Hair Problems

So I was (I thought) 100% convinced of how I wanted to wear my hair on my wedding day. You see, I'm all about looking like myself on my wedding day. I wanted to buy a dress that was "me," that was comfortable, and that I could see myself wearing on any other day (if it wasn't white and a wedding dress...). So when it came to hair, I wanted to follow the same principles. And I basically have one "favorite" way of wearing my hair.

Personal photos.

Basically curly and pinned half back. I have a lot of heavy hair, so having it hang in my face drives me crazy! Easy enough, right? I looked up pictures and found tons of inspiration for long curly hair with a birdcage veil.

Photo credit one, two, and three.

I bought my dress (online, without trying it on, remember?). It came, fit perfectly, and I loved it! I had the dress and hairstyle I wanted—all good.

Well...

I hated my hair down with it. Because my dress isn't strapless, my long hair covered the straps and just made it look... weird. Even though I wanted to channel this bride or this one, it was not to be. So it was back to the drawing board. As soon as I pulled my hair back (into a simple messy bun), the dress worked. I felt like a bride!

Now the question is, how should I wear my hair? I still am not on board with an elaborate up-do. I'd like to keep something closer to my style, while still having my hair at least somewhat up...

Flashback Friday: Trip to the East

To be honest, this post is going to be more like a dump of pictures from the trip I took with my family a year and a half ago to the East Coast—but that's ok! I want to document the time we had and relive some of those awesome memories. I'd love to go back someday and spend even more time there!

Two days after my college graduation, we left Greenville and headed up to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Harpers Ferry is a small historic town best known for battles during the Civil War.

You can see the old buildings and walkways in the two pictures on the left! There's also a train that goes out of Harpers Ferry across this amazing trestle bridge into Washington, DC. Apparently there's a lot of people that do the daily commute, because the parking lot was still completely packed in early evening. Harpers Ferry is also a huge tourist town. The Main Street of the town is a row of shops and reenactments catered to visitors looking to get their history fix. We were there in early May in the evening, so nothing was open—but we still took the opportunity to look in some of the windows and pose in front of a General Store.

From there we headed to Gettysburg, where we spent the morning. Somehow I don't have any pictures of this! I do remember that the museum was incredible—it was huge, and all new. We headed out around lunch time and arrived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania before two.

This is the house I lived in until I was three years old! My parents bought this tiny, tiny house (less than 500 square feet?) before I was born and fixed it up, including adding more space. Our next door neighbors Bill and Sandy took care of Emily and I and were close friends with our parents. Obviously I don't remember them, but it was good to see them again! They were still living in the same house next door—and thrilled to see us. Just the sweetest couple!

Next step on the whirlwind tour was Baltimore, Maryland. We made it to the Inner Harbor by around 5:00—we wanted to visit Fort McHenry, but by the time we got there they were closed. So instead we walked around the Inner Harbor and ate dinner at a Noodles & Co. right on the water. We checked out a HUGE Barnes & Noble and some other neat buildings in the area and then got cheesecake to split from The Cheesecake Factory—you can't go wrong with that.

From there it was on to Washington, DC.

So many museums! This is the Air & Space Museum—we walked through several museums, but our time schedule (if you can't tell already, we pretty much tried to see everything in three and a half days) didn't really allow much more than that.

We headed out through the downtown area and took a tour of the Capitol—by then the air conditioning was very welcome. It was hot for early May!

Later in the evening we also walked past the White House, and my mom struck up a conversation with one of the security guards which included her asking him how many snipers were on the White House roof and the officer replying that he couldn't divulge that information, but that if she pulled out a gun there would be dozens of Secret Service agents on her within minutes. Well done!

My parents decided that we had to wait in line for an hour to go inside the National Archives—not a popular decision. Especially since once we got inside and stood in line for another half hour, we found out that the Declaration of Independence is so yellow it's barely readable. It was cool, but I didn't feel like it was worth the time when we were short on time already!

The last few stops of the day were the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Monument. This was a really neat area. It was getting dark and parts were quite crowded—so unfortunately we didn't get to spend the kind of time there I would have liked to. But seeing the memorials reminded me of the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many men and women—something we should never forget.

Likewise, the next morning spent at Arlington Cemetery was sobering and reflective.

We stayed for the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider—it sent chills up my spine—and visited the Marine Corps Memorial before my dad had to make it to Dulles International Airport for a flight to Africa.

All in all, a crazy whirlwind trip, but SO many good memories! And the longest Flashback Friday ever—sorry I'm not sorry!

