twenty five + counting

yeesh. i can hardly believe i'm typing that.

twenty. five. days.

the time has gone by so fast. but so slowly, at the same time. i'm ready to be married. i could skip the getting married part right now. mainly because i am aching for a daily life that isn't packed with a trillion little decisions + detail upon detail to take care of. i want to go to work + come home + actually have an evening in which i have nothing planned, nothing on the to-do list, nothing spinning in the back of my mind, demanding attention from an already overly crammed brain. when i can sit on the front porch with a cup of tea + a book, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood... just me + the quiet.

and tim, of course. in this fantasy life, he would be sitting next to me with a book of his own, or working on something in the garage. near. comfortable. at home together.

don't get me wrong: i have loved nearly every second of our engagement. it's been so fun seeing all my ideas come to life. seeing God provide + astound us with His imagination + ingenuity. seeing my friends + family gather 'round in support + joy.

one of the projects i'm currently working on is my veil. i decided (perhaps a little optimistically) to make my own. it's going to be really simple -- just a drop veil (pics below). but i'm still a tad nervous about it. if anyone has suggestions about how to make it happen... feel free to leave comments.

in the meanwhile, keep on counting. i know i am!

when i grow up...

the other day, i was chatting with one of my dearest friends about the kind of person i want to be. and then, the next day, i found this quote on one of my favorite blogs. it so perfectly mirrored the essence of my heart's desire that i literally gasped when i read it.

she had a face like she had been crushed, but somehow survived, and squeezed every drop of compassion from her pain and painted it on her cheeks. she moved softly, without presumption. one might think she was pliable - such softness carries weakness with it. her secret, though, was that her beautifully humble exterior hid a strength no one expected.

let it be me...

just because it's friday...

i thought i'd post some lovelies to celebrate the end of the longest week in the history of the world. good grief, i'm glad it's friday!

enjoy...

okay... so, normally i'm opposed to cutting up perfectly good books.

but some of mine are beginning to show mold spots.

this would be a lovely way to repurpose them

rather than just throwing them away.

plus, come on... seriously?

books + plants = gorgeous

the most adorable garden stationery suite i've ever seen.

+ wouldn't that butterfly bouquet be PERFECT for a flower girl?

* sigh *

so lovely + whimsical.

i love the shapeliness + simplicity of the vases + the white

so airy.

original cake ideas rock.

this is tim's IDEAL wedding cake.

such a fun idea!

trees are old friends.

wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to pull something like this off

at an indoor venue?

long, swirly veils = love

this is going to be us in less than a month + a half!

happy weekend!!!

tying it all together - volume 1

i've been to a lot of weddings in my time. roughly 72 in the past decade alone. i've been to weddings that cost the bride's family hundreds of thousands of dollars. i've been to weddings that took place in government offices. i've seen fountains of expensive, well-designed floral pieces. i've seen bouquets of wildflowers hand-picked that morning. i've seen brides freak out over the tiniest inconvenience. i've seen terrible things happen + watched brides laugh them off as no big deal.

my favorite weddings, though, have usually been the ones that are full of things that show the personality, the journey of the bride + groom. the ones where ingenuity + originality, rather than one's now-empty pocketbook is on display.

one of the things we are determined to avoid in our wedding is the tendency to spend tons of money on things that look pretty, but have no emotional or symbolic connection to our relationship. we've scrapped everything that felt like an expected motif or rote tradition + tried to incorporate things that felt like us.

we've entered the "fun" stage of the wedding planning. the invitations are mailed, the bridal party accounted for, the dress + suit purchased + fitted... now it's just the details. i adore details. + so, i thought i might clue you all in a little...

the color scheme: ivory-champagne-caramel-chocolate brown-black...

we want the wedding to feel like the well-worn pages of favorite volume of old poetry, or a sepia-toned photograph of a long-lost relative. rich + warm. faded + comfortable.

we've chosen this palette not for the look alone, but because we wanted to incorporate the feeling of history. i'm wearing tim's great-grandmother's wedding ring. it's been in the family since 1910. we're both interested in the roots of things. much of our time together has been spent whiling away the hours in 37-room bookstores, dusty map shops, historical museums. we love to go visit with our grandparents, to listen to their stories + the stories of those who went before them.

my dress is ivory. tim is wearing a black suit, ivory shirt + tie. the honor corps will be in black: the women in black dresses of their choosing with a wrap in varying shades of the spectrum listed above, the men in black suits of their choosing, black shirt + a tie in varying shades of the same spectrum. the only stipulation for attire (aside from the primary color: black) is that the honor corps member choose something that he or she would actually wear again.

i've purchased some pretty radical shoes. bright red satin slides. they look like something from the forties. i just completely love them. they don't exactly match the color scheme, but i couldn't be all wedding-y about the shoes. i just couldn't.

we've already covered the topic of hairstyle in a previous post. so i won't go there again. i guess the next thing to cover would be the ceremony space + all other elements therein.

we're getting married at hope presbyterian church in richfield, minnesota.

we'll have the main aisle roped off with ribbon + little paper birds made from antique sheet music, old buttons (that a sweet lady i met on craigslist mailed me for free) + twine.

i saw this idea of using flower petals to make a pattern up the aisle. loads of flower petals can get expensive, though. my thought was, "hey... let's make confetti from old books + use that instead!" reduce. reuse. repurpose. recycle. confetti is easier to clean up, too. i'm thinking big confetti... a la ticker-tape parade. about an inch wide + 2 inches long.

we will be using books in several ways: the ring "pillow" will be a stack of books (each significant in its own right -- a family bible, the book tim used to propose to me, a journal i've kept since childhood, etc.) tied together with ribbon. we'll use piles of books around the stage as foundations for candles, jars of flowers + the like.

