K and I wanted those cheesy "BRIDE! YAY!" t-shirts too, only we didn't want to pay a bajillion bucks for them and we didn't want them bedazzled to hell. Therefore, the obvious solution was to buy some cheap t-shirts from A.C.Moore, and I'd paint them.

So today, I broke out the fabric paint and the fabric markers and had some fun painting! I'm super proud of the results.

This one's K's:

And here's mine:

I tried to make 'em steampunky, so I figured you can't go wrong with robots and clock towers, right? :)

The War of the Flower Beings

One of the benefits of having gone with silk flowers (besides that they're very eco-friendly, re-usable, and mucho cheaper than real ones) is that we get to play with them as far ahead of time as we want.

And we wanted to play with them yesterday. Because it is fun. So there.

Our wonderful friend (and from hence-forth, she shall be referred to as The Bitchin' Bloom Wonder Warrior), Cassie, came over and graciously offered her help to us in this matter for the small price of a few daiquiris. It was well worth it and a lot of fun, but little did we know that the stems of these fake flowers were made of wire clearly forged on the planet Krypton. And, while we didn't have any Kryptonite with which to conquor these beasts (otherwise we would have had multi-foot long stems on everything), we did have a saw.

Below, you will find, for the sake of Historic Record Keeping and also the lulz, a photo-story illustrating the Fierce Battle of the Blooms:



(Also, hey, did you notice my cool use of Poladroid? It's that neat-o thing that probably everyone and their grandmother knows about, but in case you haven't played with it yet, click the above link. It's cool. I promise.)

Wedding Shoes Have Been Acquired

I found my shoes today! And what's more, they kick ass. I mean this in the way that they're totally not shoes that will only be worn once. I'll likely wear them every single day from my wedding on until they disintegrate from use because they are So. Darn. Comfy.

I'm such a hippie yuppie kid. Yeah. They're Birkenstock Clogs. And they'll be perfect and I guarantee I'll have the comfiest feet around. And now I don't have to feel cruddy for buying shoes I'll only wear once and feeling like that was a waste of money! Especially since I couldn't find a pair that both fit and matched my fabric for under $20, like K did*. And frankly, if I'm going to pay more than $20 for shoes, they'd better last me years. I'm super psyched.

*Also, in case you were wondering, here's a nifty swifty photo of K's shoes. Well, one of them anyway:

Some Thoughts on Wedding Uniqueness and the Speshul-Indie-Super-Cool-Kid Image

There's a lot of pressure out there, it seems, to be a Super Speshul Indie Original Politically Conscious Bride.

And I like to think I'm doing all that just fine, but sometimes we need to step back and kind of evaluate things a bit.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and then I came across this post over at To Each Her Own, and it made me think.

For instance, Kris and I both have strong political beliefs and a strong aversion to the diamond industry as a whole, so when we decided to buy our rings, we both set out to get Indie Super Cool Cheap Non-Diamond Unique Rings That Say We Are Very Sensible And Green.

Well. I'm here to admit, officially, in a public forum, we both walked away with diamonds. Granted, they're really more like diamond chips, so the cheap part worked out well. And we bought them from a seller (a mainstream one, yes, I'll admit it) that only sells Green diamonds. Guaranteed not to be soaked in the blood of, well, anyone. But there's still this feeling of guilt and a need to explain or defend our choice of diamonds. See? Even now, I'm explaining.

But the rings are beautiful and they make us feel beautiful and they really feel like the perfect symbols of our commitment, you know? And that's really what they are. So who cares?

Why should I feel the need to defend myself? Where is this guilt coming from?

Sometimes that Indie Super Conscious Unique Image needs to be re-evaluated to make sure you're not being unique for the sake of being edgy alone.

It's about so much more than that; it's about being true to yourself and feeling PERFECT and knowing that the beautiful you feel is about so much more than just pretty. So sometimes, traditional and cheap and expected holds something special and unexpected and priceless, and it's good to step back and be brave enough to look past the knee-jerk reaction of Wedding-Industry-Rebellion.

Good News, Everyone!

I've just had a brilliant plan!

(And no one can stop me from making bad Futurama jokes, apparently.)

