Happy Friday!

Mr. Tal and I are celebrating our Valentine's Day early this year and having a romantic night planned for Sunday. I'm too excited about that and my first fitting on Saturday to write anything too incredible, so I wish all of you a Happy Friday and Wonderful Weekend! I will be back to post all about my first fitting come Monday!

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

Bah. Humbug.

This week has been one of those weeks where I am just blah. I have had a few set backs wedding wise and it is throwing me off. These decisions that were made months ago aren't turning out as planned and it is very disconcerting. Need a specific example? Done.

We hired a Day-of-Coordinator, she is amazing and my personal hero. When we hired her she told us that she had chair covers we could use for free to cover our ugly, ugly chairs at the reception site. Totally awesome right? Like too good to be true? Because it was. Our DOC rented out said chair covers in September and didn't get half of them back, and those she did get back were damaged beyond repair. I don't know who you are chair cover renter, but I am totally vibing you where ever you are. So now I am trying to figure out what to do, should I make covers or rent them or buy and resell them? No matter what I do it isn't in the budget, so I'm not happy.

Oh and remember the second hair trial, well let me tell you it turned out beautifully and it works perfect with my dress. The girl that did my hair was amazing and so nice. However, the salon where I went won't let us book there unless our entire party books the bridal package with them. A package that includes things that none of the girls or I want or need.  Now I am currently still trying to negotiate this little problem with the salon owner so it may turn out alright, but for now it sucks.

I try to be a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl but I'm not very good at it. Mr. Tal says I have a problem letting things go, which is so true. I'm trying but when money is involved in the setback it really upsets me. I just have to have faith that next week will be better and know that Mr. Tal and I will figure it all out somehow.

Are you a roll with the punches kind of person, or do you hold on to things for dear life like me?

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

"Hockey puck, rattlesnake, monkey, monkey underpants!"

So I'm chilling out, watching Gilmore Girls on DVD and my favorite conversation came on:

Rory: "Maybe if you just put pen to paper?"

Lorelai: "I tried that. I thought 'I'll just sit down and write. Whatever comes, no judgement, no inner critic.' Boy was that a bad idea."

Rory: "Really, why?"

Lorelai: "Because my brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish. 'I'm writing a letter, I can't write a letter, why can't I write a letter? I'm wearing a green dress, I wish I was wearing my blue dress. My Blue dress is at the cleaner's. The german's wore grey, you wore blue Casablanca Casablanca is such a good movie Casablanca the White House Bush Why don't I drive a hybrid car? I should really drive a hybrid car. I should really take my bicycle to work. Bicycle, unicycle, unitard, hockey puck, rattle snake, monkey monkey underpants.'"

Rory: "Hocky puck rattle snake monkey monkey underpants?"

Lorelai: "Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's a big bag of weird in there!"

Best. Quote. Ever. But FMT what the heck does "monkey, monkey underpants" have to do with weddings?Well folks, that right there is my brain on wedding. Actually, that is my brain all the time. But seriously, with the wedding, my brain is an endless stream of thought. I'll be falling asleep at night and suddenly my mind wanders to chair covers, chair covers, sashes, ribbons, ribbon wands, lanterns, lights, light of my life, eww, scratch that from vows, speaking of  vows, what should I say? Say, I have to tell the caterer we need extra napkins, mmm food, ugh I need to eat less, or go to the gym more, ugh, gym....so on and so forth. Seriously, and then I sleep and I have nightmares. Nightmares where the ceremony site burns down and I don't have a dress. I'm seriously scared for my sleep life for the next few months.

Anyone else have train of thoughts that get wildly out of control, is it worse with the wedding?

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

Dragging my feet

As I sit here sipping my coffee and planning out my day, I'm thinking about all the things I have to do and how much I just don't want to do any of it. Okay, so working out won't be too bad once I actually get to the gym, cleaning will make me happy once it is done, and running some applications that could potentially get me a job is worth it in the end. But those are the end results, and right now I'm quite cozy on the couch, it's the getting going I have problems with. I'm a procratinator. There I said it. If it's not fun, I will put it off as long as possible. Final papers get done the last week of classes. Studying is done two hours before class starts. Housework is the odd anomaly because I will willingly dive in when I'm stressed out as it makes me feel better, but if I am not stressed I will wait until an hour before Mr. Tal gets home to get it done.

