Save-The-Dates...

...Are finished! FINALLY!! I feel like we have been so far behind on wedding planning, so I am so happy to finally have these done! All I am waiting on now is to have the envelopes printed so I can put them in the mail!!



Getting everything ready... I sat down on Sunday for THREE hours and attached the photo corners and pictures to the car stock!




Final product! I love them and can't wait until our friends and family get them (hopefully by the end of this week)!! ;)

With one item checked off my list, there are a ton more that I haven't checked off. For instance, I STILL do not have a florist! This is becoming frustrating! I have heard some not so great things about the florists I've already met with and the one a**hole still hasn't even given me a quote! Who knew finding a florist would be so hard! I'm making one more appointment this week, hopefully they will be able to squeeze me in.

So we have no florist, no DJ... We haven't even begun looking at DJs!! I keep telling myself, and Matt, that our goal for the week is to schedule some appointments with DJs so we can make a decision and have all the major vendors booked but we have been so busy it keeps slipping my mind!

I am going straight home from work and googling Columbus DJs (right after I Pinterest and catch up on the bloggy world)!! Haha! Just kidding... Kind of!

Matthew got out of coming to florist appointments and to my appointment with the Venue, but he's not getting out of me to these appointments! I feel like he would be much better at choosing a DJ than I would be so... :)

Today has been so gloomy. I would much rather be at home, on my couch watching daytime TV than at work today but hey, I have a wedding to pay for! No more lazy days off until after May 5, 2012!!!

Engagement Pictures!

Happy Labor Day! My future hubby and I have had a very relaxing labor day weekend! Aside from working Saturday and going out with some friends to celebrate September birthdays on Saturday night, we've done a whole lotta nothin'!! I can't remember the last time we had nothing to do!

I have to say, planning our wedding has been so much fun thus far and I feel like we're moving along and making good progress! I have my last (hopefully) florist appointment coming up on Thursday and this week Matt and I agreed to research and call potential DJ's!

Our photographer finished editing our engagement pictures! YESS!!! And it just makes me that much more excited to be marrying Matthew! I love that we'll have these pictures to show our children and grandchildren one day! And... looking at our engagement photos makes me all  happy inside thinking about how our wedding pics will turn out!

The ONE thing I have been disappointed in so far is that one of the florist I met with never e-mailed me back with an estimate! RUDE! I really liked the guy when I met with him but it's been almost three weeks and I haven't gotten a phone call or an e-mail with a price quote. Looks like he's outta the running!

Leaving you with some of our engagement pics! :)

Grey is out... Champagne is in...

I've been a busy bee over the past week!

Last week I had TWO appointments with florists. Both went well. Still waiting on a quote from one of the people I met with and I have another appointment next Thursday with my third (and hopefully last) florist. Both florists I met last week had awesome ideas - and ideas that were similar to each other! I hope they were able to see as much of my vision as possible with the information I gave them!!

In addition to visiting with florists I met with The Venue today! It was my first face to face meeting with Molly, one of the event coordinators at the Venue. She was really nice, and very thorough!! I am so thankful my FMIL was able to come with me to this meeting! She picked me up and off we went. As we were driving I realized I had completely forgotten to bring along my wedding binder and a pen. Ok, ok... I'm sure I have a pen somewhere at the bottom of my purse, but that's beside the point. Thankfully, Jody remembered a pen. I'm blaming my sudden increase in forgetfulness on the fact that five minutes before I left my house I fell down the stairs. And I'm not talking about just a couple of stairs. I'm talking about I got down the first 3 steps alright and then I fell. Hard. I blame the falling down the stairs on my over loaded basket of laundry I was carrying. See? None of this is my fault. Molly gave us a ton of information and Jody took wonderful notes! It was an awesome first meeting! Looking forward to the tasting at the end of the year!!!

