Shoe Obsession Revisited

You may recall way back when in December I wrote this post about my obsession with green shoes.  I have been searching for months and was just about to give into a pair of dyed shoes from Payless.  Don't get me wrong they were cute, but the color wasn't quite right, but I was getting desperate!  That was until I found the perfect shoe on zappos.  After consulting one of my fabulous friends who is much more of a shoe expert than me, I was convinced I had to have those shoes.  Well look what the UPS man brought me this week: 

Even the box is pretty :)

Here is what was inside the box:

Aren't they just perfect? I love the little bows! I took a picture of them on my feet but decided a) I have ugly feet and b) I am in desperate need of a pedicure so those pictures took away from how pretty the shoes are. 

For those of you who are in the cowboy boot camp- have no fear the cowboy boots will also be making an appearance but these pretty little green shoes are the shoes I will be wearing down the aisle. 

What Could Have Been?

I was sitting at work today and realized that when we first started talking about wedding dates we had discussed April.  Now that I am here and still more than 4 months out from the actual wedding date all I can do is wonder "What were we thinking?"

First, while we do have most of the big things taken care of (found the boys suits this weekend- another thing off the list!) we do still have lots of little things to get done.  I feel like I have been a pretty low stress, low maintenance bride-to-be (I hope you all agree!) but I am not sure if I would have been able to be so mellow with such a short planning time line.  

And second, we have had a pretty weird April weather wise. Not that we could have controlled that or can even control what the weather does in Sept, but it makes me happy that I didn't have to stress about the fridged nasty weather we have had this month.

So while there may be days when I wish it was just September already so I can be done with wedding planning this was a nice realization that maybe September being 4ish months away from now  isn't such a bad thing.

Pretty Things: Politically Inspired

As I am sure you all know Nick works in politics and so politics, the good, the bad and the ugly are a part of our lives. (yes, there is some good- but that is a discussion for another day)  I thought it would be fun to share some politically themed wedding inspiration I have found along the way.  None of this will be making an appearance at our wedding, but we do have a good friend who just might have a politically themed wedding if he can convince the future Mrs. of that idea so we will save all this for them :)

Click on the picture to enlarge and  read the cute invitation wording

And now check out this awesome rehearsal dinner invitation. I had to do a double take before I realized it wasn't a real political mailer:

Front

 

Back

And here is a close up of both the endorsements:

 

How creative is that?

A Dr. Seuss Bonus

When I was looking for things for yesterday's pretty things post I came across some Dr. Seuss wedding vows that I thought deserved their own post.  Nick and I are a bit too traditional to go this route, but they made me smile so I hope you enjoy!

Pastor: Will you answer me right now
These questions, as your wedding vow?

Groom: Yes, I will answer right now
Your questions as my wedding vow.

Pastor: Will you take her as your wife?
Will you love her all your life?

Groom: Yes, I take her as my wife,
Yes, I'll love her all my life.

Pastor: Will you have, and also hold
Just as you have at this time told?

Groom: Yes, I will have, and I will hold,
Just as I have at this time told,
Yes, I will love her all my life
As I now take her as my wife.

Pastor: Will you love through good and bad?
Whether you're happy or sad?

Groom: Yes, I'll love through good and bad,
Whether we're happy or sad,
Yes, I will have and I will hold
Just as I have already told,
Yes, I will love her all my life,
Yes, I will take her as my wife!

Pastor: Will you love her if you're rich?
Or if you're poor, and in a ditch?

Groom: Yes, I'll love her if we're rich,
And I will love her in a ditch,
I'll love her through good times and bad,
Whether we are happy or sad,
Yes, I will have, and I will hold
(I could have sworn this has been told!)
I promise to love all my life
This woman, as my lawful wife!

Pastor: Will you love her when you're fit,
And also when you're feeling sick?

Groom: Yes, I'll love her when we're fit,
And when we're hurt, and when we're sick,
And I will love her when we're rich
And I will love her in a ditch
And I will love through good and bad,
And I will love when glad or sad,
And I will have, and I will hold
Ten years from now a thousandfold,
Yes, I will love for my whole life
This lovely woman as my wife!

Pastor: Will you love with all your heart?
Will you love till death you part?

Groom: Yes, I'll love with all my heart
From now until death do us part,
And I will love her when we're rich,
And when we're broke and in a ditch,
And when we're fit, and when we're sick,
(Oh, CAN'T we get this finished quick?)
And I will love through good and bad,
And I will love when glad or sad,
And I will have, and I will hold,
And if I might now be so bold,
I'll love her my entire life,
Yes, I WILL take her as my wife!

Pastor: Then if you'll take her as your wife,
And if you'll love her all your life,
And if you'll have, and if you'll hold,
From now until the stars grow cold,
And if you'll love through good and bad,
And whether you're happy or sad,
And love in sickness, and in health,
And when you're poor, and when in wealth,
And if you'll love with all your heart,
From now until death do you part,
Yes, if you'll love her through and through,
Please answer with these words:

Pastor and Groom: I DO!

Pastor: You're married now! So kiss the bride,
But please, do keep it dignified.

Pretty Things; Dr. Seuss

Had I been on the ball I would have posted this in March for Dr. Seuss's birthday (yes I know when his birthday is- don't judge!) but alas I was not on the ball so you get it randomly this week.  Dr. Seuss has always been a family favorite and for as long as I can remember he has been one of my favorite author and still to this day his book Sneetches tops my list of favorite books.  I thought it only appropriate that I dedicate a pretty things post to Dr. Seuss inspired weddings:

And this last one looks much less Dr. Seuss esque but I thought it was a beautiful way to include his words into a wedding. 

Let Them Eat Cake!

