On the intarwebz

As much opportunity as I had to learn them there fancy web-creation skills at SILS, I decided to go the "easy template wedding website" route. I feel a little like I'm wussing out because a secret part of me has always wanted to be able to make kickass websites, but that part got left behind soon after the days of fancy flashing gifs and Geocities (to my middle-school-aged credit, I refrained from most flashing gifs and made stuff that looked as tasteful as something created by an 8th-grader could look. Black and purple all the way, baby... with stars... the theme, it holds together and is not overwhelming!).
So, to keep a "wedsite" *snork* from looking like 8th-grade me made it, I went with a free pre-designed option. I looked at a couple of different services - TheKnot's free ones, and eWedding.com - but their template choices didn't hold a candle to the ones over at MyWedding.com.
For a while, I couldn't decide which template to go with because there were SO many awesome ones. One of the great parts about MyWedding.com is the way that they partner with other services -- everything from Offbeat Bride to Christian fiction author Karen Kingsbury to Green Bride Guide. There seriously is something for everybody.
Even me!

Yep... finding out that they've partnered with Minted, the company that makes the awesome invites, miiiiight have just made everything feel like awesome cosmic alignment.
I don't have everything juuuuust the way I want it yet, but close enough that I'm ready to post it here :) Hooray!

Some thoughts on cake

Yet another snow day has come and gone without me being able to get to the fabric store. I'm itching -- itching, I tell you! -- to buy the fabric and thread and other materials I need to get started on some sample fabric flowers. But, since I'm unable to get started on that, I decided to think about something else today. Cake!

"Oooooh, I love a bit of cake. Oooooh, cake. Oooooh, cake. Cake. Cake. Cake. Cake. I'm just one of these people. I come home and I need a piece of cake."

(*cough* I've been on a BritCom kick recently.)

The whole cake business is something that's been pretty much strictly DIY for us from the start. For one, we live in an area where there isn't enough business for bakeries to... well... work. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to outsource this cake, I'd be spending a ton just to have it transported here. There's probably somewhere in Boone or Blowing Rock that would do it, but I guarantee you it would cost more than it will cost us to make... something. The question is, what kind of something?

I love this cake that I saw on Style Me Pretty -- I'm really drawn to the fabric flowers (who'da thought?) and the detail around the bottom of the layers that looks like... I can't figure out what, but I like it. Maybe like branches? Something pretty.

If we do a layered cake, I'd love to do something similar, but probably with simple ribbon around the bottom of each layer and buttercream instead of fondant. I know me and Mom. Buttercream = familiar and less stressful. Fondant = "what are we supposed to do with this?" But -- that's if we do a layered display cake. I think we're a lot more likely to have success with two or three smaller layered cakes (or one display cake and some sheet cakes) than a big ol' huge tiered thing.
I also love the idea of having multiple, smaller cakes. For one, it seems to go well with the idea of having a groom's cake (I would love to make a cake with the Horde insignia on it, or possibly his guild tabard, for Johnny's groom's cake. Picture a large hot pink cake with a purple scarecrow on it, if you will.) Also, that means you can do some nice-looking crafty stuff with multiple cake stands. Here are some on Etsy that are gorgeous, but I know enough people who do woodworking (or at least own a chainsaw) that I thiiiink I could coat them in polyurethane and make them myself.

Made by RoxyHeartVintage

That's if I want to get fancy about it, though. I don't have my heart set on anything like that, as cool as it looks -- but at least it did get me thinking about the fact that you do have to put a cake on something.
I love the way that cake tables with multiple small cakes on stands with different heights look, especially since I could nest this in the center...

So. My thoughts on DIY cake:

• Probably multiple pieces -- whether that means one display cake with extra sheet cakes or multiple small cakes.
• Buttercream all the way, baby!
• Simple decorations. Not a lot of flowers and piping and stuff. For DIY, easier is better :)
• Must be easy to transport - nothing too big or unstable
• Must not be so big or complicated that helper-folks who aren't pastry chefs can figure out how to cut 'em.
• Something we can make to scale in a practice round or two without going broke.

I also found some neat tutorials and reference entries on DIYing your own wedding cake at DIY Bride. They ran Cake Month entries recently:

• Is a DIY Wedding Cake for You?
• First Steps
• Slices: Size Matters
• Boxed Mix or Scratch Recipe?

