We're getting married, and the County Clerk agrees!

In Texas, you've got to get your Marriage License no more than 30 days before the wedding, and no less than 3 days before the wedding. Of course, that 27-day window is the busiest time of wedding planning, which is super-convenient (not!). And the County Clerk's office where you get it is only open 9:00am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday, which is even more convenient (not!).

I met Jeff at his office during lunch and we went to the nearest County Clerk's office. We were armed with our Driver's Licenses and a debit card (that's all you need to get a license!). 

We walked right in and sat right down (no lines!). We verified our addresses and names and all that. We said we weren't related. We said we weren't late on child support payments. We said we hadn't been divorced in the last 30 days. [Sidenote: How many people do you think actually answer "yes" to those questions? And if you were related, couldn't you just say "no" and get away with it?] 

We only ran into one little problem. My middle name is 9 letters long. Texas Drivers' Licenses only have room for 8 letters in the middle name slot, so on my license that last letter is missing. The lady at the County Clerk's tried to tell me that we had to put my incorrect middle name on the Marriage License. I tried to convince her to just add the last letter, please! She wanted a Birth Certificate or Passport or something to prove it was really my name. I was debating whether or not it was worth it to come back another day with my Passport (and leaning towards not worth it) when another employee came over and told the lady it was fine and typed in the last letter. Crisis averted. Middle name intact. 

The Texas "Twogether" program gives discounts to couples who do at least 8 hours of marriage-prep courses, and since we did one through the Church we got our license for $11 instead of $71. Score! So we repeated some sort of oath about the information we gave being true, and we left with our fancy new Marriage License!

We look pretty excited, right? We're so ready to just have the wedding already!

The Elusive Bracket Frame...

Once upon a time, I stumbled upon a little shape that struck my fancy. It was this curvy frame:

Lovely, right?

(source)

Then, I found it again in these adorable invitations...

(source)

(source)

And then while browsing Martha Stewart templates, I saw it again in the left edge of this picture...

(source)

It seemed as though that little shape was following me around, and I was quite smitten. I decided that the whimsical frame needed to be included in my wedding day decor, and I had grand plans for using it with the candy buffet, the guestbook-quilt setup, and the place card display. 

There was just one problem...that cute little frame doesn't exist in Clipart, or in Google Image searches. I found digital scrapbooking images, but nothing that I could really use.

(source)

Cute, but it doesn't help me much...

I needed a frame image. So I made one. All it took was a couple of these: {}{}. After four brackets put together via WordArt in PowerPoint and a little fine tuning with a Paint eraser, I had this:

Feel free to right-click-save it!  

So far I've used it for the candy buffet and for the quilt guestbook baskets (which I will blog about soon, promise!).

Have you ever found something you love on the Internet, but had a hard time making it happen in real life?

Wedding Month Distractions

Now that we're getting so close to the wedding, I tend to think about wedding things nonstop. Whenever I have a spare second my mind drifts to programs and place cards and table assignments. It's exhausting.

Jeff and I are both just so, so ready to be married. There's something about being engaged and planning a wedding that just makes you want to be done with all the wedding nonsense and just be a real married couple already! Our 8-month engagement seemed at first to be challengingly short, but now that we're reaching the end, I'm beyond glad we don't have to wait any longer.

To keep myself from stressing over meaningless wedding things, I've been planning lots of non-wedding-related activities for the month of July. You know, so I don't get totally caught up in wedding-land and become a Bridezilla or something.

The first was a Houston Astros baseball game for my friend Will's 21st birthday.

The Astros actually won this game. Amazing.

Happy birthday, Will!

Fun Fact: Jeff has a serious addiction to diet soda. So this is what happens when we have All-You-Can-Eat tickets. He drank them all. Plus more.

BM Kristen and her fiance at Hooters post-baseball game. 

Btw, did you know Hooters is like the only place you can go to buy alcohol on a Tuesday night with a Louisiana drivers' license? Yep. We didn't know either. Until we tried.

Another fun event was my friend Maria Pia's wedding. How WONDERFUL it was to think about someone else's wedding for a while! Plus, I will forever remember this wedding as the last time I had to participate in the bouquet toss! 

With BM Pilar

It's our turn next!!

