months in order to make sure everything is as keen as it can be for future possible buyers, and having the rooms the way they are now? Well, they don't show the house at its full potential, I don't think. The larger front bedroom will become an official "bedroom" instead of the extra room/extra closet/office space that it is right now. And the cable lines need to be switched because the t.v. cable and the computer cable don't work on anything but their assigned output. So Jesse offered (i.e. I begged) to get under the house and make the switch today if he could. I told him that if he honestly wasn't able to get it done, then that was fine and I'll call the cable company to come out. But we had to give it a try ourselves first, right? That's what I thought, too. :)

Anyway, we'll be sure to post lots of fun pics from the finished process. We want to paint the front room as well, and possibly even the small room, but I'm not sure what we'll paint them yet. Maybe the small room should be the same color as the bathroom (called "Country Club") and the front room will be the same as the living room. We'll see. In the meantime, we're switching things up! I can't wait!

NOT my choice, actually...

Some of you might recall Father Terry mentioning the readings we chose for mass and noting specifically that he could tell that I had chosen the first one, due to certain substance the message conveyed.

Well, I wish I could have corrected him at the time, but that might've ruined the moment I'm afraid. The first reading we chose was NOT the one from the Book of Sirach, as he had chosen to do instead. We chose the following reading from the Book of Proverbs:

When one finds a worthy wife,
her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,
has an unfailing prize.
She brings him good, and not evil,
all the days of her life.
She obtains wool and flax
and makes cloth with skillful hands.
She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her fingers ply the spindle.
She reaches out her hands to the poor,
and extends her arms to the needy.
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting;
the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a reward of her labors,
and let her works praise her at the city gates.

The funny thing was that when my sister Wendy saw the reading that she was told she was supposed to read, she said, "This isn't right. Jennifer would never pick this." My coordinator came to the limo where I was waiting to walk down the aisle and told me what was up. I told her that I didn't know if anything could be done about it at that point...it was a couple of minutes before the wedding was set to begin. I don't know if anyone ever communicated the mistake to Father, and since he'd already set his homily around it, it's not like anything could have been changed anyway.

But I wanted to set the record straight. While I can appreciate the undercurrent of sentiment behind the Book of Sirach reading, I never would have chosen something that stated so specifically that a woman is some sort of present that's being GIVEN to the man she's chosen to marry. And then when it goes on to say that, "A gracious wife delights her husband..." etc, etc...without ever saying anything about how a husband returns the favor of "delighting" his wife? Well, call me a feminist, but doesn't that seem a bit archaic of an idea? Especially one for ME to conform to? I know it's the Old Testament we're talking about here, but that's why I didn't like that reading.

Anyway, that's the story behind that. Shoulda been a different reading, but everything went beautifully anyway. Yay!

Holy cow...

Ok, why didn't people tell me that I looked like a clown on my wedding day? Didn't want to upset me? Wanted me to have my face look like that of a hooker immortalized for the rest of my life in the photos taken during the day?

Fantastico...
Hell, at least the dress looked good, though, right?
And my flowers...
And my sisters and everyone else that were in town for the event looked FABULOUS...
More pictures to come as I get them. Thanks again to EVERYONE that helped make the day as special as it was. And the weekend as FUN as it was! I hope you all had as great a time as Jesse and I did. It was truly a blessing to have such a wonderful crowd of family and friends around us at such a special time in our lives! Hope everyone got home safe and sound...

Just stating the obvious...

Ok, so I've been busy. And sick. But mostly busy. (Although being sick hasn't made that very fun...)

The wedding is this weekend, and I cannot WAIT to see everyone that will be able to come! The only down side is that I'm already sad when I think about everyone leaving on Sunday. *sigh!* The fact that I'll be heading back to work on Monday doesn't help much, but I'm hoping that the honeymoon in the not-so-distant future will help to cheer me up again.

Not that I won't be happy already once this has all passed, and Jesse and I are finally man and wife...I'll be ecstatic! But still...there's a bit of a melancholy aspect to it all that we have to acknowledge.

The blog won't go away after the wedding, by the way. I'm sure I'll have lots of updates after the fact, and there will be pictures to post, and all that good stuff. So if I don't update again before the wedding, look for posts after!

Gettin' there...

Well, it's closing in on us now, so there isn't much else to say. And unfortunately, there hasn't been much time to say anything much, anyway! Work has been more than a bear. This week is the week of our move for our department, and between the meeting shuffling, the party planning, and the packing, it's been brutal around here.

And then my boss's dad had a heart attack.

So he had to leave quite suddenly yesterday to go to where his dad is (not within driving distance, unfortunately), because he was going to have a quadruple bypass surgery. And I still haven't heard from him this morning, which scares me, and I hope I hope I hope everything is ok!

But as far as planning for the wedding goes, we're pretty much up to speed on it. We're meeting with the photog tonight to go over our last minute bits and pieces, and to make sure we all have the same schedule in mind. And then Jesse and I will be putting together a checklist for ourselves for next Wednesday and Thursday, so as to make sure we don't forget anything. I'll be giving everything we have for the reception to the coordinator on Monday, so that'll be out of our hands at that point. And other than that, I just have some goodies to pull together for the out of town guests this weekend, and I'll be DONE!

In fact, I need to go write a little something to accompany those treats right now, so I'm off. Maybe more later...maybe not. I only started packing my desk up yesterday, so I've got to get that finished up! We cannot WAIT to see everyone, and even though the leaves won't be in full swing next week (we haven't had our first frost yet, so the leaves are all still green...which is better than nothing I guess!), it should be a beautifully fun time for all of us. So excited...so, sooo excited...

On and on and on and on and....

I am still playing with table arrangements. For the record, that's 3 days in a row that I've been thinking about it. Uh-huh...

I went to a local jewelry store today to have my wedding band sized, have both the wedding and engagement ring cleaned and to have their stones secured, as well as to request an apparaisal for the value so I can have them both insured. Which I've been remiss in doing thus far. (Bad bride-to-be! Bad, bad! I know, I know...at least they've survived this long without any problems, though! Good sign, since I don't usually wear much jewelry at all.)

