MIA

It's been a while, but I've been busy, busy, busy, like a little bee. School is just zipping along, Mr. Tal's birthday was last weekend, plus our official anniversary, and I had a wonderful bridesmaid's luncheon. It's been an amazing few weeks. Oh, and the biggest news of all, my save the dates arrived (!!!) and went out (well at least a few of them, some people *ahem, mamma and poppa* haven't given me addresses).

Without further ado, here are my Save the Dates:

I love it, it's so us, the back is just our website info, so I'm not posting that up, but it's till pretty rock and roll as far as the font goes. We have had a few issues with people accessing the website, mostly because the font made a few of the "L's" look like back slashes, which is an oopsie on my part. Mr. Tal insists it looks fine and people just don't know how to read websites, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better.
I'll post more on the other events, at least the wedding related ones soon, promise, no more slacking.

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

G is for Grrr, Grreat Idea that is!

I have been sick-which has put me behind workout and blogging wise, though there isn't much to write. This post is more me ranting than anything else, but maybe if I write it I'll feel better.

My mom and I attended a bridal show for funsies on Sunday, I was sick, so that might have had a bit of an affect on my view, which was negative. First of all they had these lovely little "Bride" stickers, which almost every show has, but it said something along the lines of "I'm the BRIDE and it's all about me." Umm, no folks, it's not. I'm the bride and he's the groom and this wedding is about us and our love for one another. Walking in it was amazing to see some of the beautiful table set-ups and the craziness of the vendors, but after about 15 minutes I had a major palm-smack-forehead moment, see we pretty much have everything covered and know what we're doing, we didn't really need to be at the bridal show. I did fill out some forms to win some stuff because I figured it couldn't hurt, I didn't win, but it was worth a shot. Another thing that irked me was on the way out the limousine company stopped and asked me if I wanted to take a look, when I politely declined, she asked me if I was sure. Yes, I'm sure, we aren't having a limousine. The horrified look I got was priceless. By the time my mom and I made it to the car I had a few retorts I wanted to share with the limo lady, but instead I'll share them with you. Why would I pay hundreds of dollars for a limo when my wedding party are more than capable (and willing) of driving ourselves? I realize some people dream of limos for their wedding and that's more than okay, but it wasn't for me. I would much rather have a day of coordinator so none of my guests have to worry about anything that day. The whole situation just made me angry, which lead me to the most fabulous idea I've ever had.

I told my mom that she and I should have an offbeat bridal show. We could team up with sites like Weddingbee and Offbeat Bride and share how to DIY, sell supplies, and raffle away gift cards to Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Our vendors could be student musicians and photographers, Etsy sellers and former brides and grooms. We could set up a bartering booth where people can match brides with vendors that could use the bride and groom's talents in exchange for their services. Seriously, how much fun would that be? I think it's genius, but I don't know how it would work in our area, might be better suited for larger metropolitan areas.

Would anyone be interested in my Offbeat Bridal Show? Or am I just a crazy dreamer?

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

The Save the Date Dilemma

Once upon a time, I knew that I never wanted save the dates. I found them to be an unnecessary use of paper and my eco-friendly-self said I wouldn't need to kill anymore trees. Now I do realize there are some eco-friendly options out there but all these thoughts were prior to my actual engagement. When I actually got engaged I realized that most of our family and friends were spread all over the place. I also realized that our wedding date wasn't the most convenient of times. Friday weddings are becoming more and more common among brides, especially those on a budget, but it's still difficult on guests and I'm respectful of that. So when it came down to it, I knew that even though we had done a good job spreading the date through word of mouth, some little piece of paper with a reminder and a website would probably be helpful.

Then came the options...wow, there are so many different types of save the dates that brides can use. Magnets, postcards, cards, oh my, the options were pretty much limitless. We originally wanted to use magnets, we even priced the little kits and were ready to buy, but then came a fateful day when I logged into weddingbee. There I saw postcards and fell in love, luckily Mr. Tal agreed with me as well. We decided to design our own save the date postcards. This was both economical and a way we could get our own personalities into the mix.

