This is im2babyblue4u's Blue Wedding!

Hey ladies...thanks to all of you who read and commented on my post the other day about my hubby's lost (or possibly even STOLEN) wedding ring!! It's already been lost for a week now...and we have completely torn our house apart looking for it, even looking in the oddest and most off the wall places you can think of!! But my hubby is still 100% positive that when he took it off he placed it in the medicine cabinet where he always puts it before he's about to do mechanic work so it won't get greasy or dirty (or even worse fall off and get lost inside of an engine or something lol)!! He said that the door to the medicine cabinet didn't close all the way at first, so he even reopened it and made sure he had sat his ring in it's safe little spot inside and then closed the door again once he knew it was in there safe and sound!! So he's 100% positive of where he put it, but even so we still tore the whole house apart looking for it and he even looked in his car (even though he didn't drive it anywhere that day) and looked in the truck that he was working on...even though he knows he didn't even have it on when he went outside to go work on it!!

Anyways, so if you didn't read my other post about this, then the only other thing we could possibly think of to explain what happened to his ring was that it might have actually been STOLEN!! Not only that...but the culprit might have actually been my MOH!!! Long story, you can read my other post if you want all the details...but my MOH and her boyfriend (who was our Best Man) were the only other people to step foot inside of our house the day it somehow grew legs and disappeared!! We're beginning to think my MOH might have a stealing problem...because we know she stole from her boss, even though in her mind she might not have seen it that way but still she got fired because of it!! And then about a month or so ago, we had $20 go missing and guess what...our Best Man and MOH had been over that day!! We've only know her for 2 years ever since they've been dating so it's possible she could have a problem with stealing and we just never knew about it until she lost her job recently (because of stealing!!) and he doesn't have a job right now either, so maybe she's starting to get desperate because she also has 2 young daughters to take care of!! Here's my other post if you wanna read all the exact details:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/im2babyblue4u/milestones/93339#comment

So who knows if we'll ever see his wedding ring again...but my hubby was starting to get depressed without it on his finger...it was soo sad, but also kinda cute at the same time!! Anyways, so we went and ordered another ring yesterday which made me feel pretty depressed and upset knowing that whenever this ring comes in, it still won't be the "original" wedding ring that I put on my hubby's finger the day we got married, which was 8/7/09. My hubby was happy to know that another ring is on it's way (it had to be special ordered cause he wears a size 14), but then after we got home he said it just made him even more pissed off about it to think that if my MOH did actually steal it (they both know we've been looking for it all week), now we've actually had to go through with ordering a new ring!! I hope to God we're wrong about this and it'll just show up one day, and if so then I guess he'll just end up having a spare ring...one to wear for "good" and one that he could actually wear when he's doing mechanic work and he wouldn't have to worry as much about it. Honestly, it wasn't really that expensive to begin with so we could afford to replace it since it's not gold or silver and doesn't have any diamonds or anything, but it's titanium which is exactly what my hubby wanted...still it's just the principle of it that we had to go out and order a new ring and even when it does come in, it still won't be the same ring that I put on his finger the day we said "I DO"!!

Ladies....please give a huge WBC Birthday SHOUT OUT to our fellow brides Kristah and Melissac8481 who are both celebrating birthdays this week!!

Kristah (a.k.a. Krista...duh!!) already married her sweetheart Jon earlier this year on August 29th...so CONGRATS to the newlyweds!! Krista justed celebrated her 24th birthday yesterday...so "HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY"!!!! Here's the link to her page:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/kristah

Melissac8481 (a.k.a. Melissa) also just got married to her new hubby Roger on October 9th and now her 28th birthday is coming up on Wednesday...what an exciting past month or so it's been for this lucky bride!! Go check out her page and wish her a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"!!!:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/melissac8481

PS - I'm still trying to add more brides to my WBC Birthday List!! If you want to be apart of this list and be given a birthday shout out whenever your special day comes around, then please go to my original post below and add you birthday to the list!! In the middle of all the wedding planning and stress, doesn't every bride deserve to be showered with attention on the one day out of the year that's ALL about YOU (well, other than your wedding day too of course)!!! So please just follow the link below if you want to add your birthday to my WBC Birthday List:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/im2babyblue4u/milestones/85947#comment

WARNING: This is gonna be a LONG post!!

We haven't even been married for 3 months yet (our wedding was on 8/7/09) and my hubby already lost his wedding ring yesterday!! A long time ago I made a post about how upset I was when he told me that he really didn't even plan on wearing it that much because he's a mechanic and he didn't wanna wear it while he's doing mechanic work...but his other excuse was that he's just not really a "ring person." But he completely changed his mind about wearing it after we got married and he wore it ALL the time (except for when doing mechanic work), and he would always say that he felt naked without it!! It was so cute cause whenever he would realize he wasn't wearing it after working or doing anything that was really messy, he would always say "I need my ring!!" and that was my cue to go get it out of the medicine cabinet where he kept it safe and then I would always put it on his ring finger for him...I just loved doing that and knowing that he actually WANTED to wear it (which is something that he honestly didn't think would ever happen)!!

So now we're both pretty devastated that he lost it yesterday...he said he really feels like a bad husband now and he just doesn't feel the same without it cause he had actually gotten soo used to wearing it (at least whenever he wasn't working)!! We retraced his steps and looked everywhere we could possibly think of...but he says in his mind he knows 100% that he sat it in the medicine cabinet in the same safe little spot he always puts it in, but we still checked everywhere we could possibly think of just to be sure!! So now unfortunately that brings me to say the only other possible thing we think could have happened to it...we think my MOH might have stolen it!!! My MOH and our Best Man (they're boyfriend and girlfriend) were the only other people in our house yesterday!! I know this may sound horrible to be accusing someone of stealing his ring...but honestly the last time they came over (well, actually 2 times ago) we had $20 that just went missing and the bad thing was that it was actually wedding gift money from my hubby's grandparents!!

Anyways, so we never really did get to the bottom of what happened with the $20 but my hubby always suspected that it might have actually been my MOH because her boss accused her of stealing money from her one time...what actually happened was her boss gave her $20 to fill up her gas and she only put $15 in it and then spent the other money to buy herself some cigarettes!! In some people's minds this may not seem like stealing, but obviously her boss thought so and she got fired because of it and some other reasons too!! We've only known her for 2 years (ever since they started dating) and I guess maybe we just don't know her well enough to know if stealing is something that she has a problem with!! But she did say one time that she didn't consider it stealing from her boss to buy the cigarettes and that she would never steal from anybody UNLESS (and I quote) if she "was mad enough at somebody about something"!!! So I guess she's admitting that YES she would steal from somebody if she felt pushed that far!! Anyways, so they've both been really struggling lately financially and neither one of them has a job...but then again neither one of them has really taken much initiative to get up and actually go look for one everyday either (cause they usually sleep in til at least noon or later)!! My hubby said that she did leave very mad yesterday because they claimed that we owe them money for something...but we've had to give them $20 here and there just so they could have gas money or food money and then I bought her dress and her shoes since they couldn't afford it (and honestly she was my last minute MOH whenever my original MOH found out she was pregnant and her due date was ON our wedding day)!! She gave me her dress back after the wedding so that I can hopefully sell it, but then she "lost" her shoes...so that's my money that she lost....but somehow they claim that WE still owe THEM some money!! So she was mad about that when they left and she was also mad cause she asked if our Best Man could stay with us for a little while if they get evicted soon (which it looks like they're probably going to!!) and then her and her 2 daughters would move in with her parents temporarily. My hubby said no because we just don't have the room and my parents are coming in town soon for the holidays and because we know how it would be once he was there...he wouldn't pay us rent or chip in at all and would basically just mooch off of the situation. Anyways, so apparently she was pretty mad yesterday when they left...and he thinks based on what she had said before about stealing only if she was really mad about something then he wouldn't put it past her to steal his ring!! It wasn't until after they left that my hubby discovered his ring was missing from the spot he was pretty much 100% sure he left it in...which was in the medicine cabinet!! I just really don't even know what to think about it at this point...it wasn't a really expensive ring, so it could be replaced if we can't ever find it or figure out what happened to it...but it just wouldn't be the same because it wouldn't be the ring that I put on his finger the day we said "I DO"!!!

