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.