As if our lives weren't busy enough already, we've also been spending time on the apartment. Decorating, painting, etc...there's so much to do! Meet our new guest room:

We painted that red wall (Thank you, Behr Paint & Primer!). We bought and assembled (and filled!) the bookcase. And then I spend some quality time throwing red and black decor items all over the room. 

It's a work in progress...as soon as Jeff's brother takes the bed, nightstand, and dresser to college we're going to get this set:

(all images from Ikea.com)

We've also been busy installing spice racks, hanging pictures and wall art, and painting the entire master bedroom. I'll show you more pictures later. :)

So much room for spices!!!

We also went to McDonalds to try out those new smoothies. I just love smoothies, and I wanted to get my hands on one of those Wildberry ones. 

Mmm. I love fruit.

(source)

When we drove up, I couldn't believe my luck. Look at this sign:

I mean...I go by Katie technically, but my mom and my granddad and some others call me "Kate," and either way my IDs say "Katherine," so free smoothie for me!

Or at least, I thought I was getting one. Until we ordered three smoothies and were told that the smoothie machine was broken. Broken. Well done McDonalds. So the smoothie quest will have to occur another day. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, so as you can see, I've been busy with plenty of things other than the wedding, and I would totally suggest that other brides do the same. It's so easy to get caught up in little wedding details (especially if you're a wedding-blog-reading-bride!), and a healthy dose of the real world is important in those last few weeks.

Missing an RSVP? Check your rain gutters!

So the other day it rained pretty hard here in Houston. As the rain was just about over, my mom walked outside to salvage what was left of our drenched newspaper, and she saw this floating down the street in the water next to the curb:

Poor little RSVP! He's obviously been through a lot. The postmark was a full five days before the day we found it, so the little guy must have been sitting in the street for at least a couple days! Luckily, the disintegrated envelope protected its contents enough to keep the writing legible.  

In related news, we've recorded all of the RSVPs, contacted those whose RSVPs were missing, and sent in our final catering numbers! This wedding is actually happening, people! And to top it off, we came in just a teensy bit under the cutoff for having room for a dance floor, so there will be plenty of space for everyone to have a great time and boogie the night away!

If you're missing some RSVPs, you may want to check your gutters before making a bunch of phone calls. :)

You CAN have pretty flowers in July!

When I was first meeting with florists, it seemed like I was constantly bombarded by the words "Oh...we won't be able to get that in late July..." Apparently, flowers don't like to grow when its horribly hot outside. But, I eventually found Tricia from Antique Rose Florist, and she assured me that we could make it work with suppliers from the West Coast, and she was willing to do it for a reasonable price as well!

We recently had a few meetings to discuss actual logistics of centerpieces and bouquets, and to confirm which flowers Tricia will be using. Let me introduce you to the star floral performers for our wedding!

Bridal bouquet, Groom's bout, and parent/grandparent flowers:

Ranunculus, aka the best flower ever. These will be in my bouquet as well as the mother corsages. We'll use them for the father/gfather bouts, and Jeff's bout too.

 Gerbera Daisies - This was my sorority's flower, so it has a special place in my heart. It will also have a special place in my bouquet. 

Lily of the Valley - I just love these tiny things. They're somewhat expensive, so there will only be a few of them, but they'll be in my bouquet somewhere.

 Freesia - My mom had these in her wedding bouquet, and I'll be having them in mine as well. They smell soooo nice!

Varigated pittosporum - This will be the "filler" for my bouquet, Jeff's bout, and anything else with white/ivory flowers. It's a light, sage green with pretty ivory edges.

Bridesmaid Bouquets, Groomsmen bouts, Cake Topper:

Burgundy calla lilies - They'll be in the BM bouquets, and the GMs will have a mini-calla as a bout. I think these are going to pop so nicely against the navy dresses!

Burgundy Gerbera Daisy - Also for the BMs

 Dark Red Dahlia - Also for the bridesmaids...

Bear Grass - See those green loops? That's bear grass. It's going to be the "filler" for the red flowers.

Reception Centerpieces: We're going to have two different centerpieces, one with the white flowers in cobalt blue vases, and one taller one. For the taller centerpiece, Tricia's going to put orchids in a cylindrical vase with water, along with some navy sea glass and blue LED lights. Here are the orchids we're using:

(source)

Reader bouts and parent/grandparent flowers:

Blue Delphinium - This will be an accent flower for the reader bouts and parents/gparents.

