Halloween!!!

So-I love Halloween. Unfortunately this year I have to work, so I won't be able to wear anything super cool. I had been planning to be a stick-person with EL wire. Haven't seen it yet? Here's an example:

www.tronguycostume.com

Now, how does Halloween relate to weddings, you may ask? Well, Halloween is the PERFECT time to get lots of props for your DIY Photobooth! Think about it: cool hats, strange glasses, inflatable, props, wigs...and all are 50% off tomorrow! What could be better? I got a lot of mine already, but I had a 20% off coupon, which made me decide it was likely worth it! Seriously, what other time of year are most stores filled to the brim with things that make you look ridiculous?

Let me show you everything I got (all pictures taken by myself):

 fairy princess wand and crown

 Super cool foam hats

 black foam for DIY mustaches and spectacles

 boas in our colors

 GIANT sunglasses

 a crown fit for a king

Inflatable band pieces

Oh, and did I mention I got ALL of this for around $20? Yeah, now try to tell me Halloween isn't awesome!

Is anyone else doing a Photo booth? Where have you had good luck finding props?

No Day of Coordinator (and how I'm NOT going to go crazy because of it)

So, on just about any wedding blog anywhere, you will see something along the lines of "I wish I'd have gotten a Day-of-Coordinator. It would have saved me so much stress!". In fact, my parents offered that a DOC be another part of the wedding they chip in for. I just wasn't comfortable with it. And why would I need one, when I have my Llamas?

Now, most people don't call their friends Llamas. I recognize that. However, we lived in a Scholarship Hall during college that had the Llama as its mascot. I won't get into that story here or now, but how that came to be is a truly touching story. SO, anyway, I still have four very close friends from school that have agreed to be my Llama Helpers on my big day.

When deciding who I wanted to have be my unofficial, but fully capable DOC(s) for our wedding day, I looked for three qualities:
1) Assertiveness: for when the caterer shows up late, or the guests want to start the bonfire before we've planned.
2) Responsibility: because they are following my directions, and I'm more than a little type-A. I'll be making them all a day-of timeline (which of course I'll be sharing with you).
3) Respect: I have a friend who the other day posted on facebook "just call me JLo, I'm the wedding planner" before spending a weekend helping a friend on some DIY projects for that girl's wedding. Now, if someone attempted to claim creative insight to all of my wedding ideas, I would just have to lose it. It's not because I don't find other peoples help amazing, or that I'm super possessive, but when you spend MONTHS and MONTHS (if not YEARS) planning a wedding, it's best to feel the gratification of all of your hard work.

Also, I love my llamas, and I wanted them involved in our wedding. Though we're only having one person stand on each side of us, a part of me wished I could have all of them up there as well. This will keep them involved without messing with the small wedding feeling. Plus, since there's four of them, I'll give them each smaller things to be responsible for, so they don't feel overwhelmed and can enjoy the party!

Is anyone else skipping having an official DOC?

The Bling: my ring

So, as promised, I will now explain the story behind my engagement ring.

I am a picky person when it comes to jewelry. I have one ring, two pairs of earrings, and one necklace that I wear on a regular basis. All of them (except one pair of earrings) are pearl. Now, my future hubby doesn't know much about jewelry, but he does know that pearls aren't typically used for engagement/wedding rings. He had no idea what he was looking for when it came to engagement rings, and so he asked for some help from the pro: me!

I spent a few days coming up with examples of rings that I liked. They were 3-stone, or had a halo of smaller diamonds. All were at least one carat center stone. He was NOT a fan of the halo, and feared that the three-stone wouldn't go well with an additional band. Well, alright, I thought: let's just go shopping!

We did. We went to every main jewelery store in town (Zales, Helzberg, Kay), and found nothing we liked. So, we decided to take a look at Shane, Co. The nearest store is about an hour from our house, but we thought it would be worth a try. We were not disappointed. Shane, Co had a FABULOUS selection of rings. I mean. WHOA! We left the store with a hold/deposit on this puppy:

Photo from www.shaneco.com

I was so happy! I mean, how could I not be? Look at that rock! I'm not a big stone kinda girl. I have to wear gloves for work, so my ring would be beat up, if I decided to wear it to work at all. Which left me with a sloped wedding band to wear. Hmm....I didn't know what to think about that. Then I remembered how much I LOVED these wedding bands I found on etsy.com

found at www.etsy.com/shop/fabuluster

How cool are those? I discussed the idea with my man, and he agreed....these were our rings.

