This is septbride08's Chocolate Wedding!

{Here} is a printable Michael's coupon (40% off) good through August 30th. Don't forget, JoAnn takes competitor's coupons, so if you have one of those near you, this is also good there.

Happy DIYing!

So, I just ran across a website called Cost of Wedding, where you can type in your zip code and it will spit out the average cost of wedding where you live. Well, sort of.

Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me, and I entered our zip code. This is the response I got...

On average, couples that live in XXXXX (Ourhometown, MN) spend between $16,458 and $49,374 for their wedding. This does not include cost for a honeymoon or engagement ring.

In this area, 81% of couples spend less than the average wedding cost while 19% of couples spend more than the average.

Huh, wah?!? Our "average" wedding has a nearly $33,000 spread?! Why don't they just tell me that in our area, people generally spend between $0 and and infinite amount of money on their wedding? It's about that helpful. Not to mention that according to Merriam-Webster, an average is "a single value (as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values". Don't worry, you read that right, it says "single value".

I also enjoy the part where it states that 81% of couples spend less than the average, and 19% spend more than the average. That, of course, leaves 0% of couples spending the average amount of money on their wedding. That's right, no one in our zip code spends between $16,458 and $49,374 on their wedding! It's amazing!

I played around on the site, and put in a number of zip codes from our area as well as greater MN and Eastern WI, and although the specific numbers changed, the spread stayed about the same.

Clearly, there's no need to get my knickers in a knot or anything, but I just had to dump share.

Image source

And just for a few more laughs, here's another one...





For more, visit current.com

Not once, but twice now Miss Cherry Pie, over at Weddingbee, has captivated me with short videos of her prancing around the La Belle Elaine's bridal shop in her wedding gown. Take a look for your self (unless your name is Mr. Cherry Pie!)...

Miss Cherry Pie's Dress Fitting #1:






Miss Cherry Pie's Dress Fitting #2:




Next week my mom and I are going in for another fitting/try on for both of our dresses, and my sister (MOH) may come with (and bring her dress?). Of course, The Wedding Shoppe doesn't exactly have a lighed runway, but it could be kind of fun to capture us all on video. So, do you think we can pull it off? Is the video way too cheesy, or a fun memento??

Another great find for the outdoor bride. This is for the bride who doesn't want to give up her heels for her lovely garden wedding. SoleMates High Heeler prevents your heels from sinking into grass, rocks, and [narrow] grates. This would also be a great gift for your bridesmaids. The High Heeler is available in clear and black.

image source

I just ran across this mixed tape playlist over at mixwit.com. Of course, I grew up in the tape era, so I remember sitting in my room for hours at a time making the perfect mixed tapes. Anyway, just thought I'd share. The best part about it (other than the old school tape graphic) is that it doesn't automatically start playing when someone looks at your page. I'm sorry ladies, but it seriously annoys me when I come across someone's blog and music starts playing. I'm always in a panic to find the playlist player and turn the thing off.

Anyway, here are a couple of my tapes. I hope you all have fun playing with around on this site!

I just love the way this project turned out! If you are interested in the DIY instructions, visit my blog, With this ring....

The inspiration images can be found at these links...

Inside Weddings, Markessaxo, and Sarah K Chen's blog.

We're not having an outdoor ceremony or reception, but I think that sunscreen towelettes are a must-have for anyone who is. I googled "sunscreen wipes" and found multiple varieties on Amazon as well as other [dot] coms.

That Martha, she's always thinking!

Saw this on Darci's blog With this ring
today, and I can't wait to make one for our Newfie! She can't officially participate in our wedding, but we are hoping to get a few photos with her between the ceremony and reception. This will be the perfect thing to dress her up.

For instructions on how to make your own, click here .

The first picture is of Darci's Lola, pic 4 is the Martha Stewart article where she got the idea. The last pic is of our girl. (What a cutie!)

We're at the 100 day mark! I know it is going to go by quickly from here on out.. So much to do!!

It's official, I'm in love with birdcage veils. If you also find yourself in this predicament, check out these sites...

These are the invitations I DIYed for the wedding. I really, really love how they turned out. All of my sources (paper, printing, etc) are on my blog. With this ring...

I'll also be posting how I set up my own mail merge for the wonderful (and crafty) Martha Stewart address labels. (I just couldn't fathom my messy handwriting ruining the envelopes.)

I found this Philosophy gift pack online today, and although it is designed for the bride-to-be, I think it is just the cutest idea for a bridesmaid gift.

The set includes a 6 oz Wedding Cake Ultra-Delicious Shower Gel, a 6 oz Bubbly Ultra-Rich Shower Gel, and a 6 oz Bridal Bouquet Ultra-Feminine Shower Gel in a signature box. It sells on Amazon for $30.00 (also available at Sephora, I think).

