This is blubelle2's Red Wedding!

OK, so I have been a little neglectful of my wedding blog... a lot has happened in the last few weeks, and I'm so excited! I feel like I'm accomplishing stuff, even though they're teensy little checks that probably no one at the wedding would even notice.

1) I ordered personalized napkins! Yay! I'm super excited about these, and I can't wait for them to come in two weeks.

2) I ordered monogram stickers to use to seal the save the dates and favor boxes. These have already come and they look soooo good! :)

3) We finalized the guestbook - we picked out 10 photos that we like, picked the order, and the book/style that we like, and submitted it to our photographer. We have already gotten the proof, and approved them, so they will be submitting the order in a few days, and then we should have that in a few weeks (not that there's any rush to get this).

4) We ordered our save the dates and envelopes - we got postcards, but since our website is password protected and has personal info on it, we opted to get envelopes anyway. The envelopes are supposedly being delivered today. I will get a proof of the save the dates tomorrow or Monday, and once we approve them, it will probably be a couple of weeks before we have them in hand.

5) I got all the ordering info I need for our favors (since they're edible, we have to order much closer to the wedding date).


Upcoming checks:
1) The guest list is currently with Evan's parents, so once they have added all their info, we just have a few miscellaneous addresses to collect, and then we can address and send out the save the dates!

2) Saturday I am meeting with the dressmaker about the bridesmaid dresses!! I am SOOOO excited! I just hope she tells me that the design is easy to make and the fabric I picked is inexpensive. (Knowing me, though, I will pick the most expensive fabric there is...) Crossing my fingers that this goes as well as I'm hoping!

So the other day I had my first (and hopefully last!) wedding nightmare.

It started out that I was grocery shopping (why? I don't know) and I ran into my neighbor (p.s. isn't she supposed to be at the wedding, too?). So we started talking, and all of a sudden it's 15 minutes before I have to take the photos, since we are doing photos before the ceremony. I speed to the hotel (and somehow make it with 15 minutes to spare?) with my neighbor (again, why?) and everyone is freaking out. My bridesmaids dresses never got finished by the dressmaker so all they have are their sweatpants and tank tops, I had never made hair appointments, so everyone looks like crap, and I still have 15 minutes to do my own hair and makeup. 10 minutes later, I have crappy looking hair and awful makeup on, and I go to put on my dress - WHICH HAD NOT BEEN ALTERED and is bigger than the sample I tried on in the store. Oy. Then, as we're putting binder clips on the back to give me a shape I am informed that I never bought a veil or shoes, so I can either go barefoot or in the sneakers that I wore to the hotel.

At this point my dog started to bark because she had to go out to pee and woke me up - I'm scared to think where that dream would have gone!!

So after a lot of searching, I have found lots of pretty dresses, but
none that I am in love with. I came across the dress below in a magazine
a few months ago, but when I called the designer to get a style number I
was told that it was in fact a wedding dress, and only came in white. So, I
gave up on that idea, and kept looking for dresses, but I have not seen
anything like it anywhere.

Well, when I was "cleaning" my apartment (i.e. moving the piles to another
spot on the floor), I came across the magazine ad again and I really really
like the dress. So I got a name of a dressmaker, and I am going to meet
with her to discuss designing the dress and getting the dresses custom
made. Below is the inspiration picture, and to the left are samples of her
work. So excited!!

So, Saturday was the big day. Evan and I drove to Thompsontown, PA Friday night and stayed at General Evans Mansion, and then in the morning we drove to pick up Bailey. She is beautiful, and we fell in love with her right away! She is so friendly, and loves to give kisses. She does not, however, like going to the bathroom outside, so that is a little challenging. She gets too distracted outside with all the city noises and people, and she is confused because there is no grass anywhere. She knows she is the cutest thing on the block, though, and epects all passersby to stop and admire her. When someone doesn't, she walks after them a few steps with this look on her face as if to say "Excuse me, why aren't you paying attention to me??" It's very cute...

She is also in love with Moxley. This seems to be a one-sided relationship right now, as Moxley usually responds to Bailey's advances with his claws. Hopefully he'll warm up to her soon!!

Last night Evan and I decided to have a little bbq outside - however,
living in New York doesn't really provide much yard space. So we bought
a little $10 grill and sat out on the sidewalk drinking beers in our little
purple director's chairs and grilled. It was really relaxing and lots of fun.
We got so many comments from people walking by about how we had a
great idea, and lots of people wanted to stop and talk about where we got
the grill.

So Evan and I used our day off of work to go look at the neighborhood in Queens that he likes. He described it to me as a suburb in the middle of a city - and it really is! You drive in (resident only parking) and you pass under an archway and it changes from this busy urban shopping street to tree-lined streets with sprawling lawns and big houses. There are some condo buildings where we would look that really have a lot of character. I'm excited to start looking in March!

So Evan and his dad are going to build our huppah! I was going to
borrow Tori and Brennan's huppah but we're not 100% sure that we can
have the ceremony on the grass. I posted a few pictures of the space in
Mt Vernon Park from when we visited in February. It was rainy so the
photos are kinda dark. Because the tent has to be 30 x 40, the huppah is
most likely going to be placed on cement so we have to build something
with a sturdy base. This is what I gave them to use as a reference:

I finally took a few pictures of my scrapbook that I will have left out at the reception. I'm only about 1/3 of the way done, so I will probably post more pictures when I'm done. I'm having so much fun making this, and I'm really excited to see how it will turn out!