There is a reason K likes to keep me away from my blogroll full of DIY crafting blogs.

What if. JUST WHAT IF. I learned to master Sculpy (Hint: probably not). And then I'd be able to make ALL KINDS OF WILD THINGS. Like menu holders for the buffet! And the seating chart! And they could be shaped like ROBOTS!

Guys?

Guys?

Where are you all going?

Musings

The other night, I was sitting in the living room watching K on the deck just on the other side of the sliding glass door. She was saying something to my mom about the garden she's been working so hard on, the one she lets me help with sometimes, even though I have an awful black thumb. There are vegetable sprouts coming up now for a late harvest, and she was explaining something about it that I couldn't hear from inside.

I guess it sounds a little cheesy, but I just kept thinking, I hope this is what's in store for the rest of our lives. She was laughing, and I couldn't hear it, but I could see it in her body even though her back was turned to me. And I couldn't stop smiling like an idiot.

Lately, too, we've been told on a couple of occasions how strange and funny it is to watch the two of us together, that we read each other so easily and silently; people can see whole conversations happen between us through exchanged looks alone. I guess I've never really thought about it, but once it was pointed out to me, I've been more conscious of it. And you know what? That's what I love about being in love. There's so much understanding and not really a need to constantly fill gaps of space with sound because you're just comfortable and you just understand.

You guys, I can't wait to be married to her.

Take a Picture

K and I just got back from our Hey-We're-Getting-Married-Soon Photo Session, which was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.

We made funny faces. We hid behind trees and kissed in public (which is weird for us- totally not used to PDA).

Our photographer, Kevin, from NHimages, has been great so far- very comfortable to be around. He gave us good direction, but not so much that we felt like it wasn't us anymore, and he was really good about K's limitations with walking. We went to Mine Falls Park for the session, and he seemed to have just the right amount of "Do you think you can manage this walk to X distance away?" as opposed to just totally ignoring the fact that she was on a cane and assuming she can just keep up whatever, or worse, totally ignoring the fact that she can walk short distances and is capable of, in fact, setting her own pace. It was nice not to have to stop and explain things to him. He took it right in stride, very professionally.

He was also very friendly and easy to chat with, which made it easy to relax enough that the photos won't come out too stiff and nervous looking (I hope). I don't think we were too nervous. I guess we'll find out when we see the photos, which should be ready for us within the month, I think.

It was also pretty cool that he seemed reasonably psyched about the fact that our wedding is going to be fairly non-traditional. I was happy to hear that he enjoys shooting weddings that are out of the norm, because, while we won't be having mud-wrestling or rocket-launching, it certainly won't be typical, either. He even said something about how, as we described what our plans are, that this might be the kind of wedding that he could get the photos published in some kind of magazine or publication or something, which I, for one, think would be pretty kick ass. I guess we'll have to see after everything is done, but for now, I'm really happy knowing that our photographer is easy to work with and easy to get along with. And it was a nice morning, overall (After the initial "Oh shit we have to get up and get our pictures taken oh shit oh shit oh shit aaarhg pfffffft" moments were concluded. We tried to keep them brief.)

Oh Look!

I think those might just be going in the mail tomorrow or something. :B

I'm pretty proud of how those came out. I had fun making them!

Catering

Whelp, Kris and I went and booked the catering today. I'm feeling good about it. It's going to end up costing us like, $300 less than we thought, even though we're getting more in the pickles and chips department, which is brilliant. Everyone loves pickles and chips, right? And there'll be stuff for meat-eaters and veggies and gluten-free-peeps alike.

Kris and I have started working on writing the ceremony, too, which is harder than I thought it would be. But it's coming together in a good way I think. It's nice and floofy-new-age-y and it talks about Love. You know, like you do. I have a confession to make. We are floofy-new-age people. You'll see. Kris more than me, but I can't plead innocent. Don't worry though. We're trying to keep the kitsch to a minimum.

In other news, the invitations go out tomorrow! So be on the look out for them you guys!

Let's get some SHOES

I am the luckiest woman in the world for many reasons, most of which have to do with Kris.