as for the ceremony itself, we'll be doing things a little differently. we want to keep it short. 30 minutes max. i will walk myself down the aisle + my parents will be waiting at the end of it to give us their blessing. there will be no unity candle, though we will take communion together. grandma joyce will play a hymn during communion. there will not be the usual scripture reading. rather, rachel heaner (sister of the groom) will read an excerpt from one of our favorite books. we will use the traditional vows -- there's just something so holy + solemn that is missing without them -- as well as some that we write ourselves. the songs that we've chosen for the processional + recessional are far from traditional... so, uhhm... prepare yourselves.

tim + i wrote (+ continue to write) literally hundreds of letters to each other while we were dating. i have a box full of them in my bedroom. i saw this idea for programs that looked like telegrams + thought it was spectacular. it didn't really fit with our theme, nor did it have any real connection to either of us. but it started me thinking of the letters we wrote. i decided to incorporate the idea of written correspondence into the wedding by making the ceremony programs look like letters written from tim to me + vice versa. (i'm so excited about this! can't wait to make them.)

okay... enough detail for now. more next week.

hot, sunny days = pent up creativity

it's a beautiful day in minneapolis. sunny + 85 (it was 30 three nights ago).

i want to be outside. by a lake. on a blanket. drawing or reading. sunglasses at the ready (to reduce the white-paged glare that often disturbs the outdoor reading/writing/drawing thing).

instead, i'm auditing claim after claim in a stuffy office building. the office atmosphere isn't stuffy... just the air in the building. i am grateful to have a job. but... there are honestly days where i'd rather be doing anything else.

so to stave off i'm-stuck-at-the-office blues, i'm posting some ideas that i stumbled upon during the weekend. hope you enjoy!

i really like the color scheme + bell jars. the old clock is adorable.

yummy summer-y treats!

i think i'll do something akin to the image on the left

with the tall cocktail tables at my reception.

though, i'll use a different color ribbon...

hello?

vegetables as centerpieces = genius

*sigh*

my friend, abbey, sent me this photo + the next

of some lovely summer arrangements she made.
love.

love, love.

love, love, love, love...

LOVE!

some more lovelies

i've been finding FANTASTIC ideas online. places like
http://apartment34.blogspot.com/,
http://greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com/,
http://bklynbrideonline.com/,
+ my personal fave http://www.i-do-it-yourself.com/.

i thought i would share some of them. even if i don't use them in my wedding... they're just too gorgeous -- hafta spread the love.

umm... hello?

what a simple, inexpensive + completely ingenious idea!

*sigh*

there's something so soothing + lovely about candlelight.

i appreciate the mismatched lanterns

on the shepherd's hooks.

what is it about muted colors and beautifully bound books?

i like that the stem part
(i'm sure there's a really snooty official word for this,
i just don't happen to know it)
of the bouquet above is so slender.
not a fan of the bouquets that feel like
you're carrying a football.


okay...
not a slender stemmy-bouquet-thingy.
but i adore the embroidered handkerchief.
adore.

i'm not sure if i've made it clear that we're back to an evening wedding.

yes.

7 p.m.

you can now mark your calendars in ink.

we're going to do the reception right at the church. i had thought about trying to do it at some really cool loft or art studio in northeast, but the expense + the time commitment for the attendees were major deterrents.

we are still planning on a humongous dessert buffet.

none of the pictures below quite capture what i'm thinking of,

but they give the gist.

i'm open to new thoughts and ideas. or tweaks on what i'm showing you.

let me know if you've seen something totally wonderful.

i LOVE brainstorming!!!

inspiration

inspiration is everywhere. you just need to look for it.

for me, in planning this wedding, inspiration had been hard to come by. originally, i was thinking of going sort of asian-themed. tim + i both love kung fu + asian food. the clean lines + simplicity of asian design really appealed to my aesthetic sense.

but the more i tried to make the picture fit, the more it felt unnatural. i couldn't capture the essence of "us." i really wanted to incorporate family history. i wanted the wedding to feel unique. not so much like a one-time event as a visual + sensory expression of our relationship, past, present + future.

i have a friend named janell chan who is a complete genius when it comes to making beautiful weddings happen. she lives in california, so i started picking her brain via email. we decided to ditch the green, ditch the asian + go for something more "historic" in feel.

i started looking online and found inspiration in the pictures below. enjoy the preview!

rethinking the plan

well, last night after financial class, i took a good, hard look at our wedding budget. and i realized that my plans had gotten larger than my pocketbook. SO! now it's time to get creative.

i was explaining to tim the way i plan events: i get a picture of the end result in my head and then figure out how to get there. and since my old picture had to be thrown out the window, for the most part, i need to get a new picture. and that is the stressful part for me. once i have a picture, i'm good.

so... here's hoping for a new "best" picture.

decisions, decisions

well, things are coming along.

we've got our date.
the ceremony site.
the pastor.
the wedding party.
the colors.
the theme.

i've even tried on a few dresses. (big, huge thanks to bridgitte and melody on that one. they took great care of me after my brain fried.)

now it's all just details.
we found a photographer that we love, but need to work it into our budget.
we know where we'd like to hold the reception, but need to talk to the right people.
we know exactly how we want our save-the-date cards to look, but need to actually make them.

i'm actually really loving all the planning. and i'm so aware that i have fantastic people that i want to share all this with -- and who want to share it with me.

and here's the real kicker -- in exactly six months i get to marry my favorite person on the whole planet. i feel like the luckiest, happiest girl ever.


p.s. i will be giving the girly version of the engagement story in the next week or so. just compiling evidence. (!)