I'm back!

Yes, I've been MIA. My internet was turned off on the Friday before Jake got home, I guess it was the 19th. I've moved out of the apartment and am now staying with my parents, so I'll have access to the computer again. Hopefully, if I'm not overwhelmed with wedding projects, I'll finally have a chance to put some updates on here!

As for me, I don't think it has quite hit me yet that my wedding is in 4 days!

Everyone asks me if I'm nervous. Yes, I'm nervous about standing in front of a hundred people, but no, I'm not nervous about the marriage. I wish I could just jump to 2:00 on Saturday, have a great time, then move on. The wedding planning is starting to get old.

Ceremony Music

I have finalized the ceremony music with my pianist! I wanted to keep everything very classic, so the guests would really get that "wedding feel" and I think the music really sets the mood.

Entrance of the bridal party: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring - Bach

Entrance of the bride: Canon in D - Pachelbel

Recessional (same my parents had at their wedding): Ode to Joy - Beethoven

Prelude and Postlude: other classical music selections

My countdown says I have 26 days until the wedding, and Jake will be home 2 weeks from today!

New Suits

The suits at Men's Warehouse ended up being WAY more expensive than we expected. We kind of rushed into picking a suit because I wanted to get it done while Jake was home in March. Luckily, Travis found a similar suit at JCPenny and was able to get a great deal while it was on sale.

So, here is the updated suit:


Stafford® Performance Gray Stripe 3 Button Coat & Pleated Pant

They each got the full suit, as well as a light blue shirt for less than $200!

FYI: 32 days until the wedding and 20 days until Jake and my sister are home!

The Shred

So, I have less than 6 weeks until the wedding, and haven't lost any of the 15 pounds I planned to lose a year ago. Woops! I should have known I would put it off until last minute!

On Sunday, I started on The 30 Day Shred DVD. It is REALLY hard! Seriously! I'm sore...but not sore enough to skip a day, I've done all three days so far. And with only 38 days left before the wedding, I'm definitely motivated to do the video every day, no skipping, and I may just do extra when the 30 days is up. Typical results are to lose 5-10 pounds, and I'm planning to do extra cardio at the gym every other day, which will hopefully put me closer to losing about 10 pounds. But, I'm realistic, I know that even if I don't drop that many pounds, at least I will be much more toned!

I also got another DVD called No More Trouble Zones for specific areas like arms and belly, but I'm not going to start on that until my initial Shred soreness goes away. Ideally, by next week I'll have a nice schedule of Shred DVD everyday, with gym cardio and Zone DVD alternating days. And I'll get back into Beginning Yoga class on Mondays, and if I start feeling buff, maybe the harder Thursday Yoga class also.

I also gave up soda. I give up soda every few months, but I always end up giving myself "exceptions" like if I'm at a restaraunt that happens to serve Pepsi products, I would order one, or if I had to stay after school with a student, I would get one from the vending machine, or if I had to drive to Union or St. Louis, I would get one to drink in the car. But, now NO EXCEPTIONS! Absolutely NO SODA! So, I'm drinking a lot of tea, but unsweetened. I need to get more water in, all the caffeine is really messing up my sleep schedule, which you can see with the time I am posting this.

Well, to keep track of my progress, I weighed and measured myself on Sunday, and I'm going to TRY to not weigh myself until 30 days into the program. I have the scale right next to my shower, so I usually check it EVERY morning before stepping in the shower, but I need to go tuck the scale away in the laundry room so I'm not tempted to check. (OK, just did it, it's now under the drying rack, so I would have to make an effort to pull it out to step on it)

Here are the "before" stats: (I also took a swimsuit before photo but am NOT sharing that online!)
arm: 12 in
thigh: 22 in
bust: 35 in
waist: 30 in
tummy (the pooch): 37
hips: 36
weight: 150.5 lbs

I've always considered my thighs un-proportionally large compared to the rest of my body, so I'm used to them by now. I assume that building muscle will only make them bigger, so my thighs are really not a priority.

What I am really ashamed about is that my tummy pooch is larger than my hips! Seriously! The tummy is what I want to lose the most, and hopefully should be the easiest to lose.

Alright, if you read this whole thing, you now have to keep me accountable. Ask me if I'm doing the shred everyday, keep me in check! You have my permission to get mean if I start to slip.

