Thanks sis!

I'd been needing to find an appropriate dress for the formal dinner on me and FI's honeymoon cruise, but I kept putting it off because money has been tight here lately and all the dresses I really liked were upwards of $100. My sister recently went to prom, however, and wore a little black number that's actually a David's Bridal BM dress that I thought would work perfectly. Only problem (or so I thought) is that she is a size 4 and I'm a size 6. It doesn't seem like a big difference but I'm wider in the hips and have a little more on top so I didn't place my bets on being able to borrow her dress. Well let me just tell you all that I fit into that sucker. It's a little snug, but breathing is overrated anyway. I'm going to rock it with some silver heels and it didn't cost me a dime. I love having one less thing to buy! So thank you, sister/MOH of mine. It's nice to be able to borrow from your closet in true sibling fashion just like old times :)

It's feeling official

FI and I took a trip on down to the Register of Deeds and got our marriage license yesterday! I don't know why but just having that simple piece of paper makes it feel so much more official. Not that that's a bad thing...I'm psyched! And the wedding is getting super close. Some days I'm so anxious and stressed over getting all the details just right that I can't stand it, and other days I have the chance to really stop and remember why I'm so truly happy for August 2nd to come around in the first place. Today is one of those days where I had a spare moment to myself and realized how truly blessed I am to have this amazing guy in my life and in a little over a month and a half we are going to be man and wife. It's just such an awesomely overwhelming feeling. After knowing each other for 9 years and dating for over 6 1/2 of those, I'm ready to make it official already and get started on living out the rest of our lives as a true married couple!

A productive weekend

This past weekend my mom and I got a bunch of wedding stuff accomplished as far as DIY projects. I'd really put them off for too long and it feels good to have some finished products to look at! We made the photo boards we'll be displaying our pictures in at the reception, our vases wrapped in vellum for the glowing table centerpieces, got the ribbons tied to the hundred-some-odd bubble tubes we bought, and got the ribbons glued to the vases and votives we'll be using for the remaining centerpieces. Still got quite a bit to do, but we're getting there! Here's some pics of our hard work:

Crate & Barrel is my hero

Long story short...I purchased all my vases for my centerpieces at Michael's some many months ago with the exception of the small 6" vases I needed because they only had two in stock. I went back to the store and checked every week for a new shipment but the shelves remained empty. I thought maybe people were scooping them up faster than they were coming in so I started checking every other day. Still no vases. I asked the salespeople when some more would arrive to which their response was "corporate makes the orders, we just place what we get on the shelves." So I drove a few towns over and checked there. Nothing. I checked in Asheville while I was there for some wedding stuff. Nothing. I even checked THREE stores while I was in Florida on vacation with no success. You wouldn't think 6" vases would be so hard to find but I couldn't find anything similar at other stores either! So after a couple of months of the shelves sitting empty I kind of figured Michael's quit carrying those vases but I was super bummed because I needed them to complement my other two various sized vases for the tables. Then I discover by sheer luck while browsing their site that Crate & Barrel has 6" vases. Score! They totally came to the rescue and saved the day. I'm very excited that my vision will be properly executed now :) Rave over.

No passport required!

I can breathe a huge sigh of relief right now because FI and I just confirmed through our Carnival travel agent that we won't need passports for our honeymoon cruise after all. We booked our trip many months ago before the new travel regulations were in place, and we were afraid we would now have to shell out the dough for passports for both of us as well as additional money to expedite the process now that it's less than 8 weeks away on top of everything else we've got on our plate right now. Turns out even though we will be traveling in international waters, a passport isn't required when the cruise leaves from and returns to the same port. This is such great news! That's $320 we can now use towards paying off the rest of these wedding vendors who are going to be wanting their money soon haha

DIY Invites

Invitations are the one detail of the wedding that I really wasn't very concerned about. I don't get excited about paper products like some other brides do, so I of course jumped on the opportunity to buy blank invitations at Wal-Mart for $12 and print the wording out on a home computer to save some money. I wasn't at all interested in pocketfolds, embossing, or invitations with inserts since all the info that guests need is on our wedding website. All I really wanted was a sheet of cardstock that told people where and when the wedding was. What I got is a pretty sheet of cardstock that tells people where and when the wedding is :) My mom has access to a heavy duty quality printer at work so she kindly offered to print the invitations for me. She's been a huge help throughout this whole process! I purchased the ribbon and little square rhinestones at Michael's to spruce the invites up a bit and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I'm even more pleased that they were so cheap!

I think we can make room for you Mr. President

I am going to be sending a wedding invitation to the President himself. Actually more than likely it will end up in the hands of some random person at the white house who is in charge of sorting mail, but regardless I will be sending out an invite for Barack and Michelle Obama. Of course I don't expect them to show up on the big day...but I recently learned that if you send out a wedding invitation to the President you get a nice congratulatory letter in response. Thought that would be pretty neat to have as a little keepsake :) Here's the address for the white house along with a few other celebs of sorts that you may want to mail one to:

Mr. President and Mrs. Obama
Greetings Office Rm. 39
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, District of Columbia 20500

Pope Benedict XVI (will send a papal blessing)
Prefettura della Casa Pontifica
00120 Citta del Vaticano, Italia

Mickey & Minnie Mouse (will send a letter of congratulations with signed photo)
The Walt Disney Company
500 S. Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521