Flashback: The party, the cookies, and the sleepover

As I said in my previous post, with the wedding planning slowing down, there is not too much to write about at the present moment. While there are still many things I could share (vendors, wedding party, budget, etc.) with you readers I have a confession: I have a deep desire to be a Bee on Weddingbee. So I'm secretly hoping (okay, maybe not so secretly) that I'll be picked and at that time I will want something to post about on there. I'll continue posting little niblets here and there about the wedding planning because some things are still happening, like my mock-up of the new centerpieces and choosing soe vendor. However, I'll also be dispersing little stories along the way like my previous post about how we met, or today's post, "The Party, the Cookies, and the Sleepover."

Probably one of my favorite stories to hear Mr. Tal tell is the story of the first time he slept over at my apartment. I know, I know, you’re probably all thinking, that’s dirty, but it wasn’t like that, it was before our first "official" date even! I should probably let him share some snipets in here so one can get the whole story. Now cue the wavy flashback lines and some good flashback music…

The next night after karaoke night, there was a big party going down at one of the fraternity brother’s houses. Miss C, Miss Ann and I got the brilliant idea that we should stop by after we heard about it. Secretly, I was hoping Mr. Tal would be there so that perhaps we could break the ice a little more before the big date on Sunday. Thanks to Miss C’s quick thinking and some lightening fast text messages, we found that in fact Mr. Tal was at said party. (Insert 3 girls giggling here) We arrived to find Mr. Tal intoxicated…not exactly what I had in mind, but it was a frat party, not really sure what I expected. So Miss C, Miss Ann and I made the rounds, saying hello to those we knew, but Mr. Tal wouldn’t even look my way (I know now that he was nervous, however, at the time I was pretty upset). The party actually became pretty boring pretty quickly, even with some drinkies in me, Mr. Tal did say hi but he didn’t really say a whole lot more.

Finally, our little gaggle of girls decided that making cookies sounded amazing and we were going to leave. Mr. Tal overheard this and practically jumped on us to take him with us. In my head I’m thinking, dude, you’re drunk, how will you get home, luckily Miss Ann asked this and Miss C said, hey someone can bring him back to his car tomorrow…this is a bad plan, a very bad plan. After some logistics were figured out, we took him with us to the store and back to our apartment for some 2AM baking. Peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses (mmm, I want to bake now!), while Miss Ann baked, Mr. Tal, Miss C, and I sat in the dining room and chatted while flipping through Cosmo, it was fun and weird all at once. Finally the cookies were finished (and some devoured) and sleeping arrangements had to be made. Mr. Tal insisted on sleeping on the couch, which didn’t make much sense seeing as both Miss C and Miss Ann had to get up early for work and they would end up disturbing him. So he slept on my floor. Weird.

The next morning it got really strange, because I didn’t really think about the whole, there’s-a-boy-in-my-room-and-I-have-to-take-him-home-thing. I was just jazzed that I got to talk to him a little more before our date. Then I woke up and realized he was there, I quietly snuck out of bed, got dressed, brushed my teeth and made some coffee. Then I waited and waited, and waited some more until finally he emerged from my room. This was probably the most awkward moments in our entire relationship because neither of us knew what to do. He finally asked if we could go get breakfast, so we went to Waffle House. Any attempts at conversations would end in a crashing halt, it was sad. Towards the end of the meal he asked me if I would mind going with him couch shopping. I couldn’t believe it, we didn’t really seem to be having a good time, but he still asked me to go with him, so we went couch shopping. Seriously, I helped him pick out a couch, he bought it that day and everything. Now I’m quite fond that couch because every time I sit in our living room I think about how that couch was picked out when we barely knew each other and things were weird and awkward. Eventually we found our way back to his truck and we awkwardly hugged goodbye and said we’d see each other tomorrow. That was it. I didn’t and still don’t consider this day we had together a date. It was more of a hang out session, an awkward, slow to warm up hang out session, but I love that story because it’s quirky and fun just like Mr. Tal (and me.)

Next up, The Big Date

How about you readers, did you have some awkward beginnings with your guys?
Tune in next time for more tales of a DIY Bride.

