Some progress... but not a ton

Well, I didn't end up doing quite as much in December as I thought I might, since I really only took a few days off. Oh well, we did accomplish some things.

We finally got around to meeting with our caterer to talk menu and about the cutting cake. We're really excited; the cakes we tasted were delicious, and both tastings we've been to of theirs have been fantastic. The food is in good hands. They aren't called Seattle's most creative caterer for nothin'.

Let's see... what else? We started putting together the music playlist. It's got a long way to go and isn't really ordered yet... but at least we've started! Um. I bought a HD webcam for the live video streaming so that the random people who can't join us will have good quality video to watch! I also added a tab at the top as a placeholder for whenever I actually set up the account...

January should be pretty busy. I have a dress fitting and some meetings to go to... oh boy!

Six months to go

Where has the time gone??

School has been going pretty well (got a proposal mostly funded, which means I finally have a dissertation topic), and we've had a lot of visiting friends. While I love having company and being busy, it really digs into my planning time. I've hardly touched planning or crafting for the wedding in the last month. Oh well, I still have plenty of time, especially with the holidays coming up.

Hopefully we'll get things squared away with catering here soon and I'll find some time to focus on the rest of the stuff that needs to get done. I'm also looking into printing a book with photos of us and our travels together to have as a table book. I mean, the engagement photos turned out so nice... I want to have a good way to display them! Then again, it also makes me wish Cody and I were better about taking photos.

Itteh Bitteh Canvas Committeh

So! The wedding is taking place in an art gallery. We're hanging some of my paintings on the walls as decor, and I'm doing a big one (6'x4') as the 'altar'. Megan asked recently if I'd thought about centerpieces yet, so I went looking around the internet and got distracted by an art supply website.
That's when I found these:

"Itty Bitties" canvases! The easel is a whopping 5" tall, and the square dude on the right is a 3"x3" canvas. Want! Problem is... I haven't quite figured out how to turn these cute pieces of art waiting to happen into fabulous centerpieces. We're kind of steering away from flowers. Candles might be nice?

I'm sure I'll figure something out!

Tired of licking envelopes!

Well, mostly. I finally got the majority the save the dates out in the mail, so I'm happy to have those off my list of things to do. I'm waiting on a handful more addresses, so I have one more batch to send out yet. Also, the photos I sent with the magnets turned out a little darker than I was hoping. Note to self: order proof prints next time! Oh well.

Now I get a break from cutting out address labels until February/March, when the formal invitations go out. I may start working on those early, since they're going to take time to assemble...

In website-related news, I updated the ceremony page to include pictures of the people that will be involved. I stole most of the images from Amanda's wedding pictures, since they turned out so nicely. Except for Dana's... which makes me grateful for Facebook.

I also visited my venue last week to chat with the owner, and originally I had hoped to temporarily hang some of my decorations in the venue to see what they actually look like in the space. I brought them along and everything, but ended up getting a nasty migraine and had to leave early. I was sad, especially since I don't get those very often. Guess I'll have to make another appointment with them.

I'm also waiting on Megan to get back to me on quotes for dessert, ideas on places to have dinner with the family the night before (rehearsal-dinner: the light version), and sit down with our caterer. Mmmm. Food.

Photos are up!

Full size version of slide show
Go to the gallery

I've also embedded the slideshow permanently in the Photo Gallery. I picked my favorite 65 of the 145 images that madlove photography sent us on DVD. Enjoy!

We also finally got around to setting up our honeymoon registry. Maui, here we come!

Save the Dates out soon!

I've finished the design for the save the date magnets, and have started printing them out. Well, I printed off a few sheets, then the printer ran out of yellow ink and turned them pink! Oh well. The ones that printed in the right colors look even better than I had hoped! They look almost like we got them done professionally. I hope the invitations turn out this nice...

They'll be mailed out as soon as I get the engagement photos back from our amazing photographers. I just got an email saying they're almost ready to send us the DVD. I can't wait! We'll post them up here (along with some photos that Cody's parents promised us) as soon as we can, and send our favorite as a print with the magnets.

Catering, Dresses, and Photo Shoot!

