new career path?

perhaps not. but i don't think i did too shabby a job at crafting sample bouquets last night. exhibit a:


full-grown white and baby green hydrangeas + hypernicum berries = simple and lovely. if you ask me. which you pretty much did, seeing as how you're reading my blog and all.

here's what the whole ensemble will look like. exhibit b:


i think it's pretty neat. it's even neater in person. trust.

for my bouquet, i'm thinking i want the same thing, but with a bunch of deep pink roses interspersed. i may even nix the green hydrangea from the bridesmaids' bouquets and just go white + berries, then have white + berries + green + roses in mine. the bridesmaids have already got a lotta color going on up in here. (ps i think the plaid ribbon is FAB)

and howsabout this idea: at the reception, the bigger tables will sport the topiary centerpieces. for the smaller tables, i was thinking a glass container with a few flowers and a bunch of candles. what if...these containers held the bridesmaids' bouquets? instead of the cake table holding the bridesmaids' bouquets? like each of the small centerpieces holds, say, a single white hydrangea, and when the bridal party arrives, each girl adds her bouquet to the mix? i heart multitasking.

i am getting ready to type up and sketch out a comprehensive opus slash architectural rendering of my vision for ceremony and reception decorations. i don't think i'll share it here though. a girl has to keep a little mystery, right?

solution

...to the great lantern conundrum. behold:


18" of paper mache celestial loveliness. and it just so happens to be the same as the 2" stars we got at hobby lobby for the baby's breath garland idea. which, you know, promotes unity and branding and cohesion etc and so forth. i'd like to hang some of these with the round paper lanterns that are en route to my house from an asian import company as we speak. or type and read, as the case may be.

then there is this:


which is the same thing in garland form and could be used with the baby's breath garland instead of the individual stars, which could then be strewn about the rest of the decorations. for more cohesion. and for clarification, i'm thinking more martha-stewart-meets-country-living-chic, less 14-yr-old-tie-dye-and-lava-lamp celestial here. yes?

then again, i could collect a bunch of magnolia leaves from various parks and yards and craft them into something like this


instead of the baby's breath. this could also be draped around the cake table like so


and around the candles on the mantle like such


but with less of a yuletide flair. yay or nay?

bridal shower extravaganza!

if bridal showers were like actual showers, i'd be pretty clean this week.

first, three bridesmaids and their moms hosted a shower for bridesmaids + moms + female relatives at the inn at hunt phelan, which was FAB. you know i mean it, because i hardly ever use capital letters. this is me with the hostesses (and louise, she just likes to have her picture taken):


no, i don't know what possessed me to stand like that. thanks for making fun of me though.

here i am eating brunch with my future-sister-in-law. i like this picture because it is a good example of why people always tell us we look alike:


here are the prettiest flowers ever in the world of all time:


and here they are again. oh, and my godmother and mom and me too:


today, my coworkers hosted a shower for me at the office. mom & captain fantastic were invited. it was one of the best days of work ever, because i got to drink wine at noon and spend the afternoon giving everyone a facebook and blogging tutorial. no really. and i'd been planning that for weeks.

here's my boss surveying the table of delicious food prepared by his son's catering company and pretty flowers cut from his wife's garden. you probably can't see the purple shirt from here, but he's kind of a big deal. i feel like since the bishop prays over my staff meetings and bridal showers, maybe jesus doesn't mind that i sometimes skip church for two or eleven weeks in a row.


here the captain and i enjoy noontime glasses of wine with another bishop, this time in oil-painting form:


my mom gave us these cute mugs that say "i do" and "me too." the captain will probably drink coffee from his. i will definitely eat ice cream from mine.


i like this picture of us opening the awesome food processor from my coworkers because look how excited captain fantastic is. he probably thinks this will encourage my new found desire to bake, and then he'll get cookies all the time. perhaps...

i'd also like to give a shout-out to our first shower-type activity. two bridesmaids hosted a cocktail party for bridesmaids + groomsmen + parents a few days before christmas, and it was a really good time. you want to see pictures? i thought so.

