Reason

I know I owe you recaps. I know I still have to write the majority of my thank you notes. I know I still have to pick out all the professional photos we want printed. I know I have a super messy house where I consider it an accomplishment if we have a supply of clean laundry and enough clean dishes to eat off of (which, lets be honest, has mostly fallen to Keith lately).

But I have a reason for all this.  For the last ten and a half weeks, I’ve been sort of busy. The type of busy that has me exhausted and sick and (quite frankly!) hating life. Turns out I don’t do so well when I feel like crap the majority of the time (who knew?!).

And then I saw this little nugget waving their arm at me in a darkened ultrasound room. And I heard a heartbeat that was not my own fill the room.

And you know… All these weeks of misery? Kind of worth it.

Actually, make that totally worth it.

Lettuce marry! (A-D)

Oh, you guys.

I’m so sorry.

I never meant to make you wait so long to start wedding recaps, but my schedule is insane. When I say I have a ‘day off’, I actually mean I don’t have to work a double shift, not that I truly have a day off. (Yeah. I know.)

That, coupled with the fact that our photographer took a full month to get our pictures to us, means that it’s now December and I’m just starting on recaps now.

So, enough babbling. Let the recaps commence!!

PREFACE: I am blatantly stealing this recap format from hillarywithtwoL’s.  I only wish I were this original. You can find her wedding recaps here.

Lettuce marry!

A – C

Awkward: First, you need to know that we stayed in a loft suite, with a king bed downstairs and a queen in the loft. Now, onto the story itself: While we were getting ready in the hotel the day of, the fire alarm went off. We debated for approximately five minutes what to do – I had most of my family staying in the hotel and wanted to avoid seeing them in my lovely half done state (I believe I even had a green hair clip incorporated in my hair at the time) and we were debating – is it real? Do we grab the dress? WHAT DO WE DO OH MY GOD. Finally, we all evacuated – leaving the dress – while Peggy and I went down the back stairs in an effort to avoid seeing people. Thankfully, it was a false alarm, but when we came back, my flower girl noticed someone sleeping in the loft bed. When we went to wake the poor guy up, he was so out of it he told me this was ‘Brad’s room’ and forgot his shoes. I don’t know what his deal was, but holy awkwardsauce.

Bridespeople:  Keith and I each had four people standing up for us – of both genders. I had what I affectionately called a ‘bridesman’ and Keith had two groomswomen (I also had my two best friends and my sister, along with my most favourite nine year old in the world as a flower girl/Jr. Bridesmaid, and Keith had his brother and a good friend). Based on the number of comments I received, all of our guests were so impressed that we broke with tradition – something I will never understand. It’s 2011; Keith and I both have opposite gender friends, why wouldn’t they be included in our special day because they don’t have the same parts? (Although I suspect I will never be quite fully forgiven for the number of times Shawn got called the groom during the various things I dragged him to during the planning process. Sorry dude).

Cake: We had a fairly traditional four-tier cake done by TheCakeWhisperer. The bottom and top layers were red velvet with cream cheese and the two middle tiers were chocolate with raspberry filling. Too bad I had approximately one bite of the entire thing. We also had her make two additional toppers – an Andy Moog goalie mask for Keith and a copy of HitchHiker’s Guide for me.

 

Colours: Our colours were orange, silver/dark gray, with white to balance it out. It worked out beautifully – a million thank you’s to Shawn for suggesting the combination. I was going to do the boring, traditional colour scheme associated with fall. Let’s just say it would have been quite a different wedding. 

Dance: We fought for weeks over what our first dance would be. We finally settled on “Lay me down” by Ashley MacIassac the Thursday before the wedding. When we went to dance, my brother side-whispered that he accidentally downloaded it onto the wrong computer and didn’t have it. I still don’t know what song we danced to, and I suspect I won’t ever know – and I’m okay with that. We were too busy figuring out which of our guests were tearing up watching us dance. I think my sister won. 

Dresses: I got so many compliments on my outfit – I wore a strapless lace gown with a sweetheart neckline, with lace detail and a long lace train. I LOVE lace, but in my size (bridal size 20 when I bought it) there aren’t a lot of lace dresses. I went to four stores and only tried on what I could fit into. I added a three-quarter sleeve lace shrug because it was October and we don’t live in Florida; I feel as if it really ‘made’ the dress. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to sew the shrug to the dress itself because I was fiddling with it all day. Also, my bustle broke within three seconds of putting it in, so Peggy ran around finding safety pins and pinning it up the best she could all night. But other than those two issues, my dress was absolutely perfect.