PS - Sorry this was such a long post ladies...but not only am I sad and upset about the fact that we can't find his ring...but it's even worse to think that maybe it's not just lost, it might actually be STOLEN!!!

Ladies....please give a warm WBC Birthday SHOUT OUT to our fellow brides Kbreunig and Kkrbride who are both turning 23 this weekend!! Kbreunig's birthday is actually TODAY and Kkrbride's birthday is this Sunday!! Please stop by their pages at some point today to wish them a very, very "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"!!!!!

Kbreunig (a.k.a. Kara) is marrying her sweetheart Kevin next May, and he actually just had a birthday himself last Saturday and turned 24...so "HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY" to her hubby2be too!! Here's the link to her page:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/kbreunig

Kkrbride (a.k.a. Kylee) and her fiance Michael just celebrated their 3 year Anniversary on Wednesday and now her 23rd birthday is coming up on Sunday...what an exciting week for this lucky bride!! Go check out her page and wish her a "HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY"!!!:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/kkrbride

PS - I'm still trying to add more brides to my WBC Birthday List!! If you want to be apart of this list and be given a birthday shout out whenever your special day comes around, then please go to my original post below and add you birthday to the list!! In the middle of all the wedding planning and stress, doesn't every bride deserve to be showered with attention on the one day out of the year that's ALL about YOU (well, other than your wedding day too of course)!!! So please just follow the link below if you want to add your birthday to my WBC Birthday List:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/im2babyblue4u/milestones/85947#comment

Hey ladies!! Just a quick question for you...my mom wants to order photo Christmas cards this year and she wants to use the family photo that the photographer took of all of us at our wedding on 8/7/09 (me, my new hubby, and my parents)!! Well, I uploaded our invitation designs and ordered everything from VistaPrint and so I suggested that my mom use them for these photo Christmas cards because I was really impressed with how our invitations turned out and because I figured they'd turn out much nicer than just going somewhere like Walgreens!!

So I've been doing some research for my mom cause she'd have no clue where to begin and so it's definitely cheaper to order from VistaPrint and she'd actually get 50 cards instead of only 40 from Walgreens for about the same price!! Not to mention VistaPrint has much better designs to choose from, and you can actually include a message on the back side as well, which isn't an option through Walgreens since they would just print these on photo paper...but VistaPrint would actually print everything on thick cardstock, so they would actually seem more like professional greeting cards!!

Now the only problem is...when I uploaded the photo that we want to use, it keeps telling me that it has low resolution and that I need to adjust the resolution settings to 300 dpi and then re-upload it?!?! Does anyone have any clue what they're talking about and how to do this?!?! Have any of your ever ordered photo cards from VistaPrint before?!?! Thanks in advance ladies for any help and advice you can provide!!! ;-)

Ladies please give a HUGE WBC "Happy Birthday" SHOUT OUT to our very own Unpredictablebride (a.k.a. Shayne) who's celebrating her 34th Birthday today!!! Shayne is still fairly new to WBC (she's only been around for about 2 months), but in that short amount of time I know she's had a ton of amazing posts and ideas to share with all the other brides here on WBC, and I'm sure she's been very helpful to some of you out there by creating some amazingly beautiful designs for you!! So please take the time to stop by her page sometime today and wish her a very, very "Happy Birthday"!! Even better news...I just noticied that her wedding is only 1 YEAR away from today!!! So this time next year she'll be marrying the man of her dreams and celebrating yet another wonderful birthday all at the same time!!

So ladies, please go check out Shayne's page sometime today and wish her a very "Happy Birthday" and also tell her CONGRATS on reaching the 1 YEAR countdown!!! ;-)

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/unpredictablebride

While you're at it, you should definitely stop by her website to see some of the amazing designs she might be able to think up for your wedding...she's extremely talented (and affordable too)!! Too bad our wedding is already over, otherwise I'm sure I would've asked her to create some beautiful invitation designs for us!! Here's the link to her website:

http://printablebride.com/

PS - I'm still trying to add more brides to my WBC Birthday List!! If you want to be apart of this and be given a birthday shout out whenever your special day comes around, then please go to my original post below and add you birthday to the list!! In the middle of all the wedding planning and stress, doesn't every bride deserve to be showered with attention on the one day out of the year that's ALL about YOU (well, other than your wedding day too of course)!!! So please just follow the link below if you want to add your birthday to my WBC Birthday List:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/im2babyblue4u/milestones/85947#comment

Hi Ladies!! Well, as some of you may already know, I'm trying to put together a WBC Birthday List!! In case you missed it, and you wanna read my original post and add your birthday to the list, then just go to the link below:

http://www.weddingbycolor.com/im2babyblue4u/milestones/85947#comment

Well, my WBC Birthday List hasn't gotten off to quite as great of a start as I had hoped...I only got 8 comments (i.e. 8 birthdays on my list) so far!! Then again, I did post my original post about this last Friday afternoon...when most people are probably trying to get off work early lol, so maybe I just picked a bad time to post about this lol!! Well I'm not giving up hope just yet ladies...so here's a few Belated Birthdays for the month of September!!

"HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY" to:

*Gorgeous6 (a.k.a. Brandy) who just turned 23 on Sept. 12th!! If you haven't stopped by her page recently, go check it out and wish her a "Happy Belated Birthday!!": http://www.weddingbycolor.com/gorgeous6

*Rodrhonda4ever (a.k.a. LaRhonda, Rhonda, the Budget Queen, whatever other name you might know her by lol!!) - my girl just turned 42 YEARS YOUNG last week on Sept. 21st, and as Gratefulbride said...she's still bringing "sexy back"!!!! ;-) I'm sure most of you are no strangers to her page, but just in case you haven't dropped by in a while...here's the link: http://www.weddingbycolor.com/rodrhonda4ever

Well, that's all for now...like I said I got off to a pretty slow start with only 8 comments/birthdays added to my list...but hey, it's still not too late to be apart of my WBC Birthday List!! If you had a birthday in the month of September, and you want everyone to wish you a "HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY" too, then feel free to just leave a comment below and let us know when your birthday was and if you feel like sharing how old (or young!!) you just turned, then go right ahead!! However, if you have an upcoming birthday...or even if your birthday is still several months away, then please just follow the link to my original post and let me know when your birthday is!! Sooner or later, you'll be on an upcoming edition of the WBC Birthday List too!!! ;-)

