I have moved...

Hey Ladies...

I have moved to a blog I think more befitting of me. Hopefully more honest and insightful. I think it looks better, too!

apinkbride.blogspot.com

See you there!

Lesson Learned

For all you brides-to-be who are in the planning process, allow me to share a story.

A story of how a quick decision could actually have been a good one.

The venue we chose for our ceremony/reception site is not "glamorous." It is not a modern studio or artsy museum like my dream wedding probably would have been held at.

When I went to see it, at the encouragement of my future mother-in-law, I was excited. When I showed up, I almost immediately thought that we would pass on the place. However, it was not so horrible that it didn't tug a few heart strings here and there when I looked around. The gazebo and bride's dressing rooms were beautiful and give me butterflies.

That day, we booked it, to my surprise. My fiance and his mother in law put down the deposit after about 10 minutes of talking(Thanks to them!!!). Basically, they were sold on it and though I didn't mind the place, I feel i would have had to come up with some blasphemous comment that even I didn't beleive to discourage them from being sold on the place.

And guess what? Six months later, all of my family and friends have only been excited to hear about the wedding. I've showed some of them the website of the venue, and have only heard good things spoken about it. Soon, everyone's excitement and the realization of what's really important about the wedding pushed the idea of "absolute, editorial-worthy perfection," left my mind for what I thought a wedding should be.

As if to furthrer seal it in the bag that this was our fateful place to marry, I happened to look at the pricing on the website the other day.

Their prices have SKY-ROCKETED!!!!

We booked our wedding there, for 150-200 guests, with tables, linen and chairs. We have two dressing rooms, and a dance floor. They provide clean up and free bar service. We have 12 hours the day of and time the day before to set up.

Their pricing has drastically changed. If we were to book now, for 50 guests, 8 hours total prep/celebration time, the price would be more than double what we paid.

Sometimes it is good to listen to your heart, and what the people who love you are telling you, instead of stubbornly holding onto a "vision" that probably couldn't have ever been absolutely "perfect" in the first place.

In the end, I feel really lucky that we got a cutesy place that we can afford that covers everything we need to enjoy time with our family and friends on our wedding day. I would choose a stress free, comfortable place over a difficult, unaffordable impressive space that we would only use for one day.

Thanks for reading!

Any Requests?

(Image Source)
I wanted to know if any of you had any requests for blogs. Right now my wedding seems sooo far away and has been at the back of my mind. I need to pump some life into this thing. Now that I'm thinking I'm sure I'll come up with stuff. In the mean time, if there's anything you're dying to know or are interested in, suggestions always help!

Talk to you soon!

Details, Details, Details

Did you know you can design your own Kleenex Tissue boxes? DIY addicted brides, brace yourselves.

If you head over to mykleenextissue.com, you will find examples of probably their number one target market: soon-to-be brides. I believe this product will tap into any bride-to-be's obssession with all things sentimental. I say this half jokingly, half critically, and half personally. (Okay, that's three halves, whatever).

I do think this is a cute purchase idea for any bride who feels compelled to design her own box. I mean, who doesn't need to have tissues on deck at a wedding? Of all the crazy things that have become wedding-related, this actually somewhat makes sense to me.

Each box is about $4.99 plus shipping. In order to make your own design, you have to install a free mode of software called Microsoft Silverlight.

If you wanted to downsize and not spend money on enough personalized tissue boxes to accomodate all of your guests, you could definitely print up a few to have at key locations or for certain people. To be a little more practical, you could buy enough boxes to divide among your wedding attendants who will be standing at the altar, Mothers of the the bride and groom, immediate family and for yourself in your dressing room beforehand.

As far as providing tissue boxes for everyone else? I'd rely on good ole Dollar Tree. ;)

Maybe I'll do what I suggest and buy a few. But I typically am very conservative with my money, so we'll see.

Wouldn't This Be Fun?

I came across a few blogs out there that mentioned doing a final dance for the bride and groom. It's one last chance to have the spotlight on the couple before they leave the reception.

As I was going through my CDs and uploading them laboriously to my new laptop, I came across Nelly Furtado's album, Loose. While I was a big fan of her debut into the music world, she has since declined on my list of favorite artists. I still think she's gorgeous!