But wait, what about the engagement ring we picked out? Clearly it couldn't go well against a plain-style band, and my chosen e-ring is a very overwhelming design, making it possibly overshadow the craftsmanship in the wedding bands. NOT cool. That left us one option: we were trading my e-ring. 

Now, the second time to Shane Co., we were prepared: We wanted: a simple setting, something without high prongs (to avoid popping my gloves at work), and something that wouldn't overwhelm our awesome wedding bands. We decided to build a custom ring, and this is what we ended up with: 

                                                                      personal photos

The stone is a natural green sapphire (BEAUTIFUL!) almost 1.5 carats in size, the prongs slope gently (so not to glove pop), and the setting is high enough the wedding band can lay flush with the e-ring. 

Pretty cool, huh?

SHOES!!!!!

You know the song "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"? I want to take a moment to say that I disagree completely. Why, you ask? Because SHOES are a girl's best friend. They always fit, they can make a drab outfit into something fabulous, and they're much less expensive than diamonds. I LOVE shoes. Love them, love them, love them. Have I made my point? Yes? Great...it's time for me to show you what I got in the mail today:

                                                                    (personal photo)
Oh, that's right: MY WEDDING SHOES!!!
So, from the beginning I knew I wanted blue wedding shoes. They're adorable, and blue is one of our colors, so why not? Then I started searching online, and found some fabulous blue heels. My heart became EVEN MORE set on blue shoes for the wedding, and why not? Just look at these babies:

                                                Paris Hilton: Spelled. Image from zappos.com

Martinez Valero: Zoie. Image from zappos.com

Aren't they adorable? Admit it...if you didn't want blue heels before this post, you do now!

Then my mother brought up a good (and slightly disheartening) point while I was trying on dresses. I'm having an outdoor wedding. Surely I don't want to wear heals through the grass?

Shoot, I hadn't thought about that.

As I mentioned before, I'm significantly shorter than both my future hubby and my maid of honor. I need the height heels provide! NOO!!! What's a short girl having an outdoor wedding to do? The answer: buy wedges! 

Now, finding dressy wedges is harder than it may sound. While I have several pairs of wedges with the straw/cork bottom, that simply didn't seem formal enough to go with my La Sposa gown. So I searched, and searched, and searched some more. Then randomly on eBay Monday...I found them: They're by Charles David, and they were perfect. And better yet, they were $15 online. The last picture didn't do them justice, so I decided to show you one in better lighting:

personal photo

Sigh. I'm so happy! Does anyone else love shoes as I do, or am I just a crazy person?

The Story of Us: The Nurse and the Nerd

Well, I just realized I got so excited about wedding stuff I forgot to introduce my future hubby and myself! So, without further ado: the story of us.
We met almost 3 years ago (my how time flys) online. YES! I MET MY FIANCE ONLINE! Don't judge me. He's more than a little shy, and I was underwhelmed by the selection in my college town, so we just so happened to both join Yahoo personals. The first night, we chatted for hours, and the second, we had a phone conversation when we got offline. That weekend, I had to go to Kansas City from Lawrence for a teachers training for work. Conveniently, my man lived in KC. So...we met up. In Barnes and Noble down in the Plaza District. We went to dinner at P.F. Changs, but the wait was so long we moved across the street and played Monopoly in Restoration Hardware while we were waiting. It was really fun...slightly awkward...but really fun.
Three days after meeting, I started nursing school in Topeka, KS....the OPPOSITE direction of my man. Lucky for us...I never have been much of a studier...so we still got to spend most weekends together. I'm not going to say it was always easy, because I would be lying, but we made it through.
After I finished nursing school, I moved up here to Kansas City (even though that meant moving to Missouri, which made the KU part of me cry) to live with my future hubby. We got two kittens, and along with my dog from Lawrence, we now have a lovely little family.
Along with our family is our work. I work in one of the city's busiest Emergency Rooms (which is always busy), and FH works for a large corporation here as a Database Administrator (aka: computer guy). FH finally proposed while we were on vacation last month in San Francisco (he was there for work), and in the last month we've been planning our wedding!
I imagined a MILLION different ways for him to propose. Literally. But he actually surprised me! We went into a photo booth down in San Fran, where he popped the questions as it was taking shots! The pics were put into a magnetic frame, and it now proudly sits on our refrigerator.

