Signing off as a “Miss Bee”

The last few days have been a roller coaster of emotions and frustrations and stress.  My last shift ended Tuesday evening and it’s been nothing but work, work, work since.  There have been some almost crisis..but everything is coming together nicely and I even had time for a nap and a trip to the comedy club Thursday night!

To my future husband:  This has been an incredible journey.  I am beside myself that today I will become your wife.  It’s still hard for me to believe you chose me.  You deserve the absolute best and I hope I can be everything you want.  I love you with all my heart and soul.  I’m so excited to start this chapter of our lives together.  And, yes, tomorrow we will be lounging on the beach!

To the hive:  Y’all have been so wonderful and supportive!  I couldn’t have done this without you girls helping out!  Being able to share this experience with y’all has been amazing!  I’m am so blessed to have been choosen to share my ups and downs with you!

I love you all!!

Miss Crab Cake

Here’s where inspiration meets desperation.

I can’t remember if Mrs. Cherry Pie’s detail post was the first time I saw infusion jars used at a wedding, but I do remember that I was seriously in love.  I’m talking heart-beat-skipping-dry-mouth-embarrassing-palm-sweating love here ladies.

(source 1, 2, 3, 4)

I schemed for months, trying desperately to work those beautiful infusion jars into my reception.  I tried to scheme ways to have signature drinks, pre-mixed and served in infusion jars.  I was determined, and Mr. CC was realistic.  First, our budget barely allows for beer and wine, let alone signature cocktails.  Secondly, not having a caterer means no liquor license, and we were concerned about the logistics of serving liquor.  We are hiring an ABC licensed bartender.  Anyway, reality finally set in and I was crushed.  There would be no signature cocktails with cute and clever names.  Or fantastically vintage infusion jars with cutesy signs.

I was sad, but life had to go on.

Then Mr. CC and I were discussing beverages a few days ago.  We’ve pretty much figured out the beer and wine situation, but we thought we needed something to serve people who didn’t want to drink.  Mr. CC suggested tea and I was elated.  Suddenly, there was something I could totally put in infusion jars.

Mr. CC didn’t understand the concept until I showed him that collage up there (yay Picasa!).  He liked them, and I told him that we would be serving tea (sweetened and unsweetened) and water in those beauties!

I’d really like to dress them up by putting something in my tea.  Any suggestions?

Rehearsal Dinner Invites

Last week, I shooed my rehearsal dinner invitations out the door (and, thankfully, it was my last huge paper undertaking).

They should have all reached their recepients, and now I can share them with you!

These were way simple and fuss-free.

Can y’all tell I’ve discovered Picasa and the collage feature?  I heart it big time!

Everything was printed on Classic Crest Baronial Ivory (it’s the same paper as my invitations were printed on, minus the linen texture).

I ran the invite cards through my xyron and then adhered them to some more of that lovely patterned paper y’all are getting tired of seeing.  I found a book of 4.5×6.5 cards at Joann’s meant for matting 4×6 photos and went from there.  I did end up having to trim a tiny sliver off the short side to get it to fit into the envelopes, but it was still easier than cutting all of them out by hand.

I’m a dork and completely didn’t put a decline place on my cards.  Duh…also didn’t realize this until after they were all sealed and ready to be mailed.  Good news is that most everyone that we invited will be there, these were sort of a formality, and it doesn’t really matter.

For the meal choices, I used the Farm & Wild Animals font from Dafont.com.  Mr. CC really loved the giant chicken and cow.

I also included a little card detailing what the chicken is and what the cow is, so that people aren’t making a decision without all the information they need.

We’re serving Poppyseed chicken with wild rice and grilled veggies and Burgundy Beef tips with mashed potatoes and grilled veggies.  We have a few vegetarians in our bridal party (one of his sisters and my sister) and they will be served Blackbean burgers with salsa, wild rice, and grilled veggies.  We didn’t want to open up a third option, so we left those off the invites.

I wrapped everything up with little bows from Mrs. Emerald’s Tutorial.

Those bows were super simple and really tied things together nicely.

The envelopes were printed at home using the same font.  They don’t look perfect, because my printer hates me.  But I’m really at the point where I don’t care anymore.

We used the King and Queen of Hearts stamps (plus two ugly 10cent clocks, cause again, I’m a dork and forgot to bother getting these things weighed before I bought postage.  It’s ok though, cause I’m really not a huge fan of those cake stamps…).

(source)

The actual invitation got a queen and the rsvp envelope got a king, so everyone got to see both.  (Who am I kidding, no one looks at the stamps except detail obsessed brides!)

A little DIY Makeup

So, here I am, 3 weeks (O.M.G.) from the big day, and I’m seriously unhappy with my make-up trials so far.

A refresher:

Trial # 1

Dislikes:  uneven eyeshadow, racoon eyeliner.

Trial #2

It’s hard to tell in this picture (thank goodness!) but we went from racoon eyes to no eyes.  I honestly felt like I had less makeup on then I usually wear on a day to day basis, which isn’t much.

So, I decided that it was time to go at this myself.  I honestly can’t stand spending any more money having trials done that I’m not even crazy about.

