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...

Oh JCrew...how I love you!

OK...I NEED this dress! How perfect for my carribbean honeymoon?!?! I think I could probably wear it for my rehearsal dinner too...

Too bad it's almost $400! (Siiiiigh) Go on sale already!

Valentine's Present!

Completely un-wedding related, but I had to post! Mr. G and I had a fairly low-key weekend. I had Friday off thanks to a school holiday so I decided to make a special dinner for Mr. G and I. I gave him his card over dessert and told him that I hadn't gotten anything special (I renewed his Sports Illustrated subscription), but that dinner tonight was for us to celebrate and be together.

Saturday morning rolls around and Mr. G gets up and is out and about running errands. When he gets home he hands me this:


Now, for those of you that know me, you know that I love make-up so I was overjoyed just to have received this pink train case to store everything in! But...little did I know, he didn't stop there! He filled it with a few of my favorite items and I was even more excited as I opened her up.

Sooo gone are the days of my make-up thrown into a plastic basket! Good job honey!

Here she is all filled up! Everything fits perfectly!

Make-up: Round 2

Well...I tried again. See original post here . This time a little more color on the lips and cheeks and a little less eyeliner. I wish there was a better way of capturing the colors on camera! I have been using a smokey black eyeshadow and I think next time I'm going to try it with browns instead of greys and black. I went to Sephora yesterday and picked up a new lip color so I will have to try that next time also. I purchased a Benefit Silky Finish Lipstick in "My Treat" (a bright pink). Anyone have recommendations on long wearing lipstick or tricks to make regular lipstick last longer?