Scrambling for Centerpieces

Well, I've managed to kill almost all the 36 succulents I bought for the 12 centerpieces for the tables.

I believe this is my most viable option at this point.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34735421@N04/3793058120/in/set-72157621833935805/

Packing it on

WTF is wrong with me? I've been working out and dieting obsessively over the past year in preparation for my wedding and now that we are about 30 days away, I have the constant compulsion to eat high fat, high calorie, not nutritious food. Pizza, cheeseburgers, french fries, hell, anything battered and fried sounds awesome.

I quit my boot camp this week because it was just too awful and destroyed my entire weekend. Exhausted and in excruciating pain is no way to start your Saturday morning. I much prefer working out regularly than killing myself once a week.

In addition, I've been drinking about a bottle of wine a day. Although I haven't gained any weight, I'm horrified at my slipping eating habits.

Let's just blame the wedding!

Dealing with the wedding gifts

A very sweet and much older ex-coworker and wedding guest gave G and I a wedding gift yesterday. While a kind and generous gesture, I think that we may be in over our head. Our wedding website displays all kind of cool stuff, charitable donations, honeyfund, gift cards we'd like, but what about those not so internet savvy older folks that get us things like crock pots and linens?

A. I already have a crock pot.

B. My linen closet runneth over.

I can't be the first bride to face this dilemma. Do I just write a gracious thank you note and move on? That's fine, but what do I do with the gift? Donate to charity? Sell on craigslist? Put in our wedding fund garage sale?

Details, schmetails

My dress is still a tad too tight and just doesn't look right with my purple shoes. There's no budget for further alterations, so it will just have to do. I will have to suck it in and kick off my purple shoes.

The Bridal Brigade is getting really excited and that is getting me really excited. Pretty clothes, fun party, good music, lots of friends and love, that's what I'm really psyched about!

The RSVP list keeps growing and growing. This is a bit stressful considering our space and money limitations, but I have resolved to let go and let the party happen as it may.

Six weeks to go!

Okay, I'm the worst blogger in the world. There is so much to do that I'm exhausted after doing it and just don't feel like talking wedding anymore.

BUT, now the countdown has begun and all the final details are falling into place.

Our custom Ring Bearer Plate is shipping today from Austin. I found the idea on Martha Stewart Weddings, just like so many other ideas that have come to fruition in our wedding. Check out Paloma's Nest on Etsy, her work is beautiful.

It was very important to me to create many family traditions surrounding our wedding, so that just about every detail was meaningful and heartfelt with a feeling of authenticity and legacy.

Bridal Brigade Dresses

Dear Bridal Brigade,

How about this for the ladies....

and this for the gents?

Engagement Session

G and I made a whole fun weekend out of our engagement photo session. We booked Leah Muse of Whitney Lee Photography and opted to drive down from Fort Worth to Austin for our shoot.

She does awesome work! I know it sounds dramatic, but the moments G and I had together were amazing and I will always remember them.

Check it out here

Flickr album to follow...

Why didn't I think of this?

from my kindred, A Practical Wedding

Love Love Love my custom cake toppers!!!

I got ordered my new totally cute, custom cake toppers from Naked Peggies on Etsy.com. I just sent Suzy a picture of us, gave her a description of our wedding attire and she crafted these adorable peggies just for us!

Booked a Photographer

I found Whitney Lee photography on Offbeat Bride back in September and was impressed with the photojournalistic style of the pictures. I figured I could find someone in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex with an equal amount of talent, but no dice. We have booked Leah Muse, also profiled on Offbeat Bride, Whitney Lee's second in command for our big day.

Check out their fabulous photos!

Bridal Brigade attire

I've been thinking about this one a lot. My goal is to create a unique look without putting anyone out $300 on an outfit they will never wear again. I had tossed around the idea of black and lavender, but it will be hot as hell and don't want my lovely Brigadeers melting in the afternoon heat. I found some beautiful dresses on J. Crew.com:


Ok, so that one costs $300 and is sooooooooooo not required wearing or anything like that, but is a beautiful dress along the lines I was thinking. There are some other lavender/lilac dresses on there around $100. Need some feedback on this one Brigadeers...does everyone look good in lavender/lilac? Would you prefer doing black? I am not going to pick out matching dresses that everyone has to buy, but would like a unified color statement, purple family, lilac or black. I don't care if you buy the outfit at the thrift store for $2, as long as everyone is comfortable and looks good.

For our male Brigadeer and TBD groomsmen, linen slacks and white button downs with coordinating ties OR Guayabera shirts!!




George is thinking he will wear a linen suit.


Thoughts? Comments? Feedback?

Wedding Website is up!

George has designed a killer wedding website! It's up and functional at http://www.georgeandjasmine.com/

It's a work in progress, more pages will be fleshed out and content edited, so check back in a few days for updates.

Also check out the really cool Song Request feature! Send in song requests to be played at the reception!

Bridal Brigade Bouquet Prototype

So here is a pic of progress on the Bridal Brigader bouquet prototype. I make tulle petals out of 4x4 pieces of lilac tulle and crafting wire, then use floral tape to secure them together into tulle flowers. I make stems out of the bead stick, lovebirds and silver ornaments and stick them into a styrofoam bouquet holder. Bouquet costs roughly $10. It is really tedious making all those little petals and takes a yard of tulle for each bouquet. I wrapped the bouquet holder with green ribbon and secured with corsage pins.


So what do you think? It is a prototype so the remaining four bouquets will be copies of this original.