I'm so excited - Evan and I looked through them last night (there are about 80 of them) and we love them, except for the ones where we look awkward. So now the hard part will be picking just a few of them for the guestbook!

http://www.pictage.com/501124

So, this morning at 5:30 Moxley started whining AGAIN. I got up a couple of times to pet him and try to get him to quiet down, but as soon as I left the room (we keep him in the office with his litter box at night) he started whining again. So finally, at 5:50 Evan got up to go sit with him, and what happens? Yes, Evan steps in cat poop. And it was not completely solid. So I get up and we turn on the light and here is what we find:

The cat has undone the tape holding open the litter box door so he cannot push it open (being all of two pounds he is too weak to get it open) so he has pooped ALL OVER the room. Apparently the wet food we gave him for dinner gave him a stomach ache and there was about 4 piles and some drips (sorry if I've been too graphic here). So Evan and I lock the cat in the bathroom while we spray some kind of bleachy disinfectant all over the floor when what do I discover but some lovely little poopy paw prints. So I go and check his feet - yes, he has poop stuck in his tail and paws, and he (obviously) will not clean that out himself. So while I finish scrubbing the floor, Evan cleans him off in the bathtub. So then he is wet and whiny. It just so happens that it is then 6:45, when Evan needs to get ready for work, so he leaves me with the whiny piece of feces.

If I wanted to get up in the middle of the night to clean up poop I would have just had a child!! Sorry I'm so cranky - I haven't had a complete night's sleep in about 2 weeks!

I can't figure out how to edit a post once I save it, so I'll just have to post another thingie.

I decided that I want to make a scrapbook of Evan's and my engagement trip to Prague, and have it on display at the reception (on the guestbook table), so I am hard at work getting that pulled together. So far I have finished the first day and it is 12 pages long, so I've ordered some insert pages. Hopefully since I have a long weekend off work this week (I'm off Thursday and Friday), I can get some more done. I'll post some pictures of that later so you can see some of what I've done so far!

OK so I thought that I would start a "wedding blog" so that all you ladies would be kept updated on what I've accomplished so far and what is going on here in NY (hopefully I'll be good at this and it will not be just wedding related)! And since I'm starting this so late in the game this first post will have a lot of info. :)

Vendors: I got pretty much all of them! I have been referring to them as the "Dream Team", although I think I may be the only one who finds this amusing. Here's a little bit about them:

Photographer: Arthur Remanjon. He's amazing. We just had our engagement photos taken on Saturday (I will have the link to the online album soon!) and it has just made me so much more excited to work with him on the big day. You can see some of his other work at www.remanjon.com.
Videographer: Black Tie Video (the guy is named Jim Skipper). He's a talker, but he's excellent. My parents were the biggest skeptics about the necessity of a wedding video until about 1 minute into one of his sample clips.
Caterer/Baker: Chef's Expressions. We only had a choice between two vendors, and we thought that Chef's was more in tune with what we wanted for the evening. We are working with a woman named Bonny, who we think is fantastic. We are having a tasting in August (not of our menu specifically because they're a small company, but they are hosting a wine tasting and dinner). They also have a baker, so they will be doing our wedding cake - and the best part is, it's free! I met them first at a bridal fair, so they threw in a little extra perk because of that!
Florist: Floral Impressions. I got a great quote from her after a really great meeting with her back in May. I'm really excited to see what she'll come up with!
DJ: Santana Entertainment. She's quite a talker, but she really knows what she's doing. She will do the music for both the ceremony and reception. She was by far the most qualified person that Evan and I met with and talked to, and she is going to be coordinating with all you guys to make sure that we all know what is happening when so that no one misses anything important (i.e. they don't do the cake cutting while I'm attempting to pee haha).
Officiant: Rabbi Floyd Herman. He also was the rabbi at my parent's wedding and at my bat mitzvah, so it's nice that he is familiar with my family.

Let's see, what else have I done already. I bought my dress (by James Clifford, which coincidentally also happens to be Evan's grandfather's name), and reserved the hotel block (this info will be in the newsletter that you will all receive soon).

Currently we are working on finalizing the guestlist, picking out designs for the save the dates (commonly referred to as STDs on the knot, which makes me laugh every time I type it) and the invites, probably to come from Chelle Paperie down in Hamden. Evan and I saw one that we really liked from there, and Im' pretty sure it's in our budget! Also, after a lot of discussion, Evan and I will be taking a honeymoon after all, so we are working on planning that (it will take a few weeks since we are using rewards points/miles and they have to transfer over) but we are looking at a resort in Ixtapa, Mexico. (http://www.tideszihuatanejo.com/)

And lastly, now that the engagement photos have been taken, we can start looking into our guestbook. We are going to have the photos printed onto pages in the guestbook (one side of each spread is a photo and one side is for signing), so when we can look through all the photos we get to pick which ones we like best. This is the one that we will probably get, but we have to decide how many pages to get: http://leathercraftsmen.com/guestbook.html#. Mom thinks that with 200 people coming, 10 sides won't be enough, so we have to talk to our photographer about pricing and all that fun stuff.

Non-wedding related update: We just adopted a kitten (who cries constantly and likes to climb us) and are going to be getting a puppy soon (see photos to the side). We are also still saving up for an apartment, so no shopping for me for like 10 months. So sad! We are considering Forest Hills Gardens in Queens (about 20 minutes from Evan's office). I haven't seen it yet, so Evan and I are going to try to drive up there this weekend to take a look around. We won't start looking until March or so, because we'll have to jump right on it when we see something, and we still have another year on our current lease.

Wow, that was a lot... and a lot of work just got ignored. Now I have to run into a meeting, so I guess I will update again soon! HOpe you're all doing well :) xoxo