Seven months tomorrow

since we got married, and he left already.  Temporarily, at least I hope.  On the road with a band – two weeks on, two weeks off.  We’ll see if it kills me and or our marriage.

2 months and 14 days later….

Married.  It was insanely stressful getting there – our DIY projects may have been one too many (but I couldn’t give any up!)

• Candy for our Auf Ruf.  It needed to be both Kosher and soft.  We sought Kosher marshmallows (not an easy feat, and even an Israeli grocery in the Village let me down).  Sadly, circus peanuts, which can come individually packaged, are not kosher.  But…  the Whole Foods in Columbus carries Israeli Marshmallows!  And Happy Hostess House carries cellophane bags!  And we had gads of extra orange cording purchased for our programs, so we made little individually wrapped bags of marshmallows for the congregation to throw at us.  We felt truly blessed to have the chance to do the ceremony.  My dad said it looked really cool to see the orange-ribboned marshmallows flying through the air!
• Table-covers for the rehearsal dinner.  Orange gingham.  It was an excuse to buy a rotary cutter – we just cut the fabric and left the edges loose – didn’t look bad!  With recycled glass bottles, gerber daisies and bear grass…  and both caramel and cheese popcorn from Pam‘s at the North Market that my mother-in-law arranged into cute bags and boxes with our names lovingly written on each one.

From 09 09 05 Rehearsal Dinner

• “Pew” decorations.  Bought wired ribbon, learned to make bows (yeay!), attached them to fans, and voila!  Budget-friendly, unique decorations!
• The programs.  Really pleased with how they turned out.  We spatter-painted them to align with the design on our invitations.  Initially, the shipment was lost, which caused one of my biggest freak-outs.  Knew the spattering had to happen in New York with time for it to dry, so we ended up going back to the store and buying in person instead of on their less expensive website.  And we bought cards instead of pre-punched programs which caused a lot of agita with punching and printing.  My poor dad!
• The Huppah.  My dad made the frame, we purchased the fabric and sewed yards and yards of it together.  It turned out to be gorgeous – the museum where we had our wedding accepted it as a donation to use again!
• Menus for the tables.  Rode my bike to Ikea to buy their awesome inexpensive glass-clip photo 5×7 photo frames.  Purchased silver paper where we got the programs.  Made 2 per table, along with an cupcake flavor legend for the dessert table, and our sign-in book.
• Our sign-in book was a scrapbook that we left out with 100 markers and a request for people to be creative.  Love, love, love what we have now!  Personalized fun messages with pictures and poems and silly things.  And having a scrapbook on hand already helped, uh, the unmotivated among us (me!) have a spot to put mementos and some of the awesome pics friends and family took!
• Table numbers and seating cards.  My sister actually took care of all of these, but we had lovely scalloped orange numbers on the table, and scalloped seating cards attached to our favors: orange tote bags (with our initials very small in silver so they don’t scream ‘wedding’ but are still marked somehow)

And invitations

Just in case anyone ever reads this and wonders…  we made the sashes from wrapping paper cut into strips and just glue-stuck them together!  Lining the envelopes was a pain (needed to cut the liners into the right shape and size, then glue them in – will def. plan this better if I’m ever doing another event!)

2 weeks!

Programs: drafted and designed.  Covers ordered.  Binding cord ordered.

Menus for tables: paper ordered.  framed (clip 5×7 photo frames from Ikea) picked up today

Music: still TBD (freaking out!)

Ceremony: need to get to rabbi in 1 week.

Dress for rehearsal: check!  at the tailor, picking up Saturday!  See below, for $20 from Century21 + $20 in alterations.  Will wear with beige stilettos.

cake topper!

With little pegs resembling us… and of course, Rex!!!

Rex, being thoughtful.

and Peggies!

shoes, shoes!

Kismet.  Chicago trip, Nordstrom’s Rack, orange satin stilettos.  Clearance rack.  $17 (originally $250)!!!!

It’s going to cost me quintuple the price of the shoes to have an amazing old-school cobbler both re-do the strong to add more support on the strap so I can wear them for 8 hours without crying, and maybe cut down the 4.5 inch heel.  But it will be worth it!  I brought them to a fitting, and Mika, who’s making my dress LOVED them!  I do too…

Bridesmaid dresses

Whew  – more stressful than I expected getting everything set.  Unexpectedly complicated too.  I chose a color and length and each person chose her style (my bridesman will just wear a tux like the other guys).  We ordered through RK Bridal in New York so people got measured or chose their dresses online or at other boutiques.  Fine.  I didn’t realize that all of the types of chiffon were different.  Dresses can be made in different fabrics than their designed in for an extra $30 per dress, but that seems like a lot for dresses with such similar choices anyhow.  And… I thought we were doing things in plenty of time, but the bridal world says otherwise, so we had to tack an extra $35 fee on for rushing the dresses.  Oh well…

They’ll all be (despite the varied pictures) Mango Tango floor length chiffon!

Imagine them all long and in the darker orange...