10 days to go before the big bash!

I just wanted to say thank you to the small group of friends and family that made the trip to South Dakota for our private wedding ceremony. It was a great weekend, the weather was perfect, and everyone enjoyed the awesome dinner that followed at Roma's Italian Restaurant. We had a party into the night with friends in Deadwood, that was fun! Nicole, the boys, and I bounced around the Black Hills for a few days after the wedding, and had some fun family time, as you can see by some of the more recent posts and pics that my wife added to our blog. We all had a really great time!

Now that the ceremony is out of the way, its time to prepare for the big wedding celebration. It's been a work in progress, as you can imagine, a lot more DIY stuff, like the cupcake stand and the candy bar decor. We have some really good ideas for our table setups, it's going to look awesome! With only 10 days to go we still have a fair amount of things to get done, but like always we will knock it out of the park like rock stars!

Candy Buffet Sign...

Time to start working on all those DIY projects.  We have two weeks & I'm super busy.  Here's the sign I made for our candy table.  I started with a 12x12 piece of MDF.  The people at Lowes are nice & cut it down for me.  Also need a plate holder. I stole this one from my parents house.

I bought a can of black spray paint that I am also using on the cupcake stand (still in progress, post to come later).  I painted the MDF with some black acrylic paint I had on hand.  The plastic plate holder was painted black with spray paint.

I used my Cricut to cut out the letters & Mod Podge to glue them to the MDF.  The final result looks like this:

Misc. Pics...

Some of you may have seen this while driving around town.  Special thanks to Butch at The Shop for the sign, we love it!

We drove through Custer Park in the Black Hills where we met this guy... He was very friendly

Well almost a lil too friendly...

We took the boys down Needles Highway. They loved the tunnels & climbing on the rocks...

The boys enjoyed playing the piano in Deadwood...

We went through Spearfish Canyon & stopped to see Roughlock Falls...

Also took the boys to a mini cave at Thunderhead Falls.  We wanted to test the waters & see how they would do on a longer tour... Maybe in a couple years, we were told it was 'too dark' over & over again...

Few Pics...

These are not professional photos, just some taken by friends & family.  The pics taken by our photographer, Angela, should be posted to her website some time this week.  You can view them at www.angelapiersonphotography.com

This is the sand ceremony with the kids, thank you parasol for our thank you cards, and our wedding party.   

We Have Arrived!

Made it to the Black Hills last night.  Had a few hiccups with our room check in because they were over booked (really dont like hotels when they do that).  Everything worked in our favor.  We got a bigger room that has lots of space for the kids to run & a fridge for juice, booze & lemons. 

This morning we are going to get a marriage license.  Then we have the rest of the day to relax.  We plan on heading to Deadwood for lunch.  The boys are excited & love it here.  I can't wait to see both of them tomorrow with their tuxes on, they will be soo stinkin' cute!  I'll be sure to post pics Saturday night or Sunday morning for everyone to see. :)

Nine More Days!

Quick update on the latest happenings here...

• My dress alterations are done, it is now a floor length dress with no train.
• Jamie's ring arrived last week & fits perfect.  Thank you Overstock.com for an awesome deal!

 

• Only one of the boy's tuxes fit, the other was too big.  I have a tux on order & it should be here early next week.  

 

• Cupcake stand is at a stand still.  I painted one coat & never got to finish.  Instead I painted the guest room for company arriving in 2 weeks.  Here's a peek at the stand, will post a full tutorial when we are done. 

•  400 invitations went into the mail last week.  Now we are working on those people that were missed.  Every day a couple more get added to the list.  So glad to have the invitations done.  They were very, very time consuming.  Huge thank you to Mae & Kristin for all their help!
• Found future MIL a dress for the wedding.  Made her a pretty necklace & bracelet to match her outfit. (clear beads are silvery, flash kinda kills the bling)

•  My bridal shower was a couple weekends ago.  Good times with great people!  Got some awesome gifts & recipes.  Special thanks to my mom & Mae for hosting.  Awesome job ladies!

•  We have collected roughly 14 containers for the candy buffet.  I'm going to start cutting ribbons & making labels for everything this week.  Pics to come in the following weeks as we figure out the table layout. 

I'm sure there is much, much more to add to this list but that's all I can think of for now.  The invitations took us about 2 weeks to complete & were by far the biggest project.  Hope to post more in the next few days as we get closer to leaving for the Hills.  

Invitation Invasion

The invitation invasion is in full swing.  The assembly process has taken over our dining room.  The address collection has taken over the office.  It's a mess but once we are done putting things together it will go very quickly.  I would start addressing the first 240 envelopes if my return address labels from Vista Print would arrive...  So here we wait, staring at paper, slowly working on things.  The tricky part is keeping the 3 yr old fingers off all this pretty paper...

One Month Left...

Only one month to go!  Things are getting exciting & overwhelming at the same time.  So much to do but it's all coming together.  Finishing projects are flowers, his ring (finally gave me his ring size yesterday), dress alterations, suit fitting, bridal shower, practice hair day, & invitations.  Can't forget about the massive cupcake stand that is still in progress.  Needs another coat of paint & decor.  We will post pics when it is done. 

Next Project... Addresses

I'm locking the doors & not coming out until the next project is done.  These two boxes contain 500 envelopes.  Each of them is waiting for an address & return label.  If you don't hear from me within a couple days, send  a search party...

Invitations Ordered

We have 500 invitations on order along with 500 address labels.  They should all be done sometime next week.  We went very simple with the invites, no RSVP necessary.  The end result will look something like this sample (except red ribbon & a graphic instead of initial):

I'll have a ribbon tying party with one or two of those lucky girlfriends of mine... That's right ladies, 500 ribbons, I know you can't wait!  I'll buy the wine...