My girls dresses I found on Etsy. I knew I wanted the colour (dark gray) and the length (knee) but I also wanted to give the girls some choice and freedom of what kind of neckline they were comfortable with, so I thought the wrap infinity dress would be the perfect fit. In the end, I’m not sure it was worth the stress of trying to figure them out, but everyone did something different and looked amazing.

The groomswomen were given a few instructions, which they ignored all but one (the colour, black). Let’s just say it was a nice lesson in letting go and leave it at that, shall we? [ insert huge sigh here ]. Oh well.

Check back soon for recaps from E-H!

aaand *thump*

At the end of September I received a letter from the student loan national centre saying because I had failed a course in the summer semester, I would be denied any further funding for a period of three years.

Let’s face it; if I leave my program now, and for three years, there is a high possibility I will never go back. There’s really only one option – funding the rest of my degree (and my living expenses) completely on my own dime. Cue panic. Originally I thought I had to come up with full Winter tuition – just under 2900$ – by the end of December. Thankfully, that’s not the case – I have until I go to re-register in late April/early May to pay the full amount (WHEW).

Thankfully I already have a full time job, so that takes care of my living expenses. I immediately started searching for a second part-time job to cover tuition, and received an offer of employment last Friday, the day before the wedding.

This past week was my first week working two jobs, although I wasn’t quite successful. It took until at least Thursday to feel even half decently rested from the craziness that was the week before and weekend. I fully understand why people take a honeymoon immediately after the wedding – its needed (it also didn’t help that Keith took the week off himself, so all I wanted to do was be home with him and snuggle a lot). I should have taken this week off regardless of the financial picture; I only managed to work 19 hours at my full time job (as opposed to the 38 hours I usually work) and 18.5 at my new job. This paycheque is gonna hurt.

This week? I work double shifts three days in a row, and again on Thursday and Sunday. I predict consuming A LOT of Monster in my future.

Have you ever worked two jobs? Any tips on how to survive? How did you pay for post-secondary?

Finally! I’m a Mrs!

Hey!

I’m MARRIED, y’all!

And it was AMAZING. Everybody has been raving about how great it was and how perfectly everything looked and went.

My mom actually said I should go into wedding planning – and this is coming from someone who thinks weddings are silly, unnecessary affairs. I WIN.

For recaps I’m going to wait for the professional pictures to come back, but for now I’ll leave you with what is going to be one of the best pictures of the day (I just know it):

you & i together forever

Mine:

-6 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Keith:

9 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Poor (  Failure) Take the test!

Aboot (need not apply)

Just wanted to pop in & do this accent vlog that’s been going around.

(and yes, completely in denial about what’s happening in 7 days. do. not. judge).

So you’re supposed to say these words:

Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel? 

hair & makeup!

I’m so pleased with all of it. Especially my hair.

Fail

Over a month with no posts? Well, I totally fail.

I got a job, in other words. An overnight job with full time hours – and suddenly, I went to being bored and antsy to being way too busy and tired for words.

Plus, this wedding planning schtick? holy bananas. I went to update the RSVP count yesterday and literally yelped. Somehow we only have 34 days until the big day, and oddly enough, after wishing for a whole year that the day would just get here already, I’m suddenly feeling like we need triple that time to get everything done and paid for.

Over the past month I’ve had my bridal shower, Keith had his bachelor party (last night! He came home with the word ‘slut’ written across his forehead in florescent marker….yeah, I don’t even want to know), Keith received his wedding band (still waiting on mine, unfortunately), and I have my hair and makeup trial later today. We’re also getting our marriage license later this week and meeting with the officiant next Saturday to  plan the ceremony.

Like I said.
holy bananas.

My albatross

I hemmed. I hawed. I blogged about it. Multiple times.

After I told you guys about the whole flowers and lanterns debacle, I went in search of suitable vases.

And quickly realized the vision in my head did not match up with what were on the shelves. At least, not at the price I was willing to pay per vase.

(insert big huge sigh here)

So, it was back to lanterns. I actually found suitable ones at Wal-Mart earlier this summer, but had to wait for the money to actually purchase them…..and while I was waiting, they all disappeared.

What’s a girl to do? Stress, of course. I was seriously wondering if I could pull off not having centerpieces as just a odd quirk to make my wedding different. (Oh yeah baby, I went there).

Long story short, my endless browsing paid off, and I found these Ah-MAZ-ing lanterns for cheaper than what I would have paid for the same quantity at the previously mentioned store.