Well ladies...I've already been married for 7 weeks now (as of today!!), but I'm still trying to find ways to stay as active on this site as I possibly can!! I still really have the wedding planning bug even though our wedding's all over now *sniff, sniff* - but I enjoyed planning everything so much that I think I might wanna become a wedding planner/coordinator/decorator someday!! Anyways, so for now I want to stay as involved on this site as possible...but I feel like sometimes I'm really not posting all that much, mainly just browsing around and making comments (which is still helpful too of course!!). So I was trying to think of a way that I can still remain active on this site and continue to post things, either wedding related or not...mainly so that I can continue to get as many ideas as possible about anything wedding related!! So I was thinking about putting together a WBC Birthday List!!! I know that I've seen a ton of posts in the past saying something like "Happy Birthday to Me!!"...BUT wouldn't it be nice to have other brides saying "Happy Birthday to YOU!!" automatically without you even having to let anyone know that it's your birthday?!?!

So ladies...if you'd like to have your birthday included on the WBC Birthday List then please leave a comment and let me know when your birthday is and if you want to share how old you are or how old you'll be on your next birthday, then feel free...but it's up to you only if you feel like sharing your age!! So please become a part of the WBC Birthday List if you want to have a ton of "Happy Birthday" wishes sent your way from all the brides on this site without having to even "announce" your own birthday to everyone...that's what this WBC Birthday List is for!! With all the wedding planning (and stress!!) you've got going on in your life, wouldn't it be nice for other brides to wish you a very "Happy Birthday" and send you sweet comments to help cheer you up on the one day out of the year that's supposed to be all about YOU (well, other than your wedding day too, of course)!!! ;-)

So I just saw the new "Upcoming Weddings" section on the home page for the first time today and don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVE this idea...we have needed something like this for a long time!! I know some brides have mentioned about having something like this before so we can all keep track of when other brides are getting married and then go check out their page and congratulate them on their upcoming wedding...so I'm extremely happy that we FINALLY have this new feature!!

BUT...for anyone like me who just recently got married (our wedding was on 8/7/09)...are you feeling a little disappointed that we missed out on this?!?! I try not to be the jealous type...but in a way (if I'm being completely honest) I feel a little jealous that this wasn't around just in time to announce our wedding day!! Anyone else feeling a little sad, disappointed, or maybe even just slightly jealous that WBC didn't have this "Upcoming Weddings" section around at the time to announce your big day?!?! Oh well...either way, I'm really glad that they have it up now so CONGRATS to all the lovely brides out there getting married this weekend or something in the near future!!! ;-)

Well ladies...I'm really not too excited about having to go to jury duty next week...so I was just curious to see if anyone on here has had to go before?!?! I don't know exactly what to expect...other than I'm pretty sure I'll be freaking bored out of my mind LOL!! I just found out last night that one of my hubby's friends has to go next week too...which I guess makes it a little bit better, but it's one of his pretty crazy friends though...so he'll probably get kicked out only after a few hours and then I'll still be stuck by myself anyways LOL!! I told my boss about it and I guess there's nothing really major going on at work next week cause she told me that I could (and should) go since it's our "civic duty" to go when we're summoned...and all that crap!! Anyways, so I don't have a written excuse or anything saying why I can't go...so I guess that means I have to now!! I'm just glad at least I'll still be getting paid while I'm there...but I think I would rather just get paid to be at work actually doing something instead LOL!!

So have any of you lovely brides out there ever had to serve jury duty before?!?! If so, what was it like and do you have any tips or advice on how to get through it all?!?!

Well...here they are ladies!! Here's just a sample of the professional pictures from our wedding on Friday, August 7th, 2009!! I just LOVED our photographer Irwin Funes from Funes Photography!! He captured our wedding exactly how I hoped he would and he's just such a sweet guy to work with and he really made everyone feel comfortable in front of the camera, and most of the time you didn't even know he was there (except for the ones we actually posed for, of course lol)!!!

So here's what I LOVE about our pictures:

*Our wedding colors (turquoise & hot pink)
*Our beach themed decorations
*Our gorgeous flowers (arranged by my MOH!!)
*My hair and hair accessories
*My dress (which btw didn't have a lace-up back at 1st, so let me just say THANK YOU to my friend Dorothy for altering it for me for FREE!!!!)
*My HUBBY...he HATES being in pictures and he HATES wearing a tux, so a huge THANK YOU to him for putting up with both of the things he hates the most long enough to get some very beautiful pictures to always remember our wedding day!!
*My crazy new in-laws...especially all of my new nieces and nephews!!

What I don't like so much about our pictures:

*I wish someone would've told me I had this piece of hair that was falling down over my forehead all night!!!
*Although I LOVE my dress, I guess it's made for someone with a slightly larger chest...so in some of our pictures (especially where I'm moving around or turned to the side) my dress is bulging out and just looks completely awful!!!
*There just aren't enough professional pictures to look through (only 361 total...and I wish we had MORE)!!!!

So good luck and happy planning to all of you beautiful brides out there!! I'll be anxiously waiting to see all of your professional pictures one day soon too!!! ;-)

As many of you ladies may already know...college football season is here!!! Just because we're beautiful brides about to walk down the aisle (or have just recently walked down the aisle...like in my case!!), that doesn't mean we can't hang with the boys too and enjoy a good old college football game...right?!?! So how many of you lovely ladies out there are gonna be busy wedding planning this fall...in between watching your favorite team play on TV (or maybe even getting a chance to go watch the games in person)?!?! So please stand up ladies and let all the other brides on here know which school you root for...whether it's the one you actually go to now, already graduated from, or have never even been there but just love that team anyways!!!

As for me, I didn't grow up in a household that even watched football...my parents pretty much despise this sport lol!! So it wasn't til I started dating my hubby that I really started to LOVE football and we root for the University of Alabama (the Crimson Tide)!! I didn't go to this school, but when you live in Alabama you either root for BAMA...or Auburn...and that's that!! You really don't have too much of a choice in the matter other than those 2 schools lol!! So we can't wait to watch #5 BAMA spank #7 Virginia Tech tomorrow night!!! The funny thing is I'm originally from Virginia, but like I said I never grew up watching football cause my parents hate it...so this should be a pretty good current state vs. home state rivalry for me lol!! Now that my hubby has turned me onto BAMA football...I'm the one that actually YELLS at the TV the loudest lol!!!

So ladies...if you LOVE college football like I do, please say so right here on this post and proclaim your love for whatever school it is that you root for!!! ;-)

It’s already been 3 weeks since we got married on Friday, August 7th, 2009, and although our wedding was absolutely beautiful and definitely a night we’ll always remember, everything definitely did NOT go perfectly or 100% according to plan leading up to our ceremony and there’s still some things that I’m a little upset and disappointed about!!

