Bead Flora and Jewels

While perusing posts on Brenda's Blog, I came across Bead Flora and Jewels by Fen Li.  This shop had the perfect flower to wear in my hair for the wedding!  I'd  been searching all over the place, and I even posted an Etsy Alchemy request, but I could never quite find what I was looking for.  Fen Li had created a gardenia out of velvet with a green stone in the center and green and blue feathers accenting the back - all attached to an alligator clip.  Her work is the most creative that I have seen in a long time, and I had never before seen flowers intricately made out of beads.  She even included a little beaded flower hair tie with my order, as a thank you for reading Brenda's Blog!

Extra little gift...

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Apparently I'm an inspiration...

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because my friend Erin started a blog and mentioned me in her very first post!  We've been helping each other through wedding planning bliss and wedding planning hell, and I seriously think I would have gone insane if I didn't have her to bounce ideas off of and vent to.  Even though we have some very similar tastes in style and aesthetic elements, Erin's wedding is very different from mine.  Ryan and I are having our ceremony up in the Adirondacks, Erin and Mike are getting married downstate.  Erin and Mike are also catering to the desires (demands) of their parents, while Ryan and I are independent - as we should be, since we've been living together for the last seven years, and married for the last four.

With that said, allow me to introduce the newest wedding blog on my bookmark list...

Wedding Obsessed!

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Save the Date

A short one today.  I stumbled upon a printing company that had Save the Date cards to match our theme.  They were so cute that we both fell in love with them right away.  To make it even better, they are printed on 100% recycled paper and come with envelopes.  When I made a user account, they sent me an email right away for 20% off my next purchase, which I was able to use on this order of cards because I hadn't finished completing the order yet!  You can find the cards at VistaPrint.  (That link is a friends reward link, so you will get extra savings if you click it.)

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Clothes Shopping

Since we are already married, but still want to have all of the things we missed out on when we eloped, we are going to have a photo shoot in October.  Ordinarily this would be called an engagement session, but since we don't like to do things the way the rest of the world does (and we aren't engaged) we are going to call it an "I Love You" shoot.  Our plan with our amazing photographer - Tiffany Wayne - is to shoot in an apple orchard (and doesn't everyone deserve new clothes when they are going to have professional photos taken?), so yesterday Ryan and I went clothes shopping!  I went in with a bunch of ideas for specific items, but when I actually looked at them in the stores, we didn't like them and we had to decide on something different.  I think we came up with some awesome choices that fit our personalities well!  Tiffany suggested I use shoots posted on the Green Wedding Shoes blog to get inspiration, and I chose these as my favorites:

A Fun Camping Engagement Session
A Pillow Fight in a Field of Yellow Flowers
A Romantic Engagement Session with a Piano – in a Field

A Lovely Engagement Session with a Blanket

We started off wanting to really dress up, but after thinking about it for awhile, we decided that our shoot might actually turn out better if we are wearing clothes that we are completely comfortable in - so we bought these:

Who wears a dress to go apple picking anyway?

PS:  I bought the same shoes in grey felt too, and I will actually wear those unless it is muddy.

Charlotte Russe

Old Navy 

DSW

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An Hour at Michael's

I went to Michael's craft store today to browse and get some ideas for the wedding.  My goals were:
1. Scope out the DIY invitation kits
2. See what kind of materials they had for making centerpieces
It's important that I make as many things for the wedding as I can, since we are on a budget, but I also want everything to look nice and fit with our theme.

I started with the invitations.  There weren't as many as I had hoped for, but there were enough for me to get some ideas.  Before going to the store I had looked online to see what I might like, and I set my eye on a bunch of eco-friendly materials they had.  It's too bad that I looked online a few weeks ago and didn't check again before going to the store today, because Michael's no longer carries these products.  Bummer!  I thought it would be perfect to have eco-friendly paper since we are having an Adirondack theme to our wedding and giving tree seedlings as gifts.  I may just have to look elsewhere to find these.  I did find three invitation kits that I thought were interesting, though... (and I apologize for the poor photo quality - I took them with my phone).