We decided we want to get these babies out a little earlier than suggested in case people need or want to take the day off. In all honesty, I came home last night to work on the guest list with Mr. Tal and maybe find the website we would use to design the postcards. It turns our the guest list is really only a one person job once we got all the names figured out. I decided to grab my laptop and do a little more research, that's when I found http://www.zazzle.com/. I fell in love with the design template that the website offers and ended up designing a wonderful save the date postcard. We ordered 100 of them last night for $60, which I didn't think was too bad in comparison with most of the other save the date options we saw. I will post pictures of them as soon as they arrive but I can't post them today because they are now filed in my account.

Any one else decide on something they never thought they needed or wanted for their wedding?

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

Stalker

Last night was our engagement shoot, complimentary with our photography package. We decided to have the shoot at a local park where we have had a few dates and like to take our dog Pepper to walk. It was important to us to include Pepper in part of our wedding and unfortunately, she isn't welcome at our ceremony or reception. Not only do they not allow animals, Pepper is also quite skittish around strangers, specifically men. We can't know for sure why this is, but I found her running down the highway and it's possible she was abused at one point. Anyway, we decided that having Pepper come with us to the park would be a nice way to have her take part in some of the wedding stuff.

We arrived at the park 45 minutes early, partly to scope out photography locations, partly to tucker Pepper out a bit. She's a bit high stung and we wanted her to be a little mellow when the photographer arrived. As we were walking around we saw the cutest little yearling buck laying by a creek and eating. We found a foot path to get a little closer to the deer, which peaked Pepper's interest. We were probably 15 to 20 feet from the little guy and he got up once we were that close. I figured he was going to hop into the wooded area, instead in slowly started walking towards us. Slowly but surely he made his way within about 3 feet of us, bobbing his head from side to side at Pepper. He had no interest in Mr. Tal or me, just Pepper. This interaction went on for about 10 minutes, when we figured we should get going. We gently tugged Pepper away from her new found friend and headed down the foot path. Bambi decided he didn't like this and stopped his hoofs at us and followed. We crossed the bridge over the little creek and the path followed the creek. On the opposite bank the little guy followed, then he went down the bank into the creek and crossed to follow us. Seriously, my dog had a stalker. I don't know why, Mr. Tal wondered if the young buck smelled something on Pepper that he liked. Eventually, I got a little scared that the deer would get mad at us for taking his girlfriend away so we picked up the dog and headed out towards the parking lot to meet our photographer.

The shoot itself went well and I think we got some great shots. Our photographer said we should have the disk of images next week to choose ten from, he'll then edit those and send us the digital files of those images. We also will get an eight by ten of our choosing. I'm excited to see the shots, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful setting.

How about you readers, any funny stories from your engagement pictures?

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

Cone Heads

"You know Connie, I read in a magazine that you can talk to me about anything." Ha-I have to watch that movie now, but I don't think we own it. How sad. Anyway, the real deal with the cones is for our ceremony site. Our beautiful, wonderful opera house needs very little to add to the decor which makes me a happy bride. It does need a little oomph, so in comes another DIY project. Luckily it is ridiculously easy! Yay for easy DIY! These cones will hang at the end of the aisle, alternating every other row.

List of supplies:
Roll of Embossed Wallpaper
Metallic Spray Paint (Gold or Silver)
Hole Punch
Hot Glue Gun
Tape Measure
Scissors
Ribbon/String/Wire

I don't have pictures for the beginning steps, but it is super easy.

Mark the wallpaper into 8.5 inches tall by 9 inches long. You may actually want these bigger or smaller, mine a just a tad smaller. Our seats aren't that big, play around with it. One roll of wallpaper goes a long way, trust me.

Cut the wallpaper into as many cones as you'll need. Lay them out and spray paint them. Wait for the pieces to dry.

This is my little pile of cones to be after they have dried.