Mom and I need to talk and figure out what flavors to do (Johnny already says he has no preference...), what recipes to use, and when to do our test runs. Rest assured that there will be a rundown when that happens!

At least our DIY cake will taste better than dust.  

Hello, ladies.

Look at this invitation:

Now back to me.
Now back to this invitation:

Now back to me.
I still can't get over this invitation. All three pre-done colors it comes in look awesome, and either the taupe or the blue would go with the other colors... and I'm ordering a sample of the lobelia to see if it would go as well. Just. Can't. Get. Over. It. I've got a ton of time to think on it, which means I also have time to evaluate whether it'll go in our budget (and/or save up for it!). Dah! It is dumb to be so infatuated over an invitation when the paper stuff is not that important... none of the fiddly details are that all-fired important. But just.... looooove it.
I'm on a horse.

Ch-ch-changes

Hey, it's 10 months until go-time! Thought this would be an appropriate day to give an update after my "time off" for the holiday season. I'm extremely glad that I took some time away from actively trying to get stuff done related to wedding-business and worked on other projects -- finishing NaNoWriMo, moving house, getting used to winter weather driving again (I've slid off the road twice already...), and all that jazz. (I should probably include "playing the heck out of some Cataclysm" in that mix.)
However, I didn't actually put wedding-stuff completely out of mind for the past month. Kind of far from it. I spent a lot of time just mulling ideas over, getting a better sense of what I want to do and what can be done with the funds and time I have, and thinking about the end product. And all that has come down to a lot of changes.
As any goblin in Azeroth will tell you, "time is money, friend." I'm lucky that I have a lot of weeks and months to use for DIY projects before October, but the free time I have day-to-day is pretty hard to come by. I've been trying to evaluate how much product I can get out of the time I have in order to come out with stuff that looks good but hasn't taken up so much time that I'm left stressed to the max. I'm still keeping the picture tree (and I finally know what that kind of tree is called - manzanita!) and the candle centerpieces, since those are the projects that are most important to me. My big decision right now is whether to go with making fabric flowers or not. I mean, look at these beauties:

Source



Or this one...


Source



I love the rustic, relaxed, homey look of the felt ones, and Mrs. Locket's lace ones are to die for. If I don't do fabric flowers, I'll most likely be doing something involving a ton of wheat. Like this.



Source

Actually, it was that picture that changed a lot of the style choices I'd been thinking of. (More on that in a minute.)
I'm probably going to be doing a combination of wheat and felt flower stuff with the reception table centerpieces, too.
Most of my other DIY projects that I had in mind are getting super-simplified. Mallorn-leaf bouts will probably get replaced by simple wheat ones, maybe with a fabric bloom on there, because I forgot how bad I am with Sculpey :P This is also a contributing reason for why the cake topper idea is going away and getting replaced with an already-made piece that isn't technically a cake topper but which J and I both really like (which will probably just stand beside the cake):


"Together" by Susan Lordi (Willow Tree)

I've re-thought my stance on invites. The things are so dang expensive. Actually anything paper in general is so dang expensive - programs, thankyous, everything. That and the flowers are what I'm most up in the air about at the moment. I still like Cards and Pockets, but I've also seen some nice Seal 'N Send invites with detachable RSVPs. Or I could go the totally DIY route and make some like these pretty ones I found instructions on from Michaels:


Source

Or some of the pro ones from Wedding Paper Divas that I could simplify down to one piece. The more I think about invites, the less I want multiple pieces of paper stuck in them and the more I want to encourage people to use our website. Since we know there'll probably be people who don't get an invite who turn up anyway and know how weddings around here generally work ("Why do I have to send this card back?"), we're just going to do a ton of finger-foods and not have to worry so much about head count. The website has all the info that would go on all the extraneous invite cards.
I also changed my mind a little on the color scheme after taking a better look at the church and the fellowship hall with wedding stuff in mind. The sanctuary has medium-tone wood and burgundy carpet, and the fellowship hall is dusty blue and taupe -- I ended up really liking the way that dusty rose looked with both those sets of colors, so the purple is getting traded out for that color (which should be the same color as the blog background, if it's registering the same way on your browser as it is on mine).
So... I guess that even though I haven't really done anything, I've thought a lot! With the end of the holidays, I'll probably be making some DIY update posts as the ball gets rolling with those projects, and I'll have a better idea of what we're going with.
That's where we stand...

