Well, it’s been over a month since the big shebang so I suppose I should upload all the fun pictures and document the day.

We woke up to clouds and rain in Denver and I was sooo bummed! But based on how everything was going that week, I pretty much expected it and had the mentality that the wedding was just not meant to be. As we headed out to Golden though the clouds disappeared and it made for quite possibly to most perfect weather! It was glorious!



I was a little, well a lot... synical.

Lucky for me I couldn’t sleep and so I got up and started working on my hair at about 2 am. Curled for about an hour and then slept on them. So my head was 85% done and would just need touching up and for the girl that was to do my hair, to go in and fix whatever I missed. Well said girl got lost and arrived about 10 min before ceremony. With a Caramel Macchiato in hand though so I wasn’t upset. I actually wasn’t upset anyway, my mom and maid of honor each took turns working on it and it was A-ok. 

Tada!

The ceremony was short, simple, sweet and to the point. The less we had to be up there, the better! The setting was perfect, the weather was great and there were compliments all around!

Matt managed to mess up his vows, flubbering around all the words and said I Do way to soon, so he ended up saying I Do about 3 times. At least we all learned that He Does! Our kiss managed to come out looking like he was just sucking on my upper lip. Classy. But it was perfect and had it actually been “perfect” I would have been weirded out!



Everyone needs some Cheeeeesy!

Overall it was awesome and I loved how everything came together. The only thing I would have changed is the flower. Not changed them, but had more, I didn’t realize how sparse the centerpieces were until we walked into the reception. Oh well, they were still cute.

More to come latter! :)

1 Weeeeeek!

So I literally am done with everything. I think. I'm sure when my mom flies in, in a couple of days to help, I will suddenly not be done like I think I am.

I would like to bring something else up in a little more detail that I had mentioned at the beginning of this blog. The scheduling mishaps up at Chief Hosa. I was vague about it then just because as far as the dramatics, I had had 6 months to get over their mistakes by the time I started writing. But I had an interesting comment placed on my wedding website from a lovely lady named Amber. Her photographer had stumbled upon this very blog and saw my mention of the screw up and told her. Why? Because they royal ruined her special day as well!!!

Turns out they booked her wedding for the evening of the 18th. Thus forcing us to have to find a new location, move it to the 25th or go with the morning ceremony instead. That is what we chose but trust me, if you would have seen some of my emails to the coordinator, you would see how completely upset I was about. Here lies the latest issue though. Her wedding is supposed to be on the 25th, NOT the 18th!!! Her SIGNED contract says the 25th, yet they set up the permit for the 18th, kicking us from ours and giving her a date she didn't want, but worse, didn't know about until this week! 2 weeks before her wedding she finds out they have someone else booked on the 25th and she has an entire wedding to reschedule. His offer, to take some money off the rental. I say that is BS!! No amount of discount can fix what they are putting this poor girl through! They need to comp the entire cost and pay for her hotel the night before they leave for their honeymoon and do anything and everything they need to to help her.

Turns out the events management with the City of Denver sucks. Had they just checked and double checked when they first had the double booking, she would have clarified she needed the 25th and we would have been able to have the evening rental space. EPIC FAIL City of Denver. Turns out this isn't the first time they are hearing about issues like this. Talk about a poor business structure and complete disregard for the people of your city who are forking out thousands of dollars for what is supposed to be the biggest and greatest day of a couples lives!

Ok I'm done, but I just felt like this needed to be put out there! I now am going to spend the next 2 days scrubbing down this place so that it is ready for the chaos of family that is about to take over our little nest. Ahhhhhhhh!

2 weeks.

I'm pretty sure everything that can be in order is. Which is great. Now my emotional and overly high strung self still isn't reassured but I should be. Matt will attest to my whining and panicking and let's not deny the crying. This week I have had the following freak outs:

• there isn't enough money. this is stupid. 
• i'm way to fat to stand in front of people. and the dress just makes my butt look even bigger. truth be told i have lost weight but i'm not seeing it.
• i wish my boobs were as big as the rest of my body. i guess i will be safety pinning my dress to my bra to avoid major gaps. way to get alterations in a timely fashion.
• do we have to have the ceremony? can't we just eat?
• cancel. cancel the whole thing.

