Life: Has It Been a Scary Ride

Well, I hate to tell you all this, but here it goes. Not long ago we had the house broken into. So after a lot of lock changing, dead bolt installation, and a home security system, we are feeling safe enough to sleep again. Shortly after that whole ordeal, the computer decided to crash and off to the doctor it went. Now we are getting ready to have our front lawn torn up to replace a collapsed water/sewer line. We are really batting 1000 lately. I haven't had time to decide for sure where to have the wedding let alone figure anything else out or look for ideas. I am so sorry for the lack of posts lately. Please bear with me.

Decor: Balloons & Balloon Ceilings

The venue that we are leaning towards is going to be inexpensive and somewhat of a sentimental value, as it is in the very small home town of my fiance. Unfortunately, it is going to take some very clever decorating to make it look good. It is a curling rink, built into a quonset type structure. It has a concrete floor, but it is not finished inside so all you see is the tin of the structure. I have found somewhere to buy polyvinyl plastic rolls large enough to cover the walls, giving us 10 feet until the "ceiling". But I wasn't sure how to hide the tin roof, and still make it look good, until my mom thought of balloons. Here are some pictures of balloon ceilings I found from Google Image Search...

I love the long streamers. They make it look so whimsical. I especially love the streamers in the next set of pictures. I love how they hung stars or moons on the streamers. Some look to be just cut outs, and some are actually small mylar balloons for a 3D look.

The next pixctures are other various ballon decor that I thought was cute. The first picture is of a balloon column where they used a balloon and set each balloon at a different level to fill the column, topping it with a large mylar star. In the second picture, they filled the balloons on the floor with helium and used balloon cups and sticks to have them look as though they are dancing along the floor.

The first picture is a huge balloon drop, imagine that on the dance floor at the last dance of the night... The second picture shows the large 3 (or more) foot wide balloons. I thought they were intersting. Picture 3 is an arch, and Picture 4 is a balloon centerpiece (shown from top view).

Planning: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

Avoiding these 7 simples things will keep a bride from turning into a bridezilla!

1) Procrastinating
Don’t put it off…do it now. If you keep pushing everything back you WILL run out of time. Procrastinating will add even more stress to this already stressful time.

2) Trying to do everything yourself
Don’t feel like you can’t ask family and friends to help during this stressful time. Chances are, they will be more than thrilled to help. You can use help with invitations, making vendor calls, planning the rehearsal dinner and a bunch of other things.

3) Booking the wrong vendor
Be sure to do research before you book a vendor. Ask for referrals from past brides, family and friends to get you on the right path. Once you have those referrals, as the vendor for reviews from past clients.

4) Inviting too many people
Don’t invite more people that you can afford. Be sure to keep an accurate count of the guest list and talk to parents and in-laws about their guest list.. If necessary, share the need to reduce the guest list. Do this BEFORE the invitations are mailed.

5) Expecting everything to go perfectly
…not that it won’t go perfectly, but be prepared for slight deviations in the plan. This will reduce the stress the day of the wedding.

6) Hiring the wrong photographer
Wedding pictures are lifetime memories that will be shared for generations. You should select the photographer that best fits you needs and style to ensure your memories will be best captured and shared with others.

7) Going overboard
Don’t feel like you have to do everything that was done at another wedding. Remember that this is YOUR wedding and it should be a reflection of the bride and the groom.

Why should the wedding ring be worn on the fourth finger?

Why should the wedding ring be worn on the fourth finger?
There is a beautiful and convincing explanation given by the Chinese.....

Thumb represents your Parents.
Second (Index) finger represents your Siblings.
Middle finger represents Yourself.
Fourth (Ring) finger represents your Life Partner.
& the Last (Little) finger represents your Children.

Firstly, open your palms (face to face), bend the middle fingers and hold them together - back to back
Secondly, open and hold the remaining three fingers and the thumb - tip to tip (As shown in the figure below):

Now, try to separate your thumbs (representing the parents)..., they will open, because your parents are not destined to live with you lifelong, and have to leave you sooner or later.
Please join your thumbs as before and separate your Index fingers (representing siblings)....they will also open, because your brothers and sisters will have their own families and will have to lead their own separate lives.
Now join the Index fingers and separate your Little fingers (representing your children)....they will open too, because the children also will get married and settle down on their own some day.
Finally, join your Little fingers, and try to separate your Ring fingers (representing your spouse).
You will be surprised to see that you just CANNOT... because Husband & Wife are to remain together all their lives.

Please try this out... It's a beautiful theory.

