Sneak peek wedding photos

Our photographer posted a sneak peek of our wedding photos. They're just unedited sneak peeks, but I love them.

MARRIED

B and I are married!!!

Countdown on.

The countdown is on. The projects are all very tiny at this point.

* Finish tailoring bridesmaid dress (need to fix one little place where I missed this weekend).
* Put some white beads on some bobby pins for my hair.
* Work with B to put together church programs
* Figure out seating chart
* Print name seating chart tags.
* Print table tags.

I get to do some fun things too, like
* pick up my dress (tonight at 5:15)
* Get my acrylics put on (don't like acrylics, but I want french nails and no chipping, so acrylics here we come), tonight at 6
* Show my future sister-in-law the cat monsters and meet the whole future family at the airport (tomorrow, 6pm)
* Drop the cat monsters off at their cat sitters (which will make me happier that they're taken care off), Wednesday, 6:30 pm.

The only other main thing is putting together an information packet for everyone. maps, phone numbers, schedules, etc. I want to make sure it's all on there for quick reference.

Yes, we may need to cut material for chair covers, we may need to cut sashes too. We may need to do some small jobs. BUT. It's all mostly done. At this point, if the wedidng was tomorrow,I'd be ok.

I'm breathing, don't worry. I spent way too much time bent over working yesterday andtoday my upper back/lower neck is SO sore and hurts a massive amount. But,it will be ok.

And on Saturday I become Mrs. Kaiser. Wow! I can't wait to marry B.

Fast trip down south.

Spur of the moment yesterday afternoon I decided to drive the (about) 2 hours south and see B. I thought and thought about the decision, and I think it ended up being for the best.

I got a decent inventory of what B has at his place, and so now I know what to be on the lookout for up here when I'm cleaning/packing tonight and tomorrow.

I sort of overviewed B's current projects to see how much he'll likely complete by this evening. He leaves Thursday for a conference that will go through Saturday late or Sunday early, so what he has done by tonight is pretty much it.

I finished the noodles. I may make one more batch, but I made 3 or 4 HUGE batches last night (used 6 dozen eggs). It really made a dent in the things to get done on Saturday. Now I"m breathing a bit easier.

I brought up a frozen pack of rouladin and a frozen pack of spatzle for the purpose of using my coworkers as guinea pigs. Yes, I'm shameless. But we do need to double/triple check that they handle freezing/thawing well, even though I've frozen and thawed them for years. Just need to make sure there aren't any food surprises on the 27th. At this point we can come up with a contingency plan, whereas if somethign goes bad on the 27th we'll be relegated to ordering pizza or McDonalds or chinese food (which wouldn't be bad, but if stress can be avoided...).

I met with our ex-groomsman and smoothed things over, which made me feel better. Yea, he's the one who screwed up, but I didn't want to harbor resentment and ill-will over it. He's still not going to be in the wedding party, but he'll come to the wedding.

Tonight: finish Tiana's dress (I'm putting in a corset). CLEAN apartment. Work on church decorations. Order photos.

Tomorrow: Finish cleaning apartment, work on church balls, figure out garter belt and ring bearer pillow. Seating chart.

Friday: Print seating chart, print name cards. Print menu cards. Print gift bag cards. Print gift bag outside cards. Determine church programs, print church programs. Spend evening putting them together.

Saturday: Order food from various places down south. Make gravy. Give dress to Tiana. But rocks for tables. ORGANIZE EVERYTHING INTO LABELED BOXES!! Go get food that is not perishable so all in order. Make sure have all the floral supplies. Buy B & my 2 champagne glasses.

I think it will all be in order by Sunday's end. I'm happy.

ACK!

THE WEDDING IS IN 11 days!!!!!

Bridal party switching out.

For the sake of saving a friendship, B and I discussed it and offered to a groomsman the option to not be in the bridal party.

The groomsman took the option.

After various comments and actions, B and I just... we just felt this person was really distracted and didn't want to support us through this wedding. I know he cares for us. And we didn't need him to slave. But he made various decisions that, in the end, resulted in us only seeing him for the wedding and the rehearsal.

Communication had hit a standstill, and it took us prompting him to get news to find out what he couldn't help with. I just couldn't shake this feeling that because we weren't pouring money into this wedding, it was somehow "lower class" and deserved less decency. Amongst other issues, we changed plans in March based upon his help, and to have that turned upside down made us feel pretty low.

From our perspectives, if you're in the bridal party, it's an honor. No, it's not an honor the bride and groom should abuse. But it means that out of all their friends, the bride and/or groom choose you to stand by their side. That's an honor, right? Obviously, by the decision, they respect you, and in return, you should respect them.You should respect that your friend(s) is taking a serious step. Some giving of yourself should take place, emotionally or physically, to your friend(s).