All personal pictures.

Catering Update

Last time we talked about catering, I mentioned my dilemma regarding my idea of a true "brunch" reception—including both breakfast and lunch items. Reaction to this was mixed! Some people said they thought it was a great idea and others said it was weird and I should stick to one or the other. Ultimately they encouraged me that it's my wedding and I should do whatever I want—quirky or not (probably more quirky than not...)!

I don't always subscribe to the "do whatever you want, it's your wedding" doctrine. I think input is important and you shouldn't always do something just because it's what you selfishly want! That being said, I don't think the items you put on the menu fall under this category. In designing the menu I was focusing on a variety of items where everyone would have something to eat (including the health-conscious and vegetarians). All that to say—I decided to move ahead with my plan to essentially split the menu.

I did take a few things into consideration. First of all, I want the menu to stay portable and casual. This means no pancakes or steaks!

Photo credit.

Don't they look delicious? I'm a french toast person myself, but I knew that I wasn't going to be including pancakes, french toast or waffles on the menu. Delicious as they are, they don't really fit a buffet reception, especially when we want to encourage people to mingle and walk around. I'm one of those "don't let my food touch" people—so if I eat a pancake, it's sitting down with nothing else on my plate. This applies to all kinds of "syrupy" or more involved foods that I was trying to avoid. Did I spend enough time over-analyzing pancakes yet? Thought so.

Photo credit.

Alright, so steaks. First of all, I actually hate my steak rare. I like it well done, and my favorite part is the charred edges. Total side note! But here's my real point with steaks—and actually all foods in the typical "formal" reception menu—it doesn't fit with the rest of the ceremony and reception. We're in a casual room with a simple reception. Not really steak material—or crab cakes, or salmon, or... you get the picture.

So now for the inspiration picture. Still a work in progress!

Cinnamon rolls, muffins, mini quiches, fruit, chicken salad croissants, pasta salad, and cheese & crackers.

Here we have a mix of three "breakfast" foods (the cinnamon rolls and muffins are a pastry mix) and three "lunch" foods. All of them, though, are fairly casual and all except the pasta salad could be semi-finger foods. For some reason I'm just stuck on the pasta salad!

*spoiler alert* We did our tasting with the venue and tried two different kinds of pasta salad. We chose a pasta salad that had a good flavor without being bland or overly distinctive. I'm super excited about it and hope that other people like it too!

I'll talk more about the tasting next time, but for now I think we have a decent idea of where we want to head with this! I can't wait!

Pretty Pretty Pictures

This post title inspiration brought to you by Pretty Pretty Princess.

*ahem*

... moving on to the actual theme of the post. I was going to write about something else today BUT we got our engagement pictures back! Meaning that clearly I was going to have to overload you with lovely photos.

Here we go with a few of my favorites—all pictures from Niki Marie Photography.

Looking back on my favorite pictures of the photo shoot, I'm pretty sure I'm laughing in over half of them. It's real laughter—I promise!

Outside the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit—I love the reflection in the glass.

My absolute favorite shot. Bored yet? Let's mix it up a little...

Not all (none?) of our pictures made us look like models—and if they did it was all thanks to Niki! But there were some not-so-perfect pictures too which I loved.

And one more to finish out this photo heavy post. Love him!

Tangent Tuesday: Long Distance

I'm just going to warn you up front—this is going to be a depressing post. I'll keep it short though. Nathan is officially done with undergrad—which is AWESOME! I'm so proud of him. Unfortunately, I still have a semester of school left in South Carolina. Which leads me to the depressing part...

Photo credit.

According to Google Maps, it is 680 miles and 10 hours and 11 minutes from Michigan to South Carolina, and Google Maps does not lie. Unless you're going 80 the whole way. Then it only takes 9 hours and 30 minutes. *cough*

So Nathan and I will be long distance for the remainder of our engagement. I'm not too concerned about the wedding planning part of it—we can do almost everything on the phone and on the internet and he'll come down when he can. And let's just be honest, Nathan wasn't enthused about cutting and folding tissue paper anyway!

The hard part is just being apart. I read about how important the engagement is for preparing for marriage or how this is a time when you work things out as a couple—but I know that can still be true. We'll just have to text a lot more (if that's even possible) and maybe I can even convince Nathan to call me a few times (he's not much for talking on the phone). And hopefully the four months after New Years—since we're spending the holidays together—will fly by!

