This is aksunflower's Green Wedding!

I had my fitting on Sunday. My feet started hurting in my shoes, which I suppose is a good thing to find out at this point! I ordered some heel inserts to remedy that. I haven't really been able to break in my shoes since my apartment has carpet and I don't want to get them dirty wearing them on the concrete outdoors. Or have my neighbors wonder why I was walking around in circles in jeans and amazing heels outdoors lol.

I was so happy to be in my gown again! I wouldn't go as far to say I was having "dress regret", but I was starting to second guess myself considering we purchased it over a year and a half ago and I haven't tried it on since! I was beginning to wonder, "Was it really THAT pretty?" "Didn't my proportions look weird in it?" "Is Terence going to think it looks silly?", etc. Luckily all those worries were put to rest once I slipped into it again!

It is VERY pretty, my proportions looked fine, and Terence is going to LOVE it.

I just picked up my wedding band last Thursday. I am sooo in love with it! I can barely leave it alone... I keep pulling it out of my jewelry box and gawking at it ha ha!

I ordered two wedding bands before this, but I couldn't make myself love them. So I returned them! They were both plain bands because I was afraid that having a band w/ stones paired w/ my engagement ring would look gawdy or "too much". But since I chose an eternity band w/ bezeled stones I think the extra metal makes it look lovely instead of over the top! I love it w/ my engagement ring and w/o, which was important to me.

Is this normal? Did other women seriously sit down and think for months what their wedding perfume would be? Ha ha...

Well regardless of if it's normal or not, that's what I did. I searched high and low for a fragrance that would be "The One". In fact, one perfume who's even named The One (By D&G) was a very strong contender despite the cheesy name. However, I was very picky about what I wanted my perfume to be and my top requirements were:

1. Cruelty free was a MUST.
2. It had to be a warm scent. For some reason my skin makes every perfume I've tried smell "warm" or heated up. Scents with citrus and other fruity smells or a ton of floral just do not smell right on me even though it could smell awesome on someone else. So I stick with warm scents (musky, oriental, etc) or sweet scents (vanilla, marshmallowy sugar, etc).
3. Terence had to like it... and he is very perfume sensitive.

Dolce and Gabanna, although lovely, is not cruelty free.

Upon researching cruelty free perfumes I was pleasantly surprised to find that Victoria's Secret does not test on animals! I spent probably around two hours on the website reading the scents in each perfume to find ones I thought would smell good on me. After reading all the descriptions I decided I would first test out Very Sexy and ordered a sample size off of ebay. (Alaska does not have a Victoria's Secret)

A few days later I opened my mailbox and there was my sample size. I sprayed about half a squirt on my neck and went about my evening. Terence was working late at school and when I greeted him he told me, "Wow you smell good". *DING DING DING DING DING*

NOTE: Terence has NEVER complimented me on my perfume without me asking his opinion first!

A few hours later he complimented it again, and then again before bed.

Victoria's Secret, Very Sexy "Parfum" (as it's listed on their site) is now my Wedding perfume. My plan is to wear it on our honeymoon and only special occasions after that. I want the scent to be special with sweet memories attached.

What's your wedding fragrance?

(Pictured on the left. Note: Not our information!!)

We purchased our wedding invitations from weddingpaperdivas.com

I had an excellent experience with them! I forgot to put our wedding time and they called me as well as e-mailed me to let me know before they started processing them. I thought that was so great, because it completely slipped my mind.

Once they sent me the proof I decided I wanted to add something. I requested it and less than an hour later I got an update proof! After I approved it we received the final product maybe two days later.

They are beautiful and I am very happy with weddingpaperdivas.com!

We FINALLY booked our hotel and flight a few days ago!

We will be red-eyeing it out of Alaska and arriving in Las Vegas at around 9am on Wednesday Nov 14. We decided to stay at the Flamingo! It was affordable and they just remodeled it... and it's PINK!!!!

We may or may not be able to check in early at the hotel (depends on if they have a room available) so we're going to nap before the flight and try to sleep on the plane, just in case. The hotel will hold our luggage if we cannot check in early and I will take my dress to be steamed at the laundry mat they recommended.

