Wobbly legs

My whole life, I've been overweight.  The "turning point" for me was one summer spent in Missouri at my grandparents house when I was 5 or so. I went a skinny little kid, and I came home not fitting into any of my clothes.  Hello, elastic waist bands!

Ever since, I've been pretty self conscious about my weight.  But what adolescent/teenage girl isn't?  Looking back, I probably shouldn't have felt this way.

Kind of a bad picture, but why did I think I was fat?
Also, why am I dancing with that piñata?

No lie, at the time this picture was taken, I believed I was fat. Of course, I believe I'm fat now, and every time I say it Mike scoffs at me and shakes his head in disbelief. So maybe I've never seen myself as clearly as I should.

Whether I am "fat" or not, I KNOW that I am overweight. I like to eat, and I don't like to exercise.  And worse, I like to eat the "bad stuff", ie sweets and carbs! They are the best! But not for my health!

I think the average bride-to-be, whatever her size, is concerned about her wedding day weight. You want to look your best on the one day in your life where you get super dolled up and get photographed thousands of times. That may mean losing 5 pounds, or lots of pounds. For me, it's lots!

See the chin and neck fat? You should see the rest of me!

In the past, I've had success losing weight by running, and by watching what I ate. But it was pretty minimal, and I don't just want to just be at a good weight, I want to be healthier and stronger.

So, I decided I needed help.  Specifically, help from Carlos, the gym owner/trainer that Mike and his family work with.  The family that works out together, stays (fit) together? Well I guess I am a part of the family now, so it's fitting that I would go to Carlos.

Today was my first appointment with him.  We focused on the lower body, and I am fairly confident that come tomorrow, walking will be difficult.  That's how you know it's working, right? No pain, no gain?  He wasn't even that hard on me! Goodness, I must be very out of shape.

I can't say I'm looking forward to Thursday's appointment with Carlos, but I am looking forward to the long term results that will follow!

Fooooood

I have a feeling that catering is going to be one of the more difficult decisions we have to make. First, I want it to be cheap-ish. Second, I want it to be classy/elegant. And- we need cake in some form. And alcohol. How are we going to make all of this happen, especially the cheap part? Not sure.

Luckily, there's time to figure it out. A lot of catering companies have disclaimers that say something like “please book catering at least 2 weeks in advance.” Obviously we’re not going to wait that long to book the catering, but it makes me feel better that we can really shop around and find the right caterer for what we want, without any rush.

In addition to the food, we will also need linens and place settings (the Monroe Museum doesn’t have them on hand, but will rent them for us), servers (because I want a plated dinner. I think they are classier than a buffet, plus they can be cheaper since the meals are portioned), a full time bartender, and a few extras to make the dinner just right, such as a chandelier or two.

Those candelabras are pretty sweet, right?

The “stuff” I can price from a whole bunch of area rental places.  I've looked at them briefly, and I'm finding it's ridiculous how much this stuff costs to just rent. It's not like we're going to keep them, sheesh!
The "stuff" part is kind of boring though. I really want to plan the food part!

I’m hesitant to go with a traditional catering company because I think I can get the same thing (that is potentially tastier) from a local restaurant, and for cheaper.  But what about servers and/or a bartender? Plus a lot of catering companies have linens and place settings they can provide, which will definitely lower rental costs. 

I guess I am still keeping the buffet option on the table, because with the right food, that can be an extremely cheap option (Pork BBQ, anyone? Potentially messy, but soo tasty).  But something about it rubs me the wrong way! I don’t want my guests, or you know, myself, to have to serve ourselves food.  Maybe the compromise will be a served buffet.

I don’t want this to be me.

It’s clear to me that there is going to be a lot of planning that goes in to choosing our caterer. And a lot of eating, too!

Green with... love?

If you ask my mom what my favorite color is, she will knowingly declare it is green. She's right.

So when I had to sit down and figure out what our wedding colors would be, it didn't take long before I gravitated to green.

At first, though, I went through hundreds of inspiration boards.  There were so many that I loved!  One of my favorites was pink/gray.

