The Wedding Teaser

Here are a few pics from the wedding to whet your appetite; I'll be posting more on flickr (once I finally upgrade to a pro account) and blogging about the ceremony and honeymoon later on this week when things have settled down a bit and the pile of dirty laundry no longer threatens to topple and bury me alive. Enjoy!







(While we were driving around after the dinner with the family, the husband turned to me and said, "I feel like I'm in an episode of Mad Men!" Sweet.)


Married=yes. Mature=not so much.

This is the day

Hooray!

Wedding eve

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but the future hubby and I have been running around like mad these last few days preparing for our respective families to descend upon our humble abode. So I've been busy getting the house cleaned and vacuumed, putting fresh sheets on the bed, getting laundry washed, and perfecting my no-knead bread technique, which I totally cribbed from this awesome blogger, by the way. My brothers and sister-in-law will be staying in the house with us tonight, while our parents will be crashing at a hotel about 10 minutes away. We decided to have dinner here at our place, mainly because this way everyone can get to know each other and not worry about being too loud or obnoxious (things I tend to forget about when my family is involved). About 80% of the meal is being catered by Balducci's, "the food lover's market;" the other 20%, like the salad and *FRESHLY MADE* bread (BY ME!) have been taken care of from our end. I also made a raspberry trifle for desert, which I've always wanted to try but never really had a proper occasion for one (pics will follow once I have more than a few stolen moments on the computer)...hopefully it turned out well.

Early this morning, I went and took care of Jim's wedding surprise. The aesthetician gave me props for not yelling or kicking her in the face, so all in all I was pretty pleased...albeit sore. I think this picture does a pretty adequate job of expressing just how I'm feeling at the moment.

Children of the corny 80s

In just four short days, Cookie Monster's friend and Poppa Smurf's friend will be getting married. A Popple will be officiating.

Tales from the hair salon

This Thursday I went in for my trial-run hair appointment; since the marriage is taking place about three hours from here, I decided it would probably be a good idea to meet with someone locally and get a feel for my wedding hairstyle before taking the leap of faith with a total stranger. I went to the London Bob in Alexandria and met with Linda to have my hair "did." I brought my hat with me and some photos and she came up with an idea that we both thought would work. After about an hour and a half with the curling iron, a bottle of hair-spray, and some thirty hair pins later, this was the end result:



I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out; Linda gave me some finger waves in the front and then the rest was pulled back into a pseudo ponytail with waves cascading down my back. Linda's assistant took a ton of pictures of the whole process, so that the lovely lady in Lovingston doing my hair this Saturday should be able to duplicate it. The part that I like the best? The fact that its not an updo but my hair is out of my face and won't be blowing around like crazy should the weather be less than cooperative. (Keep your fingers and toes crossed!)

Mad hatter

When I decided to go with an 50s style cocktail dress for the wedding, I figured I should go all out and get a fabulous chapeau to match. After some digging on the interwebs and coming up with nothing that really struck my fancy, I turned to Etsy and found EXACTLY what I was looking for courtesy the lovely lady at Batcakes! Couture. Seriously, I would have done the entire wedding through Etsy, especially if I were going the more traditional route and had tons more time (like this adorable cake topper? I could just eat it up)... So I went and bought a gorgeous hat and I love it; the only problem being that I didn't have anything in which to transport it to various hair appointments and the actual wedding itself. Well, thanks again to one of my favorite local consignment/antique shops, the problem has been solved!



And yes, I bedazzled the hat box with my initial. Booyah.

Worry wart

The future hubby received his official orders today, which has made me think a lot about what this next year and a half is going to entail. Reading the news, especially recently, about what's going on overseas hasn't been helping my state of mind too much. We probably won't know exactly where he'll be stationed for at least another month or two, so all I can really do is just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. *Sigh* In the interest of keeping my mind off of things and staying busy, I'm thinking of maybe taking a cooking class or volunteering at a local animal shelter. If anyone else has any ideas or suggestions, I'm all ears! Impromptu dance parties, perhaps? I know--underwater basket weaving!

Like, totally awesome to the max!

My lovely and fabulous friends decided that they couldn't let me get married without having a bachelorette party, so they came up with the great idea of having an 80s themed slumber party, which by the way, was possibly the best idea in the history of mankind. Friends came from far and wide (with Kathryn and Aubree' competing for the furthest distance traveled) in their 80s finest. Crimpers were used, as was blue eye shadow, frosted pink lipstick, and oh, the glorious scrunchies! Tab was the drink of choice...ok, not really, but it did make a good prop.



There was pizza to eat, booze to drink, games to play and awesome movies to watch...such as Dirty Dancing (sadly lacking in Swayze butt, did they edit that stuff out?), Heathers, and The Princess Bride, because mawwiage is what bwings us togwevaw today. It was great! Maybe too great of a time, as I had to spend some, ahem, alone time in the bathroom for a bit. After some rest (and offering to freeze my bra in pittance), everything was cool and it was back to the party. (I blame the pimp cup that Elizabeth had me drinking out of at the beginning of the evening-it just made everything taste better!) I would share more, but I had to sign a contract stipulating that whatever happened at the bachelorette party stayed at the bachelorette party. Like, totally.

