Ring-a-ding-ding

So let's talk rings for a bit.

They are gorgeous; they are breathtaking; there are so many different to choose from; and finally, they are WAY OVERPRICED!!! I mean, seriously. They are supposed to symbolize the eternal love shared between you and your chosen partner, and are placed on your left finger because it was believed that the left ring finger carried a vein that goes straight to your heart. People now day have gotten SO caught up in the whole vanity of weddings that they end up spending several paychecks worth on an engagement ring, then another few paychecks on the two wedding rings. Don't get me wrong, I too entertain the idea of walking around and showing off some "bling" to my friends and family. Who doesn't?

But when it comes down to it, the only thing that REALLY matters to me is that on our wedding day I have Alex there at my side ready to be my husband and I his wife, and our son there to witness the commitment that his mommy and daddy are going to make to each other, to our family. I could have a piece of string tied to my finger and I wouldn't care. And believe me: At times I've been close to to saying "eff it all" and just going that route.


Alex has bought me a gorgeous engagement ring that I am completely in love with. It's unique and it's VERY sparkly, which are always awesome when combined together. However, being as it's a unique shape and was not purchased from a jeweler, it was very difficult to find a wedding band that would go with it.

We found one at kay's. It's absolutely beautiful and fits my engagement ring PERFECTLY. The downfall? It's $600. While that is relatively dirt cheap for a ring these days, it's more than I'd like to spend. We have already purchased Alex's wedding ring and it's all paid off, so the only one we have left is mine. So, naturally, I've decided that if I could find a substitute for my engagement/wedding rings that will be cheaper combined, I would do that. I can always put my current ring away for later and upgrade to my $600 enhancer that I was looking at when we have the spare cash.

I am a follower of another blog and she had a post last month about these unique rings on Etsy. They are SO gorgeous and are made of recycled metals. While there are several rings available with diamonds in them, the engagement ring/wedding ring I am looking at have white sapphires in them and together will only cost me around $300.


HOORAY!!!!!!!

They are so unique and interesting and absolutely gorgeous!!! Alex has told me he is not a fan of them but he has never been one for bizarre and unique jewelry. I, on the other hand, have always been the opposite. But who knows what will happen.... I just know that the extra $300 we would be saving on my ring would be nothing short of beneficial for the rest of our wedding.

Dedicated to my son, who is everything to me.

So today has only just begun, seeing as it's almost 11am, but I've had a bit of an epiphany I'd like to share with the world.

My son entered our room this morning whining and wanting to be paid attention to around 6 this morning which is about an hour or so before he usually wakes me up. A little annoyed, I got up with him and turned on The Land Before Time while I got him a glass of milk and we cuddled up on the couch. He felt like he had a fever of some sort and was a bit sweaty. This came as no surprise, since his allergies have acted up a bit over the last week and he's been teething pretty intensely which sometimes causes a fever.

Fast-forward to about 8:15, where we have already taken Alex into work for the day and came back home (we only have one car, so it's common for us to drive each other to work.) I was in the process of making breakfast for my little man and myself when he comes into the kitchen slowly (VERY uncommon) and is rubbing his tummy, crying. Requesting me to pick him up, I kept insisting he grab his stool if he wanted to see what I was cooking. (Being a two year old, he often likes to be helpful and asks a LOT of questions about everything.) I finally look down at him while he's grabbing at my leg and see he's almost purple-faced and gagging. I immediately start patting his back, knowing full well I didn't give him anything to eat yet.

As it turned out, he was gagging because he was sick to his stomach. He vomitted all over the kitchen, himself, and my legs. Less than impressed, but feeling terribly for my son, I clean myself, my son and the kitchen up. Afterwards, I went and sat on the couch with him laying on top of me while we watched Diego.

I realized then how much I've missed him being VERY little. We used to cuddle like this all the time and while I know he's growing up and will continue to do so the rest of his life, I still can't help feeling a little sentimental when I reflect back on it.

Then I felt so selfish and disgusted with myself.

I've been spending the last few months excited about planning a wedding and paying off my credit cards that I've all but pushed to the farthest corners of my mind that my son is all that matters to me in the end. Period. He IS my everything and the ONLY thing that will ever matter to me no matter what happens in my life.

Don't get me wrong: I love Alex dearly. He is my soul mate, my partner, to say the least. Along with this, it is simply put that Landon is my heart. People can live without their soul. Hell, there are soulless people living all over the world. While it's not a preferable way to live, it can be done. But NOBODY can live without their heart. What would I do if something were ever to happen to him?? God in heaven FORBID anything ever happen to him, but I can simply say I don't know if I would be around long enough afterward to find out if it's possible to live without a heart.

It might sound tacky and silly, but sometimes these kinds of things need to be said. I have to remind myself constantly that while I am a bride-to-be, I am FIRST and foremost Landon's mother; the only mother he will ever have. Nothing could ever be more important to me than he is. While this whole wedding and celebrating Alex becoming my husband and myself becoming his wife is exciting and easy to get caught up in, I am ashamed to say that I had almost forgotten myself. Landon will only be two years old once, and it really is a fun age because he's excited by EVERYTHING and wants to learn.

I can't wait to see what kind of person he grows in to! I know for sure he will have Alex's intelligence and my drive to get things done. Nothing can be more exciting than imagining all the things he's going to be capable of doing as an adult.

I love you more than anything Landon and I cannot say how privileged I am to be your mommy!! =) You are my greatest gift and joy when all is said and done. You are amazing, my love!!

