Flashback Friday: The Ring

I've already talked about my perfect proposal and the jealousy that inevitably creeps in when you compare yourself to others. Because what's right for you is almost certainly not right for someone else. Even when someone tells you "Oh, that's the exact ring I want!" (that happened this weekend), that doesn't mean their story is anything like yours—or should be!

I already mentioned I knew the proposal was coming—well, I also knew what the ring looked like. Way back in June I went and tried on rings with a friend. I told the lady at Kay's I was looking for a princess cut solitaire with a cathedral setting, and she showed me this ring.

Personal photo—The ring I preferred is on my right hand. In the second picture I'm wearing a similar but slightly bulkier ring on my left hand.

The jeweler wasn't pushy necessarily, but she definitely encouraged me to try on some other rings. I did, and each time I kept gravitating back to the simple solitaire. For me, once I figured out what I wanted, trying it on didn't make that much of a difference. It simply solidified how I had felt while looking at rings online, on other people, etc. So I sent the pictures to Nathan—not subtle at all, huh?

Nathan ordered the diamond and band separately from a jeweler friend, and I may have gotten some pictures along the way. Shh. I don't think people are supposed to know he sent me the original ring pictures!

Somehow, though, when I first saw the ring I wasn't thinking "Yep, this is the one I picked out." I was thinking "We're getting married!" And having a gorgeous ring was pretty cool too.

Personal photo—I think this picture turned out pretty well for a quick shot on my iPhone in front of the waterfall where we got engaged! Good memories.

Tangent Tuesday: A Moment of Silence

This post is in honor of my little red Honda Civic.

Born April 25, 1995.

Died January 20, 2013.

Dear Honda,

You lived a good, long life. Eighteen years is a long time in car years. Fifteen years of winters in Minnesota and Wisconsin—I know those were tough on you. And yet all you did was rust a little in complaint. I appreciate it.

You taught me how to drive stick. I actually don't always remember how to drive an automatic now after so many years of driving a manual. Now when I drive an automatic I always reach for the stick and occasionally slam my foot on the brake thinking it's the clutch. Oops. Sorry about that, Katie.

You didn't die at the greatest time. Sixty miles from Greenville or Charlotte in the middle of nowhere? On a Sunday morning when I'm standing on the side of the road in heels and a skirt? But you know what, I figure that's just payback for everything I put you through. You probably didn't like carrying four or five people all the way to Charlotte every Sunday, so it's only fitting you would die on one of those 240 mile trips.

Yes, I'm looking to buy another car right away—but it's not because I don't appreciate everything you did! After 210,000 miles I could never forget you.

The guy I'm selling you to is a good guy. He'll take care of you. I promise.

Love,
Laura

Tissue Paper Flowers

Just a quick post today to show you a preview of a project my sisters and I worked on over Christmas. I knew from the beginning that our budget wouldn't allow for a huge flowers allowance. I toyed with the idea of buying flowers wholesale and just arranging them myself—but I discarded the idea after realizing that one, I'm not a florist and two, the week of the wedding is already going to be insanely busy with graduation. In fact, in the entire planning process, we have the most non-wedding events scheduled for the week of the wedding. Also known as—we need to get everything done ahead of time.

There are a lot of different ways and materials to make flowers. First up were crepe flowers.

Image via Design Improvised

I actually tried making these beautiful crepe flowers. Mine didn't turn out quite like the ones in the picture, however. First off, I couldn't find crepe paper sheets to experiment with, much less anything in coral. Second, I couldn't get the hang of manipulating the floral tape and wire. Basically, I'm lazy and this was too hard.

There's also paper flowers, which are beautiful (especially out of pages of books or music) and incredibly time consuming.

Image via Etsy / Photo by annemusingdesigns

Fabric flowers fall into the same category, although if purchased are more expensive than real flowers sometimes—check out the price on this one!

Image via Etsy / Photo by Katie Reim

That leaves tissue paper flowers. There are lots of tutorials out there, but we used this tutorial from Martha Stewart. Honestly, it was so, so easy. And it didn't take up days and days. We did both bridesmaids bouquets and my bouquet in less than two hours (two and a half episodes of Leverage). We also made some extra flowers and started on bigger poms for table and hanging decorations.

Do they look expensive and fancy? No. Is our wedding expensive and fancy? No, so it looks like they'll fit right in! Tissue paper flowers were perfect for the time we wanted to put in and the money we wanted to spend (about twenty dollars including way more tissue paper than I needed and floral wire). This is my sister modeling her bouquet. We used coral, light blue, and light yellow tissue paper. I think I'm going to add some green as well and wrap the stems nicely.

Oh, and my dad pulled out his electric drill to twist the wire on the handles. When my dad participates in wedding planning, he does it in a big way.

Dressing up the Dress

Remember, my dress looks like this:

Photo credit.

Gorgeous and classy! I do want to accent it though—without taking away from the elegance of the dress. I've seen a lot of pictures lately that look something like this.

Photo credit.

I'm looking at the necklaces, not the really awesome veils! I actually love the bling of these, although it might be a little too over the top. I'm looking for something that will bring a little color and excitement to the dress without screaming look at me. So maybe something in the wedding colors?

Necklace 1, Necklace 2, Necklace 3.

Unfortunately the first and third are sold out, but the middle one is only fifteen dollars. But is this really what I want to do? In my mind I can see it looking fabulous, but maybe I should stick with a traditional strand of pearls or diamond necklace...