A cherry of a ride

I know I've been pretty heavy on the whole wedding posts nonsense lately, but since I am getting married in 2 1/2 weeks, I'm hoping that all of you will let me slide on by. So, anywho, I decided that a classic Virginia wedding for two wouldn't be complete without a kick-ass ride. Not that my 1999 Olds isn't pretty sweet, especially since I've re-glued the rear-view mirror to the windshield, but still... In the course of some internet sleuthing, I came across this company that specializes in renting out classic cars. I gave them a call yesterday to see if my first choice was available the day of the wedding, and they called me today to let me know that it was all mine for the taking. Set your eyeballs on this:



Aw yeah.

Ring-a-ding-ding

The future hubby's ring came in yesterday and I love it! It was custom made for me by a wonderful artist in Savannah, Georgia, who I found through Etsy. She can do just about anything you want and she's super fast and wallet-friendly. This way, if the future hubby should happen to lose this while he's overseas, I won't have to kill him...I can order another one!

Crafting carnage

This weekend was a whirl of tissue paper, rick-rack trimming, and accordion pleats; that's one of the few positive things about the future hubby being away for two weeks. I can spread all of my things out on the floor and make as large a mess as possible and stay up as late as I like folding paper stars until the cows comes home. And of course, the Trish-monster loves playing with all of the paper scraps scattered about on the floor. Its a win-win! The only thing that I'm worried about is whether or not I'm getting a tad carried away with all of my wedding craft stuff, but really, can a girl have too many giant tissue paper pom-poms? Nope, that's what I thought.

Charlton Heston would approve

Today the future hubby left for a two-week trip to Texas; I like to think of it as a mini trial run for the "big trip" that he'll be embarking upon in just a matter of a couple of weeks. I dropped him off at the airport this morning and then ran around on some errands, picking up some crafty things to work on for the wedding and stopping by my favorite antique/consignment shop. And that's where I found this:

This thing is in absolutely pristine condition (and made in the USA, woo) and even retains the original instructions and recipe suggestions! And it comes with cake decorating tips! I have the feeling that I'll be spending some of my recently gotten "alone time" having some kitchen fun with my cookie gun (trademark pending).

An email moratorium (aka I'm screwed)

Yesterday the boss gave me a sizeable raise (which was nice, especially since I haven't had a raise for two years...nothing, nada--not even the standard cost of living handout), with the opportunity over the next six to eight months to have my salary increased even more. Awesome, right? Well, like all things, this comes at a cost. All emails of the personal persuasion are now verboten, which is easily done. I mean, I think I can go cold turkey. I'm going to try and get up a little bit earlier in the morning and catch up with emails then and again when I get home from work. With any luck that will help to keep the withdrawal symptoms to a minimum!

The tale of the dress

The weekend after the future hubby and I sat down and decided to just go and get married (we're super romantical), I went out with my sister-in-law and brother to browse through the selections at David's Bridal. At this point I had pretty much planned on having an outdoor wedding, so I knew that I wanted something a bit informal and cocktail-length. There were some pretty dresses there, but nothing that I was truly wild about (I was actually more into the bridesmaid dresses). I tried on a couple just to get a feel and discovered that white and ivory made me look like pale death. Hmm, not quite the look I was going for. It was about then that I realized that I had what could be a potential ace up my sleeve; my awesome and insanely talented friend, Julianne! I rounded up some pictures off of the interwebs and let her in on the big secret that I was going to be getting married and if she could make my dress (I did this with my fingers and toes crossed that she would say yes). Fortunately for me, the timing was right, and she was able and willing to take on the job. She sketched out a plan and then we met to discuss fabric choices and colors. I've got to say, having a dress made for you is the way to go. I don't have to worry about fit or my boobs falling out because she's already taken all of those things into account, plus I got to pick exactly what I wanted. I don't want to give too much away, because I'd like everyone to be pleasantly surprised when they see the pictures, so I'll just wrap this up now and leave you all with one of the web inspirations and Julianne's first sketch. Enjoy!
(Dress on left courtesy http://www.vintageous.com/)

Shoe overload

I think I've narrowed down my shoe selection for the wedding, but I'm still unsure of my final choice. I'm about the same height as the future hubby and pretty clumsy, so I don't really need to wear heels or anything, so I decided to find a nice pair of kitten heels (going with the whole 50s theme, of course). I think I found the perfect pair; they're peep-toed with pleats and heels short enough that I won't kill myself, or anyone unfortunate to be standing next to me for that matter. Now the only question is should I get them in silver or in the dyeable satin and have them dyed ivory to match the sash on my dress? I'm leaning more towards the silver ones, if only because I know I'd be more likely to wear them again if they were fun and fabulous. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Hai interwebs!

This marks the start of my first-ever web log--welcome all! I've wanted to do something like this for awhile, but crazy things going on in my life at the moment have given me even more impetus than before. In 24 short days I will be getting married to a boy that I'm totally heads over heels for and then that boy will be leaving the country for more than a year (yup-that's right). I figure by keeping track of all of the big things going on in my life right now, that maybe, just maybe, I'll actually remember this stuff once the hurricane of impending adulthood has passed. Also, I hope that this blog will serve as a way for the future hubby to stay abreast of what's going on in our humble abode while he's overseas. And to talk about my cat, of course.