Flashback: How we met

My DIYing has come to a halt as of late, in reality there isn't much I can do, the wedding is about 8 months away and I start student teaching on Monday. I'm really happy with where I am at with my projects and progress with the wedding, however, that means blogging is going to be more difficult. It's easy to write about projects and progress, but what happens when you hit that slow patch in wedding planning? I've heard all about it, even dreaded it because I love it, it keeps me busy and sane while I'm unemployed. So I've decided that while my projects are slow and I'm busy with other things like teaching, I'll write about our relationship, vendors, and anything else that comes to mind dealing with this wedding! First up, how we met (cue the wavy lines and flashback music):

I moved to Toledo from a rinky dink little town about 45 minutes away from Toledo in the middle of July 2007. I transferred from my community college because I had finally decided what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and I wanted to complete my degree. This wasn't too big of a deal for me, I already worked in Toledo, I had friends in the area and my best friend from back home was going to be my roommate. Once we moved, we had a lot more time on our hands. The 45 minute commute turned into 10 minutes and we didn't start school for another month, so Miss Ann (my roommate) and I started going out with our Toledo friends and co-workers a lot more. We had already been joining them for a Thursday night special at a bar called Mutz for several weeks before we moved. It was karaoke night and so much fun. We would head there with our friend Miss C and her boyfriend Mr. S, usually a group from Mr. S' fraternity would be there and it was quite a lot of fun and mischief. Each Thursday we'd meet up and have drinks and sing the night away, often I'd flirt with some boys at the bar, trying to see if I could score a date. This was the first time I'd been single in 6 years and actually been able to date, I found out that dating is actually highly overrated after a date or two.

Finally, August 9th arrived when a guy named Mr. Tal walked into the bar and joined our group of 15 to 20. Miss C and I whispered back and forth about him for a minute when I inquired who he was, "Oh Mr. Tal is in Mr. S' frat, he is cool, really nice, you should date him." to which I responded, "Umm, no I'll pass," and made a little wrinkled up nose face. I can't remember why he was so unappealing to me that night, maybe because I had a bad date earlier that day. The next Thursday he showed up again, this time he peaked my interest a little, he could sing, he laughed a lot, and from what I heard he was a certified geek, my favorite kind of man. So after a few drinks I got brave enough to tell Mr. S to give Mr. Tal my number and then we got home and I facebook stalked him. (Creepy, but after the dates I had been on I needed some reassurance he was semi-normal). Four days later I sent him a message saying hello, he responded, saying he'd seen me out and about and inquired about me. He asked if I'd be at the bar again the following week so he could say hello in person. I responded with a yes, he responded with an inquiry about my plans for the following weekend. I was suppose to work but could get out of it if need be. He asked if I would like to go to the German-American Festival with him, I immediately gave up my shift as quickly as possible and told him I could go.

Thursday night couldn't get here quick enough, I was excited and nervous. I had said yes to a date with a guy I'd not even spoken to and barely knew, I needed to remedy this in the course of a night. As always Miss C, Miss Ann, and I arrived early and grabbed drinks, he wasn't there and I was sad. So we decided to all sing together, we picked Queen's "Somebody to Love," (Oh the irony). He showed up halfway through our song, I was ready to stop because I wanted to look cool but the show had to go on. After the song, he was sitting at our long table looking through the song book, Miss Ann and Miss C were coaxing me to go say hello but my liquid courage hadn't kicked in yet. Finally, I bit the bullet and walked over to the stool next to him and sat down. I think I said hey, he asked me to help him pick out a song since I had chosen such a great song to sing earlier. I don't think I ever did pick a song, but we sat and talked a bit, nervously trying to make a good impression. I was comfortable enough by the end of the night that I felt that we could go out on Sunday and have a good time.

Up next: The party, the cookies, and the sleepover. Followed by: The First Date.

How about you readers, any interesting "how we met" stories?

Tune in next time for more Tales from a DIY Bride.

I've seen the light!

Throughout the wedding planning process I've used my gut to make my decisions. Obviously, careful thinking and planning was involved in the decisions as well, but ultimately, I knew in my gut when a vendor or decision was right. That's actually a little weird for me, I'm usually a think-it-through type of person, but the wedding has been easy. Caterer, flowers, venues, all gave me a certain feeling. This feeling was what I felt when I found the centerpieces in The DIY Bride and fell in love with them. They were clear vases, filled with water, rocks on the bottom, with a table number suspended in the water, very pretty, very simple. I loved them. I made a mock up of them several weeks ago, which you can read about here.