But, I knew Mike wasn't a fan of pink. I considered switching it to yellow, but that also had too much of a "dainty" feel to it.
Plus, I loved the green and chocolate ones I found.

This one especially!

So, two colors down.  But was it enough?  I believe it could be, but as I got to figuring out my decorations more and more, I realized something that I really, really wanted.

Antique mason jars.  Anyone that's been in my house knows I am obsessed with mason jars. You just have to look around. They are everywhere! On a high ledge in the kitchen, on our faux pantry shelves, on the kitchen table with flowers in them... ding ding ding! That's the look I wanted for our wedding. Country (aka rustic), and simple. Also, a little vintage. 

But to throw in that vintage flair, I didn't think plain clear mason jars would do the trick.  When I saw this tutorial on how to make mason jars look antique blue, I knew I had my answer.

And the 3rd color was added to our color scheme, this mason jar antique blue, which I'm going to go ahead and call Tiffany blue. Most of this color will be just the mason jars, but they will be EVERYWHERE at our wedding. They will serve as vases, and candle holders, and lanterns, and maybe even drink glasses? (OK, maybe not the antique blue ones, as I don't want people accidentally consuming paint.)

Here is a juxtaposition of my green and blue:



This is a sneak peak from our wedding website!

I am in LOVE with this combo. And the chocolate brown look super good as an accent color. The only example of this I have are our invites, but since I want those to be a surprise to our guests, I'm not going to share.

Oh, and speaking of mason jar drinking glasses:

The redneck wine glass! 

I do not want this at my wedding.

Flowers and whatnot

A widely known fact about me is that my retail jobs from high school were centered around plants and flowers.  I started out at Frank’s Nursery and Crafts. They weren’t so crafty when I started working there (except for ribbons/flower related crafts), and by the time they went out of business they had changed their name to just Frank’s Nursery.  The skill I learned there that will contribute to wedding decorations was how to make ribbon bows: 


Ugh, not in red though!

My other job was at Giant (the grocery store) in the flower shop. Despite what some people think (*cough*Mike*cough*), the Giant flower shop is a full service flower shop. They can do anything a regular flower shop can do, and that includes wedding flowers!  I learned all kinds of things there. How to make arrangements with those green spongy things, how to make vase arrangements, how to make boutonnieres, corsages, bouquets.  The florist would give me free reign when it came to gift baskets (she LOVED my study gift basket that included snacks and energy drinks). It’s my favorite non-career job that I’ve had, and it even beats out some of the career jobs!

The skills I learned there I will DEFINITELY use. I’m slightly rusty, but that’s what the cheap $5 bunches of flowers are for. Pick one up here and there and make an arrangement! Practice makes perfect. And we’ll save money if all we’re doing is buying flowers, and not hiring a florist to do the labor.

Since we have over a year until our wedding, we will get to see the flowers that will be in bloom around our wedding date.  They might not be exactly the same depending on the weather, but it’ll give us a good idea on which ones we might want.
But I don’t just want fresh flowers. I mean, I love them, and they can smell nice, but they all die and get crinkly!

As a girl who loves to get crafty, I was stoked to find a whole bunch of instructions for DIY fabric and paper flowers.  OK, so that might sound tacky. But check out these coffee filter flowers!



No tack here!

And these are some fabric flowers I made recently:

I think I should have used a smaller button so the 'petals' would pop, but still cute!



I LOVE this fabric brooch!

For now I’m just using scraps I already have around the house, because they’re free!  The yellow and black one doesn’t fit with my color scheme at all, but the green one does. (Friday's post will be about our colors).

I’m so excited to make more of these flowers, and to find many other tutorials to try!  If anyone out there wants to help me out, we can have flower making parties! Just let me know :)

Chicken and Waffles

I'm going to break from my planning series to talk about Date Sunday!

