"You're Never Too Old..."

Just reading one of my blogger friend's posts about a 100 year old bride. Annnnnd crying at my desk at work, again. All this wedding and love stuff has me more emotional than a Lifetime movie. Just thought I'd share this with you all --- true love is attainable at any age. Enjoy, and try not to get a little tearful!

Beautiful. Romantic. Touching. What a wonderful, sentimental Friday wedding tidbit.

Thanks, "Saying I do!" for sharing!

-Micah

106 Days!

Hello everyone! I am going to apologize again for being a delinquint blogger. I've been quite busy with a new theatre company putting up our first show! (Where have you heard that before? ;-) ).

Unlike before when I would become a delinquint blogger, Patrick and I have actually kicked our wedding butts in gear and accomplished a lot! Realizing that there's only 106 days left, we kind of had to! (Also, now whenever I talk about the wedding date with someone, they'll invariable say "Oh. That's coming up." I'm like "I KNOW! No PRESSURE!!!!")

Here's some of the projects/tasks we've gotten done of late:

• Booked a DJ
• Booked a Florist
• Found a string quartet for the ceremony
• Almost completed our premarital counciling sessions with our officiant!
• Decided which tuxes Patrick and the boys will wear
• I completed one of two pomanders for the flower girls (later post)
• Ordered proofs of our invites (being shipped now!!!)
• Booked honeymoon accomodations (another post)!
• Begun work on our table numbers (I know early, but I am obsessed!)
• Had my first dress fitting and scheduled another (with a hair trial before it! EEE!)
• Found a dress for one flower girl (need to find one more, and a junior bridesmaid dress)
• 5 out of 7 bridesmaids ordered their dresses!
• Decided on our cupcake baker and flavors (definitely another post)

And that's not even it! Of course there are a TON of things that I feel behind on (ordering the tuxes, working on the invites, preparing passports and booking flights for the honeymoon) but I need to breathe and enjoy this time! Too many times lately, have I run in with stress bouts from wedding planning. We have a little over three months left (eep!), and we are doing pretty well. I will endeavor to enjoy the rest of our time as an engaged couple!

But...I still am a huge Bride Brain right now!

I'll be better about posting soon --- the play's the thing (that keeps me from posting!).

Micah

Randy from TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" is Coming to Boston!

Yep, that's right! Randy's coming to Beantown! And I thought I'd let you all know! 

Image via Style and Strut

Randy from TLC's hit show "Say Yes to the Dress" will be coming to Boston. He'll be in town for his "Randy to the Rescue" Bridal event on April 1, 2012! He'll be at Sheraton Boston Hotel at 39 Dalton Street, Boston, MA 02199 from 11am to 7pm with designer gowns and you may even be able to get personal assistance in wedding dress shopping from him! Gah! 

Ladies, if you haven't got a dress and want to have some fun on a Sunday, I say go for it! Go here for more information! Go forth, and find thine wedding dress! :)

-Micah

Storymix Wedding Video Contest

Hey Friends!

Have you booked your videographer yet? If not, I want to let all you vloggers know about a contest to win a free Storymix video package with custom video editing! Storymix Media is working to enable brides and grooms to capture their most precious memories for an affordable price. Being a budgeted bride myself, we actually had decided to opt out of videography to save the money, but I am definitely entering this contest.

Here's how it works: The contest is to determine three eager Bride Vloggers (video-bloggers) that will post each month on their planning process to the Storymix blog. Those three brides will win the custom package videography for their wedding!

To enter, you must upload a video to the Storymix Facebook page and discuss why you'd like to be a Storymix "Vlogger (video-blogger) Bride" and mention @Storymix in your post.. Each video you upload automatically enters you into the contest, and each Facebook comment and vote you can get on your video is an additional entry. The more comments and votes you get, the higher your chances of winning --- so tell your friends! Have your groom comment!

The Storymix Vlogger Bride contest runs from today (March 19th) to the 25th so get your vlog posts up there! There is a grand prize for the best video and randomly drawn second and third prizes. This contest was brought to me by my friend and fellow blogger Laura, check out her blog here!

Happy vlogging!

Micah

So, Summer Weddings, Eh?

Yeah, we're getting married in the summer. And it's July so it will most likely be pretty hot. And although we've got the benefit of a delicious beachy breeze coming in through the windows (hopefully if it's not raining and storming), we will not have air conditioning. I know. Scandalous.

Last year on the day that will be our wedding day this year, the temperature according to Wunderground.com, was lowest 74 degrees and highest 86 degrees. Not bad, but if it's sunny --- it could be intense, especially for a girl in a long white dress. Well, our solution includes hoping for that oceanic breeze and providing fans. Not fans like these, ohhhh no...

