The heart of it

By far, the most important part of the ceremony (in my opinion) is the vows.  Not the dress, not the perfect picture, not the single tear that falls from your beloved's eye as he realizes that you're walking towards a future... with him.  It's the promises that you make to one another.

I have never wished to say the traditional "till death do us part" vows.  We chose a Celebrant who is writing a custom ceremony for us.  We feel so lucky that on this day, we will hear words that were written specifically for us, and we will speak words of love to each other that have never been spoken to another.

However, the act of writing your own vows exerts enormous pressure on the author.  How do you sum up a love?  How do you put into words how much this moment means to you?  How do you thoroughly express the promises that you intend to keep from that day until the end?

The path I'm choosing to walk is to list out the promises that I plan to keep.  Then elaborate and make them ridiculously long winded.  Like 5-12 pages long.  If you saw the Celebrant questionnaire I had to fill out (all 10 pages of it) you would understand that it's not only a possibility, it's a likelihood.  After that, I'm hoping that I will have a brilliant moment of clarity in which all of those words can be boiled down to 2-4 minutes of heart-wrenching, soul-warming, heart-grew-three-sizes-that-day in Whooville brilliance.

Here's hoping that particular venture is a wild success.

A hint of Wildflowers

Wednesday night, Emily and I stepped out of our comfort zones to try something entirely new.  There had been a lot of discussions about wedding flowers, and it really annoys me how expensive they are.  Lo and behold, my mom sees an article about a floral shop about an hour away that teaches DIY bridal flower courses, and offers to sell you the flowers at a super-low rate.  SCORE!  Our flowers are simple, and it burned my biscuits that these florists wanted $150+ for a bridal bouquet.  Shoot.

So for $90 each, Emily and I went and spent 3 hours learning the fine art of wedding flower arrangements.  At the end of the night, we had made centerpieces and bridal bouquets.  We also learned how to professionally process flowers, so that they last much longer.

Finished bouquet

Completed centerpieces.

In all reality, the flower arrangements we created in class were beautiful, but not for my wedding.  We learned some fantastic techniques, like how to grid an arrangement, but we didn't work with a lot of materials that I had hoped to use in my own arrangements.  When I explained the look we are going for in my wedding, I told her I wanted Daisies, and a picnic type arrangement.  She told me that would be really hard, and that the end product would be a wildflower-type bouquet.

Which made me think of this fantastic YouTube video:

I love the wildflower look.  I think it's super fitting with the theme of my wedding.  And if it makes more work for Emily and I, so be it.  Nothing about my wedding thus far has been about taking "the easy road".  This is a wedding of details, and I love that.  So basically, I'm the dude yelling "Wildflower" at his dinner.  And I'm not sorry.

What were your wedding flowers like?

New and Blue

I'm slowly falling in love with the tradition of "something old, new, borrowed, and blue".  Traditions aren't necessarily something that is important to me, especially superstitious traditions, but for whatever reason, I like this one.

While my bridal party was in town last weekend, we went on a mission to find shoes and jewelry for the Bridesmaids.  Well, beads for the jewelry, since my mom is making custom jewelry for all of the girls.  But what we're really talking about today is the shoes.  We decided to hit up Off Broadway Shoes, on the recommendation of the best Maid of Honor there ever was.

Our main goal was to find shoes for the bridesmaids so that we could take accurate dress fitting measurements over the weekend as well.  Apparently, shoes are incredibly important to tea length dress fittings.  We were successful.  So successful, in fact, that 6 different WOMEN agreed upon the perfection of one pair of shoes.  Can you believe that math?  I couldn't, especially since it's pretty much the only thing we all agreed upon for the whole weekend.  Here are the winners:

They are beyond perfection.  The cloth part is actually a mesh with the flowers embroidered in.  And they are romantic and subtle, everything that a bridesmaid's outfit should be (in my opinion.  No magenta up in here!).

There was a secondary goal that day too:  Find this bride to be some shoes for her special day!  I knew I wanted something not too tall, colored, and more delicate.  The skirt of my dress is going to be a very full tea length, and I wanted something sweet peeking out underneath. 