Necklace 1. Necklace 2 is my grandmother's—this is my cousin's wife wearing it at their wedding.

I'm going to be honest, my preference is to wear a chunky but tasteful coral necklace. I feel like the casual day and simple dress call for something different than a pearl or diamond necklace, but I don't want to go overboard either. So tell me, what should I do?

Invitations Part I

Wow, could I make this post title any more boring? Sorry, I only have limited creativity and I think I already used up all of today's.

Before we actually talk about the invitations, I want to talk a little about what we're not doing. We're not doing a fancy invitation suite—that means no inner envelope, no cool pocketfold, no embossing or letterpress, no envelope liner. Am I a little sad about that? Maybe. There are some really cool invitation suites out there!

Mrs. Gloves, Mrs. Genie, Mrs. Turkey, and Mrs. Treasure.

For us though, I know this wasn't the way to go! I didn't have the time or energy to invest in a complex project myself or the money to pay someone to do it—or even to buy the supplies for a complicated DIY project. Instead of taking on something that would end up more work and stress than I could handle, we decided to go the simple route, although I do get to do a few small touches!

The next post will talk about the actual invitation, but I do get to share the part I'm really excited about now. I decided to order Mini Moo cards to include the RSVP information (we're using our wedding website to RSVP) and just to direct them to the website in general. Several brides have done this in the past, and it seems to have worked out well for them. Plus they only cost $19.99 and Nathan found a coupon for free shipping—always check Google before pressing submit!

They even came in the mail a few days before I expected!

I loved how cute the packaging was. We ordered four different pictures for the front. Just for fun—it's not like anyone will know they got design three or whatever!

They're half the size of a business card—I put the pencil in the picture for comparison's sake.

The back directs them to the website and of course credits our photographer.

So there you go! Part I. And maybe in the really cleverly named Part II maybe I'll get beyond the cute little cards...

Tangent Tuesday: Rainy Days

Photo credit.

It's looked like this for the last three or four weekdays here, and that is perfectly fine with me. Unfortunately, I've also had to work through all of these rainy days, but if I didn't I could think of a few things to do...

1. Fuzzy blanket; 2. cup of tea; 3. A Practical Wedding; 4. The Mission, The Men, and Me; 5. Goldfish Grahams; 6. George Winston; 7. iPad; 8. Flashpoint; 9. dark chocolate.

1. In reality, even though it's raining, it's actually too warm to wrap up in a blanket. So what if I may have to turn on the air conditioner to truly enjoy the experience?

2. Remember we talked about my worship of Tazo Tea last week? Also, I'm thinking about registering for some glass mugs just because those look so cool—but I really don't need any more mugs unfortunately.

3. I just finished reading A Practical Wedding by Meg Keene. My big draw from this book is that if you don't get anything else out of the book you should get this: if your wedding ends up with you married, it's a success—nothing else matters!

4. I'm currently reading The Mission, The Men, and Me by Pete Blaber. You know, sometimes you just have to suck it up and read a book that isn't necessarily about one of your interests. Special Forces? Not my thing. But it means something to Nathan, so it's worth it.

5. Would it be inappropriate to register for Goldfish Grahams and hope everyone buys me those instead stuff I really need?

6. Yes, I love piano music. Especially George Winston. Either on Pandora or one of his albums—he's outstanding.

7. My iPad was a gift from my parents for my graduation and I love it! I don't use it as much as I did before I got my iPhone but it's perfect for reading blogs, skimming the Internet, and doing Crosswords. (Does this collage make me seem like I'm 60?)

8. Remember when we talked about enjoying your significant other's interests? Exhibit B: Flashpoint. After finishing Leverage, I needed a new show to watch.

9. No, I would never eat an entire bar of dark chocolate in bed.

Too Many Toasters

I mean, say you want to register for a toaster. You go to the Bed, Bath, & Beyond site and look up toasters—and get this.

Four pages of toasters—and with fifteen on each page that's over forty-five toasters. For people who have really specific tastes, this is probably awesome. Lots of choices! Customize your toaster! Heck, if you want you can get this toaster at $339.99.

Not only does this toaster have four extra-wide slots and an insulated stainless steel body, it has an auto shutoff and apparently a bell that rings when the toast is done.

To be honest I was just looking for a toaster that, you know, toasts bread. Like you put the bread in and a few minutes later it pops out warm and browned?

Obviously, this was just an example. I could have proven my point with cookie sheets or blenders—and don't even get me started on flatware. I know how to cook and actually enjoy cooking, but up until now I've either cooked out of my mom's kitchen or out of my fully equipped kitchen on campus. I don't have a brand preference and really have no idea what I even need. Basically, I was overwhelmed.

When putting together the basic items of the registry, I started with bridal registry checklists from sites like The Knot, Real Simple, and Bed, Bath, & Beyond. Although I definitely don't agree with all the items on these checklists—ahem, I've never heard of anyone registering for a snow blower before?—it gave me a good starting point. I was able to look through the items and come up with basics of things I needed. It was easy to see "Oh, I need to register for a vegetable peeler, ice cream scoop, etc." while disregarding the things I wasn't interested in—such as a bar cart or patio furniture. And somehow I managed to go from freaking out about too many toasters to having a basic kitchen registry.