Processional

I’m pretty famous for changing my mind.  I was going back and forth this weekend over flowers and even after making a plan, I got to the store and changed my mind at the last minute, ultimately going with something that I hadn’t even considered yet.  Jordan knows not to trust my “decisions” until the money is paid or an agreement has been made.

For the processional I have “been sure” about 4 different songs.  But this weekend I heard THE song.  I will not be changing my mind about this detail.  So here’s what happened: Jordan and I are killing time in Barnes and Noble.  He walks up to me pointing up in the air.  I look at him like he’s crazy and he then points to his ear.  I’m still not picking up on his sign language, so he tells me to listen to the song that is playing.  And this is what I hear:

We fell in love with this song immediately,  Jordan bought the CD right there in the store, and it was done.

The only thing that is not done is whether I will walk down the aisle to that song or a different song.  I kind of like the idea of having my own song with its own feel, but I don’t want to have the never-ending processional.  The song that I had picked for myself is this one:

So what do you think?  One song or two?

RSVPs

I think that we’re going to have like 99% attendance at our wedding.  I’m going through our list and there are only a few people that I think may not be coming.  It’s a little scary…

but pretty awesome too!

I think that it just means that we invited the right people.  The people that really want to be there with us on our big day.

2 Months Away

I can’t believe it, but today is the 2 month mark!  That means a lot of things-invitations are out (!), all of the wedding timelines from websites are flashing in my inbox, and I am getting super excited!

So I know you want to see the invites so here are some photos:

We decided to keep our invites as simple as possible so that they wouldn’t stress us out.  Jordan designed the invites in Photoshop and we printed them onto white cardstock.  We then mounted that on navy cardstock after rounding all of the edges.  After reading all of Budget Savvy Bride’s advice about DIY invites we decided to go with having our paper cut by Kinkos which was ABSOLUTELY the way to go.  Here’s the catch: print your invites FIRST and then make your cuts.  We could not get our printer to print properly on pieces of paper that are smaller than 8.5” by 11”, so we wasted some paper by cutting it before we realized that we couldn’t print on it.  That was truly our only snafu.  This was SO incredibly easy and I wouldn’t have done our invites any other way.  Please don’t be intimidated to make your own invites!   Also, this was a surprisingly quick project.  We made our invites in an evening while watching a movie.

In addition to the invite, we made a RSVP card that instructed our guests to RSVP by calling or e-mailing us.  We also included another card giving our wedding website information.  In the end, we made them separately so they didn’t entirely match (two different brands of white cardstock), but whatevs.  I am beyond the point of stressing about minor details.

Mom and her friends did a great job of addressing these bad boys, so all I had to to this weekend was pick them up, stuff the envelopes, add a stamp, and drop in the mailbox with a great deal of excitement!

So Much For Wedding Planning

My surgery rotation ended last Friday which (I thought) would give me more free time for wedding planning.  On Monday I started my outpatient medicine rotation in a rural corner of NC, where I was expecting to work much better hours.  Unfortunately it seems that won’t be the case.  I am in clinic every day from 8am until 7pm and have a thirty minute drive to get back to the apartment where I am staying.  I had plans!  I was going to exercise and sew and work on projects and blog about my progress.  Now I drive home, scrap together some dinner, and study for a little while before I have to go to bed so that I can get up and do it all over.  I don’t mean to complain, I just wish that I had a little more time to devote to the wedding now that I am almost to the two-month mark!

So what have I been up to lately?  Actually a lot.  I have finally found my rehearsal dinner location.  There’s an adorable 1920’s soda shop close to our venue in downtown Pittsboro.  It definitely isn’t a traditional venue, but I went anyway, on a hunch that it could be our place.  I am SO glad that I did!  Just look at this place:

 

These photos are of the private room on the second floor.  Unfortunately there is no handicapped access and two of our most important guests (our grandmothers) are disabled.  Instead we will be having our partay downstairs which is just as cute (and actually resembles the soda shop slash pharmacy from It’s a Wonderful Life).

