Jul062010

July 6 TMW Post

Tweet: @msrib – how many professional photographers do i have on my feed… debating if i want pro pics for our uber casual wedding reception

I’ve been seriously debating this issue. Our big DAY will have plenty of coverage as included in the package by Scenic Las Vegas Weddings. As will 2 days later thanks to the amazing photo shoot we won with the amazingly talented Emeric Photography

In a series of responses from photographer and non-photographer friends, I was convinced that yes, we DO need a pro photog at the reception. As one friend pointed out, the party, with all our family and friends, will look like drunken party pics especially compared to our pro pics for everything else. So now, I need to figure out a budget for the January shindig and see how much cash we have to spend on pictures. I have a friend that I would love so much to use, but I just don’t know if we can afford her. Luckily she said she has a friends and family discount. She is one of those truly amazing photog’s with crazy high ratings on WeddingWire. I am in love with her work. Le sigh.

Tweet: msrib – as open as i’ve been w/all my dress choices, i think i’m gonna keep the final selection a secret until the pics are posted. maybe #weddingwednesday

I did end up purchasing the gown last Monday. I was in and out of David’s Bridal in about 45 minutes with my newest dress in hand. They had the size and color I wanted to try on. To be fair, I did wander around to check on other floor length gowns and tried on one other. Little Miss Indecisive is no longer so! The dress is in my closet. My mom said she like it a lot better than the last all lace one. I don’t have any pictures of myself in it as I was having major undergarment issues. Plus the straps are a bit big so I need to have then fixed before I’ll post any pictures. I suppose in this case, third time really in a charm!

Tweet: msrib – Hello mini future Mr & Mrs Fletcher! #caketopper http://twitpic.com/21eohx

And I leave you with a bit of creativity… all I need to do is spray on the varnish and we’re done!

Jul042010

The Dress.. No I mean it this time!

What a bad blogger I am! It’s been nearly a month since I’ve last posted. In that time, I have completed a fair amount of wedding-related things. I made our cupcake tower, but decided against bringing it to Vegas so it doesn’t get ruined and will just use it at the Miami reception. Our cake topper is nearing completion and will post pics when it’s done.

Also, I swear I’m one of the most indecisive people on the planet when it comes to this stuff! I bought a dress super early in our engagment, then got tired of it and took a year to sell it. Then I found another one, super cute and sassy (it’s posted here somewhere). Then I got tired of IT and returned it. My vision of what I wanted to look like on my wedding day has changed like crazy. The first dress was a ballgown with pick-ups all over the skirt and a totally undecorated bodice except for a smattering of pearls along the top edge. My 2nd dress was knee length, all lace, and just plain fun. My last and hopefully final dress is floor length, all chiffon, spaghetti straps and beading under the bust. I am in love with it. No pictures of me in it (I wasn’t wearing the right undergarments!), but it’s this one:

Image from David’s Bridal

Jun292010

June 29 TMW Post

Tweet: @msrib – thoughts? screen printed or ironed onto canvas $0.97 bags. http://twitpic.com/1zf4cs

Tweet: @msrib – what about “Thank you for joining us to celebrate for a few days. This bag will last you a lot longer… Please reuse it! Becca & Steve”

So, favor bags for Vegas… I definitely want to do something nice for the handful of folks joining us. The bags will include a polycarbonate or aluminum water bottle, sunscreen, snacks, playing cards, a map of the Strip and transportation/ restaurants/ shows around Vegas. Hopefully most people will have the show bookings done in advance, but you never know! My dilemma is still getting all this stuff to Vegas.

After all the feedback I received upon posting the above picture to both Twitter and facebook, it was suggested that I just use the tree and our names and date only. And put the note about reusing it on a little hangtag. I already have hangtags purchased a while ago. My plan initially was to keep the wedding info on all favors to a minimum, but I’m told no one really cares what they say. I’d add this to my grocery bag collection and use them all the dang time. What do you think? Would you reuse this bag?