I wish every Sunday was Date Sunday, but usually our weekends go something like:

Friday: hang out with friends, or be lazy at home watching tv/movies.
Saturday: Lazily do some cleaning, maybe go out and do errands, maybe go out Saturday night. Probably be lazy at home watching tv/movies.
Sunday: Do everything we have left to do including grocery shopping, cleaning the entire house (probably), going out and getting everything we forgot about Saturday, all laundry, and making cat/dog food.

But Saturday night we had FILs (Future In-Laws) (Mike's Mom and Dad) over for dinner so we had to get everything done Saturday. And we did! When I realized that meant we had nothing to do Sunday, I reveled in the feeling. Then I proclaimed we would go on an afternoon Sunday date. It was also a wedding planning date!

First, we had lunch at FoodE. If you remember, we were supposed to go to FoodE the night Mike proposed, but it was closed because of Thanksgiving, so we put it on the table for another day.

Also, if you remember, the reason I wanted to go to FoodE is because I'm considering them for catering. They locally source their food, which I think is awesome, and everyone raves about them. We got there and noticed right away there was no table open (it's a pretty small joint). But the lady at the register said it shouldn't take too long to get a table, and took our order. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later we had a table.

Mike had the chicken and waffles.

 I had the chicken biscuit (tower?) with egg.

So delicious! This was the first time Mike had chicken and waffles, and he is now a convert. (So am I after tasting the combo together!). FoodE is definitely a contender for caterer.

Next, we went to see the James Monroe Museum, because Mike hadn't seen inside. Plus I wanted a picture of the adjoining cemetery.

This is on the other side of one of the garden walls at the Monroe Museum!

So cool! Off topic: Mike and his friends do "paranormal investigations" so he thinks cemeteries and ghosts are cool. I like to call him a ghost hunter, but it annoys him. That may be why I call him that :)

One of the Museum staff gave us the grand tour, and we learned all about James Monroe.  We then figured out where we would have the ceremony should it rain. I didn't think it would work inside as the museum is quite small, but there is one room that would hold our intimate gathering of 30, so that provided some stress relief. Dinner would still be rainy, but there will be a tent so we can make it work.

We also scoped out places to take photos after the ceremony. I anticipate a lot of pictures will incorporate most of the guests anyway (and I really want a picture of the entire wedding), but I'd like some just me and Mike pictures somewhere that isn't the venue. Maybe in the middle of the street outside the venue, or in front of another building on Charles St.

Street pictures could be fun!

 This bench is in the cemetery next door. I can definitely
see some Post Ceremony pictures happening here.

Date Sunday was a lot of fun. I hope we are organized enough in the future for more wedding planning dates!

Polka dots, and birdcage veils

Did you know some designers require 9 months to a year notice when ordering a dress from them? That’s insane, right?

Well, I plan on going through David’s Bridal to find my wedding dress, or get my dress at a discount bridal shop, or some such place. So I don’t think I am going to stress out about finding a dress super early. Plus, a lot of experts say to give a bridal shop/seamstress at least 4 months from ordering the dress so alterations can be done.

To play it safe, I think I’m going to start wedding dress shopping in July of 2012. That’s 9 months before our date, and gives me plenty of time to shop around and find THE dress. As an avid watcher of Say Yes to the Dress, I know how important it is for a bride to feel ‘bridal’ in her wedding dress, and to KNOW it is the one she wants.

My problem is I’m afraid I don’t know what I want!  I want the wedding to have a vintage feel to it, and I love the look of tea length gowns.  

I love this dress, Maya, by Michelle Roth.

The things I love about this dress are the length, and the poofy-ness of the skirt.  Actually, it would definitely be too poofy if it was full length (see below about ball gowns). But it's not, so I like it! I’m not the biggest fan of sleeveless though (arm fat, anybody? So gross.)

One of my favorite necklines for a vintage flair dress is the sweetheart + halter look. I will admit, I fell in love with this look in a Grey’s Anatomy episode.

Don’t like the rest of the dress though.

Something I KNOW I won’t want is a mermaid style, or fit n flair. I do not want my curves accentuated!

I am just not attractive enough for this.