Dressing my girls (well, girl)

My baby sister is going to be my Maid of Honor on my big day...and I couldn't be happier about it. However, I have to admit one thing, for a brief moment I thought about NOT having her be my MOH, and it was for a completely selfish reason. You see, my sister is pretty. No, pretty doesn't cut it. My sister is GORGEOUS. I'm very pretty. I know this, but sister o'mine, she has that almost-model type beauty. She's almost 6 foot tall, blonde, and blue eyed. I was worried that her standing next to me might somehow take away from my beauty on my special day. Well, that was silly, and I know that, but still. Here's a picture of her to give you an idea:

                        She took this picture herself one day, in our childhood bathroom. Sigh.
So...I've decided her beauty will actually make me look MORE pretty on my day. You know, surround yourself with good people and you become a better person? Same idea, just on the outside ;-).
Now that I've got that teeny bit of insecurity out of the way...I can get on to dressing my gorgeous little sis.
She's in college now and came to visit me over her fall break. We decided (on a whim) to go shopping for her bridesmaid dress. We decided to go for two reasons. 1-summer dresses are on clearance in the fall, and 2-we really like shopping. Want to see what we ended up with?

                                                              personal photo
I know you can't see the fabric well from the picture, but it is a BEAUTIFUL bright blue. It's a nice almost-jersey fabric that lays fabulously on her figure. Oh, and the best part? It was twenty dollars. Thank you T.J. MAXX! I am making her wear flat shoes, be they ballet flats or silver thongs, because if not I will look very, VERY short (she's almost 6', as I said, my fiance is 6'2", and his brother  is 6'. I'm 5'5"). Yeah.

Who else gets excited about fabulous wedding finds?

The where-our venue

Knowing that we wanted a small guest list, a small budget, and a spring wedding, it was time for us to begin searching for venues.
As I've mentioned  before...I've kind of been semi-planning this wedding for quite some time, so I already had the venue options narrowed down to three places:

#1: The Inn on Crescent Lake (Excelsior Springs, MO)
When I first saw this website, I thought I would cry. It was so pretty! I've always wanted an outdoor wedding...and this venue has enough room that we could keep almost half of our guest list overnight!
Look at how pretty it is!

                                                  both images from www.crescentlake.com
And of course, to top it all off, they have wedding packages! We could have the whole inn and several of the wedding necessities for around $6,000. Not too shabby! However, with wanting to stay as budget conscious as possible, we decided to continue looking around.

#2 The Screenland Armour (North Kansas City, MO)
This ADORABLE theatre was revamped a few years ago, around the time we started dating. The hubs used to live in North Kansas City, and we both currently work there, so we've seen several movies there. One day while waiting in line, we saw the manager taking a couple upstairs, talking about renting the "loft space" for events. The future hubs and I looked at each other and said almost simultaneously "What?!? They do weddings here? Aweome!"Although an indoor wedding isn't #1 on my list, it certainly has some advantages (such as not having to worry about rain). We decided to look into it. Bryan (the event coordinator) sent me information, and the only issue was, once again, cost. Although they allow you to bring in outside catering, they do not allow outside alcohol, and since we are in our 20's...we can pretty much count on our friends to make that bill a steep one. Also, without the all-inclusive feeling of a bed and breakfast, we'd have to consider transportation, booking ourselves a honeymoon suite, etc. However, if you like the idea of a loft wedding...I would seriously take a look at the Screenland Armour:

both photos found on the screenland website: www.screenland.com

Knowing that we wanted a bed and breakfast wedding, I decided to continue my search in that area. I searched The Knot, Weddingbee, and every other wedding related blog I could think of. Nearly all of them were out of our price range, or were too small to accommodate the immediate families (we decided those would be the ones staying with us, wherever we decided to stay). Then I had a thought. What is the number one way to save money on wedding things? Make sure they don't have "wedding" written somewhere on them. Seriously, the word "wedding" makes things significantly more expensive than what they really are. The wedding business isn't full of dummies...that's how it got to be a billion-plus worthy empire. So, I decided to change my google search to something as simple as "Kansas City bed and breakfast"...and what did I find: our third option:

#3: Orchard Hill Bed and Breakfast (Lawson, MO)
This B&B sits on 80 acres, has a pond, and does weddings. Oh, and the owner Ted is AMAZING. I mean, he is awesome. The house can hold 8 comfortably, as they turned one of their rooms into an apartment for the live-in managers, but Ted offered us the meeting room in the basement for overflow, so there can be room for our brothers. Ted is a "it's all about you" kind of guy. Want candles? Absolutely. Any caterer, any DJ, any anything...ours all ours. He even offered to let us do a bonfire and take up a substantial chunk of the yard to play games. Yeah...awesome. Oh, and did I mention the cost for us to have the venue for the weekend (Friday noon to Sunday noon)? $2,800 (which includes tables, chairs, linens, and lots more). Whoa. My mind was blown. I had to have it. We had to get married there. And luckily, our date was open.
Take a look at what I'm working with:

                                          All images from www.orchardhillbedandbreakfast.com
Aren't I lucky?

DIY luminaries-the follow up

So, you remember these cool paraffin wax luminaries I made yesterday...right?

I decided to take a trial run before making more today....good thing too.
When I lit the candle, initially the luminary looked like this:

Pretty, right???
But then, 10 minutes later, the luminary looked like this:

Insert HUGE sad face here.
Where did I go wrong?
I thought of possible solutions: 1-use a battery operated tealight candle, 2-use higher heat paraffin wax, and 3-ditch this DIY and move on to less stressful centerpieces.
Well, solution 1 just annoys me. I get to have real candles at my venue, and I would REALLY LIKE to use real candles. They are more budget friendly and they look nicer (in my opinion). Solution 2 is in my budget-conscious mind a no-go. I found some higher temp wax online, but not only is it twice as expensive, it's very expensive to ship. That leaves me with solution number 3-ditch this DIY and move on. My wedding will not be stressful if I can help it, and centerpieces are the last thing I really want to be worrying about. It's time for me to take my second block of wax back to Hobby Lobby and MOVE ON.

All the pretty colors...

So, half of the fun of having a spring/early summer wedding (in my mind at least) is bright colors!
When discussing wedding colors with the future hubby, he had only one thing to say:
"I don't care, just no purple please."
Hmm...well I like purple! It means lilacs! Sigh...such is life. Oh, and I don't like pink. Oh, and I can't have orange or yellow anywhere near my pasty whiteness. So, you may be asking, what ARE your wedding colors?
Well let me show you:
http://www.dessy.com/shareboard/?user=moodboardguest&password=39205
I couldn't find the exact green color I'm going for, but if you look at the green dress in the upper right, you'll get the idea of the correct green.
I love green...it's my favorite color. In fact, my e-ring is green (more on that later). And blues just compliment greens so well, it's simply meant to be.
I would like to bring up, however, that I am NOT one of those brides where everything has to match. In fact, when dress shopping with my sister (who is my maid of honor, and only bridesmaid), I told her there were only 3 rules: 1-it can't show too much skin, 2-it must be summer appropriate, and 3-it has to be some bright blue or green. I'll show you how successful we were in another post. I want to be stress-free (or almost stress free) on my wedding day, and matching napkins to centerpieces to earrings just doesn't sound stress-free to me!

Paraffin Luminaries: DIY (take 1)

Alrighty, so here's my first attempt at making paraffin wax luminaries for the wedding. I'll do my best to guide you through it step by step. Sorry in advance, I didn't think about the fact that my balloons and wax are both white...next time I'll use blue wax or colored balloons.

Step 1: gather your supplies:
paraffin wax (I got mine at Hobby Lobby: price was 14.99 for a 10 lb. slab, but I had a 40% off coupon)
balloons
Double boiler or candle making container

Step 2: melt the wax:
Since my wax was one giant chunk initially, I took a hammer and broke it into more user friendly pieces. The melted wax should look something like this:

Step 3: fill your balloon and dip it! Do this about 5 times, then move on to the next step.

Step 4: after you have a nice layer of paraffin, set the balloon on foil/paper to create a flat bottom.

Step 5: after the bottom is created and cooled (about 1-2 minutes), re-dip until the luminary is your desired thickness (I re-dipped about 20 times for mine), replace on the foil, and let cool.

Step 6: pop your balloon into a sink and drain the water, your balloon should then come out easily, leaving you with this:

Step 7: to straighten the top edge, simply heat a cookie sheet and place the luminary upside down until you have the desired smoothness/leveling completed.

Then you're done!

The DIY Checklist...pretty epic.

