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.

Picked a florist

Big happy smiles! Its Arena's - not a huge shock there.

Love them!

holiday crafting

I don't usually craft, but I saw this tutorial (via Green Paper Co Blog) for making gift bows out of magazines and I had to try it. Its actually quite simple, and not hugely time consuming. I made 8 bows in about an hour and half (while watching hulu), and the first one took considerably longer than the rest.

My first attempt - made from the front of a Macy's catalog.

I also made a small one out of the scraps of the first one - much more difficult.

The rest were made from pages of a JCrew catalog

Most, from pages like this one - I think they result in interesting patterns and textures.

My favorite.

Beau's favorite is the one with the spots.

*All images by me, expect the page from the 2009 JCrew Holiday Catalog