More Updates

Still awaiting word from the photographer. I am going to start emailing more this week if I don't hear back from them by today. I have found a few more in the same price range. All I want is to have the pictures digitally on a cd because I prefer looking at pictures on my computer anyways rather than in an album or loose.

All three of my bridesmaids are going to come to the cake tasting with me in a few weeks. =) That will be fun. I can only pick out four flavors to try which I need to decide on this week. I really want lemon cake but I don't think that many people would like that. It is my cake, but I want the guests to enjoy the wedding as well. ^_^ The groom's cake will definately be some form of chocolate. Maybe chocolate hazelnut. *drool*

JT still hasn't asked for leave for the time of the wedding and honeymoon! He's going to end up having to go AWOL to attend his own wedding! Jeeze. His mother has scheduled the honeymoon but is keeping it's location a suprise, which I don't like. I need to know if I should get a passport or not. There isn't really much time left to get that done before January. This is probably the time of year tons of people apply for passports. JT needs a copy of his birth certificate which will take a while to get since he wasn't born in Texas.

I'm getting the three bridesmaids together this weekend for their dress fitting. I'm hoping to take some pictures for the website. I didn't really get to last time. They were trying on the same dress in different colors and I wanted pictures of them in the correct color dress. David's Bridal wanted me to pick up the dresses and keep them for some reason until they come in for the fitting. So I've just had three formal gowns hanging up in my house for the past two weeks. They take up a lot of space and none of the closets are really tall enough to hang them in so they're just hanging over the top of a closet door right now. ^_^

Another month until my dress is ready. I have lost between 7 and 10 pounds since the first fitting because I have to walk 10 blocks to work every day now, and I had food poisoning last weekend which caused me to lose 3 lbs that I did not gain back. This is probably the only time I will ever NOT want to lose weight just because there isn't much time for them to alter the dress again. ^_^ I've actually been trying to gain weight by eating all sorts of sweets and such, but it hasn't helped. I haven't had the problem of actually trying to gain weight and not succeeding since high school. I guess the mile walk every day has sped up the metabolism.

I'm going to see if I can make an appointment to come in to Fountain Glenn (Wedding location) this weekend with my bridesmaids so they can see the place and I can take better pictures for the website. I need to shoot some video too and try out some of the decorations I bought to see how they look. I found some icecicle Christmas ornaments at Garden Ridge that look like unicorn horns. I don't know what I'll do with them but they look really neat so I bought a few of them. I need to find some table over-lays too.

Updates

JT's ring came in last week. It looks awesome! In the picture we saw of it at the shop, it looked cool, but it is a lot better in person. JT likes it and everyone we've shown it to said it looked really cool. =) It's got a celtic knot dragon design on it with tiny rubies and diamonds set into the knotwork. It had to be custom ordered from the artist.

We went up to visit JT's mother in Dallas because she needed my engagement ring. She's having the wedding ring welded to it, and I won't get to see it again until the wedding. =( Apparently whatever ring he's getting me is going to be really expensive. =) I can't wait to see it!! And I hope I like it. I am very picky.

I came up with many more invitation designs at the end of last week and over the weekend, we selected one and I am currently working on assembling the invitations and everything that will go with them. The invitations themselves are cropped out and glued to a metallic blue piece of card stock, so it's very time consuming. =/ But I really love the way they turned out!!

I emailed the cake person and set up an appointment with her for the middle of next month. Really looking forward to that and I am gathering pictures of what I want for the cake design. There will be a groom's cake too, which I am going to see if she can do a dragon design on. The wedding theme is kind of turning into unicorns and dragons, starting with JT's ring. I am looking for a little glass unicorn and dragon to use as a cake topper, and I am going to order a unicorn champagne flute and a dragon champagne flute, and anything else unicorn/dragon I can find that is relevant to the wedding. ^_^ I originally wanted to have a wedding at the Texas Renaissance festival, but the timing is off and we don't want to wait until April for Scarborough Fair. I contacted the photographer, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I really hope they're free for the wedding date because their prices were pretty reasonable and I haven't found another photographer with such low prices. *cringe* I don't want to end up paying $5,000 for a photographer who will be there just a few hours. These people do everything digitally and give you a cd with all of the images. I like that because I would be scanning them all onto my computer anyways and I can adjust the color/contrast/etc. to my liking.

Set-up Meeting

On Saturday, my mother and I went to the set-up meeting where we discussed with the owner/wedding coordinator of Fountain Glenn where we want the tables set up in the reception hall, where we want the food to be served from, cake table, dance floor, how we want the chapel to be set up, possibilities in decorations, etc. It took a lot longer than I thought, but the owner is extremely helpful in answering questions before they even come up. I am going to call the lady that does the cakes this weekend and set up an appointment with her. I look forward to the cake tasting! Other than that, I have to contact the photographer I want to use, set up an appointment with the florist, and decide on the groomsmen tuxedos.

Not much progress last week...

Things stil to accomplish:
-Make set-up meeting appointment (where discussion of how the tables and chair will be set up happens, and which caterer we want, and a meeting is set up with the person who makes the cakes to have a cake-tasting).
-Pick out tux for groom and groomsmen
-Find a Photographer
-Get addresses to send out invitations
-Buy invitations (or design them)
-Buy decorations (twinkle lights, ribbons, etc.)
-Meet with florist and pick out flowers

I am still wanting to design the invitations myself. I found some celtic invitations online that were hand-stamped and layered on top of a colored peice of cardstock that I really liked and I thought I can do that. It's kind of important to me anyways to design the invitations myself, since I am into graphic design. I can't really find any invitations that are what I am looking for. I would like them to have embossed, mettalic designs around the border, which I can't re-create myself, but I can probably hand-stencil on some metallic ink if I want. I plan on starting the design process this weekend. I have to buy a new printer though because mine will no longer pull the paper through. It would probably be cheaper just to buy a whole new printer than have it repaired.