On the other hand, I also definitely do not want a full length ball gown. I think ball gown dresses have a tendency to make large ladies look larger. So, I think A-line, or some variation, might be for me:

I love the ruching on this A-line! 

Don't like the train though

Side note: I definitely want a veil like the one above.

While finding photos for this post, I came across this number, that is A-line and has a sweetheart-ish halter combo:

But I don’t like it!  So, I may be back to “I have no idea what I want.” But hey, that's what trying on a billion dresses is for!

It's you, you're all I see...

I am 99% sure we are not going to have a DJ. After all- our reception is mostly just a dinner party. No dancing required, or even wanted. (Mike and I are not dancers. I might dance when I am alone, or with Mike, or at a Jonas Brothers concert, but not very much otherwise. Especially when at a place that requires dancing. Like, say, prom. Or friends' weddings. Or my own wedding.)
So why waste money on a DJ?  We don’t even need anyone to announce us since the ceremony and reception are in the same place.

Another idea is to have some live entertainment. Like a guitarist in the corner. Or a pianist. Or an a Capella group! We do have a University down the street, after all.  But hired entertainment is typically pretty expensive.

I can't help but imagine our wedding's a Capella

group as the Warblers from Glee

The most cost effective option would be to have an iPod ceremony/reception. But who will be in charge of making sure the right song comes on at the right time? (Like the walking down the aisle song, mainly). My mom's suggestion for the bridal march was to have our small number of guests just hum it as I walk down the aisle. While I think that is adorable, I don't think I want the bridal march. I'm thinking an oldie.

Tangent: The other day I was listening to music and ‘You’re My Best Friend’ by Queen came on and I teared up a little thinking about walking towards Mike while this song was playing. So, that may be the song. But then I thought, what if I start crying while walking down the aisle?  But THEN I thought, that will probably happen regardless of the song playing. So it would be alright. End Tangent.

If we go the iPod route, I imagine we will have a guest serve part-time DJ duty. But that’s kind of rude of me, right? To be all “yo, you’re in charge of the music! Kthanks.”  Maybe I worry too much about these sort of things. I’m sure someone would happily press play at the right time, and switch from the ‘After Ceremony’ playlist to the ‘Dinner’ playlist… plus they can get a special thanks in the program or something. If we have a program. Or just a super awesome gift.

Well… we are definitely holding off on the final decision on this for a long while. Maybe we will revisit fall of next year when we know how much extra money will be in our budget.

What do the quiet readers of this blog think? Come on, comment. I know you're out there!

Wedding party, and other important people

Before my crazed Engagement Fever began, Mike and I would occasionally talk about what our wedding might be like. I don’t think anything very concrete came out of these talks, except for what our wedding party would look like.

It was all very logical to him. He is close to his brother, so of course he would be his best man. And he only had 4 close guy friends, so of course they would also be standing with him. (Shout out to Chris, Jim, Anthony and Larry!)

But here’s where I got huffy: they would not just be standing with him as groomsmen, they would all 5 be his best men.  I argued with him briefly, but dropped it because these were talks about a wedding that wouldn’t be happening for years at the time, and we weren’t even close to engaged.

So here we are, actually engaged and planning a wedding.  I know he hadn’t changed his mind about his 5 best men.  But he also has all these new good guy friends from the job he started in August. So he has more than just the 4 now- I figured- why can’t he downsize his side? Or convert them into regular groomsmen?

Well he wasn’t budging. And I was struggling coming up with 5 ladies to be on my side - I could easily think of 4 (friend Cara, sister Cara, sister Becky and future sister-in-law Stephanie), but that 5^th lady was and is still a mystery in my head.

And if we were going to have an intimate shindig (which we are)- how weird would that look? Half the wedding would be standing up there with us!

Well, thankfully, Mike and I came to a decision.  If we were going to have a huge wedding, or even a moderately sized one, then of course we’d have these special folks standing up with us.

But we aren’t.  And when it comes down to it, the friends we mention in our never-to-be wedding party are the only friends being invited to our intimate wedding. They are marked as special regardless.