That was all well and good, but ever since the mock up I've had a nagging feeling about those centerpieces. They just aren't what I want. Plus, they aren't very big, and at a table of 8 with no place settings or favors, the tables would look very bare. So after some deliberation and some research, I've decided I want to do luminary centerpieces. Images like this made me love the idea. It's simple, elegant, and beautiful. However, will it turn out like I plan? I don't know, I'm still going through the materials to see if it's in the budget. I have lots of paper from the original centerpiece idea, which can be crafted into very pretty luminaries (I know I tried it!) and hung from branches with floral wire. The branches we can get for free from local parks and family back yards. We plan on using clay or plastic flower pots which can be spray painted those aren't very expensive, neither the sand or rocks to hold the branches in place are too horrible, and we can get tea lights for a steal as well. Well at least candle tea lights, see Mr. Tal is adamant on using battery powered tea lights for fear of fire. I understand his fear, especially with children running around. However, these are the expensive portion of this project and after some online research it didn't seem that it would be in the budget. Then I went to Meijer, 99 cent battery powered tea lights!!! It's in the budget, which means I can at least try this project.

Now all I have to do is make a mock up and hope that my gut likes this one. I hope it does, I don't want to have to pick something else again!

How about you, readers, have you ever had decisions made and then end up changing your mind about it?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY Bride!

DIY FAIL

I've had my first DIY fail, I'm actually happy about it because I knew it was going to happen and I would rather it happen early so I can fix it. I headed to my parents house yesterday because I had some fume related projects that can't be done in my apartment. I had hoped that I could get the projects done quickly and then spend some time with my mom and sisters, but the day took a turn as soon as I got there. My mom and sisters wanted to hit up a local antique store for brooches and go grocery shopping. This ended up eating up most of the afternoon.

We got back home and got to work. I had two projects in mind for the day, pew cones and cufflinks. I only really wanted to spray paint the embossed wall paper I was using for the pew cones, so that got done quite quickly. We ran out of spray paint. Sad, but it's easy so I can buy some more and finish them a little later. Then we sat down to work on the cufflinks. This is where the DIY fail really happened, I had the bezel cups, the cardstock with the printed emblems I was using, all the supplies. I hole punched the emblems out and my sister glued them into the bezel cups, almost immediately my mom poured the resin into the bezel cups. Everything looked ok at that point, there were a few bubbles in the resin but that's about it. So I let them sit to dry and brought them home with me last night. I checked them this morning and well, the emblems are all blurry, like the ink ran. I think we should have let the glue on the paper and bezel cup dry first, also popping those little bubbles in the resin with a straight pin is important too. So I have a redo on my hands. No biggy, I'll post about the DIY success on the cufflinks in a later post when I actually am successful. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the smell of that resin (gross).

How about you readers, any failed DIY attempts? Did you do a redo or just drop the project?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride!

My First Tough Decision

Let me tell you, I have felt that I was getting off pretty easy with this whole wedding planning bit. Photographer, hall, ceremony site, caterer, the big things were SO easy, I should have seen it as a sign. A big ominous sign, you know all flashy and neon-y, Vegas style! I say this because I've started to look into various smaller tasks since the official engagement and it hasn't been all the pleasant.



I had ideas for my bridesmaids, great ideas. Originally, I was going to go with David's Bridal but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted something different, something the girls could wear again and something affordable. After pouring over the internet, I found the Victoria's Secret convertible dress, very unique, beautiful, and best of all affordable. I said that was that, and didn't think about it again until a few months down the road. I knew that I wanted to order a dress and see how it looked, but it was just a formality, I was so sure that this dress was perfect for my girls. Three weeks ago we ordered one for my youngest sister, she is curvy and we figured her figure would probably be hardest to fit. The dress came in and it was an EPIC FAIL! I mean, it was cool, the long straps could be used to tie the dress into many forms, but the back was very open, way too open for a wedding, and the top dipped way too low for my taste. It was back to the drawing boards for me.



I scoured the internet for the next week and a half trying to find something that I liked, could be re-worn, and was under $150. It was like pulling teeth, it was awful. Nothing was what I wanted, nothing seemed good enough. I began to recant and told my mom that it was just going to have to be David's Bridal because I couldn't find anything. It didn't stop me from searching, but the more I searched the more David's Bridal seemed appealing. I wasn't happy at all with this decision, in fact I said numerous times to Mr. Tal that the dresses were going to be the death of me as far as wedding planning goes. Finally, I turned back to Etsy.com. I had searched Etsy before and found some okay options, even found a fabulous dress for my mom to have made, but nothing for my girls. However, Etsy is so massive I figured I should give it another go and utilized Weddingbee at the same time. I recalled a post Miss Mouse did about her E-pics and her perfect dress. I loved that dress so much so I looked up that post and went to Miss Brache's shop on Etsy, where I found this number:

My mouth hit the keyboard and I started screaming a little. This was the one, my bridesmaid's dress. It's in the higher end of my money spectrum, but it's reversible, cute, and I love the vintage feel to it. Miss Brache will custom make this baby in my colors, red and white, for each of my girls. I'm actually considering going one side red, one side black and leaving the straps white, that way the girls have a little black dress to wear again (thoughts anyone?) I'm even considering having one made for me. So ends my first tough call as a bride. There was much celebrating in the Tal household the day I found this dress.

