First Attempt at DIY Wedding Décor

The midnight supervisor (Matyka) at my office has been telling for the last two months that I’m behind on wedding plans and need to do X,Y, & Z by such-and-such a date. I came into work one day to find a stack of bridal books on my desk.

Personally, I thought we were on track, even though finding a condo has taken up most of our free time. However, once that came to a stalemate, I was re-energized for wedding plans. I searched online for easy do-it-yourself ideas that I could start on right away. I didn’t want to wait until a couple months before the wedding, when working on crafts would stress me out as opposed to be being fun. I honed in on candles, centerpieces, and flower girl baskets. So, on a furlough day, Matyka and I looked to see what we could find.

It took all day and searching two dollar stores, Michaels, and Walmart to find the supplies (some of which didn’t work out and need to be returned).

The fruits of our labors were individual candles (R for Robert and M for Melanie) for lighting the unity candle. (The actual unity candle still is waiting to be created, since I didn’t buy enough pillar candles.)

We also put together three memorial candles. I saw these on a website and thought making one at least for Rob’s father would be nice. I know that Rob wishes his father could be there to witness our happiness on the special day, so something commemorating him was important for me to do for him.

The candles were surprisingly easy to make. I found the poem online and added the appropriate names to each. Then, we printed the poem out on vellum (translucent paper) and taped to the candle. After that, we attached a ribbon with hot glue to dress the candles up a bit.

I loved the way they turned out. I’m glad I could find easy and pretty ways to personalize our wedding and pay tribute to those that have passed away who were important in our lives.

We also created a sample centerpiece. When I started off, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted for a centerpiece. I thought perhaps simply candles would be nice. After seeing a picture of flowers in water with a floating candle on top, though, I attempted to re-create it for our wedding.

Searching for flowers may have been the most difficult part. I was leaning towards silk flowers, so that the centerpieces could be done ahead of time (aside from adding water and lighting the candle). Michael’s had lots of flowers that were pricier than I expected. Ten dollars or more for one fake flower wasn’t what I was expecting, and the purpose of creating this centerpiece with fake flowers was to cut down on the expense of bouquets at each table. For that price, I might as well use the real thing. Finding a small bouquet of yellow roses was exactly what I was looking for, although at first attempt I was not so sure.

Putting roses and ribbon to fill in didn’t look right. Also, I accidentally bought purple rocks to put in the bottom of the vase—they looked silver in the store!

Using what I had around me, I added some natural-looking rocks and added leaves to the roses, which made the vase look very elegant.

I also added some votive candles (also compliments of our dining room table centerpiece) around the vase to get the desired effect.

The centerpiece was incredibly easy to make and I think it looks beautiful. I think this centerpiece will likely adorn some, though perhaps not all, tables at our reception. To mix it up, I’m thinking of a couple of different centerpieces, one of which may be the traditional route of fresh flowers.

I hope that once we find a condo, I can get to my future DIY projects--unity candle and flower girl baskets (once I find the baskets and flowers).

Yes to the Dress?

Yep—I applied for Say Yes to the Dress. I was bored one night and came across the application online. I decided to fill it out because I knew my future nieces watch the show and they would be so excited if I was on it, and since I had nothing to lose by answering a few questions and sending in a picture, I went ahead and applied.

I didn’t hear from them for over a month. I assumed that by since I selected the lowest possible price point for a dress ($500-1000), they decided against using me. To my surprise, though, I received an email indicating that they had selected me for a phone interview. Based on the outcome of the phone interview, filming would be two weeks later.

The interview went “fine” to me. Standard stuff that I expected—how did we meet, who was paying for the dress, what kind of dress do you want, etc. They also asked me about how people would describe me and for me to describe the people I would want to bring to the bridal shop (Mom, sister, mother-in-law, etc).

I made the rookie mistake of describing people honestly (at least if I wanted to get on reality TV). I described my mom as not liking conflict and not liking to rock the boat. I also described my sister as caring, more outgoing than me, and always being there when I need her, which is very true. When they asked about bridesmaids, I described our mutual friend Catherine (the friend who introduced me to Rob). I talked about how I believed Catherine would always be there for Rob or me. I mentioned that she is such a loyal friend--how she agreed to move into our condo (in the event of a deployment) since Rob would sleep easier knowing I wasn’t alone.

In hindsight, this is a bad move. Apparently, not talking about mother-in-law and/or mother drama does not make for good television. Reality TV loves drama. Functional, loving families and friends like mine don’t attract viewers.

I do think showing our story would have been unique. My futile search for brides in wheelchairs tends to lead back to the Say Yes to the Dress bride who was in a wheelchair. I’ve seen many comments describing this as people’s favorite episode. (I’m still searching for this episode. Netflix skips season 4. I would like to see the types of dresses recommended and how they attached a train to her chair.)

I suppose it is all for the best in the end. Based on my sister’s limited experience at Bridal’s by Lori, I probably would have been saying “no” to the dress. Their low price point realistically starts at around $1,500. My sister, who went there a few weeks ago for her wedding in April, said the least expensive dress she saw in the type she wanted was around $2,000.

Personally, I’d love to stay below $1,000. (Rob told me Say Yes to the Dress viewers would think poorly of him if I said he was a lawyer, we are paying for the dress, and we can’t spend over $1,000.) As a matter of principle, I’d rather not. If I fall crazy in love with a dress, maybe a little over that. Otherwise, I can’t justify that much money for a dress that I’d wear once, even a dress this important. If I was buying a cocktail dress I could wear several times, I’d have a problem paying ¼ of that.

Based on what I think I want from internet searches, I think paying $1,000 or under is possible. I’ll just have to try dresses at shops with less publicity.

Reception Venue Secure, Homeowner Bound

You'd think our our favorite weekend activity (based on past behavior) was looking at wedding venues. Since deciding on Cherokee Run, we had to find a new hobby. So, we have put our wedding plans on the back burner so that we can focus on buying a home.

We want to buy a condo in midtown Atlanta. Rob’s office is here and, since he has to bill a certain number of hours per year, it makes sense for us right now to cut a commute time out of his work time each day. With me commuting from midtown, it takes about 20-30 minutes depending on traffic. Since Rob is evaluated based on his billable hours in the year,, while I work a standard eight-hour shift, it makes sense for us to take his commute out of our equation. In the last few weeks, since I’ve been working days, we both get to work around the same time, but I’m home at least 30 minutes before him. So, since he’s more likely to be working longer days, we’re able to spend more time together if he’s closer to work.

We started our search search in Park Central, which is Rob’s current building. We’ve looked at several two-bedroom units in that building, but haven’t been able to find anything we like. We want a two-bedroom unit so that we can stay in the condo until we have at least one child. We also want enough room for a dining room table. Unfortunately, nothing we’ve seen in Park Central fit the bill.

We initially tried to do the search ourselves by contacting the listing agent for them to show us the condo. This worked for the first few, but it took a lot of time for us. So, instead of waiting for individual realtors to show us their property, we decided to use Ben McKenzie, a local realtor who helped Rob find the condo he’s renting, to assist us with our search.