So we decided to have no attendants. Not one on either side.  Given our small venue and wedding size, I think it makes a lot of sense.

One of the ideas being thrown around as far as ceremony seating is to not have any seating (except for those who shouldn’t stand for 10-15 minutes).  So in essence, everyone in the wedding would be standing with us.  I love this idea for logistical reasons (we won’t need all that many ceremony chairs) and for the symbolic reasons - this sort of makes the entire wedding our wedding party.  I love it! Especially since we want to have our dinner seating such that we are all sitting at one big (head?) table.

Oh, and I can’t forget the other person who will be standing with us- and marrying us- our officiate. Now, even if we didn’t ask her to be our officiate, she would have been at our wedding as a guest. I’m talking about Kim, wife of our good friend Chris, and current seminary student. Mike and I aren't really church-going people, but we didn’t want a stranger marrying us.  We wanted someone special- so Kim is perfect. We’re really excited she said yes when we asked her to marry us!

Planning series

I'm not sure what constitutes a "long" engagement vs a "short" engagement. My oldest sister planned her wedding in 4 months. My other sister planned hers in less. They both had semi-traditional weddings, so I can't imagine how they got it all done!

We have decided on an April 2013 wedding, so we have a little less than 1.5 years to plan.  I feel like this is a long time, but everyone keeps saying it will fly by!  Everyone, that is, but my BFF Cara who's only question was, "Now, are you concerned that you will never make it to your wedding because the world is going to end in December of 2012?" Oh Cara, how did I know you would ask that? Good thing I don't believe in doomsday predictions. Plus, I hear that they've got the Mayan calendar all wrong, and that it's a different time entirely? Who knows! Also, who cares?!

So, maybe my engagement is of normal length, and not "long". Or maybe it is "long-ish", which is what I have been telling people.  With nearly 17 months to prepare for a wedding, how do I prioritize when I should do what things?

So the next series of posts will be my thoughts on each of the major decisions we have left to make, and when we plan on making them. So.....
 

First contract: signed

We booked our first vendor! I’m talking about our photographer, Chad Ainsworth.

He's in the Haymarket, VA area, so we picked Bealeton as a good place to meet in between (shout out to my BFF Cara who lives in Bealeton! Also, Myraidaman from W&M!). We chose the McDonald’s because as far as I can tell, it’s one of the only places there to meet.

Mike and I got there early so we grabbed refreshments. Mike ordered a small iced tea, but got a large (I told him this would happen because that’s how McD’s rolls, but he was perturbed) and I got a latte. We’re pretty classy people.

Now, I was secretly worried that In Person Chad wouldn’t match up with Email Chad or Referred Chad. Like, some slob would come in carrying a camera and announce to the place he was looking for Jill, then proceed to order a large quantity of food before talking to us, then eating the food sloppily during our meeting.

The Chad I pictured was dressed neatly, and if he was a little unkempt, it would be in a planned, hipster sort of way. Like the guy in the red hat below. He would be professional and awesome, and pretty chill.

In Person Chad didn't disappoint! OK, so he wasn't dressed like a cool hipster dude, but he was totally professional and dressed like a normal person. He looked very photog-y. I was also glad to hear that he's a Mac guy.  I am PC all the way, but I definitely want any art-related professional that I hire to be into Apple because it dominates the field. Best of all, he seems so laid back! And very service oriented- he was focused on us and our wedding, and not nit-picky about what he was getting in return.  Overall, it was a very good meeting and we're excited to work with him!
Check out his photos: http://chadsphotoblog.com/

Bonus: An Engagement photo session is included in his price! We plan on taking advantage of this in April-ish of 2012, so be on the lookout around then for those photos.

The Proposal

(Who doesn’t love that movie?)

By the time Mike proposed I was, admittedly, “insufferable”.  I was a regular poster on a popular wedding site in the “Waiting” boards. I was planning The Many Weddings of Jill. I was talking about all of this all the time, with the occasional “So, when are you going to propose?”.  It must have been extremely annoying.