I've listed them here in the order that we like them.  The fern invitation on the right is good, but we aren't sure about the mint colored ribbon.  The one in the middle is a nice brown (even though it looks black here), but it's a little too dull - we'd like more color.  The green and brown one on the left seems really great and has both of our wedding colors, but it doesn't really seem to express our theme.  We'll have to ask ourselves a couple questions before making our decision: 

1. Are we dedicated to eco-friendly paper?

2. Are we willing to trade out our theme to have the right colors at a price we can afford?

The next task on my list was to check out centerpiece materials.  We've decided that we really want to make living terrariums, and I am using these ones I found on the Indie Bliss blog for inspiration.  This part was actually more fun for me, since I'm the kind of girl that would much rather play with dirt than frilly ribbons.

I found Ball Jars which I think would be really cool, and were sort of reminiscent of something I might find in a mountain lodge filled with fruit or something yummy.  I also found these square containers which I didn't like as much as the Ball Jars, but would also work.

Michael's also has a relatively large selection of river rocks and moss - although I don't think moss bought in a bag is really alive any more.  I will have to look into getting this from outside or a garden store.

I saved the most fun part for last - looking for the interesting detail pieces to make the terrariums awesome!  Our first thoughts were to create miniature camping scenes (out of doll house pieces), or put small Adirondack chairs, but we are having a very difficult time finding those things.  Our next option is to include little woodland animals - which Michael's actually had quite a few of!

First I found little feathery birds (although I'm not sure the feathers will work in the moist terrarium)...

Next I went to the kids' section where I found animals in tubes, aptly named Toob Animals, but they didn't really have the specific kind of animals I was looking for and they were also on clearance sale...

And my favorite was the little plastic moose and deer figurines, which remind me of toys I might have actually played with as a kid (in the dirt)...

I'm not sure that I will actually buy anything that I found at Michael's today, but all in all I found my trip to be very productive.  I had a lot of vague ideas tumbling around in my head and browsing enabled me to obtain a visual grasp on what I it is that I would like my end products to look like.  After seeing all this stuff I can't wait to get started!

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Wedding Shoes: Dessy Ballet Flats

My shoes for the wedding arrived!  I got it in my head that I had to have green shoes for the wedding, but I had no idea how hard they would be to find!  I searched in a ton of stores and online and finally my friend found these: Wedding Ballet Flats by The Dessy Group.  I was a little nervous to buy shoes online, because I couldn't actually see the color or try them on, but for the price of these flats I decided it couldn't hurt to just buy them and see.  If they weren't right for the wedding I could always just wear them to work.  Thankfully they are just about perfect!

They fit great and are true to size; the outside is satin and the inside is soft leather with a little padding at the heel (nice for a day that I will be standing a lot), and a rubber sole with a little bit of tread (but not much).  They have a scrunchy little elastic at the back, which I thought I wasn't going to like, but actually helps the shoes to stay on my feet more securely.  The elastic stretches enough when I wear them that it isn't noticeable.

I purchased the shoes in "clover" and the only thing I have to say negative is that the color is not exactly the same as it appears on the website and is actually a duller green - which I don't really care about because I still think the color is pretty, but it should be noted.  The color in the little box I had to click in order to select "clover" is actually truer to the actual color of the shoes than the photograph depicts.  Dessy offers color and fabric swatches, but they cost half the price of the shoes, so I didn't feel it was worth it.

I wish I didn't have to wait a year to wear them, but I will get use out of them after the wedding, so I have that to look forward to at least!

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I never win anything!

I am so psyched that I won a copy of The Bubbly Bride: Your Ultimate Wedding Cocktail Guide by Natalie Bovis-Nelsen from a giveaway hosted by the Bridal Bubbly blog!

I love this blog because it is written by wedding planners who know what they are doing, and they post truly interesting and inspiring content almost daily.  Check it out if you get some time!

Ryan and I can't wait to read this book!  We've been discussing the idea of possibly having a signature drink at our reception, and I think this book might just be the answer we are looking for.  We are especially looking for a special sort of martini blend - to remind of us of a martini bar we used to go to all the time (Cecelia's in Buffalo, NY).  I think it will be really useful for entertaining guests at our home in the future, as well!

check it out on Amazon.com

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