Time to get down to business

I called my dress shop today to confirm the delivery date of my dress...May 27th. Ahh...that means I have just about 2 months to really get my butt in gear and start working out! After hearing so many people rave about Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred, I was curious so I did some research online. I found that it was on sale on Amazon for half price...

Still a bit skeptical...I decided to double check with some knotties to give me some encouragement. All rave reviews sooo...I bought 30-day Shred AND Biggest Loser's Cardio Max DVDs.

I absolutely HATE (I mean loathe!!) running and we don't belong to a gym because of the price tag so I figure $20 is well spent right?? And I can do them in the comfort of my own home without having to figure out when to go to the gym or rush home so that I can get outside before it gets dark.

I must say that Mr. G was quite excited about this and promptly took me to Sports Authority to buy me some free weights. He wanted to give me all this other stuff too, but I insisted that Jillian says I don't need all that! Just the free weights babe!

We'll see how it goes...

(Almost down to 120 days! Eeeek!)

"Thank you!"

One of my favorite places to buy gifts for co-workers is http://www.designhergals.com/. I absolutely love presonalizing each detail of the "gal" I'm designing. I have bought these for my mom, the secretaries at my school, other co-workers...they LOVE seeing themself on a notecard or notepad...soo fun!

Anyways...right now they are having a 30% off sale so I figured what better time to buy myself some cute thank you cards for my showers right?? (And even better is that 5% of each order goes to fund research for stage IV breast cancer.)

They come all packaged in a cute little bag with matching ribbon...perfect for gift giving!

You can personalized just about EVERY detail for your gal...body type, hair color and style, clothes, jewelry, items in your hands, even pets! I went with a cute dress and some baking items which I'm hoping to receive at my showers. I even have a diamond on my finger...LOVE these!


Check out the website and create your own "gal" :)

More dresses...

So a few weeks ago I decided to start the search for my rehearsal and shower dresses. I set out with high hopes and was quickly disappointed by the selection of what I found. First of all...NOTHING fit me correctly and there just wasn't anything that I had to have! Ughh...so frustrating!

This past Saturday I decided to venture out again and try another mall with a different Nordstrom's. SUCCESS! I found not one, but two dresses! Whoo hoo! Take a look!

Rehearsal Dress (a bit different in colors here, but mine is black with white, aqua and yellow)

And of course...I HAD to have these shoes to go with it... And my shower dress...

Yay...things are getting closer, my first shower is in about a month! :)

Updates

Another week has come and gone and I'm almost down to 4 months! Holy cow!

This week we accomplished a few things. One of which was Mr. G's responsibility and that was to call the limo company for a quote. He fulfilled his duty and we now have a limo and a shuttle bus booked for the wedding party and for our guests. Whoo hoo!

Also, I met with our florist on Thursday to go over possible centerpieces. We decided on a floating dahlia in a wide mouth vase for most of the tables and I will get my vision of the lush flower centerpieces for a few tables. Those were quite expensive ($70 a piece) so I compromised with my mom and we'll get 5 of those for the family and bridal party tables. The other 22 tables will have the less expensive floating dahlia surrounded with many, many candles. Something like this but with a bright pink/purple dahlia. I'm so excited because my florist is going to wrap the vases like you see in this picture (ivory and green ribbon) and she is also going to wrap my bouquets in the same fashion. Yay! (I really can't say enough about my fabulous florist, Ambience Floral Designs...LOVE them!)

I'm so glad to have that one taken care of. We were considering doing the centerpieces ourselves, but I just decided that a bit of extra money was well worth the saved headache and stress on my part.

So really the only thing that we still need to do is find a way to rent bathrooms. Anyone know of reasonably priced bathroom rental companies?? I'm so mortified to think that my guests may have to use port-a-potties!

After that, things are pretty much done! I still need to make table number cards, finish assembling the invites, decide on seating chart or escort cards and make those, and...hmm...can't think of anything else at this point!

"Pretty nice little Saturday actually..."

