"Bridesmaid" Dresses

Well, this is the dress that we've chosen for the girls to wear. I really, really like it. I know they say that Black isn't an appropriate color to wear in weddings, but oh well. We all like this dress, and it's about what I want anyway right?!?!

The dresses below are dresses that I want to get for the Cruise ~ Monday night is the Bachelor/Bachelorette party, Tuesday night is the Formal/Captian's Dinner!!

I can't wait until this Cruise, I can't even begin to tell you all!!!

I'm actually getting things done and checked off my list slowly but surely.

I am confident that the Ceremony part is nearly all taken care of with the exception of finishing up the ceremony wording along with my vows... which by the way is so not fair!

Brian is the one who wants to write our own vow's, not me!!

And I also have to pick out the ceremony music for his niece! She will be playing the flute

as the bridal party is "walking down the aisle". Woo Hoo!

I also need to get my dress altered, but I am trying to wait until at least February.... hopefully I'll lose a little more weight by then ~ although I won't be getting any taller, so we'll definitely have to hem it for sure!

More to share!!

So, I tried to create my Photo Share Cards and Wedding Day Timeline. Clearly I failed. Not that they didn't look good because they did. They just didn't look good enough for me. I requested the help from a fellow DW Knottie and I am so very thankful to her for doing these for me. :) Here is what they look like ~ Please keep in mind that for some reason, the color is off. Where it's "greenish" it's actually a Caribbean Blue color and the "pinkish/purple" is actually a Fushia color.

And here's a picture of the Wedding Day Timeline. Again, the color's are off here as well.

I am extremely pleased at how these turned out!

These will both be put in the Welcome Bags for our guests that are cruising with us. And additional PhotoShare Cards will be placed at various tables throughout both of the At Home Receptions.

I seem to have finally grasp control on this wedding stuff. I'd been feeling a bit overwhelmed the past couple of weeks, actually months, but I think I've got it dialed in. Slowly but surely everything is falling into place. With the Holidays coming up really quick, I know we'll lose some days, if not weeks of planning ~ or at least that's what I'm anticipating. We shall see.

I'm debating whether I want to tackle the job of DIY'ing a Monogrammed Aisle Runner. Do I really need one of those?!? I'm not so sure that we do. But it's something I think would be fun to make. :)

Maybe a Banner instead of an Aisle Runner? Ahhh, who knows. For now I think I'm "under control" when it comes to wedding related stuff. I'm going to concentrate on the Reception stuff now..... that seems to be where the work needs to be done. Coming up with Menu's (that sounds official) when in all actuality we're having casual buffet style foods / set up at both AHR's!

I love it when a plan comes together!!!!!!!!!

T minus 198

Yes, my son likes to throw in a cheezy grin every now and then! :) I am blessed to have these two older ones as my kiddo's. My youngest one, who is not pictured here, will be 13 in a couple of weeks, and let me tell you, she's taller than me also. What is wrong with this ~ as your children get older, they surpass you in growth? Hmmmm

Well, today marks the 198 days left mark. I'm so excited, however I am slowyly but surely getting to feel stressed out too. I have a list of "little" things that need to get done, but since they're "little" I tell myself I can do it later... Ha! I suppose it's those 'little' things that will haunt me in the end, so I better get my butt in gear and do what I need to do!! At this point, I think the most important thing for me to do is to find the ceremony song(s) and get that list to Brian's niece who is going to be playing her flute for the ceremony!!! She needs time to practice, so you would think it'd be so easy to pick a song or two and viola ~ done ~ but it simply doesn't work that way! Geeze!!!

So, I'm going to let my fingers do the walking on this information superhighway that we call the Internet, and I'm going to find a couple of songs that I like.

Happy Monday everyone!!!

What a fun day!!

We got to go to the last home game of the San Francisco Giant's 2009 season! Woo Hoo! We had a wonderful time and it was very hot!! Unexpected for San Francisco but truly welcoming!!! And as a wonderful surprise, I finally got my ring!!!! Little did I know that mister sneaky little devil was holding out on me. He's had this ring for over three months!!! All the while, we were still "looking" for rings!

