Category Archives: wedding

I’m back! And sick as a dog.

November 2, 2013 admin 1 Comment

It has been a full month since I last visited my little web home, and I’ve missed it here. Our wedding was wonderful. The whole weekend was full of fun and so much love. It was like a happiness parade.

Sean and Laura on the wedding day. — Photo courtesy of Nicole Lewon

Then we went to Hawaii for two full weeks. Amazing. We did so much, but still had time to feel relaxed and to loaf around on the beach. We went for a helicopter ride, we went kayaking, we hiked the Na Pali coast and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We went horseback riding in the Waipio Valley. We took a snorkeling cruise. We got really tan. It was a really wonderful vacation, and yes, we’re still pulling our photos together to share.

Then we came back and I was ready to get to work. I was excited to get to work! And I immediately contracted the plague. Alright, it’s not the plague. At first I thought it was just a cold, but now a nurse thinks it might be strep, so I’m going for a strep screening today.

At least I have the perfect remedy for illness:

I especially love this honey for my hot toddies. It was a gift from my Aunt Cathie, and I think it has extra healing properties, with the ginger and the bee pollen. And it’s tasty.

I’m about to head to the doctor’s office. Then I think I will spend the rest of the day writing because, my friends, it’s NaNoWriMo.

Oh, and then I’m supposed to fly to Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday to give a presentation at LITA Forum. One day, I will actually make it through a full week at work.

wedding

Let the ride begin

October 2, 2013 admin

The families are starting to arrive. The festivities are getting underway. At this point, all we can do is let go, and have faith that all the planning we’ve done will let this machine move forward without a hitch.

In three days we’ll be married. And then we’ll be flying off to Hawaii for two much-needed weeks of relaxation and sunshine. It feels so odd, to have put so much time and energy into preparing for this event and to have it suddenly here.

Woohoo! We’re getting married!

fall, wedding

In the thick of it

September 23, 2013 admin

Sitting here to write this, I feel like I’m stepping into the eye of the storm. It’s a small moment of stillness in what has otherwise been a month of frenetic energy. Time is passing so unbelievably quickly: Our wedding is in less than two weeks! I’ve already been at my new job for a month! How the heck is it September 23rd already?

Right now the storm consists of a million tiny details, swirling around constantly in the back of my mind. I have lists floating around on every scrap of paper I can find, schedules and notes and calculations about how much wine we should buy and who still hasn’t RSVP’d and what photos we want to be sure are taken by the photographers. There are a few errands still to run, a few crafts still to finish, but despite the constant feeling of mild panic, everything is under control. Everything will get done. And I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have so many people contributing their time and energy and creativity.

The biggest struggle for me right now is the 2+ hours I’m spending in the car, commuting to and from work everyday. And the things that are being sacrificed are things I HATE to sacrifice: Yoga and exercise. Having the time to cook lovely meals. Sewing. I feel like I get home from work, eat dinner, and the next thing I know it’s time for bed.

The wedding will be here before we know it, and it will be awesome. The two weeks we’re spending in Hawaii afterwards will be much needed (and I feel like we might be looking forward to that more than the wedding itself, at this point). And then we’ll be back, and I’m sure a whole new storm of activities and projects will begin.

Yup, it’s a storm. But it’s a pretty great storm, and it will all be so, so worth it.

sewing, summer, wedding

These Days

August 2, 2013 admin

In my mind summer is a time for relaxing in the sunshine, preferably in a hammock, eyes half-closed against the bright summer sky, and perhaps a beer somewhere close at hand. In my mind time slows down in the summer. But in truth, summer (at least this summer) is buzzing, flitting from here to there, all energy and full schedules. I’m trying to embrace this summer reality, but right now, all I want is that hammock.

My time at CDL is coming to a close, which means I’m trying to wrap things up, train our programmers to be analysts, and make sure everything I leave behind is organized and decipherable by someone new. It also means there are going away lunches and parties planned, and that, sadly, short-timer syndrome just might be making my brain function on a fuzzier plane. Maybe.

Wedding preparations are in full gear. Invitations went out yesterday! So exciting!

We got our first wedding/shower present in the mail yesterday, too, and I was surprised by how excited it made me. All along, I’ve felt sooo weird about registering for gifts, about this bizarre cultural expectation that weddings require gifts, about allowing people to plan me showers because it just felt like I was greedily asking for more gifts. I don’t know, it made me feel awkward. Nevertheless, it was exciting to open a wedding gift with Sean yesterday. It made me feel like this is all HAPPENING.