Tweet: @msrib – i’m totally torn between dresses. short & sassy (not sold on the chunky top) or long & flowy http://bit.ly/dqTlWe vs http://bit.ly/cX5phN

I know, I know… I already bought a dress… 2 dresses, in fact. I did manage to sell the original one after well over a year of attempting to get rid of the dang thing. The short and sassy all lace dress is easily returnable thanks to Macy’s fabulous return policy. Monday afternoon I went back to David’s Bridal to check out the long and flowy gown again. I tried it on ages ago and loved it. It was a definite contender for my bridesmaids… ya know, if I was having bridesmaids. I still need to decide which I like best. The DB dress hasn’t been purchased yet, but even still, it is within budget. My Vegas dress budget was $200 (scandalous!) and the DB dress definitely falls in that range. Ehhhh who knows! I have total dress indecision, just like @CelestialAxis has been having.

Part of my problem is that I haven’t really had the ah-ha OMG bridal moment since the first gown. Here’s hoping it comes sooner than later seeing as we’re getting hitched in 103 days!

Jun222010

June 22 TMW Post

Tweet: Today is my parent’s 39th wedding anniversary.. in 39 years & 3.75 months, we’ll be celebrating ours too! 😉

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one. 39 years. That is a loooooong time! In those 39 years years they’ve owned 3 houses, raised 3 children, and owned hundreds of exotic birds and probably about a hundred dogs. Not to mention the odd creatures like goats, tortoises, koi, iguanas, and whatever else they’ve had. While we’re not going for the animal part, having 3 kids after 39 years is something I’d love to emulate. Even if there’s only 1 perfect kid – me, of course! 😉

Tweet: wedding ring mailed yesterday, remake payment just made… now to wait 8 horribly long weeks to get it back. going from 7.5 to 9 #justincase

My beautiful ring finally got mailed back. And what’s better, it was received 2 days later. Before I could even check the tracking, I got an email from the jeweler saying” it arrived, he’d use my old stone and crate the new one… and as a reminder, the current waiting time was 8 weeks.” Le sigh. 8 weeks until I have my precious back in my hands. The timing is pretty dead on since the wedding is just shy of 4 months away.

Tweet: The result of careful counting & lots of painful hot glue injuries: http://twitpic.com/1x510b

Tweet: All I need now are the pillars. #cupcaketower http://twitpic.com/1x6ag8

Tweet: Mini us! Now to hook to the base & varnish the whole thing #caketopper http://twitpic.com/1xannv

That’s right, I finally got some wedding DIY done… or at least seriously worked on. The cupcake bases are complete and I just need the towers. The cake topper is done and I just need to varnish them. We have normal varnish from the kitchen cabinets, but I’m thinking that it wayyyyy too thick. All the sites I was referring to used spray varnish. Too bad a bottle of spray varnish is about 10x what I need and costs like $8. Can’t they just sell a tiny bottle for me?

Tweet: Embossed envelopes… It’s a start! #wedding http://twitpic.com/1yki33

I am actually please with how these turned out. All the stamps I purchased and carefully planned and showed to people… they won’t work for embossing. I tried. All the text runs together. I guess that means everything else will just get stamped onto the envelopes. I did start that part… the stamping onto the envelopes. Our snazzy and complete fab return address stamp got stamped onto all 100 RSVP envelopes over the weekend. Only a handful were either too light, ink missing, or something else unusable. Not too shabby!

And I leave you with this, from Monday…
Tweet: 111 days until 101010! (cc @brokebride2be!)

Jun152010

June 15 TMW Post

Tweet: Plain water bottles would be appreciated as much as customized, right? #wedding #favors http://twitpic.com/1vkz23

For those that have been keeping track, I’ve been wanting to do personalized water bottles as favors for our Vegas guests. Personalized as in some design I would create. But even with the 20% off coupons I’ve got for DiscountMugs, with art work it’s figuring to be about $8 each bottle once all is said and done. During an errands run to Big Lots, I spotted orange and blue aluminum water bottles (amongst other colors) for $4 a pop! Sure, they’re not personalized, but do people really care? I may just snatch them up, make cute “thanks for coming” tags and call it a day.

I’m contemplating getting the $0.90 tote bags from CheapTotes and stuffing them with goodies including the bottles. My main issue now is how the heck do I transport it all? Mailing it to myself at the hotel? Mailing it to a friend in Vegas and hoping we get together in time to set up the bags? Send the bottles in advance to my guests? Well, the last option isn’t viable since I want them to have the bottles IN Vegas and they might forget them.