By the way: 38 days until the wedding and 26 days until I see Jake & my sister & brother-in-law (they all get to Missouri on the same day!)

Blue Suede Shoes

Last year I bought some shoes to wear under my gown. Here is my original post about the shoes.

When the shoes arrived, I tried to wear them around my apartment, I even planned to wear them on New Year's Eve to break them in. Well, the shoes were definitely worth what I paid for them! They cost $17, and they were horrible quality! They fit right, but they slipped right off my heels. I guess I should have expected bad quality for how cheap they were.

So...I bought new shoes and they are so nice! I've been wearing them around the apartment to break them in and I haven't had any blisters or pain at all! And Jake says he loves the color!
By the way: 42 days until Jake is here & 54 days until the wedding!

2 months...really!

2 months left until the wedding! I really can't believe that! It's seems like just a couple of months ago when we got the ring and announced the engagement, but actually it was almost 14 months ago! Time has flown by. There are 12 1/2 days left of school and 7 weeks until Jake is home. And of course, 60 days until the wedding! I have a lot of work to do!

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!

Did you wear green today?

I wore my green today! No pinching here!

I finished up my pocketfolds tonight! 95 pocketfolds cut, scored, folded, and taped.


Now I can concentrate on finalizing my invite design and inserts.

On a side note, Walmart is selling big beautiful sunflowers, so of course I had to pick up a couple of bunches. Don't they look just great?

3 days until Jake is home, and 108 days until the wedding!

3 months and .... days!

A few days ago, we hit the 4 month mark. Which means I'm now in the "3 month territory." I can say, "three months and .... days!" Jake is coming for a visit later this month, and when he leaves, we will be in the "two month territory." It sounds so close when I say it that way!

I got the quote back from the caterer and it was AMAZING! Seriously! $300 total for enough food for 200 people and $100 for labor! It will be a buffet and doesn't include the meat, since Grandpa Jack is taking care of the fried fish, but doesn't that sound so incredibly cheap! Click here to see at all that it includes!

The warm weather today put me in a spring cleaning mood. I semi cleaned the kitchen, and DEEP cleaned the bathroom and the laundry room. I hadn't cleaned that laundry room since I moved in, a year and a half ago. It stayed surprisingly clean! I also washed my sheets and duvet cover, so now I can't wait to get in bed. I love that fresh bed smell!

I remember last summer, I helped a friend move, and I gave her such a hard time about how much junk she had accumulated. Well, in preparation for the move I will be making this summer, I've been going through my things trying to purge the things I won't want to keep. I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH JUNK I HAVE! Where did all of this STUFF come from? I feel bad giving my friend such a hard time about her junk! I've already sold $160 worth of books on half.com and have three big boxes of stuff to donate. I'm going through my clothes tonight, and hoping to donate at least 25% of it!

Well, I'm off to the closet! Wish me luck!

By the way, 118 days!

Checks on the to-do list!

I feel like I haven't done much for the wedding lately, so I was scared to look over my January-February to-do list today. But, to my pleasant surprise I actually did everything I needed to! I booked a photographer and a cake baker and I got a quote from the rental guy. And my mom is working on getting a quote from the caterer and locating fish fryers. And I got all of the cutting and scoring done for the pocketfolds!

My March-April to-do list is to tape the pocketfolds, print all of the inserts for the invitations and lots of things that I can't actually do until Jake is home for his little visit, like ordering rings, meeting with our minister, and the engagement photo shoot! He's only going to be home for 14 days, and of those 14 days, I will be working 10, 2 we will be on the other side of Missouri visiting my grandparents, and one of the other days we will be in Union, meeting with the minister, and doing e-pics. And I guess we will be using that one free day to go to the jeweler. Poor Jake, it won't be much of a vacation! I really tried to get him to come over Easter so I would at least have a few days off work, but boys just don't listen! Silly Jake!

124 days until the wedding, and 19 days until Jake is home!

This announcement deserves it's very own post

6 months! Really...6 months! 180 days!

New Year Stress!

It's a new year! And it's MY year! I have a mixture of emotions about the new year.

As a positive, we only have 6 months until the wedding. I just can't wait until we are married so I can see Jake everyday. I especially can't wait to spend the Holidays with him next year!

