Category — guest bloggers

It was so great to have Julia guest blogging this week!  She’s going to have an amazing wedding and we can’t wait to see the end result when she comes back for a recap post-wedding.

Julie showed us some amazing DIY projects, but here’s my favorite - the bridesmaid look book!  For the full post, see {here}.

One last post, and I’ll go back where E. and A. found me - abusing punctuation and grammar at It’s a Long Story. This has been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to coming back for a post-wedding recap.

I thought I’d leave you with two ways I’ve been lucky: my ring and DJ. DJ chose my ring, with help from my best friend and very very little help from me. I’d been putting off looking out of laziness - I knew DJ wasn’t planning on proposing until 2008, so I thought I had until 11:59 on December 31, 2007. My friend dragged me on one short shopping trip where I decided I liked cushion cut stones and very very skinny bands. On December 15th, DJ put a ring on my finger. I love it, and I was fifteen days’ surprised.

Long before this ring, there was another one. About nine years ago, DJ and I were engaged for the first time. It didn’t work then. We were young, and I had some relationship deficiencies. We went our separate ways, and our lives never really intersected after that. Two and a half years ago he sent me an e-mail, just one line. Just asking if it was a good idea or a bad idea. I got lucky. It was a great idea.

I tried to find matching dresses for my three friends, really I did. But the more I looked the more confused I was, and the less I felt qualified to decide for them. They are, as girls tend to be, quite different. In height, body type, and style. My maid of honor and I frequently shop together, and it’s a pretty solid rule that anything that works on her won’t on me, even if the size is right.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of them wearing mismatched dresses. If they weren’t going to wear the same dress anyway, they could choose their own! Which would be one less thing for me to worry about later.

Still, I’d like some things to be similar. Color, length, level of formality. Some of that is kind of hard to convey without pictures, so I made a Bridesmaid Lookbook.

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Several weeks ago DJ and I took a little trip to Las Vegas. I thought it would be fun, while we were there, to have a set of pictures taken by someone else. We don’t have a lot of pictures of us together, and I thought it would be a fun memory of the trip.

But I didn’t want to spend a lot of money hiring a pro photographer that I couldn’t vet ahead of time. So I scouted Craigslist for a photography student who wanted to build her portfolio.

{Read the rest of this entry…}

One of the quirks of the barn is the man who oversees its rental. It’s owned by a larger group, but this guy has all the say, at least as far as I know. He’s made a couple of ridiculous rules (which seem to not always be enforced). The barn is rented with tables and chairs in it. The tables are rustic looking aged wood, while the chairs are metal and folding.

(Source: KristenHenschen on Flickr)

At first I thought that was no problem, we’d just rent different chairs. I mean, heck. Anything is better than a metal folding chair! But it turns out that they don’t allow that at all. You use the metal folding chairs… “Or nothing” isn’t even an option – we aren’t allowed to store them out of sight.

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Every wedding invitation seems to have a map in it, which I think is a great idea. If it’s functional, it’s a printout from Google Maps. Or it’s art, like Laura Hooper’s maps.

I love them, they’re beautiful. I just can’t afford to commission one, so I’m looking for something in the middle. I’d also like to be able to print it with my Gocco, which is sort of the consolation prize for not hiring Laura Hooper.

{Read the rest of this entry…}

Now that I’ve had my teacher voice out about dress shopping, can I ask for an opinion? My dress - the unexpected winner - is strapless and ivory, with an ivory sash. I didn’t start out looking for strapless, and while I like it a lot I’d still like to have a shrug or something over my shoulders. I’ve found several options so far:

Jenny Yoo (in ivory)

{Read the rest of this entry…}

If the invitations were an unexpected joy, dress shopping was an unexpected disappointment. (Followed by joy, of course!) I should start by mentioning our budget. We have one. Everyone has one. Whatever your budget, there are choices to be made and priorities to be set. This is tricky; my priorities might not be the same as yours, and that’s ok.

Not long into the planning my mom offered to buy my dress. She set a budget which seemed enormous to me. She was busy with other things, so I did some looking without her, just to see what the options were. My best friend went with me to several bridal shops, where I tried on lots of dresses. To my surprise, they were at the top of my budget if not well beyond it. Worse, there wasn’t a natural fiber to be found. I’m a bit of a fabric snob, so the yards of synthetics just weren’t doing it for me.

It started to bother me that I’d spend all that money on something that wasn’t even what I really wanted. Something that was just okay. It seemed like there had to be other options. I expected to revel in the dress shopping, and instead it was making me nervous and self-conscious. I did find some options from J. Crew, Siri and Jenny Yoo, among others. Meanwhile, I realized that sample gowns must go somewhere. They do! There are whole websites devoted to once-wed and sample gowns. They are also on eBay, which can be riskier since the return policies may not be in your favor.

{Read the rest of this entry…}

My favorite thing so far has been working on the invitations. I know that they’re just paper and will be circular filed by nearly everyone. But the invitations ended up being weirdly important to me in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

I have a less than ideal family situation. For as long as I can remember, I’ve craved a feeling of belonging and stability. With DJ, finally having that that was my “you just know, it just feels right.” For me, these invitations are the start of the wedding itself. There’s the stated purpose, there are our names, that’s when it will happen. I love that. So I guess I’ve been dragging my heels on finishing them. Is there a cheerful counterpoint to Penelope weaving and unweaving her shroud?

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I’m so excited about guest blogging this week for EAD. I’ve been reading since I was first engaged, last December - I know I’ve cribbed some inspiration along the way.

DJ and I are planning a smallish wedding next September for 80 or so people, with the reception to be held in a renovated barn. The barn itself is very cool. Prior to its current life as an event space, it had been an actual working barn. It was on the verge of being donated as a firefighting training exercise when it was rescued by a local historian. After being transported piece by piece and rebuilt, it now has beautiful wood floors and white walls showcasing the original timbers, with a staircase up to the hayloft.

(Photo: Prairie Crossing)

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