This is autumnp's Chocolate Wedding!

This is an easy DIY project. Here's the instructions:

- New travel tumbler with a photo insert (find these at Michaels, hobby lobby, wal mart, $3)

- Soap

- Hot water

- Paper towels

- Scrapbook Paper

- cardstock

- Fancy letter stencils, in your monogram

- Craft knife

- Self healing mat

- Ruler

- Pencil

- Scissors

- Adhesive spray

- Sewing machine

- thread

Remove the outside liner from the travel tumbler with a photo insert. Wash each piece separately with soap and water. Dry the travel tumbler fully with paper towels.

With a ruler and a pencil, measure and mark the Scrapbook Paper to a size to fit inside the coffee tumbler. Cut to this size with scissors. (If there was a guide that came with your new tumbler on the approximate size of paper to fit inside the pocket, use that to trim your paper.)

Insert thread into your sewing machine. Approximately one inch from each edge of the paper, stitch a straight line onto the paper vertically.

Place the black cardstock on the self healing mat. With a pencil, trace the monogrammed letters from the fancy script stencil. Cut out each letter individually, using a craft knife.

Apply a bit of adhesive spray onto each of the monogrammed letters. Adhere each letter to the center of the stitched damask paper. Allow the adhesive to dry completely.

YAY YAY YAY! Finally it's booked. And the run down of cost:

Bridal Bouquet: Cream Cabbage Roses, white freesia, green roses, rananculus, and hypericum berries ($125)

Bridesmaid Bouquet: green roses, cream chrysanthemums, hypericum berries, ranunculus (for 3 bouquets- $180)

groomsmen: hypericum berries ($52)

Mothers and Grandmothers: Cream spray roses and hypericum berries ($110)

Father: cream spray roses with green hypericum berries ($18)

Toss Bouquet: green roses, large mums, daisies, and hypericum berries ($75)

Total: $560

Delivery Charge: $40

GRAND TOTAL: $600 (!!!!!)

You have to check these out...super cute. Could be used for wedding or...boudoir. Let me know what you think.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=183733106

Okay so i bought chocolate brown rit dye, and thought about dying my shoes brown....

OR should I just leave them white???


****UPDATE****

Leaving them white. It says on the box, "not recommended for dying" so fate will keep them white...

...and Victoria Secret has lived up to my standards once again! Yay! They are made of great-- material.

The pics of the dresses don't look that great with out a body in them, but they are: very cute dresses ,that were a great deal, the perfect chocolate brown, and the girls can wear them again.

Also today I bought the materials to make my birdcage veil for my plaid boudoir outfit.

Tomorrow morning at 830 we have to meet with our travel agent, to arrange all the fun things to do on our honeymoon. IF you are leaving the country for you honeymoon, go through a travel agant. They pretty much do it all for free (almost) and they can get you a great deal.

hopefully we will also get to meet up with another florist tomorrow to get more price quotes.


also, for those who have been keeping up with my drama over the BM dresses...my credit card company are going to debate the charge to lightinthebox.com. Based on the fact that they tried to sell a product that was not what it described....woohoo. Cross your fingers...

It's Here. The second boudoir outfit arrived from France finally! It's even cuter in person. It was about $32(us), and it is a great quality too! YAY!

I found this blog chalked full of DIY-ers for WEDDINGS! And also they are eco-friendly("green") weddings. This website is :

http://realgreenweddings.blogspot.com/

This lady's wedding was beautiful. I justed wanted to share; check out the pics.

I did it. Ordered new dresses for the girls and it about killed me to have to do it, but i really wanted the girls to have the same correct colors. So I ordered from a RELIABLE source, Victoria Secret, my old place of employment. I loved working for them, and have always been satisfied with their product. AND...the best things about this purchase are: (A) the girls can wear the dress again (because they are "sun dresses") (B) they were on clearance becasue they are summer dresses and (C) I still have connection with the company and got somewhat of a discount on them. So I spent about $190 for all 3 dresses.... i think its a great deal and I have my fingers crossed that they are a perfect as i think. Wish me good luck on this ladies, because here lately I've had crumby luck so far with the BM dresses.

I paid $70 for this dress but i'll take $50(obo) for this dress..."Expresso" colored Alfred Sung dress (Style #D413) in a size 12. please let me know if your interested.