Life: Feeling Relaxed (For Once)

Dan and I were off to Saskatoon this weekend for 2 nights just to get a little R&R. We had a fantastic time, got some relaxation, and a chance to get out of Dodge for a while. We had a leisurely trip up, stopping in Regina to visit with my parents for a bit, a couple quick shopping stops, and carried on to Saskatoon. We checked into our hotel and wandered around downtown, stopping for supper in a small restaurant we had tried and really enjoyed during our trip up in April. We went to see Rob Zombie's Halloween on Saturday night, and it was phenomenal! By far his best film yet. But of course, we are fans of all his work. Sunday was relaxing, a nice breakfast, shopping and browsing around town, and supper with a friend of mine who is never available, so it was fantastic to see him again. We attended the movies again, this time to see the new Bourne movie, which Dan enjoyed more than I did, but I got a Yogen-Fruz, so I was happy. Monday we were up early, had a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant, made a quick stop, and left Saskatoon fairly early. We stopped in Regina for lunch and a couple shopping stops, and hit the road for home. It all ended all too soon, but at the same time it was nice to get back home. Jessie, our puppy, was thrilled to see us when we picked her up from "grandma's", especially when she saw that we bought her new toys and a fleece blanket of her very own. Thank goodness for Dollar Stores lol.
Sorry to everyone about August's limited posts, we have been so busy with work and life, and trying to decide where to have the wedding, that I have been too busy to find a lot of new stuff for you all. I promise, once we finally nail down a location, that I will be all over the wedding finds again!

DIY: Square Lanterns

I thought these were gorgeous! I can't remember where I saw them, but I figured that they would be super easy to make. I haven't done one yet, but I did a quick paper mock up with looseleaf and some pencils and it worked just fine. So here are my instructions:

Materials:
Fabric / Paper / Ribbon / String
Wooden Dowels / Straws / Something to use as legs and supports
Glue (or Tape lol)

Instructions:
Okay, here is what I did in my Mock Up...

First:
I made the frame by taking 4 sticks for legs, and (taped because it was a mock up and it was all I had available) glued 8 supports in squares, one at 1/2 inch from top and one from one inch from bottom of legs, to form an open rectangle. Something like this horrid quick MS Paint example:

I suppose if you are using a rigid cardstock paper or something that you may not need the support sticks (shown in red), although still recommended for strength.

Second:
Wrap fabric, paper, or whatever around the legs and secure with glue (or tape, or staples).

Third:
Decorate with string, ribbon, beads, etc. Picture above used red fabric and yellow string for accent.

A couple of ideas:
A friend of mine thought it would be cool to just use ribbon and wrap it so it intersects and weaves and crosses and eventually covers most all of where the fabric or paper would cover, except for small holes that one would leave open, that way you could put a candle in it and have the light shine through the openings.
Which gave me another idea, and that was to layer paper underneath with a design cut out so that you could have a design that would show when there is a candle or light inside.

RE: A Lovely Comment from Eleen

Eleen said:
"Hi Jennifer, Thanks so much for sharing all your awesome and thorough research! I'm getting married in Jan 08 and stumbled across your site while researching color ideas. I was amazed - I'm sure you've saved me countless hours! You've found some great stuff. I've bookmarked your site and can't wait to see what other gems you find. I'm commenting on the Weather.com post, but really there are countless others that are really fun and helpful too. Happy planning, and congrats on your engagement!"

Thank you sooo much Eleen! I love to hear that someone other than just myself reads this thing. :) I hope that I can help you more as the big day nears. Congratulations to yourself and your fiance, and be sure to let me know how your day goes! I love getting news from readers and like to know that I'm helping out other people who are trying to plan their weddings.

Decor: Simple Centerpieces

I thought these were stupidly cute. As you see they can be decorated in anyway and can be filled with anything. I see that they put a plastic bag liner inside ones that are to be used as fresh flower vases. They come in 2 sizes, short: 5"x5"x6" and tall: 5"x5"x10". I imagine they would be fairly easy to make yourself.








The last picture is of their bud vase collection, it comes with the tiny "test tube" vase. Again, I think it would be easy to make.

Bride: Accessories

I've found some gorgeous accessories that I plan to order for myself. Here are my shoes, they come with 14 different colored ribbons all shown at the bottom of the picture, but I can always buy any ribbon to tie them with:

And my hair piece, it's a simple rhinestone triple strand headband, I'm sure I can find a way to stick a veil under it if I decide to have a veil:

And the garter I fell in love with. I don't care if it's the same garter, I just love the little blue crystal heart. I'm sure I can find the crystal heart at some kind of crafts store and attach it to any garter. Of course, I want to have a tossing garter so I can keep mine:

Flowers: Alternative Feather Bouquets

I saw these on IndieBride.com and fell in love, I couldn't find DIY instructions, but the picture of the set of 4 in the box were a DIY project posted by another bride. I loved these, for bridesmaids especially, and they could be altered and created smaller for grooms men's boutonnières. I also included feather centerpieces for additional inspiration.

Now, I have always wanted roses in my bouquet, well, since we got engaged and I started thinking of bouquets anyway, and I love the feathers too, but I found some amazing ideas for combinations of flowers and feathers. I think that the combination would look fantastic for the bride's bouquet and really set it apart from the bridesmaids'. I know the orange roses don't have feathers, I added that here as my own inspiration as they are the color of roses that I want. I'm trying to picture whether to go with a white feather base or a light light blue base. What do you think?