Entertaining Exhaustion

Entertaining is exhausting. I just cooked and cleaned and baked all weekend for a holiday party and feel completely depleted! I know that the preparation and cooking can be exhausting but the conversations, worrying, and vigalance good hosting requires always tires me out more. Not to motion the effect of the wine, sugar, and cheese I consume. It's not not I am complaining, I love parties and am so grateful to all of my guests. It's just that I worry that on my wedding day I am going to be so exhausted from an all day entertaining I won't get to enjoy the small moments of the day.Luckily, I will not be cooking and cleaning the day of my wedding, but I know I will be required to be a gracious bride and entertain our guest. I can already feel the exhaustion. Hopefully, it will be tempered by a glow of excitement and love. Because it is the holiday season and I am fresh off the heels of a lovely holiday event here a delicious and warming hot cider that will ease and please!

Hot Brandy Cider

2 cups Orange Juice
4 1/2 cups apple cider
2 1/2 cups cranberry juice
4 tablespoons cinnamon
3 cinnamon sticks
10 cloves
6 -12 ounces of Brandy ( depending on crowd, mood, and preference)
Orange slices

Combine the first six ingredients in a large pot and heat on medium for 25-30 minutes. Reduce heat. Remove cloves. Add brandy and garnish with orange slices. Serve hot.

After heating the first six ingredients I poured mine into a big punch bowl.

E-Pics

As promised I will reveal out STD options. But first a little background. Shortly after our engagement I began to look at photographers for engagement photos. I wasn't even sure what people did with engagement photos, I just knew I wanted them. On a whim I searched craigslist and stumbled upon a fortuitous posting.A photographer looking to expand her portfolio was looking for a fun-loving couple to photograph for FREE. I replied immediately and figure best case scenario we would have great pictures, worse case scenario we would get a dress rehearsal for our engagement pictures. Turns out it was the best case. We were lucky enough to work with lovely Amber Knowles. On one lovely April day we got up super early headed over to ...where else.. the Brooklyn Bridge. I decided I didn't want to be too dressed up so I went with a simple yellow Jcrew dress and blue cardigan. I let the fiance choose his own attire but told him to pick a blue shirt. Overall I was pretty happy with our look. So without further ado... a sample of our E-pics.















Thanks again to the wonderful Amber Knowles. One of these lovely photos has become our Save the Date. Any guesses?

Feeling the Pressure

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. I know I did. Over Thanksgiving a significant milestone passed..the 200 day mark. If that wasn't pressure enough I was met with many a "How's the planning going?", "Did you book a DJ ?", "I haven't receive the STD yet" from family members eager to hear about the progress of our wedding. I'll admit it. I was feeling the pressure big time.

After getting the big things out of the way my planning slowed a bit. Plus- all the stress with my fiance's health left a couple of projects up in the air. It's not that I haven't done anything, its just that I haven't really finished anything. Well, today I decided it was time to slay a couple of big dragons starting with our STD. We have created three different STD layouts a couple of months ago but have yet to decide on one. I will scan all three for you all to see!

But- before all that can happen we had to complete the following boring and tedious tasks:

1. finish our wedding website
2. finish our prelim. guest list
3. Update names and addresses

All three needed to be complete ASAP, so this morning the fiance and I buckled down and got to work. I have been engaged long enough to know just how many wedding planning products and websites there were out there - so I knew there would be something out there that would help me streamline the process.

I figured I would start with by looking at 3 websites I knew offered free websites/planning pages:
Martha Stewart Weddings
MyWedding
theknot.com

I started with Martha because I heard good things about the planning tools and I figured I visit the website weekly anyway so it would be nice if all of my tools were there as well. First thing I realized is that although there were lots of nice planning tools, there was no wedding website option. I was hoping that they had partnered with a hosting website but no luck. This was a BIG strike for me. I am trying to minimize the accounts, subscriptions, and log-ins I have so I really wanted a one- stop shopping place. I tried out some of the tools anyway, but I was unimpressed. The layout was too corporate for me and reminded me of Microsoft Outlook and the guest list manager tool wouldn't work on my Mac. No Martha for me.