My DIY Veil

So, I decided to make my own Chapel length veil. I suppose the length doesn't really matter because I cut it to wear I wanted to to fall. And, although you can't see the details, I put little sparkly things on the bottom and sides of the veil. I just randomly put them on there and it gives it a little elegance to it. Also, I didn't put a "trim" along the edges because I wanted this look. So, I'm going to make another one with a "trim" on it to see which one I like the best. Either way, I'm glad I DIY'd this because once again, it'll mean more to me on the day I get married, knowing that I made this myself!! :)

It's DONE!!!

My Message in a Bottles are COMPLETED!! Done, finished, finneto, nothing else to do to them, zip, zero, zilch!!! Yay!! I finished these puppies up with a lable that has our monogram on it and they are all ready to be mailed out! Actually, some of them are being hand delivered only because it just makes more sense rather than mailing them to our friends and family members who we see on a daily basis. That, plus it will cost $2.60 per MIB to mail so it'll save us on some postage as well. :)

I am sooooo relieved that this DIY project is done. It was rather time consuming, but I think it's well worth all the blood, sweat and tears. Okay... so there was no blood involved, but there certainly were lots of sweat!!! I would so do these again!!! :) And, for any beach themed and/or destination wedding brides out there, I would recommend doing these.

T-Minus 206 Days

I am seriously getting a little more stressed out day by day. It's coming down to 206 days until Catalina Island, and I am no where near being close to getting things crossed of my list. 206 days will go by faster than I can even imagine!!! I'm seriously starting to panic. Here's what I have "pending" still, with regard to making a final decision...

* Bridal Party outfits ~ ladies dresses / men's shirts

* Bridal Party flowers ~ ladies bouquets / men's bouts

* Ceremony wording ~ thought I had it figured out, but realized I forgot the ring exchange portion along with the "Do you,........ I do" part. (Kinda important)

* Ceremony music ~ Brian's niece is playing the flute while we walk down the aisle, and I have no clue what song to choose.

All of the above is what is swirling around in my head at this moment, and I need to come to some sort of a decision..... and SOON. Yikes...


Not to mention the gazillion other wedding related things that need to be done. I thought this was supposed to be a breeze with it being a DW and all. :)

I did, however manage to pick up some playing cards for my Welcome Bags. They were clearanced at Michaels for $ .40!!! Score!! I got 20 packs!! I love it!!!

Yay!!! They're just about done!!!

Woo Hoo!!! My MIB invites are just about done!! I'm sooooo glad that this project is finally coming to a closure!!! It was a very time consuming project but well worth it! I could have asked for help from friends, but felt that this was something that I wanted to do myself. So it would mean so much more to both Brian and I! I'm glad I did too!

I have about 25 of them all put together and have 35 more to go!! I'm not looking forward to folding 60 boxes though... here's some that I've put together.. it's rather time consuming and a pain in the arse!!!

So, with 208 days left ~ the Knot kindly reminds me every day how many days are left ~ I think I'm on pace with my goal of getting these done and ready to be mailed by the 1st of October!

Finally working on the MIB's!!!

So, the other night, while watching Dirty Dancing, I actually filled all my MIB's with sand, seashells and the cocktail umbrellas!! Yay!! So, needless to say, my coffee table is covered in MIB's!

Today, I have printed out 25 of the 60 invites I need which still have to have the edges burned, rolled and tied with raffia and then inserted into these bottles. My goal is to have them done by middle of next week, if not sooner! :) I have the mailing boxes, but those all have to be put together as well and I'm not really looking forward to having stacks of these boxes in my living room until the bottle are ready to go! Then, I intend to have these out in the mail by the first week of October. The ones we can hand deliver, we will, or so that's what I'm assuming, but we may just put them all in the mail. That's something I still have to decide on.

Got an "almost" check done and out of the way!! I know "almosts" don't count, but I'm working on it!!!

Wedding related crisis!!!!

My PC has crashed!!! I have to now resort to the lap top...... I have been pretty good about backing up my wedding related stuff to my external hard drive, however there are some things that are stuck on my hard drive on the PC that can't get too!!!! One of them being my Boarding Pass AHR invite template!!!! ARRRRGGGHHHH. I am going to have to re-create it, which means I a going to have to download the fonts, and then spend another 4 hours creating them....YIKES.

Please wish me lots of luck people!!!!!

