Drink more wine!

Happy Belated Labor Day!!

I had a wonderful uber productive long weekend! I hope you all did too. I spent Saturday morning outside, sweating like a pig working on this:

New and final fabric strip backdrop for the alter!


I did three things. First, I will draw your attention to the top of the backdrop where I cleaned up all the extra strips on the top. I put the darker strips together in the middle so that the ombre is more pronounced (but that's hard to see in this picture because it's so sunny). Last, I also cleaned up the bottom to make it look more... triangle-y? It used to slope too far on the sides and then was just flat on the bottom:

Old, crumby backdrop.

So I made it... better looking, I like it a lot more now... let's just go with that, because I'm having a very hard time describing it. See??





I finished decorating the invitations!!!




It went like this:

So my invitation to do list now goes a little something like this:

Order envelopes (outer envelopes, inner envelopes, response envelopes)

Order paper

Order lotka paper for trifolds and vellum to cover invitation

Buy burlap for belly bands and twine to tie invitations and feathers for decoration

Order seal

Address and stamp envelopes

Self-address (with free Shutterfly address labels) and stamp response envelopes

Cut vellum to size

Print out invitations

Rip lotka paper to size and fold into trifolds, glue pockets for RSVP/response envelope/hotel info

Rip invitations to size (rough edges)

Decorate invitations with stamps and colored pencil (like the Save the Dates)

Put invitations together: glue invite into trifold; put RSVP, response envelope, hotel info, etc... into pocket; wrap with burlap and twine and decorate with a single guinea hen feather

Stuff invitations into inner envelope and apply wax seal, stuff inner envelopes into outer envelopes, seal, and send!

Exciting!!! I put together a mock and I'm going to get it weighed and sent to myself today. I need to know if the seal or the knot in the twine is going to add too much thickness to the invite; which makes them charge you more for postage. I don't much care at this point. I have a lot less invites to send than some people I know or have read about. I have to start thinking about ordering postage so I can get cute stamps!

I saw these in the beginning of the invitation process and have always liked them. I am not a huge fan of the rings stamps or the big white cake stamps.



So I'm pretty sure the king and queen stamps are the ones I'll get, especially because I'll most likely need two stamps (at least) for each invite, so it'll be perfect! The garden of love stamps are the only other stamps that I'm torn between:

... But probably not. I love the king and queen too much. But I seem to have forgotten about this, ordering postage thing, and now I need to do that, like yesterday.




Anyway! I also bought wire for trying to make hangers with our names on them!

Now, keep in mind, I am going to TRY to make these, to save $27 a hanger, because that's ridiculous. 100 feet of wire at Home Depot cost me $8... You do the math, if I am able to do this myself, $27 just becomes ridiculous. Plus I have a strong man at home to help me.








Lastly, I forgot one item on my to do list; I've been collecting wine corks since before Kyle and I were engaged, and once we became engaged, I started seeing pictures like these:

Wine cork place card holders! And I have enough corks to do this for all our guests. Suddenly this weekend it dawned on me that all I have is corks right now; I have to actually sand the bottoms flat and make a slit for the place cards.


Crap, I forgot. But no biggie, I put it on my to do list and stopped worrying!


So all in all, this weekend was good. I didn't get quite as much as I'd hoped to accomplished, but I had to do a lot of running that made my days shorter than I would have liked (groceries, Michael's, Home Depot, Wawa, Michael's, groceries, JoAnn's)


Finally, this leaves my master to do list as follows:

• Yarn orbs - still only 6 of 20 done
• Hair flowers - 5 of 5 done
• Fabric backdrop for alter
• Fabric archway for entrance
• Fabric strips for bride and groom chairs
• Shrug - almost 3/4 done!!
• Invitations - more than halfway done
• Trip to my aunt's farm for cool old rustic stuff (old wood for signs, old frames for menu/program/etc..., old tubs, old crates, wooden swing, whatever!!)
• Mass trip to Lancaster flower and craft warehouse - whoo hoo!! Fun fun!!
• Small burlap bunting
• Bird cake topper
• Burlap table runners
• Hangers
• Music list, solidify DJ
• Hotel rooms night before and night off wedding
• Rings
• Suits
• Regional Costa Rica flights
• Pre-marital counseling
• Make alterations appointment, pick a dress, get it altered
• Cork place card holders

We are really getting somewhere!! We have about 2.5 months left (eeeee!!) and I am very happy to say that if nothing else, all this stuff will be done. Whether or not that means it will all come together to make the wedding of my dreams...?? I'd rather not think about that right now. I am starting to get a little nervous as the day approaches. I'm starting to schedule hair and nail appointments and it's getting crazy real...

Anyone else getting nervous?