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)

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

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.

Happy Thanksgiving

In honor of Thanksgiving, pictures of my mom's famous Turkey Log (from last year).

First, you de-bone the turkey and remove some of the excess breast meat

Second, you grind the excess meat and liver with herbs and spices to make the filling

Third, you roll the turkey and tie it together

Finally, bake your turkey log and you are ready to eat!

weekend with mommy

my mom came to visit this weekend and we got a bunch of wedding stuff done.  

1st - we finally bought my official wedding dress.  yay!  so happy to have that done with.

2nd - we did a tasting of the appetizers and one of the entrees for the wedding.  all the food was superb.  we also went over some of the logistics and figured out how many tables we would need so that I would know when I talk with florists.

3rd - we confronted at the people at Peggy's Bridal about how they over charged me for the first dress I bought.  they were very stand-off-ish and completely unwilling to compromise.  so i now have the first dress in my closet and it makes me angry whenever I see it - i'll have to find a new place to put it until I can list it online and hope to get some of my money back.

4th - we looked through lots of pictures of flowers and table settings and discussed the floral arrangements for quite a while.  my mom isn't feeling the antique bottles, but Beau and I love them, and so we are doing it.  also, the owner of the venue said we could definitely use her mason jars and any other glass-ware she has.  after i pick a florist i'll definitely go over there and rummage through it all.  

and she kept me company at the lab for 4 hours on Saturday and 2.5 hours on Sunday - what a great mom!

Wedding Cookie?

So, I'm in one of my favorite coffee shops working on a take-home exam and eating a black-and-white cookie (aka moon cookies) when I thought to myself:  I love these.  I wonder where the coffee shop gets them or if they make them?  I wonder if they could make a lot... like for a wedding? Naw, you can't have black-and-whites instead of a cake... or could you?

Upon further thought I decided that they would make a great alternative to a wedding cake.

Reasons:

1. They are super yummy!

2. They are made in a serving, so no cake-cutting fees

3. They have a cake texture, so are like cake

4. They should cost a lot less than a wedding cake (I'm only assuming, this is an unsupported statement)

5. They can be arranged in nice ways (see picture bellow)

Thoughts?  Have a come up with a new trend, or am I completely out there?

(picture from here)