New Pictures!

So my bridal shower was awesome & I had a great time. It was neat to see so many different women from my life gathered in one room!

The house is coming along very nicely now, we have almost finished the downstairs. We have to do a few minior paint touch-ups on the ceilings around the bathroom and some in the living room. Eric is making good progress on the patio, but it is a lot of work.

Here are some before and afters!

The Kitchen:

The Living Room:

and finally, the bathroom!

My next project is painting the upstairs bathrooms & helping Eric with the patio. Awesome things!!

67 Days!

It's been a while since I posted, and I apologize, but I've been a bit busy lately.

The invitations have been mailed out, well most of them, I have a few to address yet. We've gotten three responses so far! Ha ha.

We averted a bridal shower crisis, and now everything is under control.

Things with the house are going swimmingly; we successfully transformed the main floor with paint, including stripping wallpaper in the half-bath. It is my opinion that who ever decides to apply wallpaper to their walls is basically saying, "screw you people who are going to buy our house! This wallpaper is ugly and will be incredibly difficult to remove! MUAHAHHAHA!". Eric is continuing work with the backyard/patio and we are on a list to have new flooring on the main floor installed soon. Forget the fact that we are neglecting the rest of our home, the first floor is going to be awesome.

Bridal shower in less then two weeks - wedding in 67 days. Crazy!

Our Home!

We finally had settlement last Tuesday, and I am a bit slow to post, but we were very busy this weekend!

Our settlement went well; it was very short, but the papers were signed and we are now the proud owners of a home in Langhorne, PA!

On Thursday, Eric and his friend Steve started demo work on the backyard, taking out a few bushes and planning the awesome patio Eric is going to build for us.

On Friday my mom, brother and I went to the house and cleaned the downstairs from top to bottom. Colin also did some awesome demo work on the patio in the backyard.

On Sunday, Eric and I painted the living room, hallway and kitchen. I forgot to take pictures until after we were finished at 9 PM and the lighting was terrible, so I will take pictures next time I go up and post them.

Here is the before of our living room:

Hallway:

Kitchen:

Yay! Many more pictures next weekend!

house!

We got it! Settlement took literally 30 minutes. Everyone was astonished, but I guess everyone had their stuff together. Anyway.. now the fun begins! I will post pictures this weekend! Yay!

Additionally, the wedding is now less then 90 days away, which is just plain crazy. Our wedding rings came in, and they fit. I just tried mine on for like 2 seconds - and Eric had his on for a bit more only because it got stuck on his fat knuckle =)

Also, I have spring fever and want nothing to do with work... HAHA. Track just started and now my life is hectic again. Oh well, eventually I will get everything done!

ugggh!

Our settlement was pushed back... we aren't sure now, but it may be either Friday or Monday or possibly even later. I am hoping for Friday... a three-day weekend sounds nice & then I can still do some housework on Sunday!


Anyway.... house ideas!




inspiring kitchen re-do.

http://joshandjessicabrown.blogspot.com/2010/02/kitchen.html

I love the idea of grey-beige walls in the living room. Any color you put with grey really pops, so it is very versitile. This picture is from Domino.

I just love these white pitchers and scrabble tiles... from decorating addiction.

I also printed out more invitations... the wedding is 95 days away! =) I can't wait!

Getting Closer!

The days are counting down until our wedding.. we are under 100 now! The main thing that needs to be accomplished soon is finishing the invitations. I will finish this week.

Even more exciting is the fact that in less then 5 days we will own a house. wow. We spent mucho $ at Lowe's on Saturday buying painting supplies and a new lock. Hopefully everything goes as planned and we can have the entire house pre-cleaned and prepped for painting by the end of the weekend!! Yay!

Young House Love

So, I am at work. I am supposed to be thinking about work-related things: lesson plans, grading, discipline, blah blah blah.

BUT, All I can think about is decorating the house, set to become ours in 1 week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. That was a lot of exclamation marks on purpose, I am just plain excited. Anyway, I have been gathering inspiration from all sorts of places. Yesterday I watched my favorite show on HGTV, "Property Virgins," a show about first time home buyers, and this one couple toured a house where the entryway was this awesome shade of dark grey with white trim. I have been thinking about painting the living room/hall bathroom area dark grey for a while and that just cemented it for me.

Also, our cabinets are just plain boring. We want to paint them - well, I want to paint them. Here are the directions we will probably follow - from one of my new favorite blogs http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/11/how-to-paint-your-kitchen-cabinets/

Young House Love is just plain awesome. After settlement we will be taking tons of "before" pictures to share!

I've been very productive lately!

Many accomplishments lately!

1- Eric and I picked out and ordered our rings on Saturday. So exciting! Mine is designed by the same manufacturer as my engagement ring, so it will match. It is white gold with 0.25 carats of princess cut diamonds along the top of the band. Beautiful! Eric's band is also white gold, and it is slightly rounded in "comfort fit".. whatever that means.

2 -Eric and I will be having settlement on our house in Langhorne, PA on March 25. This is a huge step for us, and we are both a little nervous. We drove around and explored the area on Saturday in the rain. Our supermarket is awesome, and when I found this out, I felt comforted. My life is so average!

3 - I went and had my first dress fitting this evening at the Bridal Manor. My dress fits! So excited that I won't have to worry about losing any weight, that takes a HUGE burden away. The dress is beautiful and wonderful and it makes me look really skinny!!! Next fitting is May 10, and I need to get my shoes before then!