This month, the big goal is to get catering figured out! Megan took us to two tastings (omg yummy free food and drinks), and spammed caterers with inquiries for quotes on our behalf. We're also looking into the possibility of getting a food truck, and doing ice cream for dessert instead of cake. Nothing solid yet, but we're hoping to get that figured out here in the next few weeks.

I also went last week to meet up with my dress-maker to give her the final details and the deposit on the dresses. We also scheduled a fitting in January, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. Yays! I also ordered my shoes, and they are hawt.

Finally, our engagement photo shoot is tomorrow. Once we get the proofs back from our photographers, I'll finally have some nice pictures to put in the gallery! We'll be doing the shoot at the Washington Park Arboretum, where we had initially thought about having the ceremony, and then possibly moving onto the UW campus. Now we just need to figure out what the heck to wear...

Adventures in Jewelry Making

I never used to like jewelry. Now, within the last few years, I feel naked if I'm not wearing earrings and a necklace. Most of my 'nice' jewelry is starting to fall apart, is very heavy, or is the wrong color scheme for our wedding. What was I going to wear??

I scoured Etsy for ideas, and most of the necklaces I liked (omg fire opals) were either out of my price range, didn't come with matching earrings, or wouldn't go with the neckline of the dress I want. So, being the crafty person I am, I decided to make my own... with very little experience. I'd made earrings at Cody's "aunt"'s house before, and remembered a little bit about wire wrapping. I conveniently forgot how painful it was.

After some more research on jewelry making basics, I was ready to try it out! I went to a local beading supply store armed with a general idea of how many beads I'd need of each color, and how I was going to do things. This store is smart... in the evil way. They sell single beads, and I was immediately attracted to the Swarovski crystals. "They're only 10 to 25 cents apiece. That's not so bad!" ~90 beads later, it adds up! My design also called for a head pin for each of the beads, and those were a bit more expensive. Then I needed a chain to hang it all on. Originally, I thought I'd be able to go with the least expensive chain they had. Then I saw it, and it was so fine I wouldn't be able to loop the head pins into it. Oops, guess I'd have to go with a more expensive chain.

Taking into account the supplies for the jewelry itself AND the tools required to make it (pliers, wire cutters, crimper, other miscellaneous findings), I ended up spending more on my custom set of necklace and earrings than some of the pieces on Etsy I was drooling over not a few weeks earlier. Plus, I also ended up spending about 8 hours assembling them... which involved a lot of unhappy fingers playing with wire. Note to self: pliers are your friend.

Lesson Learned: DIYing jewelry is actually not as cost and time effective as I thought.
That said, I absolutely adore how they turned out.

The picture doesn't really do them justice. They're SUPER SPARKLY in actual sunlight (rather than the awful overcast light today), and the beads go most of the way up the collar in clear crystal.

Now that I have the tools, I've got half a mind to make a bunch more as Christmas gifts (but with fewer beads methinks)...

Busy with DIY

Been keeping busy the last few weeks putting (aka gluing and taping) stuff together. With as many things as I want to do myself with this wedding, the last thing I want is to leave everything until the night before. Nope. Anything I can do now, I am doing.

I've finished two projects so far: fascinators (of which I had one done about a month ago) and bouquets. First, the finished fascinator that I'll be wearing:

I rather like how it turned out with the fiery colors. Now I have something to take with me the next time I get my hair done and have my stylist play with it. Yay! I've also contemplated making a fourth fascinator for Dana, our officiant, in yellow and white.

Then, I also made four bouquets (three for the party, one for throwing). I'm pretty sure these are going to be the only flowers at the wedding, but that could change.

I made them with: calla lilies (white and yellow), white cymbidium orchids, yellow Asiatic tiger lilies, plumeria, white goose biot feathers, stripped yellow coque tail feathers, and dark red hackle feathers. Wrapping the stems was a pain!!

I also got samples for paper and envelopes in the mail the other day, so now I can make a test run of the vellum mobile I mentioned last time.

Vellum Mobile!