Shoes!

Lovin' these pretty red shoes! Found them at David's Bridal yesterday & now they are on my feet. (Also got black shoes for the boys)

The cupcake stand was built yesterday too!  Next step is paint, fabric & misc. decor, pics will be posted when it's finished.  For a peek at our inspiration look here.

We were very busy with wedding things yesterday. The photographer is paid in full.  We secured a projector for the reception so the ceremony can be viewed by those not attending.  Now we are off to the fair for an evening with Buckcherry!

DIY Thank You Parasol

My latest project is a photo prop.  This is the parasol that I saw on Bride on a Budget

I used Microsoft Publisher to print Thank You in 750pt Edwardian Font. (Kristin, I still think it's because you are team Edward, just sayin').  Then I cut out the letters & lightly taped them to the back of the parasol.

No lie people.  This was not an easy task.  I traced very gently with a pencil so I didn't punch through the parasol.  Next was tracing with a black sharpie.  If I ever make another one of these I would skip that step.  The marker bleeds through the paper very easily.

Next step was paint, just simple, black, acrylic paint.  I used one of the boy's art paint brushes with a fine tip.  Again this was a tedious project...  The end result looks like this.  View our photos with parasol here.

Bling, Bling...

Went shopping today & bought jewelry to go with my wedding dress.  Found this necklace & earrings at Icing:

This looks really awesome with my dress.  Just a reminder....

Next up is shoes.  Currently I have this pair on order from Shoe Carnival.  Hopefully they fit when they arrive in a couple weeks. 

Stay tuned... We are having pics taken next week if the weather cooperates.  I'll be sure to post pics as soon as they are finished!!

Let Them Eat Cake...

Along our journey in the Hills we met our photographer, Angela Pierson.  She was super nice & we can't wait to work with her.  I have a feeling we will have wonderful traditional shots as well as several fun photos.  Angela is open to just about anything & seems very laid back.  I'm sure we will all work well together.

After the ceremony & photos we will be having dinner at an Italian restaurant.  The facility is new & the staff was more than helpful, willing to take time to talk to us & ask several questions.  This restaurant was not our first choice, however, upon seeing both dinner locations, the decision was easy.  Here's a peek at our dinner location:

We can have this private room for the night for a fee, or risk overflow from the restaurant if they are busy that night.  They also have a patio area behind the restaurant they are willing to reserve for us if the weather is nice.  The owner is allowing us to bring in a dessert so we found a small cake shop in town.  A 10" cake was ordered.  It is red velvet with cream cheese frosting & chocolate piping.  Hopefully when it is done it will look something like this (white one) with roses on top:

Away We Go...

We just returned from a four day trip to the Black Hills.  This trip was to finalize plans, meet all the important people & have some fun with the boys.  The South Dakota weather was very non-cooperative so we decide to take our time driving South.  A drive down the Enchanted Highway entertained the boys for the first few hours...

After listening to the boys yell "I wanna go home" for a couple hours, we arrived in SD.  Our first stop was the gazebo we chose as our wedding location.  Everything was booked, sight unseen, & finding photos of this place is next to impossible...  Here's what it looks like-

Bridesmaid Dress!

After many hours of searching every store we could think of, Mae & I finally decided on a dress. We took a chance on Ebay.  I had a friend bid for me as I was too busy having a girls night out with friends (thanks Ashley for hanging at home that evening).  She got us a great deal too!  This is the Dessy 2015, which sells regular price for $130-180.  Ashley got the winning bid plus shipping for a whopping $35!  Awesome!

Five Months to Go!

Five months til our wedding day.  Crazy!  Everyone says the time goes fast & they are so right.  We have so much left to do...

Flowers, tuxes, shoes, order cupcakes, build cupcake stand, secure reverend, dinner reservations, just to name a few...  Eventually it will all get done, right?

In other news... We have these moving into the new house this weekend.

Jamie plans on building and painting pedestals before they arrive.  Could be interesting (or entertaining) project.  We'll keep you posted...

Red Rose Petals...

So we needed more rose petals for table centerpieces.  If you price petals out you will find that they are quite expensive.  I found a seller on Ebay with a steal.  I got 1000 petals for a few dollars.  The petals would have to ship from China, but reviews were good so I figured I could give it a go.  

Well the petals finally arrived in a small 4x6 envelope.  I opened it to find this...

It's 1000 petals all compressed together.  Each petal had to be separated.  It took three of us about 45 minutes to complete this project.  They were full of static so the petals were literally leaping out of the box even though we were using dryer sheets.  We now have a large shoe box full of petals.

Inspirations...

Will be busy with the holiday weekend.  See you next week!

Happy Easter

MOVING DAY!

No, I'm not moving into the house yet... That won't happen for a while.  However, we did move all my things out of storage so I don't have to pay storage rent.  Next is the garage.  There are some misc. boxes & furniture remaining in the garage that can be moved to the house.  We plan on doing this super fun activity tomorrow afternoon.  What a way to spend the first 70 degree day, right?  I can hardly wait & I'm sure he feels the same way.

We did start moving non-essential items like extra blankets, books, office supplies, movies, etc.  The little things around the house that rarely get used.  Everything will be sorted in to keep & sell piles so we can have a garage sale this summer... 

When will we finally move to the new house?  Who knows.  Probably not til some time this summer.  We still have a lot of work to do like wallpaper removal & painting.  Feel like helping just let us know.  Now I'm off to paint a bookcase for the boy's room & color with sidewalk chalk.  I'll be sure to take pics of the bookcase & post another day...