I'm home! It's wonderful. I love my family oh so much! And I miss them when I'm away at school. I was convinced that when all my homework was over and done with, I'd have tons more time, more than I'd know what to do with, in fact!

False. I do not have any more time. However, I'm not sure where it disappeared to.

Probably the same place my other sock went. Home is like that.

I got home May 1st and started work on May 3rd. I figured that after 5, I would be free to focus on all the wedding-related tasks that are vying for my attention. Instead, I come home tired, and just want to chill with the rest of my family. Unfortunately, chilling with the fam in front of an NCIS turns into an NCIS marathon...and next thing you know it's 11:00 and Dave's calling. And I accomplished nothing. Except 3 rows on my super cute lace knit hat.

Basically I've accomplished nothing.

Now I've been home for 3 weeks. I got our invitations sent out the first week. Actually, there was a minor fiasco that went along with invitation sending, wanna hear it? I knew you did!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I designed our invitations myself. In case you missed them, here's a link to the post about the invitations and RSVP's, and here's the thank you cards.

Naturally, if I'm going to put that much work into my stationary, I'm not going to neglect the packaging! I planned on designing a cute envelope design when I got home and printing all the addresses on in a super-cute font to match the invites.

Unfortunately, when I got home, my computer crashed 3 or 4 times, and in the process of being fixed, became a vegetable (the operating system was removed, and the new one didn't work. Thankfully, it works now!). So, I lost my precious Adobe programs and had to design my envelopes in Microsoft Word. Not exactly the best graphics program.

When I finally got the graphics arranged in a passable manner, I tried to print our addresses. Unfortunately, I forgot that our printer is possessed by a paper-eating demon, which proceeded to eat several of my envelopes. By now it's about 11:30 pm, the day after I wanted them sent out.

I had just resigned myself to handwriting all 130+ addresses by myself, when dad saw me and felt sorry for me. So, he volunteered to print them at work for me the following day. I set up the documents as best as I could at that late hour, and sent them with him.

The next day, I received several calls from my family, trying to reach me. I finally call my dad back, and he explains to me that he didn't realize that the proper font wasn't installed before he started printing. He had printed about half the envelopes in some large, sans-serif font. Did I want him to continue?

I took a few cleansing breaths, and explained how to download the proper font, so that at least some of my envelopes could be saved. But, as was the habit of this particular project, it didn't work. His computer wouldn't let him unzip the file, so we were stuck with the large Ariel-style font. I told him to go ahead and print them.

So, at this point, we had 6 envelopes printed in the right font, about 20 that I had handwritten, and about 100 printed with this alien font. Mom and I stuffed and stamped them, and we sent them out the next day on our way to Virginia for my cousin's wedding.

After a whirlwind 3-day trip to Virginia (an 11 hour drive, one way), we came home, and I went back to work. The first few days, I was so beat after work that I couldn't do much more than sit on my bum when I got home. I slowly started recovering, and started realizing that I was getting married in 5 weeks, and still had more tasks to do than I could imagine.

That weekend, my Dad's side of the family threw me a bridal shower! It was lots of fun. My grandmas from both sides came, as well as all my aunts on that side, and most of my female cousins. The house was all decorated in pink and green (the colors of our  wedding!), right down to the ham salad sandwiches! I tell you what, when my Aunt Mary Jane throws a party, she throws it right!

Thankfully, they didn't deliberately try to embarrass me. However, the second game we played, "Bridal Jenga," got a little embarrassing. A lot embarrassing. They-talked-about-sex-in-front-of-my-grandmas embarrassing. Apparently the game, which was a regular Jenga game with questions written on about half the blocks, was made by one of my cousins for a bridal shower for a college friend a number of years ago. Some of these questions would have been awkward in that setting, but not the end of the world. However, when your grandma pulls the block that says, "Name two places (outside the bedroom) that you would like to have sex," and you and your grandma both are supposed to answer it...yikes!

I plead the fifth.

Overall, it was really fun! Showers are, by nature, rather awkward, what with getting all those gifts and such, but I had fun. And it was nice to see so much of the family again. I've missed a lot of family events being off at school.

That night (Saturday), Dave came up to visit with Wes and his new bride, Shele. They were up for around 24 hours, to visit their grandparents who are home from the mission field for about a month. I spent all day Sunday with Dave, and got home late that night. Monday I was back at work.

Weekends here are NOT relaxing. Just saying.

This week, I decided that doing wedding planning in the evenings wasn't going to work, so I told my boss that I needed Friday's off, starting immediately. I worked Monday through Wednesday this week, then stayed home sick/played hooky with my bestest buddy yesterday. (I was actually sick, she played hooky. And we ate mint oreos and watched the best movie ever made: Anne of Green Gables).

Today I contacted several people in an attempt to chase down information I need for planning this big shindig we have coming up in less than a month.