Her last saving grace with me was her song "Showtime" from Loose. I think it's representative of some of the feelings many of us will experience (or have experienced) on our wedding day. And why not have one more "Look at me!" moment? That's what the whole wedding is for anyway, right?

Perhaps the hubby and I will groove to this song before we say goodbye to our beloved friends and family for the night. I think it'll be fun!

***Disclaimer: Ms. Furtado never made a video for this song. This was posted by some entertainment group not related to her. I just wanted you to be able to hear it. And the video gets a little graphic at 2:15!! Lol

In Love With Our Website!!!

I have been cheating on this wedding blog with *gasp* our wedding website!
I'm addicted to it. I can't leave it and it can't leave me. Seriously!

I log onto it, and always find new things to do. New pictures to add. Text that I can re-word or ways to rearrange the pages. I am surprised I find it so entertaining and rewarding, but it is.

I have my website through mywedding.com. On my website are the following pages:

Home Page
Our Story
Wedding Events
RSVP
Accommodations
Guest Book
Photo Galleries
Registries
Music
Contact Us

Mywedding.com is really, super easy. You just sign up and you can plug in information at will. As far as I know, you don't use html codes and I don't think the templates are flexible as far as design goes. But that works out perfect for me! I hate getting caught up in little details, and I had a completely designed website, for FREE! It looks nice and coordinates with our invitations (by chance, I found a template that did. Although, they offer packages where you can buy matching invitations to their pre-designed templates).

They suggest pages for you to use, and then you can customize four pages of completely different categories, if you need to. I've taken to searching random names of couples websites to get ideas on what to put on my website. (that's where I got the weddingmapper.com idea).

Because my wedding is still so far away (to me) I have found working on the wedding website to be the most rewarding, and the most satisfying when it comes to relieving me of my unending questions of how this wedding is all going to come together. It's the one place I can go where I can see all things in my wedding, and how it will be presented to our guests in one neat little package.

I will be putting the link to our website in our invitations. I'm thinking invitations will go out around Jan/Feb. This gives me plenty of time to work out all the kinks and get the website to perfection before any guests see it.

Perhaps I'll give you a blow-by-blow of each page on our website, and why I thought it was important, etc. Above is a screenshot of our homepage!

Is anyone else really pleased with how their wedding website is turning out? Leave a comment!

Seat Sign Inspiration

I would definitely like a shot like this from our photographer at our reception on the big day. This was what I had in mind for the heart plaques I previously blogged about. These signs are super cute! I'm planning on spray painting ours silver and using white lettering and white ribbon. Too cute!

(Photo taken from a featured wedding on essence.com)

Silhoutte Inspiration

This image is from flickr. I couldn't find one of a bride and a groom, but this is the idea I'm going for with the dressing room signs. Maybe I'll just use fancy paper and I'll have the words "Bride's Dressing Room" on there somewhere. And one for the groom, of course.

DIY Signs

I'm starting to wonder if I'm running out of "juice" for this blog. I'm a pretty low maintenance bride-to-be.

I could come up with a million things to do, becuase there are plenty of bandwagons to jump on in the wedding planning world. But I don't feel compelled to do most things.

I went out today just to browse around Dollar Tree and found something I knew could be a bonafide DIY project. As a matter of fact, there were soooo many things there that could be utilized for a wedding. To be honest, I think I grabbed these up just so I could show something to my blog readers, lol.

So. I bought these hanging plaques. I bought two each of the oval and heart shaped ones. I'm sorry about the picture quality-I can't find my camera and had to use the one on my cell phone. And it's so hard finding a decent backround at home so say hello to my plaid bed sheets, lol.

I'm thinking of painting a silhoutte of myself and my groom on each of the oval shaped plaques to hang outside of our respective dressing rooms. The hearts will be hung on each of our chairs at our table at the reception and say "bride" and "groom."

I'll try to find some inspiration photos of this to give you an idea.

Wedding Map Idea...

So, some brides are super crafty and talented and know their way around a computer. They choose to make cutesy little maps to match their invitations and that's all good.