Madness rears its ugly head

Wedding planning frustration is at a peak right now. My mom said it best today that I was trying to plan a champagne wedding on a beer budget, which is fairly accurate. My parents had an extremely simple, family-only wedding and an at-home dinner reception. They just don't understand why I don't want the same thing. My mother is being very generous and giving me a moderate sum of $ to use any which way I like, although she still doesn't understand that I want to be surrounded by all of my favorite people, that this is a great celebration of love and should be honored with the best party I've ever planned. On the other side of the coin, my future in laws have a completely opposite expectation of what the wedding should be, an elegant affair with tuxedos. I am unfortunately stuck between these two worlds and attempting to meet the expectations of both, which is proving impossible.

I wish I could plan this event with the detachment that I plan wine dinners and tastings or negotiate with the parents the way I do with clients, but I am so wrought with emotion that conflict just makes a lump rise in my throat and tears of frustration come to my eyes. After all, I'm marrying the man of my dreams and I just want everything to be perfect and everybody to be happy. I'm pouring my heart and soul into every detail and hearing "You can't do that!" or "You absolutely must do ____!" is driving me nucking futs.

The end result will turn out exactly as I want and the day will be remembered by everyone. What I need is free rein, $5k and for everyone else to keep their opinions to themselves until I ask for it.

Who knew that planning a wedding was so friggin' stressful?

Current DIY work-in-progress

I recently came across this inspiring DIY bouquet on one of my favorite bridal sites, OffbeatBride.com. My mom and I bought 500 gajillion of those exact silver christmas ornaments on 90% clearance at Joann a few weeks ago. The original intent was to fill large fishbowl vases and use them as centerpieces. But after seeing this post, I began work on a similar project. What I will use them for, I don't know. I love fresh flowers and would hate to cut them out of the wedding completely.

I have considered using them as centerpieces, eliminating the big fishbowl vases, which are stupid expensive anyways, and on the day of the wedding incorporate them into the floral design with fresh mint and lavender. It's a tedious project and the post made it seem easier than I thought it would be. Making the tulle flowers is the most time consuming part. Each petal must be made, than many petals bunched together to form a flower. To make things a little easier, I've eliminated the LED lights.

I am also debating self-catering vs. Fuzzy's Tacos catering. They would make exactly the same thing I would, but eliminate so much work for us, since we will have many other DIY things to complete that day, such as decoration, setup, final cleanup, etc. But having people there to refill as dishes get empty will in itself be such a huge help. The self-catering project was coming along quite nicely, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew and certainly don't want a big disaster on my hands. As well, I've been getting serious resistance from both mothers and if something does go wrong, they will be the first to say "I told you so, we should have gotten a caterer".

Current food and beverage plan: stations!

Antipast bar - featuring Italian meats, gourmet cheeses, olives, nuts and dried fruits

Taco/Nacho bar - featuring Mexican goodness, fillings, toppings and fixins for your favorite do-it-yourself tacos or nachos

Dessert bar - featuring a small two tiered wedding cake, towers of cupcakes, brownies and bowls of candy. Will also have small boxes for guests to take home any sweets they would like.

Champagne and beer bar - featuring sparkling wine and beer on ice and all the fixins for do-it-yourself mimosas, poinsettas and champagne cocktails.

DIY Flower Girl Pails and the Bridal Brigade

The first thing I did when I got engaged was buy the book, DIY Bride and have taken several projects from it. The first was the flower girl pails. One of the members of my "Bridal Brigade", Megan has two adorable little girls, Kameron and Gracie that will be the flower girls. So we got together last weekend to craft these simple and adorable pails for less than $10 each.

The process of choosing those friends I would like to surround me on my wedding day was simple. They are not only friends that have been with me through several phases of my life, but are calm and assertive people that I knew I could depend on for emotional and mental support throughout my engagement as well. I did not want to have a traditional bridal party with mitchy-matchy outfits that no one wears again, so I assembled the Bridal Brigade and gave each "brigadeer" a specific mission, giving them the option to decline if their lives were too hectic to accomplish it. Giving people an option and laying out all expected responsibilities seemed like the most respectful and adult way of going about it.

Welcome to my wedding world

Here are the basic stats to get you up to speed:

Bride: Jasmine Angelina Luna
Age: 29
Occupation: Fort Worth Sales Representative - Horizon Wines
Education: B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies

Groom: George Brennan Gdovin
Age: 25
Occupation: VP of Solutions Development - Arcos IT
Education: B.B.A. E-Commerce

Engagement Date: August-ish
Wedding Date: September 20, 2009
Budget: negligible
Colors: Silver, lavender, mint green
Theme: DIY

While planning this wedding, I've become obsessed with doing almost everything myself. Partly because of the unrealistically expensive images that bridal magazines feature. Also, George and I went to a friends' wedding that was without question THE BEST WEDDING EVER. It was obvious that the wedding was so "them". They stayed true to themselves and invited their family and guests celebrate their uniqueness. Unwittingly, they inspired us so plan a similar event.

Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes, I've been getting resistance from all sides. But my rock, my love, George is always an encouraging voice of reason and comfort, supporting me through all phases of the DIY process and laughing at my madness at exactly the right time to snap me back to reality.

Choosing a venue without excessive restrictions on alcohol was extremely important to me. I'm in the wine business and didn't want a venue that would dictate my wine list or require me to pay wine list prices which are typically a markup of 300%. It also had to have lots of light inside, an area outside for the ceremony and fit into our budget under $1000 without incidental costs like valets, required staff and all those other pesky hidden charges. After many disappointments, bait and switch pricing and scouting countless locations, the answer was closer to home than expected. The Bent Creek Community Center is located inside George's parents neighborhood in Southlake, TX for the bargain price of $450, better than we could have hoped!

DIY madness began months ago with my save the date shaker card. They are adorable, but took many nights of cutting and gluing. Last weekend, one of my bridesmaids and I crafted simple flower girl pails out of painted buckets, ribbon, crepe paper and a button.

I am using many other bridal blogs for inspiration and will be posting links very soon.