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.

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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.

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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. :)

Glamour Shots (& Other News)

Over the weekend, Justin and I went to Glamour Shots to have some fun pictures taken. It was the last weekend of their free 8x10 promotion, and I had been wanting to do Glamour Shots since I was... very young. We get in there and everything is going well. We reserve our date, we sign the form, we agree that I will pay $7 for hair and make-up, and they start doing my hair. First of all the hair and makeup artist is sub-par. Not once did I see her clean any of her materials. Furthermore, halfway through the shoot my hair has completely fallen!

Otherwise, Justin and I had a lot of fun. We brought lots of props and we joked with the photographer. I brought this really awesome vintage parasol, some Izze drinks with paper straws, and a few books. The backgrounds shot on were awesome, and I had my amazing Anthropologie dresses. I felt super cute.

After the shoot, they tell us to go walk the mall for 30 minutes while they finish their editing. When we came back in, they told us we had to either pay $7 for the hair and make-up and not get the free 8x10 or $20 for hair and make-up and get the 8x10. I fought them tooth and nail on that. I explained it was bad business practice and that I wouldn't have gotten my hair and makeup done at the extravagant $20 price. Further, we had already signed a sheet saying we were paying $7 for hair and make-up. They gave it to us. Yay! So then we get to look at our pictures... They play this awful slideshow with terrible music... And then proceed to ask us which images we like. We couldn't believe it! Out of 90 shots, we only liked 5!!! And even those were subpar. Having interned in photography, I understand the ropes... and those shots SUCKED! Hair was all over the place, the neck looked awkwardly elongated, crops were awkward, even a few of the shots had Justin's head cropped!! Who in the world gets paid to screw up as badly as they did?!?! I was expecting... beauty... not crud. I want to look my best in these pictures... not with hair sticking up awkwardly, curls framing my face (even more awkwardly)... and I won't go on from there.

My point: NEVER EVER EVER go to Glamour Shots. End rant.

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Today I've been working on the Save-the-dates. I came up with this fabulous idea of playing "instagram" with one of our engagement photos. It came out super cute. I'm not completely sold on it just yet. I want to play with the border a bit and the text, but other then that I feel like it's one of my best save-the-date ideas yet. I think we are going to print it as a postcard and buy vintage stamps to mail it out. Doesn't that sound like fun?! :)

Still Working...

This week I ended up taking a momentary break from wedding related things since I wasn't feeling well.

Instead, my fiancé and I took a drive up to Jasper to pick up his wedding ring. We then made a pitstop in Marietta to look in antique stores. We walked all the way around the square and we stopped in every S.I.N.G.L.E. antique shop. We saw everything from old medical supplies, to records, photography equipment, clothes, old sewing tools, patterns, china, so on and so forth... We even stopped in a local cupcake shop for a s'mores cupcake! Mmm!

Justin managed to get his truck fixed on Sunday while I rested and worked on stds. Crazy as it may seem, I am almost thinking my current design is too modern for the style of wedding we are having and thus may need to be reworked. *le sigh* I'm sure I will figure it all out soon!

Halfway Mark!

My fiancé and I have made it halfway through our engagement (not totally) unscathed!

We felt rather productive (regarding the wedding) this weekend even though we were extremely busy with non-wedding things.

On Friday, I went and bought an amazing couch that we hope to use in our wedding photography. My dad bought this amazing trunk that my fiancé and I are also planning on using at our reception. Finally, I picked out some unique tea cups (45) and saucers (70-ish) that we will be using at the wedding. It was quite exciting. After Justin got off work on Friday, he and I took care of some other big expense items that will make our lives easier following the wedding. (In my opinion, the couch will make our lives easier... because it's awesome! But what do I know?)

Then, yesterday, I got to show my grandparents my engagement pictures. I went ahead and purchased all of them. I'm planning on putting together little photography packages for my grandparents and Justin's parents when the photos come in.

We got to spend some nice relaxing time with my grandparents before heading home today.

On our way home, Justin spotted a jewelry store that was going out of business. We stopped in and lo-and-behold, he found his perfect wedding ring for approximately half of it's original price. Obviously, he bought it and we are expecting it to come in sometime during the week. We might go looking at antique stores for more tea cups and saucers when it comes in? The last stop of the day was at a bridal show where I spoke with a few djs/bands and one company that provides servers for the reception food. I will be looking these companies up and trying to figure out who else needs to be hired (or not) before the "big" day.

Luckily, along with the big ticket expenses Justin and I made over the weekend, Justin also came to a decision about who he wants in the wedding party. It is so nice to not have him stressing over that!

I was quite a bit stressed spending so much money this weekend, but I am also grateful that a lot of the spending is over-with. I don't have purchases sitting on my shoulders that I know need to happen. All I really need to be worrying about is getting the creative work completed. I will be sooo glad when this all comes together (im)perfectly!