A friend of mine used to be a Philosophy girl at Nordstroms, and she got me hooked. The line is a little spendy for me, but I love their packaging, and the body products smell fantastic!

Aside from your favorite WBC girls, what are your favorite wedding blogs??

Here are some of my faves...

Mrs. Lovebug at weddingbee.com. (Keep a box of tissues handy, she can make you tear up with her writing!)

a $10,000 wedding

Road to the Aisle...lots of great DIY info

With this ring... Not to be confused with my new blog With this ring... , which I am slowly getting info on to. I guess I should have known that "With this ring..." wasn't to original. Oh well!

I LOVE my bridesmaid dresses! I owe this find to my lil' sister (MOH). She found them when we were all playing on the Bill Levkoff website. (Big fan of their dresses.) I was pretty skeptical of the "tube dress" description on the site, but when the girls tried them on at the bridal shop, we all loved them. They are fitted, but the rouching (sp?) hides everything you want it to (and the color looks MUCH better in person than in the picture).

For shoes they are wearing Nine West Bradeton in chocolate, which we got at Macy's (can't find them anywhere else in that color). Their necklaces I'll be giving them are also from Macy's (Charter Club). I really like multi strand necklaces, so these really caught my eye, and the taupe pearls match the dresses perfectly!

I also loaded some pictures of other dresses we looked at (all Bill Levkoff). As usual, more info on my blog (With this ring...)

This is the monogram I created in Photoshop Elements for our wedding. (I also uploaded some of my other attempts that I decided against using.) We will be incorporating the monogram on our invitations, thank you cards, and programs. Also I plan to stencil it onto a lantern I bought to use for a "wish jar", and we will have a similar letter "K" monogram on our main cake. I guess it is kind of the anchor to our theme (if we have one). I may even have it embroidered onto a dress label that I can have sewn into my dress as a keepsake (still undecided on that, though).

If you are interested in how I did this or want more information on what fonts I used, etc, visit my blog, With this ring...

Inspiration board:
Row 1 (L to R): Larrazo bronze tafetta bridesmaid dress (theknot.com), stained glass window from Church of St Peter, hair comb (unknown source), vintage program (theknot.com)

Row 2: Orange floral programs (theknot.com), monogrammed guestbook (theknot.com), Essence of Australia dress (essencedesigns.com), chocolate/orange/burgundy invite (renaissancewritings.com)

Row 3: Sottero & Midgley dress (sotteroandmidgley.com), ribbon wrapped cake (www.buttercream.info), cake card box (ebay seller The Wedding Main St), side swept bangs (unknown source)

Row 4: Votive escort cards (soireespecialevents.blogspot.com), Liz Rene Coture Shoes - Melissa (bestbridalprices.com), Calvin Klein Chocolate tuxedo (nedrebos.com), wish jar/hurricane (theknot.com)

The only thing that is really missing from this is a picture of my dream flowers. This boquet (from the 2006 fall/winter volume of Minnesota Bride...yes, before I was engaged) were the jumping off point of my inspiration. The boquet is a vintage inspired design that includes cymbidium orchids, Red Sox and Eveline calla lilies, Black Baccara and Blue Curiosa roses, thistle, cestrum, galax leaves and vintage beads. The picture is a stunning mix of oranges, yellows, purples, with touches of blue/green thistle! Our bouquets will all be based off of this photo and I cannot wait to see how they turn out!

Color palette:
Includes chocolate brown, taupe, orange, and burgandy. My dress and the guys' tux shirts will be ivory, so I included that. The color samples are the closest I could find.

Thank you to charlie813 and katuska for pointing me towards some pictures of votive place cards!

These pictures are some that I found this morning by searching your suggested sites and by doing a google image search for "votive escort". (Seriously, I think my brain was completely fried last night.)

Here are the links for my pictures...

Main photo

Photo 2

Photos 3, 4, & 5

Photos 6 & 7

Photo 8

Also, I found a great deal on candles at candles4less.com. You can order 72 votives with 72 votive candles for $36.99 (about $0.51 per set). What's even better, when you buy more, the cost per case drops.

THANKS AGAIN!!

A few days ago I saw a post (I think it was here) that had a picture of votive place cards with the name of the guest & table number on a label on each candleholder. The picture was of all of them lined up on a table (before the guests picked them up).

Anyway, I thought that I had saved it, but of course I did not. I have been driving myself crazy looking for it for over an hour now, and my head is spinning! I'm not sure if it was a main photo or not, but if you know what picture I'm talking about, or who's blog it is on, will you PLEASE let me know!

