This is sheisloved's Black Wedding!

We chose this song for a couple reasons. J loves AC/DC, I've learned to love them as well. We have tons of friends & family who love them as well so we thought it would be appropriate to choose this song for our entrance. Plus, we attended an ex-boyfriends wedding a year ago & they're intro song was AC/DC. We thought it was the coolest thing & I knew if we got married we had to do it. Soo we sorta jacked their idea lol
I don't remember what song it was but this is the one I chose, the first words are "One hot angle, one cool devil"






For the wedding party entrance I wanted something up upbeat to set the tone for the reception & get people in that good party mode so I chose The Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling"

Yesterday we finalized & paid for our invitations. I can’t wait till I get the final product in my hands! I ordered them from Decadent Designs LLC off her shop on Etsy. Lynsey is awesome & really helpful. I ♥ her stuff! She’s very reasonably priced too. Our invites came to less than 400 & 25 of that was the shipping. I’ll definitely be ordering other coordinating pieces from her in the future. She also informed me that I’ll receive 10% off my future orders as well. Any bit helps!

I recommend checking her out. She was also featured on The Knot for her designs & her low cost.

Here's her site: www.decadentdesignsllc.com

I searched for a long time for a dinnerware set for me and the fiancé. I wanted something that wasn't too feminine. I really love silver in china but some of it looks too old fashioned for my taste. So when I took a trip to Macy’s to check out the china (as I’ve been doing from time to time.) was excited to find Ralph Lauren’s Silk Ribbon Pearl. What I really like is that each piece of the setting has a different variation of the same pattern which creates a lot of visual interest. I love it! We got the matching stemware & other matching pieces as well. I love the shimmer in the pearl color with the silver. You really can't see it from the pictures. It’s also dishwasher safe!

I have our invitation wording done besides the response card. To *try* to the avoid all that inevitable confusion as to how many are included into one party my idea is simply to included “We have reserved (one, two, etc.) seats in your honor” I discussed this with the woman making our invitations, she has done & will do this for us for a very small additional price. Of course I am going to be ordering extra just incase & for that I have no way of knowing what number seats will need to be printed. Sooo my idea is to replace the number with a fill in the blank such as “______” & then getting stamps w/the appropriate number.

What do you ladies think?? Does it seem tacky to just leave it blank & stamp it? I figured I could find nice looking number stamps & use the fuchsia accent color to give it a nicer look than simply writing in a number with a pink pen.

Any opinions/suggestions/advice is welcome & appreciated!! =)

From the beginning I knew I wanted an all white bouquet.
I really wanted peonies but they'll be out of season by the time the wedding rolls around. So my second choice were dahlias.
The first pic from my florist is a similar all white bouquet she is going to make me. She suggested we put some lisianthus in there to give it a peony look, along with the dahlias, some white stock & stephanotis. The girls are going to have white & fuchsia dahlia bouquets with black wraps. We'll be using black stands for our bouquets to sit on the head table. 3rd pic is an example of the mothers corsages as a black wrist wrap. I love how she puts the black embellishments (along with others) in the flowers. The back vases are what I'm using for the table centerpieces with the fuchsia dahlia's. The last pic is a bouquet she made with mini green apples I thought was cute! =]

The best is she is super reasonable!! Less than 600 for the bridal party
My bouquet + a free toss bouquet
2 mothers corsages
4 bridesmaids bouquets
4 grandmother's pins
Grooms bout - white with black wrap
4 grooms men bouts (fuchsia with black wrap)
1 dad's bout with black wrap
1 grandfathers bout with black wrap

Tonight I picked up my bands after being sized! I had been in Zales a few times to check these out or to show my mom what they looked like. The bands are black & white diamonds! Then when I check them out online they were on sale & since Zales stores will honor the online price I got them for much less. They even look cool if you were to just wear them without the ring!