I love that they're shiny.  I love that they're sling-backs.  Ammon loves that they're blue.  We both love that the heel isn't too terribly high.  In short, they're practically pefect in every way.

Note to self:  get some color prior to the wedding day.

We also found some adorable shoes for me to wear for the reception, seeing as there is no way I'm wearing heels for 5 hours.  But they're going to stay a secret for now, since I forgot to take a picture, and I'm too lazy to pull them out for a blog post.  Secret shoes are fun, right???

So those are the wedding shoes!  We love them, I hope you do too.

Dressing it up

I really am not very great at giving you all updates about wedding planning.  Mostly because so few things are set in stone, and I feel like things should be set n stone before I tell anyone.  But there is progress, and there is stuff that's set in stone.

Like our photographer.  We have one.  She is amazing.  Also, I've known her for 10 years, which is fantastic.  Check her out on her facebook page.  And if you live in the area and need pictures, give her a shout!

Next up, wedding dress.  We have a pattern.  We have fabric (you don't get to see it just yet... sorry).  And now we're officially working on building it.  Like the field of dreams.  I posted some pictures of the first stage on instagram for your viewing pleasure (follow me, @RadiantKristen to stay super-connected).  But I figure you don't mind a double-dose, right?

Because this dress is such a large undertaking, and so important, I'm not starting right away with the fabric for the dress.  Instead, I'm constructing a "muslin" (basically a trial run) of the dress to verify and tweak the fit.  Based on the fittings of the muslin, I'll then sew the dress.  The hope is that when you do this, you have a better overall fit, and a more professional look to the dress.  It's new to me, and I'm just hoping that I get it right!

I plan on documenting the dress construction step by painful step here.  It promises to be entertaining.  Last night, I cut out every piece of the pattern, pressed them with my iron, put away the pieces I don't need for my dress, and pressed the bed sheet that I will be using to make my muslin.  Yup, you read correctly.  I use bed sheets for my muslin material, because you can get sheets for cheap at the thrift store.  Winning.

Lastly, I do have bridesmaid's fabric picked out!!!!  But I haven't taken pictures yet.  It's adorable, and I'm really happy with my choices.

Anyway, I hope you all are having a great day!  Also, if you're the crafty sort, I would love to hear what craft projects you are working on now =)

We're making progress

I really suck at updating this space.  I do.  I think I just get anxious and frustrated with wedding planning when I open up the blogger browser and scratch my head about what to write here.  I do have several guest posts I need to throw up here, and I don't know why that has not happened yet.  Very soon, I promise!  But today, you are stuck with me.

We are almost finished with all of the big decisions to make wedding wise.  If you look at the list of major things to consider, it appears we're doing well.

1) Venue
2) Event Rentals
3) Catering
4) Wedding dress (1/3 done... pattern picked out, need fabric and to get it made!)
5) Photographer
6) Officiant (1/2 way there
7) DJ (good lead on it)
8) Bridal party attire (everything hinges on the fabric for the bridesmaid's dresses, which has not yet been selected.  Working on it)
9) Flowers
10) Decor... this will never be 100% done, I am sure
11) Cake situation (1/24 of the way there?  Lots to do)

Yesterday and today are super-duper get stuff done for the wedding kind of days.  Yesterday, we signed the contract with our photographer!!!!!!!!!!!!  She happens to be someone I have known since I was 17, and I could not be more pleased.  I think it's important to have people you know, like, and trust doing important things like feeding your guests, being your personal paparazzi, etc.  So booking people I know and like is a must for us.

Today we have a consultation for the wedding flowers, and we are also hopefully going to go see a high-end apparel fabric shop about the fabric for all of the dresses.  It promises to be an exciting day, if you like planning nuptials.  I don't.  So really, it's just a way for me to knock out as many things as I can in one swift kick.

Let's cross our fingers that after today, the magic fabric will be found, and we can get on to all of the crap we haven't been able to do yet.  Wish me luck!