here i am with the hostesses (this time louise actually belonged in the picture):


and here i am with the captain back when he had his handsome seasonal beard:


and here i am with my dad and his favorite rubber santa bolo tie (that's where i get my festiveness):

apparently, at that party i only wanted pictures of myself. there were also guests, drinks, food and prezzies.

being engaged is pretty awesome. people are always really excited for you, and friends and family make such generous showings of love and support. it's really humbling and really wonderful. thank you all so very much!

lovely ladies

look what came in the maaaaaaaaaail todaaaaaaaaaay....


the briiiiiiidesmaid dreeeeeesseeeees!!! they sent all the memphis girls' dresses to my house together to save on shipping. so i immediately put one on when they arrived on my doorstep. obviously. i think they're pretty fabulous. i may or may not be secretly jealous that i don't get to wear one. is that weird?

precious

this might be my favorite ring shot of all time.

via here.

maybe with a little benadryl-in-the-kibble action, i could have my very own. two versions, of course.

flora

remember that time i was all "i don't really care that much about flowers...?" enter this past saturday, when three bridesmaids and their mothers hosted a fabulous bridal shower for me at the inn at hunt phelan and decorated the tables with big silver julep cups full of enormous pink peonies. now, i DO really care that much about flowers. so much that i carry my own personal favor arrangement from the shower around the house with me so that i may admire it wherever i am. (pictures of the shower forthcoming, as i haven't downloaded them from my camera yet)

cue incessant worry and hyperventilation about wedding flowers.

in the interest of not losing my mind over something i really did not anticipate losing my mind over, let's discuss. i've decided that my watermelon-dress-with-pear-sash bridesmaids should carry predominantly white flowers, with some greenery for good measure. perhaps like one of these:


the flower girls will wear halos of spray roses and hypernicum berries and carry matching pint-sized nosegays like big girls (since one flowergirl recently informed me that in an upcoming wedding she'll be wearing high heels with "bling," and how can i compete with that?) comme ca:


since i am a fan of festive accessories (not a purse or pair of shoes to my name in a sensible color like black or brown), i think my flowers should have some serious pink. maybe something like this (but with the non-white flowers being pink instead of orange & purple):

or this, but with some white interspersed:


for all of the ladies (including myself) i super love bouquets with big, fluffy bows, kinda like so:


and for the gents, simple bouts made of one or two small blooms (spray roses?) with hypernicum berries and the fly-fishing flies, arranged thusly (i realize this is not spray roses with hypernicum berries...use your imagination):


so now we move on to the question and answer portion of the program. bouts: white or pink? or pink for groomsmen and white for groom (who is likely going to have a pink tie)? and bouquets: can i use my beloved plaid ribbon, or is that too much?

and don't even get me started on centerpieces. we'll save that post for another day...

a plea + a tutorial

this is a semblance of my vision for the area behind the band at the reception, if you will recall. and this is what i want to get to bring that vision to life:


the problem is, i can only find this type of star lantern at one store on the whole, wide interweb, and they have been back ordered since march and will be through july!!!! nooooooooooo!!! anybody out there know of another place where i could find these or something similar? i want plain, natural-colored paper with zero cut-outs or ad-ons or anything else ridiculous. just tasteful, plain star lanterns as featured above. and don't gimme no paperlanternstore.com, because they're the ones who are back ordered. we're in a fight.

plan b:


these irregular-ribbed natural round lanterns in various sizes. i will be happy with these. but i'd be happier with some stars! the round lanterns would also be a sad reminder to one of my bridesmaids of how her carefully-orchestrated lantern and twinkle light display dissolved in a freak thunderstorm two hours before her outdoor reception. and nobody wants that. so anybody got any juicy star lantern leads?