I'm also selling the two bracelets I bought for my bridesmaids at Cashe. If you are interested please email me and we'll work out a price.


anp3i@mtsu.edu

Anyone else find the song list (prelude, processional, ceremony,etc..) is extremely hard to choose?!?!? I think I've found one song that is "IT" but then i come across another one and second guess....

Second guess...hmmmm I feeling like that is what i have been doing for the last 2 months on the choices i've made regarding Everything!! I think this down ward sprial on undecisiviness(sp?) started when i got the BM dresses in in the wrong color (Damn lightinthebox.com) But...I've found out through out the expierence of planning that I am not the kind of person who goes with instincts. Thats what i hired the damn planner for, who is sitting on $2000 worth of our money and not doing a thing.

I ordered these dresses and they were the wrong color (read postt below for more detail) so i'm selling them and ordering new ones. Nothing is wrong with them just the wrong color, both are a great quality dress. I'm asking $40 for each. Email me if you want to purchase them.

anp3i@mtsu.edu

Today I met with another florist. Elaine, who blew me away with her upbeat attitude and kindness, she absolutely led me through and helped me through the decision making process. I really have no clue about flowers, which flowers were in season ,which would turn colors, etc... It really helped.

In the pic, the ranunculus(pink flowers) will be white, and then I will have white garden roses with hypericumberries....I'll try to post the BM bouquets, for some reason I can't up load the pic of it....

This is the coolest looking hotel I've ever seen. And it's one of the most affordable hotels in the downtown Nashville area. We booked it for the day/night of the wedding to be close to the venue and to the airport. oh...it's getting so freakin' close!

I ordered these invitations from custom creations for $1.80 per invite. We will be making pottery and then heading over to a local winery to eat and taste. I will also give them their bags/gifts.

Another thing off the list. I was going to do it myself, like the invites; but i could not get it right. So i scrapped the project and ordered ones that are close to the colors of the invites. So here they are. I ordered them from WeddingPaperDivas.com for about $174.00 after the promotional codes in.

I ordered the napkins today from theknot.com. 19.99/ 100 napkins, not that bad i thought. I ordered two kinds.

LOVE: chocolate brown with silver foil
Eat, Drink, and Be Married: buttercream (yellow) with chocolate foil

I only ordered 100 of each. Now that i think of it, I don't know if that will be enough...??

My Best Friend, Shane, turned 22 this last week. So i thought that this is the best time to introduce him to you guys. Yay! I love Shane, he is the best...friend a girl could ask for. I introduced J and Shane and now they are best friends. I come home and find the two of them playing the PS3, and at first i was like "wait..a mintue" but I have learned to share him with J. I met Shane at my first job as a waitress in a Ponderosa reaturant. I had to train him his first day, and he annoyed the crap out of me. It took me a long time before I really ever wanted to hang out with him. But one night I started talking to him, and the rest as they say is history...
So with that said it was only natural for us to have him in the wedding party. I wanted him to be my MOH but he kinda..was like eh...MOH?!? But he settled into the title of Best Man. Everyone that we encounter together, he tells. What a proud best man he is.

My FH graduated saturday! What a huge achievement in his life. I couldn't be anymore prouder of him. Even though there were times he wanted to quit, he persevered and made it through.

My MOH had her baby on Tuesday! She's perfect. 7lbs 10oz 19inches long, born with the loudest cry ever. uh she's amazing, and jess will be an a-mazing mother. I couldn't be any prouder of her.

I am still waiting on the urge to book the DJ, and Caterer. I just can not get movtivated to get it done. I had one week where I had actually went out on search for them; Thought i found the perfect caterer, but they said "they do not cater weddings"...(!!) What! how do you cater, and not cater weddings?
I emailed the DJ that week and still have not heard back, I guess I could call them tomorrow on my day off, huh?

Then...The dreaded wedding planner.ugh
I still have not heard from her since march. Waiting...
It makes me a tad nervous, feeling like i have no clue what our wedding will look like.

Other than that, every thing is approaching quickly now. And the excitement is building.