So let's see where do I begin....(WARNING: This is gonna be a really LONG post...LOL!!!):

Things actually 1st started going wrong about a week before the wedding when we found out that one of the GM had been called at the last minute to go work offshore in Louisiana…and we live in Alabama, so he wasn’t even in town!! He had shoulder surgery back in December and the doctor hadn’t cleared him to go back to work yet, so he was positive that there would be no issues for him to be in our wedding…low and behold the doctor clears him 2 weeks before our wedding and he got called to go off shore immediately!! Well, at least 2 weeks notice might've been alright…but his wife waited until 1 week in advance to call us about all of this!! We were able to find someone to replace him at the last minute, but still this was just the beginning of our problems!!

Then the Tuesday right before we got married, the big tree in front of our house got struck by lightning and it passed through the tree into our house and zapped pretty much ALL of our electronics!! Bye bye to our TV, computer, X-Box, satelittle box, home phone, pretty much everything in the living room except for a lamp and a fan got struck by lightning!!! So that put me in a pretty upset and depressed mood right before our wedding day, and then to top things off I started feeling a little sick on Wednesday, so I went to the doctor’s office Thursday morning (the day before our wedding!!) just to make sure that I caught whatever it was before it really even had a chance to develop!!

Now onto the day of the wedding itself:

*We were planning to get to our venue to decorate around 10:00 am, but it was more like 10:30...
*Then we were 30 mins. late to the hair and make-up appointment, and when I called to let them know...they almost sounded like they weren't even gonna let us come 30 mins. late cause they said "We're already booked up for the rest of the day!!"...I was thinking "UMMM HELLO...I know you're booked up...BY US!!!!" lol
*But even though we got there at 1:30 instead of 1:00, we were done by 3:15 instead of 4:00...so we made up a TON of time!!
*So then we thought we were good to go and actually running way ahead of schedule...plenty of time to come back and set up a few more decorations that we hadn't finished that morning...
*Everything was going great right up until 4:30 when one of our other GM called to say that he was stranded on the Bayway...which was about 30 mins. away and he still hadn't picked up his tux yet and had to stay with his truck while he waited on this guy he knew to meet him there on the Bayway to help tow his truck away!!! So we knew there was pretty much NO WAY he would make it in time for our 6:00 ceremony, so my new father-in-law had to step in as a GM...which worked out fine in the end because then he was able to walk my new little sister-in-law down the aisle instead...
*So at 4:30 I was supposed to be getting dressed and the photographer kept asking me when I would be getting ready, but I was freaking out about the GM issue...then our cake lady showed up and asked where the cake flowers were....
*Turns out that what we thought was a refrigerator was actually a FREEZER!!!! So our beautiful cake flowers (stargazer lilies) were FROZEN, shriveled up and brown!!! Thank God my MOH/florist left behind a bucket full of roses that the cake lady was able to use instead, and nobody would ever even know the difference, but I really wanted to have stargazer lilies on the cake instead!!
*Turned out the 2 gorgeous oversized martini glass arrangements that my MOH also made got frozen too!! They looked sooo awesome, so we put them out on the buffet tables anyways...and the caterers claimed that they were gonna try to fix them with some of the flowers she left behind, but later on that night I noticed that they never fixed anything and so they should've just taken them off the buffet tables completely!!!
*SOO...the GM issue and the frozen flowers ALL happened right around 4:30-5:00pm, when I was supposed to be getting dressed and having some bridal portraits taken by the photographer...I'm really not sure what time he finally got me to go hide in my dressing room so that I wouldn't be seen...but it was probably at least sometime between 5:15-5:30!!!
*So then I did my best to try and calm down in my dressing room after everything seemed to be falling apart, and at that point everything just seemed very rushed and hectic...so I'm sure the photographer got some pretty interesting "bridal portraits" after all lol!!
*The next thing that went wrong was that our MOH and Best Man were nowhere to be found!!! They FINALLY showed up at 5:45!!! My MOH had been awake for like 35-40 hours straight cause she was up ALL night Thursday night making all of the flower arrangements and bouquets, so I guess she/they were just sooo sleep deprived that they thought the ceremony started at 7:00 instead of 6:00!!!! They showed up 15 mins. ahead of time and weren't even dressed yet, the large flower arrangements weren't on display, and nobody had their bouquets, corsages, or boutonnieres!!!!! Thank God at least none of those things were placed in the FREEZER!!!!!
*After ALL of that chaos, the ceremony only started about 15 mins. late around 6:15...so all in all that wasn't too bad!! The ceremony itself was absolutely beautiful, very emotional and extremely touching!!
*BUT....out of about 75 guests that had RSVP'd "YES"...we only had a turnout of about 55 people (including the wedding party!!!) which I was EXTREMELY disappointed about after ALL of our (and especially my!!) hardwork and planning!!! Obviously our true friends and family were there, but I just hate it that people would respond "YES" and then still not show up knowing that you have to have a certain amount of food based on the number of guests you're expecting, and then set up a certain number of tables and chairs...so it was just extremely disappointing to walk down the aisle and see sooo many empty seats and then to have such a poor turn out for our reception too!!

Sorry again that this was such a LONG post, but I just wanted to let all of you brides-2-be out there know that YES there are always gonna be some things that might (and probably will!!) go wrong, but there are also a ton of things that will go very right...and you will still end up married to the man of your dreams one way or the other by the end of the night!!! Now I just can't wait to see the professional pictures from our photographer because they won't show all of the little (and even some of the BIG lol!!) things that went wrong...they will only capture all of the beautiful and magical moments from our special day!!! ;-)

Since my hubby and I just got married ourselves on 8/7/09, I just wanted to take a minute to say CONGRATS to my parents on being married for 38 YEARS today!! I truly grew up in a wonderful home, with extremely loving parents who were always great role models for what a marriage should be like!! They NEVER argue or fight...they very rarely even disagree about anything!! After 38 YEARS of marriage, they are still going strong and I can only hope and pray to have such a perfect marriage as they've had!! They actually got married on a Friday in the month of August and just by coincidence, now so have we...so maybe that's a sign for a lucky marriage or something lol!!

So CONGRATS again to my parents for having such a beautiful and loving marriage together for the past 38 YEARS!! Today is also my dad's birthday (yes, they got married on his b-day...I guess so he would remember the date lol!!)...so happy birthday to my Dad too!!! Good luck to all of you brides-2-be out there and to all of the newlyweds out there too...hopefully ALL of you will have nice, long and wonderful marriages just like my parents have had!!! ;-)

The answer for us is a big fat NOPE lol!! We already talked about this before our wedding on 8/7/09 and neither one of us really liked the thought of eating a piece of cake that was 1 YEAR OLD lol!! I'm a little picky when it comes to certain things like that, but considering that my hubby is a pretty big guy...he's actually the pickiest eater I know lol!!! So if I didn't like the sound of eating a slice of 1 YEAR OLD cake, then I sure as hell know that he wasn't even gonna touch it with a 10 foot pole lol!!

So we actually already cut into the top tier of our wedding cake on our 1 week (not 1 year) anniversary LOL!!! Sad isn't it??!! But that cake was just TOO good to wait any longer than that, and if we already knew we weren't gonna wait til our 1 year anniversary (cause we both think that just sounds kinda gross)...well, then why wait any longer, right??!!! So we each had a slice of our chocolate with OREO buttercream filling top tier on our 1 week anniversary, and I actually just had a piece of it last night too lol!! We need to get busy eating it though cause there's still quite a bit of it left and it still tasted pretty fresh last night, but I don't think it's gonna stay that way for too much longer cause we've just been keeping it in the fridge, not the freezer!!