I'm going to be without my engagement ring for almost 2 weeks while they get everything done, and I'm going to miss it more than I realized! I have a temporary one on right now, but it's bothering me because it feels so different and weird. *sniff!* Can't wait till I can get my real one back again!

At work, things are finally calming down. We had a large charity drive going on over the past couple of weeks that I volunteered to help with (the boss asked me, and I couldn't say no!) which comes to an end today. We're also moving our building around next week...no, not the ENTIRE building itself! Just the people in it. My boss and I, along with everyone else from our team, will be moving to a central location as of next Friday. Should be interesting.

I was a bit worried because a couple of managers on the team had brought up the idea of having a "Team Builder" on the day of the move, since we aren't supposed to be in the building after 12 p.m. that day. They thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do something like this! I didn't. It's the week before my wedding. The LAST THING I wanted to do was plan another party and deal with hosting and making sure everything went smoothly the day of. Not to mention I'm the move coordinator for our team in this location, so if someone needs help/something goes wrong during it, I would be the go-to person for that. And did I mention that I didn't want to plan and deal with another party?

So I looked into some things, and then we discussed it again and everyone expressed their interest in still doing it. But I noticed my boss's interest wasn't as strong as it had been. He was coming over to the dark side, and all it took was a little time. (Mwahahahahahaha!)

Finally, I sent a note out to the team last night, letting them know that I'd heard from some people that were aware it was a possibility that we were planning a Team Builder, and they weren't really interested in doing a Team Builder, and then alerting them to the fact that one of the managers wouldn't even be here that day...

So. It's been decided that we should NOT have a Team Builder. Our team doesn't need building. (They do, however need windows. Lots and lots of windows. Which is something I learned during this coordination of the move process. Kind of annoying quality on their part, I found...)

This helped my stress levels a great deal.

Happy weekend, all! 2 weeks to go, and I can't WAIT to see everyone!

A new day, a new burn...

Ok, I believe I've worked out the table issues. Thanks to a coworker who happened upon my desk yesterday afternoon when I was looking particularly frazzled over it, she made a suggestion within about 30 seconds of me showing her what I was dealing with (I made a little PowerPoint version of the room so I could see it better...I think I mentioned that yesterday, but I'm not sure), and that little suggestion solved EVERYTHING! Then she and I went for a quick walk around a bit of the campus outside our building...the fresh air did me good.

I can't believe how burned out my brain is over all this stuff, though! GAH!

Jesse and I went and got our marriage license yesterday, so now we're legal! Well, once we get married, we are, anyway. :) Last night he welcomed me legally into his life by socking me in the arm while we were sleeping. We clearly need a bigger bed. (There was a comforter-being-stolen-issue...it was 3 a.m....when I reacted to the comforter being pulled off of me by grabbing it and pulling it back, he hit me. I yelled, "OW!" and he apologized and rubbed my arm where he hit me, and I whimpered for a bit more, and then we fell back asleep. I told my trainer about it today. He then told me about the time his fiance punched him in the face while he slept. So I guess I have it pretty good...)

Jesse has also taken to counting down the days 'til the wedding. I'm still looking at it as a couple of weeks away, so it throws me off when he does it. I guess his mom mentioned it the other day when they were talking, and he's been keeping track that way ever since. It doesn't bother me...don't get me wrong. I just think its funny. I don't know why. Stupid story, eh? Ok then...

I'm heading out to lunch with some coworkers, so I'd best get moving. More fun from the wedding-brained bride tomorrow, I'm sure. It's crazy how much stuff there is to talk about, even at this point in the game!

Heartburn...painful.

I'm working on the table assignments right now. I should be doing other things, but I promised to have this info to the print vendor yesterday afternoon, so I'm already slacking as it is. The problem isn't where we're going to seat people, or what table to put them at. The problem is how to arrange the tables we've now managed to assign.

[Cue pulling out hair and running around in a circle screaming at the top of lungs.]

Why is this so hard? So stressful? So hair-pulling-out-inducing?

I don't know.

I mean, it's for dinner, right? People are sitting at their respective tables, eating yummy food, talking to their family or friends or what have you, and then they'll get up and mill around and dance, maybe go outside for a bit, get another drink, etc, etc...and everything should be peachy, right? So what's my problem?

The heartburn sucks...burning away at my soul, it is.

Last minute purchases

Being down to the wire like we are, at this point I'm pretty well ready to just throw up my hands and say, "Do we have the space? Check! Do we have food ordered? Check! Do we have alcohol to serve? Check! Alright then...we're done!"

But there is that small part of me that wants the details all tidied up and looking nice, so we continue to push on to collect them together and make sure all is well in the land of menus, kids' sections, and coordinators on the ball.

With that in mind, it was finally time to put our nose to the gridstone and pick out a cake-cutting set and some toasting flutes, already! I've liked the following cake-cutting set for a while, and finally purchased it today at BB&B...

I, however, feel that the matching flutes are a bit too girly with their "Love Knots" theme, since they had little bows on them at the top of the stem. For some reason, I couldn't see my fabulous husband-to-be holding a glass with a bow on it in his hand to toast our marriage together. So we finally took some time to visit the extensive fine china section at the local Bed, Bath & Beyond together last week, and we found some options that might work well.

He honed in on a particular glass that I didn't have a problem with, and so we finally found our flutes!

It's about 30 inches tall* and they look really elegant and will definitely be a special addition to our glassware collection after the wedding. So I'm pleased we were able to come to a conclusion on that issue. I had wanted to go with a champagne saucer myself, but Jesse was kind of anti-saucer for some reason. It was getting tough to find a cool one that was going to be available to us in such a short period of time anyway (I could have ordered the ones I wanted had I started thinking about this sort of thing 3 months ago...they hand-make them in Italy, or somewhere), and I wanted something that made us both happy. Eh voila! C'est finit!

Now if we could just get our first dance down, we'll be golden.