Eventually after the wedding I'm going to have to get my ring re-sized again cause it's 5 1/4 & moves around quite a bit while my bands are a 5

The other week I went to meet with a potential florist. This paid off in more than one way... We met her at WineStyles where she works part time as a taster. This was awesome since we're doing a wine unity ceremony. Talk about killing 2 birds with one stone! We enjoyed a nice white wine (so yummie!) while discussing flowers & when I explained our wine ceremony she helped with a few red choices I took a bottle of each home to try. I love the New Age & so does the fiance. The red we weren't as crazy about but we mixed the two & was definitely do-able. The red is just a very different taste, it doesn't smell the way it tastes at all. If you like white wine I suggest picking up a bottle of New Age, it's a Argentine white & a whole 8 or 9 dollars too. The red is Zinfandel, Merlot & Cabinet combined hence the name ;) & also around 8/9 dollars. I'd love to hear if anyone has had either of these & what they think!

After a trip to Marshalls I also happened to find these little decanter pitchers. I got both for 8 dollars & I found the old fashioned glass at Pottery Barn. Now all we have to decided is if the parents are going to bring them up or if we'll just have them up there already.

So happy that is done with!

I love my in laws and all, but weddings definitely bring out another side of people. My future father in law is soo freakin stingy & I knew this but when they said they were going to help us & he went out & bought us a few wedding books, I thought they really were excited & wanted to help us. Especially since we didn't ask them to do so & offered.
Well... The first sign it wasn't going to go as well as it was portrayed was when I was booking my photographer. The first step I took was inviting his mom to come with us to check out our photographer. The morning of he called her & suddenly seemed like she didn't want to come anymore. That she wanted to take his little sister out to drive around so she would be ready for her driving test instead. I was kind of annoyed cause I had called her myself & asked her. Plus I figured that since they offered to help I would just invite them to some of the meetings so they know what they would be investing in & that way they can ask whatever questions they may have to the vendor instead of 20 questions to me.
So when we decided we wanted to book our photographer we naturally went to his parents to ask them if they would be willing to help put down at least half of the deposit. This is when I got REALLY annoyed. Cause they felt the retainer fee was a bit much, & then tried to suggest other photographers that were basically a friend trying to give a friend a job. They tried to get me to check out someone that would do it for $600. I was like if you're willing to give 600 then why don't you just give us 600 to put towards someone WE like.
They wanted us to come over for dinner to talk about it. Then we never heard from then till he called his mom & they were at a friends house down the street. She just started talking about the photography & by the time he got off the phone he just had this look on his face like "Yeah, they're not gonna help" I was so mad I didn't even go over there cause I thought the whole thing was ridiculous & I think he was getting pissed at his parents attitude.
I really wasn't worried about getting the person we wanted because we knew we had at least half & my mom was willing to give us the other half. We really didn't want to ask her cause she had already done so much & she was in the process of looking for a new place. So he went over to his parents house & said he was going over there & was gonna at least get half from them cause I think it was pissing him off his dad was being so stingy & the fact that he's getting married & they act like they don't care much about it. They really do not want to be involved in the details which is why I didn't get why they were suggesting other people & getting involved.
These are OUR pictures we are going to be looking at the rest of our lives so we want who we want, like & have confidence in to do a good job. My fiance even told her that that was why we had asked her to come in the first place. I'm trying to avoid getting more stressed by answering a bunch of questions all the time.
She just keeps telling my fiance that she doesn't know what to do when it comes to this stuff. Like she's the only one. I swear if I have to hear her say that one more time I'm gonna implode ha. Plus, I know that we're not sure what to do but I'm trying to be polite by at least asking if they want to come to things since they offered I figured it was the right thing to do.
Well, when he got back home he had half of the deposit, in cash. I was like oh, they have it lying around but we have to go through all that to get it? So ridiculously pointless.
Oh, & on the last weekend of September it's tradition that we go on a mini vacation to the San Juan Islands for a fishing derby with his parents & friends (we don't fish, just relax & party). We weren't going to go this year to save money but his dad said they were going to rent a house & we could stay with them in the house. So then I find out the house is huge house on the water that he paid 2200 for. So that's another thing that annoyed us when they wouldn't help just a little.

