The Great Pumpkin

There was a big sale at Michaels this week so I went a little crazy with the flowers! I used an artificial pumpkin (often called funkins) and cut the top off. I arranged silk flowers, dried grasses, wheat, and I covered the edge of the pumpkin with green moss. I finished it off with a plaid bow and voila! I think this arrangement will go on the mantle at the reception site because it's very large. I can't wait for the fall decorations to hit the 75% off clearance because I have a LOT of ideas for pumpkiny goodness. This month the main focus is making decisions about the table decorations so that we can get the supplies while the price is right. With every decision I make the more crystalized the picture of our wedding day becomes. I told Paula tonight that we're going to have to marry six of our friends off (after this wedding of course) to use up all of our ideas! I can't imagine how people managed planning a wedding before the internet.

The other project I've been playing with is a plan for photos. We don't want or need a giant album of pictures but we would like a few nice pictures with our family. I've been eyeballing professional photographers sites and of course I'm now thinking I should take up snapping pictures for a living. I refuse to pay thousands of dollars for pictures so I'm researching alternatives. I found a site for a photography club from a local college. I think Steve and I may do a session with a couple of student photographers for some engagement photos and see if we can't find one that we feel could do the photos for our wedding day as well. I also came up with the idea of having a photo scavenger hunt on our wedding day (with a prize of course) for the friend who gets all of the pictures on the list. Here are the ideas I came up with:

Wedding Picture Scavenger Hunt

Here are some basic ideas for the kinds of photos we’d love for you to catch during our festivities. The pictures should not be posed. Please look for great candid shots as they tell a much more accurate story of our wedding day!

A shot of the bride and/or groom cutting up.
An action shot of a high five or the equivalent.
A shot of an emotional reaction by a family member or friend.
A shot of a kid or a group of kids .
A shot of someone working and/or helping behind the scenes.
A shot of the bride watching the groom or vice versa.
A group shot.
A priceless action shot of someone dancing.
A shot that makes you say "awwwwwwwwwwwww."
A shot of the bride or the groom with a friend or family member.
Catch someone doing something they think no one saw.
A shot of dancing feet!
A shot of "things" that tell a part of the wedding day story.
A shot of someone getting squishy.
A shot that is a classic representation of a relationship whether it is friendship, sponsorship, parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, etc.

Here's Where We're Planning to Get Married

This is a shot of the bridge and the pond that is just behind the gazebo where we hope to have our ceremony and a dance.

This is my mom checking out the walk to the gazebo.

This is a pretty little bridge that we can take pictures on, or perhaps a carriage ride...

The reception hall is nothing super fancy but it'll work, the food will make up for the lack of ambiance.

The fireplace is the backdrop for the family table...I will definately be snazzing that up!

Smile!

This is a snuggly picture of Steve putting the moves on me.

Sing along time: Babe, I got you babe, I got you babe...

This was our most recent date night. We covered the ABCs: Art, beef, and cuddling!

He makes me all melty.

Okay I'm only "the little woman" in pictures. Seriously.

My Table Decorations

I used my Bind-It-All to make "table tents" for
the tables at my reception. I just used cardboard
that I folded into a triangle and then I bound the
top with wire (like on a spiral notebook). I used various ribbons to decorate the tops of the frames and I used solid scrapbook papers to embellish the pictures. I printed the pictures with my color printer on heavy paper (I didn't even use photo paper) because I don't need for these to be of archival quality and I like the brighter colors I get when the ink is absorbed into the paper. This is actually an original idea (most of my "creative ideas" are actually borrowed or modified from someone else's work). I love that they are made from paper and left over pizza boxes, that they cost almost nothing to make, and they can be given away or thrown away without any guilt after the wedding.

Gotta Dance?

Steve and I have been talking about taking dancing lessons together since last December, but I was a little nervous about the cost since a friend of mine took lessons at a nationally known dance school and paid over $500 per class (and the class was for her alone, not a couple!). It just didn't make sense to spend more on dance lessons than we had budgeted for anything else at the wedding except food and the venue. But after further investigation I found that the Plano Parks & Rec offers adult dance classes for $39 for six weeks. We could take several classes, get some exercize and have a lot of fun for a fraction of the cost of the fancy school. I also discovered that there is a place in Irving that has a dance one Sunday a month for ballroom dancing. I know that most of the people who will be there will be older than we are, but that makes me happy! I hope I can hang on to my sense of adventure long enough to try...I love the idea of dancing to At Last with Etta James singing in the moonlight and all my friends watching as Steve and I move together as one. I think we both dream of one beautiful, graceful, picture-perfect dance and I think that's a daydream that deserves to come true.