happy go lucky wedding

It was a mad crafting weekend at the Fro Yo house.  I gathered dowels, ribbons, scissors and glue guns and I was off and running.  Mr. Fro Yo even got in on the fun and helped me cut some ribbon, though he refused to attach them to the dowels. 

I’m a little worried that my ribbon wands look like a kindergartener’s craft project, but to be honest I don’t even care that much.  I’m proud of how they turned out and I think they’ll look super cute as our guests are waving them for the send off.  And best of all, this project cost me a whopping $5.   Ok, so I’ve only made about 1/3 of what I need to make, so the price will increase to about $15 for the entire project, but that’s not bad at all, and much less than I would have spent had I outsourced this little project of mine.

So you ready to see them? 

Ok, be honest, are they like a child’s craft project?  Would you wave them for the send off? 

For those of you interested in how I did this, it was super simple.  I cut ribbon to the length I thought they should be.  No measuring, I just eyeballed it (like Rachel Ray would say). 

Then, I tied the ribbon around the end of the dowel , but before tying it all the way on, I squeezed a little glue right underneath where they would lay. 

I tried it without the glue first, and the ribbon slipped right off.  I envisioned our guests waving the wands madly as we ran through, and ribbons falling off the ends of it, which would not make for very good pictures.

Then, I did a double knot and placed them in their container to dry.  That’s it!

Are you making ribbon wands?  What’s your advice for the next set I make?

Source

This wedding budget thing is hard.  And what I mean by that is that I am constantly bombarded by things I think I need to make my wedding perfect.  Although logically I know this isn’t true, it’s still hard not to long for all these things.  See, Mr. Fro Yo and I are paying for the wedding ourselves, which means that some of the “fluff” stuff we don’t get to have because it just didn’t make the cut.

One major example is a gift for Mr. Fro Yo.  Like many brides before me, I thought about taking boudoir photos.  I’ve never done anything like that, and if I’m going to do it at any time in my life, why not as a gift for my brand new husband!  But, damn they’re expensive.  I then considered a few other gift options, but none of them sounded as good or as special as the boudoir photos.  I also didn’t want to get just any gift for the sake of having a gift for him on the day of our wedding.  

Another thing that I recently considered cutting was doing anything for the send off.  I really wanted to do ribbon wands, but again, expensive for what they are.  I was at the point that I was about to say, “F it, I don’t need anything for the send off.”   But then a wise bride before me said she really regretted not doing anything for her send off.  At that point  I changed my mind and figured that I could throw some ribbon on some dowels and call it a day.  So stay tuned for that Fro Yo crafting project.  It should be interesting. 

Basically I just wanted to say that for the brides out there making difficult budget decisions, I’m with you.  And your wedding will be special regardless of that small thing you’re not going to have.  Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.  As for the boudoir photos, we have lots of birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate over the years, I’m sure I’ll revisit that gift at another time.

What difficult budget cuts did you have to make?

OMG, Jillian Michaels, or JM as I like to call her, you are kicking my butt! 

So I went through quite a few different exercise programs- P 90X, Yoga, Pilates and now the 30 Day Shred.  While each is good for different reasons, my favorite is the Shred.   I feel like I’m working really hard, but I don’t have to commit too much time.  Also, in addition to JM making me work hard, my dog also steps in to act as my own personal trainer:

However, as much as I think this is a great workout, I’m developing a little bit of a love/hate relationship with the Shred. 

Wow, I’m done after just 20 minutes of a work out  (love it).  Oh crap it’s only 20 minutes which means that I don’t have an excuse for why I can’t do it (hate it).  My ass is so sore, I’m walking like I’m 80 (hate it).  But wait…are those more defined muscles on my arms??? (love it). 

 Then, after about a week of doing level 1, I’m not hyperventilating when I do jumping jacks and I think I might be ready for level 2 (love it).   Oh wait, level 2 wins.  I suck at this (hate it).  I’m dripping sweat and my legs feel like jello, but this must mean I’m getting skinner, right? (love it)

I really just want to come home from work and have a glass of wine, but JM’s picture on the box is staring at me and making me feel guilty (hate it).  I think I might be ready for level 3 (love it!). 

So verdict?  The Shred is the way to go.  I HIGHLY recommend it.  What’s your favorite work out?