But me? I'm all for the easy way out on things (I feel) I can skimp on. Especially since I don't want a lot of inserts in the invitations.

That's where http://www.weddingmapper.com/ comes in. Here you can make an accurate map of your own, you don't have to worry about drawing the lines yourself (isn't that ludicrous?) and there are cute icons to show your guests things like your ceremony/reception sites, parent's homes, and any other location pertinent to various wedding events.

This way your guests can see everything all laid out on one map. Much better than having them lookup directions for each individual event, right?

Above is a screen shot of mine, with the address of my ceremony site blocked out to reserve privacy.

The online version is interactive. Guests (or you) can print the map and directions as well at will.

It is really easy to set up your own map. You don't have to necessarily have all of your addresses ready-you can just search your location and the results will pop up (so far all of mine have been accurate). You can type in inforamation for each location that pops up in a comic-book like bubble for guests to read. You can even add photos and links to the business' website if you want. There are also great zoom in features.

Initially, the map is free. However, if you would like to upgrade your map to include more icons, you can pay a one-time fee of 9.95. I say, work with the basics first, and then see if you want to spruce it up (I'm sure some of you will!)

The free version of the map comes with icons for airports, hotels, residences, restaruants, ceremony/reception sites, entertainment, and attraction spots. You cna upload photos as well.

I will definitely reserve a link for this on my wedding website. Let me know if any of you check it out!

7 Traits of Irresistible Men

Someone sent me an interesting article that made me smile today. I'm sorry, but I love cheesy articles like this, if only to pick out what does or does not apply. I mean, really, who can sum up the many complexities about attraction and love? But in thinking about the man I'm going to marry, I'd say a lot of these were pretty accurate.

Just thought I'd share something fun since I've been MIA.

And here's a picture of Blair Underwood to go along with the article. Because aside from my fiance, he's pretty irresistible. Lol!

From shine.yahoo.com: 7 Traits of Irresistible Men by YourTango

We're not going to lie. A man boasting abs chiseled to perfection and biceps that pop just enough when flexed (without shredding shirts He-Man style) will no-doubt turn our heads. And even if caught mid check-him-out glance, we're not about to look away. Fit, toned bodies are the result of hard work and dedication to a healthy lifestyle. We certainly pay homage to that. But for a man to achieve a skyrocketing score on the sexiness scale there's got to be more to him than physical assets. Throw in these seven traits and he's guaranteed irresistible.

1. He Has Mastered The Wink. We don't know how they learn the technique but some guys really have the Richard-Gere wink down pat. There's an art to this wink and getting it right can be tricky. It's more suave and smoky than cheeky and laughable. He's comfortable giving this signal and has the timing to the tee. Done right, this move is pure sexy. Caveat: The wink can be tricky to pull off. Practice first.

2. He Radiates Calm. It's sending shivers up our spine just thinking about how powerful a man's calm presence can be. Neurotic or hyper or frenzied is stressful, no matter how busy the man or what his excuse. But if he's got cool written all over his face and his gaze is pure steady and peaceful his sex appeal will shoot through the roof (think old-school James Dean). We women can unwillingly fall into the trap of over-worrying about things we can't control. A man who sets us at ease by reminding us how things always manage to work out in the end is absolutely hot.

3. He Takes Care Of Himself. Look, we're not saying it's a certain height or build that matters. If he keeps his body in relatively good shape this shows us he knows how to take care of himself. It also clues us in that he sets health as a priority. What's more, if he's active, working out even a few times a week, the endorphins his body is producing during gym sessions are sure to keep him in good spirits and energized. The bottom line: If he takes good care of himself he's likely to take good care of his partner (or at least help keep her motivated to do so). That's a turn-on.

4. He's Got Style. We don't want to give the wrong idea here. This is not to say he has to be one certain type of style, and that mimicking a prescribed "it" style is a surefire path to sexy(whether that's clean-cut, tattooed-up or punked-out). Not at all. Rather, what's attractive in a guy is that he has a style at all, a way of dressing that reflects in some way who he is and what he's into. A guy who wakes up hum-drum and throws the same dingy shirt and pair of jeans on every day? Not sexy. At all.

