bye bye

obviously, for those of you who still check back. I haven't posted in a really long time. I'm super busy with my research and honestly don't really feel the need to relive the wedding on the blog. It was amazing. The pictures are amazing. I would recommend all of my vendors. but not to leave you completely without some love - a few pics from the wedding.

My beautiful dress by Marisa purchased at Jacqueline's Bridal

The boys in their ties (Nautica from Macy's) and socks (Banana Republic)

My fabulous bouquet by Arenas (note the green strawberries and the succulents - love it!)

The tables - arrangements in my antique bottles by Arenas

*All images by the wonderful Tammy Swales (whom I just love)

so for now, good bye.

maybe one day I will have another blog or continue writing here.

2 months from today...

So none of the promised posts have materialized yet - YET! But maybe while I'm on the airplane to Israel in 17 DAYS!!!! I will write some posts! Also, kind of weirded out that the wedding is in exactly 2 MONTHS! Handed over all the remaining planning and putting together of stuff to Beau because I have no time. Its a little weird letting go after being in control for over a year - though I do check things over and he runs things by me. I think it will be good for me and good for us as a couple. He needs to learn that I won't always be able to do everything (sometimes I think he doesn't do things because he knows that I will do it), and I need to experience (because I already theoretically know) that he is completely capable of doing everything that I do, just maybe not in the exact same way that I would do it.

Anyways - pretty picture because I might have final found a dress to wear at the party in Israel, its more than I wanted to spend, but at least on the model its perfect and JCrew is having a 30% Off sale with free shipping - so I might as well get it and see, since I have nothing else to wear.

"Ribbon Cut-Wave Dress" by J.Crew

Remind you of anything?

And since the likelihood of me ever getting to a post about the bachelorette party and the distinct lack of acceptable pictures to post I will put up this one picture.

Yes, that is me wearing short silver sequin skirt.

(My purchase, everything else by some of my besties)

And a giant plastic engagement ring.

And a t-shirt that says "I'm getting married Bi***es".

And a pin that said something like "Sexy Bride"

And a veil. (Not visible in this picture, but I assure you it was on)

And to top it all off a crown that said "I'm tying the knot, buy me a shot"

WITH a detachable plastic shot glass.

I just love my friends. Anyways, fun night, bad morning after - no vomiting - extra good!

Thats all for now. Back to the grind.

hopefully back

hey, i've been super busy with lab work, and i promise that despite the lack of posting i haven't forgotten about this little blog. i will hopefully have a couple nice posts over the weekend and next week about my bridal shower/bachelorette party weekend and some really awesome (unexpected) wedding shopping that got done last night.

Teaser picture - from Banana Republic

kind of stoked

today 3 packages are on their way to me, all should be arriving by friday (i hope)

1. veil i custom ordered from etsy seller Simple Beauty Veils
2. shoes from Gilt.com
3. two tour books of Israel from B&N - the Fodor's Guide and the 2010 update of Lonely Planet (very excited to plan our trip - just over a month away!)

invites printed and picked up by thursday

mom and sis arriving friday

saturday schedule:

• tailor shop for alterations to sis's BM dress
• drop by bakery to assess apple strudel as a possible alternative to wedding cake
• bridal shower
• change clothes (hehe - there may, possibly, probably be a sequin skirt involved)
• bachelorette party...

sunday:

• bye to sis :(
• crafting invites with mom, beau and others unknown
• if time stopping by another bakery
• bye to mom :(
• (lab to get data... not fun but necessary)

wedding shoes?

ah shoes... one of the many wedding related "projects" that makes me want to bash my head in. not being able to stand, let alone walk, in heels over 3 inches its been quite difficult to find cute/classy/sexy/whatever - not ugly shoes to wear at the wedding.

i've already purchased and returned 3 pairs. one of them was actually perfect, EXCEPT, it was about 1/2 size too small. it was purple glitter and it made me smile and it looked awesome with my dress. Drat my unusually sized feet (small but wide) and the lack of options on the clearance racks of DSW.