Wedding planning and crafting is no different for me. Dress shopping, I dove right in. I have been playing with my wedding makeup since we got engaged. The not so fun stuff, like getting my passport waited until Mr. Tal was ready to kick my butt (I finally got it last week). As far as crafting goes, if I like it I will work on it as soon as possible. Centerpiece mockups and the guys' boutonnieres were played with months ago because all that stuff is fun for me. I have a big pile of wedding crafts that need done that are so boring that I can't bring myself to do any of them. I have strands of garland that need wire hooks attached to them. I need to cut ribbon and string it through the lanterns. I have pew cones that need hot glued and strings added. I have silk flowers for the pew cones that need about a foot of stem cut off. See, really un-fun stuff. All this stuff is so important to the wedding day decor and it will be worth it when it is done it is just doing it that is the problem.

The worst part of my procrastination is that I feel guilty when I don't do it. Some procrastinators are lucky in that they don't ever feel guilty for not doing the things that they should. Not me, my procrastination comes with a big, heaping pile of guilt. The fact that I am writing this rather than cleaning makes me feel guilty. The fact that yesterday I took a day to myself rather than do wedding crafts makes me feel guilty. It's awful, but in a good way, because eventually the guilt will overwhelm me and I will do the things that need doing. Hopefully, soon enough guilt will pile on my conscience and I will get my boring craftys done.

Anyone else have the procrastination gene? Do you have the double-whammy of procrastination guilt?

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

Hair Trial Woes.

I had my hair trial yesterday with a lady that I found on the internets. Through e-mail communication this lady seemed really nice and a dream since she would be willing to travel to where we are getting ready. I know this seems like she wasn't nice, but that's not what I mean, she was very nice. However, during the trial we were discussing time frames and how long it would take for her to do all the girls hair and to complete 5 updos and 2 styles she would need to start by 9 in the morning and go for 6 hours. I was okay with this at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I really didn't want to have all of us sitting around for 6 hours. Also, my hair, as lovely as it was, didn't work with my dress. It looked nice after the trial was over and all through the rest of the day but once I got home and put my dress on, it was all wrong. Like so wrong that I decided to go for another trial with a salon in town this week. Take a look at my pictures:

See what I mean? Very pretty and exactly what I asked her to do. However, with my dress on it DOES. NOT. WORK. It's a bit too prom-ish. Sad panda. I think I need to do something simpler, more elegant. I would share my dress pictures but as I stated in the past Mr. Tal frequents my blog and I would have to hurt him if he saw my dress. I have been digging through bridal magazines, theknot.com and brides.com looking for something else. I have come up some new words to discribe what I am going for: old hollywood glam, grace kelly, timeless, elegant. I think that will work much better than the look I was going for before which was casual, laid back, messy and a bit complex. The salon where I want to go isn't open today so I will have to wait until tomorrow to see if I can get an appointment this week. I am aiming for Wednesday so I can have my mom come with me. I am really hoping that this works out. If I really like the work the lady at the salon does and they can fit the bridal party in on the 16th then we will probably end up going with them simply because they can do all of our hair at once or at least fairly close together so maybe it will only take a couple of hours versus six.

Anyone else have a hair trial that didn't work out like they envisioned with their dress?

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

DIY-ing my own Flowers

Or "I am an idjit"

Or "Big Mistake"

Or "Help! I want to scream!"

Anyway, you get the picture. My wedding flowers are hard. Flowers have been something I could care less about from the beginning and yet it has been the biggest nuisance of the wedding. I never dreamed of the flowers at my wedding, groom yes, dress yes, even the cake, but flowers, who cares? Like most things wedding related, I was clueless of the price of flowers. I originally budgeted somewhere around $200 for flowers (for those of you out there laughing at me, don't worry I learned my lesson quick). I quickly learned that even for my rather small wedding party, with flowers that were in season and not too fancy, the very least I could spend was in the ballpark of $400. That's right double my self-allotted budget, whoops. I was shocked to say the least; I mean this is something that's going to die the next day. Seriously? Why would I pay so much for that when I could get something more fun, like an extra 2 hours with the DJ or invite some more guests? I decided that I was D-O-N-E with florists and I would do my own flowers. Yay me for being thrifty and frugal! Boo me for not thinking that one through.