Wow. The last few weeks have been crazy, but thankfully the craziness is over for now. I haven't had too much time to think about wedding stuff, but I did happen upon this awesome idea for some decor:

It's strips of vellum paper sewn together in a vertical mobile. I went shopping for what colors I'd use, and found:

The last two are cream and white, respectively. Turns out, I can make it for about $0.25/ft! Well, plus the amount of time it's going to take me to cut the paper and sew it all together. With the way I have to buy the paper, I'll probably have vellum left over to tie into table decorations as well. Modern, beautiful, inexpensive. Win!

One year to the day!

We settled on a day (Sunday, May 13, 2012) and booked a venue this week! We chose a Sunday for financial reasons, and the 13th since that's Cody's favorite number. It just so happens that May 13 is also Mother's Day. Both our moms are happy to get a wedding for their gifts!

The venue is E|M Fine Art Gallery, near the Seattle Center. The owners are super nice, and the space (while a bit post-industrial) is really unique. Plus, they're including tables and chairs as part of the deal, which was already incredibly affordable. I think it's going to work out really great! I've updated the Ceremony and Reception pages to reflect the location, and added some stuff to the Guest Information page.

We also booked the room for our honeymoon... Hm, now to figure out what to do next... so many options.

One month down...

...one year to go!

I've been busy the last month. Not just with visiting family and friends, school, and life as usual, but also with being distracted by random ideas for planning and designing this huge party known as a wedding.

In addition to all the help offered by my close friends and family, I've decided to enlist the more local help of wedding planner Megan Keller of A Kurant Event. Even though her services are going to cost me roughly a third of my total budget, I think she's going to be an awesome investment in my sanity. We had our first official meeting today, and it went great! We visited a potential venue that's both kick-ass AND affordable. It's a private fine art gallery down in South Lake Union with a lot of character.

On the fashion front, I'm heavily considering doing a custom Wai-Ching wedding dress, and then doing these kimonos for my lovely bridesmaids:

...but with slightly different colors. Chrissy hand-dyes all her stuff, and seems very open to customizing her designs. I'm in the process of contacting her, so we'll see how that goes! One of the big selling points for me was her price range. For everyday fashion, she's totally out of my budget... but surprisingly, she's super affordable for bridal. Win!

And finally, on a crafty note, I finished the first of three feather fascinators for me and my 'maids. It was definitely a learning experience... super glue is sticky!! Maybe next time I'll take some in-between photos and do a quick process post. Perhaps it might be interesting to someone out on the internet. Anyway, here's what it looks like:

 

We might have to get creative with how to keep it on Robin's head, since she has short hair and I made it as a comb... bobby pins ftw?

So much stuff to think about...

On the subject of theme...

As an artist, I associate many things in my life in terms of visual imagery. For most of our relationship, I've strongly connected us with the symbolism of the dragon and phoenix. We're both passionate people in many respects, yet we're both still very different. Plus, in our first L5R campaign, I played a shugenja from the Phoenix clan, and Cody played a samurai from the Dragon clan. It was pretty early in our relationship, so maybe that had something to do with it. It's also no coincidence that two of the main characters for my second graphic novel are a dragon and a phoenix...

In Chinese culture, the dragon and phoenix are considered an auspicious and powerful pair, representing the union of the emperor and empress, man and woman, yin and yang, and essentially wedded bliss. Seems appropriate to me. I'm not sure how much of that imagery will be incorporated into the wedding, but at the very least I know that there will be feathers and bright, fiery colors.

Besides, it gives me an excuse to incorporate pure AWESOME into my wedding. I can't say no to that.

We have a website!

Well, instead of doing a cookie-cutter wedding website I'm opting for a hybrid blog/website combo. Why a blog? Several reasons, actually. First, to give me an excuse to stay organized, and have a record to look back on someday. Second, to give me an outlet for my ideas, especially to keep from constantly driving Cody up the wall with them. Finally, I'd like to have a specific location for me to chat things over with people involved as an alternative to a long string of emails. On a more creative note, there are slightly more options to customize the look and feel of the website on Blogger without worrying too much about the code on the back end.

I still need to populate the pages with what little information I have, and scrounge up some photos...

Stay tuned!