I have a confession to make: I don't really like cake!  Shocking, I know.  As a kid I used to eat the frosting and leave what I referred to as "the fuzzy part" (really appetizing I know) on my plate.  As my palette matured I really stopped even caring for the frosting all that much too so if I have to choose a dessert cake is probably always going to be my last choice.  So really picking the wedding cake was not high on my priority list. I am, however, open to the fact that other people enjoy cake and would be disappointed to show up at a wedding and not get cake, Nick included.  So have no fear we will have cake!  Our contract with our reception site actually includes a contract with a local baker for our cake so we didn't get to spend weekend after weekend in a sugar comma going to every bakery in town to choose one, which again I was a-ok with! I had a small collection of inspiration photos (Just because I don't like to eat it doesn't mean I don't think they are pretty).  Nick and I sat down Friday night to go through my stack of ideas and decided we wanted something like one of these below:

So Saturday afternoon we took our inspiration to Wedding Wonderland.  We walked into a showroom full of decorated Styrofoam cakes.  They were pretty busy but we finally found someone to help us.  She told us that our contract with the Holiday Inn included any of the cakes on the showroom floor.  If we wanted something other than one of the cakes on the floor it would cost us on top of the contract.  Honestly, my heart sunk just a little bit at that moment.  While I didn't really care about the cake in the grand scheme of things, I know what I like and didn't want someone to tell me I only had a few options to pick from.  However, not caring enough to pay extra we started wandering the showroom.  We immediately found a few cakes that actually weren't so bad and I could like.  We quickly narrowed down the 60-some cakes down to 4:

And the one we picked:

Ha- totally kidding!  Not sure I can imagine any occasion where that is the cake I would pick.

Seriously here is what we decided on:

Ours will only be 4 tiers instead of 5.  The black tier will be royal blue and the swirls will be green. 

We also got to decide on what flavors we wanted our cake to be.

We sampled 6 different flavors:
yellow with strawberry filling
chocolate with fudge filling
white with raspberry filling
banana with no filling
carrot with cream cheese filling
strawberry with no filling

We decided on 3...can you guess which 3??  I will give you a hint- 1 of the 3 doesn't have any filling.

Dressing my Momma

When I was on Spring Break a couple weeks ago I had a long list of little wedding tasks that I wanted to get done including helping my mom find her dress.  We had originally planned on her coming to St. Louis because we have a lot more stores to choose from but then I decided that because they would be making so many trips to St. Louis in the next 6 months it only made sense for me to make the trek home.  So bright and early Monday morning my sister and I left her house to drop off my niece at school and pick up my mom for a fun filled day of shopping.

The objective: Find something fun, comfortable, and cute that wasn't too formal and fit into the feel of our wedding.  Nothing about our wedding is turning out to be super formal so it just didn't make sense for her to have a typical "Mother of the Bride Dress" like this:

Side not: Why is it that the models who model "Mother of the Bride Dresses" always look like they are hardly old enough to be brides let alone the mother of one? But anyway I digress... This just really wasn't the look we were going for.  We decided to start at JC Penny's thinking they would have some nice dresses and because my mom shops there often they would probably have somethings in her style.  My sister and I wasted no time pulling lots of dresses off the rack that we wanted her to try and before long I think we had at least 10 dresses for her to try.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking and didn't take any pictures but here are a couple of the dresses from their website she tried: 

We liked the color of this dress but not the actual print...the flowers were just weird so-VETO

Again loved the color and she said it was really comfortable, but the fit wasn't as flattering as some of the other dresses-VETO

 

This one we paired with a cute cardigan  and we liked the color and cut of this one much better than the previous two but in the end it too got the VETO


It came down to these two dresses in the end:

Both of them looked great and were a good color.  I also felt like both of them would fit in perfectly with what everyone else was wearing.  We decided both of those were definite possibilities but decided to go see what else we could find.  Unfortunately the other stores in that mall had zilch.  We could have drawn out the process and tried to drive all over the world going to little boutiques and other stores but decided that since both of those were such strong contenders and very reasonably priced it just made sense to pick between the two.  In the end we decided to go with the blue dress.  We felt like it would compliment the bridesmaid's dresses well, it was comfortable and she could absolutely wear it again so it was a win-win! 

Pretty Things: Our Flowers

When I started posting the weekly pretty things posts I mentioned that we were in a bit of a planning lull.  Well I lied! Not really lied I guess but forgot that there were several things that I never posted about, one being deciding on our flowers and booking a florist.  It seemed fitting to make this a "Pretty Things" post because what is prettier than flowers.

When we first started planning I had decided that I thought we could just buy flowers from a wholesaler and arrange them ourselves to save money.  Nick convinced me that maybe we should at least meet with a couple of florist to make sure it was really worth it.  Thank goodness he did because we found a very reasonable florist who has been amazing to work with and is really flexible and willing to put up with my millions of changes and our budget restrictions. I think it will greatly reduce my stress level the week before the wedding and be worth every penny.  I am really excited to work with Jenny at Floral Jaz.  We first met with Jenny in January.  We came with just a couple of pictures and she sat with us for about an hour and talked through everything and had great ideas of what might work for the look we were going for.  Here is the original inspiration photo we brought with us:

My bouquet will look similar to that with roses, hydrangeas, spider mums, berries and we are adding some blue cornflowers:

 

The bridesmaids bouquets will be a similar structure including the grass loops but will be a mix of daisies and buttom mums.  It will look similar to this bouquet but the daisies will be smaller and have green centers. The bouquet will also be a tighter fit like mine. (It also wont have the weird bling in the picture):

The rest of the flowers will be a mix of those above in shades of white, green and blue.  So there are our flowers!