Picture of my Boarding Pass AHR Invites

Here's a mock up of my Boarding Pass AHR Invites. There will be three boarding passes in each. The first one says that "We're Married", the second is the actual invitation to the AHR and the third one is the RSVP. :) Yay! The only change I'm going to make to them are maybe, maybe, inserting my new wonderful monogram that a fellow DW Knottie has made for me. (there was a little typo in it, so she's fixing it for me). Tell me what you guys think!!!!! Here's a picture of the Monogram........

AHR Boarding Pass Invites!!!

So, here it is.... a picture of my AHR Boarding Pass Invites... Yes, it's a little blurry.. but that's because I scanned them. I still have to cut them out and put them together. Actually, I already did one mock up complete packet. I did the ticket jacket as well. I haven't figured out what, if anything, I'm going to print on the outside of the jackets, or how to seal them shut. Not quite sure yet. :)

Anyway, once I do one completely, I'll take a picture of it all and post it here for you all to take a look at! Yay for me!

New AHR Invites

So, I've been debating the last couple of weeks whether or not to switch up my AHR invites. Well, today, I created my Boarding Pass Invites. Woot woot! I don't have a "picture" of them yet, but I do have them in a Word Document! So, if ya want to see them before I post the photo's here, just shoot me an email and I'll be more than happy to send them to you! :)

I'm actually pretty excited about them! I know they're just a rough draft of the actual ones, so it's kind of rough around the edges, but I like them. Not too fancy or elegant, but yet not over the top casual. Yay!

T minus 235 Days

Oh yes! We're at 235 until the big day! Woot woot! I am very motivated this morning as I have joined a new on line site that will help me reach my weight loss goal! Not only does it track my weight loss, but it helps me with my nutrition ~ calorie intake, as well as fitness! I love it!

I'm going to make it a priority to work out at least 4 days a week, but my goal is 5 days. I'm taking baby steps right now, but can't wait until I break out in a full on sprint! Yay!

I purchased the additional vellum paper that I needed to print my MIB invite inserts. Once I get those all printed up, I can actually put together the actual MIB's. Brian is insisting that I have a get together with a couple of gals over here to help with it making the MIB Invites. He says it would be a fun time for us girls! I think he just wants to get out of having to do them! :)

My latest DIY project is the Photo Frame Card Box. I have the step by step instructions on how to make one, I just need to get all the material now. I went to Michaels yesterday, but didn't get any of the frames. Today I'll look at getting the hardware from Home Depot... (the L brackets, etc.)

I am really thinking about changing up on my AHR invites. At first I wanted to keep them really simple, but now I want to do something creative to keep up with the uniqueness of the MIB invites. I am leaning towards the Boarding Pass option, but not sure yet. I know they are very time consuming so am I ready for that? You would think since I'm home all day during the day I'd have time to tackle that huh? Well, we shall see!

Ohhh! Good news! Brian's niece plays the flute.. she plays it rather well. She's participated in some local orchestra's, etc. and we asked her if she'd be willing to play for our ceremony. She agreed! Wow! Now I have to find some music for her and she'll practice, practice, practice! Yay! I'm excited.

Woo hoo!

Ceremony wording CHECK!!!!

I have finally completed my ceremony wording for our officiant. I looked through tons of different ones and kinda picked and chose different wording from each and created one that I think will be perfect for us. We are incorporating the Wine and Chocolate ceremony as well as a Sand Ceremony into the wedding so it's gonna be awesome!

We also confirmed with Brian's niece, and she will be playing her flute during the ceremony!!! Yay! I'm not sure yet exactly in what aspect we will use her, I'm just grateful and honored that she will be playing in the ceremony! I was thinking maybe she could provide the music as we're walking down the aisle......not quite sure yet. That's next on my list of to do's! :)

My next DIY goal is to make a photo frame card box. I got the step by step instructions from a fellow bride to be on Project Wedding, so wish me luck! :) It requires a drill, so this could be fun! I'll have to post pictures when I'm done!

DW Fitness Challenge!!

Kinda wedding related ~ So the ladies on the DW Board have come up with a DW Fitness Challenge. We will be doing weekly challenges and have created a little Icon that the winner will be allowed to post in her Siggy on the DW Board. Here's a sneak peek:

We will be focusing on accountability and motivating more than anything! We will be tracking weight loss along with inches lost. Yay!

