This is jessicahonigford's Orange Wedding!

I haven't posted in forever. I moved and got a new job so I've been busy with non-wedding stuff. I may have found a reception venue other than the church hall...it may be too small for my guest list though...we'll see

Well I am now leaning toward an apple red or another deep red variation with orange flowers...that way Chris gets his red and I get my orange!

Well my fh and I don't have to register for gifts for a while still but I think we know what we want to do. We are going to register at two stores...not sure which ones yet. But we don't have everything we need yet to live together really...I have my college stuff and he has some left over things from working at a furniture store. Don't get me wrong these things are nice but they are stuff we've had for several years and most of it was previously used before us and have seen better days. Now I know...you are not supposed to include your registry info in the invites. Personally everyone knows you're registering and they know they don't have to get you gifts if they can't or don't want to...so I don't see the problem with this. But here is why I am going to include the info in the invites. A) the info will be on my website but not all my guests go on internet. B) my bridal party can't help "spread the word" considering most of them do not live near my family, neighbors and hometown friends C) my family and neighbors and hometown friends pretty much make up the ENTIRE guest list so if I have my family spread the word, I may as well told them. And if I'm going to have my mom and sister tell my friends and neighbors I may as well told them. We get invites all the time with the registry info in them and I am never offended. If people are offended by it or think it's tacky then that's their opinion and they own that. I can't make everyone happy. I'm going to do what I think is best, most convenient and most economical for me and Chris. P.S. we are now thinking about having red dresses and orange flowers. This would let Chris have his "red his hot' thing lol.

Well the wedding is a long ways off still and I'm very very glad I have such a good head start on all of this, but I'm getting a bit burnt out from looking at colors and cakes and dresses and stuff online all the time so I'm taking a mini break. I'm still doing stuff with the wedding but not neaaaaar as much as I have been. Besides my sister (maid of honor) is moving to cedar point for the summer here in a little over a week so I want to spend some time with her that isn't necessarily revolving around me and chris' wedding.

So until further notice...I'm on my lunch break!

I realized that I don't have a photo of me and my love on here so I'm going to put a bit about us on here. We met two years ago when my car got a flat when I was on the way to work...the driveway to his family's business was the closest thing to me..so I pulled over in the pouring rain all dressed up to see a completely blown out tire. He came to my rescue and let me make a phone call and sit in his parking lot. He made sure I was OK...he was going to change the tire for me but my Dad was already on his way.

Our anniversary is July 4...we originally wanted to have a July 4, 2009 wedding but due to financial reasons we decided to push it back to October 3. So essentially I have planned two different color schemes and am trying to find that one thing Chris really likes for our October 3 wedding. He loved the ideas for the July 4 wedding so I'm hoping to find something that wows him. If he really really really likes one thing and the rest he's decently happy with then we're both going to be happy we've determined.

So here's a photo of me and my fiance (unofficially as I have no ring yet if I haven't mentioned that before).

Here are some colors and/or styles I like...some of them come in the color I like but couldn't be displayed online in that specific color.

So are putting these on the main tables for my immediate family (not mine because I"m doing different decorations involving my maids' bouquets). We are going to fill them with big deep red apples and put a couple candles around them. I like it! Plus they were super cheap at HobbyLobby and we bought three large and three medium...all that were left were three small...we cleaned them out!

These are some decorations/cake toppers etc. that I really like...found them at Ben Franklin's crafts in Bowling Green, Ohio (where I went to college)

OK so I think I'm going to have my bridal shower and bacehlorette party on the same day...one for brunch and the other that night (duh) so I only have to take on day off of work. However, Chris and I have discussed having our bachelorette/bachelor parties together. Neither one of us are into the bar scene, and don't have a lot of money to go far and do something super elaborate. I am totally for having one togher...I also don't mind having them separate...I trust Chris and he just wants to do a cook-out fire pit thing for his if we do them apart.

What are you all doing?

His is easy to take care of cuz he just wants to sit by a fire with a beer...I don't really know what to do with the girls that's not A) really expensive (cuz I'd love to do a spa thing) of B) a bar, a club, anything that revolves around alcohol and chaos.

So, should we do a collaborative cook out? Suggestions?

OK I am having a 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock wedding...but it's not the full catholic ceremony (see post below) so it won't take more than a half hour-40 minutes or so. My meal for the reception won't be until 5 or so...so that leaves a good chunk of time...and a good chunk of our guests will be traveling so they won't be able to just sit at home and relax in between the ceremony or reception. I thought about moving the ceremony back but I can't because the chruch has 4 pm Saturday Mass. The church has to be cleaned out by 3...and I want to do my pictures afterward so everyone is there for them and that way I can try my best to avoid seeing Chris before the wedding. So this leaves a couple hundred people (give or take 50) to find something to do for a couple hours...so here are my ideas. My extended family who are Catholic more than likely will be going to Mass at 4 because that's just what they do...his family isn't Catholic at all so them and my guests (friends and family who aren't Catholic) won't have anywhere to go or anything to do. In my area since there is a good chunk of time in between the ceremony and reception a lot of people go bar hopping (and there are plenty of bars around to do that too) but I'd rather not partake in this "Putnam County tradition"...at least not officially...obviously my guests are free to go where they want. Instead of going out as a group I am trying to arrange that after our photos Chris and I are going to take a horse and carriage around town (out to the cemetery more than likely so I can lay a flower on my grandparents grave since they can't be with us on our day)...and then back to the reception site (which just happens to be right next to the church).