*Ok, not really. But they are pretty tall comparatively! It's going to be fun to have them...

Table Fun!

Jesse and I sat down last night after a fabulous trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond to find shelving solutions for the kitchen to help me stop losing my mind with our pantry area, and we worked on our seating arrangements for the dinner portion of the wedding reception.

I have to admit, I honestly thought this task would be much more difficult than it wound up being. I started with our own table, worked my way through my side of the family, then through our friends, and then Jesse's family, and then more of our friends (it was the way the invite list was laid out, which kind of explains the meandering back and forth...at least in my head it does), and then we were done! We're pretty sure we've done a good job of it, and hopefully we've accounted for everyone that will be attending. We do have a couple of RSVP cards that we never were able to account for who they came from, but I think we might've worked them out. Hopefully.

If not, let my first wedding day nightmare ensue! But I'd imagine it would be something the coordinator could handle in a snap, so we'll just be prepared in case we get any "extra" people we didn't place specifically. There's still room at a couple of the tables to place 1 - 2 additional people, as some of the tables have 10 at them, some have 9, and some have as few as 8. So it should work out.

I'm so glad to have that task done, though! Now comes the fun of naming the tables and getting ALL the info over to the printer. I can't wait to see how it all turns out!

And the winner is...

So, as I mentioned previously, during my search for the comfortable-all-day-long-yet-still-fabulous-and-pretty shoes I would be wearing on the wedding day, I found some truly...interesting prospects. Like the ones above - they light up! Or like these...

And these...is that a butterfly at the top? Gah! Ghetto-fabulous, anyone?
And to be fair, I found some very cute shoes as well. I would love to work these in somehow, but I'm afraid that heel is a bit too spikey to have any comfort factor going for it. But the polka-dots! CUTE!
Which brings us to...(drumroll please!).........



My Shoes!

I wore them the other night at our almost last dance class. (We thought it was going to be the last one, but because they gave us a rather mediocre teacher when we initially started there, the owner - who we are working with now - decided to add on an extra lesson for us for free! And boy-howdie, do we need it.) They aren't absolutely as comfy as can be...but they're VERY pretty on my feet. And yes, they're black. I gave up looking for a champagne/fancy-beige/off-white/light gold shoe a few weeks back. Seriously. Look at the pictures I've given you as a sample of what some of my options were. Do you blame me? Thank you...

I'll be using a black wrap that day as well, to keep my shoulders from getting too cold in the last-week-of-October breezes, so that will hopefully tie things together. And I know that none of it really matters, as no one will even see my shoes except for maybe a couple of times during the day, but it matters to me. I'll know what they look like, and I want them to look pretty. Because that helps make me feel pretty.

Thank goodness the search is over, though. I've never been a big shoe shopper anyway, so it's been kinda like torture to me to have to go through this. Being a woman is hard...

Shoes, anyone?

I think I absent-mindedly mentioned the search for shoes in my last post, and there wasn't any previous reference for you all to, well...refer to in regards to that reference, so I'm sorry about that. It consumed so much of my life for the past 3 months, or so, I guess I just thought I'd been mentioning it randomly in previous posts. But I don't think I actually have. (Although my bridesmaids and FMIL have been privy to some of the emails I've sent out regarding my shoe search. Poor things...hope they don't mind my sadistic sense of humor!)

Anyway, it's been a tough search for me, because it's hard to find something you actually look forward to wearing for 11 -12.5 hours in one day, and have them be cute, comfy, and match with your outfit.

I considered these...

But of course they didn't have them in my size for me to try on when I went to look for them. (Photo and shoe courtesy of David's Bridal. It's their style called "Jessica.")

I also saw these while I was there looking for the Jessica shoe...
Of course, not in my size in the store! (Dammit.)

So I tried these on... Cute, but not sure I'd be able to handle the material rubbing on my heel all day long. They were relatively comfy, though. But I also didn't like that there'd be so little of my toes peeking out, and I wanted more strappy over all.

Of course, my visit to the store came long after I'd found my first pair of shoes I thought I was going to wear at DSW. After I'd had them for a couple of weeks, I realized I needed an ankle strap to help keep my feet in the shoe all day/night (they were really cute slide sandals), and decided not to wear the ones I'd bought after all. Then I bought another pair...they were too shiny and the wrong color, we discovered when I was trying on my dress for the second time. So then I bought ANOTHER pair from Nordstrom. But it appears as though no amount of attempts at breaking them in will work...they are bound and determined to be a miserable pair of shoes on my feet. So they might be going back, if I can figure out how to get the foot petal-thingy I put in them to make them a bit more cushy (didn't work) back OUT again. Sticky nasty thing...

Throughout the entire process, I found some very special shoes, and I want to share a couple of those with you here now.

This shoe, for example, couldn't be created without the help of the feathers of some white, very beautiful I'm sure, birds from somewhere on this planet. God bless those beautiful birds for their contribution...

And THIS one? Well, who knew one could be a bride AND a stripper all at the same time?
There are more, but they'll have to wait for another post, as I've exceeded the alotted bandwidth I'm allowed to use per post with these pictures already. To be continued...

Obsession

I'm currently dealing with the obsession of trying to find appropriate cocktail napkins to have available at the wedding, and am running into a wall. We seem to have loads of options, this is true. But they range from what I consider run o' the mill...

To what is called "regal"...
To the relatively cheesy (but still sorta cute)...

And I don't know what to do! (And what does that first name say on that last napkin? Seems a bit off-color to me, maybe. But I might be reading it wrong.) Hopefully, we won't wind up with some craptastic version of whatever, since I'm being such a lame-o about getting them ordered already! But if you just see plain ol' Boulevard napkins lying about (if they even have them...), you know I just lost it and was unable to decide.

I thought the shoe obsession was bad...but this? This isn't right. They're napkins for heaven's sake! AUGH!

Weirdest Invite Issue

Ok, so the other day, I came home to find that we had received an invite back in the mail from a cousin of mine that I haven't seen in a long time.