Tweet: I sorta wish I hadn’t bought our wedding rings last April… While I still love it, it’s too small on me & his is too big

Tweet: ok folks, do i send my fabu wedding ring back & spend $120 to have it sized &/or spend $25 on a simple band? he says $25, i say $120

Tweet: the matchy matchy rings: http://twitpic.com/6j3ro

Tweet: So I’m ok w/ easily dropping $200 on the #iphone4, but hesitated on an add’l $120 on my wedding ring. Talk about screwy priorities! …. Ring’s going back this week for resize/ remake. It’s going to last about 5000 times longer than the phone 🙂

Tweet: oh boy.. the remake/resize is $170. so long #iphone4 perhaps it’ll be a 3gs w/updated software instead. #ihatemoney

I know, lots of tweets, but for a very good reason. My ill-fitting ring is front and center on my mind right now. Steve’s fits well enough that it won’t fall off. Mine fits so well that it is painful to put on and take off. As in, it barely fits! Since buying my ring last April (yes, in 2009!) my finger has expanded. The ring is a US7.5 and a 7mm thick titanium band. I think I’d be happier with an 8 or 8.5. However, titanium isn’t resizable. The jeweler that made it (JewelryByJohan on Etsy) said I could send it back and he’d remake it for 60% of the price. I paid $200 for it last year, and it’s gone up considerably to $316, so 60% is $90. Holy freaking hell. I saved a boatload on airfare, hotel and clothes, but don’t want to spend it all on my wedding ring!

I did email him as I was tooling around his site and saw the exact same ring paired with a plain men’s band for $254. And on his non-etsy website, the ring is listed for $197. Hopefully I don’t sound nit-picky, but that is a crazy price increase, and an inconsistent one too.

I was looking on Etsy and Ebay for “replacement” titanium rings and can get a 3mm-4mm plain plain plain band for about $25. Bear in mind that my wedding ring was going to completely replace my e-ring. So the plain band would live all alone on my finger. Steve thinks I should get a stand-in because $190 is a lot and my original ring might end up fitting again.

What would you do?

Jun082010

June 8 TMW Post

Tweet: i’m shaking just a little bit, but $400 just couldn’t be passed up. incl taxes, fees, and travel insurance.

Tweet: Taking my chances w/@SpiritAirlines. Plenty of time built-in to our agenga for bad stuff to happen. Gotta be like a duck & let it roll off.

This post is all about completing the bookings for our weddingmoon, which is, rightfully so, the largest part of our planning. After a few back and forth emails with Heather, the heard of customer services and person running the @spirit_helper and @spiritairlines twitter accounts, I booked our flights. As I was checking prices, an email came in with dirt cheap prices during October. Now, I’d been getting these emails for a few months now and they’re never more than a month in advance. After booking, I emailed Heather back and she immediately replied saying she sent that one out for me.

I know Spirit has terrible reviews, but I’m willing to take a chance. I booked nonstop flights both ways. To get the crazy low price of under $400 for EVERYTHING, I joined their $9 Fare Club. My brother’s future sister-in-law just started working for Spirit and will hopefully be able to request to get on our flight, at least one of the legs. We saved over $250 off all other airlines, even previous times I checked Spirit. It seemed to be kinda a no-brainer to me.

Tweet: booked the hotel for the 8th. now our weddingmoon is officially and 100% booked. i feel sooo much better!

After tweeting back and forth with the @luxorlv tweeter, she gave me a promo code to use for the additional night and I booked it last night. Oh yeah, to book the dirt cheap airfare, I had to extend the trip by an extra night. We’ll be arriving into Vegas around 11:30pm their time (ugh… that’s 2:30am our time!) so we basically needed a place to sleep. Seeing as it’s a long holiday weekend with tons of conventions in town, hotels are all roughly $100 for on or near the Strip. Using the Luxor code, I just booked it. The difference is our “formal” reservation is for the Tower Suite – big, lush, super fancy, high floor, huge Jacuzzi – and the single room reservation is for a Pyramid Deluxe room. I could care less what features it has.

124 days left!

Jun062010

Not so Quickie Update

In the last few weeks, we’ve had the following wedding progress:

* booked our airfare — yes, this ranks as the absolute highest since it was such a chore! But alas, we have non stop flights to/from Vegas from the 8th to the 13th for $390.99 including the flights, taxes, fees, airline club fees, AND insurance. I may be taking a risk by booking on Spirit Air, but there’s a few reasons why I am OK with it. Namely being in touch with their head of customer service via twitter and email the last few weeks, and also Cat’s sister is working for them. Both make me feel good about the decision. Also you can’t beat that price for 2 people ON a holiday weekend with a stick! Now the problem is finding a hotel room for the 8th since our reservation in the suite is for the 9th-13th. Also, this puts us $200 under our travel budget!