The thing is, if he was a regular guest, his behavior would be disappointing (of course we want him at the dress rehearsal and wedding, not doing other things that could have been avoided), but he wouldn't have been as depended on. We wouldn't have expected his support (emotional and/or physical) as much. And if he had just communicated things to us (rather than us feeling pushy and bothersome as we tried to obtain information), all would have been ok.

Sigh. I hope he comes to the wedding. He is a friend. And just because he disappointed us on this doesn't mean we shoudl hold a grudge. We're not. We're washing ourselves clean of the past, and we are moving on. But I just hope it's not at the expense of a friendship. We just wanted to surround ourselves with supporters in our bridal party, not people who had better things to do, and someone who didn't respect the marriage process. Maybe that sounds goofy, but it's how B and I both feel, so it is the way it is. Just hope we haven't lost a friend.

Music: Check

Music lists are done. DONE! I sent my friend the lists, and he is putting the music (which is on his computer) in order.

We ended up making playlists:

* Appetizer/dinner background music, which contains typical background music, but also songs that we like but which aren't really dance-able (eg: Major Tom by Peter Schilling)

* Dance music. We made this list super-long, because you don't know how long the dancing will go for, you know? I labeled each song "slow" and "fast" so that I wouldn't accidentally put 20 fast songs together. Each song was analyzed for "danceability." Sounds lame, but some of my favorite songs are just difficult to get your groove on to, so we wanted to make sure we were choosing stuff people could rock out to. And yes, there are slow songs. It's about a 1:4 ratio of slow to fast.

* The special playlists. These include: Bouquet toss, garter belt toss, cake cutting, first dance, father/daughter dance, and the second line dance. Yes, we're not from New Orleans, but the second line dance with glitzified umbrellas and canes just sounded like TOO much fun. My friend from NOLA turned me on to the idea, and she's totally jazzed that we're going for it.

So yup! That's it. Fingers crossed....

Why I love B

He's been a rock the past few months. He's picked up the pieces, picked up the pace, and picked up where others have left off (or failed to begin). And even when I've been a miserable grump, he's made me feel better.

I get to marry him in 16 days. SIXTEEN!

Frustrating guests-- Advice needed!

Ok, I PLEASE need some advice on this one (either by email or post).

I invited a very single friend to the wedding (no significant other, not dating, etc). But, there aren't many people she will know, so I expected she may bring a +1, even though I addressed her invite ONLY to her.

I was right. But instead of saying +1, and the person is definitely "x individual," she wrote back "um, to be announced."

WHA?

2 weeks passed. No news. So I emailed her the other day with "Can you please let us know? We've been lenient on the guest policy with you because you may not know many people. We need to know for planning purposes." and I got this response: but I don't know who i'm bringing. i would like to bring someone, it would make me feel more comfortable. i will ask my friend matt maybe on thursday. i'll get back to you soon about this.

I'm kinda getting ticked off. She does not realize that this is not the typical wedding, so for all she knows, we're incurring the typical $50+ per head per person in food costs alone, not counting cake, not counting wine, not counting other beverages, not counting appetizers.

I really want to respond "if you want to bring someone, they'll have to brown bag it," but I suspect that's inappropriate.

Thoughts? oh, and this person has never been married, never planned a reception, etc. But she is in her mid-late 30s, so you'd think she'd have an idea, right?

Inhale, exhale. Breathing? Check. Ok. Repeat.

So, I've decided the best approach to this wedding is to just not get stressed out over things. Granted, they may be things I'm justified in being angry, upset, stressed, grumpy, etc over, but sometimes you're just best to be a duck and let water run over your back.

Life's a give and take, you know? One person has stepped up, while another one really disappointed me. Breathe in, out, moving on.

I think the best you can do is just make sure you try not to set yourself up for these disappointments. Well, at least for this wedding event. If someone burns a bridge, rebuilding will begin post-wedding; until then I'm moving on to someone else more dependable. I guess it's my way of trying to give this thing the best shot at being a successful, non stressful event. And seriously, someone who is flaking out will likely continue to flake out. If they want to try to fix that impression, wonderful, but I'm not goign out of my way to lead the fixing right now!

Anyway.

Still too much to do, coupled with work being chaotic and me having to chalk up a billion hours between now and the wedding. Oy. And the projects... they still exist! But they're getting fewer and less numerous.

Tonight's goal: FINISH the cake flowers. Go to Ikea and get stuff from there that we need. If I get more accomplished, great. If not, well, that's still a lot.

Tired.

I feel like I can't complain about being tired, as many of my friends are new parents and, well, they are MUCH more tired than I am.

