Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wedding Sweatshop: An Amish Weekend

This weekend was an incredibly productive one for me. Why you ask? Well, because of this...



We had our power knocked out for 46 hours by 110 mph winds and lots and lots of falling trees. It was kind of like being Amish for the weekend. It went out on Friday, right after I got home from work, and didn't come back on until this afternoon. There aren't a lot of distractions when a flashlight and a hand crank radio are the only gadgets in the house that work. This wedding is DIY crazy and I decided to make everything myself for it, within reason. And some stuff not so within reason. For example, I decided I wanted to make boutonnières for everyone instead of buying floral ones. My inspiration came a la the fabulous Princess Lasertron. Great idea! Here's what the first one looked like:



It's cute, huh? Well, that little guy took me oh, I don't know, maybe four hours to make. And then I did the math and realized that I needed to make twelve of them. But how was I going to find the time to sit down and crank all those guys out? Good thing I didn't have power this weekend!



No TV, no internet, no Wii. Absolutely nothing to stop me from working my fingers to the bone making wedding crafts. I also made ten center pieces, picked up and cut out engagement pictures when Baker's got its power back, and temporarily escaped the sweatshop for a four hour wedding pow-wow at Cathy's house. (I also snuck in some internet time to get my fix. I'm a web junkie. Hense the insanely long post tonight.)

I was just sitting down to the computer to finish printing off stuff for the invitations when the sirens went off on Friday. I had just enough time to turn off the computer, grab a flashlight and run to the laundry room before the power went out. I was finally able to finish printing everything off tonight. Here's proof that I really did the invites myself and didn't outsource them to India to save some bucks. It's also a picture to brag about having my power returned. Look at that printer go!



Keep an eye out for one of these babies in the mail in the next few weeks...

Friday, June 27, 2008

Who Is the Who?

We want to thank our awesome wedding party for agreeing to stand with us at the wedding and for being incredible friends and family members. We want them to be honored at the wedding as much as we are. They truly deserve it.

They are also graciously going along with our wardrobe/costume choices for the big day. It's going to be like Breakfast at Tiffany's meets The Ramones. (And they agreed!) That's true love right there. In no particular order, those fine folks are:

Cathy Price - Sister Extraordinaire of the Bride
Matron of Honor & Master of Keeping the Bride in Check Since 1983.

Shannon Werts - Friend of the Bride
Gloria Bustillos- Friend of the Bride
Jeff Guenin - Friend of the Bride

Ryan McGuigan - Brother Like to Other of the Groom
Best Man and Band Mate for life

Eric Perlstein - Friend of the Groom
Joe Kaspar - Friend of the Groom

Cartney McGuigan - Sweetest Flower Girl on the Planet
Kyle Anderson - Cutest Ring Bearer Known to Mankind

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Update on the Planning Phase

Something snapped in the last week and I caught the bride virus. I hated the organizing part. You know - caterers, bakers, venues. That stuff is boring. And expensive. But I'm past all of that and now I'm working on the little details. Like an addict loves crack, so do I love little details. I just about peed pants with excitement when I bought cards and envelopes for the invitations. ENVELOPES! WHEE! I could quit my job and make party invitations for people for the rest of my life and I would be perfectly happy. Something about paper products... I just love it. I don't scrapbook but I love to collect the paper and junk and be happy just having it and looking at it. Weird? Maybe... So the invites are in the works. Everything should be delivered by this week and then the Official Family Ladies assembly line will convene and I'll get those babies in the mail.

And the center pieces? Oh jeez... this is getting out of control. I keep finding stuff I like so I just say to myself, "Let's throw it on the table too. Why not?" This wedding is going to look like every horizontal surface in my house - covered with crappy stuff that only I find amusing and which Matt sweetly puts up with. I also took back my promise to let the bridesmaids pick their own dresses and I bought them super cute cocktail dresses which they can "totally wear again!" Every bride says it but I'd like to think it's true in this case. Maybe? Probably not... I'd wear it everyday for the rest of my life if it was mine. My dress is in the works. I've already told too many people about it so I'm keeping is a secret until the wedding. Ok, that's not true. I can't keep secrets. I have an incredible costume designer, Carole Zacek making it for me. She's done work for commercials, movies, ballet and theater. I'd give you her website link to go look at her stuff, but there's a picture of me on there in a flea costume.

Hellooooo!

This is our wedding blog! More info to come...