today, I may have found wedding shoes on Gilt. shocking, I know (sarcasm). i've only purchased 3 wedding related items from Gilt since the Dr introduced it to me a few months ago. anyways, these shoes are about 3x what i was hoping to spend ($50) including tax and shipping, however, they are "designer" (Jean-Michel Cazabat, if that means something to you) and (according to Gilt) normally retail for $475, so thats something - right?

these shoes are also glitter (holla!) but this time in "gunmetal" so they have more before/after wedding use potential than the purple shoes. they also only have a 2 3/4" heel - score! and are returnable for credit within 21 days, double score. oh, and their name makes me chuckle to myself - "Louloub peep toe pumps". am i the only one that finds that amusing? not actually sure why.

anyways, since i'm sure you've already scrolled down here are the pics.

*images from Gilt.com

the DIY-wedding and graduate school and having a life

I was initially planning on diy-ing as many things as possible for the wedding. Especially things that seemed either easy and/or way over priced (huppah, flowers, veil, invitations...). Well, over the past few months many of those plans have been thrown out the window (or defenestrated as I would generally say- Beau would be disappointed if I did not use my favorite word in a total appropriate context). The flowers (for my family's sanity) were the first to go. The huppah was nixed from the DIY-list a few months ago when our florist came in a few hundred dollars under our budget and I was so swamped that I decided to throw money at the problem.

The most recent addition to the "just pay for it" list is my veil. Over the last month I realized that I really don't have the time, energy, (possibly) skill to make a veil I would be happy with, so off I went to the bridal store... and as I initially suspected my (VERY) plain veil is priced around $120 - not cool.

Disappointment.

Annoyance.

Frustration.

Then, AH! Etsy!

Serendipitiously (truly, while not even looking for veils) I found Simple Beauty Veils and now Lora is making me exactly the veil I want, and answering all my SUPER annoying questions, like - "do you think the clear plastic comb or the small wire comb will be less noticeable and less likely to get tangled in my dark curly hair?" Obsessive much? yes! Extremely nervous? Hell yes! Super stoked that my veil is being handmade by a real person not in a sweat shop, out of quality materials and for about 60% less (including shipping) than a bridal store veil all in about 2 weeks? Duh! Yes! So, I may not be DIY-ing my veil, but I feel good that at the end of the day it's one less thing to stress over, and that I'm not completely giving into the WIC.

And just because a post, isn't a post with out pictures - here are some of Lora's beautiful veils currently available for purchase.

"Sweet Pea"

"Gracie"

"Tiny Double Blusher"

- possibly my favorite, just not for me, please someone buy this

*All images from Simple Beauty Veils

106

So one of my wedding registries has a count-down to the wedding day. Apparently there are 106 days left. Makes me very stressed and very excited. Still so much to do.

Last week I shipped my engagement ring to our jeweler in Florida to fit with a wedding band. This came in an email today - hopefully the real thing will be arriving next week! There are still a few things to tweak - they are making the wedding band a little narrower - its about 0.5mm wider than anticipated.

I just love looking at the picture. I have no idea how I'm going to get through about 100 days with it sitting in my apartment NOT wearing it. Its one of the few times recently that a wedding related activity has been extremely joyous and not stressful. (Caveat - having to ship my engagement ring to Florida was stressful, but otherwise not stressful)

I love my jeweler. I love not having to worry that I'm being swindled. I love that everything she does comes out practically perfect.

Oh - I'm meeting with our photographer on Thursday evening and I should (hopefully) be getting some edited versions of our e-photos back, so look out for a post Friday or over the weekend!

What is your IKEA name?

Seriously, take 10 seconds and go here.

You will not regret it.

israeli reception - part 3?

My mom is in Israel and she is (again) looking for places to have our wedding reception - she decided against all the other places she looked at the first time.