So ladies, what are your opinions on the whole tradition of saving your top tier (or a least just a slice of it) to eat on your 1 year anniversary??!! Do you plan on actually waiting a whole year to eat it...or are you like us and you'll probably start eating that sucker within a week LOL??!! For any ladies that are already married out there, have you already devoured your top tier or are you still waiting for your 1 year anniversary to dig in??!! lol

Ok Ladies...here it is!! I FINALLY came to a decision about what to include in our Thank You cards!! A HUGE "Thank You" goes out to our amazingly talented fellow bride neuweg03 for "touching up" our Thank You pictures for me!! You would never even know that the sign we're standing beside didn't actually say "Thank You" on it to begin with LOL!! I'm attaching a bigger version of the pic she "doctored up" for us and an original pic when our sign still said "Congratulations Bill & Krystal" on it!!

After much debate, I've decided to include these photo collages (from Walgreens) in each Thank You card and I'm absolutely in LOVE with them!!! I knew that I definitely wanted to include the middle picture with the "Thank You" sign in the background, but I wanted to be able to show off more than just one picture of us, especially for all of my out of town relatives that couldn't be there!! At first I was just planning on getting some wallet size pictures printed out, but it turns out that they're $.99 for 4 (basically a 4x6 picture divided into 4 wallets)!!! I need to mail out and/or hand deliver about 55 Thank You cards, so I want to get 60 of these pictures made up just in case!! Well, at those prices, if I was still gonna include 2 different pictures then it would've come to almost $30...just for 2 wallet size pictures in each card!!! It's WAY cheaper to just print out a 4x6 picture itself, but they would be too big to fit in our Thank You cards and I didn't want to have to cut any of them and ruin them. So I was on walgreens.com in their Photo section trying to figure out what other options I might have, and that's when I discovered that their 4x6 photo collages are only $.29 each....times 60 that I'll have printed out...so for a grand total of $17.40!!! And this way I'm actually able to include 3 different pictures ALL in one, rather than just 2 like I was originally planning on, not to mention it's soo much cheaper and I think it looks sooo much more amazing!!!

So here's the finished product that I'll be getting printed out soon, and then all I'll have to do is just trim down some of the excess border so that they'll fit inside of our Thank You cards (but at least this won't ruin the pictures themselves and I have a paper cutter that'll make it still look nice and smooth)!!! So what do you ladies think of them??!!! I know I've posted up several different times about our Thank You card pictures, but this is my FINAL decision!!!! Now I just gotta get busy writing out all of our Thank You cards first lol!!! ;-)

WOW ladies...please just take a minute out of your busy day to look through these pics of all our amazingly beautiful flower arrangements that my MOH Veronica arranged for our wedding!! Two weeks after our wedding...I'm still just completely in shock and awe at how awesome and talented my MOH is at floral arranging!!! Believe it or not ladies...she worked in the floral area of a local grocery store for about 2 months and then loved it so much that she started working at one of the really upscale local florists in town, but she was only there for about 3 or 4 months...and now she's been away from working around flowers completely for about 9 or 10 months!!! Can you believe that??!! She's only got about 6 or 7 months total of experience and now she's been away from it for that long...but obviously she hasn't lost her touch one bit!!! Not to mention Veronica has never worked alone before...but she did ALL of these floral arrangements 100% by herself!! She had to go to work the day before our wedding, then picked up the loose flowers in water buckets and stayed up ALL night arranging them, and then never even got a wink of sleep until after our wedding was over!! So she was easily awake for about 40-45 hours straight!!!

Veronica wasn't originally going to be my MOH or even in the wedding party at all because I knew she would have her hands full with arranging all of the flowers. But when my best friend Stacey had to back out because she found out she was pregnant and that her due date would be sometime in August (she actually just had her baby today!!), I knew that she wouldn't be able to come down all the way from Virginia (which is where we grew up together) to Alabama for our wedding!! So that's when Veronica jumped right in without hesitation since I really didn't have anyone else that I felt close enough to that I would even consider asking, and really she had been acting like my MOH all along cause she was always so involved in the wedding planning process...so it was nice to be able to actually give her the title that she deserved too!! She told me that she hates wearing dresses (because she's a little self-conscious of her weight), hates being in front of a bunch of people, and hates having to take a bunch of pictures, but she put all of those things aside on top of already knowing that she was going to be arranging ALL of our flowers by herself...and despite all of those things, she still jumped right into the roll of being my MOH and as you can see...she did an AWESOME job!! I can never say THANK YOU enough to Veronica for everything that she has done to help out with our wedding planning and also for just being such an amazing friend!!

The only bad part about her being my MOH and our florist is that she was soo busy working on the flowers that she had to cancel her hair and make-up appointment at the salon with the rest of us (me, my mom, and my 2 other bridesmaids). But she's not too much of a hair and make-up person to begin with, and she said that she could really use the money anyways because her 2 girls had to have uniforms to start school the Monday right after our wedding...so no biggie!! BUT then things got really hectic and chaotic around 5:45 pm when the ceremony was supposed to start at 6 pm and Veronica still wasn't there (not to mention the fact that her boyfriend James was also the Best Man...and they were both nowhere to be found)!!! They showed up with 15 minutes to spare, still not even dressed in their proper wedding attire...but due to sleep deprevation from being awake ALL night working on the flowers, they got confused and thought the wedding didn't actually start until 7:00 pm!!! Oh well...the ceremony only started 15 mins. late in the end, which really isn't that bad and the flowers were just sooo breathtaking and amazingly beautiful that they've already been forgiven for running a little (or well...A LOT) late!!! In the end, the grand total that we spent on ALL of the flowers for our wedding was only $484.22 and Veronica arranged all of them as her wedding present to us!! So what if they were late...things happen...but I will always have amazing pictures to look at from our wedding with all of these absolutely gorgeous flowers in them!!! Now I just can't wait to see our professional pics!!

Hey ladies!! Here's some pics of me and my girls the day of the wedding during the whole beautification process lol!! It was HOT that day...about 93 or 94 for the high, but I guess I can't complain too much cause there was NO RAIN!! Pretty much everyday before the wedding and everyday since then it has rained, so I guess being in Alabama we just gotta expect that it's gonna be HOT (duh!!) but the amazing thing was that there was no rain to mess up our beautiful hair-do's and make-up!! At least it wasn't like June when it was over 100 everyday and the heat index was up around 110!!! So I'm glad we were able to get a TON of outdoor pics...it wasn't too bad by 6:30 pm whenever the ceremony was over, but I know the guys were really sweating to death in their tuxes!! Oh well...they'll get over it lol cause I know our outdoor pics are gonna look amazing and I can't wait to see the professional pics from the photographer!!