Thankful

It's an appropriate post for the season :)

I'm finally getting the waves of MustReadWeddingBlogs out of my system, getting chilled out about the whole wedding planning process. It's really a wonderful feeling. There's a ton of other stuff going on in life right now that I've got my mind turned to - big stuff like moving and the holidays, little stuff like getting geared the upcoming Cataclysm release and trying to bang out my NaNoWriMo. I still get a few minutes every now and again to surf ye olde wedding blogs. And sometimes, even my sanest of resources give me reasons to be thankful in that "thank you God that that isn't me" sense.
Many of these blogs have venting/ranting sections or boards for commenters, and I read some today. Reading those posts really made me feel thankful -- thankful that I'm not in some of those ladies' circumstances, and thankful that I don't react to some things in ways that, to me, look like they just aggravate bad situations. So...

I am so thankful that:

• My fiance is a mature man who, even though he isn't perfect, always tries his best at everything -- from work to friendships to taking care of me. One of the reasons I feel that we're such amazing partners is that I never find myself questioning his love and respect for me or our capability to take on challenges together.
• My future in-laws (who are now calling themselves the "Outlaws," which is spot on...) are absolutely fantastic. I couldn't imagine a better second-family, and I'm so grateful for how they've taken me in and been wonderful to me ever since Johnny invited me over for apple butter day, the first time I met them.
• My own family loves Johnny to death, too. Mom thinks he hung the moon, Dad has a ton of respect for him in his own Dad-ly way (oh, my unique and eccentric father...), and Granny likes him better than she would like most men in the world (Granny is special, too).
• We have relatively little drama in all our relationships with others. Sure, sometimes bits of tension rise up in friendships and family relationships, but there's nothing big and earth-shaking -- it's all stuff that we handle in a pretty grounded fashion, at least so far.
• I love his friends. All of them -- they are simply the best. They all have great personalities, good hearts, and are fun to be around.
• Johnny is sensitive to the girl-friendships I have that are long-distance. I should make more time to keep in touch with my distance-friends, and he's usually the one encouraging me to make sure to do that.
• Neither of us are hung up on money. If we were, we'd be in a heap of trouble :P It makes it simpler when you just try to have enough money for what you need and think of everything else as extra. It makes wedding planning simpler, too, in a way :P We don't need to spend a lot of money to have fun with each other, and we both love just being at home snuggling and watching movies or reading or gaming -- we're both cheap dates!
• We both have the same values and speak the same "religious language." Some of our best conversations, the ones we learn the most about each other through, are about how we each understand God and how to do the right thing in situations and that sort of thing. I love that I feel like I can go to him when I'm struggling with something spiritually, and I'm so grateful that we both want to grow in faith together, with each other.
• We do fight sometimes, but I'm thankful that we've learned (and are still learning) how to disagree and work things out while doing as little hurt to the other as possible. We'll be doing some premarital counseling, and I'm pretty excited to do even more work on our communication skills. Mostly because I know I'm the one who tends to freak out and cry while J keeps his feet on the ground about stuff :P
• We both tend to have happy and thankful personalities. Well... "contented" fits J better than outright "happy" (maybe it's a man thing), but I love that we both are naturally geared toward making sure the other knows how much they're appreciated and loved. We both tell each other those sorts of things at least a couple of times each morning, each night, and in between -- it makes a HUGE difference, from my past relationships, just hearing a reminder of how the other one feels deep down. It doesn't cheapen it at all, to me, to hear "I love you" -- it just makes it stronger.

So, it's a little early, but there it is, since it was on my mind -- Happy Thanksgiving, relationship edition!

DIY Roundup

I've been pulling together a list of the various projects and pieces I want to craft myself, and I know some of these will fall by the wayside as I go (or I might trade them for some other idea). But, in the meantime, here's a somewhat-official list of the homemade elements I'm going to be attempting for the wedding over the coming year.

