I saw these lovely baskets in the current Oprah Magazine (April 09). They are made from bamboo. Lovely colors, eh? Thinking about the natural colored ones for my centerpieces. Hmm...

We did it!

Yay!
Our engagement photo shoot was yesterday. Our photographer, Tara Sharma, brought along an assistant and we shot our pictures at a local garden, outdoors. She has a great eye. But also, RocketMan and I just look so cute and were well rested --hence our pictures couldn't help but come out really nicely.

Proofs will be on their way soon!
I'm psyched about the wedding now. Not so scared like before. We still haven't seen the albums but I'm looking forward to getting a preview of what we may be able to order.

She did a great job posing us and helping us get comfortable in front of the camera. We just listened to her directions and tried to act natural. There were moments where I genuinely forgot the camera was there. Especially when we were kissing. Hee heee...

In the meantime, the interest rate on our joint savings account is dropping off a cliff!!! It's down to 1.65 from nearly 3.00 when we started saving last year. That's not cool! We could be earning nearly twice the interest. :(

dodged that bullet

Well, because of inclement weather, the photo shoot was postponed.
Meanwhile, I've been procrastinating on Save the date cards. Will get them out, soon. I promise.

Other than that, I see that we were wise to start saving for this whole wedding shindig. The guest list keeps getting longer. Oy. vey. But we are well on target with savings IMHO. Our wedding will be pricey but nowhere near the industry expectation.

Meanwhile I just have a few small concerns. Will the officiant we chose really be able to attend? The day of our wedding just happens to be communion at his church. He is the senior pastor and somehow I think the service at his church will miss something if he is not there. I hate to put him in the position of having to back out on us or make communion less than it ought to be. So I'm mildly concerned.

I'm also concerned about bridesmaids. I want to help them as much as possible to find dresses that suit them and are affordable. However, I feel the colors I've chosen aren't that popular--even though they are not wild (two shades of blue with purple accents). What to do? Well, stop procrastinating for one.

Final concern--a place to live. We don't have that much time. To plan the wedding it is enough time. But to find an apartment, we might need to start looking next month. I think that would be reasonable. Here's the other challenge. Where exactly do we want to live anyway?

uh oh

On Sunday we are planning to meet our photographer to do our engagement photos. Not sure if we really need engagement photos considering we won't be using them for save the dates or the guest book. But it might be good for us to do it for the website.

It just dawned on me I have to try to look good. Hence I better make an appointment at the salon. I'll get my nails and hair done and my eyebrows shaped. I could leave it up to me but I'm not so sure that's a good idea. There's a place around here that does facials and things. Maybe I should hit up that joint. As for my outfit--oy vey. Nothing fits because I've gained about 20 pounds over the last year (mainly the last six months). So I have to check my closet. Maybe I'll wear the new pantsuit I got in a wicked sale at loehmanns.

Flower Arranging Ideas

Flower Arranging Ideas

I found this really cool website by just searching around for floral arranging ideas.
Flowers are not that expensive to buy and a lot of websites have free shipping.
Buying floral foam shouldn't be too bad either. No, you can't reuse it but I can definitely afford to spend a little money buying some to keep my skills up.

Expectations

Seven more months and I expect to be married to the beautiful lady who shares the blog with me.
Six more months and I expect to feel even more nervous about the big big day.
Five more months and we should be done paying the majority of the vendors.
Four more months we should feel pretty good about the wedding.
Three more months we will breathe a sigh of relief that we have everything in place for the wedding.
Two more months we will do our check list.
One more month we will go on a couple of romantic dates and think how great it will be to be married.
This month we will look to alleviate ourselves of most of the stress.

solutions

I've been dragging my feet getting ready for this wedding. I guess I've been worrying more than I've been doing anything. So finally a coworker of mine announced that she was engaged and started showing me her dress choices and already has a maid of honor! That led to an instant "uh oh" moment for me.

So yesterday evening I called my good friend Willowtree and asked her to be my maid of honor. She doesn't have to stand up in the wedding if she doesn't feel it's right for her health at the time (she has a few health concerns). And she doesn't have to throw me a big party. But I'm grateful she's agreed!!!

In addition, I've found a website where I can order a kit to make lip balm for my guests!!! It's pretty cheap if I make it myself and it seems easy.
Here's the link!
I'll simply place a few of each on each table in a little container. They can take it as they go.

Another option is lotion. There's a company out there that sells containers. I can easily buy containers elsewhere, create labels. Etc. However, I think I'd rather buy the kit. In case I want to go complicated, here's the website of the container company.

On another note, I've narrowed down my choices for bridesmaid colors. I'm going with either aqua and purple or pink and purple. I really like purple.

Also, we've worked on our wedding website in the past. Here's what we have so far:
link