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!

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!

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!

When Dave and I went registering a few weeks ago, I got totally stressed out. We spent way too long in the store, and I way over-thought things, and then changed everything online that night anyway!

And we only got through the kitchen. Correction: mostly through the kitchen. We didn't even register for everything we needed for that one room.

Now, before you go off thinking I'm a crazy lady, let me just say that the store we were in was quite small, and had an extremely limited selection. Which would actually make it easer for most women to decide.

Now you can call me a crazy lady.

Anyway, our excursion of several weeks ago is not my topic today. Today my topic is kitchen towels.

Mom sent me an email yesterday asking where I registered and specifically what color(s) I wanted in my kitchen. We had decided on awesome black and white dishes, but we tend to be pretty colorful people and mom needed a color for something. Unfortunately, the towels that the store we registered in were tan. Actually, they were called latte, which is a fancy word for expensive coffee and tan towels. Here's a picture:
So, this evening, Dave and I got on the internet and browsed the sites of the stores we are registering at, looking for exciting towels (to-be-weds are an odd group...for a month our idea of "quality time" was sitting in his cubicle after dinner and browsing for dishes on his computer).

I found these at Macy's, by Martha Stewart:They also come in a bright red. These I love. They are such a pretty color, and then Martha Stewart has a whole line of kitchen products, so I could accent with a blue spatula or bright mixing bowls, and have it all still match! I like matching. So we added them to our registry.

One big, ugly oozy problem: these towels (and the matching striped ones) are it! In the blue, there is no oven mit and no pot holder, and there are no wash cloths for neither blue nor red.

That's a problem. Then not everything will match!

So we unadded them to our registry, and continued to look elsewhere.

We ended up with the red version of the origional Latte towels. While they're not vibrant, Martha Stewart red, they still work, and have all the necessary pieces.

I just don't love them. Is that weird that I want to love my towels? I guess it's my house, and if I get to pick the way it look I really want to pick the way it looks! I don't want to settle for just OK.

Honestly, what I would love would be some light pink towels, to match my Kitchen Aid Mixer. I don't want a whole pink kitchen, but the stainless steel/chrome appliances we've already registered for as well as the black utensils and the black and white plates would look nice with a small amount of pink!

Two problems: one, I can't find pink anything anywhere. I don't want a pink toaster or refrigerator or anything, I'd settle for a pink towel set! Two, I promised Dave I wouldn't decorate his house in pink. But I think I can justify this one with the mixer color that he chose for me!

Any advice? We're currently registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and Macy's, an we're planning on registering at Target. Our kitchen badly needs color, and I don't know where to look!

I love Valentines day! Really, does it get any better than a day devoted to love, pink, and chocolate?

Didn't think so :-)

This is only our second Valentines Day actually together...even though it's the fourth since we've been dating. For the first two, I was still living at home with my parents and Dave was going to school here. Last year, we went out to dinner and a movie, which was fun, and this year Dave pulled out all the stops!

I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. He kind of tried to tell me what to wear, but that didn't help me much...I dress up so rarely that I wanted it to be perfect!

Here's what I ended up wearing:




Don't worry...I didn't wear the slippers on our date :-)

We went out on Saturday, even though V-Day was actually Sunday. Dave had to work until 4, which gave me time to sleep in AND primp! Win-win!

I grabbed his gift, which I had wrapped in newspaper and written "I love you" all over in multiple different languages (corny, I know. But I had no wrapping paper! And I had plenty of newspaper...) and headed for his car.

When I got in the car, he explained how our plans had changed (which meant nothing to me, because I knew nothing of the plans in the first place!). He said we'd run up to his house, pick up my present and a chocolate pie (yum!), and head over to Michele's apartment (she is Dave's brother Wes' fiance (Dave lives with Wes for 2 more weeks until Wes gets married)) because his house was in the process of being torn apart and repainted. There we would exchange presents, watch a movie, and eat dessert. Then our dinner reservation was later so we'd do dessert first, then dinner!

When we got to his house, I saw my roses! Yay! I love having flowers!! We picked up the chocolate pie (yum!) and he grabbed my present and off we went! At the apartment, we exchanged gifts. I gave him this photo, blown up to a poster and framed:


It's one of our engagement pictures that I had photoshopped, and I knew that he really liked it.

Then he gave me my present.

A photobook of our engagement! He borrowed some of what I wrote on it originally, and added his own comments and perspectives.


Then after he told the story, he put in some of our favorite engagement pictures! But the back is my favorite:

"And so it begins..." I don't believe there is a more appropriate caption for that picture. Ever.

But wait. It gets cuter! On the spine, he put simply "2009." He said this is so we can make a new one every year with the highlights of that year! Ahh!!! I am simply melting from the cuteness! Isn't my Mister awesome?

