21

21 more days to go. I'm sort of having heart attacks over here, in a good, excited way, but also in a totally overwhelmed and stressed and freaking out sort of way. I only have TWENTY-ONE more days to finalize the EVENT OF MY LIFE. There are still so many little things to get done. Last night was the first night that I actually really couldn't fall asleep because I was just lying there, THINKING about every teeny tiny little detail still to be done! It almost feels like I'm back in school again, putting off some major research paper or huge photo project. Those feelings of, "I still have so much to do, i'll do it tomorrow" are plaguing me just like they did in school. If I could just get everything done and then relax for the next twenty days, that would be a dream.


So you may be wondering just what, exactly, I am stressing over/ still have to do? Here is a brief list (in totally random order as thoughts pop into my over-excited brain):


1. Figure out some sort of table number decor.
2. Find a vest for Justin.
3. Find suspenders for all of the guys.
4. Make sure all of the guys have their pants, and a white shirt.
5. Figure out where the heck the custom ties we ordered are? Hopefully on their way asap.
6. Figure out what the do the last day of our honeymoon- i.e., purchase one more day of Disney park passes since we decided not to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
7. Find jewelry to wear. Which is dumb how stressful this is to me because I am a weird girl and never wear jewelry but I feel like you have to wear something special at your wedding. 
8. LOSE A FEW POUNDS just for good measure. Ugh.
9. Figure out a timeline for the day.
10. Once we get all of the RSVP cards back we have like a week to plan out the seating arrangements. So *nudge nudge* please send back your RSVP cards asap!
11. Figure out ceremony decor. 
etc. etc. etc.


Okay so you get the idea, the list goes on and on and on. Those are just a few things! I guess this is the first whiny post. All of the others have been all "blah blah blah I'M SO EXCITED YOU GUYS" but now this is me starting to lose my cool. But everything is going to be okay! Just have to keep in mind that all of the little things that don't get done won't matter in the long-run. 




xoxo,


Caitlin

One More Month

One more month until I marry Justin.


Is this still real?! I cannot write (or type) just how excited that I am. It's totally surreal. I hope that on May 5th I can be brought down from Cloud 9. I don't want to float away!


I've been counting down for days but for some reason when I woke up this morning, the fact that today is the one month mark did not pop into my head. Yet, when I got up, I immediately turned on episodes of Say Yes to the Dress and went to the Watters website to look at my dress because I was feeling Wedding Fever. I haven't felt that for about a month now. I had stopped looking at wedding blogs, pinning things onto my pinterest boards, obsessing over things. It had calmed down for the past month. But it's back in full force! 


In an attempt to keep myself from just sitting here and babbling on and on about how excited I am, I will share some photos from our wedding shower, which happened on March 31st. My amazing future big sis/ matron-of-honor Becky and my amazing future mother-in-law Sharon put together the entire event and it was wonderful! A room filled with amazing amazing deserts and incredibly generous loved ones- a perfect night!

My beautiful momma and I

bridesmaid Megan and I

bridesmaid Robin and I

matron-of-honor Becky and I!

We asked people to bring their wedding photos to hang up. That's my parents on the left there, my dad was apparently turning around asking the photographer if he was doing it right.

I realized the next day that I never got a photo of just Justin and I taken. Oops! I guess on May 5th we will have all the photos in the world taken of just us to make up for it. 

Later today I have my next dress fitting. It was supposed to be last Sunday but I was too sleepy and feeling yucky the day after the wedding shower. Today I am fully recovered and ready to see my beautiful gown again (and try on my killer fancy shoes too). Happy one month to go!

xoxo,

Caitlin

Polished

Things are looking a little different around here eh? I won a pretty blog template giveaway via a contest held by one of my very favorite blogs, Delightfully Tacky! The fancy new template is made by Sarah of xoSillygrrl on Etsy. I was so excited to win this as she just so happened to have a template with pretty bunting across the top which just so happens to be sort of a reoccurring theme in my wedding. 
So! It's March 23rd. Where are we? Well, it's almost midnight, so, it's almost 42 days to go. Forty-two more days to plan the event of our lives. 
Justin and I finally went shopping for his attire. We found some pants, isn't that exciting?! So far he only has pants and shoes. Ties are on the way. Finding the right vest is proving to be more difficult than one would think. 
I've been doing a bit of wedding crafting on the weekends, slowly plugging away at things. Stamping our little initialed heart onto things, writing place cards and making little paper cones out of old book pages. The old book that has sacrificed itself to the cause is called Run Sheep Run (you can't even google it, google doesn't even know about this book) and is something that I picked up in a thrift store once because it was a pretty teal color. As I've been sitting around ripping out it's pages I've almost wished I'd read it first. The snippets i've read sound kinda good and now I feel bad. Books are sacred!