Positive parts of the last week or so:

• my hair is long enough to curl and looks really good
• everything has been purchased that needs to be for now. everything else has to be bought the week of.
• we finally set up the desk and started personalizing the second bedroom. i'm excited to have a crafting space for all the free time i will suddenly have after this is over.
• matt is actually bleaching his teeth for this. i love him.

That is all for now. i need sleep.

Boxes and Bouquets

My flowers are ready! Hooray! Thank you BookwormEatsFlower! They are more than I could have dreamed up! Putting them into a bouquet should be fun!

BookwormEatsFlower

I finished up my Card Box! It started off as just a plain, cardboard type box that I have painted to match my chalkboards and Guestbook. I'm a sort of completely in love with it. I lined it with some fabric that has a vintage look to it. I wanted to convey a little bit of an old vintage suitcase feel. I think it turned out pretty well. Enjoy!

Adorable Right?

Stick em' Here! 

More amazing additions!

Thanks to the Pounce feature on Etsy I stumbled upon dutchiegirldesigns store on Etsy. She hadn't made any sales yet and it confused me because I could have bought the entire store had I been suddenly overcome with money! I found a ring that is so cute and perfect! I would wear it if I didn't have that silly thing called a wedding ring already. Speaking of which I lost a diamond out of it this weekend! I am so so sad! We bought it used, big surprise coming from me right? No I know it isn't... Unfortunately the lady we bought it from said it has a lifetime guarantee and gave us the reciepts. It turns out that only works if you have a card the jeweler signs off on stating that you brought it in for maintenance every 6 months. We called her to see if she had it but so far we haven't heard anything back from her... Typical Craigslist interaction I guess.

But that is not why I am here! I am here to show off the ring! It's so great I want more, I really do! Rings are my favorite pieces of jewelry after all. So here it is, a cute button ring, olive and brown with a little ivory colored button. I can't wait for it to come in the mail!

Dutchiegirldesigns

In other news... I am about to order some of these dried Craspedia's. They are simple and I think they might add a cool dimension to my bouquet. That or maybe just to my living room... I think they are really adorable. I found them in PigeonToeCeramics store. This seller makes me want to go out and buy a pottery wheel! That is the main focus in the store but I felt like these little balls of happiness were just what I needed.

PigeonToeCeramics

2 Months!

Well, it's July 18th, we are at the 2 month point. I did want to upload the pictures of the boutonnieres that I have made. I do love them but the camera certainly doesn't do them justice. I used multi-colored beads and some random buttons for them. I figure since my bouquet is paper, having floral boutonnieres would be weird. Matt's is a little more special, he has one of his dad's buttons on his.

At this point we are pretty set, the outdoor decor will be very simple. Hopefully not too bare. We meet with the site manager and caterer's next month so I guess that is when we will figure out what else we will need.  I do need a box or something to put cards in on the gift table. I saw a very cute covered wagon that would work, but I am up in the air about it.

I have also put together the vows and ceremony outline put together for his uncle to read from. It's simple, and sweet. Not to formal and not too mushy. I have a feeling we may laugh through the whole thing, even though it's not terribly romantic, we have a hard time taking the romance seriously. Does that make us terrible? Maybe but it's worked so far.

This is a short one, I just don't have to much going on at the moment to talk about. I'm sure as time goes on it will become hectic and nutty and there will be plenty more to talk about.

67 days! Why????

Can you say Stress? Sometimes I really wonder why we thought it might be a good idea to have a wedding a year after we were married. I mean we did elope for a reason right? To AVOID planning and paying and stressing. Oh well, it’s here to stay it seems, 67 days away from wedding celebrations.

That is really what I hope I get to do, celebrate! I am slightly controlling, Matt may say more than slightly. I just feel like there is such a specific way that I want things to happen and I don’t know how to convey that to the caterers and everyone who will be there running the show. I truly hope I will allow my self to just sit back and take it all in.

So what haven’t I talked about yet? Brooches, jewelry, the guestbook, the ties and wedding favors. That is all that I can think up at the moment.

TheKitchEnd

Let’s start with the Brooches. One for each mother. I found really cute felt flower brooches with a button center. So appropriate! Thank you Etys once again for these. I bought them from seller TheKitschEnd who does adorable things all with a button thrown in here and there. She did both brooches and a bracelet either myself or the maid of honor will be wearing, I haven’t decided yet. They are all three so cute and will fit in great! She is based out of the UK like a few of my other imported finds so I feel like this wedding is becoming quite international and I love it!