I can't wait for this! This is exactly what I need to get my butt in shape and to make sure I still fit into my dress!!!!

Another day!!!

I am so glad that last week is done and over with. I haven't had much time to do anything wedding related to OUR wedding, but here on out I am going to focus on accomplishing one thing a day! Whether it be just coming to a decision or actually physically creating something that will be used in the wedding at some point!

We went to a wedding this weekend, (a wedding that I coordinated). There is so much that the bride did that I would do different, and on the other side of the spectrum, I think I came away with a couple of different ideas that I will keep in the back of my mind for our wedding.

I am just under the 8 month mark, so I need to get the bigger and important things completed. Or things that will take a while to complete. I am in the process on working on my vows. Brian decided a while back that he'd like for us to write our own vows.

I have finally completed our ceremony wording and I'm pleased. I have to email it to our officiant and see what she thinks. She happens to be a friend of ours and a co-worker of Brian's so she'll definitely tell me if it's too corny! :)

Since our AHR in Minnesota will also be a celebration of Brian's 50th birthday, I want to make sure I include something special in the theme. He doesn't want to focus on the fact that it's his birthday, but he does want to celebrate it as well.

Any suggestions would be wonderful!!

Also, since I was a bad girl last month and slacked off with my work outs, I am going to be disiplined to start in September! That's right. No slacking off and I'm going to be serious about it! *keeping fingers crossed*

T minus 8 months

I know I've been slacking with regard to journaling my wedding planning. However, I must admit, I haven't been doing anything constructive. My time has been utilized by doing a whole hell of alot of nothing!!! I need to get cracking though because it's only 8 MONTHS before our wedding day! Which means it's actually less than that before we leave for our cruise!!!!!

This is what I've got to do, and soon I might add, for the ceremony still:

1) Determine whether or not we're going to have an arch. Brian is of the mind that we WILL. And if so, we need to figure out how we're going to do that. ie: do we purchase one from Michaels, carry it on board and the morning of, we put it together on the beach.

2) Assuming that we do have the arch, we're going to decide on how we're going to decorate it.

3) We need to determine how we're going to have the ceremony music played during the ceremony. Some suggested an IPOD. Sounds good, but do we hook it up to portable speakers? Does it require any electricity? How or what do we plug it into if so?

4) Chairs.... Chairs are the hum dinger!!! Do we pay the $200 to rent 20 chairs from a local vendor? That is the minimum..... 20 chairs.... $200....... $10 per chair. I can't justify spending $200 for 20 chairs when in all honesty only 8 at the most are going to be used..... AND, just for a 15 minute ceremony... on the beach..... okay... 20 minutes tops!

5) Aisle runner or not? If so, just a plain white runner? If not, how do we decorate the aisle? Flower garlands?????

THEN, we have the AHR's to think of. Thank goodness the venues for both states have been secured.

Here's the priority for the California reception (which by the way is first):

1) Food!!! I want to do heavy appetizers / finger foods and cocktails. HOWEVER, we're planning on having a 2:00 reception...... so......... will people be expecting some kind of dinner around 5 or so?????? Not if I specify on the AHR invite that it's "Cocktails and Hors 'de voure" right? Or in the alternative, just serve hors 'de voures early on, and the heavier ones later? Hmmmmm.

Yikes....... HELP!!!!!!

Holy Moly!!!

We are truly blessed with so many friends and family that support our relationship! I continued to be blown away every day by the amount of people who are booking their cabins to join us on our wedding cruise!!! Wow!!! We now have over 30 people attending (as of right now) which is way more than we even thought. We have maybe 10 more who assure us that they will be there as well, so all I can say is WOW!!!

I haven't really been doing to much wedding related, but will definitely get back in the groove of things in the next couple of days or so. I just needed to take a little breather ~ not to mention we went on vacation last week. Had an awesome time by the way!

Here's a picture of my fabulous honey with a bag full of sand from Stinson Beach. Yes, this sand will be used in our Message in a Bottle invites! :)



He's such a good sport in all of this! I couldn't ask for a better person to be my best friend!!!

I'll be posting a list of all my "to do's" that I have left. It'll help me prioritize what I want versus what I need. :)

NOT WEDDING RELATED

This entry is about me, about my life, and about what I'm just now learning about my life. It is nothing wedding related whatsoever, but this is something I have to blog.