I gathered colors from my and my mother’s Bare Minerals collections and got to work.

Bare Face:

I forgot to turn off the flash, I swear I’m not normally that pasty!

I hate taking my own picture!

I did two different eyes.

The Right eye.

Rockin’ some Auburn orange.

The Left eye.

They really aren’t that different.  I only used one different color, but I think I like the left eye better.

I actually think I did an ok job.  My bachelorette party is tomorrow night, so I’m going to try it all again, and have some false eyelashes put on.

So, what did you think hive?  Let them do it, or do it myself?

Firing the Caterer

I’m not sure I’ve said much about our decision to fire our caterer and go at this ourselves.

When we got engaged, we knew one thing for sure.  The rehearsal dinner and reception would be done by Mr. CC’s favorite restarauant.  We (read: he) eats there at least once a week.  The food is good (most of the time, I’ve had a few things I don’t care for) and the prices are totally reasonable for lunch.  The atmosphere is spectacular.  The restarauant is in the bottom of an old hotel.  The very same hotel that John Wilkes Booth was shot in in the 1850s (before that Ford’s Theater disaster).  It’s covered in historic memerobilia and knick-knacks.  I think I might like this place for it’s decorating more than for it’s food.

Anyway, once we had compiled most of our guest list, we went straight down to chat about rehearsal dinner and reception options.  We knew at this point that we wanted an evening reception (no dinner and therefore cheaper, right?) with heavy-ish hors d’heuvers.  We picked out a menu (I can’t remember what it was, that was a long time ago) and went back for pricing.  And our jaws hit the floor.  This particular establishment wanted $20 per person for hors d’heuvers.  I was shocked and dismayed.  Especially when I multiplied that number by the amount of people I was assuming would be coming to the wedding (200).  I just couldn’t fathom paying that much money for freaking snacks.  (Can you tell I’ve never hired a caterer before, I should have been warned!) A few months went by.  We paid deposits for both the reception and the rehearsal dinner.  But I was still terribly uncomfortable with the amount of money we were going to be spending on food.  I desperately wanted to keep the costs of this thing down, and I couldn’t see how this (hiring a caterer) was keeping costs down.

Sometime in the fall, during a conversation with my step mom, she says “I wish we lived closer, I’d just cater it for you.”  Done.  I made a few phone calls, mainly one to my mom, seeing if she would allow my step mom into her kitchen.  Then I called my step mom back.  I told her I wanted her to take care of the food.  We would choose things that could be cooked up ahead of time, in large batches, and there would be help here for her when she arrived.  She was estatic to get to help in such a huge way, and I was happy that we could fire the caterer.

And we did (fire the caterer that is), although, not so much.  We are still having our rehearsal dinner there.  We were able to apply our reception deposit to our rehearsal dinner.  Mr. CC still gets his restarauant and I didn’t have to shell out 4000 big ones for food.

Unfortunately, it opened up a few new cans of worms.  Namely, linens, dishes, glasses, serving dishes, servers, and non-alcoholic beverages.  We will cover all of these shortly.

Even though firing our caterer forced me into a lot of new decisions I didn’t really want to deal with, I’m still glad we did it.  I’m really excited to be serving up homecooked snacks to our guests.  We’re going for traditionally Southern foods (things like deviled eggs, cheese straws, pigs in a blanket (except more elegant), cornbread cups, and meatballs).

Tiding Up the Programs

I’m not quite done designing them, but I decided to put a call out to the hive for some help anyway.

I was completely inspired by these poster style programs.

(source)

I know they aren’t vintage at all, but I’m sorta at the point where it needs to be quick and easy.  I had considered a program that mimicked my booklet style invitations, but then I remembered how long it took to assemble the bloody things and decided I was completely out of my mind.  So, this project came accross my RSS feed one day and I was sold.

The problem is this: what to do about the little band.  Mr. CC said we should just fold them and go from there, but since we condensed everything onto one page, I really want to be able to slip a little card with directions to the reception on them into the band.  So, there must be a band.

I came up with three solutions.

Solution #1:

Paper, using that fantastic embellished paper we’ve seen several times already.

I have a ton of this paper.  There’s also about 12-14 different prints, so there would be some variation among the bands.  I think this might be the most simple solution.  I just cut a strip of the paper using a guillotine and used a little piece of double sided tape to hold it closed.

Solution #2:

Black Ribbon, with a little paper circle.

Very, very easy.  Six inches of ribbon, held together with a piece of double sided tape, and then a 1″ circle of paper held on with a zot.

Solution #3:

Ribbon with little flat bow.

Not so easy.  In fact, it’s a bit tedious.  But it’s so cute!

So hive, what do you think?

Just FYI, I have about 150 people coming, so I’m thinking 75 invitations or so.

Thank You Cards…For Now Anyway

Inspired by this post from Miss Glitter, I took on the arduous task of creating my own thank you cards.

This tiny snapshot does not do this map justice.  It’s so gorgeous.  I really want to incorporate it into our home as well.