The weird thing? We received their decline to the wedding back at the end of August.

*blink blink*

I'm beyond confused, have no idea what could have happened, and wish I knew what was up!

It rung a bell with me because we accidentally referred to the husband of this cousin as "Steve" when his first name is actually "Dennis." That was pretty embarrassing. But the name was noted on the RSVP card, I sent a follow-up note apologizing for the gaff - "it's been so long...relying on other people to help...so sorry for the mistake and that we won't be seeing you in October!" - and hoped they would forgive the mistake.

But the invitation we sent to them was returned to us due to an improper address. And how the HELL did they get an RSVP card to RSVP with if they never received the invite in the first place?

It's Twilight Zoneish...

Could we have accidentally sent them two different invitations? In which case it's somewhat of a blessing that the USPS somehow delivered the first one but not the second one, because, OMG, do we really need to look like complete idiots to this cousin? "Hi, I know you already RSVPd that you wouldn't be able to make it, and I know we called your husband by the wrong first name and all, but really, COME TO OUR WEDDING!!!"

I don't get it. How did this happen?

Odds and ends

It was tough to come up with a "theme" for the wedding, back when we started planning all the major aspects of the party. At first, we had planned on getting married October 20th, since it seemed like a good weekend to look at weather-wise, and still hit at a good point in the year holiday-wise and all that. But we had to change our plans pretty quickly after it was pointed out by a groomsman and good friend that October 20th wouldn't work out well if we planned on inviting a good amount of people from South Bend. Jason told Jesse it was the weekend of the USC vs Notre Dame game. And, well, I hadn't any idea when we came up with the date! Obviously, it had to change. Thank goodness the realization came early on in the process, and we were able to push things out a week without any issues.

That folly started a ball rolling with the thought that we could have a USC/Notre Dame themed wedding, since I'm a huge 'SC fan, and Jesse is, of course, a Notre Dame fan. (He's even watching the games I TiVo for him every week. Even though he knows how they turn out and everything. He's such a good sport!) But that wound up seeming like too much work after thinking it over a bit more, and also made me feel a bit like a poser, since neither of us actually went to/graduated from those schools. So we passed on that idea eventually.

We eventually started working from the direction of what colors we wanted the wedding to be decorated in. Obviously, the fall angle was going to come in at some point, seeing as that weekend is right before Halloween, a quintessential fall event, and also happens to be a good weekend historically for changed foliage here in the KC area. But we didn't want things to get all kitschy, or anything...no decorating with little pumpkins, or leaves absolutely all over the place. The fact that it IS fall should be enough, we think.

And then I found my dress. And the venue was already booked, so we had that to help. And then there was the fact that Jesse is a chef, and I have become a much better one than ever before thanks to the help of osmossis as well as a lesson or two now and then. We both really like to cook, basically.

And the "theme" started to take shape. We decided on our colors pretty quickly once the dress was discovered. Naming the tables was a tough part of it all...we tried to come up with clever ideas, but nothing really worked for what our focus was. A lot of people do things like name tables for locations they've traveled to together, or base it on a theme of where their honeymoon will take place. Some people just number tables, and while that's an old standby method for sure, we wanted to do something a bit more special was all. And then we finally came up with it: we would name the tables after famous chefs! We're working with names that are both classic and contemporary, so if people don't watch Food Network, they might not get a handful of them, but that's ok. Hopefully most everyone will be able to figure it out and then help those who don't know what our direction is.

The favors were harder to nail down. I was interested in getting some measuring spoons that were possibly engraved with something like "There's no measure to our love" or what have you. Cheesy, yes. But there should always be a leetle bit of cheese at a wedding, right? Well...it didn't work out, anyway. I couldn't manage to find any measuring spoons that could be engraved (or already came engraved, for that matter...) that weren't in the shape of a heart. And, oh how I hate heart-shaped things! Since neither of us are 14, and we're more contemporary-furnishing minded vs. country-furnishing minded, the heart thing didn't really resonate. So I had to pass on that idea.

I can't remember where we got the final idea from...maybe just my endless tooling around on the web, perhaps. But we found some perfect-sized little containers, and we're going to fill them with an absolutely fabulous spice that goes good with chicken, beef, fish, veggies...hell, you can sprinkle some on your arm and gnaw on it a bit while watching t.v., if you want. It's just that good! I managed to find some labels we could get printed up that tell folks what the spice is, and we're all set to go! It's compact and safe enough to pack in luggage...it's useful to everyone, regardless of their diet...and there are no hearts in sight! Yay!

So basically, the "theme" to the wedding, if there must be one, anyway, is cooking, chefs, food, etc, etc...I actually wanted to put a quote onto the label for the spice instead of anything else, but it wouldn't fit. It's a good quote though, so I'll share it with y'all now...

My favorite animal is steak.
- Fran Lebowitz

I'm sure everyone who reads this has already responded, but still...

I'm having a rough week. I almost cried at work yesterday (which is a BIG no-no on my list), and am feeling beat up and worn out by my workouts.

We are still having issues with RSVPs not coming in, and so I thought I'd post this link as a little helper on my behalf. Again, I don't think the people who actually read this blog are a problem. Especially after all the posts I've had about RSVP issues! But I just need to say it again. That's all. Because the lack of RSVPs is keeping us from being able to complete the final details on the reception.

And that? IS MAKING ME CRAZY!

Just bear with me. I'll post something pretty and nice soon to make up for all this bitching, I swear. :)

These days

This has been a trying week. Even though it was a "short" one, somehow, it found a way to be more difficult than normal weeks are!

See, we're going through a possible move at work. As I am the admin to the "Director" of our branch of the division, I was placed as point of contact (and the main arranger, apparently) of the new configuration our team would be set up in. "No problem!", I thought. "I can do this!"

Yeah, turns out I'm not too good at that sort of thing. My boss was interested in getting all of the various teams under him sitting in a more grouped configuration (we have 6 managers located in our office, so that would be 6 different team groupings), but one of the managers thinks more like me...he wanted his team all spread out. And when I tried to spread his team out, it really mucked up all the rest of the teams and their ability to be grouped together.