In my world though, I'm tired.

I'm currently sitting on the couch, wrestling with the guestlist. There is a cat behind me who thinks my ponytail/bun is something for him to butt his head with. His paw occassionally bats my cheek/shoulder as if to say "Hellooooo?"

I made 220 rolled rouladin this weekend, cooked them, and made gravy. They are now frozen in gravy, in the freezer at B's.

Ok, there are two cats now. One behind me still up to his antics, and one next to me, continuously grabbing my hand to hold it (he missed me this weekend, I can tell).

We met with the photographer.

B had a batchelor party. I was on-call, and gave the rides home.

We figured out where to take photos.

I made a schedule, detailed, for Thurs, Fri, and Sat (2 pre wedding days and wedding day).

I arranged to meet with one of our helpers tomorrow to figure out who does what when. Sort of a meeting to get the ball rolling. I also made a list of stuff going on.

Now I need to find the energy to get up, away from purry-mcgee and ponytail batter and get tableclothes sewn. Sigh. I just wish they didn't look at me so sadly when I get up.

23 days.

There are 23 days until the wedding.

I have the goal of being done with most things by 6/20, so that means there are 16 days.

Projects remaining:
* COOKING (to be done this and next weekend)
* Giftbags (about 2/3 done)
* Menu cards (won't be too difficult)
* Name cards/figure out seating
* Fix up tablecloths
* Fix up table runners
* Fix up chair covers
* Fix up chair sashes
* Music (we have all the songs, we just need to sort)
* Church programs (after B meets with the church person)
* Cake leaves (much easier than flowers)
* Buy WINE!

The weekends have their various tasks besides cooking too:
6/6: meet with photographer
6/13: put music, in playlist form, onto computer with groomsman
6/20: meet with hair gal, make sure all food ordered (the stuff we're buying from Costco/another local store has to be ordered close to the date we need it).

B may have a conference the weekend of 6/20, so I may be flying solo. I don't want to, but, looking at it positively, this is a good thing in that I may zip around a little faster... maybe.

I have become a list maniac. But, lots of stuff is getting done. At some point this weekend, I'd like to sit down in B's apartment and ORGANIZE everything. I have to pack the car full this weekend with a lot of things, that way we have most everything down. I need to know what we need to buy and when we need to buy it. LISTS need to be made so that I don't forget anything. Once I have that figured out, I can make a master schedule of where everyone needs to be and when for Thurs, Fri, and Sat.

I have been raiding stores for round roast beef. Some have it already thinly sliced, which is wonderful. I want to go to the store after work today, but I have to figure out how to store the meat during work tomorrow then (since I work and don't want warm meat going bad while I'm at work). Hmmm....

So yes, this is my life. Luckily, there are fewer balls up in the air right now, but it's still a bit of a juggling act.

Cake flower query...

So you've seen the red cake flowers... now imagine them in orange, and imagine them in yellow. If you had a four tier cake, would you:

A) put one color on each layer (and then the centerpiece at the top),

B) put all three colors interspersed on each layer (so yellow, red and orange flowers on each layer) or

C) would you jsut make the cake have only one color of flower on each layer?

Our colors are reds and oranges and yellows.

There will also be green leaves underneath the flowers.

THOUGHTS? Feedback welcomed. Very welcomed. Thanks!

Cake flowers!

Here are our fondant flowers so far. I shaped the fondant and poked it onto large toothpicks (easier; we can always cut them down, but it makes them easy to handle).

Here you can see half still white. The other half have been painted with food coloring. These are not all the flowers, but you get a good idea.
Closer up shot; the larger flowers have fake little stamen in them.

Here's the herd untouched and drying.

Here's another close-up. The stems are going to be painted green, that way only color is showing (and no toothpicks). We only did one test-run so far; B's doing the rest this week. It's easier to paint red first and then go back after they've dried and do the green (less running together of the colors).

Cake Birdies!

The lady bird has lace all over her bodice and wings, and satin under the lace on her back and tops of her tail feathers. The manly bird has coattails and a tophat. Their legs are both super long so they can poke nicely into the cake and be sturdy. But, we can easily cut the legs down post-wedding for easier storage/display (curio cabinet, someday!).
Oh how I heart them.

Makeup!

Ok, so I normally don't post my photo on here, but I LOVED my makeup run that I went through this weekend. I contacted a local beautician/makeup artist, and she's going to do my makeup freelance! I'm so excited. She did a run through this weekend and I love it. It matches my skin tone (so I don't look like a makeup head on a different skinned body), but yet brings out everything well. I'm not used to wearing eyeliner, so it was a change, but I've worn it before. AND, I do not need to buy waterproof eyeliner or mascara. huzzah.