I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth on what exactly I wanted to do for flowers. Did I want silk or real? What kinds of flowers do I want? Will it go with the wedding vibe? Will it look good? On and on it went. For something I cared so little about it was a big headache. Then I looked into flower alternatives. What are you talking about you ask? I'm talking about having my awesome 'maids carry something else other than flowers. There were parasols (too "Gone with the Wind"), fans (it's only April) and finally clutches! Yahtzee! Bingo! We have a winner! That's right, my girls are carrying clutches down the aisle, pretty clutches with a little corsage type flower on it. Score! Except I still have to design a corsage and figure out how to pin it on the clutch. Boo. I am working on that right now, but I'm not handy with the florals. I may need some guidance from my aunt or uncle, both who work wonders with the florals.

What's that you say? What are you carrying down the aisle, FMT? Ha. Okay you win. I have still got to organize my own bouquet and I'm still playing with ideas. It's been a nightmare really. Why are flowers so freaking hard? I will say that I gave up on live floral about a month ago, it's so pricey and so not worth it to me. I have been playing with silks and real touch flowers in the aisles of Michaels and Hobby Lobby trying to find something that looks like it might be real but isn't. It's a very hard process. Ask Mr. Tal, he has been right there with me; eyes glazed over while I hold endless varieties of flowers clutched together asking his opinion. I probably won't tell you what I decide until after the big day, mostly because it might take until then for me to decide.

Any other girls using the fake floral? What did you use and how did it go?

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

A Cinderella Story...well there are shoes involved at least

Once upon a time there was a girl who bought her wedding dress, jewelry, and shoes all at once. A pair of low-heeled slides that were the perfect height for her dress. "Who cares about shoes when no one will see them?" She thought to herself. She had purchased these items without a venue for either the ceremony or reception. She had no idea about wedding blogs or boards and was seriously clueless when it came to wedding planning.

After a few months she got a clue and had a game plan for her wedding. She submersed herself into the wide world of weddings, drooling over cake designs, flowers, and bridesmaids dresses. She soon stumbled upon the hottests of trends, the colored shoes. Red, purple, blue, and pink, the colors so bright and vivid against the wedding gowns.

"But I have my shoes already!" She cried, sad that her dream of red heels would not be realized.
 She talked to her beau and he asked "How will I dance with you, if your shoes slide on and aren't tight?"
"Haha," she said, "You are so right! I'll get a pair of red shoes for the dancing all night!"

But secretly she wondered if she would find the right height of heel. So she searched high and low, the internet, the mall, for a pair of red shoes with a heel just so. Just about to give up, she gave it one more go, into David's Bridal with her beau in tow. There she saw them, as a choir of angels sang out, the Leanne's with a delicate heel just right and they could be dyed to whatever color she liked!

(Source)

 So she joined the ranks of the other two-shoe brides! A happy ending for her! Hooray and goodnight!

I cheated...

On my dress that is! But first a little back-story. I have been spending loads and loads of time at David's Bridal lately. I had my two BM (Super Sis-to-be and Bestie) that still need a dress, so I trekked there with them a few weeks back. A few weeks before that I went in search of another pair of shoes for the wedding (Yes, I fell victim to the colored shoe trend). This week I have been twice to help the Momma's try to find a dress. Momma Tal had luck on Monday and my Momma found a dress at a different bridal salon in town today, but we checked at David's to be sure.

David's 2010 line is out and it is gorgeous, if you haven't seen it, pop over to the website and take a gander, your peepers will thank you. While we were perusing the goods, I first saw her on a mannequin. Her tight bodice, layered tulle, and flower detailing seduced me. I eyed her up the entire time my mom was trying on dresses. I even wandered over and ran my hands over the bodice and tulle, wondering if I had made a mistake with my oh-so-simple-satin dress. Just have a look at my seducer:

As soon as my mom had tried everything on, it was time to go, but as we were walking I told my mom that I was in love with another dress in the store. She insisted that I try it on. Seriously, I tried to be the good person and leave well enough alone but my mother practically pushed this dress on me. I tried it on. As I slipped into it, I felt light, almost ballerina like. My mom zipped it up and it fit like a glove. I twirled in front of mirrors, my heart did a little flip-flop, was this my dress? Within a minute, I knew, it wasn't my dress. It was pretty, it fit me well, it looked beautiful on, but it wasn't the same as my dress. My dress was perfect for me. My mom knew that, but she also knows me, she knew if I didn't try it on I would think and wonder, so she made me try it on so that I could see for myself that it wasn't for me.
My cheating experience was a good one, it reinforced what I knew, that the dress I picked is perfect for my wedding and me. Although I have known brides that have cheated on their dresses and ended up in a pickle, wanting to buy the new dress, I would still recommend it. It was a very good experience for me.