In my effort to make everyone happy, I did a pretty good job - even though I failed miserably at putting people where they should be. As far as my boss is concerned? Well, he's about the nicest guy on the planet...so he "felt bad" about rearranging everybody the way he did. But I say more power to him! He's the BOSS, after all. He's also got the mind of an engineer, whereas I have the mind of an English major. Maybe after a bit more practice with this stuff, I can help further down the line. In the mean time, I'll stick to correcting bad grammar and setting up meetings for him.

Also, you'll note that I mentioned that this is all just a possibility. From what I heard, we went through something like this last August before I joined the company. They made their recommendations about where teams should be, they packed boxes, they prepared to uproot...and then nothing ever happened. The move was cancelled after weeks of planning.

So I keep reminding the people that are coming to me with the disappointed puppy dog looks on their faces to bemoan the fact that "I'm not going to be by the window anymore?!" that this is all in the preliminary stage right now, things could always change! Oh, and by the way? I lose my window too. Thank God I have some at my house that I can look out whenever I want to, right? (Sheesh!)

Anyway, it's been stressful. And that was just 50% of my job this week! (Even though it took up 75% of my time, thanks to the whiners who suddenly want to be better friends with me than usual for some reason.)

Jesse's job is challenging right now as well...I think he feels a bit unfulfilled and frustrated with the position he's in at this point, but that makes sense. Early days in a new job can be trying, even to the most experienced job-hoppers. For someone that was committed to a routine and knew his position pretty well inside-out since he'd been at his last job for 5 years, this has got to be tough.

And then he gets to come home and deal with me! Bless his heart.

This week has been a disappointing one in terms of wedding issues as well. Specifically concerning the RSVPs. We've received about half of them from my side of the invite list, and while we've received a good amount of them from Jesse's side, we haven't gotten them all, which is surprising in some cases...maybe people think that we'll hear about it via word of mouth? I don't know. We need the actual RSVP cards, though. *sigh!* If you're reading this, and you haven't sent yours yet, please...please send it! For our sanity's sake! The flights aren't gettin' any cheaper! The sooner you decide, the better for everyone. (It's gonna be a blast though! Hope everyone can make it!)

I had a very old (and previous to days-of-Jesse, a very good) friend send me an email letting me know that he'd received his invitation, but he's back in school again (which is great! I hope he's working toward his teaching degree) and will be very busy this semester, so he's not sure if he'll be able to come. So "if [I] don't see [him] there", he's sorry.

Um, huh? No, no, no, noooo...I wrote him back and reminded him that this is a formal party, and not a BBQ at his friend's house. He needed to decide by September 1st if he would be able to spare 3 hours of a Saturday evening in October to help an old friend celebrate a new stage in her life. (I know he doesn't like weddings much...I told him he could forgo the attendance at the actual ceremony if he wanted.) I told him I was SURE he'd do great with his classes (he always does...so smart!), and that I would love to see him again and really hoped he'd be able to make it!

3 weeks have come and gone, and no RSVP from him yet. (No reply to the email, either.) This frustrates me.

Another old friend that I felt was surely going to attend with her lovely husband RSVP'd that they would not be attending, which sent shock waves through me that haven't quite dissipated yet. I have to accept that they have their reasons, but it leaves me concerned about what the motivation was for the decline of the invite. I want to follow up and make sure my friend is ok, but I'm not sure if I should do it via phone or in a note I send to her house in a card. I'm really having a hard time with the issue.

Outside of all of that, things are rolling along well. The wedding coordinator and I will meet this next week at the reception venue to look over the space together, and let her know what we've come up with up to this point, and see what her ideas are that she can throw in the mix. The DJ wrote me a note last night looking for a time to meet, and we've decided on the week after next, so I really need to step up my coordination there soon. I'm looking forward to both meetings, though. Should be fun.

Right now, I'm heading out to find the proper accompaniment for our favors we're giving to everyone at the wedding. I've put it off too long! So here I go!

Happy weekend everyone...

It's getting to be that time...

I feel badly right now, since most of our phone calls and emails to friends are consisting of tying loose ends up regarding the wedding. And I hate being one of those people that only seem to talk about their wedding all the time. Because we DO have other stuff going on! Really! It's just not as fun to talk about, is the thing. I'm sure most would agree if I brought any of it up for your review. But I don't think I'll do that to anyone, really.

I mean, who wants to hear about how things are disintegrating at my old office, and my coworker/friend who still works there is dealing with hellish work conditions, along with everyone else in the office, on a day to day basis? Yeah, not so interesting if it doesn't involve you, right?

Or, how about the way that the dog threw up yesterday after she ate half of a click pen the night before? See? I should keep that sort of thing to myself.

Um...I have something itchy on my back that is bothering me in a relentless fashion today. Fascinating, eh?

See what I mean? The wedding stuff is the FUN stuff! The what-to-buy-the-parents talks, and the last minute additions to the decor ideas, and the meetings with the vendors, and the questions of who's staying where when they're in town, and the putting together of the gift bags for the OOT ("out of town") guests, and all that sort of thing...MUCH more fun than discussing the turmoil that is our back lawn, or other daily drudgery and bitter issues.

I'm supposed to meet with the wedding coordinator tonight to go over more details, discuss vendors, and in order to get her copies of all the contracts we have associated with our wedding. But I haven't heard from her yet as to whether she's able to make our appointment, and so I'm not sure if we're going to actually be meeting. But that's fine with me...I still haven't had a chance to make copies of things and print out the decor ideas she was interested in seeing, and I'm totally flexible with my schedule anyway, so I could put it off another week or two if she needs.