I've also been harnessing a lot of brain power into planning our Honeymoon. Well, the main part of it is taken care of, thanks to Justin's amazing parents giving us our trip to Disney World. But I've been agonizing (okay maybe not quite agonizing but I did stay up one night until like 1am doing research) over which restaurants to make reservations at, what to do, etc etc etc. We're staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which I'd been flip-flopping over until we watched some youtube videos of people sitting on their balconies watching giraffes and zebras go wandering by. I think my problem is that there is just an overwhelming amount of choices. I want to stay at every hotel, go to every restaurant, ride every ride...you get the idea. I keep trying to change my mind about things but thankfully I have Justin to reel me in. I think that I've also been having this same problem with the wedding planning. There is just an overwhelming amount of options, it's difficult to settle with just one choice. Can't I have multiple reception tents set up, each with a different decor theme? Can't I change my shoes 23 times during the day? Making wedding decisions is HARD.


I think my next post I am going to talk about all of the weird wedding-related dreams that I have had over the past several months. I hope this is normal. 




xoxo,


Caitlin

maintenance

Bear with me while the blog undergoes a little makeover. Having some technical issues at the moment!

In other news- 45 days to go!

Organizing

Just a quick note to mention that I've updated my little list of links over there to the right --------->
I'll try to keep a nice little list of all the vendors that we have used throughout the planning of our wedding, from everything to the food down to the fancy tape I used on the boutonnieres. I've also put a link on there to my Pinterest page which has proven to be massively useful as far as gathering ideas and remembering things to purchase, etc. (thank you Robin for showing me the light!). Hopefully this may be helpful if there are any brides-to-be reading my blog... or for people who are as obsessed with Etsy as I am, you can see what sellers I have used. Happy (almost) Friday!


xoxo,




Caitlin

Sixty-Five and Counting

Sixty-five days to go! Some exciting things have been happening lately. First we finally chose a ceremony officiant that was recommended to us by our caterer. His name is Captain Ron Gonzales (you can find his contact info here if you scroll down to Wedding Officiants), we met with him last week and he is going to be a perfect fit for us. We had put off finding an officiant for a long time because we were so unsure of how to go about mixing our beliefs, but I feel so much better about it now. 
Earlier this week we also finally went to have our wedding rings made! This was another thing that we put off for ages because we had no idea what we wanted. I knew that I wanted to keep with the theme of my engagement ring and have something old, preferably from one of our families. It was just a matter of finding the perfect bits and pieces to make up the perfect rings. Justin's ring is going to be one of his dad's old wedding bands that no longer fits. We're just going to have it fitted and polished, and then of course have something special engraved on the inside. 


As for my ring, it's going to made up of three things that are being melted down and combined. The first ring once belonged to Justin's dad's grandmother and was her high school ring from 1927. Her name was Willa Theadosha, how cool is that?!

The second ring belonged to Justin's grandmother (maternal) and is a gorgeous gold initial signet ring.

And now for the best part, the third and final component....

My dad's old gold tooth! So I know most people are probably thinking "Okay, well, that's weird." But it's perfect! I wanted to have a piece from my family included in the ring and we didn't really have any old rings that worked until my dad suggested his old gold tooth. I love it. It makes me laugh every time. And when I have that ring on my finger I will always have a perfect reminder of my family (and my dad's old gold tooth). Perfection.

Last bit of news, we picked up the invitations yesterday from Paper in the Park! They look SO good! Everyone at Paper in the Park did such an amazing job and were so helpful and fantastic to work with. They really were invaluable in helping to make my vision come alive. I started addressing them asap when I got home yesterday, we're a month behind getting them in the mail!

Here's a few sneak peeks at the invites:

Everything came wrapped up in this beautiful box!

xoxo,

Caitlin

A Wee Update

Basically what's been going on lately at the wedding-front has been a massive whirlwind of Etsy purchases. For those that don't know (and I'm not sure how you don't...) Etsy is the mecca motherland online marketplace of vintage, handmade and all things crafting supplies. Let me do a re-cap of what we've ordered from various Etsy sellers so far: my bridal headpiece, rubber stamps for the save-the-date cards, striped washi tape for the boutonnieres, feathers and other materials for the boutonnieres, supplies for the candy bar, pretty striped straws, the men's ties, place cards, and the cake topper! And I'm sure there will be many more orders to come. What did brides do before Etsy? What did brides to before the internet? Before Google? I can't imagine planning a wedding without it (the internet, that is). Imagine having to use a PHONE BOOK. I get chills just thinking about it.


I have my next dress fitting at the end of March which means that I have another month to stress about trying to lose a bit of weight in time. Justin and I have embarked on a nightly exercise regimen and are trying, TRYING to eat healthier. The day before my next fitting is our wedding shower, which I am so excited about! My matron-of-honor and future mother-in-law have been planning away at it, it's going to be a perfectly yummy dessert-fest. I'll also be going in for a trial hair and makeup run pretty soon. Why hasn't my hair grown out into beautiful long wavy locks yet? Am I going to have to get extensions? Extensions kind of make me laugh. Plus, they get sewn onto your head and that doesn't sound like anything I'm interested in having done to my scalp. Also, I don't like fake hair. Will I be wearing fake hair on my wedding day? Only time will tell.




xoxo,




Caitlin