TheKitchEnd

Jewelry will include a mix of different finds. The bracelet of course will be included somewhere, and I found a perfect pair of button earrings that I will be wearing. Thanks to RebeccaTiano who’s actually a really great artist and creates all kinds of animal prints for your liking. Her button earrings just happen to be completely awesome too! They are big enough too, that it will hide the slightly elongated lobe holes I have managed to create thanks to stretching my ears to a 10g earring. They are orange and fun and not at all stuffy. I am not a diamonds and bling kinda girl. I am simple and cheap and thrifty and un-impressed by jewels. I also believe my mom is bringing me a few necklaces of hers to look at, after all I will need something old and borrowed right?

RebeccaTiano

TheKitchEnd

I am really excited about the guestbook! This I made myself just this weekend actually and I couldn’t be more proud.  Matt is convinced I could open an Etsy shop and start selling them but I think there will need to be some major tweeking in the creation of them before I am proud enough to sell them. I’m not eliminating the possibility though. I was basically not at all interested in spending $60 bucks on something guests may or may not get around to signing. So I headed to the craft store and brainstormed with Matt. We chose to pick a few different prints of paper in the scrapbooking section and then 2 wooden H’s that we painted a copper color. I bound all the pages and the 2 wooden pieces act as the front and back cover. It’s fun and personal and if no one signs it I’m out 12 bucks and will have something to display in the house anyway!

Now the ties are great! Yet another etsy UK creator, projector silkscreened 2 ties. One for Matt and one for his Best Man. I did let Matt choose the design so even though I really like them, this seller has some other prints I adore! Matt chose the paint splat image and we had one olive green tie created with a gold ink and then other is a copper tie with brown ink. They sent them so quickly and they are packaged so cool in a brown paper wrapping. I really do like them and Matt is excited that they are the ones he chose. We will of course post photos of these in action!

Favors, oh how difficult this part has been. Solely my fault of course. Indecision is a terrible curse! I was going to make fudge, I tried a few batches, it was terrible. I was going to order custom cookies via etsy. All the samples I received were so mediocre to bad that I am putting a X through that idea. We thought about making a additional donation instead to Children International and we may still go with that. We do have a particular interest in this charity as we have “adopted” two children from Honduras and would love to someday have the opportunity to meet them. Right now I have decided to do something simple and fun I think. Sunflower seeds! Individually bagged with a bow and note. It’s affordable and goes along with the fall flowers and general rustic feel of the wedding. Pictures will be taken of course if this is the direction we head.

That is quite the extensive list of details for the wedding. Maybe I should have split this up? Oh well. Hope you like what you see! Now I need to head out and do some woo-sah’s and deep breathing!

So my Save the Dates were sent, location arranged and caterer picked. Once we had the the catering details more or less in stone, I could move on to the invite ordering. Since I now had the specifics, like start time and when I would need the RSVP's back I could make the invitation decisions.

Invitations by Dawn

Initially my plan was to make them myself and print them from home. But as I thought about it more, I really wanted to have them done professionally. I found Invitations by Dawn online and I really liked the styles. That, and the prices were ones that I could afford and be happy about. I was completely happy with my order, I do wish you could order in more specific quantities but I'll survive with the extra 15 or so that I was sent.


They are a cute and simple "western" theme, but I felt they fell into that vintage feel as well. The paper is made to look a little old and "burnt" or branded. I have even gotten some comments on how nice people think they are. They aren't fancy and embellished with ribbons and bows and bling. They are just what I wanted.

Just some Ideas

Button Confetti

Decor was probably one of the first things I started working on after the Save the Dates. ( I'd shorten that to be like all the people on the wedding message boards and call them STD's but that just freaks me out.) I went out to craft stores and started buying. I am using a traditional Ball Mason Jar at each table and a smaller jam sized one as well. I have wrapped each large jar with green ribbon and added a raffia bow. I filled the bottoms with small river rocks, pebbles really and they will act as the main vase for each table. With the smaller jar I have filled the bottoms with assorted buttons and they are each going to hold a small votive candle inside. I wrapped this with a smaller version of the same green ribbon as well. Now to fill out the tables I have been scouring different Goodwill's and other thrift stores and have found the most beautiful vases and old colored glass bottles that are now being re-purposed as vases. They are all sizes colors and shapes and each table will have it's own unique piece.  These photo's are just some ideas I put together quickly. The flowers will probably include the 2 colors of sunflowers but the super pink flowers were more a filler. I plan on using lots of ivory and green hydrangeas instead but the store I went to didn't have any in at the time.

