Groom Style

So, things are coming down to the wire, less than two months people, two months! And we have still yet to 100% decide on what Robert and his men are going to wear for the wedding. At first we were set with one of two suit rentals from Al's Formal Wear

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Robert's vest/tie would be in a champagne/ivory color and the men's would be in a red color. We can rent EVERYTHING for about $117 per suit. I thought this was a pretty good deal. But then Robert said we should just have everyone buy a brown suit, that way they would have it forever. I agree that that is a great idea, but then I get all nervous about everything matching and what are we going to get for the vests/ties? I mean we could take it as far as telling them go to this store and buy these pants and this vest but I hate telling people what to do also!

So, I did the next best thing, I started looking at groom inspiration pictures!

From Once Wed:




I am loving the jacket lessness off all these images! Especially with the dark vets. But is that weird to not have the jackets on during the ceremony? I can totally see that during the reception but the ceremony is what has me slightly worried. At the same time though, I want our wedding to be super casual and laid back and fun!

Ok, I think I just need to show this post to Robert and see what he thinks. Hopefully we can get something figured out this weekend!

Flower Girl Dresses

(Robert, skip this one.)

Who knew finding flower girl dresses would be much much harder than finding my dress!?!

I guess my biggest issue is that I can not decide how much I want the dress to match my dress. I have found TONS of cute options but half of them are made out of silk, satin, organza or tulle. Well, my dress is made out of taffeta and my maid's dresses are made out of cotton and I feel like the flower girl dress needs to kind of match one of those. But, if I decide on a cotton dress can I do it in ivory or does it need to be in brown like the maid's dresses? If I do decide brown cotton will it look weird if it doesn't match the maid's dresses enough?

Am I just being crazy? Yeah, probably that one!

Well, I know what you are all here for... PICTURES!

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Of course when I first started looking I checked out Alfred Angelo to see what they would have to match my dress. This was the best they had.

Pros

• I know I can get the dress and sash colors to match my dress EXACTLY, which is a small comfort.
• Same fabric as my dress.
• The v-neck semi matches my dress.

Cons

• Is it too springy? (I know, I know, I'm in Texas where October is likely to be 90 degrees still.)
• Price. They do not list the exact price but those three flowers next to it mean it's less than $150 but more than $125. Uh, no thanks.

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Pros

• Has a sash to match my dress. (I would remove the bow on the front and replace the current sash with a sash in my colors.)
• Again, the crisscross neck kind of matches my dress.
• Well priced at $55.

Cons

• Seems like I would be doing a lot of altering to the dress.
• The fabric is called "shantone" but if you look at the brown dress on their site, I think it could be close enough to taffeta.

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Another one from the Briar Patch.

Pros

• I can get the sash in a color to match my colors.
• Only $64.

Cons

• Again its that "shantone" material.

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Pros

• REALLY, REALLY matches my dress, style wise at the top.
• Only $59

Cons

• The color says ivory, but it sure does look darker than ivory...
• The fabric is straight up satin, no pretending like that matches taffeta.

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Pros

• Super cute eyelet fabric.
• $59
  

Cons

• It's cotton, does that matter?

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I could take a cue from Miss. Cowboy Boot over on Weddingbee and commission a custom dress from Etsy seller AngelWear.

Pros

• So pretty and fits in quite well with our rustic country theme.
• On the major cheap as Miss. Cowboy Boot only paid $28!!
  

Cons

• There is no eyelet anywhere else in the wedding, does that matter?
• Is it too casual?

Ok, so what do you think? Do you like any of my options? Do you have any other suggestions?

Wayfinding

I am not quite sure when I decided I wanted wayfinding signs for the wedding. Actually, I take that back. It was back in January, shortly after we got engaged and we started looking at venues around the Austin area. One of the places we went was the adorable Star Hill Ranch. A wedding was being set up as we were looking around that the groom's dad had made.