After the meeting at The Venue, we decided we would take my dress into a few tux shops just to match it up with some of the tux/suit colors I had in mind. I completely forgot that because my dress is not white, the guys will not be able to wear white shirts under their suits! My original plan for the guys was to obviously have them in black tuxes because my girls were going to be in grey dresses! Perfect, right? Wrong!! I think the black tuxes will be too harsh for a spring wedding. Plus, our venue is so rustic and casual the guys would look out of place in a classic black tux. Sooo...my next thought was that they guys AND the girls would both be in grey. I LOVED this idea and my FSIL, Marie, thought that it would look really nice if the shades of grey weren't exactly the same. It would have been pretty impossible to match up the tux with the BM dress anyway. After having gone to Men's Wearhouse today I have decided, officially, that grey is out. Yep. My wedding colors are no longer, grey & green & cream! We found this awesome suit (see photo below) on the Men's Wearhouse site and I immediately fell in love.

As it turns out, this item is on clearance and they don't have enough for nine, yes I said nine groomsmen! Bummer man, he delivers. We did find another spiffy looking suit that would go well with our new color scheme, but it was rather pricey. We decided to keep looking. We stopped by a tux shop near home and found just what we were looking for!! It's a 3 piece suit (Matt says a vest is a must) for a GREAT price! It's very similar in color to the clearance suit from Men's Wearhouse and will look fabulous with my dress and a champagne colored BM dress!!

So there you have it, our new wedding colors are champagne & cream & green (&taupe)!!! I'm glad I have this decision locked down and can focus on actually finding those darn BM dresses! Now if I could actually get some of the BM's together to go shopping ;o)

Engagement Pics in T- 3 Days!

Although my theknot.com checklist says we're right on time for engagement pictures, I can't help feeling a little behind! Maybe it's because we've been engaged since JANUARY!! Or maybe it's because I had originally thought we'd get these done at the beginning of the summer. I'm not sure where the time went, but summer is almost over!

Our engagement pictures are scheduled for Monday at 6:30 pm!! I am excited, and nervous! I need to brush up on my modeling skills. ;o) Here is one shirt I may wear for the pics.


I also have a red polka dotted dress I am for sure wearing, but I cannot find a picture of it online anywhere!! My photographer says normally people bring 2 outfits. Our pics will be taken at a park in Columbus called Goodale Park, and in the Short North where they have some really fun, old looking shops and businesses! Here are some pictures of the park and Short North!









I am also hoping our photographer won't mind helping us with some pics for our Save-the-dates! My FSIL found a really cute idea on Pinterest! Here's a sneak peek!!



I cannot wait to send them out!

Ok... Last pic in this post, I promise!!!



Yay! We're getting closer!!!!

Wedding Coordinator: Check!

So we decided it would be beneficial to hire a wedding coordinator for our wedding and my future mother-in-law knew of an awesome coordinator for our big day. We met with her last week and after answering TONS of questions and gathering TONS of information (not to mention she did a wonderful job at my future sister-in-law's wedding) we decided she was the right fit for us! :) It's nice to know we won't have to worry about much (aside from the dreaded fear of tripping and falling while walking down the aisle) on our wedding day!!

I have a new list of "to-do's,"and have already started tackling some of the items on the list. Apparently wedding day transportation books FAST (who knew?)- so one of our main concerns is finding a vehicle large enough to transport NINETEEN people to take pictures before the ceremony and get us from the church to the Venue! We're getting quotes for a limo coach, or limo bus for our bridal party. We are also considering some sort of vintage car to drive me and my new hubby from the church to the Venue or from the Venue to our hotel at the end of the night! So many decisions to make in apparently so little time! What to do, what to do?! We also need to figure out how much time we'll need for pictures before our ceremony, and what's an appropriate amount of time for our guests to wait after the ceremony for our cocktail hour to begin. ...Have I mentioned how happy I am right now to have a wedding coordinator to ask these types of questions?!

I also left my future hubs in charge of planning our honeymoon. I'm slowly trying to convince him that we should go ahead and take it right after the wedding. :) He may need a little help remembering he's in charge of this task.

On my day off I finally began scheduling some appointments with florists. So proud of myself. I scheduled two appointments with florists who my friends have used in the past, and our wedding coordinator also gave us some ideas of people who she's worked with so I am planning on calling a few of them this week as well. Matthew was happy to know I made appointments for times when he would surely be at work so he wouldn't have to succumb to the boredom of sitting at a florist listening to my ideas of bouquets and centerpieces!! 

In other wedding events, Matthew's brother got married last weekend! Here are some pictures from their wedding, as well as my friends wedding from mid July!

 Me walking down the aisle at Kelli's wedding! :)

 Kelli and her dad!