Also making me feel like this is happening: Sean and I decided to open a joint bank account sooner than we were planning. It just made sense, since I’ll be starting a new job and therefore having to fill out new direct deposit paperwork. I thought, why not just do this once? We sent off the account paperwork yesterday. Weird. Exciting! Marriage!

Speaking of marriage (still): Sean’s sister Stephanie and her partner Eddie got married last weekend. We went to Beaver Creek in Colorado for the wedding, and spent four wonderful days in the mountains, sitting by the pool, doing outdoor yoga (me), hiking (Sean), and eating delicious food. It was pretty special and Steph and Eddie’s wedding was beautiful!

I had high hopes that I would finish sewing a dress for Steph’s wedding, but my sewing machine has been acting up, and this dress is proving way more time consuming than I expected. So it didn’t get finished (boo). This is the state it was in when we left last Thursday:

Not quite ready to wear. I’m hoping to finish it in time for another wedding we’re going to NEXT weekend, but honestly? Looking doubtful. Sad face. Couture sewing is not for the faint of heart, and right now, I’m feeling a little faint of heart.

We’re going camping this weekend (I told you things are busy!), and I’m hoping that I manage to find some quiet, relaxing, hammock-like time out there in the woods. Because this pace doesn’t look like it’s going to be slowing anytime soon.

spring, wedding

The Dress

April 3, 2013 admin

My wedding dress arrived yesterday. It came WAY earlier than I was expecting it, and when I pulled it out of the box, this whole wedding planning adventure jumped to another level of real-ness.

I’m not going to show any pictures of the dress. Sorry folks, but I think Sean occasionally reads this blog, and he’s already said he doesn’t want to see it. I will assure you that it’s a beauty. I tried it on yesterday, and it fits perfectly. I will admit, I stared at myself in the mirror for a weirdly long period of time. I’ve never worn such a beautiful dress.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to wait until October to wear this thing!

crafting, wedding

Rustic but Elegant Tea light Holders

March 27, 2013 admin

My aesthetic is pretty obvious to anyone who has looked at my Pinterest boards. Or my house. Or my wardrobe. I like things that are classic and elegant, with just a touch of, I don’t know, country? Rustic? Vintage? Whatever you want to call it, I like the element that brings elegant back from formal.

I few months ago, I see these gold and glass candleholders in Martha Stewart Weddings. I have a fondness for shiny things, and I immediately thought that, with a little metallic glass paint, these would be really easy to make. I also have a fondness for Mason jars and other canning jars. I thought that would add just the right amount of rustic to keep these candleholders playful and relaxed. And thus, my first wedding craft idea was born.

I made some prototypes a few weeks ago. They do look nicer with tea lights burning in them, I will admit. (So why didn’t I take pictures when the candles were lit? I don’t know.) They’re still not perfect. These were with two coats of paint, and I did one jar with a regular paint brush and one with a foam brush. I don’t want to see brush strokes, but it’s possible that the only way to get there is with spray paint. And that is a kind of mess I have no space to be working with. I also think the paint should stretch further up the sides of the jars.

So, I plan to do prototype round two soon, before diving in and painting all the jars. I’m aiming to have at least 60 of these suckers, so I can group them on tables at the reception. I also have to buy some long-burning tea lights, because the guys I have went out after about an hour. No good, my friend.

My florist kind of balked when I mentioned using mason jars, but what do you think? I like the combination of sparkly and elegant with, well, rustic. I think I mentioned I’m into that? I also love that this is a really easy, inexpensive, and fast craft project, AND that the glass paint is dishwasher safe, AND that there will be enough that people can take one or two if they like them. Also, painting on glass is fun.

Do you like them? Do you think they look weird? Do you want to see pictures of round two prototypes?

crafting, goals, wedding

A Whole Lotta Love Stamps

March 19, 2013 admin

After agonizing about invitations for way to long, it feels really good to have just made a decision already. I decided to use stationery that we will print and assemble ourselves. Well, the folks at FedEx Office will print them, and I’ll cut the cards out, procure envelopes, print labels, and get everything ready to send. The first round, our Save the Date cards, are done and ready to go in the mail tomorrow.