I've been on a roll this afternoon! Mr. G went to the state basketball games that were being played today which gave me all kinds of time to spread my "wedding stuff" all over the living room!

First up...my matches project!

Step one: print my design on our trusty old ink jet

Step two: Cut the rectangles out with my paper cutter

Step three: Run each of the rectangles through my Xyron machine to add permanent sticker backing to them.

Step four: Stick the rectangles carefully to the match boxes and...voila!

Next up...I assembled and addressed 10 of my invites! I know what you're thinking...waaaaay early...I KNOW...but hey this means that I can do 10 at a time and not have to do all 180 of them in one weekend! Yay me!

On another note, we ordered my ring (squeeee!!!) and a new one for Mr. G...long story...here goes...

We had gone last weekend to ShaneCo (my engagement ring is from here) to see about my wedding band and see what they had as far as men's bands go. Mr. G found one in a style that he liked, but it was platinum and he really wanted white gold for better durability. We put the platinum ring on layaway thinking that when we went back to ShaneCo to order my ring we would see if there was something else. Well...fast forward to this past Thursday, I took both Thursday and Friday off this week (mental health days :)) so I was out and about and went into Rogers to look around. They had a ring in the very same style that Mr. G picked out AND it was white gold. It was also a better price. They also had my ring and I asked about their price. The girl told me that it was about $2200 and to that I just said OK, because I knew that ShaneCo had a better price for it. She asked if I wanted to order my ring and I casually said "No thank you"...of course she asked me why and I quietly say that we had found it for a better price. "Well, how much??" she asks..."about $1900" I say..."Hmm...let me see what I can do." She came back and said they would beat the price by $100 and offer it to me for $1800. Woah...OK...umm...I don't really know what to do at this point!! I just came in to look and now I'm feeling like I have to do this right now! Fortunately, I had her put everything in writing for me and told her that I would call my fiance and we would come back later that night to look.

I call Mr. G and he agrees to go back later that night to look. In the meantime, I call ShaneCo to make sure that we can get our deposit for Mr. G's original ring back if he did indeed like the one at Rogers better.

ShaneCo - Yes, of course, but what happenend? Are you not happy with this one or our customer service??

Me - No...we just found something we like better.

ShaneCo - Well what can we do to make you happy?

Me - Umm nothing yet. We just found another ring that he likes better and were wondering if we could get our deposit back! (Yeesh!)

Long story short, ShaneCo ends up beating Rogers' price for my ring and Rogers then proceeds to beat ShaneCo's price again. In the end...we ordered both rings from Rogers AND I got my deposit back from ShaneCo...whew! (Is this what it feels like to be a car salesman??)

I feel like the months are FLYING by...down to 4 1/2 months! Woah!

How could I forget??

We booked our honeymoon suite at the Embassy Suites downtown and I also booked my room for the night before and the day of to get ready!

AND...I found a fabulous make-up artist that I absolutely adore!

I decided against doing my own make-up and found someone else to do it. I'm so glad I did because she is amazing and I love that she does facials and skin care also.

Shana Beals http://www.makeupandskinbyshana.com/

Here are the pics...

Checks!

Whoo hoo...feels so good to get things checked off the list!

1. Mr. G's wedding band is picked out and on lay-away at ShaneCo.

2. We booked our honeymoon flights a week ago! Sooo so exciting...St. Lucia here we come!

3. Yesterday my mom and I took advantage of no sales tax at IKEA and bought 400 tealights, holders for all of them, a few bowls to serve as ashtrays for Mr. G's cigar bar, and 8 vases for the bridesmaid bouquets at the reception all for under $150!

4. We also made our way over to Men's Warehouse Tux and picked out all the tuxes for all the boys.

5. I FINALLY found my match boxes so now I can start on those. (See here)

**Question...what do you think of putting a few match boxes on each table and having the guests light the candles?? Tacky or no??

6. Scheduled an appointment with the florist to discuss potential centerpieces. Details to come!

My new idea...not quite these colors but this kind of concept I guess...