The big deals: projects I'm most invested in:

• A guestbook covered and painted to look like a copy of The Lord of the Rings
• A "picture tree" - branches gathered up in a vase (probably with wired silk leaves on some of the twigs), hung with some matted sepia versions of our engagement pics
• Really awesome self-designed invitations, probably to be printed through Cards and Pockets
• Making a cake topper that looks like this (have no idea what I'll make it out of):

• Mallorn-leaf boutonniere pins made from Sculpey and metallic paint
• Centerpieces featuring beeswax pillar candles made by my Mom's 6th grade Chandler's Guild. This one is my favorite :) It's a tribute to my Mom, kind of a personal piece of spiritual imagery for both me and Johnny, and they smell awesome. I may see if they/Mom can make our unity candle and tapers as well.

Of lesser importance or things that I haven't thought through thoroughly yet (say that three times...):

• Carved monogram pumpkins outside the church doors - also, Celtic knotwork pumpkins. Would look awesome. Dunno if I'll feel like/have time to do them one week til The Hayes-ening.
• DIY-ing bouquets for my bridesfolk out of silk fall leaves. Would look really neat, could be done waaaaaay in advance, and wouldn't cause anyone's allergies to flare up *cough*Johnny*cough*. I'm trying to find some silk leaves now to do a mock-up before I do any sort of silk leaf ordering so I know if I've got the skillz to pull it off. I've also had a number of other bouquet ideas, involving candles and lanters, none of which have materialized completely in my brain yet. So... jury's still out.
• A veil. Veils are expensive as all get-out, and I have a friend/former coworker who just made one for her own daughter and is willing to lend me her gorgeous pattern -- I would love to take advantage of this to save money, if I can find the time to make it! Will know more after I have a dress, probably in the spring. With or without a veil, I may DIY some sort of hair thingy unless I find something affordable that screams awesomeness at me -- but I may take the time to seek that out, being much more unsure of how to make hair thingies that I like than I am of projects involving paper or clay. You can definitely see my preferred mediums in this list :P
• If I have time, funds, and luck with finding fabric, I'd like to make some table runners to give the fellowship hall some needed color.
• Also, the number of things I stick willow/grapevine twigs and Christmas lights on may vary. It'll probably be in some places, but I just haven't figured out the extent to which I want to use those things yet.
• Programs. According to Mom, she has never ever ever been to a wedding with programs and doesn't understand why you'd have them. I want to recognize our Wedding Partay somehow or another -- either in a program or some kind of cool sign that I put in the vestibule or something. I've thought of maybe making a banner that fits with the theme, or ... some... sort.. of... big... sign. Dunno. Just something to recognize, by name, the folks who're standing with us.
• Flower girl thingies! Johnny tried to ask the Mom and Dad of our prospective flower girls, but they were too busy at the moment to really understand what he was trying to ask... so if we do have flower girls, I'll probably put together something for them to throw and something for them to carry that stuff in. It may be punched-out paper thingies -- who knows. Figuring that out later. I would looooooove to make them pretty flowery-ribbony wreaths to wear out of silk flowers so they can keep them and play dress-up with them.

Am I being overly ambitious? I have a year, and most of these things don't require too awful much moola. The most expensive one is the invitations or flower-related things. I don't really plan to have a lot of fresh flowers, if any -- I did a lot of thinking about that last week, and considering that my fiance has allergies, I don't have cash to drop on a florist, and I want to be able to get things ready as far in advance as possible (which makes DIYing fresh flowers nigh impossible), I think silk is the way to go (Johnny says I should import the most expensive flowers from Asia, but I think he is kidding...... :P).

I know I could do simple, buy at Staples and print 'em yourself on your own printer invites... but I really really want to design some awesome invites. I guess everybody has their one thing that they can't justify but really want -- I may have to just Staples it, and I can still make them look awesome, so I'm not too crazy over it. It's just that if I do have extra money to push around for a project, it'll probably go toward that.

The planning before the action

I made it through Bridesmaid Limbo -- for both the sets of bridesmaids and groomsmen, five of the six have answered in the affirmative that they will join the Fellowship of the Hayes! I still need to get in touch with one potential bridesmaid via phone (who works a crazy schedule) and Johnny needs to get in touch with one groomsman (who also works a crazy schedule), but we're mostly good to go. The video was a hit, and pretty much the entire wedding party wants to wear chainmail and carry axes, so there's no telling what this wedding will look like when I tell them they can wear pretty much what they want :P

So, we've got:
- A date
- A venue
- People

For being engaged for three weeks, I think it's a good start :)
I'm probably going to be taking the rest of November/possibly through December "off" from the practical side of planning because of the craziness of the holiday season and because we'll probably be moving sometime in the next month. What I would like to accomplish before the new year:
- Getting the guest list finalized and getting addresses for everyone.
- Making a list of all the pieces of the wedding/reception, who's paying for what, and how much we're budgeting for them (I have this mostly done, but I want to go over it in detail again).
- Making a list of all the DIY projects I want to do, collect the instructions for those, know what materials I'll need, how much they'll cost, and how much time I'll need to complete them.
So it may not be stuff with tangible results, but it'll make the next action steps a loooot easier.