I ordered a custom stamp for our return address, and decided to make things easy by printing mailing labels. Writing them all out by hand sounded like a nightmare, and hiring a calligrapher just isn’t a huge priority for me. Besides, these are only save the date cards. I don’t think we need to get too crazy.

I feel like, with this project finished, the beginning of the small-detail-oriented work begins. I do have a lot of crafty projects in mind, and I suspect I’m going to overwhelm myself. I’ve been making a mental list of priorities, so when it comes time to let things go, I’m prepared to do so.

One project that is a high priority is making our flower girl’s dress. I bought some lovely fabric in Santa Cruz last weekend that will be perfect.

This is the dress I’m planning to make, with the scalloped hem and the bow.

The hem band and bow will be red, and the body of the dress that gorgeous floral print. She’ll be freakin’ adorable.

I’ve done a few prototypes of some of the craft projects I have in mind, and over the next week I’ll be making myself a detailed timeline of when I should be working on these things. Because that’s the kind of planning and organizing freak that I am.

I am still making too many plans, and taking on too many projects, and giving myself too many goals. I think I’m starting to accept that this is just part of how I operate. Generally, I like having a lot going on, but it can be hard to have all those fun and exciting projects happening without putting pressure on myself to do all the things, and to do them perfectly. This is a perpetual struggle, and I suspect that the next six months of wedding planning won’t be the time when I finally win that particular personal battle.

At least this is all still fun for now! No, I didn’t write every day in March. No, I haven’t sewn a new garment or project every week this year. But I’m still doing more than I did before, and that counts for something.

And once those save the date cards are in the mail, and I can check one more thing off my To Do list, I’ll be able to give myself a pat on the back and move on to the next thing.

goals, wedding

Decisions Made

March 12, 2013 admin

Once I wrote my last post, I felt a tiny bit of the weight of that decision lift off me. Writing something down always helps me put it into perspective, and I realized that in the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a huge decision. That made it SO much easier to just make it already.

We decided to go with printable invitations, from e.m. papers. These were some of the first invitations I looked at, and it’s always kind of satisfying to come back, in the final decision, to something I liked at the beginning of the process. Yesterday I had the save the dates printed, cut them, and I stuffed them into envelopes. Feels like progress!

Which is good, because I feel like progress in other areas of my life has been slow going lately. You can probably tell that I haven’t been writing every day as I had hoped to do this month, and it’s hard not to feel frustrated by that. I’ve been busy, and the jury trial I’m currently serving on has thrown my regular routine all out of whack.

It feels good to have accomplished this one small goal. I think that’s what I need to focus on for awhile: one small goal a day, rather than big, sweeping goals for a month, or a year. Sometimes you have to think small to get big things done, right?

wedding

Decisions, Decision

March 7, 2013 admin 1 Comment

Who would have thought that the most challenging decision I would be faced with (at least so far) in this whole wedding planning process would be deciding on the invitations? And by invitations, I mean all the stationery, from save the dates to thank you cards.

Sean and I are both interested design and typography. As such, both of us (or maybe it’s just me?) want to find stationery that we think is beautiful, and that suits and reflects the kind of party we’re throwing. We want something unique, in just the right colors and with just the right wording and just the right fonts. Unfortunately, neither of us are designers. I wish I could design my own darn invitations, but I know it would just end up being a frustrating and disappointing project. This is not something I know how to do. Bake my own wedding party cookies? Yes, no problem. Design an invitation? Um, no.

I keep telling myself over and over, “How important are the invitations, anyway? Is anyone even going to remember them?” But I do think the stationery you send out sets the stage, and lets people know what to expect at your wedding. So…I have been spending months poring over websites like Wedding Paper Divas and Minted, checking out designers on Etsy, and playing around with colors and fonts. Every time I think I’ve made a decision, I see something else that I like more.

The thing is, these days, there are so many fabulous design options! And yet…there isn’t one that I have felt is just right for us yet.

It’s becoming a little bit frustrating, and lately I’ve been asking myself at what point does one just make a decision and let it go? How do you promise yourself that you won’t second guess the decision that you’ve made? I’m a big second guesser in general (terrible, I know), and I don’t want to go through this whole process doubting all of these choices that are, honestly, so freaking minor. Every other decision so far I feel good about. I don’t know why this tiny little detail is proving so onerous.

Have you been through this before? Did you obsess over invitations? Did you obsess over other seemingly unimportant details? How did you just force yourself to make a decision already? Advice much appreciated.