This week, I've been trying to find ideas for the contents of the aforementioned OOT gift boxes, and then trying to get the last piece of the favor puzzle put into place, and also trying to find the time to pull together the items I need for my meeting with the coordinator. Not super exciting, really. Except I did have fun looking into chocolates to put into the OOT boxes...I think I found the perfect option, too! It's still a toss-up right now as to whether I put chocolates into the boxes, or a small assortment of tea cookies. We'll see. Both are made by a company that is local to KC, and that's all that matters. In fact, all the items in the OOT box will be local to Kansas City. It's been so much fun looking things up to put in there! I can't wait until I can start ordering and assembling...

Because I'm a loon like that. :)

Anyway, thanks to all who have to deal with our semi-constant wedding discussions as of late. It's only 2 more short months that you have to put up with this sort of thing from us, and then we're all free from the monotony! (And what a way to go out, too...yay!)

Head spinning...tummy rumbling...AUGH!

I just was entering an appointment onto my calendar for next Tuesday, and noticed that the second half of the payment we owe to the Brewery for rental of the space for our reception is due on Monday.

[breathing in, breathing out...breathing in......]

AUGH!

My heart is suddenly beating very quickly, and I feel dizzy. I wish I was kidding.

What the hell is happening to me? Is this a normal reaction? Is it even considered a reaction of some sort?

It's not about the wedding. It's not about marrying Jesse. I think it's about the worry about getting everything done. In time. And right.

I wish I could climb into bed until October 27th right about now...

The first one came in...

Since last week, we've had a steady stream of RSVPs coming in for the wedding, and it's been so much fun to get them every day!

However, the unfortunate incident where I forgot to number the RSVP cards came back to bite us for the first time this weekend...we got an RSVP from someone who replied that they WILL BE attending, and there will be 2 of them. So that's nice! But I haven't any idea who they are. No return address on the envelope, no name written in in the designated spot on the RSVP...nothing. Even the hopefully helpful clue of the postmark won't do anything for us...it was just a set of wavy lines. Unlike all the other cards we received back, which had the names of the invited included in some way or another, and said clearly if it had been sent from South Bend, or Long Beach, or Santa Ana...this one in particular had an issue with that postmark being printed properly, so all it showed were lines and no city stamp.

So we'll just have to wait until we get them all back, and hope that we won't get any more like it. *sigh!*

I blame myself, really. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Ok, I'm off to look up some info on the hotels, and then to get to work on my thank you notes for shower gifts. Seriously...I am TERRIBLE with these things. I try, though! What more can one do, really?

Fun with the kids' section...

For the past few months, I've been trying to figure out how we can make the seating area in the Kids' Section as comfy and inviting as we can. It's tough to find furniture that's both functional and comfy, and is more temporary like a lawn chair, but is still something that would be classy enough to have associated with the somewhat formal reception we're attempting to throw.

So I've been keeping an eye out, ever since the idea of renting furniture was tossed out the window (it was going to cost a minimum of $5,000, and that wasn't in my budget...not by a long shot!), trying to find options that wouldn't break the bank, but would also not be second-hand random pieces found out on the curb of people's homes that didn't want them any more. (I saw a couch not too long ago on my way home from the Plaza...it was yellow, and it was free! But it was missing a seat cushion. Which kinda defeats the purpose, IMO. Who gets to sit on that side of the couch if you take it home? It was also missing a back leg, and was sitting, instead, on a modified plastic carton of some sort to support it. Sometimes, people just need to realize they aren't doing anyone a favor handing on trash like that...just throw it out!)

Each week, I would visit Bed, Bath, & Beyond looking for something...and last week I finally found it:

They're called "planet puff chairs" and after getting some advice about whether I should get them or not from my nieces, I went ahead and ordered 3 of the brown ones for the Kid's Section. They arrived at the house this week, and I finally took them out of their packaging last night to give them a try. They are, indeed, very comfy and a good size for all ages that might want to sit in them.

I had also been watching for some reasonably priced floor cushions. Bed, Bath, & Beyond only has one type, and they aren't reasonable. I needed more options. My visit to Crate & Barrel this week proved fruitful! I found these on sale:

Gold and pretty, and perfect for a kid-sized bum to sit on...and they have a handy-dandy handle on the side, so carrying them about will be that much easier! Score! I ordered 4.

Jesse thinks we should also have a rug of some sort in that area, and while I agree, I don't know how doable it will be. We have a rug we could donate to the cause, and I suppose that we could just transport it at the same time in the same way that we do the chairs and the floor cushions, but I dunno. We'll have to see.

Anyway, things are coming together ever so slowly at this point. But I'm glad to have this little task completed...the kiddos will have a comfy place to sit and watch a movie, if they'd like. That makes me happy...

Please forgive me...for the next 2 months!

I am under a tremendous amount of stress right now. Between personal and professional obligations, my brain is on overload, and I'm sincerely hoping that everyone that I know and love and communicate with on a daily/weekly basis can try to understand how tough it has been to balance everything going on in our lives for these last couple of months, and the next few to come.

Jesse has a new job.
My job is incredibly busy.
My body isn't being very friendly with me lately, which makes things oh so much less tolerable on a day to day basis.
The heat...is just unbearable. I hate this part of summer, and cannot WAIT to see it go!
Our house is becoming more and more crowded full of items for the wedding that we'll need, and the clutter is driving me up the wall.
The dog has been coughing for about 2 weeks now, and we think its from her licking the carpet we have on the deck which has started "shedding" due to the exposure to the extreme heat and dryness we've had lately. I feel so bad for her, but I haven't the first clue how to get her to stop licking that carpet!
Work has one charity event after another, and I went ahead and volunteered to be the coordinator for our team for the next one coming up, even though I didn't really want to. I don't know that my brain will be able to withstand the additional strain of trying to raise funds from people that have already given so much over the past several months. But my coworker assured me that its more fun than it is work, and my boss was so pleased that I was able to help, I thought it would be a fine idea. Now I'm feeling overwhelmed by it already, and we haven't even had our first meeting about it yet!
I'm trying to tie up loose ends of the wedding planning, including working on fixing hotel blocks that weren't long enough for some members of the family and other friends that will be coming into town for longer than just 2 days for the wedding, finalizing menus, making appointments to see vendors to finalize other plans like the music, the babysitting issues and timelines for the day before and the day of the wedding, managing the deliveries of the rented items for the reception, finalizing the alcohol order (and hoping it'll be a good amount!), going to dance lessons and trying to find time to practice when Jesse and I aren't totally exhausted or just not in the mood, picking up things like the insoles I need to make my pretty, pretty wedding shoes actually not painful to wear, and trying to keep my brain from leaking out of my ears when I run into unexpected stress from issues that are beyond my control.
I need to finish all of my thank you notes for my wedding shower that my sister threw for me in California about, oh, a month ago now! (GOD, I am awesome...)
I haveto figure out how we can register the new car. And just how much is it going to cost us.
I need to make the next appointment for Jesse's dentist visit, and hope that his work will allow for him to have two days off in a row again so he'll have ample recovery time, since this next visit won't be as easy as the last.