The Fellowship of the Hayes

Finally, I can present to you the SEKRIT PROJECT which just got sent out minutes ago:

Goin' to the chapel...

Awwwww yeah, I just booked the church! The pastor came over to Johnny's folks house this weekend, and we asked him if we could use the church and if he'd officiate.
The best part -- this is how the conversation went:
Johnny: Well, we were wonderin' if you'd marry us.
Jason (pastor): If I weren't married already, I'd be happy to! Don't know what the elders would say about that, though... we'd probably have to move to Utah...
Us: *stunned silence. Did not know the preacher had such a great sense of humor*
*Johnny's mom cracks up and we break the stun and do, too*

LotR Wedding Pron

I've been wanting to post this link since last week but hadn't gotten my act together until just now (at least hadn't had my act together except during OBB's downtime...).

Lord of the Rings-themed wedding that'll have you saying "PRECIOUS!"

(brought to you by Offbeat Bride)

Also, I've been working on a special project with which to ask our attendants to... er... attend... and I haven't been able to finish it because we were waiting for our engagement pics. Our awesome photographer has given us the album to preview online, but she hasn't dropped the photo cd off at the AJT yet for Johnny. She said she'll try to bring it by today... and OMG I can't wait for her to bring it because I want to show the world the Sekrit Project SO BAD.

Mom has seen the prototype. She loved it :D

THE SUSPENSE IT IS KILLING ME.

Bridesmaid Limbo

Johnny has known who his groomsmen would be since the first wedding conversation we ever had, which was sometime last May. Which makes sense. He has two separate sets of friends, both of which are equally dear and important to him, and all of whom I think are awesome. They're all wonderfully geeky men who know how to get along with and interact with all types of people, which I think is awesome -- I didn't get much of a chance to interact with many socially aware geek men (with a few WWC exceptions) until grad school (and even there, they were still a rarity. Sometimes I'd listen in class and interpret topical discussions in terms of "my library penis is bigger than yours and better at Linux."). These guys -- these guys are awesome.
I have my list of wonderful folks whom I plan to ask to be my bridesmaids, and the asking will probably take place a) over the internet and b) sometime soon. I'm hoping to have my act together by tonight. I have no idea how many of them will agree to come, which is okay... but until I get out of this state of "I know who all I'm asking but can't exactly ask them rightthisminute," I'm posting this.

(Do Bridesmaids Need To Match? by SCEchicago)

Matching bridesmaids outfits are great, don't get me wrong. I honestly love the bridesmaid dress I get to wear in my friend Becca's wedding, which makes me look fantastic and makes me feel like a pretty pretty princess. But I gotta say... I love the mismatched bridesfolk look, too (I keep saying bridesfolk because I also love non-gender-roled wedding parties). Look at how great these bridal parties look. Awesome, right? (Some of the most awesome ones I've seen are on OBB, but they're doing maintenance this morning, which also means that I can't put up the link that made me squeee yet.)

After my Alfred Angelo trip with Becca, I was thinking ahead that I'd probably "put" all my folks in something from there, all alike. But again, I get to thinking about money and the wedding industry, not to mention folks' comfort and financial situations and body structure and consuming habits (also, I started not really wanting to "put" anyone in anything, because people should have control over what they put themselves in!). Doing the whole budget wedding thang makes me think a lot about the cost that goes into weddings... for everybody.  If my folks want to buy a dress/outfit, they can buy it from wherever they want, with their own range of prices (and fabrics and purchasing ethics) to choose from.  Basically, I don't want to limit folks who I'd love to have there and who would come based on what they want and can afford to wear. As long as it's some color close to antique lavender. Guess I should put that in there.

