Rambles from my too-full brain...
Wow...here it's been over a month again since my last post. Sorry about that, folks! I'm still keeping up with reading posts - just haven't had any spare moments for posting these days. It's crazy how much time it takes to plan a wedding and maintain a long-distance engagement. Overall it's been a very good season of life, aside from the occasional inevitable stressful issue that crops up...just busier than I thought possible. :)
Those of you who aren't on FB and haven't see many pictures of Joe and I yet may want to look through this Picasa album. We'll soon be officially releasing our site with the story of how we met - hopefully by next week.
I guess I haven't really talked much about the wedding plans here at all, though I've shared some of it with some of you individually. Joe and I have asked our siblings to stand up with us: he has one sister and two brothers, and I have three sisters and two brothers, so it works out perfectly. My 4-year-old cousin, Grace, will be the flower girl, and Noah, a 6-year-old friend of Joe's will be the ring bearer - along with my (soon to be *our* ;) ) niece, Ruby, as an honorary flower girl.
The main color is going to be a deep red - a garnet/cranberry color. It's been my favorite color for practically my whole life and I knew I wanted to use it for my wedding, despite its popularity for such. We found some absolutely gorgeous silk roses from Hobby Lobby for the bouquets - dark red for me, rose pink for the bridesmaids. They will be wearing dark red tops with tatted lace at the neckline, along with black skirts. The carpet in our church is almost the exact shade of red, and I knew red dresses would be a little TOO red on that carpet. And this way their outfits will be more versatile and reusable.
We plan to use a lot of brass candlesticks, old books, teacups, greenery, and lace doilies in the decorating - all thrift store finds, of course. We got 14 8' table runners at the thrift store in the *exact* fabric that we're making the bridesmaid tops and guys' ties from (talk about a miracle!). The overall look is going to be (hopefully) simple and elegant, with an old-fashioned/antique twist. Very much "me", my siblings say, and Joe assures me that he couldn't think of any better way to do it. I've always enjoyed working with pretty things and creating beauty, so it has been a great deal of fun to be able to make everything *just so* - and to try to do so within a limited budget, hehe.
I'm absolutely thrilled about the music we'll have at the wedding: it will all be done by the MacDonald family, and they're putting together custom arrangements for everything...brass, strings, vocal, bluegrass. Wow. :D I never imagined that I'd get to have such amazing music at my wedding!
And the invitations...I had them printed at a shop in Springfield, which had printed a similar style invitation I designed for a friend last winter. They turned out absolutely perfect, and along with the red wax seal (Joe and I had such fun doing all of those!), they are more beautiful than I thought my invitations could possibly be. Yay!
And my dress...that's a long story, but God provided one much more gorgeous than I'd envisioned. We found it at the thrift store for a mere $1.29, believe it or not. :D Fabric from another dress we already had in our costume closet will be perfect to lengthen the hemline, add in sleeves, and raise up the back neckline somewhat. I'd been praying for God to provide a dress for under $200, and He gave SO much more.
These stories and more are what keep me going and keep me trusting, even when stressful things come up (and yes, we have had our share so far). No, in the light of eternity it doesn't *really* matter whether or not the flowers match the ribbon or all the groomsmen have identical suits. But God really does care even about the tiny details of my life...and your life. His love is incredible.
Other rambles...
We're currently tossing around ideas for reception activities. We won't be doing a dance or a garter toss or speeches by the wedding party (our siblings are too shy, lol)...but we don't want the reception to be a short half-hour, boring event. Any ideas? :)
Another current quest is an old-fashioned baby buggy, to be used for my niece, Ruby. She'll be not quite a year old at the time of the wedding, but I'd like to include her as an honorary flower girl anyway. So far Craigslist and other sources haven't turned up any real potentials, so we're looking forward to seeing how God provides along these lines.
Joe and I are tossing around the idea of doing live video streaming of our wedding, if we can get it figured out logistically (and have someone volunteer to take charge of it on the day of, so we don't have to worry about it, heh). Do any of you have experience with this or know a site that works well for such (preferably completely free and without annoying ads)? If we're not able to stream it live, we want to look into posting a video of the ceremony at some point afterwards - will need to figure out the best way to do that, too. A friend at church has a digital video camera that I think should work great for the filming; I've just never tried uploading/streaming a large video file like that before.
Oh, and another question: Anyone have good books to recommend for engaged couples or newlyweds? Joe and I have both learned a lot from reading through Love and Respect these last few months, as well as Tommy Nelson's Song of Solomon book and DVD series. I've also enjoyed The Five Love Needs of Men and Women and Starting Your Marriage Right. Any other titles that you folks recommend? I have a stack of credits on PaperbackSwap at the moment and wouldn't mind using them to add to my growing collection of helpful marriage-related books.
I am super excited about our honeymoon...it'll be a train trip, and I've been dying to take the train again (last time was 2003...far too long). And honestly, as much fun as the wedding prep has been in some ways, it's going to be SO nice to just relax and enjoy being with Joe instead of feeling half-guilty because we have a long to-do list to accomplish yet. :P
And then comes the whole adventure of getting settled in to Joe's apartment (can I handle life in a city apartment? we shall see...), and tackling all the housewiferly duties for which I feel so inadequate. I'm clueless when it comes to grocery shopping because my dad has always done it here and we raise half our food anyway. And cooking...I can do it, but it's definitely not a hobby. Will I be able to keep up with all the housekeeping on top of design work and spending plenty of quality time with Joe? Guess we'll find out. :) I do feel rather overwhelmed sometimes about all these changes and adjustments and new responsibilities (okay, "panicky" is a more accurate word for some days), but at the same time I'm very eager for this new phase of life. God *will* go with me and give all the grace needed. And I'm looking forward to seeing what He has in store. :D
Those of you who aren't on FB and haven't see many pictures of Joe and I yet may want to look through this Picasa album. We'll soon be officially releasing our site with the story of how we met - hopefully by next week.