5. He Has A Manly Scent. Sounds so animalistic, we know. No man can control his natural scent, and it turns out our DNA compatibility dictates who smells good to us, anyway. But, every guy can augment his essence with a spritz (one will do just fine) of cologne. As long as it's not overdone, a man with a strong scent has the potential to drive women wild.

6. He Is Affectionate. Though we women try not to let on, affection (be it an arm around the shoulder or hand on the leg) lights us up like fireflies. Consider it your secret weapon. By affection, we do mean to include expressing your feelings through words, such as "I love you." It's amazing how many hot men fall short of sexy just for lack of articulating and showing their love. Let's put it this way: There are guys who reach out to their partner while driving, and there are guys who keep both hands on the wheel and eyes straight ahead. The lads of the former group qualify for sexy.

7. He Laughs Loud, Hard, Often. No news flash here. Comedy is highly enticing. It's worth noting though that there are different types of humor. The insecure comedy that's based on putting others down or calling them names doesn't gibe with us. But give us fun-loving, belly-jiggling jokes and laughter and you'll head straight to the top of the sexiness charts.

Veils, Veils, Veils

(These are all veils from http://www.lovethebride.com/)

Now is the time for accessorizing. Once I saw my dress I immediately though of a chapel length veil (the last two pictures). However, I could do a fingertip (the first picture).

But the decisions don't stop there.

Will there be trim? Will I wear it low, toward the back of my head? Should it be pink? White? I'm beginning to think I'm a girl that doesn't like choosing.

Right now, I do not think I want trim. I want a white veil. And I keep seeing myself with a chapel length.

I do know that my mother and I will make the veil. I went to Michael's and 5 yards of tulle came in a single pack for 10 bucks. So I can pretty much do whatever length I want.

I just want to look my best, and I'm not entirely sold on which style to wear yet.

Does anyone have a favorite of the three pictured above? Please let me know!

And the Bride Wore Pink...

Ok ladies. I've been holding out. As soon as I got that other dress in the mail (the one that didn't work out) I went right back online to search.

And I found simplydresses.com

You can shop by dress color and I looked at the white section first, obviously. But then I looked under pink, just for fun, and I found the dress pictured above. I fell in love. My mom fell in love. My sister fell in love. My FI fell in love.

WHAT?!

Yes, I let him see the dress online. Big deal, lol. He won't ever get to see me try it on, though.

I ordered it, and got it in the mail less than a week later. The best thing about it... IT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE PICTURE and fits PERFECTLY. Thank God!!!! And I honestly love it. I don't think I even want a second reception dress because I love this one so much.

This dress is actually more in line with how I've always envisioned myself on my wedding day. I saw myself strapless, and nothing too poofy. The dress has material that lingers in the back, almost like it has a train. It definitely feels wedding-y, and the material is very soft.

There's a lot I like about this dress. It was under budget ($300), and its not like its a dress I'll see at a million other weddings. In the end, you just have to "do you." Some may think its sooo weird and a big deal that it's not white. I could care less. I always wanted to wear a beautiful pink dress, but never found one for both of my proms. (Where was this site when I was in high school?!). I'm definitely glad I said "yes" to the dress!

How We Chose Our Date

(image from flickr)

6.12.10

The Twelfth of June, Two Thousand Ten

June 12th, 2010

This is the date I came up with. The FH was just excited to be married, and wasn't particular about a date.

We first started narrowing in on a time based on practicality. We're both students. We wouldn't want to get married during the school year because that would be too much. Who wants to get married on Saturday, and have to come back to a mid-term or paper due Monday? So one of the school breaks sounded best.

*I know, if we were in "the real world" we'd have to go back to work. But why not take advantage of being a student and get married when we have no pressing responsibility?

We decided summer would be best. That way, I could gaurantee our junior attendants on my side of the family would be out of school. And we could take an immediate honeymoon, no missing class, no asking for time off from any potential job.

Summer 2010 is going to be a big summer for us. I'll turn 21 a mere five days before we wed. But that's as far as milestones go for me. My FH will have graduated from undergrad school, and it will be the summer before he starts med-school. (I'll have a year left of undergrad).