Little did I know he would propose so soon! And that the soon proposal was actually the original plan, not the “I will propose anytime between 1 day from now and 3 years from now” plan, or the “within the next year” plan.  I didn’t think it would be so soon because I didn’t think he could afford a ring yet, or that he was even ready to propose. Plus, he was saving for a new TV (or so I thought).

If only I had patience (something I seriously lack) I could be exploring all of my wedding options now! Hindsight is 20/20, right?  I would like to point out that I was not the only one- practically every time I talked to my mom she would say “so when are you guys getting married?”, lol.

The day he proposed was just a normal Saturday, except that we had spent the Wed, Thurs and Fri before it together because of Thanksgiving.  That night we were going to eat at a local restaurant, FoodE, because, well, I was thinking about using them as a caterer. But also, I wanted to try it because I hadn’t yet. In the early afternoon, Mike said something like “I need to go out for a bit…”.  He said he had a payment to make. I was excited! I figured it was just a payment, not the final payment, because that’s what he was implying.

Later, after he returned home, I decided I wanted to paint my finger nails before dinner, “just in case.” (just in case I needed pretty nails to go with pretty new bling, that is).  I asked him, “is this a waste of time?” and he said “you know what I did earlier, do what you have to do” which he claims didn’t mean anything, but I took it to mean “yes, paint your nails.”

On the short drive to downtown F’burg, he mentioned how after dinner maybe we could go to Hurkamp park to see what was happening there. He claimed there was some Santa event for dogs (that sounds weird, right?) and that he knew someone who was going. So right away I was like “won’t it be dark? That doesn’t make sense” but then I thought, I wonder if this is a ruse to get me to walk around downtown? So I dropped it.

We arrived at FoodE only to see that they were closed for the holiday until Tuesday. Kind of a bummer, but then I remembered that I also wanted to try Poppy Hill Tuscan Kitchen, so we headed that way.  We had a very lovely dinner there, local folks should definitely try it!

Then we headed to Hurkamp park, and I was getting excited!  But as we approached we could see that nothing was happening there, and we left. We were walking back to the car and I was bummed! I was talking myself into being OK with it because after all, it was only November, and he had said it would be within a year, and that left many more months for a proposal. Why couldn’t I just be patient?!

As we approached the car, I was pulling out my keys (the bum made me drive! Haha, no his car was sick so I understood). Then he said “hey, I lied earlier” and was fumbling around in his pocket. I was all “lied about what?” then he dropped to one knee, opened the little ring box, and very simply asked “Will you marry me?”

I freaked out INSTANTLY.  I had this huge freaking smile on my face and my hands went to my face in joy and surprise and I probably half-yelled “YES!”. So I grabbed the box from him and was staring at the beautiful ring. Mike said, “well, put it on!” so I did. Oh man, was it gorgeous!

This is the pic I took right there outside of the car

and later sent to people.

My sister Cara took this pic of us when we

stopped by their house later in the evening.

Cara also took this one- I love it because my ring is sparkly,

and so are my shoes! (I was wearing them to class up my

outfit for the night) (I think now they will be my good luck shoes)

He designed the ring at Gemstone Creations, downtown. In the picture below, the side diamond on the left belonged to Mike’s great-grandmother. It’s my favorite part about the ring! I also love how wonderfully sparkly it is!

Doggy Daycare

*Not wedding related*

I love my baby Ace. Mike does too. He is our puppy child (Mike will probably shoot me when he sees I have referred to Ace as such).  We love him so much, we take him to daycare once a week. It is pricey, but it is his favorite thing. Just driving up to Pup 'n Iron he is sooo excited and wants to go inside ASAP.  Then for a few days afterwards all he wants to do is sleep, because he is so worn out from playing with all of his friends!

He even sleeps through dinner, which is unheard of (if he is out with us when we eat he usually stares at us intently hoping we will share).  Not on daycare night though, he is usually out like a light!

Isn't he adorable? How could anyone NOT love him?