Picking a Date

Over the weekend my mom asked me why Justin and I are planning on marrying in March. Here is what it came down to:

1. Wedding season in GA lasts from April/May to October. We were trying to go the cheaper route by marrying in the off-season so that we might could get some discounts.

2. We didn't want dates/months that other people had. Justin's mom said not to get married in May since she has Mother's Day, her birthday, and her wedding anniversary all right then. My parent's anniversary was in February. Justin's sister's birthday is in January. And Justin has some other friends that married in January. My birthday is in July and Justin's is in August so I didn't want to touch those months. Justin and I have a few friends that married in June (not to mention one of our bridesmaids has her birthday then). My aunt and uncle were married (their second wedding) in December.

3. We didn't want to be typical and (abuse holidays. This took out Valentine's Day and the month of February (in general).

4. We/I wanted some of the reception outside which took out May through September also January and February.

5. We wanted our friends to come without having Christmas totally deplete them of money and keep them from attending. This excluded November through February. (I <3 Black Friday!)

*catches breath* This left March (which is a good month for cherry blossoms!).

I think the only thing we may be conflicting with is St. Patrick's Day! And who really pays attention to that anyway?

(As to the actual day, we were going for something close to our first day of dating 8/8/04. This left either December or a week day. We/I decided to suck it up and just deal with the 10. What's in a date anyway? :-P)

Weekend Update

Over the weekend:

Justin bought a dining room table and installed a light fixture in his apartment dining room. It looks awesome, and I will certainly take a picture at some point to prove its awesomeness!

Justin and I were compared to sunshine and happiness. lol. I'll be honest – it made my day!

One of the groomsmen thought they would all be wearing pink to the wedding. Also an awesome moment!

My aunt donated some China to my wedding cause which was much appreciated!

Overall, I think it was a good weekend. :)

Wedding News, A Review, & 9/11

Yesterday was quite a day with the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies and services. I shall eternally be grateful for the men and women who risked their lives, lost their lives, and the families of those people that may still be suffering from the consequences of 9/11 to this day. I heard a lot of stories yesterday that touched me... especially one particular story a mom told about her 26 year old son on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center and how no one above floor 95 made it out alive. They were just normal people going to work that day, and they had no reason to believe that anything out of the ordinary would happen.

I won't go into details but I was just in high school at the time of 9/11/01. I did not fully understand what was happening, and I'm afraid to say that I still don't completely understand. I don't think any of us will for a very long time.

-------

On a happier note, I received the book I spent hours working on at Paper Coterie.

It was fun to receive in the mail, but, having tried other book-making sites, I found this one to be on-par or worse than others. The book looks very much like a child's story book. Cute, functional, but not very impressive.

Creating the book was time consuming (they always are), but the company did not offer many ideas about how to display pictures on the page. There were also not enough backgrounds. I would have preferred to choose the style of the book and be able to select any background I wanted rather than only being able to choose backgrounds that were similar to the style of the book I chose. I was also unable to tell how the side images of the book fit with the cover image. After printing was complete, I discovered my side image was off by a few inches. Very disappointing. The fonts that they had to choose from were lovely though!

Overall, the book creation process was a bit difficult and the book is very simple in design. I would love to see Paper Coterie make the design process a bit easier, provide more options, and to improve the standards of their book-making providing professional looking books rather than the storybook style.

------

Finally, I am soooo excited because I just found out that a long-time friend from Germany is planning to fly to Atlanta for my wedding! I don't think he's ever been to the U.S. and so I know he must be nearly as excited as I am for him to be coming!

Then, on top of that, my fiancé just got a raise and a promotion! Go Justin!

Over the weekend, we ordered a few of our engagement pictures from PPR. I've never used a professional printing service, so I am really excited to see the quality of the pictures and the paper that they use. ;We should get our pictures back on Wednesday.

Wacky Weekend

I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but I thought 3 days off would be calming... relaxing... easy...

not so much.

Justin and I stayed busy the entire weekend. We celebrated his birthday with family, went shopping for me clothes and instead found tea cups and saucers for the wedding (in pink and blue!), celebrated his grandmother's wedding, and went shopping with my two bridesmaids (which is an experience I will not soon forget!).

Unfortunately, I am still going crazy over wedding stationery. I e-mailed my 2 bridesmaids tonight, and then realized how much easier it would be if my wedding website were complete and we could communicate through a single website or e-newsletters. Unfortunately, I know very little about servers and my fiancé cannot seem to get the server prepped for wordpress. :(

We are trying to figure out how to handle bridesmaid attire as my two bridesmaid cannot seem to agree on a single style dress. I'm sure we will get it all figured out, but I am fairly certain that I am more patient in dealing with this than they are.

I've also been researching places to print professional photos. I would like to print a few sets of my engagement pictures and put them in a nice envelope for some family, but I'm not sure where to print. I may try a few places.

We received our Kitchenaid mixer from Amazon but we were sorely disappointed in that it seems to be making a sound?! We are planning on sending it back, but I know I (and perhaps Justin) was hoping we could start baking cupcakes soon. :)

Luckily, we have amazing family and friends that are willing to help us get things done! I'm not sure what we would do without them!

Justin's Birthday (& STDs)

This Wednesday was Justin's birthday. In celebration, I got him a Boston cream cake, which inevitably had too much icing. Go figure. I even had to go to multiple grocery stores just to find it! Later this weekend, we will be having a birthday dinner with his family - probably fish. Hopefully he had a good birthday.

I've been furiously working on Save-the-dates and trying to come up with a theme for our wedding stationery. Recently I've been on a vintage kick trying everything from using instagram to old style patterns. I'm not quite sure what I am hoping will come of it, but I am trying every option I can think of.

This weekend we are planning on taking our bridesmaids to look for dress styles/patterns they like, so that we can get started on that. I think Justin and I are both looking forward to a nice loooooooonnnnnnngggg 3 day weekend. :)