So here's me, 2 of my bridesmaids, and my mom getting all dolled up at the salon!! Nikki is my new little sister-in-law and Annie is a friend of mine from back in high school when we both lived in Virginia, but now it just so happens that she lives in Florida and we live in Alabama...so it wasn't too far for her and her boyfriend to drive so that she could be in our wedding!! Unfortunately, my MOH Veronica couldn't come with us at the last minute cause she was also our florist and she was up ALL night getting the flowers ready!! She had to work the day before the wedding and then picked up the flowers from the wholesale florist, arranged them ALL night long by herself, and then FINALLY got some sleep once the wedding was all over...so she was easily awake for at least 40 HOURS straight!! I felt bad that she couldn't get her hair and make-up done with us, but the flowers were ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS...I started bawling as soon as she walked into our venue with them lol!! Anyways, she's not too much of a hair and make-up person to begin with, and I know she could really use the money for other things instead, so it worked out just fine in the end!!

(PS - Please ignore the date in these pics...my parents just got a new camera, and for whatever reason they had the date set to "European mode" lol!! We got married on 8/7/09, NOT 7/8/09!!)

Hi ladies!! Some of you may have already seen my post from yesterday about the pictures that we plan to include in our Thank You cards...well now I have a new dilemma!! One of the comments that I got on my previous post was from neuweg03 and she said that she thought it would look really cool to take the pic of us standing in front of our "Congratulations" sign and just Photoshop it so that it would say "Thank You" instead!! Well...I loved the picture the way it was, but now look at how she's worked her magic and transformed these pictures for us!!!

While she was at it, I asked her if there was any way she could take the picture of us holding our "Thank You" signs and make it look a little bit better. Basically, our photographer e-mailed me 2 different pics of us holding our signs - the 1st one I was smiling really nicely, but Bill had this weird "uhhh duuuhhh" type of grin on his face, and the other pic was much nicer overall, but I just wasn't smiling as much as I was in the 1st pic (and our photographer is on vacation this week so I couldn't ask him for any help). Yet again...neuweg03 worked her magic, and now it looks like we're BOTH smiling perfectly in the pic with our "Thank You" signs...but hey ladies, let's just keep this our little secret!! So now that our pictures are absolutely perfect.......I just can't decide which ones look the best!!! Obviously, I want to include one of each pose...but out of the different ones that neuweg03 sent to me, which ones look the best to actually include in our Thank You cards??!!!

I really need your opinions on this one ladies...pretty please!!! They ALL look soo amazing, so it's making it extremely hard for me to decide!!! Just to satisfy your curiosity...the last 2 pics are the originals that I e-mailed to neuweg03....didn't she do an amazing job?!?!?! The letters on the sign look like we actually put them up there that way...I can't believe it!!! And OMG...she changed my smile (I know I was probably just being really picky about this...but still) and it looks soo natural in the Photoshop ones she sent me that I seriously couldn't even tell the difference, even after I zoomed in on the pictures and made them really big!!! WOW...Thank You SOOO much neuweg03...YOU ARE AWESOME!!!! So now ladies...I just need your opinions to help me choose which 2 photos to include in our Thank You cards!!! ;-)

Hey ladies!! I asked our photographer to send us a few pics to choose from to include in our Thank You cards (since it'll still be 3-4 weeks before we get the whole CD of pictures)...so he sent us 4 to choose from, 2 of us holding our "Thank You" signs and then 2 of us standing beside our "Congratulations" sign!! I absolutely LOVE the 1st pic he sent us (the main pic off to the left) but I was a little disappointed in how our "Thank You" pictures turned out. One of them I was smiling really nicely, but Bill had this weird grin on his face like he was saying "uhhh duuhhh"...so I didn't even attach that one for you ladies to look at lol!! The other one he sent us (pic #2) Bill was smiling nicely, but I just look "ok"...oh well I guess overall it's a nice picture so I'm pretty sure we'll include that one too cause I was planning on at least putting 2 pics in each of our Thank You cards!! But I think I'm gonna ask around with some friends to see if any of them got any better poses of us with our "Thank You" signs that I like a little bit better than the ones from our photographer.

What do you ladies think of the one where we're not actually looking at the camera (pic #3)?? I think we're both smiling better in that one, but the problem is we were focused on the photographer's camera, of course because he was the one we were actually PAYING to take our pictures LOL!! So I dunno if it would be better to include the pic from the photographer (pic #2) or something that someone else took, even though we might not actually be looking at the camera (like pic #3)??!! And do you think I should include a 3rd picture...like the one of us cutting our cake....which I just absolutely LOVE!!! Is 3 pictures too many...or would it be just right??!! Obviously, I would remove the date stamp from the pics before I printed them out first (besides, my parents had the date set in "European mode" for some reason LOL...we got married on 8/7/09, NOT 7/8/09 LOL)!!!!

Hey ladies...I've missed you guys!! Well what can I say...we're married now!! The day of the wedding definitely did NOT go as smooth as it could have, but I'll go into more details about all of that in another post LOL!! The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and all of the decorations turned out absolutely gorgeous, but there was a lot of stuff that happened behind the scenes that could have potentially ruined the entire wedding!!! But for now, I'll just leave you ladies with a few pics to look at and I'll just say that "All's well that ends well"...and we still ended up married one way or the other by the end of the night!!! ;-)

Good luck and happy planning to all of you beautiful brides-2-be out there!!! ;-)

(PS - You may need to give these pics a minute to load...the file sizes are pretty big!!)

OMG I can't believe that after at least a year and a half of planning our wedding, we're FINALLY getting married THIS FRIDAY, August 7th....WOOOO HOOOO!!!! So this is my last post before becoming a MRS.!!! I'm only working half a day today cause I'm picking my dad up from the airport at noon...and then we'll be busy busy after that getting last minute things done!!! We still gotta get our marriage license really quick this afternoon, and if you read my last post then you know things haven't been going so great for us lately...and right now I'm feeling kinda sick so I'm going to the doctor's office this afternoon!! I'm trying not to let that get me down, but on top of that, our house got struck by lightning yesterday afternoon and our tv, computer, etc., ALL got struck by lightning and got FRIED...so that's put a little bit of a damper on the wedding because I'm soo upset about this happening and about how much money we just lost in all of those things...and then knowing that we definitely CAN'T afford to replace everything right now!!! So yeah that really sucked...but I'm just hoping and praying that everything else from this point on (especially the day of the wedding itself) goes extremely perfect and smooth, and then we'll just have to worry about all those things later on. At least hopefully we'll have some wedding gift money to spend in order to replace some of these things that got fried...so I guess things could be worse, and I'm trying not to let this get me down so that I can still have the time of my life at our wedding on Friday when I get to marry the man of my dreams!!!!!

So wish me luck ladies (about everything really...the wedding, all of our electronic stuff, and hopefully I'll get better really soon after seeing the doctor)!!!! I'll miss you ladies...but I won't be gone too long and I'll be back as soon as I can with some pictures!!!! ;-)

OMG Ladies...I need your support right now...I swear we have the worst luck ever!!! Of course I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off all weekend, so yesterday I started feeling a little sick cause I don't think I've been taking care of myself enough or getting enough sleep lately. Well I woke up yesterday with a slight scratchiness in my throat and then ALL day long I just kept constantly sneezing!! I do have some allergy problems from time to time, but it hasn't been a problem lately so I don't know why this all of a sudden came on me, but I would have to assume the lack of enough sleep and constantly being on the go and doing a million things all at once did me in!!! Well, I finally got a really good sleep last night cause I fell asleep around 9:00 pm lol...so today I woke up and physically I don't feel that bad, but my throat is still a bit scratchy and now instead of sneezing all the time, my nose is extremely stuffed up...so yeah I'm going to the doctor's this afternoon for sure (I was only gonna work half a day anyways cause I gotta pick my dad up from the airport at noon)!!!