This is reason number 6,432:

She found her wedding shoes today. They are steamy, punky, adorable flats. Silvery-taupe with brown buckle-y things and they will look amazing with her skirt. And she found them. In the children's shoes section. Because her feet are Just. That. Tiny.

Yes. The first pair she tried on? Was a kid's size 6. And they were. too. big.

I'll let that sink in.

It's making me type in fragments.

That is all.

[End transmission.]

Noms

Tomorrow: Catering.

Hopefully, it'll work out beautifully. We're headed to The Seedling Cafe tomorrow to see about them providing us with organic lunch catering, hopefully complete with options for both omnivore and vegetarian- and celiac-friendly fare. Their wraps are delicious, so I'm really hopeful that we can swing it- their prices seem do-able and it should be relatively easy to make a buffet out of their nom-worthy good eats. But that's what tomorrow's for: answering those questions.

In the meantime, Kris and I have been sporadically making goofy faces at each other and asking, "So, should I make this face when we have our photo session?" (It's a week from Sunday.)

Yeah. We're classy broads.

ETA (7/25): Hahaha so yeah, they were closed today. This place is pretty hard to get a hold of, I'm finding. Must be part of the whole mom and pop thing, which is worth dealing with as long as everything gets taken care of in the end. Oh well. I guess you'll all just have to wait to hear about catering until sometime next week, when they will (hopefully) be holding their regular business hours. :B

Counting Down

Exactly three months to go! And just a couple of weeks until the engagement photo session. Although, it feels kind of weird to call it that, since we've been engaged for about four years. So. The hey-we're-in-love-and-gettin'-hitched-lookit-us photo session is coming up sooooooon. To be honest, I'm a little nervous about it, if only because I generally dislike being in photos, but I know how happy and excited for it Kris is, and that makes me happy. And it'll be nice to have some good photos of us together.

Also, speaking of photos... Yesterday, my holga camera came in the mail. I'm super excited to try it out. Neat-o-nifty-swifty honeymoon pictures ahoy!

Piture Time!

Here, have some pictures of some of our flea market treasures and Kris taking apart some clocks.

In fact, have a neato-cool bee's knees video of Kris fiddling with the clockwork bits!

Onward! To Adventure!

Tomorrow: To the Flea Market! In Search of Vintage Things That Are Both Decorative and Cheap!

Film at Eleven.

ETA: SUCCESS! \o/ (There may or may not be, tucked somewhere in one of the 19th century books we acquired, a chapter on phrenology and its how-to's. I feel like this might lead to some kind of very interesting Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey games. Or something. I shall try to be good.)

Flowers!

Kris and I just got back from buying our flowers for the wedding. We're using silk flowers since (a) they're eco-friendlier than cut flowers, (b) they'll last longer, and (c) I, unfortunately, have a black thumb and would surely kill any real flowers we bought. Also (d) cut flowers of the real variety are also of the out-of-our-budget variety (mucho dollahs).

Anyway, there's this great little place off 101 in Bedford called the Grenon Trading Company (I wish they had a website, or I'd post it) that has the most realistic silk flowers I've ever seen. and it's a little mom and pop place (we've been trying our best to stay away from big corporate vendors), and most importantly, they were having a 50% off sale, which is why I wanted to get them now.

This means we just bought our centerpiece flowers, my bouquet flowers, our female best-person's bouquet flowers (we have three best-persons shared among Kris and I - two male [my brother Robert and her brother Shawn] and one female [our friend Leah, who is also making our dresses]), flowers for boutonnieres and hair-twinings, and some flowers that will get worked into the book Kris wants to hold in lieu of a bouquet. Also the bubbles and a nice pen for the guest book, ribbon and floral tape and pins for wrapping bouquets, and some little lady bugs for the centerpieces.

All for $100.

True story.

I'm so thrilled. The flowers themselves are gorgeous - black-eyed susans, dasies, red garden anemones, lilly of the valley, little blue and purple flowers that I don't know the name of (did I mention my black thumb?), these green poofy things... They're lovely and I really can't get over how real they look. And seriously? I've seen bridal bouquets alone go for more than a hundred bucks, so I'm feeling great about this. Wildflowers.

I am a happy happy girl right now.