Dress and Accesories? Check. Everything else??... I'll get back to you.

*Just a quick sidenote before I begin: Landon tried his hardest to do a #2 on the big boy potty today! I couldn't be more proud of him! He has shown NO interest in the toilet for a few months and today he decided he wanted to give it a go. MOMMY IS SO PROUD OF YOU LANDY-POOH!!*

Anyways...

Call me crazy (yet again) but I've known for a long time what I wanted in my wedding day attire. A VERY LONG TIME. People may think I'm insane for already finding and purchasing my getup, seeing as it's 13 months until our wedding and I am still trying to lose some weight. The fact of the whole matter is simply put: I know what I want. (The picture below was one of the "not what I want" dresses I'd tried... LOL!!!)

I spent a few hours on a couple different occasions trying on dress after dress that was being picked out for me. This was mostly to humor those around "helping" me decide on a dress, but also because you only do this once in a lifetime and you may as well try everything. The dress I picked out was the very first dress I tried on, believe it or not. I saw it when I first entered David's Bridal 2 weeks after I'd been engaged and there was an immediate connection, kind of the same way I felt when I met Alex all those years ago! ^_~ Anyway, it's an easily alterable dress if I do lose a substantial amount of weight. It's also a very simple dress: Ivory, slims me in my trying areas (my waist, my bosom lol), chapel train, and no frilly-over-the-top lacey, sparkly-ness.(Pictured on both sides here.)

Don't get me wrong: I LOVE frilly sparkles. However, with my current weight, I need a dress that will do more for ME, than ME having to do my dress justice. In simple terms: the simpler, the better.

The advantage of having a fairly simple dress is the fact that I can dramatize the rest of my look: nothing excites me more about this whole wedding business than to accessorize my girls and myself. (It's a sad truth, but at least I'm honest!) Since I do not have frills or sparkles or any kind of "bling" on my gown, I have found alternate ways to "pimp" myself out, hahaha. I found a simple ivory veil that was elbow length, but the edging was done in a small, beaded zig-zag fashion. B-E-A-UTIFUL!

Another example: LOOK AT THESE SHOES!!! I've never been a large fan of Chucks, but how can you say no to these sexy beasts?? Me being the practical person I'd like to think I am, I have decided that me in high heels as a mother out in public is NEVER a good decision.. So right from the get-go I wanted flats. Now, since I was a child and had seen "Father of the Bride" I was completely obsessed with Annie Banks's wedding shoes. I swore to myself I would have a pair of equal or greater beauty, and I have found them in an unlikely pair of Chucks! I will be replacing the shoelaces with a more frilly, girly type of shoelace. But otherwise, these shoes are my dream-come-true!


Now, as far as headbands go, I had several options I was looking into. To start, I LOVE SIMPLE HEADBANDS! A couple rhinestones attached to a very plain headband was my idea of beauty. I had always told myself I liked tiara's but the more I tried a few on, the more I realized that I was not good at pulling off the "princess-ee" look. I also believed that I could potentially save some money by doing something this simple.

WRONG!

These bad boys were just as expensive, if not more pricey than tiara's and the like! *BARF!* Well, regardless, when I went in to purchase my dress about a week ago, I took my *future* mother-in-law with me. She and I went through all the headpieces DB had to offer. While I was looking at simple, she had her eye set on a bit more flair than what I had ever thought I'd want, or could pull off.

Enter my feathery friend. Such a simple, rhinestone-d headband. Yet attached to your amazing elegance is a couple feathers and a simple flower. So chic and sooo.... not at all what I'd expected I would pick out! I love being pleasantly surprised. Regardless of whether or not I have my hair style picked out yet, I know this headband will look phenominal no matter what is chosen. Sadly, I do not have a decent picture of the veil to post so you can get the full picture. I will someday soon though! Rest assured!!

Along with this, I've also ordered my bouquet. I'm a sucker for silk flowers, and I found a site that sells their arrangements DIRT CHEAP(afloral.com). They are simple and beautiful, but cheap is definately what originally grabbed me. Once it gets here, I have a couple little adjustments I'd love to make, but the base of it is perfect for what I was looking for.

Also, I have ordered my garter set, our toasting flutes, AND our cake serving set.
More simplicity and still chic. Thank you, Oriental Trading Company!! Very inexpensive but still stylish. Because, honestly, let's just face the facts: What the hell am I going to do with toasting flutes and a cake serving set when all of this is said and done? Keep it for memories and for it's sentimental value? Possibly.

How nauseating would it be to let those sit in a cabinet and collect dust after using them once or twice in a lifetime AND paying $50 a pop for them??? No, no, no! Both sets were an affordable $17.99 plus shipping, AND included free engraving on all four pieces.....

Yes please!!!

We are lucky, to say the least!

Alex and I are very fortunate to have a very well "connected" family........ well, at least he does. His father happens to be a photographer, and an old family friend decorates cakes for a hobby; can you say "Hellllllll Yeahhhhhh!!" ??The above is the wedding cake/groom's cake from Alex's sister's wedding reception Dec 26, 2009. She actually did all of this for free for his sister and her fiance, while their dad did all of their wedding photos COMPLETELY for free!! So, with the same gifts bestowed on us, that would save us a bare minimum of $1000 and the good Lord in Heaven knows we could use all the help we can get to make our day possible =) Also, since his sister DID just get married, we are going to borrow several pieces of her centerpieces to make ours possible.... yet again, another couple hundred dollars shaved off of our budget, just like that!