It seems like everyone on here has the one family member(s) that want every thing to surround them. We have one of those too. Here's the story: (sorry in advance if this is long)


When J and I started dating, he was extremely close to his cousin. She has a bit of personal drama happening when I met her for the first time (her and her hubby were seperated, and he began to see another woman). She went a bit crazy trying to manipulate him to come back to her when she found this out; she would pretend the kids were sick, track his phone calls online, and even brought his other woman to the house to confront him with. I thought, "ok maybe i want nothing to do with him (J) and this family..." becuase i had no clue what the hell he had drug me into.

As time went on things between the cousin and her husband got better, and we all continued to hang out, ALOT.... We spent every other if not every weekend over there, holidays, birthdays, etc. I began to get a little weary of see them all the time, due to the fact that she was not welcoming to me and asked questions so that she could tell someone else. and i was uncomfortable around her when she threw her fits about not getting what she wanted. So, we still hung out just not as much..which was cool. J even convinced me to go on vacation with them and their kids, which I really didn't want to because once again I thought he would hand out with her the entire time leaving me to hang out with her husband or the kids. But instead he left me with her most of the time, which was not as bad as i thought it to be.

AND this is how the drama started, J and the cousin got along had inside jokes together, always talked to each other, texted each other non-stop... So, who was i left to talk to, the kids or the husband.

fast forward some...

after 2 years of hanging out and some what becoming (what i thought was close enough) J all of a suddens says he doesn't want to go over there any more. I didn't push the issue, I just accepted it and moved on;I'd suggest it a couple of more times, nothing. The last time we had hung out with everybody was in october, and it was approaching december (very weird for J not to text or want to hang out with her because she was his best friend) So, on December 15th we got engaged, naturally i thought i would text everybody and tell them the great news, well as I was texting her husband the great news he tells me not to text him, i asked why and he just said "just don't just yet..." So i didn't tell him (the cousin's husband). I thought this was weird too.

February comes and J decides to change his cell phone number which he has had forever and asked everyone not to give his new # to his cousin. I finally put my foot down, and knew s o m e t h i n g was up. He broke down and told me the whole story:

His cousin had called him (BACK IN NOVEMBER)and told him that I was trying to hook up with her husband!!!! She said she had found several text messages on his phone that were from me and were inappropriate. I completely was shocked and angry. The last I had texted him was in Semptember a week after my birthday to say, "thanks" for wishing me a happy birthday, nothing sexual or inappropriate just a normal text convo which we had every now and again. She said that he was welcomed to her house but I was not allowed to be there. umm ok...If this all had happened back in september I had seen them in october (for her kid's halloween party), and nothing was said then, she acted like her snotty self and me, J sister and J hung out in the living room most of the night. To prove all of this, i had my friend Jackie pull my records out of the VZW data base, and showed J...nothing was there..

Fast forward again(sorry this has been going on for a long time):

In may J's mom had called us saying that his cousin had been writing horrible emails about me and her(his mom) to other people. Jeremy was very hurt and upset, he had not talked to her in months and didn't know why she would try to stir drama again. She said HORRIBLE things...she called our engagement sicken...she accused me of once again trying to steal her husband (in which he was completely "innocent"); she said I was immature and could not manage my money and MADE J open credit cards because I had maxed mine out (which is complete bull shit) and buy TVs that "we didn't need"; She said that I didn't "allow" him to come over to her house with out (which I've neeeever said anything, i encouraged him to go by himself, because i didn't want to go).... She has tried to smear my name all through the mud to his family ever since. I began to attack her on my myspace status because I knew she would be checking it daily (if though my profile is private) and of course she did...and cried to her family about all the bad things i was saying about her. J's mom asked me to quit, so out of respect to her, i did.

Now I began to look past this entire situation with her, and told J to try to smooth the sitation over with her (not friends, but civil to each other) he refuses. I tell him that she had a inscure moment, and she wanted to blame me for her failing marriage, and that he needed to patch things up. But I leave it to him. Because it will be him that she sees not me, not our children, nothing that is apart of me will EVER go around that manipulative bitch, i refuse. She has done nothing but hurt her family, all because she has no trust.

Sorry this is so long, but I needed to vent. No one ever wants to speak of it, not even J...