Here's the lesson we learned from all this. 1. We're not asking or assuming them to help with anything. 2. We are making sure we have deposits for what we wanted & then if they want to help pay the rest of something off then that's up to them. 3. I'm not asking them to come along to anymore vendor meetings. 4. We're cutting our guest list i.e. their friends since they're going to be so traditional about who pays then we're cutting their friends out since we don't care about parents friends as much as our own being there anyway. They get to have 3 come & that's it. We haven't told them yet & I'm leaving that up to Jairus to break the news. He thinks they probably won't even care but if they do he's just going to lay it on the line. Whoever pays picks who comes so if my mom has more friends & I have more fam, that's why.

It's pretty bad when my mother is single & helps more with things then his parents who have 2 incomes. My mom is just excited so she wants to help us. His mom isn't even allowed to just give us anything unless she gets the ok from his dad since he's so damn stingy.

Our friends referred us to who they used for their reception & who we’re now using for ours! Larry’s Smokehouse! They had awesome prices with such bomb food! It’s family owned & ran by Larry, his daughters & their kids so we feel like we’re supporting a local business too. Larry even gave all 6 of us each a jar of their winning BBQ sauce at the tasting. That & we are Seahawks fans (fiancé is a hardcore fan) & in a contest that the mayor of Seattle put on against the mayor of Pittsburgh for the best smoked salmon Larry’s won & if your from around here any body that beats Pittsburgh in anything is the boss! lol

So we’re having a bbq buffet! YUM. We love bbq’s & bbqing & so do our families & friends so it fits in perfectly. We’re just not the sit down meal type, it feels too formal for us. Plus we’re in the Northwest & it wouldn’t be right to not have smoked salmon anyway.

Our menu is, Smoked Salmon, BBQ Pulled Pork, Lemon Chicken, Baked Beans, Cornbread & Coleslaw. The nice thing is we can swap out whatever we want without it being extra unless we want to customize it & add to it. We’re taking out the chicken for either more salmon or green beans w/almonds & swapping the coleslaw (I like coleslaw but I know soo many who don’t) for Caesar salad. I really wanted more veggies instead of just protein & starches. If we get more Salmon we may just add the green beans since it’s only 1.50 per person. I guess I could splurge on that lol

They provide their own tables, linens, canopies if need be, they can do it inside or outside, they are totally self contained & portable.. They don’t need a kitchen & can cook it with the smoker on your lawn if you wanted them too. If there are left overs they actually box them up for you & leave them so you can take them home. He said, “It’s your food, you paid for it so we give it to you to take home” No caterer does that! It’s awesome! I do think we’re getting our own plates & silverware though so not to have just Chinet paper plates & plastic utensils that are also complimentary. We’re not THAT cheap!

I booked them just in time! It was a good thing I emailed when I did cause they have a meeting tomorrow with another couple that also have an evening wedding on our date! It might sound silly but it feels even more real now that we have the officiant. We actually have a time to start the ceremony that we hadn't decided on before. We really HAD to have a time to start to get the officiant booked. So 4:30 is our start time so if we have another crazy hot summer it won't be too hot & if it's not sunny, it tends to get sunny around 4:30/5 so I think we did good.

Having the time also means I get to ordering our invitations that otherwise we had put off till we had the start time, Yay!

The second picture is our officiant Patricia, you can see she's a very bubbly, kind & happy person. I feel so much better by having her help us create our ceremony with ease & personality. Her & her husband Kent are both officiants that have been voted best Seattle officiant & other various awards. We could choose either one of them but we initially met Patricia & immediately felt comfortable with her.
They are sending us a wedding ceremony resource guide in the mail as well as in a word doc. We can pic different paragraphs of sooo many different ceremonies by copying and pasting them into a word doc. or we can each choose a welcome or various other paragraphs we like & combine them in some way. I'm so relieved to have someone that knows how to do all this cause it is one thing that I am so lost on & I felt it was really important to have someone experienced to make our ceremony unique!