Invitation Declaration: It just needed to be said

While I have a hard time paying $10-20 for a wedding magazine, I still managed to ignore the unethical amount I paid for the 3-4 big ones I purchased. The latest one I bought about 2-3 weeks ago from theknot.com. While flipping through it, I marked pages that I liked and wrote down ideas that certain articles/pictures had given me, and I came across an ad for a printing company that I'd never heard of before. While we knew the basics of what we wanted and could afford for invitations, save-the-dates, etc., we hadn't settled on a design or where we were purchasing from.

Normally, articles for wedding-related materials in magazines (especially invitations!) turn out to be WAAAAAAY beyond our budget. Originally, the bill for our invitations was going to be around $300-400 for what we need to do. Again, not quite as budget-friendly as we had hoped for. Since we are having our wedding and reception on two separate days, and the wedding only has room for half the people we are inviting, we needed to make two seperate kinds of invitations: One for JUST the reception, and one for the wedding with a reception card.

Can you say "YUCK!!"??

So back to this article I had seen: I decided, "What the heck" and went to their website (vistaprint.com/bliss). I went and found an ADORABLE cherry blossom invitation base I liked. So, I input all the information and made different invitations like I previously stated we needed to do. Went through all the steps and went all the way up to the very end when you put your credit card info in.

Can you guess what the price turned out to be??
A Whopping $75!!!!! SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS FOR OUR ENTIRE WEDDING INVITATION ORDER!!!! HOLY MOLEY!!!

I knew right then and there, obviously, we had found the company we were going to be ordering from whenever we set the dates in stone. And you know what else was absolutely thrilling?? TODAY I got an email from them and ended up getting SIXTY FREE save-the-dates!! No joke... COMPLETELY free! Didn't pay tax, shipping, ANYTHING. It even bumped up my shipping from their 12-14 day to 7 day shipping... FREE!

HOLLA!!!!



My advice on them? USE THEM!!! They have a nice variety of different invitations (not only for weddings, but for any occassion really) and are all reasonably priced. For those of us on seriously tight budgets, like Alex and I, this company is a SERIOUS MONEY SAVER!

For my lovely maidens!

<*So the point of this post is mostly eye candy.... lots of pretty things that I would love to see become (or already are) part of my wedding!*>

There is going to be a total of 4 people in our wedding party: two for my side and two for Alex's side (minus the ring bearer and flower girl). While Alex may or may not have chosen who he'd like to stand with him, I have had the two people I'd like in my mind for quite some time.

The first being my maid of honor and best friend since 4th grade: Heather! She may not always be everybody's favorite person and I've even been asked what I see in her at times. We've been unlikely friends for forever though and we understand each other completely. I love her dearly and she is like a sister to me. The only issue we have right now is distance: I live in Missouri and she lives in Alaska.

Secondly, my other bridesmaid is my dear friend Jessica. While I've only come to know her over the last three years, she has been a better friend to me than some people I've known and considered my friends my whole life. She lives about 20 minutes away from me and has been a life saver for all this wedding business! Her oldest daughter, Samantha (who is 3 weeks younger than Landon) is going to be our flowergirl. (Below: Landon and Samantha 12 and 11 months old.) She is quite a doll and has recently become a big sister to Abigail, Jessica's second daughter. She and Landon together walking down the aisle on our wedding day will be an adorable sight! I can't wait!!

That being said, I've already gone ahead and picked out a bridesmaid's dress style and the flower girl dress. I wanted to incorporate both colors into the dress, so I went with sashes for both. I spoke to both of my girls, and they collectively decided they'd like to wear strapless. To be quite honest, I didn't mind what style of dress they wanted to wear, so long as it had our colors in it. Jess and Heather will be in brown dresses with a pink sash while Sammie will be in a pink dress wearing a brown sash. Beyond the dress, I really do not have anything set in cement for them. They will be carrying parasol's instead of bouquets, but as far as jewelry and shoes go, we are all still talking and deciding!

I have briefly been browsing through possibilities for shoes and the like, and came up with a few options. Nothing is going to be final for quite some time. Since the girls' dresses are knee length, they can pull off flats OR heels. Heather, being just shy of 5' tall, I'm sure will want some lovely pumps. While Jessica, being a mother as I am, will probably be more willing to sport a stunning pair of flats while she chases around her girls. Whichever they choose, my main concern is that everybody is comfortable and happy. The LAST thing I want is for people to feel pressured into doing something or wearing things they hate.

I was thinking about bridesmaid's gifts as well, and thought to myself, "Self, maybe since you can't decide on what to get your girls, you could buy their jewelry for them." "What a wonderful idea, self!! Where ever did I get a brain like yours??"
On that note, I started looking into bracelets mostly. I will be looking through several other options but above is a bunch of one's I've found on etsy.com (amazing website by the way!! Not always the cheapest stuff, but there are MANY things on this site that have reasonable prices and are absolutely goooooorgeous!) I like the pink ones more for Sammie, and the darker ones for Heather and Jessica.

Here is a picture of the flower girl basket and petals for Sammie. Ignore the aluminum foil box in the background please.

She will be the life of the wedding when she and Landon head down the aisle together spreading these beautiful cherry blossom petals.

This is Landon's ring bearer pillow with Alex's ring on it:
















This is the gorgeous parasol the other two will be carrying instead of the traditional bouquet. We thought it gave the ceremony a more asian-inspired theme like Alex and I wanted, as well as interlocking the cherry blossom theme with the design. It will also save us around $20! Yummy!!!



Isn't it to die for??? Another few simple, inexpensive ways to make this a cheap and chic wedding!

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......!