6 months to go!
hiya! so ive hit the 6-month mark until my wedding (actually im a day early but im going out-of-town tomorrow to celebrate my almost 5-year anniversary with my FH this weekend) so i wanted to give a lil update on how everything's going.
first off here is probably the most current pic of Nicolas & me that i have:
the ceremony and reception site is at same place. since Nicolas and i are of different religions and neither of us are particularly religious, we didnt feel comfortable getting married in a church or temple. we are both pretty laid back people so going the country club route wasnt our thing either. we both loved the idea of getting married and having the partay on a yacht and after much debate as to when the heck we were ever going to be able to afford to do so, we finally set the date for october 25, 2008 and have been saving $ ever since. we are getting married on the caprice, which is the mid-sized boat. it is quite pretty both inside and out. the ceremony will take place as soon as all of the guests arrive, then the reception will commence immediately after as we cruise around the fort lauderdale intracoastal.
our color scheme is hunter green, victorian lilac, berry, and peach with other autumn accents, tones and decor autumn leaves, pumpkins, sunflowers and whatever other cool stuff we find along the way.
we are going to go shopping for the bridesmaids dresses next week and hopefully order them. this is everyone's 1st choice as of right now:
the pink bow will be victorian lilac or the dress will be in reverse, victorian lilac with hunter trim. i already have my dress, though sadly enough i do not have a photo of myself wearing it yet, so this one will have to do:
i however will not be frolicking along the beach in my dress because i have no intentions of trashing it. i still need to find some shoes ill be able to wear comfortably. ive never been much for pretty high heels since i dont wear shoes like those to work everyday. being that im getting married on a yacht wearing shoes like that kind of scares me because i doubt ill be able to keep my balance in lil thin stilettos, so ive been trying to find a pair of wedge type shoes in white. i have them in both black and brown and i REALLY hope i can find something like that in white or at least neutral because id like to have some height on my feet since my dress is so long. if worse comes to worse and i cant find what im looking for i can always go with those cute lacy skechers in white. at least those will be comfortable! =)
we already have our photographer. both of us really like her work, she is willing to give us exactly what we want for the amount of time we want AND she is actually within our price range. those is definitely major plusses right there. yay!!! we definitely want all of the pics on a high resolution cd so we will be able to order as many as we want whenever we want without having to rely on ordering through the photographer every time. i know ill want to make a scrapbook of our wedding. we will also probably give the parents photobooks that i can customize myself however i want so we want access to all of that whenever we need it. we also want a custom photo album by the photographer. although i know im going to make my own scrapbook, i still want an album that is done professionally as well.
we also have booked our dj. they work with our venue and we talked to someone who used them and heard all kinds of good things about them. we still need to finalize our requested playlists and determine what songs we will be using during our ceremony, for the recessional, for events we plan on doing such as the cake cutting, champagne toast, and of course for our first dance, father/daughter dance and mother/son dance.
i want to walk down the aisle to "only time" by enya or "at most beautiful" by r.e.m. - maybe we'll use both. possible 1st dance songs: "you and me" by lifehouse, "push" by sarah mclachlan; "stellar" by incubus; "tonight, tonight" or "stand inside your love" by smashing pumpkins. so many great options - now if only fh would give me some input! =) i think we will use "lullabye" by billy joel for the father/daugher dance because my dad and i both love him and the song is him singing his daughter to sleep which is something my dad used to do with me. i have to talk to him about it though to see if he has anything else in mind. i have no idea what song Nicolas wants to for his dance with his mother, but he needs to come up with something.
we bought our wedding rings. mine is a lil big on me though. =/ i may need to have it re-sized or have to get one of those ring guard thingies to make sure that it doesnt fall off.
we also already have our cake toppers:
this one will be on the real cake:
this one will be on the table where the guestbook and card box will be:
and i have yet to determine where we will be putting this one - possibly also on the table with the cardbox and guest book/scrapbook:
i started making the guest book/ scrapbook. i got pretty metallic scrapbook paper and a scrapbook already. along with bride, groom, bridesmaid, groomsmen and wedding accents to decorate the pages with. i also got some card stock, which i plan on cutting into smaller index sized cards so people can write whatever they wish to for us and later i will be able to put them in the scrapbook. i plan on putting pics of Nicolas and me throughout our relationship on each page and im hoping to have one of my friends take pics of all of the guests as they arrive so we can put their pics with their notecards.i also plan on making a page of the bride, the groom, the bridesmaids and groomsmen all dressed on teh day of the wedding. so yes it will be a work in progress that i wont be able to finish until after the wedding, but i think i will really be glad i went to all the effort to make it rather than just have a guest book that people sign.