That's it! Tricia was sweet enough to do some mock-ups for me of the reception centerpieces, and although I have pictures, I think I'm going to keep them to myself for now. Tricia's work is so lovely...I wouldn't want to ruin it for those of you who will be at the wedding! I'm so happy with how the flowers are turning out...I may not get to have peonies, but I think everything will be just beautiful anyway!

"Look What I Made!" - Cake Servers Edition

First of all: Did you know that it's JULY already?!?! Let me just tell you...the month of the wedding is insane. I have a to-do list a mile long and I'm going a little bit crazy. Seriously... I wake up in the middle of the night all the time with wedding nightmares. Last night I dreamed that my wedding dress somehow ended up in the same sink that we used to wash our paintbrushes after painting a wall in the apartment red, and it was stained pink all over the bottom. And my sister tried to fix it with Oxi Clean, which for some reason turned it an odd orange color. So I was stuck with a cream, orange, and pink dress. Told you I'm going crazy.

In other news, we really did paint a red wall in the apartment in real life...nesting is such fun! I'll show you pictures soon. :o)

Now that we're so close to the wedding with so many things left to do, it's time to start decreasing the to-do list as quickly as possible. In the spirit of crossing things off my list, I successfully created the cheapest, fastest set of cake serving utensils ever. Ev-er. Behold...

I bought these for $4.99 at Wal-Mart.

Here they are without the ugly white bows...(yes, the handles are made of plastic...this was obviously not a high priority on the wedding list)

Dressed up with some burgundy and navy ribbon...

Dressed up with some cream and navy ribbon...

I decided I liked the burgundy and navy best, so I switched the cream ribbon out and trimmed the edges and TaDa! Here they are:

Ignore the partially-finished bathroom basket in the background.

So that's it. $5. 5 minutes. Finished cake servers. Done.

"Look What I Made!" - Unity Candle Edition

Yeah, I haven't posted in like an entire week. Plus a couple days. Forgive me?

The good news is, I finally gave up on my trusty-but-newly-not-functioning Toshiba laptop, and I'm now the proud owner of one of these guys:

(source)

MacBook Pro!

And I love him. And he loves me. And now I can blog regularly again.

Today I have something exciting to show you: our Unity Candle set!!!

I bought the candles during a 50% off Wedding sale at Hobby Lobby. It's actually a lot cheaper to buy ivory candles in the Candle Aisle rather than the Wedding Aisle, but I wanted pearlized shimmery ones, and you can only get those in the Wedding Aisle. But I waited for 50% off week, so it was fine.

To do this project you need the following:
1 pillar candle
2 taper candles
Ribbon in two colors (one thicker than the other)
2 sheets of vellum (1 for practice, 1 for the real thing)

I started with the tapers. I cut a short length of burgundy ribbon, and affixed it around each taper with double-stick tape:

Next I just tied bows of the navy ribbon around the center of the burgundy. Easy peasy. Two candles done.

Umm... so I can't figure out how to rotate photos on the MacBook Pro. My apologies. I'll have to consult my sister on this issue...

Moving on to the pillar candle... I designed the front of our Unity Candle in PowerPoint (what else?), and included a Bible verse from one of our ceremony readings. I printed it out in a few different sizes on regular white paper and cut them out to see which size was just right.

This one looks perfect!

Next, it was time to print on the vellum. I selected the "Transparent" setting on my printer options, and selected "Best" print quality (maximum dpi). This is what I got:

Yeah. Blotchy and awful. 

I switched the print quality back to "Regular," and that gave me this:

Better, but still awful.

I finally reset the print quality to "Minimum," and that seemed to work:

Yes!

Apparently vellum absorbs ink like super-amazingly, so if you're printing onto vellum it works better if you use a lower Print Quality setting and minimize the dpi. 

I trimmed the printed vellum with my paper cutter, and affixed it to the pillar candle with a couple strips of double-stick tape in the back. The hardest part was making sure it was perfectly level. No one wants a crooked Unity Candle!

Next I repeated the burgundy ribbon on the big candle, making sure that the center of the ribbon was over the edge of the vellum (if your ribbon isn't sheer, this doesn't matter).

Lastly, I added a strip of navy ribbon on top and a bow of navy ribbon on the bottom. All done!

Now that we're in the month of the wedding, I'm finally getting to work on fun little projects like this! It's getting pretty exciting around here. :o)