And those are just the things I can think of right now. I'm a leeetle bit stressed, is my point. And my head hurts. And I'm sorry if I snap or don't respond as expected or don't respond at all to certain things in the coming months. I want to have fun with this...I really do. But I don't know how to do that when there are just so many other things to worry about at the same time. I'm very envious of the girls that don't have to work, and can actually spend all their time planning and preparing for their weddings. Even though I kind of am disgusted by them at the same time, really. Because it's just a party. The getting married part is the important part of the day, and the rest is just a freaking party. It'll be a really lovely party, of course, but that's all it is. Trying to keep focussed on the important things over here...

It's not easy. :)

Hotel Info continued...

Sorry about the Sheraton post not working before. I think I've fixed it...you can click here to see our wedding webpage they created for us, and also make reservations within our room block.

Thanks for pointing that out, Alisha! :)

Sorry...so sorry...

I haven't had a chance to update for a while, and I apologize for that! For the whole 5 of you that read this blog, anyway. :)

So today was a milestone: I sent out the invitations. Yay! I finished the stuffing of the envelopes last night after a yummy dinner we made with our new crockpot (which we've used twice this week already, and holy LORD, how did we live without one for this long? Thanks to Aunt Karen, my step mom's sister-in-law, we can now live in general ease for a couple of days of the week on a regular basis...), and then popped them into one of the lovely baskets I got for my shower here in Kansas (thanks to FMIL's faboolous taste in gifts...) and took them to the post office today to have them sent out on their way.

On the way to the post office, I had an alarming realization, though. I totally forgot to number the back of the RSVP cards. I called my Twin to mope about that realization, and she asked me why that was necessary? I explained that it's done so if someone doesn't fill out their name on the RSVP card, I can match it up with a list I have of all the invitees and I can figure out who was responding even without the info written in for me.

Now, if someone sends their response without filling in their name, I'm pretty well screwed. I guess the process of elimination will have to be applied, and I'm seriously hoping that it doesn't happen with too many of the RSVP's, but I have heard of it being a problem amongst the brides on the different bridal-prep websites I had been frequenting for the past few months.

So, if you few readers could do me a favor and spread the word to the people you know who are invited, and make sure they realize that writing in their names on the RSVP card would be ever so helpful to us, I sure would appreciate it!

Something dopey like this was bound to happen sometime...it is ME after all. Sheesh!

Whew!

Well, a visit to my local post office (local to work, anyway!) cleared up any questions I might have about sending the invitations. Our personalized stamp should cover everything just fine! So as soon as those come, we'll be good to go...

I'm going to be spending a good part of tomorrow night (Jesse's working a double, poor thing...yay for overtime, though!) placing the stamps on the RSVP return envelopes, though, and then completing the compilation of the invites, so all I'll need to do is stick the personalized stamp on them when they get here, and then pop them in the mail! Eeeeee!!

Invitations!

The invitations arrived last night! They look soooooooooo pretty. They turned out perfectly!

Except for one teensy thing. Our invitation vendor had checked with the post office on postage for the entire invite package, so I could check into ordering specialty stamps that I was interested in getting. We went over the price a couple of times, and she was sure that the entire invite should cost about $1.17 to send. I looked into stamp options, and unfortunately, the only stamp I could get that would cover that price was one for $1.31. No matter…I just figured that would surely get every invitation safely to their intended recipients.

So the invitation vendor had bad news for us when she arrived last night. She had returned to the post office one more time (I don’t know why she went this time…could be for another project) and the clerk asked her if she would be sending the items via parcel or flat. Apparently, one option sends the invites through a machine that could bend them, and the other doesn’t.

Also? The one option costs $1.17, and the other one costs $1.47. And the way our invitation is, it might not even BE an option to send them with the smaller amount of postage on them.

So. Now we have 120 stamps on their way to us, custom made with a picture of Jesse and me on them, which we will have to likely supplement with a second stamp of some certain value. Fun, huh?

The invitation vendor felt pretty bad, since she was trying to help us plan ahead by checking how much postage would be on our invites. Last night, she kept telling me to let her know how much extra we wind up spending on the postage so she can supplement the cost by lowering her final bill. But I think its fine, really. First off, the cute personalized stamp was just a fun extra bit we wanted to do. The fact that we now need to put another stamp next to it on the envelope won’t be that big of a deal, I’m sure. I’m willing to bet people won’t look at the personalized stamp and think to themselves, “Aw! How clever and cute that is…” and then see the additional postage and find the entire invitation “experience” ruined. I do know that it would ruin the experience to have postage due when the invite got there, so that is the important thing to avoid here!

But the main thing is that the invitations look beautiful, and I cannot WAIT to send them out! Today is a bit busy for post office visits, but tomorrow I’ll definitely get it taken care of, and then I just have to wait for the personalized stamps to arrive, and we can get them sent out.

This is getting scary. :)

Shower re-cap, and other bits...

It’s been a special level of busy at work these past couple of weeks, so I apologize for the lack of posts as of late. As we all know, work must come first, though…the wedding and the private life and the fun have to be set aside when things get as busy as they have been in the professional world!

