Smelling the Roses

Flowers

Having a wedding five weeks after your sister creates a few strategic problems. You must a wait a certain period of time after she has sent out save-the-dates and invitations before sending out your own. You have minimal time to help her plan unless you are comparing notes on who to use for what.   On the other hand, there are also perks.  You get to see who responds to her RSVPs to gain an idea of who will be coming to yours, you can compare costs, and you get to use some of her events as a trial. 

The latter comes into play with my bouquet. My mom threw Liz a bridal shower, where the favor was a little bundle of lavender roses (her wedding color).  My mom ordered the flowers in bulk, which left a large number of flowers after the guests departed that I could use to arrange a sample bouquet. I found several Youtube tutorials that demonstrated easy ways to create a rose bouquet.

I only used 10 roses on this one. For the bridesmaids, I’d probably use closer to 12 or maybe more depending on the size of the blooms. For mine, they recommend 18 and up.

I’m certain I can do these bouquets. I can’t justify spending $50 for each bridesmaid bouquet when I can make all seven bridesmaid bouquets and my bouquet own my own (with some help) for approximately $200.  My only strong preference is that I want real flowers, but other than that, I’m not too worried about the bouquets. I’ve never left a wedding thinking “Wow! Those were amazing bouquets!” I don’t expect anyone to leave my wedding with that thought. As long as we all have a bouquet that’s alive and looks decent, I’ll be happy.

Dressing the bridesmaids

Bridesmaid Dresses (a.k.a the bane of my wedding planning)

Picking out bridesmaid dresses was the worst. Really. It was much more stressful than picking out my dress, which only took me trying on eight dresses. 

I originally wanted a dark teal color for the dresses. After not finding a lot that I liked in that color, I switched to a light pink/blush color. I love the romantic feel of the color, and pictures I’ve seen with bridal parties in the color all look lovely. Still, even after picking out the color, I stressed over bridesmaid dresses longer than necessary.

I wanted all my girls to be able to pick out their own style of dress. I know that one person may be comfortable in a mini strapless while another may prefer a halter.  My hope was that everyone would like their dresses, and perhaps even wear them again. (I know this is what every bride says, but that doesn’t make it any less true.)  Another big factor was the price.  I wanted it to be around $150, so that my bridesmaids weren’t having to shell out an exorbitant amount of money to be part of my wedding.

Weddingtonway.com helped narrow my focus. They have a great website that allows the bride to pick dresses and invite the bridesmaid to individually rank their favorites. Even though I ended up not ordering the dresses from that site, it gave me an idea of what styles everyone liked.

Finally, on one fateful day, I visited Alfred Angelo bridal salon with two of my bridesmaids, Rebecca and Catherine.  The visit lifted a great weight off my shoulders.  With Rebecca and Catherine side by side, I was finally able to decide on a dress that everyone would wear.  After further consideration, we decided that everyone picking their own style may not work depending on what people picked and where they were standing, so we picked a style that we hoped would work out the best for most of the bridesmaids. 

I hope (and think) everyone will be comfortable in the dress.  It’s a flattering style on all.  Liz, my maid of honor, got to pick her own dress.  I wanted her to stand out as maid of honor (or by the time I get married, she’ll be matron of honor) and this seemed like the most simple way to achieve that. Liz decided on this dress.

Two of our flower girls, Grace and Julia, also decided on their flower girl dresses at Alfred Angelo. It’s always hard trying on dresses that don’t fit you, but I know they will look great!  Our third flower girl, Savannah, is wearing a hand-me-down dress that she will also be wearing to Liz’s wedding.  (Let’s hope she doesn’t get it too dirty.)   I’m glad that all my younger girls have their own unique dress.

I’m so happy bridesmaid dress shopping is over!

More DIY

More DIY Arts and Crafts

Candles

Although I’ve been going back and forth on what I wanted for our reception table centerpieces, one thing that has remained consistent is that I wanted to include candles .  So, with a little help from my bridesmaids Shailee and Catherine, I bought a bunch of votive candles and decorated them all.  Some have pearls, rhinestones, or lace trim. Some were personalized with the letter “C.” The “C” got progressively better the more I (or Shailee) made. Even though they aren’t perfect, I think these handmade touches will add something special to the wedding. Plus, I love how they dress up the table and make it feel romantic and elegant.

Card Box

I saw this card box on weddingbee.com and decided that I could make one.  Shailee came over with at least a dozen candidate boxes of various sizes and shapes in tow.

We built the card box out of a large wide one to serve as the base and smaller one to place on top.  The first step was attaching the big and little box.

Then we painted them with two coats of white paint.  In hindsight, spray painting probably would have been easier.

We used spray adhesive to cover it with lace. 

Finally, we decorated it with yellow ribbon and flowers. 

I’m proud of how it turned out.  I’m going to be a bit sad when we have to cut the bottom of the box to get the cards out.

