Party Favor Head Start

So, I've been procrastinating a paper I'm working on (again). But, it was pretty productive. We decided to do candy favors in cute little silver tins. The tins came with the huge, stickers for the clear top, but I had something a bit better in mind. We picked up absolutely adorable little cowboy boot and hat stickers at Hobby Lobby a few months ago (they went on our Save the Date cards and will go on our invitation). Essentially, they are the first preview the guests have of the wedding before they even open the envelope. Well, I overestimated and bought way too many. But I decided to add some of the left over stickers as the decor on our cute favor tins. So, I spent the night putting tiny stickers on 90 tin lids. Alone, they look like this
Unfortunately, the stickers don't photograph all that easily. So, I dug up some candy we have around the house and tried desperately to get a similar picture of the tins with candy in them. For some reason, all of my pictures came out blurry. But, I did manage to get this decent picture of the tin standing up with candy in it. You'll have to use your imagination and pretend it's sitting flat on a table.
We're putting Chilli Milli's in the tins. They're chili flavored soft candies. Think gummi bears. Only, in the shape of little chili peppers. This is what the individual candies look like (out of the package)
Mike wants to put the chili milis (in the package) into the tin with a mint. I may have to talk him into individual candies. We'll see once we get the candy in--a bit closer to the wedding.

I do have to admit that it makes me laugh to see how personalized this wedding is actually getting. I never would have thought that I had a bride inside my head just waiting to be released!

Reception Menu

Okay, we officially have a reception menu. Here's the scoop:

Enchiladas of three different types
Creamed Corn (from scratch)
Refried Black Beans
Tamales
Punch
Soft Drinks
Margaritas
Cheesecake (with three homemade sauces: cherry, chocolate, and blueberry).

Mmmmm....I'm ready for a reception!

Head Table

Last week I ordered these amazing bouquet holders for the head table. My plan is to attach them to the head table for the bridal bouquets after the ceremony. I bought four--one for each of my bridesmaids and one for myself. I haven't had any "serious" visions of the tables at the reception beyond the centerpieces until now. So, let me explain what I'm thinking at this point. Here is the picture I'm using for inspiration.



Now, what I'm thinking is a bit modified from this, but similar. I have four bouquets, so they'll be a bit more spaced out. I do like the double-layered tablecloths. I was planning on single layered cloths for the other tables, but I have some satin fabric that I think would work well beneath the white fabric on the head table. I need to check and see if we have enough fabric and what kind, though, before I make final decisions. The bouquet holders come with small hooks for doing just this (in fact they are the bouquet holders used in this picture). If we choose to do this on all of the tables, I think we could get away with just adding some small tacks or clips to keep this in place.

I also like the candles on the end of the table, but I want to modify this a bit. In lieu of additional candles, I'm thinking we can reuse the unity candle from the ceremony. Somewhere near the center of the table, I'd like to put the pillar candle from our unity candle and then have the individual tapers burning somewhere near each set of parents. I have to see how this looks with the rest of our decor first, though. If so, I can reuse my unity candle holder (since it's in three pieces). Awesome! OOPS! Apparently this doesn't really "fit" with my reception decor (which is still a bit of a secret to me). So…just disregard this bit about the candles.

The Six Month Update (a bit long)

Since classes only ended three weeks ago and the summer session has already begun, I am a bit impressed as tot he amount of things we've gotten accomplished in such a brief period of time. I haven't spoken to several of you, so, here's a run down.

• We have made decor decisions for the ceremony and reception site. We ran into a small stumbling block when we discovered that the deer head mounted above the fireplace does not come down! But, it was the moms to the rescue--within minutes, they had come up with a means of hiding the deer head and making the site look even better. I have to admit, it's a bit plain, but with the decor we're adding, it's going to be fabulous!
• The day after we got back, I bought my gown. Now there was a small nightmare. Since the gown was being discontinued, I wanted to hurry up and get it (sad, I've had the money set aside for almost a year, I just haven't been able to coordinate time). So, I went to the one store that had it in "my size." Well, I tried it on and apparently it was not in my size. It's a slight blow to the ego to discover that you can't buy "your size" in the dress you want because it won't zip in the chest. But, it was Amy to the rescue. She found my dress in my size in a store in Abilene. Unfortunately, they wouldn't transfer it to the Dallas store, so I had to have it shipped. That was fine. It's hanging in my closet now.
• We've ordered the bridal party's boots. The guys' boots have come in, so now we're just waiting for the girls' boots to come in. The price was a steal!
• We've ordered the flower girl dresses (for a picture, see the previous post). The company is waiting for them to be delivered, so they should be shipped at the end of June.
• We've set up our official wedding blog and it will be fully running when we send out Save the Date cards. We password protected it so that nobody can just sneak in.
  
• We found a great photographer who was willing to give us exactly what we wanted for a very reasonable price.
  

I think that's about it for now. Save the Date cards are going out this week, Invitations will be going out in September. Besides that we've got the flowers moving, we're working on a few small projects of our own (more on that later) and still managing to balance school and work.

I think the biggest thing left for us is to decide on who we want to coordinate the day of the wedding. I'm looking into hiring somebody to do this for us (if we can find somebody reasonably priced), since all of the people on the guest list that I would trust doing it are people that I don't want to have to work too much. We'll see. I'm always open for ideas.

First Dance Song Decided!

As I said before, I've been a bit concerned that Stars Over Texas was a bit cheesy given the tone of our father/daughter song (Cleaning this Gun). The reason that I've been so much happier with our father/daughter song than with our First Dance song was that our father/daughter song is so lighthearted and really expresses the true concept we have for the reception. We are not trying for cheesy, overly-romantic, or any combination of the two. Our reception is about our relationship. We know it's not perfect but it's ours. So, we think that our music should reflect that. After much contemplation, we've decided on a first dance song. It's Brad Paisley's Little Moments. As usual, the link has the song in a video that also has the words.

