Wow...this week's been absolutely crazy! I had the school paper to layout over the weekend, and have been playing catch-up in my classes all week. Actually, I'm still catching up. I shouldn't be here. Shhh...don't tell!

But I simply had the urge to tell whomever cares to listen about something wedding related today.

You know, when I started blogging about planning my wedding, I did so mainly because I knew that if a friend of mine were planning her wedding, I'd love to know what's going on in her planning process! I love juicy details about fun stuff like this. This was also my thought process behind posting pictures of (almost) every wedding gown I tried on, and those were a hit! (I say "almost," because the very last time I went in, it was on a whim, and I didn't have a camera with me. Sad day, my friends.) Here's a link to those, just in case you missed them: And the Bride Wore...

Anyway, because I've been so busy, wedding stuff has unfortunately been placed on the back burner. I'd so much rather plan my wedding than do my homework, but what cand you do? I haven't accomplished anything significant or interesting in the past few days, but still want to talk about it, because it's fun! So I thought I could instead show you some of the things that have been on my mind lately.

Dave and I have been trying to finalize our registry lately, but as I said before, I over think things like this. You don't even want to know how many times I have changed the colors of our kitchen towels, or the number of salt shakers I have looked at. But this overthinking is not all negative. I am enjoying the process of picking and choosing many of the elements of our future home together, making sure it will represent us!

For example, this little treasure is adorable! Totally fun, and something that is just weird (and, OK, childish) enough that it would make perfect sense to find it my our future home.

However, I cannot justify spending (or asking someone to spend) $37.99 on salt and pepper shakers! But it made my day just to see them. Seriously. You can't look at those monkeys and not smile!

Another thing I have realized through all this overthinking is that I want everything to be perfect (which should be obvious...as I am a perfectionist...hence the overthinking...). I want to know going in that everything I have works together, and that instead of trying to find things that "work," I can have a theme and find things that "go." For example, the kitchen towels that I spent so much time mulling over? The reason for that was that I decided I wanted a kitchen with subtle pink accents (not a grandma kitchen, but enough that it looks like me!). I figured it couldn't be too hard to find pink towels to match this:

But pink things aparently only exist in October (Breast Cancer Awareness Month), and on Valentines Day. This is very sad news for a pink lover like me! So, we decided to get pretty green towels for now, and I can add other pink accents as we go along.

So that's what's been on my mind lately! Hope it entertains you and/or tides you over until I get something wedding-related done!

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?

Last time I talked about bridesmaid dresses, I was still waiting on one lovely lady, Miss Holly, to pick out her dress. She did that this past weekend, and here's her dress!



This dress is totally cute, and Holly seems to like it! Now, there are a few things you need to know about Holly. She doesn't wear pink, and she doesn't wear dresses. However, she loves me more than her pride, and has agreed to wear a pink dress for me! Isn't she awesome?

Another thing that I have promised updates for is our website. I showed you a picture of it as we were designing it, and promised I'd post a link once it was online. Here it is! daveandrachel2010.com

Let me know what you think! I think there's still one or two pages in progress, so if there is Latin gibberish, or information looks silly and/or incomplete, it's probably not done yet.

Finally, I'd like to show you our invitations! I've been working on them for a really long time, and I'm really happy with the result! We sent them into the printer early last week, and should be getting them back in a month or so.

This is the invitation:
It will be printed in a #10 size, which is the size of a standard business envelope! Totally nontraditional, funky, and fun! It will be flat printed on white linen-texture paper.

Here's the RSVP:

It will be printed in A1 size, (basically tiny enough to fit in the business envelope), also flat printed on linen textured paper. I'm super excited to get them back!

I'm thinking about adding thank you cards on to our order, because it won't cost any more than buying generic, mass-produced thank you cards to have them custom printed, and I could get them to match the rest of our stationary!

I'm so excited to see everything coming together!

I'm home on spring break this week. Yeah, I know, this snowy winter wonderland is hardly the place for the 'ideal' college spring break...no beaches, bikinis, or burns (the last one is a good thing at least!). None the less, I am home, and it's nice to relax! I've been able to visit with friends, finish up the invitations (!!! I'll have to show those off later), get more registering done (with Emily, MOH extraordinaire), and kick back and relax.