In the end, this option was such a great deal.  The soda shop is completely family owned and operated.  They are opening up just for our rehearsal dinner on New Year’s day which many other places wouldn’t do.  We are also getting a great deal.  Other places were offering us hor d’oeurves for the price which the soda shop has offered us a steak dinner.    I think that ultimately we will go with a lasagna dinner to save money (and besides, I don’t eat steak).

I’m so glad that I’ve taken care of this part of the planning.  The rehearsal dinner was really hanging over my head, since it was the last major detail to be decided.  I feel like everything that happens now is just extra.

Wedding Fatigue

Maybe it’s just because I have my big surgery exam today and I’ve been a little distracted, but I’m encountering a little wedding fatigue.  I’m losing interest in blogs and don’t feel the urgency to complete some of my projects that I was feeling.

As the day is approaching I am caring less about the details.  Whether the bridesmaid dresses “go” with the flower girl dress and other “problems” like that seem less important.  I simply don’t have the time to worry about them.  While my self-consciousness prevailed earlier in the planning (“I want people to think that this looks nice”), now my sentimentality is gearing up.  I am caring less about what people think about the decorations and the food and our ceremony, beause I’m just so darned excited to see them!  All of my favorite people will be in one place to celebrate our union and I can’t wait!  I’m also excited to start spending more time with Jordan.  While we’ve been on away rotations we’ve been limited to visiting one weekend a month which is HARD.  After we get married we’ll actually be living in the same city for about three months!

I don’t really know what has shifted in my thinking, but truthfully I really love the change.  It’s so much more fun to be excited about a big event than nervous about it!

And for a quick little update about the planning, here is a picture of our flower girl dress that came in the mail this week:

I purchased it on Ebay from seller foralittleangel for a very inexpensive $25 (including shipping).  My little cousin, Azure, is totally going to rock this dress!

A Wedding, Tainted

This week when I was in the hospital I ran across this article on Cnn.com about a couple in Louisiana that were denied a marriage license by a Justice of the Peace solely based on the fact that they are a biracial couple.  The couple is speaking out about the incident and government higher-ups are calling for the dismissal of this public official.  Despite the outrage that has spawned from the incident the official stands by his decision saying that he is doing it “for the children” and that “interracial marriages don’t last”.

I was really appalled at this incident.  This man claims that he is not racist but he obviously is and is using his power as an elected official to spread that racism.  As one-half of an interracial couple I really take offense to this man’s ignorant claims.  I am sure that he has done no research into whether interracial couples divorce more often than same-race couples and he clearly has no experience as a biracial child.  I’m going to speak for Jordan here a bit, but as a young biracial man he hasn’t felt slighted and has tons of black and white friends and fits in well with whoever he is around.  I know he wouldn’t appreciate hearing that someone “feels sorry” for him as he hasn’t really “suffered” from being biracial.  Of course experiences hinge largely on the type of community that a person lives in, and despite living in some rural Southern areas Jordan has had the benefit of a generally tolerant community.

Sadly, this couple’s marriage has been tainted by this awful experience.  What should have been a very joyful time was really damaged by bigotry.

My Venue Fixes Up Real Nice

I finally heard back from my venue this week about some of the details that we have been waiting on.  As an added surprise, the venue has created their own black barrier to hide the stage during events.  This was such a relief because it will save Jordan and me some time and money trying to make our own barrier.

Also, we were e-mailed a picture of our venue hosting it’s very first wedding!  I’ve expressed a little concern that our mill is kind of new to the wedding scene so I was really pleasantly surprised to recieve this photo in my inbox:

And from another angle:

In the background you can just barely see the barrier.  Barely even noticeable unless you’re me.  What do you think about the faux chandeliers?  They are available for us to use, and will basically just stay where they are now if we choose to (ie. no work).  I think that they are pretty cool and would save us money for lights and time to set them up-two things that you know I value a lot!

I am slowly becoming more confident that our wedding is actually not going to be a disaster!