as for favors, we ordered personalized matchbooks and we're probably going to order maple candy shaped in maple leaves or jellybelly jellybeans in our wedding colors and we will put them in cute lil tulle bags.
i found a pretty cardbox on the weddingchannel.com website - plus i saved $ by ordering the matchbooks, personalized cake server/knife set, tulle bags and cardbox all while they were on sale. i JUST missed the big sale the knot was having by one day, but luckily the wedding channel's sale was still on. yay for great sales and saving lots of money! hopefully all of that will arrive soon.
i bought a lil bottle that we plan to use for the sand ceremony - now all i need to do is find some dark green sand because purple seems to be easy to find. i really want to do the sand ceremony as opposed to the unity candle.
ive always known that my bouquet will consist of sunflowers and possibly peach roses and something purple that will complement those two. i either want to make similar smaller ones for my bridesmaids or maybe just have them have the peach roses.
for centerpieces i want something autumny like a hollowed out pumpkin with an arrangement of sunflowers, maple leaves, wheat stalks, etc. i need to get some of these things at michaels or someplace soon so i can start working on those. Nicolas also likes those vases of roses or sunflowers submerged underwater, so thats also a possibility. guess thats something we need to think about.
i have an idea of what id like for our invitations, which is something we need to work on more intently. like soon! i really like these:
although we dont really need a whole lot and we are really hoping most guests give us money so we can continue to save for a downpayment for a house, we still registered at macy*s and crate & barrel. we might register for a honeymoon fund or one other place but we havent decided where yet. ive heard horrible things about target and until recently ive only heard good things about macy*s, but god i hope they dont call me asking to send people my registry stuff like i heard a couple other people have had done to them recently.
there are many things we still need to accomplish, but the list is getting smaller:
~invites
~finalizing our guest list and mailing out the invitations
~bridesmaids dresses
~tuxes
~flowers and centerpieces
~finish guestbook/ scrapbook as much as possible/ make index cards for people to write stuff
~decide on which menu we are going with and choose the items we want on it
~determine the playlist for the dj and pick songs that will be used for key moments
~find some comfy shoes ill be able to keep balance and dance in
~get hotel rooms blocked off
~decide on favors
~figure out where we are going for our honeymoon and book it
but yah, things are starting to fall into place and things are becoming more real. we've been engaged for awhile so it feels like forever, but suddenly october isnt seeming so far off anymore. yay!!!!
first off here is probably the most current pic of Nicolas & me that i have:
the ceremony and reception site is at same place. since Nicolas and i are of different religions and neither of us are particularly religious, we didnt feel comfortable getting married in a church or temple. we are both pretty laid back people so going the country club route wasnt our thing either. we both loved the idea of getting married and having the partay on a yacht and after much debate as to when the heck we were ever going to be able to afford to do so, we finally set the date for october 25, 2008 and have been saving $ ever since. we are getting married on the caprice, which is the mid-sized boat. it is quite pretty both inside and out. the ceremony will take place as soon as all of the guests arrive, then the reception will commence immediately after as we cruise around the fort lauderdale intracoastal.
our color scheme is hunter green, victorian lilac, berry, and peach with other autumn accents, tones and decor autumn leaves, pumpkins, sunflowers and whatever other cool stuff we find along the way.
we are going to go shopping for the bridesmaids dresses next week and hopefully order them. this is everyone's 1st choice as of right now:
the pink bow will be victorian lilac or the dress will be in reverse, victorian lilac with hunter trim. i already have my dress, though sadly enough i do not have a photo of myself wearing it yet, so this one will have to do:
i however will not be frolicking along the beach in my dress because i have no intentions of trashing it. i still need to find some shoes ill be able to wear comfortably. ive never been much for pretty high heels since i dont wear shoes like those to work everyday. being that im getting married on a yacht wearing shoes like that kind of scares me because i doubt ill be able to keep my balance in lil thin stilettos, so ive been trying to find a pair of wedge type shoes in white. i have them in both black and brown and i REALLY hope i can find something like that in white or at least neutral because id like to have some height on my feet since my dress is so long. if worse comes to worse and i cant find what im looking for i can always go with those cute lacy skechers in white. at least those will be comfortable! =)
we already have our photographer. both of us really like her work, she is willing to give us exactly what we want for the amount of time we want AND she is actually within our price range. those is definitely major plusses right there. yay!!! we definitely want all of the pics on a high resolution cd so we will be able to order as many as we want whenever we want without having to rely on ordering through the photographer every time. i know ill want to make a scrapbook of our wedding. we will also probably give the parents photobooks that i can customize myself however i want so we want access to all of that whenever we need it. we also want a custom photo album by the photographer. although i know im going to make my own scrapbook, i still want an album that is done professionally as well.