* guest list — I finally typed the names from all the labels and the slips of paper mom gave me into Excel. I was somewhat shocked to find out that it added up to 189 warm bodies including children. The reception will be open to all families, totally casual and just plain fun. Honestly, as much as my head is saying no, I think it’d be completely fun to have a bounce house! The whole shindig is in my parents back yard and guests will have roughly 4-5 acres to roam and play on during the party.

* designed and had printed 2 more stamps for wedding/ post-wedding use — the first is a super fabu address stamp that went through tons of changes before being agreed upon. The other is a stamp for the back of the RSVP envelopes. The envelope stamp says “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Love Robert Frost! These 2 and the original one I had printed were done by the crazy talented BlossomStamps.

* purchased clear labels and downloaded loads of new fonts — yes, I am both lazy and cheap and will be using labels for our invites. The font I finally decided upon is called “MA Sexy” which amuses me, but whatever. It is both easily read and super flourishy. LOVE!

* cupcake tower — during a shopping trip to Home Depot to get the pieces for the tower, dad pointed out that we can do as many projects for the Miami reception, but not Vegas. His idea is to use short pieces of PVC pipe since I was going to wrap whatever I bought with blue painter’s tape anyhow and he has tons of piping. I’m also going to use 2 of the leftover door knobs from our new cabinets since there are a bunch left over.

* cupcake wrappers — I bought 3 shades each of orange and blue 12×12 card stock from Michael’s. After cutting them all out, I’m planning on stamping and embossing the following logo onto each. Steve said he prefers mini cupcakes, so we’ll be getting 4 dozen of those from Retro Bakery. I asked and was told we get 2 flavors per dozen, which is great and all, but their flavors are aMAZing and picking 8 will be torture!

* crinoline — I haven’t ordered one yet as I’m sort of hoping to find one locally. The only problem is I can’t find a store locally that sells square dance outfits. I might just suck it up and order the one from Petticoat Junction. I want a pale blue one, but think getting white and dying it on my own might be a better option than hoping they sell the right color.

+++++++
In totally non-wedding related news:
* ECU finally recognized me as a graduate with 2 degrees (the MBA and the MIS certificate)
* I am officially a Florida drivers license holder, now to get Luna transferred as well
* I am the somewhat proud owner of an iPhone. Somewhat because the signal is horrendous, but that may be due to it being an old phone.

Jun012010

June 1 TMW Post

Tweet: @msrib – Ok folks, which font for the monogram in the middle? http://twitpic.com/1s99o4

Tweet: @msrib – yay… we finally have a Steve & Becca-approved return address stamp. <3 next up, the RSVP quote stamp editing

Tweet: @msrib – is it silly to stamp “thank you” on the back on the RSVP envelope? or maybe some other saying… #wedding

Tweet: @msrib – i believe we found our RSVP envelope quote! last 3 lines: http://bit.ly/VqyGd

I’m not totally sure where I got the stamping of the envelope idea, but whatever. At the suggestion of a fellow tweep, I started looking at quotes we like. After much searching, and even quizzing Steve on some of his favorite songs and quotes, we found the perfect one. I am really excited about it too. And even if the embossing doesn’t work, I’m fine with buying a few different ink pads and just going that route.

All our stamps are designed by the fabulous BlossomStamps on Etsy. So far she’s done one for us, and I just submitted the order for the quote stamp and our return address stamp. The return address stamp went though about a dozen edits, some pretty major ones, before Steve liked one of them. In the end, it will be a fairly simple stamp with only 1 row of dots in the middle. He though 2-3 looked too cluttered.

The majority of my “planning” is the small stuff. Vegas is almost totally taken care of and now it’s just the DIY projects like embossed cupcake wrappers, cupcake tower, and picking out the flavors for the 4 dozen mini cupcakes from Retro Bakery. While I’ve started researching stuff for our January reception, I haven’t truly begun planning it yet.

According to my iPhone app, 131 days left until 10-10-10!

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