I guess I haven't really talked much about the wedding plans here at all, though I've shared some of it with some of you individually. Joe and I have asked our siblings to stand up with us: he has one sister and two brothers, and I have three sisters and two brothers, so it works out perfectly. My 4-year-old cousin, Grace, will be the flower girl, and Noah, a 6-year-old friend of Joe's will be the ring bearer - along with my (soon to be *our* ;) ) niece, Ruby, as an honorary flower girl.
The main color is going to be a deep red - a garnet/cranberry color. It's been my favorite color for practically my whole life and I knew I wanted to use it for my wedding, despite its popularity for such. We found some absolutely gorgeous silk roses from Hobby Lobby for the bouquets - dark red for me, rose pink for the bridesmaids. They will be wearing dark red tops with tatted lace at the neckline, along with black skirts. The carpet in our church is almost the exact shade of red, and I knew red dresses would be a little TOO red on that carpet. And this way their outfits will be more versatile and reusable.
We plan to use a lot of brass candlesticks, old books, teacups, greenery, and lace doilies in the decorating - all thrift store finds, of course. We got 14 8' table runners at the thrift store in the *exact* fabric that we're making the bridesmaid tops and guys' ties from (talk about a miracle!). The overall look is going to be (hopefully) simple and elegant, with an old-fashioned/antique twist. Very much "me", my siblings say, and Joe assures me that he couldn't think of any better way to do it. I've always enjoyed working with pretty things and creating beauty, so it has been a great deal of fun to be able to make everything *just so* - and to try to do so within a limited budget, hehe.
I'm absolutely thrilled about the music we'll have at the wedding: it will all be done by the MacDonald family, and they're putting together custom arrangements for everything...brass, strings, vocal, bluegrass. Wow. :D I never imagined that I'd get to have such amazing music at my wedding!
And the invitations...I had them printed at a shop in Springfield, which had printed a similar style invitation I designed for a friend last winter. They turned out absolutely perfect, and along with the red wax seal (Joe and I had such fun doing all of those!), they are more beautiful than I thought my invitations could possibly be. Yay!
And my dress...that's a long story, but God provided one much more gorgeous than I'd envisioned. We found it at the thrift store for a mere $1.29, believe it or not. :D Fabric from another dress we already had in our costume closet will be perfect to lengthen the hemline, add in sleeves, and raise up the back neckline somewhat. I'd been praying for God to provide a dress for under $200, and He gave SO much more.
These stories and more are what keep me going and keep me trusting, even when stressful things come up (and yes, we have had our share so far). No, in the light of eternity it doesn't *really* matter whether or not the flowers match the ribbon or all the groomsmen have identical suits. But God really does care even about the tiny details of my life...and your life. His love is incredible.
Other rambles...
We're currently tossing around ideas for reception activities. We won't be doing a dance or a garter toss or speeches by the wedding party (our siblings are too shy, lol)...but we don't want the reception to be a short half-hour, boring event. Any ideas? :)
Another current quest is an old-fashioned baby buggy, to be used for my niece, Ruby. She'll be not quite a year old at the time of the wedding, but I'd like to include her as an honorary flower girl anyway. So far Craigslist and other sources haven't turned up any real potentials, so we're looking forward to seeing how God provides along these lines.
Joe and I are tossing around the idea of doing live video streaming of our wedding, if we can get it figured out logistically (and have someone volunteer to take charge of it on the day of, so we don't have to worry about it, heh). Do any of you have experience with this or know a site that works well for such (preferably completely free and without annoying ads)? If we're not able to stream it live, we want to look into posting a video of the ceremony at some point afterwards - will need to figure out the best way to do that, too. A friend at church has a digital video camera that I think should work great for the filming; I've just never tried uploading/streaming a large video file like that before.
Oh, and another question: Anyone have good books to recommend for engaged couples or newlyweds? Joe and I have both learned a lot from reading through Love and Respect these last few months, as well as Tommy Nelson's Song of Solomon book and DVD series. I've also enjoyed The Five Love Needs of Men and Women and Starting Your Marriage Right. Any other titles that you folks recommend? I have a stack of credits on PaperbackSwap at the moment and wouldn't mind using them to add to my growing collection of helpful marriage-related books.
I am super excited about our honeymoon...it'll be a train trip, and I've been dying to take the train again (last time was 2003...far too long). And honestly, as much fun as the wedding prep has been in some ways, it's going to be SO nice to just relax and enjoy being with Joe instead of feeling half-guilty because we have a long to-do list to accomplish yet. :P
And then comes the whole adventure of getting settled in to Joe's apartment (can I handle life in a city apartment? we shall see...), and tackling all the housewiferly duties for which I feel so inadequate. I'm clueless when it comes to grocery shopping because my dad has always done it here and we raise half our food anyway. And cooking...I can do it, but it's definitely not a hobby. Will I be able to keep up with all the housekeeping on top of design work and spending plenty of quality time with Joe? Guess we'll find out. :) I do feel rather overwhelmed sometimes about all these changes and adjustments and new responsibilities (okay, "panicky" is a more accurate word for some days), but at the same time I'm very eager for this new phase of life. God *will* go with me and give all the grace needed. And I'm looking forward to seeing what He has in store. :D