That eveningTerence may or may not be having his bachelor party, depending on how many of his buddies are there at that time. If he does I will have my bachelorette party with my mom, sisters, aunt, and gramma by probably going to dinner or something. No getting wasted for me!

Thursday day will be my day to wander and relax. Thursday night is our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Friday is the wedding.

Saturday we will check in at the airport around 2pm and be out of Vegas around 4:30pm. Arriving in Alaska at 11pm.

Sleep.

Sunday - Pick up Kitty from the boarding place and relax before we go right back into work and school Monday morning.

As you can tell, this will not be a relaxing experience, but considering it's my fiance's last semester we're basically just squeezing in the wedding.

In my last entry I wrote about how I was planning to do my own makeup and how I have been having skin issues lately. It has gotten to the point where I just said, "F- IT! I am ordering Proactiv!"

Now about my skin history. Honestly, I never really had issues with my skin. I would break out occasionally (usually on my chin) but nothing that I considered a big deal.

Fall of 2010 was bittersweet. I had just gotten engaged to the love of my life and my skin decided to be a bitch all in the same month!

It started out a few at a time in little clusters further up my jawline. It was a little embarrassing, but I was managing it just fine. Up until about four months ago.

It went from annoying to out of control. I debated about getting Proactiv, but decided to go with the Clinique three step system. I used that for a long time and it didn't help that much. At least not for me. Then I moved on to a more natural skincare routine called Yes to Tomatoes. Although I liked that it was natural and didn't have Parabens in it, it didn't help either.

This is my third system and I am on day two. Please cross your fingers that this one works for me!

Now off to take off this refining mask! :-)

I have been thinking about it for a long time and I think I am going to be doing my own makeup. After all, NO one knows my face better than I do, right?

I am very comfortable putting on makeup. I have been wearing makeup every single day since I was 12 years old. I know a ton about makeup and have a decent amount of knowledge regarding bridal makeup specifically.

Although with that said, I can't help but be nervous!

What mainly brought me to this decision is that since we're having a destination wedding and we're going down to Vegas only a few short days before the wedding I won't really have time for makeup trials! I would ultimately be putting my trust into a stranger and I am not down with that.

My biggest concern is my skin. For the last few months I have been very broken out. I have been trying so many things to fix it but it's only slightly helped. Luckily I have several months to hopefully clear it up and if not I may go to a salon to have some sort of procedure done. As most girls know, skin is the MOST important thing!

After reading COUNTLESS horror stories about people crossing out and adding guests to RSVPS or just not even sending them back I kind of want to nix paper RSVPs all together.

My wedding website has a section for people to RSVP (that does not allow for adding people not on the guest list, which is handy!) so I was thinking of noting that on the invitations as well as my cell phone number for anybody unable to RSVP online (grandparents and other elderly guests for example).

I will work on the wording, but it would be something like:
"Please RSVP by XX/XX/2012 via www.weddingwebsite/aksunflower or 907-555-5555"

What do you think? I realize that it won't look as formal as the paper RSVPs but it'll save us money and more importantly it'll save us stress.

Choosing a wedding band is extremely difficult. Even if you're going for just a simple look there are countless types of "plain" wedding bands! Do you want gold, platinum, palladium, tungsten? What width? Milgrain or no milgrain? Engraving? Do you need it to curve around your engagement ring? Do you want to be able to wear it alone as well as in a set? What's your budget? Channel or prong?

UGH!!!!!!

I have a pretty easy engagement ring to pair a band with... which is good and bad. Good because I have a lot to choose from and bad because... I have a lot to choose from. And I like pretty much everything! I love plain bands, I love blingy bands, I love bands with colored stones like sapphires or emeralds, I love with milgrain and or details that make it look vintage or antique... I have WAY too much to choose from!

My criteria consists of 1. It has to be 14k yellow gold to match my engagement ring and 2. It has to be no thinner than 3mm wide and no wider than 3.8mm wide.

Um yeah that still leaves a lot of things to look at... yikes.

Although Terence and I didn't really want a wedding party I still wanted a way to have my four older sisters involved. What we've decided to do is have my lovely siblings participate by wearing pretty mismatched dresses and walk down the aisle, but rather than standing at the alter with Terence and I they will take their seats. I think it would make for cute photographs and Terence and I still get the independence we wanted!