 During the ceremony

 Michael patiently awaiting his bride :)

 :)

 Me and my future husband! <3

Me with a couple of my favorite girls!!

TGIF!!

Thank goodness it's Friday?! Ah, who am I kidding, Friday's mean nothing to me because I work on Saturdays!! Boo. I am seriously hoping that changes very soon! I applied for a different position at work on July 1st, and am hoping to find out if I got it soon! The hiring process usually takes forever. The wait is unbearable because my current position is becoming increasingly more stressful by the day!

Although my weekends aren't actually weekends anymore, the future hubs and I have some exciting plans for the next few days!! I'm not sure yet what order we'll do these in but either tonight or tomorrow we are planning to go to the Columbus Jazz & Rib Fest... Great food, good music, fresh squeezed lemonade, funnel cakes (my only reason for wanting to go), and not to mention the awesome people-watching!! We also plan to go see Friends With Benefits because who doesn't love a little bit of JT and Mila Kunis in their lives?!

On Sunday I fully intend to drag matt to Crate & Barrel to finally register for wedding gifts! Maybe I can convince him to go to Restoration Hardware too since it's right across the way!! :)

Last weekend went to my friend Kelli's wedding and we had a great tome! She looked beautiful and I am so happy that she's finally a missus!! Pics to come soon!! The day went off without a hitch! It definitely makes me excited for out big day!! Also, I was FINALLY able to ask my good friend Emily, to be a bridesmaid in our wedding! The only times we had seen eachother recently was when we were celebrating/bridal showering Kelli for her wedding so I asked her to lunch and to do a little shopping and gave her the card I made her! So happy she said yes!!!

Sweet Summertime!

I am pretty sure wayy too much has happened since my last blog update! Let's see how blogging from the iPhone works out for me today!

First off, HAPPY SUMMER!!! I, for one, have been enjoying my summer to the fullest - so who really cares if I have to work on Saturdays?! :(

I've been relaxing at the pool on my days off which is very nice! The one good thing about having Thursday's off is that The pool is usually completely empty!! I usually try to squeeze in some Mandy/Shai time on Thursday's as well and always have to stop by my mom's house to see my baby nephew Tyler!! Matt and I took him to out pool - Tyler's first time- last Sunday and he l-o-v-e LOVED it!!

We have been spending our time with friends and family and of course working. Matt has had his busiest summer yet and can't seem to stay caught up! We had a great time at Matt's parents 4th of July party and his parents allowed my niece and I to pass out candy on the back of their golf cart doing the parade in their neighborhood! Of course Shai had a blast!!

My summer has been consumed with all things wedding, and not just for my own!! My great friend, Kelli is getting married in three short days so we have had bridal showers and bachelorette parties! All of which were a blast!! Matt's brother, Mike, is also getting married on July 30th and we went to a beautiful couples shower for him and his fiancé!

We've continued with the planning of our wedding as well which is most exciting of all!!! We found our cake baker. She is A-MAZING!! Her name is Anita Kline and she works out of her home. We heard of her by word of mouth, several of our friends hired her to make their cakes as well an suggested we at least go to a cake tasting at her house. Soo we went. Not only are her cakes amazing, she is the nicest woman on the planet! We are absolutely thrilled to be worthy with her and are that much more excited about our big day!

Another piece of exciting news, you say? Wedding dress! It is purchased and hanging up at the Dickson's house! I tried it on for Matt's sister, cousin, and his younger brother's girlfriend and I'll try it on for anyone else who asks! :) oh, I also took my friend Chelsea over an showed her as well since she had never seen it!! I am still so in love with it and can hardly stand to wait nine and a half more months to wear it for real!!!

Next on our fun-filled agenda will be to register for gifts (I have a new love: Crate & Barrel), seriously that store is amazing. Who knew they had furniture? Anyone want to buy me a new couch?! After that we really need to buckle down and start searching for DJ's and florists (still dreading this) and finally, we have our engagement pictures on August 15th! I assume someone from our venue will be getting in contact at some point to discuss food tastings though I haven't heard from anyone yet. Is it weird that this makes me nervous? Also, I need opinions on taking Matthew o the florist appointments or not. Would you force your fiancé to go? Who knows, he might actually want to go!!