Next I tried Mywedding.com, a free website hosting site that promised to link your website with planning tools. At first the page looks really promising. It had a modern hop layout that fit my sense of style. It seems to have lots of tools and our website address would not be very long...just mywedding.com/mynamehisnameourlastname . They also offer layouts from Hello Lucky and Wedding Paper Divas. All seemed great until I actually started the design of the site. First - you can't change color, font, or layout. It is not very flexible in terms of photo size or font. Finally, I realized that all of the "tools" were really more like advertisements. It basically asked you to provide lots of information so they could "match" you with vendors . More importantly it had no guest list manager. Not mywedding.

Finally I landed at theknot. So many of us start our wedding journeys at theknot. I know I did. It was the first place I went to after I was engaged and the launching pad for so many of my wedding plans. But, once I discovered so many other blogs, I sort of forgot about theknot. I hadn't been back in awhile and began to think of it as the "costco " of wedding blogs. But- I gave it a shot. Right away I noticed that it had a lot of nicely designed layouts and a lot of flexibility on colors and font. It took me a while to figure out how to link and add extra pictures but in the end I got it. It also links to their guest list manager - which is awesome. As guest RSVP on the website it will check them off on my list. The guest list also allows you to classify guest as "family" , "wedding party", "single", or "out of town" and then make lists. You can also generate lots of invite lists for the shower, rehearsal dinner, and brunch. After a long day of work the fiance and I managed to use all of theknot's offerings and created a very lovely wedding website and a very manageable and up to date guest list database. The only downside was our wedding website address was way too long:
www.theknot/ourwedding/johnandmarytomac ( or something like this)

So the fiance had the great idea to buy a domain name and redirect it to the site. While johnandmary.com was $2000, maryandjohnswedding.com was only $ 10. Hooray!

In the end theknot.com really came through and me and the fiance had a very productive day. The website is not totally finished but if you want you should ch-ch-check it out.

MaryandJohnswedding.com

Scents of the season

The holidays are here!! I personally prefer the Thanksgiving scents to the piney and berry scents of Christmas. One of my favorite things to bring to a holiday party is a scented jar candle like these from Yankee Candle. This season they have some new scents like :


Yum. I can smell them from here. But my all time favorite is pumpkin pie. D. Licious.

It makes me jealous of Autumn brides. I bet they would make great favors.

Veils are Funny

I considered many "punny" titles for this post, but I thought I would spare you all and tell you how I really feel. Veils are funny. It is definitely the most costumey aspect of bridal wear. Maybe a hunded years ago when it was more common for women to wear hats, veils on a bride seemed more natural. For someone who never wears hats or headbands or really any other head related gear- veils are not only funny but a little scary. I have already posted about my hair issues and veils just complicate this more.

In a perfect world I would get one of those ever-so-trendy birdcage veils as they are chic and non-obtrusive.
But, my dress really doesn't call for chic or 1940's. It would seem too disjointed and anachronistic.

I know I want something that fastens lower on my head, preferably with a flower or hairpiece. These seem delicate:


But again, the don't seem formal enough for an evening wedding. This look is formal and modern:
But I do not have a cute short bob. I have lots and lots of curls and I think this look wouldn't work with my curly bun.

These are the looks I am going for now. I would also like to some how incorporate the lace from my mother's wedding veil, but more on that later.





I would still remove the veil for the reception and replace it with a flower or hairpiece. What do you think?

Reason 628

Reason 628 I am against outdoor wedding in tents.

Target-ed Gift Giving

I love Target. This is no secret. As a city slicker, I use to love to travel to the 'burbs purely so I could go to Target. I love their low prices and trendy gear. I love filling my cart with a bra, black dress pants, macaroni and cheese, body wash, and a Happy Third Birthday Card. It is convient, fast and a good value. We have ( and still are) considered registering at Target for a few items if our registry grows slim. At our wonderful engagement party a couple of family members gifted us with Target gift cards and Bank gift cards. Somehow, I managed to not blow them on fun un-wedding related products. Good thing too because today I discovered this part of the Target Website. I had no idea they offered wedding planning products.

Holy Cow- a whole new reason to love!

Look at these adorable boxes for bridesmaids and groomsmen gifts:


Adorable bags


Lots and lots of candles for my candlepieces


Table Numbers


and.....THESE!!

Love it!! I haven't decided just want to get yet, but it is so exciting to know they have low price, high quality goods for weddings too.