He also told me that he had signed us up for ballroom dancing lessons! I've been wanting to take these with him since...forever. I've always wanted to take a class before I got married so that I'd know what to do on that dance floor! We had our first lesson tonight, we're taking it with Wes and Michele, as well as Dave's soon-to-be-roommate, Jim and his girlfriend Emily (Jim and Wes work together at the YMCA, where the class is held).

Then he told me to keep opening my present. It was a gift bag with lots of tissue paper, and right at the bottom was the movie "The Time Traveler's Wife." I've been wanting to see it ever since it came out, and this was our Valentine's movie! So much better than going to an uncomfortable theater, in my opinion!

We then cut our pie, made some tea, and watched our movie. It was incredible. I would recommend it. There are some butts though...watch out for that. But otherwise a very good romantic chick-flick.

When our movie was done, we dashed off to the Seasons Bistro and Grille. Amazing. This was a cute/fancy/hole-in-the-wall place with amazing food. Delicious. Delectable. Mouth watering. I had the Poultry Pot Pie, and it was with out a doubt the best pot pie I've ever had.

After our romantic, candle-lit dinner, we wen't back to Dave and Wes' house (soon to be Wes and Shele's...hence the reason it was a construction zone) and played with their puppy and Will and Anna's dog (Will is Wes' twin...Anna is Will's wife. I should do a post about the fantastic, alibet confusing, families we come from. That may be helpful!). We were playing with the dogs because the other four were in the kitchen painting and cleaning and sorting and sweating, and none of that sounded fun for me in my pretty dress.

We had an amazing Valentine's date, and I look forward to many more in the future!

So, one of my profs hung a bunch of these up on the bulletin board in our news room today...sooo funny! They're from a blog called 10,000 Words, and I thought I'd share my favorites with you :-)


Those are cute, but this is my absolute favorite!


Aww...sap :-)

Share these with a writer close to your heart...it'll make them smile!

About the time I decided to design my own invitations, the creative bug bit me. This is weird because I've never been a very creative person. I love to make things, but mostly I like to follow patterns (this is why I'm still scratching my head over my decision to get a graphic design minor. It just doesn't fit).

Anyway, when I realized that I could have complete control over my invitations if I designed them myself, I got pretty excited. I'm a little bit of a type-A personality, and having control over something like my invitations makes me feel more secure. And, designing my own invitations made me want to use this new-found talent and design everything. And I mean everything. At some point through this whole wedding planning process I have considered how I can personalize or unify almost every part of the wedding. Thankfully, besides the stationary, the only one I've stuck with personally designing is our website.

Every wedding web site worth its salt offers brides a free personalized wedding web site. This is a place for the bride and groom to post information and directions for the guests, as well as provide an alternate way to RSVP, and acts as a socially acceptable way to get registry information out there. I've signed up for multiple wedding sites, and looked into every personal web site availiable, always looking for one that would let me put my own design or template into it. None of them let me.

Normal girls would take this as a sign, pick a pretty pink-flowered pre-made template, and get on with her life.

Normal girls would do that. I have never been a normal girl. So I didn't do this. Want to know what I did instead?

Yeah, I know you do. You can't resist my strangeness.

I talked to my loving fiance about this dilemma. I told him how I wanted a site that was just so "us," and one didn't exist out there. About how everyone had a web site, and we weren't going to be any different, but how I wanted our web site to be a first glimpse for our guests into our wedding day, and some pre-made pink-flowered template with someone else's loving phrase scrawled across the top wouldn't cut it.

Yeah, I know. That's low.

Anyway, the past two weeks we've been designing and building our very own personalized wedding web site. A wed site, if you will (hehe...sometimes I make myself laugh. I understand if I didn't make you laugh. It really wasn't that funny). Now, it's almost done, and we're almost ready to put it on the web!

I'll give you a sneak peek:


This is just the designing part...my part. Dave is using his mad skills to turn it into a web site instead of a static image. But it was super fun do design! I did the whole thing in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

So now it's almost done, and we'll put it up as soon as we can decide on a domain name! Dave basically gave me the job of picking one, and I don't know what to use! So, I'd love your help. We've thought about using stephenswedding.com, which would work. Or we could do something like daveandrachel.com. Or even wearesomuchinloveitspilledoverandmadeawebsite.com. Perhaps picnicwithteawhodoesthat.com.

See why I need your help? It's pretty bad. So give me your ideas, if they're better than mine (is it possible to be worse than mine?) maybe we'll use them!

Then I'll definently give you all a link here when it goes up! There's some super cool content on there! I'm just so excited to show it off!