Must say, am SO glad this aspect of the wedding is dealt with and DONE.

Sigh.
Aren’t they gorgeous?

Invitations!

I’ve wanted to show you guys these the moment they came home with me and I did fifteen of them the first night. I forced myself to wait though, until our lovely guests (especially the ones who read this blog!), received this in their mailbox before posting it here. I have been working on these since February – the amount of time and effort spent on these was kind of ridiculous, but I firmly believe every bride has one area of the wedding they end up going a little crazy over. And my area? Definitely invitations. I love these – they are really my babies. I can’t believe I had to send them away! (sigh, sniff, sob). 

These invitations were semi-DYI: I ordered the orange envelopes (tangleo) and 5×7 gray (storm) z-card from Envelopments. Kamie actually designed the actual invitation/RSVP/monogram tags (and did a FANTASTIC job. Seriously. She should really do this for a living) and I had them printed and cut. All assembly was by yours truly.

The Process: 

The envelopes…not a good photograph but they have this amazing shimmer. I will be printing our guests’ addresses directly on them:

When you first open the envelope, our guests will see this. Yep, no inner envelope. Or envelope liner. Eff you, Emily Post!

Take it out of the envelope, and you get this: a 5×7 z-card (basically, a pocketfold without the actual pocket, I’ll get to why I did that in a second). I made a 2×2 monogram of our first initials and attached it to a piece of orange cardstock with double sided tape. The sheer orange ribbon is attached between the layers, again with just double sided tape.

When you take off the ribbon tag, and open the Z-Card, you have the actual invitation. I couldn’t find ANYTHING pre-made that wasn’t too froo-froo or girly. Nothing that spoke to Keith and I as a couple or with our style. See the reason why I didn’t get the pocket? In an effort to keep down costs and pieces of paper, all I have is the RSVP. All other information (hotels, directions, etc) can be found on our website. I attached the RSVP to the z-card with self-adhesive silver photo mount corners. I also just attached the invitation to the card with double sided tape.

The RSVP is a 4×6 postcard. On the front:

And the back:

We went through and added the # of seats (in black) to each RSVP. In retrospect, I should have gone through and added up how many I needed to print with “1” or “2” or whatever else, and had them printed on. Ah well.

Issues: 

I TOTALLY underestimated the cost of the supplies – the ribbon, tape and cardstock – needed to complete these. I thought for sure 1 roll of tape and maybe two rolls of ribbon would do me 65 invitations. I was SO wrong. It took me (this is a rough estimate, I completely lost track) about 5 rolls of tape, 4 rolls of ribbon, and another 5 pieces of cardstock. It felt as if I was running to Michaels every few days to buy more supplies. I haven’t included the tape in the cost breakdown, because frankly, it makes me sick to think about it. If I say it’s not in the budget, ITS NOT THERE LA LA LA. 

Three last minute invitations came in when Harry finally gave me addresses for Keith’s mom’s side of the family – and thankfully I had just enough supplies for those extra three.  

One last unexpected expense was the printing of addresses on the envelopes. I tried on my home printer, failed miserably, and then completely ran out of toner. I jumped on my computer and fired off an email to the vendor I got my supplies and printing from, and for .40 per envelope, my problem was solved.

Postage:

These bad babies weighed in at 40 grams. Heartbreaking, considering “regular” mail is considered 30 grams and below, and once you go over that magical threshold, your postage pretty much doubles – from .59 to 1.03! I nearly had a heart attack when I heard the final price, but Harry – bless his heart – paid all of our postage costs for us. So grateful for him covering the cost – 115$. (I KNOW. Don’t tell me, I’m in my happy place. HAPPY PLAAAAAAACE.)

Cost breakdown:

All told, these were slightly pricey (even though the lovely Martha said I had 350$ for invitations, so really, I was way under budget. Really), but I love them! I totally think they look way more expensive than they actually are. 

For the envelopes: 65 x 1.10 = 71.50$

The Z-cards: 65 x .60 = 39.00$
All printing: 46.50$
Ribbon: 10$
Cardstock: 5$
Photo corners: 6.69$ for 210.
Cutting of all three (to reduce costs I had both the RSVP & actual invitation printed 2 on a 8.5×11, and 20 monograms on 3 sheets): 5.00$

Printing of reply & guest addresses: 65 x .40 = 26$

Total cost: 209.69$
Total cost per invitation (65): 3.22$

Did you have any budget busters while planning your wedding?