Days 330 - 347

so we're close. like really close. and of course we recently realized that we had to mail in the application for a one day officiant at least 6 weeks in advance...good thing we got that mailed in right under the wire! whew!
and now that we've reached the 30 day mark, we can go do the get a marriage license thing now. oh man.

this past weekend we had a small soiree of sorts that started off with some yummy cupcakes and bubbly  and perhaps some temporary tattoos with our initials (thanks again Shannon for hosting!)

 

and then we headed to dinner at scollay square and concluded the evening with a cover band 

all in all a great time. thanks so much to everyone who made it out on Sat! it was great to get excited with everyone!
and the weekend ahead promises to be completely the opposite....
on the menu this weekend we have --

• finalize the menu and floor plan
• figure out what i get to search for at....wait for it....brimfield! in just a few short weeks
• get hinges and hinge those damn shutters (thanks to Dan for the tip on the best hinging technique)
• order /  print photos for frames
• get some fabric for the photobooth backdrop
• deal with some clothes pins
• test out DIY flower bouquets
• see a girl about some frames in saugus (finally!)
• avoid the hurricane 
• work more on ceremony 
• homework (um, ya, i'm starting school today and already have homework due on monday)

whew. i'm tired already. more soon.

Days 324 - 329

i cannot believe it's already sunday again. the weeks are zooming by way too fast! fairly busy week in wedding planning i suppose...here's the rundown --

• we received the ring vessel! that order was super speedy and it's beautiful! so excited for everyone to see it!
• the rsvp's have started to roll in-- it's really happening! and really soon! getting more excited by the day.
• my new dress from boden arrived and i think it will be the rehearsal dinner/ night out dress.and it fits perfectly and was on sale. could not be happier finding a cute dress for under $30!

•  the chalkboard paint was also out and the frames are looking cool. i love being able to re-purpose old things! it just makes me happy.
•  and i found more shutters!! $20 for 3 shutters just a few towns over (a nice change from most of my crazy craigslist adventures!). now i think i'm finally ok with what we have. though i really enjoy the hunt!
• we attempted to head out to saugus, ma to see a girl about some frames, but she cancelled on me. hopefully i'll be able to snag the cool frames she used in her wedding this week sometime.
• oh and we hung one of the windows frames on the wall today -- it's looks really cool, especially after painting 1 of the walls a lovely shade of goldenrod. of course it'll look even better once it's filled with colorful pics. i also get really excited to use the wedding decor purchases in our house, in case that wasn't obvious already :)

  

lots to do this week - on the list so far--

• try on dresses with jewelry to make see if everything works
• fill up our frames! which means ordering engagement pics and printing out old family/childhood pictures
• make a final decision / call for reservations for the night before shin-dig
• more ceremony stuff
• order liana's ring
• figure out photo booth stuff
• figure out a signature cocktail that is served over ice and with straws...we welcome suggestions!

Days 320 - 323

Monday, Monday, Monday...

so the weekend was super productive! friday was awesome -- got up early and made liana measure the shutters with me (before she even had coffee, which was pretty risky!). then we we spent a while at AFH scoping out the space with ashley and taking all kinds of measurements and really figuring out where things like the photo booth and bird bath will go. we also made some decisions around how to display our old photos and felling pretty good about stuff. we also snuck into the custom house observatory for an amazing view of the city! this is my new favorite place to take out of town guests! and then we went to a bar to see our DJ who had a gig that night. while it wasn't quite the music we're going for, he did a darn good job. now i just need to email him to make sure we didn't scare him away with our list of 100+ songs...

on saturday, we spent a few hours chatting and researching ceremony stuff and the 1st draft was sent to Jess for edits!

and on sunday i found another craigslist find and we made a quick trip out to rowley, ma for some vintage windows --
the plan is to add some pics to the panes as more decor.

oh and i may have found another guy selling shutters and may try to convince liana that we could use just a few more...stay tuned

Days 303 - 319

wow - so we're getting close. it's crazy.  things are going well -- lots of random etsy purchases over the last few weeks and the 1st packages are starting to arrive! here's the status update and recap --

• michigan trip was a success! it was so great to see everyone once before the wedding! however, i ate a ton and probably gained a few pounds. it's ok though, i made it to boxing class this week and need to kick-start that routine again.
• patrick's jacket is a bit loose, but fingers crossed it'll be ok after he tries it on with a button down instead of a solar t-shirt.
• i was in a wedding planning focus group. how perfect, huh?! $125 for 2 hrs and i didn't even have to lie once  :)
• i've discovered pinterest, according to them, it's a place organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. i am obsessed and i love it. so, lots of pinning  happening with new wedding ideas

and now, fun stuff we're acquiring--

• yep - that's a bird bath! can't wait to see that lovely addition in the courtyard area, can you?!