As far as the rest of our shindig goes, we are pretty much a DIY couple... Don't get me wrong! If we had the spare cash, I would LOVE to pay for the convenience of somebody else dealing with everything...... but sadly, that option doesn't exist in my world. If I'm not able to do it myself, then it's out of the question.

Call me crazy, but we are going to be PLANNING on catering our own reception. How would this work, might you ask? Simple.

Well, I lied. It's not simple. But it sure makes sense and SEEMS harmless when I say it all inside of my head.

We are planning on having a Thursday wedding ceremony at the local conservatory (Saint Charles Conservatory). As there is only room for 100 guests in this location and our list of people is closer to about 175-200 something people, we figured putting the ceremony on a Thursday in the mid-morning time would make it easier to chop away at our massive guest list fairly. Along with this late-week bash, Alex and I plan on taking that same Friday-Sunday off of work, so we may then get started cooking our own food for our own reception which will be held on either Saturday night or Sunday afternoon at his family's parish.

See? Easy peezy, lemon-squeezy!

To the side here is a picture I borrowed from some random site I found while browsing the interwebs the other day.... Granted, we won't have the money to put stemware at every place setting OR actual SILVERware, we hope to have the same basic napkin-chopstick setup as well as a few candles and the bamboo placemat in the middle of the table. We are leaning more towards a brown tablecloth, though I would not be opposed to white if that's what was cheapest.








Here I have a picture of what inspired the centerpiece idea I came up with. While our theme IS cherry blossoms, we have agreed that Orchids would also be welcomed with open arms at our reception.

This is one of the potential combinations (of many I tried) for a centerpiece. The bamboo placemat would go underneath the mirror. Another thought I had experimented with was the idea have having a shorter vase full of rocks/orchid on the same setting. Although I have not tried to yet, I would like to see how it looks with water in the vase. This particular centerpiece would only cost me about $1.50/per table to make, and we only have 22 tables.

Is this something my bridesmaids and I can put together without wanting to tear each other's hair out?
Absolutely.

Is it within our budget so as to not overspend on frilly things and still be able to buy my son milk, food, and diapers for a few weeks?
Without a doubt!

I can already see my vision of white come together!!!..... well, pink and brown anyway. HAH! I can hardly wait until April of 2011 =) Cheap wedding or not, I am still determined to make it gorgeous and celebrate the true unity of my little family in a breathtaking way.

What could be more exciting than planning the first day of the rest of our three lives??

Theme and Ideas

Okie dokie, so to start off, our colors for the wedding are a soft, rose petal pink and a deep, dark espresso brown. The colors chosen from Davids Bridal are Rose Petal and Truffle(shown above).

Originally, I had wanted some kind of purple at my wedding as it is my absolute FAVORITE color. I told Alex to pick a color to compliment it and he chose....... can you guess???

Turquoise.

TURQUOISE?? How is that a complementary color to purple? He told me "But, there are so many different shades of purple, it could work." To which MY response was "There's only ONE turquoise!!"

Now don't get me wrong: I do enjoy the off-shade of blue. However, our personalities are not those of the loud clash a purple/turquoise extravaganza would ultimately create. So, knowing my fiance is a total sucker for other cultures, ESPECIALLY Asian cultures, I came up with a compromise that we both fell in love with after the idea escaped my lips.

Cherry. Blossoms.

What could be more romantic than a traditional Japanese atmosphere with soft pinks and dark shades of brown?? It completely defines us and there is a HUGE abundance of the blossom-themed wedding accessories, such as the ceremony necessities pictured above!

Anyway, this is my second blog for the day soooooo I'm going to relax and enjoy the last few hours of Valentine's day now that my son is in bed!

Until tomorrow......!

Welcome to my Blog!

While I'm sure nobody will read this, I figured it would be fun to at least have a place to talk non-stop about the wonderful wedding I am determined to make a reality.

My name is Becky, and my fiance's name is Alex. A little background info on us: We've been best friends for over 7 years now, and started dating about three and a half years ago. I moved to St. Louis, Missouri from southern California to be with him in January of '07, and by March of '07 we were surprised to learn we were expecting a baby. Three years later, our son is a normal, healthy two-year-old boy who loves to learn and figure things out.

While I would not trade any part of my life for anything else in the world, having a baby unexpectedly has delayed some areas of our lives. Alex and I both currently work at Best Buy fulltime to make ends meet. It's no five-star dream job, but it pays the bills and there are many great people we've met who have enriched our lives.

Among the many things we've pushed back in our lives, getting married was probably the biggest. We haven't honestly had too much extra money for such things. We have nothing against courthouse marriages, but we've both agreed if we were going to do it, it was going to be done in a traditional manner.

In Christmas of 2009, Alex officially proposed to me and I couldn't be more excited! We agreed that April 2011 would be a good time to have it (there is a long story behind this whole part, but I will explain it in another topic). Along with planning for a nice wedding all of 2010 and part of 2011, I have also decided to take up the art of potty training my son, moving into a bigger place, AND going back to school fulltime to become a nurse.

Crazy you say? Beyond a less-than-wealthy's family budget?

Perhaps.

This blog will be dedicated to my trials and tribulations in the next 14 months of planning a picture-perfect wedding (among every other aspect of our hectic life) to finally unite us as a family and officially become Mr. and Mrs. (and Child) Thurmer =)