Ugh.  I have gone back and forth over this for so long and cannot make a decision.  So I need your advice.  See, I have this vision in my head of a beautiful cake on top of a pedestal cake stand.  Only, I picked a cake that looks like this:

Source

See that square bottom?  Apparently they do not make many pedestal cake stands in a square shape in the size that I need.  I talked to my cake lady about this, and she offered me two solutions:

1. Switch to all round layers and have my beloved pedestal cake stand, but this would mean 10-12 fewer slices of cake. 
2. Use a traditional square silver cake stand that is elegant, but not really vintage, which is the look I’m going for. 

I’ve gone over my guest list and am trying to determine just how many people will come so that I can see if it will matter much if I lose the 10-12 additional pieces.  But there are so many unknowns!  This person might come and this other person might not, but I really won’t know until my RSVPs are due (and those of you that are married are laughing at me thinking “Yeah right people will respond to you by the RSVP date.”  I know, I know, but a girl can dream).  So, see this is a huge dilemma and one that I still don’t have a solution for. 

And there is another problem too. Miss French Fries posted a picture of the most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen in my life and now it’s all that I can think about.

Source

So moving to the round layers is fine with me.  I’m just worried about losing pieces of cake. 

And then there’s this.  I just keep dreaming about these beauties:

Source

So, what should I do?

Option A: Use the pedestal cake stand and hope that the lost pieces of cake won’t matter.  I mean, hey, we’ll have a groom’s cake too.

Option B: Suck it up and use a silver cake stand.  And get a pedestal cake stand for my home so I stop crying about it.

Source

See that title up there?  It was an exact quote from a girl who was supposed to help one of my bridesmaids find a dress.  But I’m getting ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning.  See, at the beginning of my planning I went through quite a few colors and ideas for what I wanted the bridesmaids to wear.  Then suddenly it hit me.  Grey!  All of this was before I found the wonderful world of wedding blogs, including Weddingbee, so I didn’t realize just how popular that choice was.  I thought I’d stumbled onto something unique and different. 

 I was excited about what I thought was a unique color for my bridesmaids’ dresses, but I was a little worried about it.  I mean, usually the dress colors are bright and cheery, and only recently had I seen people warming up to the idea of black dresses.  So there we were scouting out what regular stores might have for dresses in the lovely shade of grey.   Now, usually I’m not one to ask for help; I like to browse the stores on my own, but this time I felt different.  I was a bride, excited about my first weddingish outing.  I wanted to share my excitement with the people around me. 

So I asked a girl at the store if she could help us find some grey dresses.  Said girl asked me what the dresses were for, and I told her that they were bridesmaid dresses.  And she said, “She’s making you wear grey”??  Now, I didn’t say for my wedding, but she still might assume that I was at the very least really good friends with the bride, which would be the reason I was shopping for a BRIDESMAID dress, but apparently that thought didn’t cross her mind.  I was so shocked by her comment though that I sheepishly said yes.  Thankfully though, my bridesmaid spoke up and said, “Yes, grey, and she’s the bride.  I think grey will look really great.”  At that point sales girl was really embarrassed and pointed us in the direction of where the horrid grey dresses might be located. 

After this shopping incident, I momentarily considered changing my grey dress idea, but then I realized that I was being silly.  There was no need to change my dress color because some uninformed sales lady made a comment.  Did anyone else experience comments based on their bridesmaid dress choices?

Source

This is a hard post for me to write, and I hope that no one close to me finds it offensive.  I’ve thought about it for a long time before I started to blog about it, but I think it’s time.  See, someone very close to me, let’s call her Ms. X,  is going through a divorce right now.  Divorce is never easy, and I imagine that it’s especially difficult when you have to be all sunshine and rainbows for someone else who is about to get married.  I can’t help but feel guilty, though I know Ms. X doesn’t want me to feel that way at all. 

It’s really hard though.  I’m exploding with happiness and excited about my future and starting a life and family with Mr. Fro Yo.  However, I find myself not wanting to talk to Ms. X about wedding stuff because I feel like it’s so insensitive to talk about my dress fittings, invitations and everything else wedding related when she is going through such a hard time in her life.  And I know she’s comfortable with the divorce decision, but that doesn’t mean that being around the start of a new marriage is something you want to jump into, especially if you have to be a bridesmaid.

Anyway, I’m trying to strike a balance here and be a good friend to her, but also not feel guilty about being happy about this time in my life.  Although I’m not entirely sure that I’m not f’ing it up, I am doing my best. 

So anyone else trying to help a friend through divorce and also planning your wedding?