THANK YOU!

UPDATE: Thanks to the help of charlie813 and katuska I was able to find some pictures of what I was looking for. See my other posts for more information.

Okay, I know there are a LOT of pictures here, but my mom found out that the church was doing tours this weekend, and I just HAD to go! In fact, we had quite a group. It was my mom and I joined by Ryan's mom, neice, sister-in-law, and her dad! (Ryan's nephew will being going to school there next fall.)

The church is absolutely beautiful...and as you can see, it still needs a lot of work. Since it is not scheduled to be completed until three weeks before our wedding, it was really nice to be able to get an idea of what it will look like. I am SO happy that it will have such a traditional style to it...I love old Catholic churches with stained glass windows, and the windows you see in the pictures of the "new church" will all be stained glass by the time it is complete. All of the stained glass and plaques along the east and west walls of the church have been reclaimed from either the old church or other churches that are being closed (a lot of the items came from the Boston area). The last two pictures you see are of the wall that you face when you are exiting the "new church" into the narthex (gathering area). This wall was actually the outer wall of the "old church" (which has been renovated into a small daily chapel)...the brick work is just beautiful with the rest of the color in the space.

Oh, I was just so excited! We were all able to really envision everything there. Only 118 days (and a lot of work) to go!! I feel like such a giddy girl, but I can't wait!

As I said in my previous post, we knew the month when we wanted to have our wedding, so the deciding factors for our reception venue came down to capacity and availability.

What were the deciding factors when choosing your ceremony/reception sites? Was there something you absolutely would not compromise on? Did you put off your wedding date for the location of your dreams??

In the two years before we got engaged, Ryan and I had something like 15+ weddings that we were invited to. So, when it became our turn to plan I wanted to make sure that we would do a few things differently so that our wedding felt personal, not just a culmination of everyone elses.
When the search for our reception site began my preferences looked something like this...*St Paul (not Minneapolis) side of the Twin Cities.
No golf courses..too many recent wedding receptions at golf courses.
No hotel ballrooms...we're paying for entertainment, so I didn't want people ditching our party for the hotel bar (I've seen it happen more than once).
Some form of unique architecture.
Most importantly, 250+ maximum seating preferably with no need to tear down tables to make room for the band & dance floor.

Despite my "wish list" when all was said and done, picking the reception site came down to just two detail...the capacity and date availability! I definitely had delusions of grandeur hoping for a truly unique reception site that could hold the number of people we required and would still be available on a Saturday during one of the busiest wedding months in Minnesota.

My [poor] mom called I don't know how many venues asking about availability, and only one place on my list was open for one of our possible dates. Luckily, Mom also remembered going to a work banquet at a venue in Lake Elmo. She called them to find out that they also had one of our possible dates open, which gave us two possiblilities.

First we visited the Visitor's Center at Como Zoo, and while Ryan and I both thought that it had some really great features, we also had some concerns. The Visitor's Center would have provided a truly unique location and a stunning night view, however the maximum seating was a tight 250. In order for us to fit in the space we would have had to move at least four tables from the dance floor, and we would have been limited in the size of band we could get for the space. Another concern for us was that the space was very bare, and would have needed a lot of extra decorating (read: more money) to create the special feel we would want. At this point we had also been asked to choose one of the two dates that were open at the church and make a deposit in order to hold it. The date we chose was already booked at the Visitor's Center, so it really was no longer an option for us.

Our wedding ceremony will be held at the Church of St Peter in North St Paul, MN. This is the parish that Ryan's parents belong to, and also where Ryan (and most of our groomsmen) went to middle school. The church was/is a beautiful historic building with lots of stained glass windows. It is currently in the process of being expanded, and we won't actually be able to see the finished product until the dedication mass on September 7th. I believe we are the second (maybe the third) wedding planned in the new church...hopefully everything will go as planned!!

There were a couple things that were important to me when we were choosing our ceremony site. First and foremost, I wanted to get married in a Catholic Church, and second, I wanted the church to have some significance to us. I did consider my family's church, St Thomas Aquinas, in St Paul Park, but I really did prefer that we get married in the area that we currently live. Ryan has lived in the North St Paul/Maplewood area most of his life, and over the past few years it has really become "home" to me as well. With that said, St Pete's was the logical choice. After a few (somewhat stressful) phone calls and date juggling with reception sites, we landed on both our ceremony location and our wedding date.