So-for those of you (like myself) who are planning on doing several DIY projects for your wedding. Prep yourself for some tension. In order to avoid bridezilla-ing (yes, I've decided that's a word), I made the "epic DIY checklist". It has all of the projects that I've decided to do, and all of the materials listed for each project. I then put several columns in, so that I could compare prices of Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and online retailers. I'm being as budget conscious as possible, so price checking was important to me, though it may not be to you.

Here's the list of all of the tutorials you have to look forward to:
Cake Topper
Cake Stand
Cutting set
Invites
Programs
Thank Yous
Mobiles
Mason Jar luminaries
Paraffin luminaries
Guest tree
Flowers
Table Runners
Place mats
Photobooth
Smores Kits
Gifts for my gals
Direction signs
Yard Games

Now let's be honest, I may not get all of these done. However, I've set myself up to get most of these, if not all done. In my mind the trick will be spacing out the projects as much as possible, so I don't become too overwhelmed. I have 7 months to get this stuff done, and I work 3-4 nights a week...I should be good, right?

I'm starting with the Paraffin luminaries (the project I'm most hesitant about) tomorrow! Prep yourselves!

Date Drama

You know the flood of questions you get when you announce your engagement: "OMG, have you set a date? What are you colors? Where will it be? Will there be an open bar"? OK, so the last questions was asked by the best man as a joke...but you get the idea. For this discussion, let us focus on the first question: "Have you set a date?". Since we were on vacation when we got engaged, we had the luxury of attempting to answer this questions before we returned home, and had to face all of the questions. Sitting in the bar of a restaurant, I asked FH: "So...May or September?". I didn't want to get married in June or July. Hot, high wedding season here in the Midwest, and I wanted an outdoor wedding, so I didn't want November or December. FH's immediate response: "eh...everyone's sick of weddings by September. I vote May". May! Hooray!
Now...this is where the drama began. My sister is in college, and her finals end on the 20th of May. Obviously, I didn't want my MOH (maid of honor) crying, stressed to the max, or having to cram in our dressing room the day of, so I wanted to wait until her finals were done to tie the knot. That left us the 21st and the 28th of May.
The issue was this: My cousin is graduating from High School this May. It wouldn't kill me if she couldn't come, HOWEVER, my grandmother is on the "must attend" column of our guest list. I couldn't make her choose between her granddaughters, so I called her and asked her when Kelsey is graduating. "Hmmm...let me call her mother and ask. I'll call you back ASAP". I waited, and waited, and waited. I finally just looked it up on the school website myself. May 14th. Awesome. In the clear. The 21st or the 28th will work. Rock on.
Then I finally get the call back from my grandma. "Well, Linda (my aunt) says the 14th, but Kelsey (my cousin) says the 21st. Huh? Now I was confused. When I asked for elaboration, she said they (the school) wanted to change the venue, and that if they did, the date would be changed from the 14th to the 21st. Oh, and they wouldn't know until DECEMBER! WHAT?!? Well...I'm not waiting until December to book my venue, caterer, photographer, etc., so I guess I'll go with the 28th, just to be safe. My grandmother is concerned that the graduation could even take place on the 28th, and requested that I reserve my venue for both the 21st and the 28th, just in case. No. No is the answer. If this High School (which has about 700 kids in the graduating class) tries to have a graduation on Memorial Day Weekend, there will probably be a riot. I'm not worried about it. Whatever.
May 28, 2011 is when we will be getting married. Done.

The next big thing...the budget

When deciding how much we wanted to spend on our wedding, my FH (future hubby) and I agreed from the get-go:
As little as possible without being cheap

Now, we still had some very basic requirements to go along with that:
If it is something we're truly passionate about, we will spend the money for it. Period.

Both FH and I have great jobs, we have a house, and we don't have any children, so there's no reason for us to skimp if we really want something. In fact, about a year ago, FH came up and asked..."so, how much is it going to cost us to get married? I need to know so I can start allocating funds."
Of course (as you know) I'm a crazy person who had already started looking at various venues, caterers, etc...so I gave him a little estimate:
If we do it at home: 1kish
If we go elsewhere: Definitely less than 10k, probably around 7k.
Well, FH didn't like the idea of having 40(ish) people in and around our home, so 7k it was.