• paper straws.we're going old school here and are pretty excited to use these for drinks during cocktail hour!
• a beautiful vessel for the rings...sorry no pics, we're waiting for it to be created for us. and yes, i like the word vessel.
• burlap ribbon for our flowers. though we have 5 yards of it, so i'm sure we'll find more ways to use it too.
• and we're also looking into some photobooth props, but nothing ordered yet.

so, we're both off tomorrow and a long weekend of wedding planning is the agenda! we're going to the venue for another walk through in the afternoon with ashley and will be picking her brain and running our ideas by her. we'll have tape measures, notebooks, pictures, and diagrams in tow. and once we figure out how many more shutters, frames, etc we need, we'll be moving on to the ceremony. must figure this out soon. like really soon.
this is such a fun process! i'm going to have to find a new project after the wedding! someone else i know who just got married said that she hated everything about the planning process and that it was like studying for final exams and she couldn't wait for it to be over. man, that must suck.

Days 282 - 302

well the invites have been sent! and we've planted one as  test run but unfortunately I think we forgot to water it few times and so we may have missed out on wild flowers sprouting out of them....oh well. Hopefully others have better luck than we seem to be having.

we've also crossed more stuff off of the to-do list, which feels pretty good. I mean, the invites were top priority, but we also accomplished a few other things over the past 2 weeks --
We booked our mini-honeymoon! The plan is to go to Italy next spring, but we really wanted to do a smaller trip after the wedding. We found a cute bed and breakfast in Portland, Maine that got great reviews, so we booked our reservation. And we can take the train from Boston to Portland for pretty cheap - perfect!
We also found potential hair pieces (and by hair pieces, I do not mean toupees) -

Here's one of the ones we're thinking of getting. We also made hair appointments for Sept -- can't believe it's getting so close! Sept will be here before I know it!

Oh and here' s one of the dresses that the flower girls will wear. Ava and Layla will totally rock these!

Oh and we talked a little bit more about ceremony and have decided on who walks in/out when, using which aisle, with whom, and to which music! Pretty excited, I think it's totally going to work! Crazy how much you have to think about when you're making up the rules as you go :)

And finally the decor. We've been getting a bit nervous about the shutters.
While our 2nd bedroom is packed to the gills with wedding stuff, the venue is HUGE and we're really hoping that we have enough shutters and other stuff. But there's that fine line between 'we have a small selection of cool things but not enough to establish a theme' and 'wow there's way too much crap in here and it's taking away from the space'.  It'll be fine, I'm sure, but I think we just need to take some measurements and possibly go on another random adventure for more shutters....stay tuned.


And we're off to Michigan later this week for a long weekend! Looking forward to getting some time to spend with family and friends before the wedding!

Days 262 - 281

well well well...the days have been flying by lately. so what's new? let's see...

• liana threw a curve ball and got a new dress! yep, she wasn't sure if she was completely happy with the blue dress. luckily, j.crew had some other options and she ordered a new one last week. this is definitely a perk to not having bridal gowns, you can just find your usual size at the store and poof! you can have a new dress in just 5 business days. thank god it works! it's actually kind of perfect and has a similar mineral-like tone to mine, only more of a gold/copper color than silver. whew! sorry, no pics to share - we're going with the surprise factor for the blog-reading world :)
• ceremony planning had a good start -- though we still don't have it quite figured out yet.that's ok though, we spent a lot of time brainstorming and i'm not stressing yet
• i ordered this great  locket on etsy and think i'll somehow incorporate it into the flowers i carry and put pics of my dad and uncle in it to carry with me that day
• during liana's day off today, she may have found a dress for julia (sister) and a jacket/tie for my brother! and the cool thing is that the tie is from liana's cousin's boyfriend's company, the hill-side. wow that was a lot of apostrophe use in one sentence -- hopefully i got 'em all right! anyway, here's what we're thinking as of now (and no, that's not patrick :) 

ok that's all for now -- monday night and time for some bad tv to start the week off right

days 241 - 261

ready? set! here's the latest---
brimfield was a complete success! within 10 minutes of arriving we had made the 1st purchase and went back to the car with load #1. here are a few pics of our finds:

the copper tray above is used in traditional indian weddings and has a border of engraved acorns, a symbol of fertility and growth. cute, huh?! the step ladders on the right were some great bargains and perfect for the ceremony.


we were really excited to find this mirror. as you can see, it's getting some use now in the bedroom and will be displayed on a table with the tray and seltzer bottle. can you picture it yet?! excited yet?!

Liana received her etsy necklace and it is perfect with the dress!








And my purple peacock shoes arrived today too! and i think (or hope) i can totally rock them with the dress.

and then after having a blast at amy and dan's wedding in portsmouth last weekend, we came home and clearly had wedding stuff on the brain. we spent a few hours putting together a song list for our dj. we got a bit carried away and have over 100 songs to give him. it was hard describing the music we like when we have everything from  motley crue to tegan & sara to  rihanna on the list! :)

and the ceremony--- we've finally spent some time thinking about what we want. we had lunch with jess & christina (our wonderful friends who are visiting from berkeley this week- we are so lucky jess is also officiating our ceremony!) and started the conversation with them over the weekend. liana and i then went back to our local bar with laptop in tow and started jotting down ideas in appendix II of our notebook of lists.

we're really happy to be able to see christina and jess again this week to discuss more. they are both so great and helpful with thinking through all this. and jess has already done some preliminary research -- so excited to work with her to create the perfect ceremony for us.

we've got less than 4 months till the big day...i'm sure i'll be posting more often :)