[nicolby]

oh, I forgot the best part! the lake house has a huge hot tub on the back patio overlooking the lake! beautiful sunsets!

and in december I'll be LIVING in the hot tub since swimming in the lake will probably be out of the question

[nicolby]

cant find a picture that i can save of my dress, but here is a link:
http://davidsbridal.com/bridal_gowns...7&prodgroup=10


that is my ring. it is way prettier in person! It's really sparkley

[twirlandswirl]

Originally Posted by nicolby

oh, I forgot the best part! the lake house has a huge hot tub on the back patio overlooking the lake! beautiful sunsets!

We just went to a wedding where we stayed at a Lake House with a hot tub. (We=wedding party.)

[twirlandswirl]

Since everyone else is showing off their rings, here's mine!

[nicolby]

twirl: aw, too bad I'm not original! but my place is stilld beautiful, even if it's not original! and your ring is pretty. is it a marquis cut? the angle makes it look like a marquis... sorry if I'm wrong!

mine is 9 princess cut diamonds in the main angular square, and 2 circle cut diamonds on each side.

[twirlandswirl]

I believe it is a marquis... I'm not terribly knowledgeable about jewelry, to be honest.

I really liked the whole "rent a vacation house for the wedding party" deal. It was nice not to have to get in touch with 30 different people in 30 different places, and to have a place to all come back to and hang out together afterward and help each other get up and ready the morning of.

[rakel]

A vacation house is a neat idea, if we had to pay to rent out someplace for the wedding I think we would have done that -- on the beach somewhere, because I think it would have actually been cheaper and then like you guys are saying, you can have it for the honeymoon. We're getting married in our church and having the reception there as well. It's a small church but we aren't expecting a lot of people anyway. For the reception, I'm thinking about just doing o'dourves, since the wedding is at 3pm and the reception immediately proceeding, so it's in an "in between" eating period -- too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Plus it's less expensive and that's right in our budget.

We're counting on getting a lot of help from people we know too. I'm also trading with people to get some things I need for the wedding, which is nice. I'm making a website for a photographer and a printer (who is printing my invitations, programs, etc). One older gentleman in our church is a professional cake decorator/baker, so tonight if he's there, I'd like to ask him how much he'd charge to make a cake for us -- my pastor seems to think he'd make it for the cost of ingredients, but I don't want to assume that. There's also a man who has his own very successful business who often lets people stay in his cabin up in the mountains of Tennessee (I think, either that or Kentucky) that is REALLY nice. Our Pastor seems to think he'd let us use it too, but we have to ask him and we haven't yet. It's getting down to the wire though, so I'm going to see if we can ask tonight.

I wasn't planning on having a bridal shower, but my to-be sister in law things that I really should have one. The thing is, that I just don't know that many women down here. I moved here about 2.5 years ago, and most of the time I have been working at home, or in a business with my fiance's brother where there weren't a lot of employees. My fiance has lived here all his life, but he doesn't hang out with a lot of girls. Some of his friends have girl friends, so I'm trying to get to know them better but I'm pretty shy. I feel a little embarrassed inviting some of these girls to my bridal shower because we're really not close and it kind of makes me feel like a loser. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I guess I get a little down that I don't really have many close friends down here. I've always had a hard time making really good friends, because it takes me awhile to warm up to people.

[rakel]

Nicolby --

I'm planning on making my own silk bouquets myself, I found some sites with silk flowers, but I was wondering where you got yours and what you think about the quality? I'm looking to purchase from save-on-crafts.com. I'm planning on making all of the boutonnieres and corsages with silk flowers too -- maybe even the decorations to go on the tables at the reception.

You should be able to lose at least 40lbs in 10/11 months -- it's good to not set your goal's too high at an emotional level. It's more realistic to do that because things happen and you aren't going to be perfect. I thought I'd be around 240 by now, but I'm still in the 270's. I think in the end it's going to work better for me, because I'm learning about maintaining as I'm losing weight, instead of losing all the weight and then trying to tame the beast to stay the same.

[Lafayette]

Aaah! You're posting rings and mine is at the jeweler being resized. I have been gasping as I look at my bare hand all day, thinking I've lost it. I've only been clutching my hand for a few months now...

We did it! No more Euro to dollar exchange rate debates... we booked our flights to Paris for our two-week honeymoon! Hooray! (I'm sure the fact that I agreed to a few days in London for a premier league soccer game had nothing to do with my fiance's sudden agreement!)

Tommorrow night is the big wedding band discussion with the jeweler. Of course, gold and platinum would be at an all-time high right now... guess mine will just have to have more diamonds See? I'm willing to take one for the team!

[nicolby]

rakel,

I bought my silk flowers from Michaels craft store (michaels.com, I believe) here in my town. The quality is wonderful, and the colors are very vibrant. I'm making our boutonniers (sp?) as well, and probably some sort of centerpiece arrangement for our tables. I agree about my goal, I have enough stress regarding the wedding, I want a realistic goal that I can accomplish, not set myself up for failure right before my wedding!

:P

[leanmoomercows]

Hi! I was just doing some wedding planning yesterday and today! Woo! I'm living in Kentucky, but getting married in Massachusetts. The date is June 6th, 2008 (it's creeping up!) and will be just outside of Boston. I'm finding it extremely difficult to plan a wedding from 1000 miles away because I always feel as though I'm missing out on something. But luckily I have a wedding planner back in MA, so it's basically all being taken care of.

You're all posting such pretty pictures! I must post some too!

Here's my engagement ring:


And here's my dress (it's back in MA, so I can't take a picture of me in it, sorry):

[rakel]

nicolby -- hmm, when I went to Michaels they were all dusty. Did you have to wash them or anything?

[Lafayette]

Leanmoomercows- welcome! Gorgeous dress! Mine is very similar- I have the Ann Taylor Elizabeth dress with the champagne sash.

I still miss my ring It's a 1.25 ct solitaire in a platinum setting and the wedding ring will be a channel set eternity band (just picked it out tonight!). Platinum prices just hit an all-time high today so it was actually less to buy the platinum eternity band they had in the store than order the plain platinum band I wanted. Hello, bling! Something about this wedding had to work out in my favor!

How's everyone's planning?

[leanmoomercows]

Lafayette: Thank you, I love my dress too! It's lace all over, I don't know if you can tell from the picture. So it's very light-weight, which is perfect for a June wedding (though it is in New England, the chances are just as good that it'll snow! )

I actually picked out my wedding band yesterday! Every store we looked in mentioned that the price of gold was going up dramatically as well as platinum, so if we wanted to buy, we should soon! We were planning on buying them sometime in the next few weeks anyway, so we just went ahead and bought them right then and there! Though mine needs to be re-sized because my ring size is 3.5, and the one I picked was a 7 (like you said Lafayette...I also chose the one they had in store because it was less expensive then a special order because of gold prices skyrocketing). I suppose it was just good timing. The one that I got is a band with diamonds that sits flush next to my ring; it's from the same place as my engagement ring, so it's made for it.

Also, am I the only one who decided to have a Friday night wedding? We looked around at many different event spaces and decided to go for the much nicer (and obviously more expensive) place, but knocked it down to a Friday because the prices actually equaled out. Am I alone on this?

[twirlandswirl]

What city in MA?