Yahoo, two more days. I can not tell you gals how much I love the day after Thanksgiving!! I love the crazy mad house this country becomes. I love the lines, the pushing people (not hard...), I just love the adrenaline rush.
It is tradition in my family for everyone to meet up at 3:30am, get some coffee(for energy), then go wait in line. This is the first year that Jeremy is going with us, and he has no clue what to expect, ha silly boy!

So I guess we'll see, but in the mean time Happy Thankgiving to all the u.s. brides out there, stay safe!

oh yeah and Happy Black Friday too!

I had to take my ring in for the 6 month check up, and once again i've knocked a diamond. wtf, why am i so rough on this poor ring? The last time i took it in, i had slammed my hand in the door and knocked all three of the diamonds loose, and broke the finger it goes on. All this happened within two weeks after we were engaged. The guy in the store said it happens to alot of girls who are not use to wearing a big(tall) ring (which i've always worn a "tall" ring on that finger and it's never happened to it, which i might add is over 50 yrs old).

So.. yeah my father is right when he said i could break a brick, true that.

My hand is not the same.

I found this very simple serving set at World Market (the Best store, hands down) for about $14. We are serving cupcakes so there is no need for a fancy one, plus simple sometimes is better.

One more thing off the list...

A Wisconsin Minnow Bucket.

It sounds insane. J is from Wisconsin and this is a tradition that his family hasduring some holidays, so i thought is would be cool to intertwine his family traditions into the wedding. So there you have it, a minnow bucket.

Ingredients:

4 cups Vodka
1 cup 7-up
1 can Orange Juice (concentrate- thawed)
1 can Limeade (concentrate- thawed)

Combine all the ingredients with a bag of ice in a galvanized bucket. Mix well, cover with a towel until frost forms on the outside of the bucket. Serve in punch cups.

I don't know how much this serves, but it will be a great excuse to get everyone to come over, drink, try the drink, hang out, but the main mission would be to see how many drinks it will fix.

If anyone knows of a website that i can plug in the ingredients, number of people,etc...please let me know.

Thanks so much ladies, ya'll are a--mazing!

****UPDATE****
Thanks Wifewaq. I went to allrecipes.com search "drinks" and found similar drink, typed in 100 servings and it calculated how much i would need:

2 (16 ounce) cans frozen limeade juice concentrate
2 (12 fluid ounce) cans frozen orange juice concentrate
3 cups and 2 tablespoons vodka
4-1/4 (2 liter) bottles lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage, chilled
2 (4 ounce) jars maraschino cherries
8-1/4 oranges, sliced into rounds
4-1/4 trays ice cubes

The red outfit is my fav....The downside is that I would have to order it from England, but it is only $23(us)+shipping(ugh, damn shipping).

I chose three outfits that are from his fav book and shows: Harry Potter, LOST, and Des. Housewives...he should love it. But i really want to dress more in cute things instead of costumes, but this is not about me here is it?

Apparently I have picked out a March-April bouquet, not a June-July bouquet. But I checked on prices anyways, and yeah some of the flowers will not be available for this exact bouquet, but the replacements are equally beautiful.


One Wholesale DIY Bridal Bouquet and throwaway: $76.00(US)
Three Wholesale DIY Bridesmaid Bouquet: $76.00 (US)
Four boutonnieres: $15.00(US)

VS.


(I went to a local flower shop today just to see what it would cost there)

One Bridal Bouquet: $150-175(US)
Three BM Bouquets:$210(US)
Four boutonnieres: $60(US)


Wholesale is the way to go when your cutting back on budget!

Is there a place online to order super cute and cheap napkins??

DO NOT order from lightinthebox.com!!!! They are freakin horrible! Like stated in a previous blog i ordered two dresses through them thinking i was getting a great deal. Well they came in the wrong color, so i asked them if i could send them back and got in contact with their after-sale CSRs...well bullshit. I did get emailed back and forth from the cust ser dept (see below) and i wrote them back the final time and they never wrote back. Then I contacted a manger there well over a week ago, and have yet to hear back from them. So...then i called them, told them my order number, they put me on hold for 45 mins!!!! I just hung up called back, then they continued to put me on hold again! I give up. I'll eat the freakin cost and NEVER ordered from them again!! I filed a complaint with the BBB, I am just allowing everone out there to know how twisted this company is. All i needed was to exchange colors, like i ordered in the first place...and they were unwilling to provide the service.