Anyway back to the guests...my mom saw somewhere that having a characturist (spelling) at the reception hall before the reception officially begins can give the guests something to do. My aunt's husband happens to be able to do characatures very well...and I can offer to pay him for the hour or so that he does that or maybe he'll do it for me as a wedding gift (probably the latter) and we will throw our RSVP cards into a basket and he'll choose guests' names out of it...if the guest is there and wants it they'll have their picture drawn while the guests watch...then he'll choose another and another and so on and so forth. I also saw something really cool where you order vintage newspapers off of ebay (and they're surprisingly cheap) and put them on some of the tables and guests can look at them to kill time.

I'd like to get newspapers from 1938 because that is the year my great-grandparents were married in this exact same church I am getting married in. They celebrated 70 years together at the end of April...a couple weeks before my great-grandma died at the age of 95 on mother's day...so I think that will be neat and a ton special.

So our ceremony is going to be in the Immaculate Conception of Mary Catholic Church in Ottoville, OH. I am baptized Catholic but do not actively practice that denomination. My fiance is Lutheran, but we both agree this church (where I was baptized, and where my great-grandparents were married) is too beautiful to pass up. It's a dual steeple (spelling?) authentic gothic church built in the 19th century by the German immigrants (my ancestors) who settled here. Anyway...we aren't having a Catholic ceremony because in order to do that Chris would have to agree to become Catholic and neither one of us really are wanting that, so we're doing just a regular wedding ceremony instead of the over an hour long Catholic Mass and ceremony. Anyway...to help fill out the ceremony a tiny bit I want to not only recite the church vows (to have and to hold for richer for poorer, etc.) but also write our own and do both. Did anyone else do this or have heard of this? I'm sure the priest (especially if I get my dad's cousin who's a priest to marry us) won't mind as long as we tell him.

So since my mom's a photographer (no not my wedding photog she wants to be my mom for the day :-D) and I hate spending lots of money on things that will be put in a box or thrown away...I decided that isntead of a traditional guest book I want to blow up some of our engagement pictures (or at least the ones that are outside in the fall) into 8x10s or 11x13s mat them and frame them...I can do this relavitely cheaply because of my mom's line of business, it will still cost money but when I'm done with them I can keep them and actually use them forever. I am going to set out a coupe (2-3) of these out at the reception and when the guests come in they can sign the matting of the picture with a felt pen (maybe something with a feather on the end of it so it looks old and rustic). After the honeymoon I will come back, put glass on them and hang them in our home not only as photos of the lovely couple but a momento to remember everyone who celebrated the special day with us!

OK so we all know invites can be really really expensive...especially if you don't want them to be fairly generic and look like everyone else's...so why not make your own? You can pay 30 dollars or something at this website called Wedding DNA...you pay the 30 bucks and you get downloadable templates and clip art with all different sorts of themes. In word, publisher, adobe photoshop (and even InDesign) you can add your text and send them to a professional printing place via internet. They're still professionally printed on linen or canvas or thick paper whatever you want, but you didn't pay for another place to design them. You could even print them on your own home printer if you want to buy your own ink and paper...you would have to print in really high quality, and won't be able to print all the way to the edge because only commercial printers do this. The typical household printer has a minimum of 1/4 inch print margin. Here's the template I like so far...printed on ivory parchemnt paper or linen or something...

What we have decided to do to save money is make a small decorative cake that doesn't feed everyone and then buy or make sheet cakes in different flavors to give out to guests after the meal at the reception. But here are some cakes I think are pretty not only for cake but also giving me color and decoration ideas...

While I am doing a good chunk of the planning, my fiance is very much involved and I run almost everything by him before I get my heart too set on it...when we were planning for July wedding he absolutely loved the red, ivory and silver ideas, I'm not quite getting the same response with the autumn motif, but since we will be wed in October, the fall motif makes sense financially and well, because it will be all around us. He is complaining that some of the flowers I liked look "like death." Those are his exact words lol so I'm trying to lighten it up without it going tooooo far down the "spring" route instead. So here are several different flower bouqets that I like...any suggestions let me know!

Sooo I haven't quite decided if I want to go completely leaves or if I just want to use the fall color motifs with different patterns...so here are some name card holders or favors that are either fall colors or fall-related

I bought this in March...it's ivory with a pick-up skirt that has pearl clusters

The combination of sage green, tangerine orange and the burnt ornage colors are fabulous.