Yeah! Another decision made

Music: The Not So Romantically Cheesy Reception

Of all the weddings I've been to over the years it seems that the reception music is either really good or really cheesy. So, in an attempt to put together a wedding soundtrack for the reception (we won't even discuss ceremony music yet),we sat down yesterday and compiled a list of appropriate music for the wedding. We've put together a great blend of not-cheesy music and not all romantic music.

We decided that Stars Over Texas will be our first dance song, but we may change that. Part of the reason for changing that is that I think our father/daughter song really sets the lighthearted mood that we're going for and I'm worried that in light of that the first dance song seems a bit cheesy.

Our father/daughter song is still my favorite decision. Mike mentioned it and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was appropriate for our wedding given the fathers and daughters we know are going to be on the dance floor during the song. Okay, enough build up. Our father/daughter song is Rodney Atkins' Cleaning This Gun. If you haven't heard it before, play the video linked above (it shows the lyrics and has great acoustics). Let me know what you think; I'm dying to know that we're not alone in thinking this is so appropriate.

A Few Ideas about Flowers

I had a scary moment the other day in which two very significant things happened. First, Mike agreed to let me have my cascading bouquet (yeah!), so now I have to rethink my flowers. But with that realization, I have also finally found myself able to make a few flower decisions. Now, some of you may think these are all minor, but think about this flower killing bride as having made some significant progress.

We've decided to have a Christmas tree on either side of the altar decorated with white lights and crimson and silver balls. I thought about adding tinsel, but the kind I want would take WAY too long to clean up.

Now, my tentative plans are to have the wedding in front of the fireplace at the hall, an if we stick to this, I'd like to have a garland of holly berries, gardenia (and whatever greenery I'm using) across the mantle.

I don't know how I want to decorate the rest of the ceremony hall (be patient, one step at a time), but I've made a few other decisions.

I want to stick to the over-arm bouquets for my bridesmaids and have them consist of gardenias and perhaps a few dark holly berries. I want to wrap the stems in crimson ribbon (my "other" color) and then wrap my bouquet in a silver and crimson ribbon (perhaps braided).

I also decided that in lieu of an aisle runner, I'm going to give my flower girls separate colored petals. I want one walking down the aisle with crimson petals and one with white petals. This way, I think there will be enough color variation that I can get away with not having an aisle runner.

Also, we've decided to keep the centerpieces for the reception tables very simple. I want to have a pillar candle in white and then alternate between crimson and silver (if I can find them) tea light candles on different tables. Then, I'm going to sprinkle a few crimson and white rose petals around them and call it done.

So there we have the current flower decisions. Now I'm excited about talking to the florist and finalizing the details for the flowers. I can't wait to see what ideas she has.

Reception Food Decisions

The other night, we accidentally made a decision on food for the reception. I say accidentally because we were thinking only of the fabulous party we were at and the celebration at hand. Then, Donna pulled the nights enchiladas out of the oven, settled them on the stove beside the cream(ish) corn, and it was as though Mike and I had met our "soulfoods." So, here's what we're planning (in keeping with the western theme for the reception)

5 different forms of enchiladas (one spicy and one plain on each one) or some variant of these types:

• Cheese, onion and green chile peppers
  
• Chicken, cheese, onion, and peppers
• Steak and onion
• Steak, onion, and peppers
• Plain cheese (for the kids and those with bad digestive problems)

With that, I'm thinking we can serve a salad, possibly a tortilla soup (but I'm not sure about that part yet) and the creamed corn that we had the other night (which is so simple to make--corn, cream cheese and peppers).

We're still planning on doing the cheesecake for dessert and a combination of soft drinks, tea, water, and this great punch we had at another of Donna's parties (are you noticing a theme here?)

We've got plates and the serving dishes (thanks to the leftovers from Cathy's wedding) but I still need to check on a punchbowl and figure out the soft drinks, ice, tea logistics. But, other than that, I think we have the food part of this figured out.

Oh yes, we still have to see if we can find a baker/cheesecake maker. It's time to hit my mom up for one of her old friends :)

More to come. We've made a lot more decisions, but I find them easier to refresh myself on when they're posted individually.

Our First Confirmation

In the world of academia, I should really be doing something constructive right now. Preparing for the conference presentation I have tomorrow comes to mind. But then so does reading the pile of midterm portfolios on my desk or scheduling student conferences for next week. Finishing research for the papers I have due in a few weeks is in that list too. But, I can't seem to focus on anything right now except the email sitting on my desk. So what's the big deal?

Well, yesterday, I emailed the two state parks we're interested in having the wedding at. I explained the entire wedding weekend and asked if this was possible coupled with keeping a few cabins for family at Christmas (and through the 28th). Basically, I told them that we would want to, basically, rent the park out from the 18th through the 28th. A few minutes ago, I got this response from one of the sites:

We would be able to accommodate this event. I checked our books and all of the cabins and motels are available at this time. The lodge where we have weddings all the time is also available at this time. If you would give us a call for more details

Yeah! And I know from talking to my mom that the other one we're looking at does weddings and seems enthused about the prospect of us being there for the week. I just don't have an email confirmation yet. We'll just have to see how it goes. I'm calling the parks next week (hopefully) to get answers to the million questions I have. I'm hoping that we'll be able to have not only a date but a location here in the next month. Then, come the first of January, I hope we're putting down a deposit! Yeah us!