Thank You!!

About a week before the Shower, we were out and I was all of a sudden hit by the realization that

WE HAVE TO SEND 2 THANK YOU CARDS!!

I don't know why this struck me as such a big thing. I know we'd discussed some ideas for the Wedding thank you's, but it never seemed to dawn on me that we'd have to send separate ones for the Shower (don't even ask, because I have no freaking idea...). We happened to be in Harvard Square that day and decided to look around. (Yes, Ellie TOTALLY thought I knew, considering this was one week before the shower itself). 

Cards are expensive yo.

And most leave something to be desired.

In the 2 different stores, we found some that were tolerable, and some that were amazing, but none that REALLY stood out. I think one of the problems with not really having a theme is that it's difficult to gather all the pieces and make them coherent--maybe we should have just ordered everything from the same company at the same time!!

But we didn't, so have been learning as we go. And when I really stop to think about it, if we had gone that route, I wouldn't have been able to get the most amazing invitations of all time from my co-worker!! I kind of shut down while we were on our hunting excursion, so Ellie did a little CBT and came up with an amazing idea: we would make the thank you's for the Shower and re-evaluate our ambition and desire to do a little more DIY as we got closer or just after the Wedding itself. She knows me so well--this would be a perfect opportunity to get rid of at least a little of the craft stuff we have, and take a good look at our stock to maybe prompt some re-organization or donation (both of which happened).



 Once Ellie got the design down, and we selected the colors/stamps/paper, it wasn't hard at all. I've only made a couple of cards in my life, but Ellie's the resident expert thanks to her Mom, so I let her lead (yes, it WAS difficult). She cut, I folded; she stamped the front, then I stamped the inside while she cut the other pieces.










Something I had never really thought of was using colored pencils to highlight the stamps (I knew Ellie and her mom enhanced their cards, but the how never really clicked). I think I did a halfway okay job with these little flowers.

We even dressed up the envelopes a little bit!

The responses to the cards was really nice, it almost makes me want to make the thank you's for the Wedding too, but I've found some nice ones online and don't know of the energy and cost to make them will outweigh the benefit of showing off our DIY talents.

1.5 Months

That actually sounds better than 43 days (as of this post) for some reason.
I'm a little stressed, but Ellie is keeping me relatively sane. We are slowly getting our DIY projects done (I'm going to say we are about 80% done with all of them), the honeymoon is paid off, and I had my next-to-last dress fitting yesterday.

I was nervous, because I had gained a little weight and she hadn't yet clipped out the seams, so the dress was snug last month. I haven't worked incredibly hard at losing weight, but have been paying more attention to what I'm eating (remember, she said I can't lose a lot of weight because she can't take the dress in too much), and it looked like she clipped at least most of the seams, while leaving just enough to let it out a bit if need be.

I haven't been this happy with my dress since the day I tried it on! There's still a little to finish, like removing the last of the train and the seams and some light finish work, and I need to work on reducing my back just a tad since it's tight in the armholes (she thinks removing the seams will make it perfect). But it looked so good, and I'm so happy with it, I couldn't get over the way it looked. I get to pick it up in about 2-ish weeks, so need to get in touch with Man of Honor Jere about storing it in his place to keep it away from the cats and because I'm afraid to have it in my apartment--not because of Ellie, but because of me looking and playing with it.

Commence Wedding Nightmares

Okay, nightmare might be a little strong of a word, but I'm a bride, cut me a little slack, mmkay?

I don't dream. When I'm taking anti-depressants, I remember MORE of my dreams, likely because I'm more relaxed & sleep better, but for all intents and purposes, I live under the idea that I have too much anxiety & sleep too poorly to really dream much. My dad doesn't dream either, so it's genetic...yeah, that's it...

Well last night, I had a dream about our wedding bands. Saturday, we spent what seemed like hours, but was probably only one, at Jared's working with the lovely Sharon--the customization specialist who did our engagement rings--to design our bands.

All I can say is that it's contoured, had no gem stones and  has more than 1 color of gold

Source: antiquejewelrymall.com via Jessi on Pinterest

I'm sure you have an idea of what my dream was about right? They came back wrong. Rather significantly wrong at that, and as I think about it, I "notice" even more wrong with what came back than I had in the dream itself!! Now, I trust Sharon completely--I never even looked at the wax when I was ordering Ellie's ring because it was a hassle to get to Plymouth & she had spent so much time working on the original that I felt secure in her judgement. The fact that they needed to take my engagement ring to ensure the proper contour didn't even come up in this dream--apparently I only notice that when awake, and another ring Ellie got me is an okay temporary replacement.

Is this what a wedding does to a girl? Am I going to go more crazy the closer we get? Dear gods I hope not.