So as if that's not enough to worry about with our wedding being THIS FRIDAY...we had a MAJOR MAJOR storm yesterday afternoon and my fiance called me at work and told me that our big pecan tree right in front of our house got struck by lightning!! Ok so I was thinking well...no big deal it's just a tree...as long as everyone is ok!! Well he had kept my car yesterday to work on my brakes and just check some things, so he and my mom came to pick me up from work yesterday and then that's when I found out the whole story behind the lightning... Turns out that the lightning didn't just strike the tree, but it passed through the tree and into our house and COMPLETELY FRIED our TV, computer, our satelitte box, and my fiance's X-Box!!!! OMG...that's like at least $1,200 worth of stuff that we obviously can't afford to replace right now because ALL of our money lately has gone towards this wedding!! I was crying the whole way home after he told me this...just great...this is definitely the last thing I needed to hear with only 2 days to go before our wedding!!! I know they're just material things, and thank goodness my mom and my fiance are ok because they were both inside when all of this happened!!! So at least it was just material things, and they can all be replaced...eventually...but obviously it was just very bad timing for something like this to happen because we have like ZERO money right now!!! I think we've found a TV that we can at least borrow for now (slightly smaller than ours, but it'll have to do) and Directv will replace our satellite box for us cause we pay the extra $5 a month for the protection plan (Thank Goodness!!)...but we'd still have to replace our computer and my fiance's X-Box, and then eventually get a new TV too since we're just going to borrow one for now!! So ladies....please wish us luck and keep us in your prayers that our wedding day will go perfectly smooth because I don't think we could handle anything else going completely wrong at this point!!! At least now we know what to spend all of our wedding gift money on...I guess things could be worse, but they sure could be a heck of a lot better too!!!

Hey ladies!! OMG I'm getting married THIS FRIDAY....WOOOO HOOOO!!!! So now it's got me thinking that I know there's a ton of things that I'll need to get my name changed on shortly after we get married. Of course I didn't JUST think about this today, but at the same time, I haven't really been able to do any research about this yet to hopefully find a checklist or something of all the different things that you have to get your name changed on!! Just wondering (and hoping) if somebody out there might already have some sort of checklist like this, or even if you can list a few examples of things that you can think of that you need to get your name changed on, then maybe I could put everyone's responses into a checklist so that other brides might be able to have it as a quick reference in the future!!!

So ladies, if you have a checklist...that would be AWESOME (cause I don't wanna buy a name change kit)!!! But if you don't have one, then please list as many different things you can think of that you need to get your name changed on so we can put our own list together for future brides out there!!! Thanks ladies for all of your help...and wish me luck on FRIDAY!!!!! ;-)

On July 24th, 2008, my fiance's mother and my FMIL was taken away from this world much too soon only at the age of 54. She had battled cirrhosis of the liver for several years, but on that day her body just gave out and could not keep fighting anymore. This past year has been very tough without her, especially for my fiance's little sister Nikki who has a learning disability and her mommy was definitely her best friend!! We have done our best to help his family out in anyway that we possibly can, and we are so thankful that we made the tough decision 4 years ago to move from Virginia (which is where I'm from) down to Alabama (which is where my fiance's from) because at least that allowed us to have 3 very wonderful years with her!!

We were originally going to get married on 6/7/08, not only because it would've been extremely easy to remember, but more importantly because that was our 5 year anniversary from when we got engaged!! Unfortunately, due to a lack of time and money we had to push the date back...but little did we know what a short amount of time left his mom would have. We can't go back now and change things, but 6/7/08 would have been our "dream wedding date" for many reasons, and the icing on the cake would have been that his mother would have still been alive at that point to be there. Since then, we've changed our date 3 different times, mostly because of a lack of time and money to plan everything, but of course his mother's death had alot to do with it too.

So now that we're finally getting married next Friday, August 7th, especially with it being so close to 1 year since his mom passed away, we definitely wanted to have a very special (and I'm sure very emotional) tribute to his mother. Of course we will have a memorial table with pictures on it, and I also ordered a memorial candle with her name on it, but it's not so much what will be on the table that's significant...it's the way that we actually plan on doing the special memorial tribute to her that's significant. The flower vase that you see in the pictures will actually be empty at the beginning of the ceremony (except for a bit of water) and my fiance has 5 sisters (4 of them are actually half-sisters, but family is family!) and so as each one of them walks down the aisle to take their seats, they will each place a single rose in the vase for her. My fiance's little sister Nikki is going to be one of my bridesmaids and so she will actually be the 1st BM to walk down the aisle, but the last one of all of the sisters. Once she gets to the end of the aisle, she will place the last rose in the vase and then she will join my fiance and their father and they will all light the memorial candle together. Since it's only been a year ago since she passed away, and since the timing of it is so close to our wedding date, we really wanted to have a special memorial and tribute to her that would allow their entire family to be involved and pay tribute to her each in their own special way...

Hey ladies...sorry if this post just seems kinda random but I'm trying to post as many pics as I can that I haven't already posted yet cause...OMG we're getting married NEXT FRIDAY (August 7th)...WOOO HOOO!!!!

Here are just some pics of things that we'll have at our cake table and buffet tables!! On the cake table we'll have the blue mini lanterns, which I found at Old Time Pottery, and our personalized napkins that I ordered from the Knot...sorry these pics are soo blurry but our camera is really crappy (we're hoping to buy a new one with some of our wedding money lol)!! The napkins say "Bill and Krystal...August 7th, 2009" since I'm sure you probably can't read it lol!! Then for our buffet tables, I found this cute seashell silverware basket at Ross and I just couldn't resist...and I figured it was something that we could use after the wedding too!! The seashell toothpicks will go inside of the wedding pails and there will be turquoise ribbon tied to the handles, but I just haven't taken a pic of them all put together yet!!

Wish me luck ladies...I can't believe we're FINALLY getting married NEXT FRIDAY!!! Good luck and happy planning to all of you beautiful brides out there too!!! ;-)

So is it just me...or has anyone else seriously had to rent a storage unit for all of your wedding CRAP??!! I've seen several brides joking about how they really need a storage unit, but I seriously had to rent one...there was just NO other option for me!! I'm sure we all get tired of having our houses/lives consumed by ALL of our wedding CRAP...I mean "beautiful wedding items" lol...but has anyone else seriously needed to rent a storage unit??!! Of course I was (and still am!!) getting tired of seeing wedding crap everywhere I turn and I'm getting tired of having to walk through an obstacle course in my house!! That's not why I rented one though...cause if it was just me and my fiance, then I'm sure we could've managed until after the wedding (which is NEXT Friday, August 7th...WOOO HOOO!!!!) and then just sell everything and be done with it!! BUT the reason why I actually HAD to rent a storage unit was because my mom is flying down here this Friday and then my dad gets here next Wednesday (they have different work schedules), and so I just HAD to rent a storage unit so that they could actually have a place to sleep because our spare bedroom had turned into a wedding nightmare lol!!! I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves ladies....LOL!!!