Image via Yourdictionary.com

...But elegant, fans like they used in the good old days! After seeing gorgeous inspirational pictures online, and constantly walking by the intricate fans in the Wedding section in Michael's, I finally decided to go for it and grab them! We didn't get enough for every single guest, because not everyone will want to use them, still --- we thought it would be lovely to offer them. My FMIL tied a royal blue ribbon (matching the one on our Cardbox) to each one and we placed them in a basket and ta-dah! 

All done up and basket-ed and ready to go!

What do you think? How's that for a lovely semi-DIY solution to no air conditioning? We also have a sweet treat for guests (but that's a secret until another post!) to keep them cool. Summer brides, if you have no air conditioning in your venue, how do you plan on keeping it cool for your guests? 

Best,

Micah

With this Wreath...

Even though we are having a semi-Episcopalian ceremony and our officiant is an Episcopalian priest, as you know we are not getting married in a church. Which means, no altar. Our venue is set up kind of like a dog bone if you are looking at a cross section of it from above. There are two tower turrets connected by a long bridge way with windows. One turret has a stair case up to the main event room, while the other (closest to the ocean I might add) has a small balcony with large french doors leading out to it. That my friends, is the spot we are getting hitched.

My dilema was: how do we make that spot visibly special? With no altar, no chuppah and definitely no archway, what's to do? I looked at a bunch of inspirational pictures, but nothing really wow-ed me until I saw this:

Image via Style Me Pretty

Even though that quote is not from Shakespeare, it was a Shakespeare-themed rehearsal dinner. And the books are hanging from an archway! As you know, I am a Shakespeare-nerd, and we are already incorporating Shakespeare table numbers, and a sung sonnet (you'll hear more of both very soon) as well as other small Shakespearean-flourishes into the wedding. While I'd like to replicate that gorgeous picture, I am not sure I can (I may attempt to). But in the meantime, I have created something smaller, and something that I think really fits with our wedding style that is slowly but surely, coming together.

Behold! The Wedding Wreath!

It was such a quick project, and I think it came out really nice. So, I went to Christmas Tree Shops and found a wreath covered with GIANT pink roses and tons of greens (Sorry, no before picture -- bad blogger!). I had wanted the woven branch look, and for $3.99, I didn't mind hacking off the faux blooms. 

Check out the floral carnage!

Next, I took this pretty lace ribbon I bought months ago, and had been dying to use, and wrapped it around the wreath. I secured the ribbon with small dots of hot glue as I went. And made sure that the ends of the ribbons met cleanly on what would be the wall-facing side.

Here's my favorite part: I cut out small bits of pages from my extra copy (yes, I have extra copies) of Romeo and Juliet. Specifically, the famous balcony scene. And then stamped the last line of our sonnet with my blue alphabet stamps. I played with different arrangements, but this just seemed right.

I thought I was done, but there was something still missing. I remembered I had three white peacock feathers left from when I made my hair flower, and used them as extra flourishes on the wreath. Here's how it turned out!

I'm thinking of hanging it about the doorways out to the balcony, or on the doors themselves or maybe I can use fishing line to hang it above us. All in all, I think I found a beautiful solution to my decor issue!

Want to find out what else I'm thinking for the ceremony? Stay tuned!

Best,

Micah

How do you handle wedding stress?

We all get stressed, concerned, and anxious at times, especially with the pressure of planning a wedding. Today, in Lazy Sunday Land, I was reading an article on the Huffpost Weddings and thought it had some beautiful things to think about when brides or grooms feel overwhelmed about their weddings. Here's what Shannon Kellogg has to say about her ways of dealing with wedding-planning stress:

"1. Outward appearances are not a 1:1 correlation with happiness. You don't need to be a psychologist to know that people who appear outwardly "perfect" are probably not. It's just not possible to be perfect. And it would be rather boring if you were. While reality shows and magazines might feature fabulous weddings, a perfect wedding does not necessarily a happy marriage make.

2. I am so lucky to be marrying my fiancé. Whenever I would become stressed or overwhelmed with wedding planning, I would think about my single days before I met my future husband. I remembered how much I had hoped that someday I would find the person whom I was meant to be with. And here it was -- I had it! Thinking about how lucky I was to be with this man made the current stressors feel trivial. I'd go through it all again, so long as I have him at the end.

3. I just want my wedding to be loving and fun. I reminded myself about the actual goal of the wedding: to celebrate being head-over-heels in love, to join our families, and to have a great party together. Period.

4. My wedding is not tied to my self-esteem. My feelings of self-worth don't come from having the wedding of the century. My feelings of confidence come from within. The things that define me -- my love for my family, my passion for work, my quirky personality -- none of those are impacted by how my centerpiece looks or which photographer I choose. My wedding is a part of my life, but it is not all of me.

5. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Once I took the pressure off of myself to have a wedding that represents everything that we are as a couple, I was free to have fun. I realized that I wanted to enjoy planning the wedding while it lasted. I then had such a good time picking out a dress that I loved. I had fun talking to people about the wedding plans. I fell in love with the venue. I picked songs and flowers that I liked. And best of all, I felt the joy of being engaged."

-Shannon Kellogg, psychologist.

Here's the rest of the article! Lovely gem of advice for a musing bride on a Sunday afternoon.

Best,

Micah

Colors!

Ahh! I never talked about our wedding color pallette! It's been over a year! Bad Bride Blogger!

So, my favorite color in the world to wear, to see, to paint with, etc is cobalt blue! (I know---shocker).

Image via Art-Paints.com

After talking about it, we realize that having a peacock color theme (and as you have seen --- peacock inspired theme)!

Image via ashleyandringa.blogspot.com

 

With gorgeous inspiration pictures like this, it was easy to begin creating our wedding theme! As soon as that was decided, we went from there. Now our wedding is coming together from the cobalt blue bridesmaids' dresses we picked, to our linens, to our flowers, to my something blues! While I know that it's not the most original idea, I've never once re-thought our theme, and I love how it's all coming together! Patrick seems to too! I think it really fits our style and represents our vintage romantic wedding theme very well.

What's your color scheme?

Best,

Micah

Card...cage?

I was so inspired when I saw these gorgeous pictures of card "boxes:"

Image via Weddingbee

Image via Weddingbee

 It fill so well with our romantic-vintage theme that I knew that this would have to be a part of our wedding reception. I love the birdcage idea for a card holder. So I began to look. Once again, Michael's to the rescue! Guys, it took me all of three minutes to find a beautiful ivory bird cage that was exactly what I was looking for. And there I was thinking I had to spray paint, and remove things -- here was this gorgeous little birdcage waiting for me to snatch it up for our wedding! I found some gorgeous blue ribbon (in my favorite blue of course) and my FMIL tied it in a beautiful bow and it was done!

Detail bow shot!

How's that for a quick DIY project! Now to make a sweet 'Card' sign to finish the piece!

Best,

Micah

The Dessert Table

Patrick and I have been completing wedding crafts/tasks left and right, now that our schedule is a little freer. Here are two quick DIY projects I completed recently that I really didn't know if I would have the time or patience to go through with them. And yes, they both concern our future wedding dessert table (yes, this is my life nowadays---I LIKE IT!).

The first one was a sign for the table. Soon, you'll be seeing more post of "wedding signs" I have been creating. If you think about it, there are lots of signs to be made, AND a lot of pretty craft paper to choose from at Michael's. So, I've been getting down to business, and voila! My dessert table sign!

It reads: "Love is Sweet"

 Using a spherical craft punch and Martha Stewart scrap-booking heart stickers, some pretty blue ribbon and card-stock, I created this little sign to decorate our cupcake/cake table! It must have taken me about twenty minutes while watching Say Yes to the Dress on TV. 

Using a font called Precious, I printed out some letters, and then actually free-hand copied them onto each heart. And I'm totally not over proud of it, either. 

That done, it was a matter of hot glue, burnt fingers and delicate placing of the cut-outs onto my ribbon. Done and done. The next one took up a considerable amount of time and effort.

Remember my Cupcake-spiration post? A lot of those pictures had adorable cupcake toppers and I knew if I could muster up some patience, and the right kind of tooth picks, I could make my own. And guess what...it happened! BAM!

I made 200 of those things! It took me three movies and a couple of episodes of Teen Mom 2 (I know, for shame). But they are finally done and I must say, I am pleased. Even though they are super easy to make, they are really tedious, so I can understand/was definitely tempted to just buy them from etsy. But, once I found these craft picks with flat heads, I knew it was a possibility. Here's what I used: 

• A package of "Woodsies" craft picks (250 count)
• Circle Craft punch
• Pretty craft paper
• Elmers' paper cement
• Peacock feather/alphabet stamps and blue stamp pad

First, I punched out 400 little circle guys with my craft punch (for the front and the back of each topper).

Then, using different combinations of M <3 P, P + M, peacock feathers, hearts, etc. I stamped one side of every pair of circles.

Then I taped the pick on, and glued one side to the other, let it dry for about 10 minutes and BOOM! There's a cute little cupcake topper!

I can't wait to see what they will look like at the wedding! And I think it will be a sweet little surprise for the guests since there are all different stamps and paper styles. It did take me a long time, but I broke up sessions and did about 30-50 at a time, so I never was bored. This is definitely something you do on a rainy day, but is totally worth it! I love that they will bring a little bit more personality to our dessert table. Are there any wedding or other crafts you took on knowing they'd be tedious but turned out totally worth it?

Best,

Micah