4 - I ordered my dress for Emily's wedding from David's Bridal. I know this has nothing to do with my wedding, but I am excited to be part of Emily's special day on August 21!

5 - Many things have been ordered from Etsy.com... including bridesmaids gifts! I also bought a hair pin; it has a 1/2 inch art-deco style blue gem, and it is going to be my "something blue"... unless I find something else better. Either way, it is a cute bobby pin!

Things that need to be done:

1 - Finish Invitations.. this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 - Find shoes, before May 10

3 - Set up engagement session with the photographer... soon

4 - female dr's appt... soon

5 - order a veil... shopping etsy I have found a few I like.. keep looking!

6 - buy a (few) dress(es) for the bridal shower, rehersal dinner and honeymoon

7 - MUCH MORE STUFF!!! TOO MUCH TO HANDLE!

Favor Boxes

I promised Emily that I would put pictures of my favor boxes on here like 2 weeks ago.. I suck at remembering...

...Anyway, here is a link to the boxes. We ordered 100 Pink and 100 Navy. We are going to fill them with M&Ms and put one at each place setting.

Our tables at the reception are going to be all white linens with pink floral center pieces. I think that the pink and navy boxes will add some nice color and look really neat!

http://www.efavormart.com/sacchettochocolatefavorbox-100pc-1-1-1-1-1-1.aspx
Pink

http://www.efavormart.com/sacchettochocolatefavorbox-100pc-1-1-1-1-1.aspx
Navy

Registry

Wow, just looking over our registries makes me feel sick. While I completely see the validity of owning so many items (they are useful!!), it doesn't feel right to ask for stuff in such a tacky way. I understand that people want to buy you stuff when you get married. I get it. But why all the bullying into registering for items that you may hardly even use? I am glad that Eric and I managed to survive BB&B without registering for any lenox or, even worse, beauty/health products. The bridal consultant actually tried to convince us to register for hair dryers, curling irons, back massagers, etc.

I am a very cheap/thrifty person. I don't buy stuff unless it is on sale. I didn't register for things I thought were outrageously priced, yet I feel ashamed for even having a registry in the first place. What happened to humility? I was always taught that you should be thankful for whatever you get, and giving is greater then getting.

This is just one of the many things plaguing my brain... 4 months and 1 day to go. wow.





the stand mixer has been "fulfilled"... you know who you are, thanks.

dress!

I got a call from the dress shop today.. my dress came in 1 month early! I am very excited to schedule an appointment to try it on!

We ordered my dress from The Bridal Manor, in Sewell, NJ.

Yay!

Invitations!

I have finally figured out what I am going to do about the invitations! For the past two weeks I have changed fonts, styles, alignment, to stamp or not to stamp etc.

My mom and I purchased a kit to print our own invitations from Michael's - we purchased 3 boxes or 120 invitations. Each kit comes with 40 invitation sheets with a hole at the top for ribbon, 40 invitation pockets that are embossed with a pretty vine pattern, 40 reply cards, 40 reply envelopes, and 40 big envelopes. Everything is white.

We purchased 3 rolls of dark pink ribbon to replace the white ribbon that is included.

I purchased a pack of white card stock to make inserts.



I purchased a set of pretty curly stamps and a pink pigment stamp pad. and clear sparkly embossing powder.

The next step was to design the invitations, inserts and reply cards. I used Microsoft Word 2007.

Here is the font that I used for our names: Little Lord Fontleroy, size 36

http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=1203

The font for the rest of the text in the invitation suite is DaunPenh, size 12.

The font color is dark blue.

We decided that most older guests will recieve a normal reply cards. Other, younger, guests will recieve a reply card that just says, "go to the website to RSVP". Or something like that. We are trying to save some $$! I didn't print out any of the website RSVP cards yet.

The Process:

Step 1: Cut white card stock to 5.25" x 8.25" for the insert page.

Step 2: Print everything out!!! This takes forever.

The back of the insert has directions to the church, and from the church to the reception.

Step 3: Stamp and Emboss the Invitation page, stamp the insert page.

Step 4: Cut and insert the ribbons, put everything into the pocket.

The Final Product!

My favorite part is using the heat embossing tool to melt the embossing powder. It's fun!

My least favorite part is waiting for everything to print!!! Ahh... patience is my weakness.

So I made 7 complete sets tonight, 1 set I gave to the my floral girls. So that leaves me with 6 complete sets - I only have to make 84 more!!!

Things left to do about invitations before we mail them:

1- purchase postage

2- purchase labels and print labels of our return address for envelopes

3- print and assemble 84 total invitations

4- handwrite, neatly, addresses

5- mail!

The goal is to have everything done by mid-march! Go team! We (I) can do it!

Trying ?

So I would like to have a place to record my thoughts, ideas, and accomplishments throughout the next 5 months of wedding stuff. I am getting married on June 26, 2010. I have been engaged since June 26, 2008. I guess I am a little behind on this blogging about wedding planning.

Most of the planning is done; we have venues, dresses, flowers, pictures, cake, tuxedos, bubbles, stationary... Now we are in the execution phase.

Here are my immediate goals:
1 - finish invitation design and print (we are printing at home on invitations purchased from Michaels)
2 - finalize guest list
3 - assemble invitations and handwrite envelopes
4 - purchase shoes
5 - get a dress for my shower, and also for rehersal dinner.

thats enough for now. I will post pictures of my invitations later.