As far as life is concerned, mine is good. Not WONDERFUL, not AMAZING, but just GOOD. I am so happy to have found a wonderful, loving, caring and understanding best friend to share my life with, and in that aspect, I am ESTATIC. Other things really bother me though. My relationship with my sister for one. I just don't understand her. I mean she is who she is and I've accepted that, but she's supposed to be my sister. We don't have that sisterly bond at all. She's done so much stuff, and I mean BAD stuff to me in our lives that I just can't have her in my life anymore. I just absolutely can't. It is soooooooo sad and heartbreakig that I have to deal with it in that manner, but I've got to. I can't continue to let her bring me down. I don't think I can honestly and truly "forgive" her for our mom's passing away (long story) but ultimately, if she would have done what she needed to to, then I firmly believe that mom would have still been alive. I've not forgiven her for the stunt she pulled which caused me to miss my own mother's furneral. That, I will NEVER forgive her for. But, everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone kept telling me that it was time to get over it... "she's your sister" they said.. "she's all you have left"... I have my dad.. I have my brother.. I have my children.. I have my friends. So, no, she is not all I have left.

I am just now learning at the ripe old age of 41, that I have BOUNDRIES. I am lucky enough in my life to have a wonderful and dear friend (who've I was once extremely close with but since she moved out of state, over the years we kinda just ended up continuing to stay in touch every once in a great while). She knew me pretty darn good, probably the best anyone ever has. She tried to teach me that I have the right to say "no" to people. We worked so hard for me to be a strong person for myslef and to stop being so giving to others. That is was okay to say no. You see, I have a hard time letting people down.... I have a hard time saying no to them. This friend, whom I just spoke to yesterday after a long period of time not having contact with her, told me in our conversation... "Michele, you are such a loving and giving person. You always give with 100% of your heart, but you never think about your own feelings."

I have been reading the book "Boundries" and I am learning what they mean from a life's perspective. What an eye opener. I am still reading and still learning, but let me tell you, I am going to be a better person when I'm done! I'm learning that I can't associate with the people who have a negative impact on my life. Unfortunately in my case, one of those people is my sister. I love her dearly, but I can not and will not continue to let her use me, abuse me emotionally, or put me down in any way, shape or form.

I am trying to be a stronger person and I'm certainly learning that I AM my own person.

Whew.... that was good. Anyway... off to try and get to the weight room and perhaps do some laps in the pool. :)

Look: It's the "Elation"

Brian went out of town for a business trip last week. He got to the San Diego airport rather earlier than expected for his flight home. He thought to himself.... "hmmmmm, today is Friday, 10 a.m., and when we come into port from our wedding cruise, it'll be Friday... about 8 a.m. or so...." He proceeds to go to the Port of San Diego, and what does he see?!?! Carnival's Funship the "Elation". Yipee. He knew I'd be so excited to have been able to see this myself, so he snapped several pictures!!! I love it!

On another subject, can I just say that I'm excited about the people who have all booked their cabins?!?! I can honestly say that there are a couple of couples that booked who we really didn't expect them to. Don't get me wrong, we totally wanted them to be a part of our special day, but we didn't "expect" them to come. It is so special now that we know that they're going to be joining us! You know, they always say, "the people you least expect to come will come". And that is so very true as I am learning.

Regarding my self proclaimed "Bridal Boot Camp" I was supposed to start last Sunday.... well..... I didn't do a darn thing. BUT, here's the catch. Today is Sunday, August 1st, and I am RARING to go! I am starting today and will continue to be one BBC attacking fool! I am going to keep a log of my weight when I wake up in the morning, do my workouts, and monitor what foods I eat! Woo Hoo... go me! (Let's see how long I keep this up for)

AHR Invites are complete! MIB supplies has arrived!

Today is a good day so far. Despite the fact that I've had a HORRIBLE week, with Brian leaving for an out of town business trip, and Elyssa back to her dad's last week, I've been here all alone!!! You'd think that I'd be busy with all things Wedding Related huh? Fat chance! I've been moping around.

I did manage however, to get my AHR invites created. Unfortunately Brian took the camera with him, so the best I can do at this time is scan, upload and try to insert it here. We'll see if it works.

So, those are my AHR invites that I created, and the RSVP front and RSVP back. I don't know why the image of the front is so much bigger than the image of the back?!? Weird.