Our New Home

My wedding blogs have been on hiatus for a while.  It turns out that buying a condo, moving into a condo, and planning a wedding takes up a lot of time, so I’ve really been slacking on writing about the wedding planning. So here’s a quick recap of what we have accomplished in the last 4 or so months…

 Our new home

The biggest development is that we bought a condo! We started looking around Labor Day weekend, shortly after we decided on a reception venue.  Our timeline for buying a condo was driven in large part by the possibility that Rob might get deployed in December.  Thankfully, that deployment thankfully never came to fruition. 

We started by searching for units in Park Central, the building in which Rob was renting a unit.  We liked the location, the staff, the amenities, and basically everything about the place.   We were looking for a two-bedroom unit, and unfortunately, the few two- bedroom unit that were listed for sale did not suit us for one reason or another.

 Once we decided to venture outside the building, we got an awesome realtor (thanks Atlantaben.com) who basically showed up every two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit in the area.   It seemed like we visited every condo building in midtown.

 Although we seriously considered making offers on a couple of units in other buildings, we couldn’t quite find one that suited us..  We kept coming back to how much we liked Park Central.  For example, some buildings felt too stuffy.  Others had a staff that was less friendly than the staff at Park Central.  Others had no guest parking, which would have limited our ability to have family and friends visit.  Others had terrible situations for handicap parking, such as tandem assigned parking spots with handicap spots on a first come, first serve basis for residents.  We cam close to deciding to continue renting the one bedroom/one bath for another year while we waited for the a more suitable unit to become available.

 Luckily, this didn’t happen! Late in the process, a few units became available in Park Central that were more suited to our tastes.  After losing one unit for which we made an offer, we finally closed on our new home.  It is a two bedroom/ two bathroom unit with two assigned parking spots.  I was able to make arrangements to switch my parking space to a handicap spot with enough room for my ramp.  We plan to upgrade the kitchen after the wedding with new appliances and cabinets with pull-out drawers.  Also, we plan on making the bathroom more accessible.  There is still work to be done, but it’s livable and cozy. Best of all, it’s OURS.

Let Them Eat Cake

Liz (my sister) is getting married 6 weeks before me.  They are having a bigger wedding (250 guests) than we our planning, but trying to maintain their budget.  One way Liz thought to do this was to ask my mom to make her wedding cake.  My mom has been decorating birthday cakes for friends and family since the 70s.  She has various cake pans and decorating books, which came in handy when she assisted me with making flower girl cookies.  Even with having decades of fun with cake decorating, all her projects have been small.  Taking on a wedding cake to feed even 100 people is bigger than anything she has ever tried.  When Liz initially asked her, she didn’t really think she could do it. Nonetheless, she accepted the challenge and used Liz’s birthday as an opportunity to make a test wedding cake.

The cake required 5 boxes of cake mix and hours of time to complete. 

The ribbon she found at the store didn’t quite cut it.  The purple ribbon used to adorn the cake came from a plastic table cloth (hence it not being perfectly even).

For a first trial cake that served 75 people, I thought it turned out well. It tasted great, which is the most important part.   The bottom layer had strawberry filing.

I don’t think my mom is going to end up making Liz’s wedding cake. It took too much time and wasn’t up to her perfection standard. Rob and I have already decided that we are going to keep our cake simple by opting for Publix to make it. I know that if I really wanted her to, my mom would work to make the best wedding cake that she could. I’d rather pay a bit more for the cake and allow my mom to enjoy the days leading up to the wedding without the stress of baking.

Dress Shopping

Right after getting engaged, I started looking online at dresses and quickly saw the style I thought I wanted. I anticipated dress shopping to be more difficult for me since dresses tend to be designed to look gorgeous while standing up saying vows. Sitting down all the time means that I’ll have to opt of the traditional Cinderella style and long heavy trains, which is one of the reasons I applied to get the expert advice of Lori on Say Yes to the Dress. Since, apparently, my family, future in-laws and I don’t yield enough drama for reality television, I had to go dress shopping based on my own judgments.

The first dress shopping trip was fun. My mom, future mother-in-law, sister, and two friends (Catherine and Shailee) joined in on the excitement. I was overwhelmed with the number of dress choices, but honed in on the style I’m looking for. I was nervous about the physical aspects of trying on wedding gowns. They are heavy and have so much material that I anticipated a struggle. The first dress (which was put on over my head) didn’t look right. The problem with wedding gowns is that the sample size is so large (or small, depending on the person). The dress comes in one size and you have to use clips to get it to fit your body. It was as if the dress was eating me. The second dress allowed us to get in the groove of the best way to change dresses. Over the head was out and stepping into the gown while one person lifts me up a bit and another pulls up the gown. It really turned out better than I envisioned and was comparably quick. Second dress looked more bridal, but was too poufy for my taste. The third dress was just what I was looking for. It had more crinoline than I want, which isn’t a big issue because it can be removed. They put the veil on and it looked gorgeous. I really liked this dress but I still wanted to try on more. Dresses four and five were ok; however I put on number three again. I really liked it, but wasn’t certain it was the one. It’s difficult to make that decision when the dress is too large and you have a hard time picturing it as it will be to fit you. For the time being, I did not say yes to that dress. I want to look at another shop and weigh my options so that I’m certain when I’ve found the next dress.

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).