I think ever since then I have been lusting after great signs like the below:







Now, I don't think getting to our place for the wedding will be that hard, but I still they they would be adorable and fit in with our rustic country theme quite well. Plus, they would be great to have around pointing to the restrooms etc.

I would love to just make these myself, but I figured it couldn't hurt to check out what Etsy has. Well, I found tons of inspiration. Some was a little fancier than what we are going for, but still super cute.

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I actually really like this one for thank you cards.

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Some looked perfect for what I want to do.

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So, I think I am back to just diying these signs. Guess that means a trip to Lowes to look at wood selections. Darn, I bet Robert will HATE having to make that trip with me.

(Hmm, that trip might be a good time to start looking at stuff for our registery... more on that later.)

October 17th, 2009

See that up there, that's my wedding date. Supposed to be the most important day in my life, well after I was born.

Know what else that date is?

Here, I'll give you a hint:

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Yup, that's right. I am getting married the same day as the Red River Shootout. Now, I am sure those of you from the Texas/Oklahoma area are fully aware of this EPIC event. Those of you who don't well around these parts this is probably bigger than the Superbowl and the College Football National Championship game, combined. Friendships have been broken up over this, people!

How did we come to decide on this date you ask? Well, way back at the beginning of our engagement, before we bought a house and before we decided to backyard wedding it, we looked at several different venues. Almost all of these venues were booked all of October except for October 31ts (Halloween, so kind of understandable) and October 2nd. We decided there HAD to be something going on that weekend in Austin to cause all these venues to be open. The first thing Robert suggested was Texas/OU weekend since that falls in early-ish October. Unfortunately after googling and googling "texas ou weekend 2009" and other variations, nothing came up! So being the smarty that I am I googled "october 2 2009 austin tx" and what pops up? Oh yeah, this little thing:

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Maybe you've heard of this? If not, go here to read the Wikipedia on it. With the likes of the Beastie Boys, Dave Mathewes Band and Pearl Jam headlining and TONS of other great names palying over three days I can see why no one in Austin was planning a wedding for October 2! Not only would they probably rather be there but getting hotels for out of town guests would be CRAZY.

At this point we kind of stopped looking at venues and concertrated on house hunting. Once we started talking about the wedding again we kept coming back to October 17th. Robert really, really, really liked the idea of having something for him and all of his guys to do the day of to stay occupied, which I thought was great. We have yet to decide if they are going to just stay at the house in the living room while the girls and I are holed up in the master bedroom or if they are going to go to a bar or what.

I have two hopes though.
One: Robert does not get too drunk. Which I really don't think he will. He is not much on that anymore.
Two: This does not happen:

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'cause as much as Robert loves the state of Texas, he hates him some Longhorns. And, I do not want to have a grouchy Robert because OU looses. So, you better believe I will be cheering for OU with all my heart.

DIY TD

I have a list a mile long in my head of DIY to do (DIY TD).

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So let me tell you about them:

• Figure out log candle holders
• Make pompoms
• Find burlap to make table runners and bows around mason jars
• ORDER STAMPS
• Figure out if I am going to make pocket enclosures or order them
• Find brown paper envelopes for silverware
• Decide if I am going to make cupcakes myself (if not, find a bakery ASAP)

Sadly that is all I can think of right now! So why did I lay awake in bed last night for over an hour freaking out about stuff? Well, as I think of more things I will add them to this list!

Tablescapes

I have all these thoughts that run crazy in my head about how I want things to look for the wedding. I have a folder on my computer desktop for wedding inspiration and I save images there daily.

Today I started really deciding what I wanted to do for my center pieces, which I have decided will be more of a tablescape.

Here is what I am hoping to include:

Burlap Table Runners
These should be cheap and easy, I hope.

Mason Jars with Flowers

One of the first inspiration pictures I found for Mason Jars.

I really like the idea of the hemp wrapped around the bottom of the jar, I think it adds some nice texture and would help hide the fact I am using fake flowers, if I decide to go that way.

