A labor of love

These are cell phone pics, so sorry in advance for the poor quality. Our favor boxes are complete after my aunt slaved away over her Cricut for a couple excrutiating hours. I couldn't really find any large brown favor boxes so we instead bought jumbo sheets of cardstock and made our own with a scrapbooking Cricut machine then my wonderful aunt took on the time-consuming task of folding said boxes and gluing the corners so that they're sturdy. Add a little quote to the front and some ribbon on the top and voila! So what's going in the boxes? Well I knew I wanted to do edible favors for guests but didn't really have an idea as to what kind of favor to provide, then FI and I got to talking about the moment we knew we were head over heels in love with one another. My FI and I grew up together as friends so when he decided to ask me out I was initially surprised and put off since I didn't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship. Well he was persistent and kept up for 3 months until I agreed to be his girlfriend. To be honest even when I told him I'd go out with him I really wasn't sure about us working out. I didn't ever imagine it would be serious and things got awkward for a bit when we were making the friends-to-relationship transition. So what changed and set in motion the events that led us to where we are today? He kissed me; and he kissed me good. It was pretty much the greatest first kiss in all of first kiss history and that's when I found out I was falling and he knew his hard work and patience had paid off. So together we decided on Hershey's kisses for favors to symbolize that very special moment in our relationship. Yes I'm aware that may seem cheesy, but really who doesn't love the straight-up chocolate goodness that is a Hershey's kiss? And they will fit perfect in our custom-made boxes :)

Makeup trial FAIL

I've always been a firm believer that practice makes perfect and so of course I scheduled a hair and makeup trial before the big day...or at least I thought I did. Come to find out the receptionist failed to tell the stylist who is taking care of my wedding day beauty that I was wanting a practice run of my makeup done on the same day I drove all the way to NC to get my hair done. Unfortunately for me my chick was booked solid after my appointment until close and so now I will be finding out what my day-of makeup looks like on well, the day-of. Total makeup trial FAIL. The perfectionist in me is freaking out and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I won't end up looking horrible on my wedding day *sigh* Oh, the stress!

Deja vu?

I know I have posted pictures of cufflinks on here before and if you frequent my blog you are probably experiencing deja vu. These are actually cufflinks we just ordered off of the awesomeness that is ebay (God bless you Pierre Omidyar) for our dads and FI. We thought we'd keep with the cufflink theme and order cool cufflinks for all the important men of the wedding. After all we wouldn't want the fathers-and most importantly FI-to have subpar flair on their wrists on such a momentous day would we? ;) The motorcycles are for my dad who has been an enthusiast since he was young and whose passion for riding just grew stronger after his midlife crisis. The acoustic guitars are for FI's dad who was a self-proclaimed hippie during college and apparently won over all the ladies by strumming a tune or two and still loves playing today. I ordered the baseball cufflinks for FI since he's a die-hard baseball fan and has been playing the game since he learned how to walk. I'm definitely glad we went the cufflink route even though initially I thought it was sort of overdone. This is something they can all use later and something that shows how well we know each of them individually!

Easiest DIY project to date

What do you get when you add vellum, some pretty font, ribbon, and some wax? You get a gorgeous personalized unity candle for half the price of what those bridal stores are charging! This is such an easy DIY project that I found online one day but the results look so professional in my opinion. I'm super excited about our unity candle because we wanted pretty much everything at the wedding to be very personal and handmade where possible. The picture at the top is the inspiration I found from Google and the bottom pic is our actual candle set. I think they look beautiful!

Bustle and flow

Before you read this you should know that I HATE bustles. I know they are meant to serve a purpose, but to me they just don't look pretty. It looks like someone took a safety pin and pinned a bunch of tulle up on the ass of the person wearing the wedding dress! I can't tell you how many bustle styles I looked at or how many alteration ladies I annoyed before deciding on the type of bustle I would get. I originally tried to find a dress with only a little sweep train just so I wouldn't have to bustle it, but the dress I fell in love with has a longer train so it would have been a pain to try to navigate through our reception hall with all that fabric not being out of the way. David's Bridal was originally doing the alterations for my dress but they didn't do such a good job of impressing me with their bustle options and were rude when I made any sort of suggestions. So I took my business elsewhere and found a little mom and pop shop to sew my bustle for a lower price still thinking that I wouldn't really dig what they were going to do to it. Well surprisingly, I LOVE it. I actually think it improves the look of the dress. That sounds crazy coming from the girl who earlier said she despises bustles altogether, but it really looks pretty. Here are just some of the many bustle designs we toyed with before deciding on the final one in the picture at the bottom. The first one just hung funny, the second one was too fancy and didn't fit the style of the dress, and the last two pictures are of the bustle I ultimately decided on. It is an under bustle or "french" bustle and I find it funny that DB originally told me the fabric on my dress wouldn't work for that type and yet the seamstress who did it had no problem altering it to look that way.