Here are some of the features of the new church per the Church of St Peter website (www.stpeterscatholicnsp.org):

Highlights and Features of the New Church

• Re-use of the existing church as a daily chapel, gathering space and processional entrance into the new church.
• New (traditional-style) church, seating approximately 1200 on the main level
• Fully handicapped accessible
• Reuse of, and restoration of the existing, historic stained glass windows
• Large community gathering space connecting the new church, daily chapel, Fr. Zac Fellowship Hall, O'Reilley Hall and administration areas
• Retain existing adoration chapel at its present location with a dedicated entrance and acoustic separation from Fr. Zac Fellowship Hall.
•New one level administration/meeting addition to the south of O'Reilley Hall
• New entry drive, drop off area, and parking for approximately 380 vehicles
• Dedicated youth room
• Large green space north of O'Reilley Hall for use by St. Peter Catholic School students and for other parish events
• Music room
• Nursery
• Bridal room
• Expanded restrooms for church and hall use
• Multi-purpose meeting rooms for parish ministry and other parish groups
• Approximately 26,000 square fee of new space with 12,000 square feet of renovated areas
• Project scope will be designed to a budget not to exceed $12 million.

Ryan and I met on Labor Day, 2003. I had recently moved into my cousin Jill's townhome, and she and her boyfriend (now husband), Keith, were headed to a friend's house to grill out. Jill and Keith had invited both Ryan and I (seperately) to tag along, so the four of us drove together.

I don't remember much about the short ride to Jen's house, but I do remember the ride back. On the way home, Ryan declared that he had seen "Lord of the Ring: Fellowship of the Ring", and he thought it was terrible.

Now, I'm no LOTR junkie, but I have read all three parts of the book, and I love all three movies...so, I immediately got defensive. We argued back and forth, and I remember telling him to watch "The Two Towers" because it was filled with a lot more action. Needless to say, I didn't go home impressed. (Sorry, Babe!)

In the next week or so, I had decided to join Jill at one of Keith's softball games, and then hit the local bar (Jimmy's Food and Drink) afterwards with the team. I remember that Ryan sat down next to me, and told me that he had rented "Two Towers", and admitted that it was better than "Fellowship".

In the last four and a half years, I've come to the conclusion that he said that just to get on my good side. True or not, I don't know, but I do know that my interest blossomed from that point, and about a month later, he asked me out when we were at Jimmy's again for Keith's birthday.

So, I can't go on without including this part of the story...The weekend before Ryan asked me out, I had been at my college friend Ross's wedding. During the evening I met a guy (who's name I honestly can't remember) that turned out to be interested in me. He tracked down my phone number through a mutual friend, and called me. I had a feeling that Ryan might ask me out soon (that night), so I had tried calling the "other guy" back during work hours...hoping he wouldn't answer his cell phone, and I could delay things a little longer. My plan didn't work. He answered his phone and asked me out, and I said "sure". That evening, when Ryan asked me out I replied something to the effect of, "Yes, but I don't have my work schedule yet, and I have a date with someone else." Not the best answer, but in my defense, I hadn't been on a date in TWO YEARS, and suddenly I had two guys ask me out in the SAME DAY! I wasn't really sure what to do with that. Needless to say, it was a humbling experience for Ryan (one which he does not let me forget).

When Jill and Keith got home that evening, I told them about my two date dilema, and Jill responded, "Oh good, Ryan asked you out." Then Keith went on to tell me that Ryan was the best guy he's ever known...and that was all I needed to hear.

Our first date was at Panino's Restaurant in North Oaks, MN, and our first kiss was after we saw "School of Rock" on our second date. (I can't forget to mention that Ryan wore a Spiderman t-shirt on our second date!) By the third date, I remember telling a friend I had a feeling that he'd be around for a while...unless of course I scared him away.

Two and a half years later (June '06) I moved into Ryan's house after Jill and Keith's wedding, and last fall we got the cutest puppy in the world (our Newfoundland, Phaneuf). Ryan proposed to me on Christmas Eve of 2007 just before we left for my Grandma's house. He wrapped the ring in a box with sweater that he had bought for me. I was so distracted by the fact that he had bought me clothes for Christmas (I had worked in retail for eight years, and was very aware that he thought I had too many clothes), that I didn't even see the ring box at first! It was a very special moment, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

So, I'm entering the world of blogs.  (Scary!)  I've decided that I would really like to be able to look back at this whole process  someday, and not just remember "the big day", but also the steps that got us there.

There's a great website (http://www.blurb.com/create/book/photobook) where you can create your own published book out of family pictures, personal poetry, portfolio images, and yes, even your own blog can be turned into a book.  That is my intent.  What a better way to remember this process than by creating a keepsake journal of all the wonderful (and sometimes painstaking) moments of planning our wedding day?  

So, I've got a bit of back tracking to do, but here we go...