I used the same map from my invitations, but I decided to use the whole map.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  I scaled it down to roughly 4×6 and printed 2 to a page.  I wanted to use this gorgeous felt paper from envelopper.com, but it would feed through anyone’s printer (anyone have some ideas for it.  I still have a lot of it left!).  I was very sad, and ended up using flat ivory cardstock.  They still turned out ok.

Then I scored a 1/4 inch border around the edges of each postcard and carefully tore each one out.  This is an extremely tedious process.  In fact, it’s where the “for now anyway” part comes in.  But, we’ll get to that in a minute.

Once they are separated and have beautiful raggedy edges, I stamp the post card graphic on the back (I used the graphic from the Martha project) and drew a line down the middle with a felt tip pen.  Again, very tedious.  Blah.

Ok, so honestly, I really hated to cover that gorgeous “stamp” square thingy with yucky fruit postcard stamps.  Ah, but such is life, right?

So, what about that “for now anyways” part.  This is an extremely tedious project.  I thought it would be super easy and quick and cheap.  Well, cheap it was.  It cost me about $40 for the printing and the paper, plus about $15 or so for the stamp.  $55 isn’t bad for 200 thank you cards, it’s about 28 cents each.  So, with postage, 55 cents or so. Sweet!

Anyway, it took me about an hour this evening just to score the cards I needed for my bridal shower thank you cards.  I needed 15.  Then I spend 30 minutes folding and tearing them out.  The easy part was stamping the image and drawing the line.  So, I’m not sure if I’m actually going to keep this project around.  There may be a whole new design for these post wedding.  We’ll see.

Feeling Bridal

I’ve been a little quiet lately.  I’m too overwhelmed with life to come up with clever things to blog about.  Either that, or everything I want to blog about is semi-secretive and I can’t share it.  Blah.

Friday, we finally managed to pull off my bridal portraits.  I have to be honest, this was the most fun I’ve had in a while.  It was so easy to be whatever.  To be uninhibited and free to laugh and feel pretty.  My hair looked great, totally vintage and the flower I bought to put in it looks ah.maze.ing!!!  My ensemble came together perfectly.

A friend asked if I felt like a bride yet.  The answer?  No, not really.  Should I?  Running around town in my gown and veil for several hours was fun, but I didn’t get this overwhelming feeling that I was suddenly transformed into a bride.

I felt beautiful, and pampered, and the center of attention.  I got some honks and cat calls and one lady screamed, “Don’t do it!” from a car window at me.   It was strange having people (my mom, mostly) fuss over me for a while.  I felt a bit like an invalid.  Hemmed in by that huge, heavy dress.  Oh, and it was raining, so I had to be really careful about the ground, and the puddles.

Maybe it’s that I’m still completely overwhelmed by the amount of work I have left to do.  I’m going to have to break it up into daily chores to make it manageable.  Tomorrow is my off day.  I will finish my thank you cards from the shower and the few gifts we’ve received.  And I will get our rehearsal dinner invitations out.  Oh, and I’m going to try and find a dress for my bachelorette party (round 2) this weekend.  I have lots to blog about, and perhaps I’ll work on that too.

So, I’m just finishing up three 12 hour shifts in a row, and I’m exhausted and totally useless.  I’ll leave you with a sneak peak of my bridals.

And this:  Is it okay that I don’t “feel” like a bride?  Is it ok that Mom didn’t burst into tears at the sight of me in my gown?

Somewhere to Rest Our Weary Heads

Honestly, a honeymoon suite was the last thing on my priority list.  I really hadn’t thought about it at all until someone at our venue asked where we would be staying after the wedding.  Staying?  Um… our house?  I mean, we live together, and what better place to sleep the night after our wedding than in our own bed, right?

Of course, living together offers up other obstacles.  Specifically, who gets to stay at home the night before the wedding.  We aren’t supposed to see each other, right?  So, someone had to get out.

Fortunately, Crabby Daddy came to the rescue and got me a suite at the hotel all my guests are staying in for the night before the wedding.  We opted for a double queen suite, so that a few of my bridesmaids can stay with me.

There were talks of extending the reservation for Saturday night as well.  It would be convenient, since I could leave all my stuff there and not have to worry about actually “checking out” before the wedding.  But, we really wanted a little more privacy than a suite in the same hotel as all of our guests.

We went back to considering just coming home.  It really seemed like the easiest and most economical choice.

I wanted to use the gardens at The Gates House, one of the Bed and Breakfasts downtown (or Uptown, rather, as it is referred to here in Columbus) for our pre-ceremony photographs.  The grounds at our church are gorgeous, but there’s a service before our ceremony, and the grounds will be crawling with parishoners and their cars.  This combo makes for bad wedding photo backgrounds.  The Gates House is a few blocks from the church.  We had really wanted something within walking distance, but I think this will still work out nicely.  They have a lovely garden that Mr. CC and I will do our first look in, and then take some photos of us and the bridal party.

So, earlier in the week, Mr. CC called in a favor to the owner of The Gates House to see if we could use the garden (we can!).  While he was on the phone, he scored us the Honeymoon suite for the night of the wedding!

Sweet!

Look at the luxury in which we will be relaxing post nuptials.

Sorry it’s such a small picture.

I’m super excited about this!

For my bee friends…pengy, don’t post!