This isn't even half of our wedding crap in the storage unit in these pics...I still have a TON of wedding crap to organize and take up to the storage unit before Friday when my mom gets here...not to mention ALL of the actual cleaning I have to get done around our house!!! OMG...I'm stressing out more about all the cleaning and crap I gotta get done between now and Friday than I am about the actual wedding itself!!! Pretty much everything is taken care of for the wedding...just gotta assemble more of our DIY fan programs, but that's what my mom gets to help me out with once she gets here lol!! So yeah...I'm WAY BEYOND READY to FINALLY be getting married next Friday...not only so I can FINALLY be married to the man of my dreams, but so we can also FINALLY get rid of ALL of our wedding CRAP and FINALLY have our lives back!!! lol

So ladies...who's with me??!!! Are you sooo over ALL of the wedding CRAP that's piling up in your house??!!! Has anyone else out there seriously had to rent a storage unit too??!!!

Hey ladies!! A few months ago I saw an idea for a Bride & Groom word search online somewhere and I thought it was just too cute, so I decided I had to make some of these myself!! Only problem was I couldn't find a template for these anywhere...especially not a word search that was in the shape of a heart!! So through a lot of trial and error, I came up with my own template and the main thing was finding the right font to use so that the letters would be spaced out just right...once I clicked on the font called "Arial monospaced" then it looked absolutely perfect!!! So all I had to do was come up with some questions and then place the words themselves into the word search, and then I just bought some cute paper from Office Max and had them printed out there too. I decided to tie some turquoise ribbon around them and then attach the left over belly band sqaures I had from our invitations to spruce them up a bit...and viola!!! So what do you ladies think of them??!! I'm having my bridal shower this Sunday (and OMG we're getting married next Friday, August 7th...WOOOO HOOOO!!!), so I'm taking these to use as one of my bridal shower games!! I know it's hard to actually read the questions/hints I have listed on the word search in these pics, so here's the list of questions with the answers next to them below:

1) Month Bill & Krystal started dating (January)
2) Month Bill & Krystal got engaged (June)
3) Krystal’s home state (Virginia)
4) Bill’s home state (Alabama)
5) High school Krystal attended (Granby)
6) High school Bill attended (Theodore)
7) Road Bill & Krystal live on (Plantation)
8) Number of pets Bill & Krystal have (Three)
9) Krystal’s favorite food (Steak)
10) Bill’s favorite drink (Pepsi)
11) Bill & Krystal’s combined age (Fifty)
12) Number of siblings Krystal has (Zero)
13) Number of siblings Bill has (Six)
14) Number of nieces & nephews Bill & Krystal have (Thirteen)
15) Where Krystal’s mom is from (Toronto)
16) Type of car Krystal drives (Lexus)
17) Type of car Bill drives (Supra)
18) Bill’s favorite sport (Football)
19) Krystal’s favorite color (Blue)
20) Bill’s favorite color (Red)
21) Krystal’s middle name (Marie)
22) Bill’s middle name (Earl)

I'm soo happy with how they turned out and I can't wait for everyone at my bridal shower to try and figure out the answers to all of the questions (some of them will probably be clueless lol!!) and then find all of the words in the word search!! So who wants or needs a FREE template??!! Please let me know and I can e-mail you the template...the word search part is just all X's so that you can fill in your own letters to each word that you put in the word search. I also have some sample questions listed, so all you'd need to do is just fill in your own names where it says "Bride" and "Groom", or you can always come up with your own questions too of course!! Wish me luck ladies...time is really flying by at this point and I'll be a married woman before you know it!!! Good luck and happy planning to all of your lovely brides out there too!!! ;-)

PS - Sorry I have such a crappy camera...I wish these pics weren't so blurry and fuzzy cause they look SOO much better in person!! One of the things we really want to get with some of our wedding money is a new digital camera lol!!! ;-)

Here's some pics of our wedding favors...OMG I can't believe we're getting married a week from this Friday, on August 7th...WOOO HOOO!!! I've already put together ALL 100 wedding favors so they're all set and boxed up and ready to go now!! Here's what's included in each favor and where I got everything from:

*The heart handled favor boxes (they call them boxes, I say they're bags...but whatever!!) came from Ann's Bridal Bargains and we got them personalized with "Bill and Krystal...August 7th, 2009" in silver ink with a seashell design!!

*The wedding cake bubbles actually came from the Dollar General and I got them at the end of last summer when they had a bunch of wedding stuff on sale, so I got 25 packs of 4...each one was $.50 (so $12.50 total)!!

*The seaside tealight sets came from The Knot and I got 25 packs of 4 as well and then just divided them up into 100 favors...I'm too cheap to give each person their own pack of 4 LOL (...sorry!!), but they wouldn't have fit in the little bags anyways!!

*The wedding buttermints came from Oriental Trading Company and they say "Thanks For Sharing Our Special Day"!!

*The turquoise tissue paper just came from Rite Aid!!

My goal was to only spend about $1 per favor, so $100 total for 100 favors...I think I did pretty good and stayed as close to my budget as possible!! My grand total for ALL 100 favors (the bags, bubbles, tealights, buttermints, and tissue paper) came to right around $120!! So I went a teeny bit over budget...but I think they turned out extremely cute and I hope all of our guests really like them!! ;-)

Unfortunately, I've known for the past year or so that my grandmother wouldn't be able to make it to our wedding...of course this makes me very sad cause we're extremely close, but she's just too old and frail to travel at this point! So I knew that I wanted to have something of hers on my wedding day to remind me of her and also to let her know that just because she can't be there in person, doesn't mean that I don't still feel her love right there with me for every step I take down the aisle!! So she's already mailed me a hankie that she was given for her 6th birthday...so that makes it 80 YEARS OLD!!! This will definitely be my "something old" for sure, but it's not really that fancy...no lace or anything like that, but I will still have it tucked away somewhere on me to represent my "something old" on our wedding day. Then I also asked her if I could borrow one of her brooches to use as my bouquet jewelry, but since she lives in Canada and I live in Alabama, I don't get to see her that often...so the last time my mom was up there visiting her, I asked her to pick out a few different brooches for me to choose from. This will be considered my "something borrowed" from my grandmother, but whenever I'm done with them, she wants me to give them to my mom for her to wear since my grandmother doesn't really wear any of her jewelry anymore.

Anyways, so now I can't decide...I've narrowed it down to 2 different brooches, but I like them both for different reasons...so now I need help from all of you beautiful brides out there!! Our wedding color is turquoise blue, so that's what makes me like the blue one...but the flowers that we're using throughout the wedding are mostly hot pink...so I still like the pink one too!! Either one of them would fit in just fine with the wedding colors and theme, so now I just need help making a final decision....cause our wedding is coming up right around the corner on Friday, August 7th!!! I'm attaching a picture of the bouquet I'll have and my bridesmaids bouquets too...so do you think the blue brooch or the pink brooch would look better attached to my bouquet stems??!! I put them next to the white ribbon that will be wrapped around the stems to help give you an idea of what it might look like...so which one do you ladies think I should use??!!