It sounded good. But then I asked, what's the difference between summer 2010 and summer 2011? Why not wait until after I graduated?

Well, we've already went through one separation where he moved on to college while I was in my senior year of high school. I remember helping him move into his dorm, and after we were just hanging around, excited that he was starting college, he said he really wished I was coming with him. I remember wanting to be there for him. But I was 17, what could I do?

This time around, I really want to be there for him. We've been talking about medical school ever since I can remember. How big of a deal it is to him. When you're close, your partner's dreams become as important to you as they are to them. I knew that I didn't want him to feel alone embarking on such a big step in his life. We've been together through a lot, and I feel confident that we've proven to be a good support system. Living together as husband and wife, during such an important moment in our lives, is icing on the cake.

So the summer was set. Now the actual date. I'm a little selfish, I love my birthday month. I always thought it was cool how my older sister was born May 8th and I was born June 7th. I was born a month after and a day before her. So, how to recreate the cool coincidence? My parents anniversary! (Sorry, my FH's parents are divorced). They were married 21 years ago, on May 13th. Sooo, setting a wedding date June 12th would be in the same pattern as my sister's and my birthdays.

And I also thought the number 12, written out or in numerical form would look good on the invitations. Odd, but even more odd is my mom, my sisters, and one of my bridesmaid's agreed.

Anyone else have a process for choosing their wedding date?

I've been hoodwinked!

The dress came yesterday. Ahem. I said the DRESS came YESTERDAY. So why wasn't I all excited and rushing to make a post about it?

Because it FAILED.

Lol. I'm sorry I don't have more pictures, my camera died and no AA batteries in this house. But this dress failed to meet my expectations. Look at my back, you can see the beading is completely different than in the picture. Not only that, beading was hanging off of the sleeves.

The design was so simple, with these big plastic, rainbow reflecting beads. It looked like someone's reindition of the dress in the photo they advertised.

How could this have happened to me? I thought the plan was fool proof. The member on ebay has been selling dresses for years, and I read through the reviews. They all said "The dress was perfect! Exactly like the picture! I will buy from this person again!" Maybe my dress was the oddity?

I'm just glad that I made sure to go with a seller who guaranteed full money back. I wrote to the seller stating that I was not happy, and they were very cordial. They apologized and stood by their word of saying I can get a full refund. I'm shipping this baby back today.

(Sigh) The search for a dress is still on.

A Little Paint Goes a Long Way

I found blogging to be on the back burner of priorites the last couple of days. Reason being, I'm helping my parents re-do their house. This weekend, after weeks of agonizing over paint samples to find the perfect grey with my mom, our family chose a color and painted the whole house.

There's a picture of my fiance helping out.

His being there wasn't merely coincidence. It was planned, lol. This would be the outlet for him to discuss marrying me with my father. You see, my dad's a scary dude. So in our family, it's best to just do things and THEN tell him about it. Trust me; when I was 16 and he said I couldn't even date or talk to my FH, my mom was furious that I had almost messed up a good thing by even talking to my dad about it. She said to just date him, and if he turns out to be good for me, then mention him to my dad. Why get him riled up over a drop in the bucket if he wasn't The One?

Well, he turned out to be The One. My dad eventually found out and after about two years of dating invited him over for Thanksgiving dinner. The two met and while they aren't chummy, my dad is very nice to him and now accepts our relationship.

Fast-forward to now. He proposed. He didn't ask my Dad for my hand in marriage. My mom told him we were engaged. Then when I came home from school one weekend shortly after the proposal, he talked to me about it. The first thing out of his mouth was "Congratulations!" And he gave me a big smile and hug. Who was this man pretending to be my usually deranged father?

So we talked about marriage and he told me it was fine and he was proud of us. Then he said he wanted to talk to my FH. Because my dad is not the type to reach out and invite anyone to come sit down to chat over coffee, I knew this would be a huge undertaking because WE would have to plan when this would happen. So, I approached my fiance about talking to my dad. This wouldn't be the "Can I have your daughter's hand in marriage?" type of conversation. He already had my hand. It would be a conversation more along the lines of "I hope you approve...blah, blah, blah."