Projects in Progress

This weekend I was in very much a wedding planning mood. I felt less like blogging and documenting and more like actually accomplishing projects—that's a good thing! But now I need to step back and think about the projects I started, all the crazy ideas I have, and what I have left to do. I don't want to go all list crazy on you, but here's what I have so far...

• Crossword Puzzles—almost done, just have to do the final proofread and print! Oh and for these I also bought 120 pencils... unsharpened. That was fun.
• I Spy—these were done but then I had the idea that I wanted to do several different versions to (hopefully) get a wider variety of pictures, so it's still in progress.
• Coloring pages—this is a new one! I started thinking about giving the kids something else to do (since clearly they'll be too young to do a crossword puzzle). I bought ten packs of crayons for less than a dollar each and am working on coming up with some wedding related coloring pages. I'll write a post about this when I'm done!
• Tissue paper poms—I finally came up with my flower inspiration! This isn't something I've touched on before, but from the beginning I was interested in making my own flowers and floral decorations, since flowers really aren't in the budget. A post on this is coming up this week for sure.
• Scrabble letters—I scoured eBay (ahem, clearly I have an eBay obsession) and found 300 tiles that should be arriving in the next two days! Can't wait to start working with these.
• My wedding binder—ok, so this one isn't actually a wedding craft. But this weekend I did get all of my wedding stuff organized in one place. And I had to make it pretty of course! I cut apart some old bridal magazines and made some themed pages. Maybe I'll have to take some pictures later! I might be a little too excited about this.

As you can see, there will be a lot of craft posts coming up! I also need to do an updated catering post and talk about registering for items. So here we go!

Wedding Dress Decisions

(Much better than Wedding Dress Nightmares)

From the very beginning, I had a dress preference from the six I originally liked. But first let's look at the ones I didn't choose.

The Bettina was beautiful, but not exactly what I was looking for in a wedding dress, mainly because I couldn't see myself walking down the aisle with any jewelry or a veil in it. The neckline doesn't lend itself to a necklace, and I feel like in a veil I would just be completely covered from toe to forehead. So that one was out.

Nathan was actually the one to veto the Sararose and Sinclair dresses. Which was fine with me! I was glad he had input, and neither of these dresses really stood out to me.

I also should note that I'm not the typical look for "the dress" and cry when you find it bride. In some ways I wish I were! It all seems so romantic and classic. But to be honest, I have yet to feel that at all in my planning process, and I don't know if I will. For me the planning is purely logical—not to say that I don't enjoy it!

I guess in the end it just came down to availability, price, and what I could actually see myself wearing on my wedding day. I went to a local J. CREW store (not a J. CREW bridal—the nearest one is Atlanta) and tried on a few dresses to size myself. I'm consistently the same J. CREW size, so I felt fairly safe ordering online without trying on the actual dress.

So here we go. The J. CREW Sophia. My number one choice from the beginning for several reasons—the simplicity of the dress, the way it fits with my style, and being able to feel comfortable and like myself on my wedding day. I also like that I can make this dress my own! I haven't decided how yet. I'm considering a chunky necklace for the reception, maybe fancy drop earrings, a sash, flowers in my hair/on the sash—or really anything that I want. Because of the simplicity of the dress, I can do whatever I want with my accessories!

A few things. As you can tell from the link—the Sophia is no longer sold on the J. CREW website. Which is fine, since I knew I would be able to find the dress cheaper elsewhere anyway! I found it on RecycledBride—not my size. Again, here it is on PreOwnedWeddingDresses—this one is my size but sold obviously. These are just a few of the sites I checked! There are plenty of places to buy gently used or even new with tags wedding dresses that aren't full price.

These pictures and dresses are also all showing the dress in silk tricotine. J. CREW originally made the dress in both silk chiffon and silk tricotine. After looking at pictures of both online, I decided I wanted the dress in silk chiffon. It seems like most women buy silk tricotine, but since I was looking to have a casual ceremony and reception, I felt like silk chiffon would be a better fit.

I typed "J. CREW Sophia Silk Chiffon" into the search bar on eBay and came up with these results. (Well, not these results exactly since the dresses listed are always changing!) Eventually I found a great deal on an ivory size zero silk chiffon J. CREW Sophia new with tags. And bought it! Just like that.

So yes I did buy my wedding dress on, *ahem* eBay, without ever trying it on, and without ever having seen it. And I love it!

I keep looking for pictures of brides wearing this dress but there aren't very many out there in my style and size. I took a few horrible pictures of me the first time I tried it on—but you're going to have to wait until I can take some slightly less embarrassing shots! And since this post is long enough already, we'll talk about the details of my dress the next time around.