As a negative, I feel so behind on my planning. I took some time over the break from school to get my wedding planning organized. I made a detailed list of things that need to be taken care of, and many of those things are what I consider urgent. Now that I have every thing organized I have my priorities straight.

I've been planning to do as much DIY as possible, and I had lots of ideas and photos gathered up. I decided to compile all of those ideas into one complete list...and that list is LONG! I feel like a true DIY bride now! I added that list to the sidebar --------------------------->
and I plan to make each one a link to it's respective blog entry as the item is checked off my list.

Also, I need to get my butt in gear and lose some weight! I really only want to lose 5-10 pounds, but I really want to tone up my arms.

I'm planning to finish up my monogrammed aisle runner today. I'll post pictures as soon as it's done!

The countdown says 182 days.

Instructions for Save the Date Calendar Stickers

I got the blue linen paper for the save the date backing, so I finished those up today! Here are the instructions:

I designed the sticker in PowerPoint, then printed samples of multiple sizes to find one that fit perfectly in my hole punch. Then I copied that perfectly sized design and was able to fit 30 per page.

I printed those and used the hole punch to cut them out. I would have hated to have cut out 300 circles, so I HIGHLY recommend getting a large hole punch. I found a cute Martha Stewart one with scalloped edges.I then put all 300 stickers through the sticker maker. Mine is a XYRON250 and I was able to fit two circles across.

Then I cut the stickers into strips of 3.

I also designed the save-the-date cards in powerpoint and printed 4 per page. Each card ended up being 3 3/4" x 5"

Then I glued the sticker strips to the cards. Because the strips were slick, double sided tape didn't work, it peeled right off. I ended up using spray adhesive.

Then I cut blue linen cardstock into 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" for the backing, 4 per page, and used glue dots to attach.

My camera is low quality, and believe me, they look much nicer in person!

The countdown says 188 days! If I remember correctly, when I started this blog I had 287. My word, 99 days REALLY flew by!

Baby, it's cold outside!

We had a mini ice storm last night, so school was cancelled today. I used the day off to finish up my save-the-dates. I'm planning on buying envelopes tomorrow so I can get them addressed and in the mail right after Christmas.

Here I'm punching out the stickers. The original plan was to cut out circles, but thank goodness I found this paper punch, after 300 circles I would have been sick of cutting them out!


Here are all 300 paper circles, about to go through the sticker machine.


The finished product

My countdown tells me 200 more days! Wow...time is going pretty quickly!

To veil or not to veil?

So, I was pretty well set on a birdcage veil. But Jake makes it pretty clear he thinks it looks silly! I would still like to try one on to see how I like it, but I've also been looking at some other options.

I really like the hairstyle here, and I definitly have thick enough hair to pull it off.

The hairpiece is nice too!

By the way...219 days!

Let's talk about veils...

I'm really torn about what to do about a veil. With the shape/style of my dress, I really think a birdcage veil would look great! Here are some examples of what I like:




Kind of quirky, but I think it fits my personality!

For some reason, Jake doesn't really like the look of the birdcage veil. Bummer!
I sent him an email with a few different types of veils, (including the birdcage) and he chose this one...



Isn't this style so...overdone?

So, should I go with the birdcage, or stick with something a little more toned down for Jake?

By the way...265 days.

Time is going by too quickly!

After a short discussion with Shannon this weekend, I realized the wedding is just over 9 months away! 278 days to be exact. It really feels like it was just July 4th, but that 3 months flew by! On the positive side, that means the next 9 months will go by quickly, and then I'll be able to see Jake everyday! But on the SCARY side, I only have 9 months to plan the rest of the wedding!

I feel so behind! I kind of put off a lot of planning for after mom got home from vacation. She's home, and I'm still not planning anything! There are many big things that I really want to get taken care of as soon as possible, like getting a tent rented, finding a caterer, booking a photographer, and ordering paper for the invitations. Those are just the things that I think are the most urgent! I also want to get the save-the-dates printed off and the wedding registry finished, but those aren't really pressing matters.

So, my goal for this week: complete at least TWO of the major needs addressed above. Wish me luck!

So, I'm officially a blogger!

I did it! I caved in! I joined the world wide club of blogging! I have been engaged for quite a few months and have already made lots of wedding plans, but I feel like I still have even more to still plan! And so, I'll be posting my plans as they come along.

The wedding is planned for July 4th, 2008! The ticker on my computer says 287 days to go!