I was supposed to receive a call back from Fountain Glenn today to make the set up appointment, but I never received that phone call, so I will have to check up on that when I have time this afternoon. I'm sick today though, so I probably won't get much accomplished today. I already don't feel like doing anything but sleeping. It's freezing in here too (which I am sure is because of the fever) so I wish I had a jacket.

I can't wait until the dresses (the bridesmaid dresses and my own dress) are ready. Hopefully the bridesmaid dresses won't take long to alter. My dress isn't going to be ready until November 29, so hopefully they won't have to alter it again. They get kind of annoyed when they have to rush the alterations. I have tried my best to not lose or gain any weight. Unlike many brides, I do not feel pressured to get down to a size 2 before the wedding. ^_^ The bridesmaid dresses are coming in around the 12th of November and then the bridesmaids have to come in to have them fitted. Hopefully their alterations won't take long, because every single one of them needs their dresses to be hemmed. The dress I chose seems to be made for someone 6 ft. tall.

Updates

I went to David’s Bridal with my three bridesmaids on Saturday and they tried on bridesmaid dresses. I really like the one I picked out (#8007). They did not have a single dress of that style in the color I wanted, so they had to order them and they won’t come in until November. My maid of honor, who lives in Oklahoma went and ordered her dress as well over the weekend. So, none of us will have our dresses back until November. =( I won’t have mine until around the 25th of November. That is a ridiculously long time and I hope it doesn’t have to be altered again. I am trying hard not to gain or lose any weight before the wedding so that they don’t have to alter the dress again. ^_^ I wanted to take some pictures of my bridesmaids trying on the dresses, but they were never really all out of the dressing room at one time and were uncooperative. =/ I did find the dress style I got to show them and took a few pictures of it. I could barely remember what it looked like, because it had been so long ago when I last saw it. I’m still not sure that the one I pulled out was the right one, but it looked close enough. My bridesmaids all liked the dress and liked their dresses as well.
I have to call the wedding location today to make a set-up appointment for mid-October. This is when we will discuss how we want everything to be set up and set up an appointment with the caterer and the woman who does the wedding cakes. I am looking forward to the cake-tasting!
I am going to have to start stock-piling alcohol, since we are buying our own alcohol. I am very particular about what wine and champagne I like, so I will have to find one I can stand to drink. I think dessert wines are my best bet. We’re also going to have beer, which I don’t like either. Personally I would like to have a bartender who served mixed drinks and such, but I don’t want people to be drunk at my wedding.
The fact that I am going to be graduating in 2.5 months and married in 3 still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I guess it will eventually.

Location

Today, my mother and I went over to Fountain Glenn to sign a contract and secure the wedding date. It’s really starting to sink in that I am getting married now that we’ve paid half of the amount down and it is non refundable. It is hard to believe I’ll be married in a little more than three months! We are supposed to have a “set-up” meeting at Fountain Glenn in mid October to discuss how we want the tables set up, our final decision on which caterer we want to go with, and to set up a cake-tasting meeting. I really look forward to the cake tasting. =) I am going to have to form some ideas on how I want the cake to be decorated. I know I want metallic silver details on it somewhere and edible silver glitter. The edible glitter looks cool.
I also went and ordered JT’s wedding ring today. I had to pay half down and will pay the rest when it comes in six weeks from now. I forgot to have them engrave something in it. I can probably find someone around town who can do that.
I really want my dog to be the ring bearer. I am considering asking Fountain Glenn if they will allow a dog in there. It would probably be too much trouble though. Galahad loves people and would be hyper and jumping on everyone all evening and he would have to stay inside the reception area with us, because no one would want to have to drive him an hour back to the house. I would love to have both of my dogs there since they are like my children, but Tristan is way too high-strung to be calm around so many people. Galahad is the one that might behave somewhat.
Now, I have to worry about finding a wedding photographer. The prices are phenomenal. I was going to ask my brother to be the wedding photographer, since he is a wonderful photographer (he’s had some of his work put in museums and galleries), but he only ever photographs nature, so he isn’t so sure about photographing a wedding. Added to the fact that he might end up being a groomsman. I have four bridesmaids, and JT has three groomsmen, and he wanted the number to match my bridesmaids, so he wants to ask my brother to be one. I don’t know if he will go along with that. My brother hasn’t worn a tuxedo since his high school prom some 15 years ago. He’s a rugged out-doors person so he only even wears slacks and a button down shirt when he absolutely has to. I was thinking about hiring a photography student, which I am still considering, but I kind of want someone that has experience photographing a wedding. Weddings seem to be something you need to know what you are going to photograph. Fountain Glenn recommended a husband and wife team that photographs weddings on the weekends who are reasonably priced. They do a taping of the ceremony too. I might go with them. It will still be a lot more than I want to pay though. =/

Bridesmaid Dresses

I have finally narrowed down the bridesmaid dresses to two different dresses. I plan on going into the store to look at them today. I finally decided to pick out dresses from David’s Bridal because it will be easier to get my bridesmaids together to go try them on and my maid of honor lives in Oklahoma, so it had to be a place she could go to up there. I can’t really tell a lot about the two dresses I picked out from the pictures online, so I will have to wait and see what I think when I see them in person. The colors might be different than they appear online too.