Thank goodness it hasn’t been all work work work, though…for example, yesterday we went and bowled for charity in the morning and I got back to my desk at about 1 after bowling 2 games with my other 5 teammates. It was nice to get out and do something fun for charity! (My teammates and I have been practicing over the course of the last month, too. We went for extra-long lunches twice in order to prepare for today. So that hasn’t been all that terrible, either.)

Of course, things were a bit more stepped up over the last couple of weeks at work due to my vacation days I took last week. I went to California for a wedding shower that my sister threw for me, and I took last Friday and this past Monday off for travel. Saturday, the day of the shower, was perfect, and we had such a nice time! I was hoping to be able to see a lot of family and old friends that I don’t get to see very often, and the party did not disappoint in that respect. In fact, it didn’t disappoint in any respect! The food was great, the aforementioned weather was lovely, and everyone seemed to have as good a time as I had, which always makes things even nicer than one could hope.

We did have an odd occurrence during one point of the shower, though. See, we were on a lower level of patio seating at a restaurant on this little lake in Mission Viejo. We were at the one end of the patio, and were pretty well backed into a corner. The buffet was set up in that corner, and then the tables were along the railing looking over the water. Very pretty, well-situated, comfortable for everyone, etc…

Well, after we had all gotten our food and even been back for seconds, we settled in to take some pictures and chit-chat and that sort of thing before I opened presents. While we hung out, a few of us (if not all of us) noticed that one of the waiters from the restaurant was at our buffet, getting a plate of food…presumably for himself, but who knows. He finished filling up, we all kind of laughed, and then went back to chit chat.

After a few minutes, the chocolate covered strawberries my sister had ordered for dessert arrived, and we went to town on them. Yum! Then a waiter came to get orders for coffee, and we continued on with our chatting. (We did a LOT of chatting!)

Pretty soon after the strawberries had arrived, another “gentleman” showed up to our buffet. This guy was wearing a normal brown shirt, though, so I wasn’t sure who he was, exactly. Then a waiter arrived with the tray of coffee, he set them down on a table next to the present table, and then he went to the buffet to fill a plate. Note: he did NOT distribute the coffees to the guests who had ordered them…he just left them on the tray on a side table. For some unknown reason. (He must have been really, really hungry, I s’pose.)

This pretty well pissed me off. I was angry, and while my sister was a bit confused by the actions of the waiters as well, she just wanted to let the whole thing go for the time being and follow up with management later. In the meantime, these two guys were filling up plate after plate of our food, and then passing the full plates to the next level of the terrace to other waiting employees of the restaurant who wanted free food from our buffet.

Well, I couldn’t just SIT there like that! I decided to cheer myself up by taking a picture of the two food-stealers.
And then our best friend (and one of my “chicks of honor”) jumped up and got in the picture as well, to help express our feelings about the randomness of the act.
(That's my cousin Denise taking note of the random food-stealing as well, along with my sister-in-law Rebecca.) As you can see, it’s not like the buffet was far from where our tables were at, or anything. So we thought the whole deal was very strange, to say the least.

Eventually, they stopped coming to our buffet to eat our food, and we wound up taking home a lot of leftovers (although I think we all wished there had been more leftover tamales/sweet corn cakes, which I’m pretty sure the absconders had taken a good deal of. Jerks.), which we ate for the rest of the weekend. It was great!

It was sooo, so nice to see old friends of my mom and dad’s (who are now friends with my step mom and still my dad, of course!) whom I haven’t seen since dad’s wedding. And my aunts that I never get to see, and my step aunts, and my cousins, and step sister once removed. One of Jesse’s aunts was there as well, and it was awesome to be able to spend some time with her like that before the wedding. She’s a hoot! Unfortunately, other local family and friends of his family were unable to make it, but maybe we’ll be able to see some of them at the wedding! You never know…(There are more photos of the shower at the end of this post, by the way...)

So for now, the pre-wedding parties are over. At this point, I’m finalizing plans with the caterers, the florist, and the invitations. I need to put together a vendor list for my coordinator (and also just to help me keep my sanity, if possible…), and after we know who and how many will be coming to the wedding, I’ll order table names and have the table “assignments” printed out. I hate that I have to wait until the last minute to get those things done, but it is what it is!

Tomorrow I’ll be going to the salon for a second hair trial, since the first one didn’t turn out as I’d have liked it to. I’ve got more pictures of examples, and a more defined idea of what I’d like my hair to look like, though, so hopefully that’ll help. If not, I’m afraid I’ll have to have a 3rd trial at a totally different salon. Which would be fine, I’m sure. It’s not like there are hard feelings in the world of hair-do’s, and I’m sure the girl I’m attempting to have it done by wouldn’t care much if I went someplace else. She’s a cool chick.

Alrighty, off to get some end of the week work done! (13 weeks to go! I have to try to keep my mind off of it, seriously…)

Here are some more pictures from the shower, though. This is of my twin, our best friend, and me. We like to laugh...

And these are two of my aunts on Dad's side, Yvonne and Ginny. Ginny is my godmother, and Yvonne is my twin's. (I think. We have a few aunts and uncles, so I might be off on that...) They are a couple of the sweetest people you could ever know, and I miss hanging out and seeing them on holidays at this point in my life. *sigh!* That kind of comes with the territory of choosing to live 1500 miles from your family, though, I guess!
Aunt Yvonne was married to my dad's brother, Bob. They were what we call (and I suppose lots of people call, really) "Irish twins" so it was beyond sad when Bob died 4 years ago from complications of a bout of pneumonia. He had something called Pulmonary Fibrosis, though, and was unable to recover like most healthy people might be able to do. I miss him. Yvonne won't be able to make it to the wedding, I learned, since she is going to be on a cruise at that point. It sounded like it will be a LOT of fun though, and I was just so grateful to have some time to chat and catch up at the shower like we did!

And here I am with my step aunt Yvonne (yep, another one!), and my step mom Yvette. Aren't they just the prettiest?

Maybe some more photos next week...we took a TON of them!