Have any of you had a doubt about your dress? Have you taken it to the extreme of trying on other dresses?

Hairspiration

I'm actually having someone do my hair for the wedding. Unlike my makeup, I don't trust myself enough to do something fabulous with my hair. Also, unlike my face, I like to have my hair played with and pinned up. It makes me happy, euphoric even. I find it very relaxing.

I have a hair trial with Amy in a few weeks and I'm a little stuck on what I want to do. I have a veil and a hair flower to wear:

(Hair flower picture from http://www.davidsbridal.com/, Veil from http://www.weddingbedazzled.com/)

I thought that I had everything figured out hair wise, I'm in love with messy bun type styles:

(Not sure where this image is from, I saved it to my computer when I found it months ago, probably a result of Google "low messy bun updo")

But my dress would really work well with a more vintage finger curl updo like so:

                  (Source)

I can't post my dress on here because Mr. Tal frequents my blog and I would have to hurt him if he saw my dress before the big day. My dress would work with any updo really. I don't know if it's really that big of a deal, I like all sorts of updos, I like having my hair done and just seeing how pretty it is. We'll see how I feel on the day of my trial and take some pictures, see how looks and go from there.

Anyone have any opinons? Share please.

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

Makeup your mind

Again like many things with the big day, I decided early on to do my own makeup. I do not enjoy people touching my face and the two or so times I've had my makeup done I didn't really like it. I haven't really thought to much about products until recently, figuring I would hit up the local Sephora and see what they said. I ended up going in twice, once just before Christmas and last week. Each time I asked for suggestions, noting that I would need all day coverage and makeup that would look good in pictures. The first time, they were way too busy to give me any helpful information, the second time I got some really good info all written out for me. When I got home I decided to price out everything that was suggested to me and boom, I was hit with over $280 worth of product. That's all well and good and if we weren't on a tight budget I wouldn't have a problem with paying that much for some high quality makeup. As it is we are on a budget, and I can't justify spending that much money on makeup. I've been wavering back and forth for weeks, Mr. Tal, God bless him, isn't helping much because he wants me to have everything I want. So what's a girl to do?

Play with some drugstore makeup of course! I went in and studied some of the products at the drugstore and also did some online research and here is what I think I will end up doing. I will probably use a more expensive primer, foundation, and setting powder. As for the rest of the products, I can use the drugstore products for my blush, eyeshadow, eye liner, lipstick and mascara. I played with it last night and it looked really good, so I think it will work well. As soon as I purchase some of the more expensive products I will post pictures on how the look pulls together.

If anyone has some suggestions on products I would love to hear them.

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

@%#$#%@!!! (Or, Our DIY Invites)

As with many of our wedding decisions, the invites were easy to decide on. Obviously we were on a tight budget, so we figured we would do them ourselves. We did hit up a few bridal show vendors and also one invite store, but nothing just struck us me. I mean I really like pocket folds but with a printer, so not in our budget, at all. I'm also a big fan of simple, which didn't seem to be options in any of the 10-15 invitation books we saw. So like with many things we decided to go the DIY route. Again, that was easy peasy, I walked into Michael's and BAM, we found an invitation kit that was perfect. The BRIDES line at Michael's has some pretty great selections including our own invites:

(Source)

Pretty right? Seems pretty simple, the include a website to download the printing templates, so we figured it was an easy job. Right? Right. Wrong. So, so, so, sooooooo freaking wrong. We decided to play with these last week because the invites need to be assembled and sent out soon. In order to save us from screwing up the actual invites, I cut out card stock of the same size. It was a really good idea, because we screwed them up. Well, once we got them to actually print we screwed them up. My printer did not like this project. It took us over 3 hours to figure out how to make the stupid things actually come out of the printer with ink on them. Once we did, everything was off center. It was awful. I wanted to cry. I think I did. I know there was a lot of cursing, from both Mr. Tal and myself. We figured it out eventually and saved, saved, saved everything so that when this week came we could just pop open the templates and print them. Ha. Not so much.

We decided to start assembling last night just to get it out of the way, we were so confident that Mr. Tal suggested I do the invites while he cleaned. Hahaha. Within 5 minutes, I was ready to slam my computer into the wall. Nothing saved, we had to re-calibrate everything. After an hour and a half we figured it out and were on track. But take this as a lesson, once you figure out how to print your invitations, just do it and put them in a box until you are ready to assemble. It will save you a headache and some time. Without further ado, (cue drum roll) here are our invites:

They turned out really great, regardless of what a pain in the butt they were. Would I do my own invites again? In a heartbeat. Even though it was a pain we got to pick exactly what we wanted, at a price that cannot be beat, less than a dollar per invite. I'm really excited (but also kind of sad) to be mailing these puppies out soon. Yikes it's coming up quick.