But then after finding pictures of burlap table runners, I have decided that hemp on the bottom just wont work. Imagine that white fabric up there as the burlap, blends into the hemp pretty good right? Ends up as a brown mess. Good thing I have more inspiration images!

Very simple, but still looks good!

Beautiful! But I think too many flowers for me. I have a few other things I want to add.

I think this is my favorite. I like how this has the burlap tied around the top. Simple one type flowers.

Another option for adding to the jar.

Wood Stump Candles
I blogged about these a while back, I am still waiting to try it out!


Glitter Pumpkins
It just dawned on me today that I am getting married in October! Which mean I have tons of access to small pumpkins and gourds. I think at one point in time I wanted a super fall wedding filled will leaves and pumpkins. Well, that fell to the wayside. These will be my slight homage to that!

Ahh, so pretty and glittery!

Ours will probably be more of this color.

So, what do you think?

PS: I suck at remembering sources, so if you know who these images belong to, let me know and I will cite!

No moon

I was inspired by a post on Weddingbee today to check out what the moon was going to be like on October 17th, our wedding day. Since our ceremony and reception will be outside and we are already pretty far away from the city lights, I thought it would be nice to have a full moon or at least some moon. Well, I boogied on over here and entered October 2009.


Sigh, October 17th is at the beginning of a new moon, which means no moon.

Now, I knew I wanted to get some outdoor string lights for the wedding and to have in general. I love the way white twinkle lights look up in trees at night time. I think the first time really remember noticing how much I loved that was my freshman year of college. It was one of the first few weekends into the semester and I decided to stay in San Marcos instead of going home or to see friends. The dorms were dead quiet and I was bored, actually Rebecca and I were bored. She stuck around that weekend too. I remeber calling my parents up and asking them what could we do and they suggested that we go to Gruene and walk around and eat at the Gristmill. Well after many searches on Green, TX, we finally found Gruene, TX and figured out where it was. So, we hopped in my Paseo and drove on down to Gruene. I remeber getting out of the car and going "where the hell are we". But it ended up being a great day stopping at all the shops and at the end of it we ate at the Gristmill, where of course we had to wait, it was a Saturday night after all. I just remember sitting there and staring up at the white lights in and on the trees thinking "I want this".

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See, so pretty.

Along the way in my wedding research, I have decided (at the moment) I want carnival lights. Probably with normal Christmas lights wrapped around the trees.

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After much searching, I found these two options

(Option One)

(Option two)

I have since decided that those may be too commercial for our backyard. Luckily, that same website has a TON more options in smaller lengths. For example this set

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The strand is 100' long with 12" between the bulbs and is $29.95. You buy the bulbs separately, the one I showed up there is a 2” in diameter bulb, slightly larger than a golf ball and they run $0.95 each. Roughly that all ads up to $125 for 100' of lights. The only down side to this is that you can not connect the ends to more lights. Each strand needs its own power outlet.

There is also this option

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This strand is 16' long, also with 12" of spacing between the lights. The bulbs are still 2" in diameter but they come already attached. This strand runs $23.95. Oh, and you can connect up to 3 strands together (I don't know what happens if you do more then 3). If you can only connect up to 3 strands together that is only 48'. Which makes the first set the better buy, plus the first strand is cheaper over all. I would need 7 sets of strand two to match the length of strand one which adds up to roughly $170. Almost $50 more than strannd one! But if I can connect more then 3 strands together, strand two might win.

I guess what I need to do is figure out how many feet of lights I need. I really had no idea how to go about doing that when Melanie told me to use string and put it up when all I want lights. I think that will work great. Now, to find time to do it!

I almost hate to include the purchase of these into the wedding budget since we will be getting WAY MORE use out of them than just for the wedding. But, the money has to come from somewhere!

PartyLights.com has a ton of fun options for outdoor lighting and their website is pretty easy to get around. Plus, I think their pricing is reasonable, but I have not done much looking elsewhere!

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I think Robert would prefer these

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Maybe it's a good thing boys don't plan weddings.