Delegating

This week my mom and her sister are getting busy addressing our wedding invitations.  What a relief that I don’t have to use what little free time that I have addressing envelopes!  Even more, it makes my mom happy to know that she is helping and getting more involved in the wedding.  The invites are due out in two weeks at which point I will write a post about making them (one of the easiest DIY projects and best decisions we made)!

Lately I have been looking carefully at my to-do list, trying to find areas where I can recruit help.  I think that I’ve mentioned that I’m a bit of a control freak independent personality.  It’s hard for me to let other people do things for me.  But I know that to stay sane while wedding planning during the craziest year of medical school that I MUST ask for help.

A lot of my help is going to come from Jordan.  He’s really, really amazing at all of this stuff.  We have divied up the (very few) vendors that we have and are sharing the load on communication with them.  Jordan has also taken ownership of the music.  Right now I have a running list of projects for him to carry out: the crazy sheet divider thing, cake stands, and our alternative guest book.

I am also trying to find ways to get my bridesmaids involved.  I hope that when the time comes they can help me make and assemble programs, make escort cards, and especially help with flower arranging the day before the wedding.  I think that I can count on Jordan and the guys to deal with the set up at the venue the day before the wedding (tables, chairs, and lights).

My last bit of delegation will be to my DOC.  The BEST wedding advice that I have received thus far is to include a card with the invitation giving the name and phone number of my DOC to guests in case they have questions on the day of the event.  BRILLIANT!  Have you ever been desperately lost on the way to a wedding and found yourself calling the bride or groom because they are the only people whose number you have?  I’ve done that.  Twice.  Yep, at two separate weddings I have been trying to call the bride.  That makes me sound like I get lost a lot doesn’t it?  I really don’t.  Apparently just on my way to weddings…

Of course it’s not going to go off without a hitch, but I have confidence with the help of all of my loved ones that I WILL be able to stay sane for my wedding.

Etsy Love

Oooooh boy!  I knew that Avishag over at Little White Dresser was going to come through for me with a belt, and boy did she!  This beauty is going to be mine!

I am so excited to add a little bling to my very basic dress.  I can’t wait until it comes in the mail so that I can try on everything together!

This is a good time to mention one of my other Etsy purchases: my hair flower.  While I never planned what my wedding dress would look like, I always knew that I would NOT be wearing a veil.  I’m just not a veil-wearing kind of bride.  I was tempted by the really cute new birdcage veils, but in the end decided to stay true to my original instincts.  I did see myself with a flower tucked behind my ear, though, and that was always the plan.  When I started planning I kept running across all off the beautiful crafted options and ultimately decided on this clay beauty by St Jude’s Creations:

While I thought that it was beautiful in the picture I wasn’t really blown away until it arrived in the mail.  When I saw it in person I was absolutely stunned by how delicate the petals were and all of the detail.  It. Was. Perfect.

Part of the reason that I chose to go with a fake flower instead of a real one was that I could keep it forever.  I don’t know how I’ll end up using it after the wedding, but I am confident that it will find a role.  What do you think?  Keep it as a hair pin and wear it for special occasions?  Put a fastener on it to make it into a broach (maybe a little big)?  Any other ideas?

Weekend Warrior

Tomorrow I start back on the surgery housestaff team-which means that I am going to get really busy with school again.  I decided to use this calm weekend off to finish my ceremony aisle markers so that I wouldn’t be thinking about them when I should be focused on school.  After many, many hours of folding, taping and gluing I am officially DONE.  Well…not really.  I still need to attach the ribbon, but I didn’t want to do that until later so that I could decide on the right length.  But here they are…

They look pretty innocent don’t they?  Each of those suckers took me about 2 hours to make.  Not quite meeting my “sane” requirement.  Still, I really enjoyed making these.  I used it as an excuse to sit around and watch lots of TV this weekend.  Lots of Top Model, Grey’s Anatomy, Property Ladder, and even The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants made this project really fun!  I am relieved that I have one more thing that I can cross off my list.

These were so cheap too!  For the cost of paper I have decorated my ceremony space.