Guess whose fingers are fully outfitted for the big day?  That’s right,  Mr. Fro Yo and I both have our wedding rings!  You may remember that I bought mine on Black Friday for a really great deal.  Well, it came in and I was in love.  Unfortunately, I love it so much that I’m having a hard time leaving it in it’s pretty box in our wedding closet.  Though I’ve been told that it will be a lot more special on our wedding day if I can managed to leave it alone, so I’m trying.

As for Mr. Fro Yo, I really wanted him to get the fingerprint ring , but he wasn’t really feeling it.  His argument was that no one would ever see the fingerprint on the inside, so why should we pay extra to do it.  Although I was disappointed, I realized that it was his ring and I should let him pick the one he wanted to wear.  So where did I go?  Right back to Etsy to find another great seller.  After searching and searching, I came across Titanium Knights.  They have a great selection and they were very sweet and easy to work with.  We picked out the ring and were able to change the width to the size we wanted (6 mm).  So ready to see them?

This is my attempt at photographing them, though all were done badly.  My apologies. 

Did you get great deals on your rings too?  Where did you have the best luck finding rings?

So remember when I was whining about my boobs and how I felt self-conscious all the time?  Yeah, well I can’t say that’s totally changed, but there has been a major improvement.  I finally decided that at the young age of 28 I should get professional fitted for a bra for the first time in my life.  Before I went I was terrified to go, hence the reason that it took me 28 years to do it (OK, so I didn’t need a bra when I was 5, but you get the idea).  I had this vision in my head of me standing there topless with a random lady and a tape measurer.  Yeah, well that didn’t happen. 

I went to the Nordstrom lingerie department and did several walk throughs trying to build up the courage to ask someone to measure me.  As I cruised up and down the aisles and aisles of bras, a sweet girl asked me if I needed help.  Although instinctually I wanted to say no, I decided to actually say yes.  She took me back to the dressing room and proceeded to measure my band size with my clothes on.  Phew!  Huge sigh of relief.  She asked me what size band I’d been wearing and I said “36.”  She told me that I was a very small 34. Opps.  Strike one.  Then she told me that to measure the cup size, they would ask me to try on several bras and then check the fit.  Great, I didn’t have to stand there topless with some measuring tape!!  So she went and pulled a few bras based on my guesstimate of my size and we got to work. 

I put on the first one that I thought was my size, and then Anna (my new BFF from Nordstrom) came in to the check the fit.   Yeah, it didn’t fit.  Way too small.  So, we went up one cup size.  Anna came in again, um…yeah, still too small, so we went up yet another cup size.   At this point I didn’t even want to know what letter was on that little flap anymore.  I just wanted a good fit.  Well, lucky for me that third one fit perfectly!  Not only did it fit perfectly, but I also looked so much smaller because I wasn’t shoving myself into an ill-fitting bra.  I felt great.  And it was the first time I could actually say that I felt happy about how I looked in a bra.  I proceeded to try on about 30 other bras and left the store with 5 in hand.  I immediately went home and got rid of all my old, wrong sized bras.  The pile looked something like this:

Source

So what would I change about this awesome shopping experience?  My outfit.  I was wearing tights and a dress when I went shopping.  Which meant that each time Anna came in to check the fit, I was standing there in just my tights.  Not a very good look.

But, I definitely recommend this to everyone.  If you have not already been professionally fitted, it is time to go.  I even managed to find the undergarments for my wedding dress.  I am so relieved!! 

Anyone else been professionally fitted?  What was your experience like?

We recently had a meet up in Austin with Mrs. Beagle, Mrs. Mouse, Amanda Lynn, TexicanMexican and me.  Unfortunately we didn’t realize that Chuy’s loves to celebrate Elvis’ b-day quite as much as they do, nor did we realize that January 8th was Elvis’ b-day and also the date of our meet up.  BUT, we had the best time!  We met up at 6 and by the time I looked down at my watch it was already 9:30 and we were still chatting! 

Here’s a picture of Amanda Lynn and me with our handheld Elvis mask (that I took home to use in our photobooth at the wedding):

And then here is TexicanMexican, Mrs. Mouse and Mrs. Beagle:

I really wish that we’d been able to take a picture with one of the many Elvis look-a-likes we saw running around the restaurant (both children and adult), but alas we didn’t get to.  We did, however, manage to get one group shot:

(thanks to Mrs. Mouse and Beagle for some of the photos)

Thanks for the meet up and great conversation girls!  It was so much fun!