...which brings us to part deux of this post: a tutorial. on reply cards. specifically the ones in my wedding invitations. they read "the favor of a reply is requested by june 1st" and are otherwise blank. the idea being that my clever and creative friends and family would write or draw something clever and creative letting us know if they're coming or not. ... apparently i overestimated the cleverness and creativeness of part of the guest list, because i've been getting a lot of questions. we even got back one card completely blank. in a moment of forethought, we numbered the cards to correspond with the rsvp spreadsheet, so we know who sent it. we just don't know if they're coming or not. oops. don't let this happen to you. be like the dozens of people who wrote something sweet or funny or downright hilarious, or even the people who wrote a note to bob & lauren, not realizing that robert clifton goes by his middle name (obviously someone on the bride's side...). don't be like blankcardguy. c'mon, i know you're clever....

never fear

...we decided to go with patriotism in the stamp department. my dad was all, "but this is a WEDDING and those are WEDDING rings..." and i was all, "remember how you suggested we jazz up the topiary pots with wrapping paper like the do with christmas poinsettias?" pops is the brains of the operation; let's leave the creative aspect to the ladies.


i haven't had much wedding project posting going on up in hura, mainly because the wedding project that's currently consuming me is supertopsecret. but i will share when the time is right (as in, after the wedding). and yall are going to just roll your little eyes at how ridiculous i am for coming up with and trying to complete projects like this.

apologies for being a blog slacker.

on the to-do list for the coming week:

*attend baby brother's college graduation tomorrow (awww)
*meet with organist to determine ceremony music
*meet with florist to finalize floristy things
*get together supplies for photobooth guestbook extravaganza
*design and cut out foam letters to cover with moss
*order moss for topiaries/letters
*have a supa-fab bridal shower hosted by 3 bridesmaids + moms next saturday
*bbq fest-it-up with the captain's team as time allows

finally, i have reevaluated my feelings for baby's breath. i have seen a lot of arrangements of it by itself recently, and me gusta. and i have decided that i want to do this

via here

but nix the birds and do clusters of these awesome little paper mache stars from hob-lob in the corners and the center. and hang it atop and around the big doorway leading into the reception room, which i tried to find a picture of but apparently if you don't sign in with your member information on the club's website you're not even allowed to see what the club looks like. how exclusive. anyway, garland: yes?

delish

ever since captain fantastic popped the question, i've been feeling the urge to get rill domestic. from obsessively vacuuming to learning to sew to baking cookies from scratch, i channel my inner martha on a regular basis. so i'm really excited that a fabulously talented high school friend of mine launched a fabulously awesome, well-written, accessible-to-even-non-cooks food blog today! it is thebomb.com! actually, it is the bluejeangourmet.com. technically. you should go there right now and read it and love it and bookmark it and check it often and make friends with nishta before she becomes a famous author so maybe you can get her to sign a copy of her book and say you knew her when.

YUM.

wait a minute, mr. postman....

my family is cursed. i'm 99% positive. here is why: nothing ever works out easily. ever. no matter what my mom/dad/brother/yours truly is trying to do, there will be some enormous pain in the a$$ setback. and with the whole crew trying to plan an enormous pain in the a$$ event (our wedding), the setbacks are even more frustrating. the current setback in andersonland is postage. (disclaimer: i realize this is not a big deal. it's just so irritating that it's even an issue. and so typically my family.)

#1 the stationers failed to mention, when we asked how much our invitations would cost to send, that the size and shape of them means they cost A DOLLAR to mail. i believe the lady who helped us said something to the effect of, "well they'll cost more than your standard letter, but they're not really expensive or anything." we were thinking 60-something cents. ooooooooh no. a dollar. wanna know what a dollar in postage looks like?

friggin zeus. cool picture, zeus, but your maroon and navy clouds don't really scream "pink & green preppy country club wedding." thankfully, my mom had a moment of financial genius today and discovered that this...
plus this...
...equals a dollar and one cent. and it takes 100 cents to make a dolla-dolla-bill yall, so the goddess of love can reign over our invitations instead of the god of fall colors and lightning bolts, for just a few extra bucks. suh-weet.

#2 our invitations are printed, the envelopes are calligraphied, everything's ready to be stuffed and stamped and put in the mail this week. hmm, you're thinking, i feel like there's something important and postal happening this week. yes friends. the postage is going up 2 cents. neat. we'll get the invitations off before the price changes next weekend...but the reply cards will be coming back for the next month, so they have to be of the four-score and four variety. so, you're thinking, no biggie, just put 44 cent stamps on them. oooooooooooooh but they don't SELL 44 cent stamps until friday. at which point the invitations would also need more postage. therefore, i am stuck with this decision: ugly patriotism:
or tacky symbolism:
which is the lesser of the evils, i ask?

grrrr.