we also have booked our dj. they work with our venue and we talked to someone who used them and heard all kinds of good things about them. we still need to finalize our requested playlists and determine what songs we will be using during our ceremony, for the recessional, for events we plan on doing such as the cake cutting, champagne toast, and of course for our first dance, father/daughter dance and mother/son dance.
i want to walk down the aisle to "only time" by enya or "at most beautiful" by r.e.m. - maybe we'll use both. possible 1st dance songs: "you and me" by lifehouse, "push" by sarah mclachlan; "stellar" by incubus; "tonight, tonight" or "stand inside your love" by smashing pumpkins. so many great options - now if only fh would give me some input! =) i think we will use "lullabye" by billy joel for the father/daugher dance because my dad and i both love him and the song is him singing his daughter to sleep which is something my dad used to do with me. i have to talk to him about it though to see if he has anything else in mind. i have no idea what song Nicolas wants to for his dance with his mother, but he needs to come up with something.
we bought our wedding rings. mine is a lil big on me though. =/ i may need to have it re-sized or have to get one of those ring guard thingies to make sure that it doesnt fall off.
we also already have our cake toppers:
this one will be on the real cake:
this one will be on the table where the guestbook and card box will be:
and i have yet to determine where we will be putting this one - possibly also on the table with the cardbox and guest book/scrapbook:
i started making the guest book/ scrapbook. i got pretty metallic scrapbook paper and a scrapbook already. along with bride, groom, bridesmaid, groomsmen and wedding accents to decorate the pages with. i also got some card stock, which i plan on cutting into smaller index sized cards so people can write whatever they wish to for us and later i will be able to put them in the scrapbook. i plan on putting pics of Nicolas and me throughout our relationship on each page and im hoping to have one of my friends take pics of all of the guests as they arrive so we can put their pics with their notecards.i also plan on making a page of the bride, the groom, the bridesmaids and groomsmen all dressed on teh day of the wedding. so yes it will be a work in progress that i wont be able to finish until after the wedding, but i think i will really be glad i went to all the effort to make it rather than just have a guest book that people sign.
as for favors, we ordered personalized matchbooks and we're probably going to order maple candy shaped in maple leaves or jellybelly jellybeans in our wedding colors and we will put them in cute lil tulle bags.
i found a pretty cardbox on the weddingchannel.com website - plus i saved $ by ordering the matchbooks, personalized cake server/knife set, tulle bags and cardbox all while they were on sale. i JUST missed the big sale the knot was having by one day, but luckily the wedding channel's sale was still on. yay for great sales and saving lots of money! hopefully all of that will arrive soon.
i bought a lil bottle that we plan to use for the sand ceremony - now all i need to do is find some dark green sand because purple seems to be easy to find. i really want to do the sand ceremony as opposed to the unity candle.
ive always known that my bouquet will consist of sunflowers and possibly peach roses and something purple that will complement those two. i either want to make similar smaller ones for my bridesmaids or maybe just have them have the peach roses.
for centerpieces i want something autumny like a hollowed out pumpkin with an arrangement of sunflowers, maple leaves, wheat stalks, etc. i need to get some of these things at michaels or someplace soon so i can start working on those. Nicolas also likes those vases of roses or sunflowers submerged underwater, so thats also a possibility. guess thats something we need to think about.
i have an idea of what id like for our invitations, which is something we need to work on more intently. like soon! i really like these:
although we dont really need a whole lot and we are really hoping most guests give us money so we can continue to save for a downpayment for a house, we still registered at macy*s and crate & barrel. we might register for a honeymoon fund or one other place but we havent decided where yet. ive heard horrible things about target and until recently ive only heard good things about macy*s, but god i hope they dont call me asking to send people my registry stuff like i heard a couple other people have had done to them recently.
there are many things we still need to accomplish, but the list is getting smaller:
~invites
~finalizing our guest list and mailing out the invitations
~bridesmaids dresses
~tuxes
~flowers and centerpieces
~finish guestbook/ scrapbook as much as possible/ make index cards for people to write stuff
~decide on which menu we are going with and choose the items we want on it
~determine the playlist for the dj and pick songs that will be used for key moments
~find some comfy shoes ill be able to keep balance and dance in
~get hotel rooms blocked off
~decide on favors
~figure out where we are going for our honeymoon and book it
but yah, things are starting to fall into place and things are becoming more real. we've been engaged for awhile so it feels like forever, but suddenly october isnt seeming so far off anymore. yay!!!!