And the paint swatch idea they mention in this link is gold. Snaggin' that one for my own future use :)

ETA: Actually, having just read some forum board posts about how some bridesmaids stress out over too much choice, it makes sense just to ask them whether they'd rather all agree on the same thing or find their own or meet somewhere in the middle and choose between 4-5 options I provide...

It's a date!

I finally came to a decision! It was pretty hard to choose, but in the end, the argument about having more time on our hands (but not so much that it'll feel like forever) won out. In some ways, October is a busy month (especially for Johnny with some of the newspaper events), but it's all winding down by the time the 22nd rolls around. Another compelling reason for not-August is that half of our potential wedding party has August birthdays, and we both would rather have time to celebrate those birthdays first. There's one very important birthday among my friends in October, but it'll be past by the 22nd, too. So... I think all systems are go :)

The next step is reserving the church, and there will probably be updates on that on Sunday.

I feel a little relieved to have the first big decision under my belt. I'm already noticing how much I waffle on stuff before I decide. I've known that I'm that way -- it's like I have to look at the options before me from allllll perspectives before I can commit (and doubt my choices either way for a little bit beforehand, too). But it's exciting to have an official date :)

Battle of the Themes: contender #2

The "it" item of my second theme is this fantastic idea constructed by a photographer, which I saw at the bridal show in SC when I went with Becca as her MOH:

 

It's not the best picture (or in the best lighting, being in a convention center with florescent lighting and a lady's shoulder in front of it, taken by my cell phone camera). But I love the idea -- if you can't tell, it's willow branches with little flowers wired onto the ends and with matted photos of the couple (in sepia, I believe) hanging from the branches.

When I saw it, it took my breath away.

My second theme centers around a lot of the natural autumn beauty that's in this region. I could also easily work in some Celtic touches with my DIY stuff -- actually, if I want nice Celtic stuff that isn't just in snow white and freakin' shamrock green, that's the only way to do it (without paying out the butt). Nobody seems to want anything pretty and Celtic and wedding-y and affordable... except me, hehe :) Two words: rubber stamps. They will be key. I'm also hoping that I could achieve a slight, subtle Middle Earth feel to everything without it being in-yo-face LotR, so it would be very personal to us both, slightly geeky, but not so overwhelmingly so that all our old relatives would be confused.

• Colors: antique lavender (like the little purple flowers that bloom on Western NC roadsides in autumn) and various fall shades (mostly brown, a little burnt orange maybe).
• More of a formal feel from the Celtic knotwork and seasonal length of dresses.
• Fall foods! Thanksgiving-y small sandwiches (think cranberry chutney and turkey salad), chai and other tea and coffee, pumpkin stuff, possibly carrot cake.
• Candles candles candles, autumn leaves, and woodsy touches.

It's so hard to choose! I need to choose pretty soon though. So I'm going to mull it over today and see if I have an answer by tonight.

Battle of the Themes: the first contender

I should not be awake at 2 am thinking about this, but since I'm doing it already, here goes....

I've currently got two "finalist" themes in mind, and both of them hinge on the the time of year -- whether we get married in late summer or into fall.  There are other factors going into the decision of exactly when to tie the knot, too, of course. If we do it earlier, we're more likely to have warm weather to encourage people to go outside and ease up the number of folks inside the church, longer daylight hours for taking pictures, and my bridesgals can wear shorter dresses (which will cost them less). If we do it later, we've got more time on our side -- time to save, time to plan, time for me to get more DIY adventures in.

But, I gotta say, this is the most visually compelling argument for doing it earlier:

I've been in love with this invitation since I saw it on the internet last summer. By "love," I mean "I saw it and actually started crying because it was that perfect a fit for us." At that point, I'd been kicking around the idea of "what if we have a summer wedding some day in the distant future," and this particular graphic tied in with the fireflies and mason jars idea I'd already been incubating just perfectly.
Like all outsourced invites, these are dang expensive -- however, they're the one thing I think I would really splurge on if we decide to go with an early option, and I don't think I'd regret it. Considering that I'm still drooling over them after about four months, I think they'd be a worthy splurge. I've heard arguments against investing a lot in invites -- people throw them away, they say. That's true -- some people do -- but they're also the first taste of the event that people get, and I think they make a better (at least flatter and more saveable/scrapbookable) memento than favors.
Bah, my practical judgment is clouded so much here.
Anyway, this gives you a visual reference for the theme, so here are some of my other ideas for details:

• Colors: A berryish purple (the invite color is "lobelia") and ivory
• Fun, laid-back, summery feel 
• BBQ and sweet tea!
• Copious use of Christmas and rice lights, along with gauzy fabric
• Guestbook constructed of a clothesline strung back and forth, where people can use clothespins to attach signatures/notes (I really need to draw a pic of this one to show the full idea)
• Centerpieces of mason jars used as various types of candle holders, ribbon accents added for color
• Star-shaped paper lanterns

I have more solid designs in mind for theme #2, but that one will have to wait until tomorrow.

Questions. Questions that need answering.

I've been engaged a little over a week. I'm not sure what normally happens in that first week for most ladies -- I'm pretty sure that my overflowing happiness, my inner Martha Stewart mental craft store brain explosion, and my initial panic as the idea of "wedding planning" sinks in are all common. I talked a little in my first post about trying to wrap my brain around some of the particulars of what the Hayes wedding will need to entail. I'm at a point where I'm still working on those details, and a lot of the rest of my plans will probably need to hinge on those.

I've noticed that there are plenty of wedding websites that provide checklists of things brides "need" to do to plan their wedding. There's the supposedly-personalized monstrosity of a list at The Knot, which tells me I should have done 30 things already -- and when I examine them, I realize how few of them are neccessary and how many are just there to direct you to different articles on their site that tell you how much money you ought to be spending on save the date photo magnets and other such junk. Many of the others aren't quite designed that much to be lists of advertising, and they all include pretty standard fare.

My favorite one so far is the Offbeat Bride Wedding Checklist. I've printed off the PDF and have it in my (so far extremely plain) binder. It's got all the basic items on it, along with a healthy dose of humor. Any list that starts out with "Ok, don't lose your shit. We can do this together." is a winner.

DIY Bride also links to some neat tools. I may give the Wedding Wire Wedding Checklists a try, along with the Google Docs wedding templates. There's a way to plan your wedding with any device -- iPhone, iPad, toolbars for your browser (on a whim, I threw The Knot's toolbar on my Firefox, but haven't really felt led to use it at all...).

So far, all I've really wanted to use is a combination of my own Google Docs that I've been piddling with even before I got engaged and a binder to carry around my info with me in case I ever need to show it to others (if I use any real vendors, for instance).

Now that I'm starting to figure out what I need to plan, I have a set of particulars that I need to fill in. And these are:

• People - We know the answer to this one.
• Place - Actually, we know the answer to this one, too, even though it's not official. It's a gorgeous church, it's the church Johnny grew up in, it has as much room as about any church in the area (a ton of room more than most!), and it's a gorgeous facility. I'm pretty much willing to get married on their schedule as long as we can do it there. Speaking of which...
• A Date - Uh. Well. I thought we had that one figured out, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not even sure on a month. I keep waffling between next October (in which case the date would be October 22, 2010) and sometime in July or early August. October would give us a year to save and prep my DIY stuff, but we could have extra outdoor space and cheaper dresses for my bridesgals if we did it during a warmer month. I have two kickass themes in mind, one that would fit with either time, so whichever way we decide, it'll be fun.
• A Budget - This is a doozy. In fact, the budget is probably going to be the most crucial part of this wedding, and it's the also the most squirrely part right now. At one point last summer, I had 3K saved up for a wedding. Since moving in with Johnny, buying a new catalytic converter, and having a ton of other random expenses, that's been whittled down to 1.5K, and I have a feeling it will be less than 1K (at best) by the 2011. This is where having a very helpful and crafty mom and future mom-in-law, great friends who know how to dj and take great photos, and my own love of crafty things comes in super handy. I know that I can find creative solutions to my budget limitations.

What a lot of this comes down to is that I'm extremely grateful for online resources that focus on how to make a wedding that's wonderfully, uniquely yours without costing a fortune and looking awesome at the same time. I've noticed that whenever I get down about money (or lack thereof) and start feeling like I don't know how we'll afford a wedding, looking at these websites always makes me feel better and sparks my creativity. I'm glad to have such great resources at my fingertips.