Next, heat up your hot glue gun and practice rolling the paper into the cone shape. I had problems with this step, so Mr. Tal rolled and I hot glued the edge to maintain the cone shape. Voila, a cone like the one pictured below:



Then punch a hole at the top center point for your ribbon/wire/string, or in my case raffia. Like so:

Side note: Another hole towards the bottom of the cone could be helpful to stabilize it when you go to hang it, we're going to need to do this to all our cones because they aren't centered or stable when we hang it. Luckily we only made about two to test, so we don't have to redo all of them.
Easy peasy, you have some cones for your ceremony site. Add whatever flowers you want, I used a giant Gerber daisy from Michael's. It works well, I just needed to add some paper to keep it from sliding around. This is what the cone looks like finished with the flower. Sorry the one picture isn't vertical, we're having technical difficulties in the Tal household.

A Healthy Middle

I want to let you readers in on a little secret, for a majority of my life I've struggled with my weight. Now this may not shock anyone, because a lot of Americans this day in age do struggle at some point with their weight, but my struggle has been one on the lower spectrum. You see I have struggled a majority of my life with being underweight. I have never had an eating disorder or anything of the sort, I have just been under the ideal weight that my physicians felt was healthy for me pretty much my entire life. Most people I encounter have a sort of flippant response along the lines of, "Wow, I wish I had the problem." It's a little hurtful and a little ignorant, but it still happens. I get it, people don't really understand, they think that it was lucky that I couldn't gain weight. It seems like a dream to some people and I understand their view point, but I'm here to tell you that it's not a dream at all. Being twenty to thirty pounds underweight is no healthier than being twenty to thirty pounds overweight, both are a serious health concern. It was irritating and disconcerting that I couldn't gain weight no matter what I tried. To gain healthy weight one needs to eat a great deal of protein and gain muscle mass. It's a lot of work and most of the time I couldn't gain a pound no matter how hard I tried, so around the age of 21 I just stopped trying.

Then I met Mr. Tal and things changed. Dinners out, bar nights, parties, road trips, plus my metabolism slowing down made it easy to gain all the weight I ever needed and then some. I don't blame our relationship at all, I became comfortable with him which made it easy to let my eating habits fall in the crapper but that's my doing. It became apparent with the wedding approaching that I needed to shape up. If you recall I wrote a blog in June about that need to shape up. I currently am on the higher end of the weight spectrum for my height and I'm not happy with it at all. I was doing well working out and eating healthy until medical issues put me on bed rest for two weeks. My depressed mood combined with my doctor ordered down time had me falling behind in the working out and eating healthy department. I let it go on for about a month and a half, drowning my sorrows in ice cream and pizza. However, I need to get back to that goal I set for myself a few months ago. I'm starting up my routine again and feeling really good about trying to be healthy. However, I feel an inner struggle, one that I felt when I originally began my journey to a healthier me. For so long I struggled to gain weight, it seems odd that I'm trying to loose some now. That's not exactly the truth of it though, what I'm really trying to do is be as healthy as I possibly can. I'm trying to eat right and exercise and that is a wonderful thing. Getting to look beautiful and radiant on my wedding day is a fringe benefit of all that.

So now to share my plan of action to getting to a healthier me. Exercise using my EA Active for the Wii, 30 Day Shred, walking and running. Exercise will be two days on one day off in order to achieve a gain in muscle mass. Eating healthier, which means no fast food, or very little, no junk food in the house at all, well rounded meals, with necessary amount of protein. I'm hoping for now that this will be enough. I hope to see results in a few weeks and that my inner struggle will subside when I hit that middle ground I'm aiming for.

So readers, do you have any plans to get healthier? What do they include?

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

Happy Anniversary!

Mr. Tal this post is for you.

Two years ago today a guy in a soccer jersey showed up at my apartment door and took me on an incredibly long first date. Who knew that it would lead to this? That the guy would turn out be my partner, my companion, and most of all my best friend. Happy anniversary my love, in seven and a half months we'll be joined in marriage. I would say that we're beginning our lives together, but in many ways, our lives together have already begun. In our daily talks, our cuddles on the couch, in our dinners in and out, in our daily laughter, our nightly walks, we've begun our life together already. However, in just a short time we will pronounce our intentions to spend our lives together in front of family and friends, we'll announce to the world what we already know, that we belong together. I love you. You are my inspiration, my hope, my rock, and my strength. I'm so glad that two years ago today you came to my door and started this journey with me.