Now, about a month into planning, my parents have been gracious enough to pay for the venue (approx 3k) and my dress (1k...my big splurge...but I wouldn't take it back for the world). Which leaves my hubs and I to pay 3-4k for everything else. Now, like many of you, I don't have a ton of spare cash running around. I just graduated in December of 2009, so I have student loans, car payments, and other debts I'm paying off now. He struck me a deal: "I know you're saving us a ton of money by doing so many things yourself...how about you just get what you can and tell me what you need for the rest". What?!? Awesome. I love my man. I was going to have to work overtime every week in order to contribute as much as he is...but apparently he'd rather spend time with me :-D.

Now, once again as a crazy type-A person...I've got everything organized in my ADORABLE new accordion folder, and it has a slot for budget/receipts. We'll see how well I do in the end. Keep your fingers crossed!

closest friends and family-seriously. How to prioritize your guest list

To start off my blogging...I would like to explain how my future husband and I decided to have a small(ish) wedding. Let me start by saying if you are having a HUGE wedding...there is no judgement here. Totally...it's just not us.

There were several factors that influenced our decision to stay fairly small in terms of guest list.
First off-we've been to too many weddings where the couple has had approximately 2 whole minutes to speak with each table of guests, before being whisked away to another table. I want to make my guests feel more important than a two minute chat...mostly about how pretty I am.
Secondly- my future husband is an introvert to the max. He enjoys his small group of friends, but quickly becomes uncomfortable in groups of more than 10 people. I, on the other hand, love big groups...it's why we work :-D.
Third-we didn't want to meet anyone new on our wedding day. Goes along with the whole "want to have as little stress as possible on our big day" thing. I don't want to have to worry about which uncle is uncle john and which one is uncle tom. We've been together for three years...if we haven't met someone yet...they're just not that important. Exceptions to this rule are those who live out of state/out of country.
Fourth-budget. While this is not a huge issue for us (we're both employed, and have no children). This keeps us at what we consider a reasonable budget. We simply don't like the idea of spending tons of money on a single day. We're much more excited about actually being married than getting there.

Now-How did we manage to keep our guest list to 50 people? Pretty easy. We prioritized. We each took a piece of paper and made three columns: Must invite, would like to invite, and maybe invite. If someone was on either of our "must invite" list...they made the cut. If someone was on both of our "maybe invite" list...they were booted. The "would like to invite" column was a little more tricky. We asked ourselves the following question: will it in some way make our special day better for them to be there? If it was a yes...then they're invited. If no, sorry.  We've already run into some issues (mainly with our parents) over our guest list. We have given slight leeway to each party, with the understanding that while we want their input and want to see them happy, ultimately it's our day.

A fresh beginning to a beautiful world...

Hello all!

As you can tell, this is the first installment of  KC Thrifty Bride! While this blog is primarily a way for me to share my plans, diy tutorials, and other wedding-related ideas...I'm always looking for feedback. I want for this to be a community of local brides who share thoughts in a friendly, safe environment. That being said: here's why I'm looking forward to KC Thrifty Brides:

I (and probably you, if you're looking here), live in the center of the country...not the coasts. We are pretty neglected when it comes to "picture perfect wedding planning". There are not as many great resources here as maybe in other places...and many new brides just don't know how or where to start.

I don't want my wedding to look cheap, but I also don't want to pay for a wedding what I would pay for a new car, especially in such tough economic times. It's always difficult to see wedding invites for several hundred dollars, dresses for several thousand, etc.

I will not be having the "big white wedding". My wedding is going to be small-medium sized (approximately 50 people). I'll explain this decision later. Many posts are for huge weddings or tiny weddings. I'm having something in-between.

Now-what you can expect from KC Thrifty Bride:

Tons of tutorials. Like I said, I want thrifty, NOT cheap. In order to accommodate this, I'll be doing lots of projects DIY style...and I'll walk you through them step by step.

Budget-saving ideas: I've spent a lot of time looking into various venues, caterers, etc. All of them are very reasonably priced for what they offer. I obviously chose only one venue for my wedding (and I'll unveil them soon!) but have done a lot of comparison of other venues. Also, want to save on a dress? Bridesmaid attire?  I've got ideas for that too!

Support: your wedding is NOT supposed to be the day you spend the next several months panicking about. I'm going to burst a bubble right now: your wedding will not be perfect. The trick is being as prepared as possible, and being able to accept that even though things may not be perfect, you'll be married at the end of the day...and that's the important thing (if you disagree with what I just said, you should possibly re-consider getting married).

I hope that you enjoy my blog...and feel free to comment/share ideas with myself and other brides.