Another good thing about today is that I actually received my MIB order! A huge box with all the glass bottles, corks, sand, shells and mailing boxes arrived today! I am so excited! Now it's almost real! : ) I'm going to have a MIB assembly party at my house very soon!!! : ) Anyone want to join in on some fun? Margaritas???? Jello Shots??? LOL.

** AHR Center Pieces **

These are the first round of my Centerpieces I am going to use at both of our AHR's. As you can see, they're very easy to make. I purchased all the supplies at Michael's and the Starfish, Shells & Sea Biscuits were purchased from a former DW Knottie!

In lieu of a guestbook, I decided that I wanted to do a "Message in a Cylinder" where guest write their words of wisdom, or advice on a note card, then drop them in the cylinder vase! Here's my inspiration photo taken from the Wedding Star Magazine, and the other photo is what I created.

Whoo Hoo, it's THE DRESS

So, I made an appointment at David's Bridal in Roseville because I knew that we were going to be in the Sacramento area early this morning. I found some dresses on line on DB's website and thought that maybe they'd have them in the Roseville store. Brian came along with, and I totally felt comfortable with him shopping for dresses! I tried on several dresses, and he took pictures of each one, so if you want to see them all, you'll have to go to my planning bio to have a look!! (www.mywedding.com/michelesplanningbio )

This dress is the dress that both Brian & I really liked. There was another one that was a close second, and in all honesty, I think Brian liked it better. He said he liked them both, and it was ultimately my decision. I really felt more comfortable in this one than I did the other one, and I think the other one made me look a little fatter than I really am!

What is even more amazing is the fact that the dress was clearanced for $99!!!! SCORE!!!! I really like it alot. I just need to get it hemmed at the bottom and tighten up the back halter top area where it buttons together. I need to make it smaller. It shouldn't be a problem. I am also going to have it dry cleaned and pressed!!!

I am very excited that I've gotten this very HUGE check completed! : ) Woot Woot!

New Motivation

I am making new goals in all things Wedding Related. On Sunday, I am going to start my own private Bridal Boot Camp! I will work out on a daily basis and be disiplined enough to be consistant about it! I'm going to alternate swimming laps and working out in the weight room, utilizing the treadmill the most.

I am making my daily task lists with something wedding related to accomplish each day and going to ensure that I am consistent with getting everything done daily!

I am going to make long term task lists and ensure I assign a date to have said tasks & goals completed by.

I am going to EAT PROPERLY to coincide with my new health & fitness regime.

And that's that! : )

Getting off my duff!!! D.I.Y Projects

I've been slacking the last couple of weeks with anything wedding related. I bought tons of shells, miniature starfish, sea biscuits, more shells and the like from former DW Knotties and the packages have been trickling in. That's pretty much anything wedding related that I've done... sit on my arse and wait for the mail man. My 12 year old, Elyssa, will be going back to her dad's this Saturday, so beginning Sunday, I am going to be a mad woman with everything DIY!!!! Here are my projects:

Debating on any type of "fans" ~ do I need any fans at all? I originally thought these were a very cute idea and would like them and the could double as a "favor" that the guests could take home with them. (The picture directly on the left is from knottie AlaskanAlison) I love the palm fans and the flower she put on them. Then I got to thinking, the ceremony will be in April where it's still a little on the cool side and the ceremony will only be approximately 20 minutes tops. I saw another knottie's program/fan she's doing and really thought, "wow, these could triple as a "fan", "program", and a "favor" for guests. These were from knottie natmcb1983. How easy could this be? However, for the time being, this particular DIY project is on the back burner, but still something I may want to do.

Next on my list of DIY projects is the centerpieces for both receptions. I was inspired by so

many other knotties and their centerpieces that I kept changing my mind as to what I wanted. Finally, I decided that I wanted to do ones similar to what knottie natmcb1983 is doing for her September 2009 wedding. Various sizes of vases with sand, shells and candles. So, now that I have the shells, it's all about collecting the vases, several at a time. So, this will be an on-going DIY project until I have accumulated all of the vases I need. I'm thinking maybe 12 will be more than enough. I'll purchse the ribbon and sand soon to get that done and out of the way!