My Bridal Manifesto

Today is October 22, 2010, and I'll be getting married in a year. We haven't set a date yet, but we're still thinking about sometime between late summer and the leaf season here in Western NC. I'm excited, thrilled, and ridiculously happy.
And I have a confession to make.
Ever since I first had an inkling that Johnny wanted me to be his main squeeze long-term, I've been looking forward to the day when I could think about wedding stuff "legally." Ah, there was the thrill of covertly reading through posts on WeddingBee on my laptop every once in a while, with Johnny playing Red Dead Redemption blissfully unaware of the craft store DIY machinations taking root inside my mind just a couch away. I think he's guessed that secret, because in the less-than-a-week since he put the ring on my finger, he's already heard about what I envision doing with silk leaves and florist wire and heard about the five or so theme ideas battling it out in my mind. But for the most part, then, I kept my wedding-dreaming to as much of a minimum as I could, feeling like it was better to enjoy dating rather than to get ahead of myself (but it was hard.)
Now I feel like a race-horse ready to spring out of the gate, ready to plan the heck out of a wedding that will host (most likely) at least 250 people, because we both have ginormous extended families. It's a challenge I feel excited to take on, even as it scares the poo out of me.
But engagement didn't erase everything I promised myself and learned during my days as a lady in waiting. I learned from watching a friend go through the early stages of planning her wedding and from another friend's fantastically offbeat wedding. I learned from conversations with my awesome Mom. I learned from my own values of practicality. I learned from praying. And I want to set out my goals for myself as a bride as I get ready to take on a fantastic, exciting, beautiful challenge of a year.

Mere's Bridal Manifesto

• I will do my best to act out of kindness, consideration, grace, and love in all aspects of pre-wedding stuff. I won't go into the details of what I've seen brides-to-be do -- I mean, everybody knows some good bridezilla stories. The heart of what I want is for those around me -- the family I know and love and the family I will be joining, as well as the friends Johnny and I hold dear -- to remember me as a bride who "knows how to act," as my Granny would say. I want to remember that my friendships are more important to my friends than a wedding is. I want to remember that my Mom is my mother more than she is a mother-of-the-bride. I want people and relationships to come before centerpieces and coordinated colors. You get the gist. There's no other time when you're on display more than as a bride-to-be, and I want to represent myself so that people will remember me focusing on the love, not the stress. And really... I want to focus on the love, not the stress! Which brings me to...
• I will do my best to remember the big picture. To me, the big picture is that... dude... we're getting married. Johnny and I love each other enough to give our lives to each other, and to give our connected lives and relationship to God. It's a three-part union (at least for us), and I want this time to be used to build that union. I want to grow closer to my husband-to-be and to God and not let the planning make me forget that that's what's important.
• I will do my best to approach challenges with creativity and an open mind. I've already experienced the bridal freakout feeling when I realized just how many people will be involved in this wedding. It was my first occasion when I did panic for a few minutes -- before I remembered that getting that worked up is unneccessary, and that I can find creative solutions for how to feed and host what might feel more like an army of Spartans than a family wedding. I know I'm capable of figuring out how to adjust to about anything -- I want to remember that I can!

I NOW... PRONOUNCE YOU... MAN AND WIFE!
• I will not cave in to the pressures of the Wedding Industrial Complex. What is the Wedding Industrial Complex, you ask? ("Here is a resource!" says your friendly bride-librarian. Bridebrarian? Oh snap. That's me.) I bought one copy of Bride magazine just to prove to myself that going "traditional" wedding industry isn't my thang. And I was pretty much right. My reactions are a lot like those of Toots in the article. There are a lot of traditional elements I like -- I will be wearing a fantastic ivory dress, I will tell you that. But when it comes to sit-down meals and favors and escort cards, that just doesn't hold any feeling for me. I may not be as offbeat a bride as some of the fantastically awesome brides I love to read about, but I have a feeling that the Hayes wedding is going to be a wonderfully individual mix of things that are just right for us, our friends, and our family and not be beholding to "tradition."

There they are -- my goals. It feels a little surreal to actually put them down, after having mulled them over for months while I wondered if I'd be waiting for this until the year 4027. I put them out here for y'all to keep myself accountable. If you're reading this, consider it my promise to you, whether you're a family member, a friend, or just some awesome internet-reader.
Alright. HAYES FUTURE OF AWESOMENESS -- ENGAGE!
Meredith out.
Rock on :)