Favors

The matchbooks came in yesterday! Well...at least half of them did! I ordered 100, but then after I saw that my guest list has reached (and passed) the 250 mark, I decided to order 100 more. I received the first order yesterday. I think they turned out pretty nice, for how cheap they were! Now I get to play around with sparklers and ribbon to make them look presentable as a favor.

It was really hard to get a photo of the matchbook with the flash on, so I turned the flash off, and the color doesn't look quite right in the photo. It is a navy blue with gold writing.

I'm leaving work a little early today to go to the printer this afternoon. Hopefully no other customers will come in so we can get all of my invites and inserts printed off before she closes for the week. I REALLY wish she were open on Saturdays!

71 days!

Stampin' Up

I took my mock-up invitation in an envelope to the post office to check how much the postage would cost.

I few months ago I bought a book of the really pretty 42 cent sunflower stamps. I was really hoping it would still be light enough to still use those 42 cent stamps. How perfect would those be? I even planned to mail my invites right before the postage prices go up on May 11.

Sadly, the weight of the full invite was too heavy and required an extra 17 cents. The 17 cent stamps were HIDEOUS! Seriously....a big horn sheep! I did NOT want an ugly sheep next to my pretty sunflowers!

Luckily, they ordered the special 59 cent "wedding" stamps. I don't like them as much as I would have liked the sunflowers, but at least these are pretty!
77 days until the wedding and only 5 more weeks of school!

Say cheese!

Our engagement photos are done! Check them out at:

http://bagtagsell.smugmug.com/clients
and scroll down to maggie holmes

I get to pick my favorites to be retouched. So let me know which you like the best!

Dress Up

Here are the bridemaids dresses that have been chosen so far. I told the ladies they could choose any David's Bridal dress in knee length in the color Marine.


Shannon chose sytle F13408.Hilary chose style F13277.

Alex chose style 83312. She's 12 years old and apparently when she found out this dress has built in pockets, she didn't need to see any more!
My maid-of-honor's dress will be a little more difficult to pick out. Susie won't be back in the US until less than a month before the wedding and she will be about 7 months pregnant at the time of the wedding! We will make something work!

Suit up

We picked the suits for the groomsmen at Men's Wearhouse. We picked one that is available in the buy 1 get 1 free special. I don't have any pictures of the exact suit (not shown online) so I'm posting pictures of a similar color and style. You will have to use your imagination!

The suit is a simple charcoal gray:

Now imagine that with a nice light blue shirt:
And a blue & gold tie:

I think this combo will look great with the bridesmaids navy blue dresses!

Put a ring on it

While Jake was home, we went up to Shane Co. and picked out our rings. He spent less on mine than he expected, and I spent more on his than I expected, but that's alright with me, I told him to pick his favorite!

I went in knowing exactly what I wanted. I wanted it to match the band of my engagement ring. He went in knowing he wanted either Titanium or Tungsten. He picked the 6mm Titanium with a gold stripe in the middle. He calls it his "racing stripe!" What a goof!

Here they are:

Meet Ruby

Our beautiful new car!

Jake really wanted to get a new Dodge Challenger, and I really like the new Chevy Malibu, so we made a compromise. We decided to get an 09 Pontiac G8 GT.

Our car is a V-8 with 361 horsepower that goes 0-60 in 5.3 seconds. That makes Jake happy. It is also a roomy sedan that will not have to be traded in when we decide to have kids. And it's a beautiful dark metallic red! Which makes ME happy! And....we knocked 10,000 off the sticker price!

Look at this beauty!

Gone again :(

Jake is back in Italy. :( He was here for two weeks, but I feel like we were rushing everywhere trying to get as much done for the wedding as possible. We didn't really get time to just chill.

We did get a lot done though. Traveled to meet my extended family, had dinner with his family, gathered up childhood pictures for the clothesline gallery, engagement photo shoot (more on that later), met with the minister, had multiple dinners with friends, bought a car (more on that later also), played golf (he won), picked out the groomsmen's suits(more on that later also), bought the rings(more on that later also!), and finalized a lot of little details for the ceremony.

And now he's gone. The goodbye at the airport was tough, but not as bad as usual. This time, I was able to say, only three months! Three months seems like nothing when our goodbyes are usually for a year or more!

I think once I get to the end of the school year, the last month and a half before the wedding should fly by! This week will be a short week for Easter, then after Easter we will start MAP testing, then after MAP testing there will only be 19 days left of school! I know I will miss teaching and coaching at Bismarck, but with such an exciting summer coming up, I can't wait for school to be out!!

Well, with Jake being gone, I finally have time to post all the updates, so here goes...