What can I really be actively doing? I need to order the MIB supplies to get them done. Those need to be mailed by late September / early October so that our guests have enough time to book their cruise before the February deadline! That'll give them 4 months. The Save the Dates all went out in June and all of the cruise information was available then.

I want to get the Welcome bags done and out of the way, but again, we're debating on the bags! Brian is all for the Trader Joe's bags. I originally wanted these too, but now, I'm not so sure. There are so many cute bags to choose from! The good thing about these are that they are re-usable and they're of the "beachy" theme. I think they're a little too big for what we need. If we were going to be putting a beach towel in them, then it would be perfect, but as of right now, we're not. We're only going to put trial sizes of things like kleenex, advil / tylenol, J&J first aid kit, sunscreen, shout wipes, hand sanitizer, crystal light packettes, various snack crackers, and the like. So, I'm still on the hunt for these. I have been picking up things here and there for the bags, so that's a start!

I would like to get both AHR invitations started, done and out of the way! I keep telling myself I have 9 months.... I have 9 months.... but these 9 months are going to fly by from what I've been told. So, I really need a big motivating factor to kick my butt in gear! : )

Message in a Bottle DIY Project

So, yesterday I did a "mock-up" of our Message in a Bottle Invitations. I think they came out rather cute! Okay, so both Brian and I are totally EXCITED about how they came out! To finish out this project, I'm going to look for Caribbean Blue rafia to wrap at the top of the bottle where the cork goes in. Other than that, I think it's a great DIY accompolishment! : ) Woo Hoo!!!

I am so excited that these are done. Well, at least the "prototype". Now, to get all the supplies in and then mass produce at least 50 - 60 of them. It'll be a fun night of Brian and I that's for sure! Anyone wanna come over and have a MIB making party?????? : )

Little things to accomplish

Today will be the day where I will sit down and write out my task list, prioritize them and then just follow the list! I've been writing things down in a notebook as they pop in my head, then I tend to start that project however when a new idea pops up, I go on a frenzy to start that new project. I have a gazillion projects started but not yet completed. SOOOOOO, going forward, I will try to complete one task before starting another. Easier said than done huh? Well, we will see!

First thing's first though. I need to get the ceremony issue figured out before I go stir crazy! I know it will all work out, but I'm a planner, and I need have it figured out so I will sleep easier! : )

Here's what I need to priortize:

*Ceremony wording for invites
*Ordering the MIB supplies
*Ceremony itself figured out
*Cruise bookings / guests
*Dress

Those are the most important.... then comes the little things:

*AHR invites ~ Minnesota & California
*BM Dresses
*Groomsmen attire
*Welcome bags
*Contents of Welcome bags
*BM flowers
*Hair flower

And the list goes on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
*

4th of July

Not much wedding wise is going on today. Just actuallly working on the Knottie Knot list. Wow... so much time is put into this "volunteer" project, it's almost a full time job! : ) Anyway, Brian and I have just pretty much been working on our Wedding Budget. We knew the Cruise was a very inexpensive way to have our wedding "on a beach" and somewhere where family from Minnesota would enjoy traveling to. We have officially picked our wedding party and with the exception of Brian's best friend, it's all family! My three children will be a part of it as well as Brian's brother, sister, niece, nephews and one of his daughters.

We're excited and although most of our planning has been just that,

"planning"

now we've got to put our plans into action and get things done!

The list seems to be getting longer and longer, when actually it shouldn't be a problem at all right? Yeah, right!

Not to mention, we have two, yes TWO, AHR's to plan as well!

So, onward with the plans! : )

Overwhelmed

Today I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all things wedding concerned. Although the one great check is that we paid the deposit on our Cabin for the Cruise. Woo Hoo. That's kinda important don't ya think? We have tons of little projects left to do and it's just prioritizing these little tasks that are crazy! We're talking figuring out what, if any, company we're going to use on the Island to handle the ceremony; what kind of flowers to use in the bridal party bouquets; dress; veil, if any; shoes; hair flower; groom's shirt; wedding party gifts; Welcome bag contents; MIB invitation supplies; AHR - Minnesota invites; AHR - California invites;........... the list goes on and on!!! It's tough when you don't know how many people are coming to the ceremony! We can't really pick out a "wedding package" from what we were given just yet because we're not sure on how many people will be there! And, these "wedding packages" are designated for only certain amount of people! Grrrrr....