Get with the program

With my wedding being in August and it being so hot and humid that time of year, I decided if I was going to do programs they would double as fans. The cardstock was printed out, ribbon was purchased, and they were all ready to assemble...until I realized my mother, love her heart, had not only misspelled one of the groomsmen's last names, but assigned him an entirely new last name. This posed a problem as we didn't want to offend anyone by actually distributing them and letting people see the error so that labor of love went into the recycling bin and we nixed the idea of programs altogether (or so I thought). I figured it was one less DIY project we would have on our plate but for some odd reason my mom thinks that programs are completely necessary, so here is a picture of the very basic programs we decided on to appease her needs for having some information on a piece of paper. They're tri-fold so they fit a lot of print and they match the invitations quite well and will get the job done of telling the who's and what's of the wedding day.

Little accomplishments

I've felt a little bit of wedding burnout here lately and have been slacking on getting stuff done that needs to get done here in the next 26 days. Just thinking that I only have that much time to get all the stuff on my to-do list done makes me want to throw up. Seriously. But I got a few little things accomplished over the holiday weekend so I would have something to post here to make me feel a little better about my procrastinating self. Got our little hanging monogram finished that's going to be put on the front door of the venue, spruced up my pitiful looking table numbers, got the bubbles all finished and put into their basket which my mother and I made all pretty with some strategically placed ribbon, ordered part of our parent's gifts, and made an appointment to get my bustle done. Still have a whole sheet of college-ruled paper filled up with things that need to be addressed but at least I've made some progress. Here are some pics of the DIY stuff:

Vendor Reviews

I think I've worked with my vendors enough now to properly rate them so long as they don't royally screw up sometime between now and the wedding; God forbid on the day of my wedding. I am not a Bridezilla by nature at all, but if someone we are paying fails to live up to the very reasonable and contracted standards agreed upon, I will straight roundhouse kick someone in the face...or at least not tip them :) So here are the reviews for practically everyone I have worked with thus far.
Engagement ring & bride's wedding band: Marks & Morgan Jewelers
B FI and I went ring shopping together so he could get some ideas for what I liked, but ultimately the decision was left up to him. He did a great job and my perfect rings ended up being at Marks & Morgan. I have no negative remarks against Marks & Morgan as far as customer service and selection. My only "beef" with them is that you have to get your rings inspected every 6 months for as long as you have them and if you forget to do it even one time the insurance you paid for is voided. It's not a huge deal, but it is slightly annoying considering many places we visited did not require routine inspections and if I still lived in my small hometown the nearest Marks & Morgan I would have to visit every 6 months would be almost 2 hours away.
Groom's wedding band: Titaniumkay.com
A Let me first say I was very hesitant to order a ring online, but FI did not find anything he liked in any stores we visited and when he stumbled across the Titanium Kay site he found one he had to have. The fine people at Titanium Kay put me at ease with their 30 day no-questions-asked return policy and reviews from real people who had ordered the product already. The ring was delivered promptly and it's more durable and better quality than a lot of rings we looked at in jewelry stores. It was also half the price!

Monogram Key Fobs for Bridesmaids Gifts: Mylittlecuddlebugs.com

A- Shipping was a bit slow through this site, but they have a wonderful selection of products and lots of different colors and fabrics to choose from so I was able to make each gift unique to the girl I'm giving it to. The key fobs I received were of such great quality that I had to order me one as well!