Oh yeah, did I mention that? This week Wednesday was the one-month mark. Freak out time!! Ahh!! So much to do, and no time to do it!!

So, right now my biggest things to tackle are the cake (with me being out of the state for school, the cake got overlooked until it was too late and all the bakers in the area are booked full for June, so we're gonna make it ourselves), flowers (we're making our own bouquets using silk flowers, but I haven't decided yet what they should look like), ceremony decorations (which, by the way, I could still use suggestions for!), ceremony music, reception layout/decor, makeup, photography, music, hairstylists, shoes (which I don't have yet! eep!), and probably about 100 other things that I'm forgetting.

Oy vey. Buckle up kids, this should be fun!

And to think, at the end of this, I'll be a wife. That totally hasn't sunk in yet. Not sure it will for another year or so. That's about when I'll wake up when I finally get the chance to stop.

Just thought I'd give you a little taste of what's inspiring me for my wedding! I wish I could tell you where all of these pictures came from, but since I've been collecting them from blogs, Google images, and wedding planning websites for the past year, I have no clue!

Cute picnic food! (Left to Right) Very adorable way to serve drinks! LOVE the boxed lunches! I may look into seeing what we can do in this area, as it is so darn cute! The ice cream and fruit sandwitches look soo yummy! I showed you this cake before, and it is just so summery; it is, after all, strawberry shortcake! This jar is the cutest way to serve lemonade; I'd love to do pink lemonade with pieces of real strawberries (instead of the lemons)...a favorite of mine, and very yummy! These lolli-pops and rock candy favors are just too cute! Watermelon and ice cream are absolute MUSTS for picnic anything :-)

Picnic design ideas! (Left to Right) LOVE LOVE LOVE this; I don't know that it will work practically, but I love the look of picnic blankets on the ground! Bocce ball is just one idea we have of fun picnic games. These hay bales and quilts would make for a fun lounge area to rest tired dancing feet! Wildflowers are a perfect fit! lately, I have loved the idea of mix-matched china...maybe not for eating off of, but as serving dishes? adorable. These wooden signs could totally be used everywhere! Since our ceremony location is only 2 miles from our reception location, they could even point the way! Mason jars are adorable, and I totally want to use them to decorate the reception! And this photobooth...adorable! Daddy's gonna help me build one!

I spend way too much time collecting photos that inspire me, hopefully this little taste will inspire you, too!

As of today, we have 100 days left until our wedding! It's crazy that it's coming up so quickly! That's only a few days over 3 months...when we got engaged we had 14 long months to go! It's amazing how fast the time has flown!

Last week, I was home for spring break. My main goals for the week were to finish--and send to print--the invitations; to look at bridesmaids dresses; to look at flower, cake, and decor options; as well as other general wedding planning.

I got the invitations done and sent to the printer (along with the RSVP cards, but I guess that's all included under the "Invitation" umbrella). We looked at bridesmaid dresses, and actually ordered all 4! One has even come in already! I went to look at silk flowers to see if they'd be an option. We didn't get much done on the cake front, unfortunately, and since decor isn't as urgent as other things, it's been pushed off to a later date.

But ever since the beginning of last week, my mind has been going overtime with wedding ideas and stresses. I've come up with numerous different food ideas, found decor inspiration, reconciled my ideal seating with the practical (at least in my mind...we'll see what the other ever-practical planners have to say about it), and thought through song ideas almost constantly. Even when I'm in class, I'm distracted by quaint images of icream cone-clutching children, watermelon slices, and blankets in the shade. I have 10 different idea lists in every imaginable place, becaus if I think of something I don't want to forget it!

I was hoping to run through a lot of these ideas this weekend, and possibly do something about some of them, however school obligations have come up (that I knew about, but didn't have in the front of my mind) and we'll see what all I actually get done.

How about you? Did your brain go over-time when you realized how close your wedding was getting? Or are you in the throes of it now? How do you stay focused on everyday tasks with something as interesting as a wedding on your mind?

Dave's brother Wes got married this weekend to a wonderful girl named Michele. This has been a long time coming, and we were all so excited to share in their wedding!

Originally they had planned on eloping (if one can "plan" to elope...), but her family talked her into a small ceremony. Wes' parents were unable to attend as they are missionaries in Africa, and can't exactly stop in for weekend visits. To solve this problem, the happy couple will be going to Africa for their honeymoon and having another small ceremony there so his parents can attend.

They got engaged on December 30, so their wedding plans came together quickly! Shele already had a dress, so that part wasn't an issue, and they had one attendant each. Will, Wes' identical twin, was the best man, and Beth, Shele's younger sister, was the maid of honor. Coordinating matching outfits for one is easy!

They chose a lovely bed and breakfast in our area and rented it out for both the ceremony and the reception. The bride also stayed there the night before the wedding.