I am really excited to talk about my bouquet! At first I planned on making my own bouquet since we are doing all of the flowers ourselves, but instead started scouring Etsy and realized there were so many creative people around the world and I could choose any one of these people to create a bouquet for me and it would last forever. I chose to have a paper bouquet created by Lauren Houlihan in London, UK. You can visit her Blog here or her Etsy Shop. I am excited to see what she creates for me and my maid of honor! :)

90 Days! Here We Go!

Well, here it is. The 3-month mark has come. We officially have 90 days left to make this happen and hope that the final day is relaxing and just plain, good ol’ fun.

I am going to first show what has been done so far and then introduce what I am still working on.

The first step after letting the family know that we eloped and were married but were still having a wedding was to send Save The Dates. I started crafting them in October and November of 2009. What can I say, I get excited and tend to start projects way to early…

My Save the Dates were each handmade using a 5x7 scrapbook style cardstock that came in packs of multi-colored wonderfulness. They were hues of blues, greens, oranges, reds and gold’s. There were definitely some hits and misses as I tried different styles and ideas. All part of the creative process I suppose. The final product was a-ok with me. I ended up getting paper flowers and button shaped brads to accent some and fall themed ribbon, one with acorns and one with sunflowers for others. For some I used both a flower and the ribbon and for some it was one or the other. On the back of each I put on a stick backed magnet so they could be thrown up on the fridge. The actual wording included our names and a calendar with a heart around the date. I printed these myself on ivory paper.

I sent them out in mid January, allowing for people to have a nice head start on planning trips as none of our families live here in Colorado. It might have been a little early but like I said earlier, I get antsy and tend to do things before I really need to. I mailed them in plain ivory envelopes obtained at the always helpful Hobby Lobby, where almost all of my hand crafted creations have gotten their start.

Next came finding a location! Not easy, but it wasn't terribly difficult either. I spent some time on The Knot looking at local Colorado ideas for venues as well as simply googleing like nobodies business to see what I could find. I looked into a few different locations and then decided to try Craigslist and posted an add describing the "envisioned" location. Some beautiful mountain ranch with meadows and fall foliage and a view of the Rockies. Is that so much to ask for? I actually received quite a few responses however most didn't fit either the description, or were too far down a 2 lane road into the heart of the mountains. We did find one we thought might work and went to see it. It was a beautiful home and the views were a great however there just wasn't enough space and the owners who became inspired by our interest decided to make a business out of it, and decided to charge more than most venues and that didn't include being allowed to have a reception on site.
 

Ultimately we decided on the Chief Hosa Lodge. It is run by the Denver Parks Department and it may not have meadows but it does have mountain views and perfect lodge feel that fits my rustic vintage style perfectly. Now booking the details became a hassle. The events coordinator double booked our date after we had sent in the contract and credit card info for the deposit. He then called and wanted us to change the date. AFTER my save the dates had been sent. Not only was it annoying, the date was special, it's the day we eloped and will mark our 1 year anniversary. I wouldn't budge and it was too late at that point to secure another location. Thus creating our Morning Ceremony and Brunch reception. And it turns out it's the best thing that could have happened. Not only did it get us a few breaks on the venue because of his mistake, but catering it turns out is much cheaper too.
 

This brings me to the caterer. This was a no brainer for us. I was able to see their display at the one and only bridal show I attended. They had an amazing fruit and veggie display and a yummy prime rib sample. I scheduled a tasting right then and there. Meet The Food Guy. They are amazing and I love that they have no set menus, anything and everything you want, they will make. Even your grandma’s recipe that you grew up eating and must have at the wedding! They are also doing all of the set up, decorating, clean up, rentals, linens and day of coordinating. They will make announcements, move things along and make sure we are in and out in time. They will be my meltdown interveners. (I hope… I can see myself still having a freak out moment.)

That wraps up today's post. I will soon be posting the Invitaions we chose and where I am getting My bouquets and well as boutoniers and brooches.

Etsy Finds!

My Current Etsy Treasury!

Check it out. It's not for my wedding my a friend of mine has a wedding in May of 2011 and she inspired the brainstorm.