This morning I got an email with a link to a place on the beach called Rocca, and (based on the pictures) its perfect. Its exactly what I envisioned. Its so beautiful it makes me wish we were doing the entire wedding in Israel and flown out Beau's immediate family. I am trying not to get too excited because my mom hasn't gone to see it in person yet and we don't know prices. Oh, and they serve sushi - major bonus points!

But seriously, how could you not want to have a wedding here?

*All images from the Rocca website

antique jars

I got a little concerned last week when it suddenly occurred to me how many glass bottles we would need to adequately cover the tables at our wedding - even with borrowing mason jars from the owner. Then I had a little freak out when I remembered how much I payed at the local antique stores for the bottles that i already had... this was going to be quite expensive. Well, after get frustrated with Craig's List - i really don't have the patience to sift through all the posts. I decided to try eBay for the first time. One week later I am now the proud owner of 26 antique medicine/perfume bottles of varying sizes and I have my eye out on a lot of 32 antique soda bottles that the starting bid is 1 dollar. If I can get that lot of soda bottles i will have yet another item checked off my to-do list and for significantly less money than buying the bottles at local antique stores. And I should (hopefully) be able to resell the ones I don't want to keep after the wedding.

My first eBay experience was surprisingly good, and I think I learned some bidding strategies from an auction I lost early last week.

helping the world a teensy-bit with our wedding

Sometimes I struggle with our wedding because we are so blessed. I struggle with the thought that while our wedding budget is relatively small the money that we and our families and our friends are spending could be used for far greater things, and that so many people in the world could never imagine having even a fraction of the money we are spending on one day. I struggle with the fact that even eco-weddings are inherently not green and generate lots of waste, and burn lots of consumables (think of all the people traveling to your wedding who otherwise would likely not be traveling).

That said, I do still want a wedding - I love the symbolism and I love that we are bringing together our community of family and friends for likely the only time in our lives. I also did not have the time, energy and (often times) extra money to have a green wedding. But we are trying, in small ways, to reduce the negative impacts of our wedding.

First, the restaurant (The Rabbit Room) we chose for our venue uses locally sourced food whenever possible.

Second, I found a great, well priced source for the paper for our wedding invitations - The Green Paper Co. The paper for our invitations will be made from 30-100% post-consumer waste (PCW), some of it will be chlorine free and the energy used to produce the paper comes from wind- and hydro-power plants. I would like to do web-based, or email-based RSVPs, but considering how many people haven't managed to find their way to the website and how many older people we are inviting, I am resigned to traditional RSVP cards.

Third, on our wedding website we have encouraged our guests to join our Kiva group and help many other people enrich their lives and the wellbeing of their communities. So far, this has been a little bit of a fail, as no one has yet joined, but I think that might have more to do with lots of people not noticing the website on the save the dates and it still being very early for buying wedding gifts. We are also trying to limit the number of items we put on our wedding registries as we already have many of the things people traditionally register for and do not think that it is necessary to replace (most of) what we already have with new things just because others are paying for it.

Fourth, we are planning on hiring a shuttle bus to transport people from the hotel to the wedding and back. We also chose a hotel in a part of town that has many restaurants, bars, coffee shops and museums in walking distance, in the hopes that once people arrive they will not need to drive.

Finally, I am hoping to find money in the budget to buy TOMS for the members of the wedding party to wear at the wedding. I will also hopefully be buying TOMS for myself and Beau, regardless of whether we get them for the rest of the wedding party. For those who don't know, TOMS gives a pair of shoes to a child in need whenever a pair of shoes is purchased - "one for one" as they say. Today, while looking for wedding appropriate shoes I noticed that sometime in the month or two since last I perused their website they have added page on TOMS "for your wedding". They now offer discounts if you buy for a group and an email address for questions specifically regarding weddings. This made me really excited because I previously did not know who to email about some questions that I had regarding availability of other colors and special orders. It also was the mental impetus for this post - since i know there is at least one future bride reading who would probably find some of my thoughts and sources helpful for her planning (ahem... Future Mrs Dunbar...) and there are likely a few of you reading (including the afore mentioned future Mrs) that may have more ideas for me.