Cufflinks for Groomsmen Gifts: Cuff-daddy.com

A This website has a great variety of cufflinks from the classic to just plain fun if you are searching for some for the men in the wedding party. Their pricing is some of the cheapest we found and they offer bulk discounts if you are ordering more than 5 pairs of cufflinks. Overall I highly recommend Cuff-Daddy.
Silk Rose Petals: Petalgarden.com
A This site has great deals on bulk rose petals and even though we ordered the silk ones they are pretty realistic looking thanks to the material they use. If you're not into silk they sell freeze dried rose petals as well and offer free color samples of each to take the guesswork out of picking the right color based on the images on your computer monitor.
Wedding Cake: The City Bakery
A+ Sarah is the pastry chef at The City Bakery who will be making our cake. She is so sweet and absolutely loves her job, which is obvious when looking at her work. We are getting 3 cakes with her-a 3 tiered wedding cake, a groom's cake, and a mini version of our wedding cake made for our first anniversary-all for $400. The bakery will also be providing fresh artisan bread for our reception dinner.
DJ: Mr. C's Mobile Disk Jockey
A FI and I are getting married in a town that's over an hour from where we live and it's hard to make appointments with vendors and get away together with both of our schedules being so different. When we made the trip to Asheville to meet with our DJ for the first time there had been a bad storm and power was out all over town. Our DJ knew we had taken time off work and driven to meet him so instead of canceling he lit some candles and went on with the consultation as planned! How's that for customer service?
Bride and Bridesmaid Attire: David's Bridal
C I have mixed emotions about my experience at David's. On the one hand I found my wedding dress there with the help of one of the consultants who was super friendly. I never would have given a second glance at the dress I ended up buying if it weren't for her convincing me to give it a try since it is nothing like what I thought I would get. Getting the bridesmaids dresses at such a big discount was a plus too. The alterations department, however, was a pain to work with. They were very short with me when I asked questions and at times just blatantly rude. On one occasion they scheduled my fitting for the wrong day and then proceeded to make comments about me showing up "late" the entire time. Their horrible service really left a bad taste in my mouth, therefore David's gets a C.

Bridal Shoes: Onlinebridalstore.com

A I only ordered my shoes from onlinebridalstore.com, but they have alot of other bridal accessories for sale as well. They offered free shipping, I got my order super fast, and I found the heels I had been wanting for less than I found at other websites I'd scoped out.

Groom and Groomsmen Attire: Mitchell's Tuxedos

A Mitchell's is a family-owned business and we can really tell a difference between the attention we get there and the attention we got at other places we browsed. I originally urged FI to get the tuxes from Men's Warehouse (the male equivalent to David's Bridal) to be sure the vests would match the girl's dresses, but when we went there they had one option in the watermelon color; a paisley vest with striped tie. We were not digging it at all so we took a color swatch to Mitchell's and since they have such a wide selection they found some other options that match just fine. And FI still scored a free tux.

Flowers: The Enchanted Florist

A Janet from The Enchanted Florist is taking care of all things floral for the wedding and it has been a pleasure to work with her. She has been in the business for over 30 years so we're very confident in her skills, and she has been so helpful at keeping us within our budget since we went into this planning process having no clue that flowers were so expensive!

Ceremony and Reception Venue: Homewood Castle

B+ Our venue is absolutely gorgeous. I had actually passed by Homewood a few times and made comments on how pretty it was without knowing it was an event center. Through a series of occurences that left us without a venue, we checked with Homewood about pricing thinking it would be way out of our range. The staff helped us find ways to afford the dream wedding we had envisioned without spending a fortune. My only issue has been that as a bride who lives out of town from where my wedding is located I rely solely on email for correspondence, and sometimes the fine folks at Homewood are pretty slow to respond.
Caterer: Artisan Catering
A+ The staff at Artisan has been so great. My emails are always answered promptly and they practically trip over themselves to make sure me and FI's wedding day goes the way we want it to. The chef there even agreed to replicate a favorite recipe I had that was not even close to anything he had on his menu at my request, and might I add he did an amazing job. I would recommend them to everyone in the Asheville area looking for a caterer.

Photographer: Alisha Silver

A Alisha has some of the most affordable prices in the Asheville area, but when I looked at her pictures online I thought the pricing was a mistake. She has a background in graphic design and takes a really photojournalistic approach to photography and her shots are so good. She has agreed to do a complimentary TTD session after our wedding too so she definitely deserves a high grade!

Officiant: Jeff King

A+ I guess he is not really considered a "vendor" since he isn't the kind of minister you hire through the yellow pages, but either way I feel like I need to list him here just so I can give him an A+. My aunt actually referred us to Jeff. She knew him from her church and since we aren't members at any certain church and were looking for someone to perform our ceremony, we were very grateful when he agreed to drive all the way to our wedding site to marry us. We had never met prior to the first consultation we had but by the end of that meeting FI and I felt so comfortable with Jeff. He gave us complete freedom with the ceremony as well and we really appreciated that since it was important to us that the ceremony be personal.