One of the biggest accomplishment so far this week has been ordering 3 of the 4 bridesmaid dresses! I have 4 bridesmaids, and each of them is a different shape and size. They're all gorgeous, but they don't all look the same. So, because a happy girl is a pretty girl, I never considered making them all wear the same dress. Instead, I picked a color at David's Bridal (guava), and told them to get knee-length dresses. Beyond that, it was up to them. We've been in several times before, and not found anything. Usually at least one of the girls was cranky or would have rather been somewhere else, which doesn't make for a pleasant shopping experience! At our last excursion, Emily decided on the dress she wanted, so Monday while we were out, we ran in, she tried it on again in a better size, and ordered it.

Here it is:
Now, this isn't Emily. I have a picture of Emily in this dress, but it's a horrible color, and the wrong size. So instead of putting that horrendous picture (and many others like it!) up, I thought I'd show you the dresses in the proper color on models.

This dress is uber-cute, comfy, and makes Emily look like a babe! Well, she is anyway, but it just fits her so well! It hugs all the right places, the neckline is a fantastic shape, and the hemline is a great length for her! She was really excited about it after trying it on over Christmas, and this week she finally ordered it.

Sarah and Hannah didn't fall in love with anything like Emily did (of course, that is the nature of Emily. She is always in love with something...when I was shopping for my dress, she had three picked out...for her. She's decided to plan a wedding and plug in a groom later!). They each had a few to come back to, but nothing they couldn't live without. This week, we went back, and both of them found something they love! This is what Sarah decided on:
It looks awesome on her! It accentuates her amazing legs, and the awesome heels she is so fond of will look amazing with this dress (Sarah loves fun shoes!). The halter ties behind and hangs like a gauzy scarf down her back. It fits her like a strapless dress (which she loves) but has a neckline for added interest (which I love), and everybody's happy!

Hannah had quite a few choices, because everything is cute in a 2. However, because she is petite, she had trouble with quite a few of the dresses. Many of them were too long or shaped wrong for her adorable frame. This is the one she decided on:

It makes her look so grown-up!

We decided that everyone will wear silver shoes, this way they're not stuck with ugly dyed shoes in this pink, because it will never match anything, ever again. I hope the pink isn't too awful, it actually looks much better in person, it's richer, brighter maybe. These pictures look like bubblegum, the actual color is somewhere between a cirius fruit and a jewel tone.

I'm super excited about everybody's dresses! I wanted to make sure each girl felt good in her dress (believe it or not, I didn't want to end up in the ugly bridesmaid dress hall of fame). Hopefully the color is ok, but I think everyone but Holly likes it (Holly actually doesn't like pink, or dresses, but because she loves me, she's agreed to wear both for my wedding!).

Holly is the last girl left to order her dress...and when she decides, I'll let you know what she picked!

So, I'm 20, right? And I'm engaged. Apparently a lot of people think that's awfully young to be getting married. Maybe for some people it is, but for us, it's just right. And I don't appreciate being looked down on because I'm young. I know tons of people who got married young and made it work wonderfully!

Rant over.

Anyway, I've been looking for wedding dresses, and I'm having this problem (besides being the most indecisive bride of all time, that is): I don't want to look too young. I am drawn to the more "princessy" ball gowns...partly because that's what I've always envisioned and partly because they're just plain pretty. But because I'm so young, I'm afraid it looks like I'm just trying to play dress up. Then I'm also drawn to the sleeker, more fitted ones...the ones that show that I am grown up, and maybe even make me look older; at least more sophisticated.

What do you think? Does it look like dress up? I think all the dresses are equally "bridal."

Here's some examples.

Today, I went shopping! I love shopping...especially when I have money to spend AND actually find something. Today was both. Yay me! (Oh Disney channel...what have you done to my life?) Anyway, today I hit up my favorite store, Plato's Closet and dug through all the shirts and dresses looking for cute summer deals...and I found one!

It's darling! Well, ok so it looks better on me than on the hanger...but still. It's adorable. Except it had one big problem...
(This is a dramatization. Do not try this at home.)

It had a black spot on the bodice! Seeing as how once I put this dress on I fell in love with it, I decided to take a chance on it. I asked the girl at the sales counter if I could have a discount on it as it was damaged, and she said yes and that when the dress came in a day or so ago it had no spot.

This means 1, it's a fresh spot and 2, most likely makeup. Now, I know nothing about stain removal. At all. Usually I have a little funeral for whatever I'm wearing when I eat Italian food. But, I do know about makeup removal! And I knew that the best way to get eye makeup off (which is very stubborn stuff!!) is to use special eye makeup remover.

So, when I got home, I got out the little pads we have to use for this very purpose. And guess what...
...it worked like a charm :-)