The ceremony was a very short affair at 1:30, after which they had a lovely hors doeuvers reception. They had scones, finger sandwitches, and the cutest collection of china tea cups with a selection of loose teas.

And the cake.

Can you believe she made that herself?? I don't know when she found the time! It was absolutely beautiful.

They had a short time for dancing, kicking it off with their first dance and the father-daughter dance. The rest of the dancing consisted of the "couples songs" of the various couples in attendance! Grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters all heard their first dance song dedicated to them in a tribute to the wonderful families supporting Wes and Shele. It was absolutely adorable.

Dave has a small wedding DJ business, so Wes asked him to DJ for the reception. This is the first wedding I have attended that he has DJed, and I learned a few very important things.

First of all, when the DJ is your date, you never dance to the end of a song. At least not when he has improvised his set-up to deal with the limited space availiable.

Secondly, when set-up is improvised and space is limited, problems are more likely to occur. A cable went bad in the middle of a song, and Dave is convinced that it wouldn't have happend with a sound board. And when things go wrong he feels personally responsible.

I also learned that I'm really bad at encouraging when I am tired. And I was tired. I meant my encouragement to sound like this: "I love you darling dearest mister! I think you did a beautiful job at the wedding, and the music was fine. The small kinks that happened are the sort of things that happen, and they certainly didn't ruin the wedding! Everyone was happy and still dancing after it was fixed, and it was wonderful!"

Instead, it ended up sounding more like this: "It was FINE. Nobody cares. It was great. Shush. I'm tired. Take me home."

Aren't I a good encourager?

Speaking of minor wedding snafus, we arrived on location (I came with Wes and company), Beth came down the stairs and asked Wes if he had the ring. Needless to say, Wes hurriedly sent someone home after that very important band. Also, shortly before the ceremony, he realized that he had forgotten the marriage license. So after the ceremony someone else ran back and picked that up.

But over all, the wedding was beautiful. The reception was only about 2 hours long, but it was perfect. It was a day full of loved ones for Wes and Shele, and a wonderful time for all of us, witnessing the ultimate expression of their love for each other. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Wes' parents could have been there!

Wedding. Bride. Groom. White. Dress. Cake.

Those things just go together. It wouldn't be a wedding without a bride, and (many would argue) that it wouldn't be a proper reception without a cake. I am no great lover of cakes, but I do want a wedding cake (along with a delightful desert bar, of course!). It just provides so many wonderful decorating and photo opportunities. It is often the centerpiece of a reception hall. And the photos of the bride and groom cutting the cake--priceless! Of course, Dave and I will not be smashing cake in the others face; the tradition of feeding cake to each other shows trust, and how can you trust someone who grinds frosting into your meticulously applied makeup?

but thats a different story for a different time.

The dilemma facing us today is this: I can't figure out what sort of wedding cake I want! Not flavor-wise...honestly, except for that first bite I don't know that I'll eat any. I'd rather focus on the cheesecake and cookies. I just can't find a cake design that fits.

Now, this cake I fell in love with years ago. No joke. Mom brought home a wedding magazine one day just for us to read for fun. Boys, you probablly won't understand this, but girls like reading things like wedding magazines, even if they're in high school and aren't engaged.

Especially if they're in high school and aren't engaged.

Anyway, here's the cake:


LOVE IT!! It's designed by Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes, although I don't think she makes this particular cake any more. But this cake is just so, so...perfect! It's whimsical, fun, and very out of the ordinary. When I said I fell in love with it, I totally mean it. I just keep coming back to this cake.

Unfortunately, besides not being made anymore (I think), the bakery is in NYC, costs $20 per slice and couldn't be shipped even if I had that kind of dough. So, sadly, this dream cake is out of the question.

Now, since neither Dave nor I are great lovers of cake in general, my next thought was skip the cake all together!

I like pie.

Unfortunately, pie is messy. And I agree with my mother: for many people, it's not a wedding unless there's cake. The fact that I do not eat wedding cake obviously isn't important here. I still want a wedding cake.

So, since I want a cake and a desert bar, I'm aiming for a fairly small cake. Two, maybe three (small) tiers, to feed 50-80 people. I've been looking at cake pictures on every wedding website imaginable, and some of them are so ugly! So, I'm kind of striking out. I can't figure out what I want.

I found this one, which isn't very pretty, but looks so yummy! For a cake this simple, tho, I can't imagine hiring a baker. There's not even frosting on it. But it's peaked my interest, if only because Strawberry Shortcake is one of my favoritest deserts ever!

Yum.

Anyway, I am completely indecisive. I know where I'm going to order my cake from, but beyond that, I'm stumped. Suggestions? Adorable, whimsical, non-ugly cakes to send my way? Or perhaps totally ugly cakes to make me smile (this is almost completely unrelated, but this site is awesome). Whatever you've got, I'd love to hear about it!