My FH thought it would be a good idea to take my dad out to lunch to talk about our marriage. I flat out refused. My dad is like a brick wall, the conversation might be so awkard, I could just see plenty of things wrong with the scenario. My mom agreed.

Then brilliance struck me.

In the traditional Ethiopian way (my dad is from Adis Ababa), the future son-in-law spends the engagement period helping out the bride's father with different tasks and chores whenever the dad needs it. The groom can pretty much be at his beck and call. Now, my dad's too Americanized, stubborn, and prideful to ask for help. But!! I realized that the plans my parents had for re-doing our house this summer would be a big job. And so, I decided and then coached FH that he should come out and help us paint this past weekend to break the ice. He quickly agreed. I said at the very least, if there were awkard silences then they could just rely on painting instead of staring at eachother across a table at lunch.

So we painted all day Saturday (as evidenced by my FH pictured above). My dad greeted him with a big smile and we all got to work. The whole day passed, and while we were finishing up I nudged him to go talk to my dad while my mom conveniently called me into another room. The poor thing was a little nervous. Of course, my mom and I tried to eavesdrop. He started out by saying "Well, I know it may be a little late for this, but I just wanted to make sure I had your blessing as far as marrying your daughter, blah, blah, blah."

Then the two got quiet and to our frustration we couldn't hear much. But then we heard laughing and all was well. My dad then called me out, and said jokingly, "Well, he asked and I told him no. Then he said he was just kidding, gave me a hug and congratulated us again. Yes! We officially got Daddy's permission. The kicker?

At the end of the night he joked to my mom: "I got (My FH's name) to call me Dad before he called you Mom!"

I think I like this hairstyle...

Shout out to Buckeye Bride for the hair inspiration. I took this from her ideas section.

I'm rethinking the updo thing. I like the idea of soft curls to go with my dress, possibly to the side, and this side ponytail is cute. Maybe I could wear it down for the ceremony and as a ponytail like this picture at the reception.

I know I've been posting like crazy lately. It's because it's the summer! I justify it by saying it'll make up for when the school year starts back up and I have to post less.

Reception Dress- Little White Dress

So, I'm excited about the reception dress. Ooh, what will it be? These beauties were found at ardenb.com all for around $150 or less. I actually wanted a cocktail dress that was more fitted but I liked how 3 out of 4 of these actually matched the beading and bust style of my wedding dress. For some reason dress number two is my favorite (and the most expensive). Enjoy!

Our -1 Anniversary!

Lol. My mom came up with that term to mark today's date-which is one year from our wedding date. So the countdown begins!

3-6-5. I'm not too excited because it sounds far away. Maybe I'll be more excited at the 100 day mark.

And come to think of it, with this new -1 anniversary thing, does that mean next year on June 12th marks our zero? LOL. I'm a nerd.

I guess I'll say something noteworthy in this blog. My mom and I have been scoping out the weather so we can estimate what it would be like next year. It will be hot (I mean, this is Arizona) but the evenings are nice. And we didn't realize that the sun sets so late-yesterday it set at around 7:30 p.m. So since I wanted a sunset ceremony I'll have to backtrack on a 6:30 p.m. starting time.

Things like this make me glad I had 1 year+ to plan the wedding.

Updates!

So, this post will be a little scatter-brained but will feature some note-worthy updates I think you all should know.

1) Remember the post where I stated I won't do a father-daughter dance? Well, forget the statement. I underestimated my dad's willingness and have found out to my surprise and excitement that he would love to do the dance! And so Chrisette Michele's "Your Joy" it is.

2) I will not be using the Lauryn Hill song "Tell Him" to walk down the aisle to. After some discussion with my mother, we thought it might not set the right tone. Instead, we're opting for my first choice, "No One Else" by Amel Larrieuex. I'm happy about the decision because it was my first choice, and the words really relate to my FH and I.

3) I started a wedding website! Yay! I'm so happy because it matches our invitations and I think will be an important aspect for our guests. I'm not giving the adress out to anyone yet because I want to finish the basics. But I love it!

And tomorrow marks the year countdown to our wedding! Thanks for keeping up with my blog! That's all, folks!