Anyway, tune in next time for more tales from a DIY bride.

Outfitting the 'Maids

Do you remember my struggle with the bridesmaids dresses? If not you can read about my indecision and struggles here and here. All caught up? Good. Moving on...

So we ended up going with David's Bridal for the girl's dresses and I think it's a good compromise. They all choose their own dresses in a style that suited them, but the purchases weren't officially done until this past Saturday when I trekked my butt down to Columbus to go shopping with soon-to-be-sis and my bestie. So without further ado, here are the dresses my four beautiful, fabulous bridesmaids are wearing and keep in mind, all these dresses will be in the apple red, as seen in sister E and soon-to-be-sis's dresses.

Maid of Honor and Bestie:

(Source)

It's a chiffon material, kind of beach-y feel. She belongs somewhere in Florida bumming on a beach somewhere so it suits her well. The straps have a little bling on 'um and I think she will rock it out with 4 inch heels.

Next up, little sister and 'maid A:

(Source)

This one is a satin material, wrap dress. It's a little off-the-beaten path and a little less traditional like her. The ruffled collar, faux-wrap style is her, plus it gives her breathing room. Important for our star performer at the wedding.

Next up, Littlest sister E's dress:

(Source)

This one is satin, this strapless little number is going to also be little sister's prom dress, which happens to fall the day after the wedding. That curvy girl is going to knock some guy's socks off in this dress.

Last, but certainly not least, soon-to-be-sis L:

(Source)

This dress in a jersey knit and different from the other dresses because it's long. Well, soon-to-be-sis wanted something with a lot of give and some extra fabric because they are expecting! Woot! I am so happy for them. She'll be about 7 months at the wedding and I'm sure looking hot.

So that's it, the long journey of the bridesmaids dresses are done. As for accessories and everything, I said get some silver shoes, I'm taking care of the rest. Which I did, it's done but I refuse to blog about my awesome gifts yet because 1. I'm not done, and 2. I don't want them to know what they are getting!

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

The Big "D"

Doubt that is. In my previous post I listed some reasons for my months long absence from blogging, most of those are pretty self-explanatory, at least I think they are. However, number three indicated some doubts had arisen between Mr. Tal and myself. Rest assured these doubt were in no way about us getting married, we are sure about that. No, our doubts stemmed from the big, evil budget.

Our budget is decent, we settled for about $9,500 that we would feel comfortable spending on a single day. I think current weddings are averaging in the $20,000 range, so we felt really good about our own budget. Most of our expenses are fitting well into that budget, but in recent months with my unemployment situation, I felt less and less convinced that spending any money on a wedding was a good idea. Combine my lack of income with some wedding planning stress and voila, a recipe for doubts. Being the level-headed guy that he is, Mr. Tal assured me that we are doing the right thing and if we eloped we would certainly regret it. I never really believed him the days when he said these things but always the next morning, I would agree and we would move on. I still have some concerns but we have done our best to create a beautiful, fabulous wedding on a respectable budget and that's the best I can hope for.

Gah, too much seriousness for me today. Okay, I promise a fun post either tomorrow or Tuesday. Maybe a little post on the final (for real, I promise, they are paid for) bridesmaids dress selections.

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

I'm baaack...

A few things happened to spawn my absence:

1. I applied to blog for Weddingbee and got rejected. This diminished the small amount of faith I had in myself as far as blogging goes, so I quit.
2. I was sick again and I'm a medical mystery apparently.
3. Mr. Tal and I experienced some major doubting-tom moments, which I plan to blog about later this week.
4. I hit crunch time with school. Papers, finals, etc.
5. We hit wedding stall---there seems to be a period in between months 6-4 of the wedding countdown in which things kind of just come to a reeeeally slow point.

That's it. Those are my excuses. Take 'um or leave 'um. My soon to be sister-in-law made me realize how much I love blogging and how much I miss it, even if it's erratic at best. I am going to try to post more. For real this time. I re-read some of my old posts today and realized that even if I'm not the best writer, I'm enjoying writing about this process and I'll enjoy re-reading it for years to come. So folks, I'm back.

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