How about everyone else, what was your first tough call as a bride? How did it play out?

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride!

For Real

I wish I had a picture of our apartment, actually no, I take that back, no one needs to see this. We've been in this apartment for nearly a month and it still looks like we just moved in yesterday. Like many things (blogging for example), unpacking has taken a backseat to the other things going on in my life. My health was an issue and I was "bed ridden" for a week, still dealing with the doctors with that mess. School wraps up this week and I'm both excited and nervous, student teaching starts in one month. That makes me giggle and want to hurl at the same time. Also our grand vacation last week made be giddy, more so after because I have a great proposal story and beautiful ring.

It's amazing, I never thought that the proposal and ring would make a difference the way it has. It feels so much more official than before, even with our wedding date being set. I catch myself staring down at my hand in amazement, I'm getting married!!! I think it also helps that so many of the people in our life are now taking our impending marriage more seriously since I have a ring on my finger. Ridiculous to me but I understand that it's a hard concept to grasp when you're from a different generation or even just traditional. It's hard to believe in 9 short months I'll be Mrs. Tal...gah, there is so much to do still. I'm glad that Mr. Tal and I decided to get so much done before the official proposal, we have our major vendors booked, but there are still parties to plan, decor to pick out and DIY projects to get done.

I think my next DIY project is going to be our Save the Dates. We originally were going to order some magnets and send them out but I was inspired by a post on Weddingbee the other day to create our own postcards. We have that gorgeous sunset picture and I think with a little help from my latest bridesmaid (YAY!!! FSIL agreed to be a bridesmaid!), we could design a great little postcard.

How about you readers, what made your engagement feel official, a ring like me, setting a date, booking a vendor? Share please!

Tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.

It's Official!

An appology is due for my lack of blogging, I've been under some stress lately, mostly dealing with some personal health issues, moving and finally this vacation, which was needed badly. Still I should blog more, it's my goal during the next few weeks, I think it'll happen. the story below has really made me feel the gravity of my engagement.

As you may or may not know, due to certain circumstances and a tight time frame surrounding our wedding Mr.Tal and I have been planning without an official proposal. He wanted to do his own thing and have an official proposal but he did want imput on my ring and what I wanted
Well, this past week we had a vacation to Gettysburg and Hershey, PA. Mr. Tal and I are both HUGE history nerds so this was quite an exciting trip for us. We arrived on Tuesday in the late afternoon and met up with my family (this was a family planned vacation). Wednesday was our first full day there and the day began early with a Segway Tour of the battlefield. Not only was this a fun activity but it was a great way to get introduced to the battlefield and get your bearings. Well that was a family activity with my parents and two younger sisters, lots of fun and a great morning.

Unfortunately the day before our bearing went out in the car and we had to take a break from vacation activities to get the car fixed on Wednesday afternoon. We relaxed for a bit while it was getting fixed, then headed back into town, fixed bearing and all. We walked around the National Cemetary and the shops downtown for a bit (all while I noticed Mr. Tal getting a bit antsy, but he's like that much of the time anyhow...). We met up with my family and went to an awesome Irish pub for dinner. After dinner around 8:30 my sisters, Mr. Tal, and I wanted to see a little more of the battlefield before it got too dark. We chose to go back up a hill called Little Round Top, mostly because we saw the sunset approaching and thought it would be awesome for some pictures.

Up at the top we took a couple pictures and climbed out on some big boulders that dotted the hill. In one particular spot, there was a little crevice between two huge boulders that I climbed down into to watch the sunset for a while. Mr. Tal snuck up behind me and had my sisters take some pictures of us (see the first picture below!). I turned to watch the sunset a little more and unbeknownst to me Mr. Tal waved my sisters away so he could have some privacy.
He pulled me in a little closer, kissed a couple times, then started to say how he was sorry that our engagement wasn't exactly unfolding as we had thought. He then said "I was really waiting for the perfect day and place to ask you, but really every day with you is a perfect day. So, be that as it may I have something to ask you...". He then dropped to one knee on the boulder, fished into his pocket (where he had been keeping the ring ALL day), and pulled out the box. Apparently I started giggling and hyperventilating while this was going on but it's a bit hazy. He looked up into my eyes and asked me to marry him. It was perfect.