Thanks for the welcome Mandalinn.

I love my Maggie dress. I tried on quite a few which 'hung' off me- I'm a very busty apple shape and clearly have a body made for corsets!! Every one I tried on was flattering and it was just finding the one which I liked the best (I thought it would be a real trial getting dresses when you don't have the best body image but I felt lovely).

I think that if you're calm now, that's likely to be the way forward- the big stuff is done (and the small stuff by the sounds of it) I'm sure that you are really, really well prepared- if the soaps are handrolled already then there's not a lot more to do!! How exciting- you two will be so gorgeous!!

Hi! You guys sound awesome!

Amanda, I can completely relate to your OCD- and clumsiness! I have almost the total wedding planned a year in advance and I did not plan before the proposal- I was really superstitious about it, actually.

I'm getting married March 29, 2008 and have decided to start getting back to the size/weight I was when we started dating. Ah, love...

Ballz, our wedding ceremony will be pretty traditional- we are total fogeys. At the end of the day, we decided we want the same words said at our wedding that people have been staying married to for generations. It made it one less decision we had to make, too ;) You'll know the poem when you see it!

My favorite bridal magazine so far has been The Bride and Bloom. I think it's new and I got my ideas for color scheme and flowers there. Has anyone else found a great wedding info source?

Mandalinn- is it one day to go now???? Have a woderful day!

I'm going to see a florist at lunchtime to try and eke out my tiny floral budgets. My Easter pounds have come off now so I am feeling good about getting into my dress next week at the trial.

Mandalinn - Just popping in to wish you much luck and happiness on your big day, I'm sure it will be just beautiful. Enjoy that honeymoon ;)

Newbe
 

Well here it is 5 months and 20 days till my wedding, I am no where NEAR my weight loss goal, in fact I havent budged one single pound! I have been lazy and unmotivated, but the thought of everyone looking at my wide rear at the alter has made me decide I was going to do something. I started my weight watchers plan today and set a calendar day to day what activites I will do for excersice. I have 60 pounds I want to loose (pre-baby weight), but realize I probably cant reach that in 5 months. So my goal is 30 pounds by September 14th!

http://www.3fatchicks.net/img/bar057...5/165/225/.png

Mandalinn - hope your day was wonderful - enjoy the honeymoon!

We had our Pre-cana class today - for those who aren't catholic, this is a requirement of getting married in the church. The requirement is different in different parishes and with differen priests - ours was an 8-hour course about marriage. DF actually enjoyed the class, and told me after he was glad we'd gone. He'd initially agreed to go under much protest. Anyway, the older couple who taught the class read a great blessing at the beginning of the course, and I wanted to share it with you all - I think we may use it in our ceremony.
Cindy

BLESSING FOR A MARRIAGE
~ James Dillet Freeman ~

May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring, and may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding.

May you always need one another - not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you to know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less, but more; and the valley is more a valley because it has a mountain towering over it. So let it be with you and you.

May you need one another, but not out of weakness.
May you want one another, but not out of lack.
May you entice one another, but not compel one another.
May you embrace one another, but not out encircle one another.
May you succeed in all important ways with one another, and not fail in the little graces.
May you look for things to praise, often say, "I love you!" and take no notice of small faults.

If you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you hope to have good sense enough to take the first step back.

May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of one another's presence - no more physical than spiritual, warm and near when you are side by side, and warm and near when you are in separate rooms or even distant cities.
May you have happiness, and may you find it making one another happy.
May you have love, and may you find it loving one another.

Cindy- I really like that poem a lot. I am going to share it with the fiance.

Kathie- Hello and welcome! I hope that you find all the support you need. Try to take it easy on yourself, though. No matter what, you will look gorgeous on your wedding day, marrying the man of your dreams!

Clareh- How did the florist go? I am considering ordering flowers bulk online, then hand-tying bouquets. Haven't made up my mind, since that is a lot of work.

Lafayette- I haven't heard of Bride and Bloom. I really enjoy Martha Stewart Weddings.

Mandalinn- I thought of you yesterday. I imagine it will be a while until you read this, but hope you are enjoying yourself.


As for me, Micah officially proposed Tuesday night! haha... everyone was happy, but we heard a lot of "about times." I have pictures of my ring, but it will still be a few weeks before I get the real one. I am so happy, and I really wish we could be out looking and booking a place, but I HAVE to finish this semester of school. So, instead of fun wedding stuff, I am writing a 6-page paper on image denoising and writing a presentation.

P.S. On the diet front, I need to start eating well again, rather than stress eating all the time. Sigh...

Hello all,

Christine – Congrats on the “official” proposal!

Well, not too much happening on the wedding front. We have an appointment to look at our top contender for a receptions spot next weekend. There will be a reception going on there so we can check things out while they're begin set up, so that should be a good reference point.

Spent a lot of time looking at open houses yesterday. DF and I are looking into the possibility of buying a home, the research is a lot of leg work. In fact, I'm pretty exhausted today. :lol:

Amanda--can't wait to hear stories and see pictures of the big day and honeymoon!!

Shananigans--Jeff and I are doing home reserch, too. We rent right now, but we really want to own a place. We don't want a condo that is basically the same as our apartment (in a high rise) because it doesn't feel very "homey" to us, so we're hoping to be able to afford a townhouse or even a small single family home, but things are SO expensive here! I've been doing research on possibl mortgage loan options and acceptable neighborhoods, and we're not even moving till the fall (our lease runs out October 31, so we want to close on a home by the end of September so we can take our time gradually moving/cleaning/fixing things in October).

Our wedding plans are actually on hold until after we move--no need to stress myself out with both at the same time :dizzy:

Jill,
DH and I are also looking at homes. We've seen most of the new developments in our area and all of them are trying to be huge and "luxury" townhomes. All we want is a simple townhome with a small yard. Out of all the townhomes we've seen, only 2 had any type of yard. All others had tiny balconies. We actually picked a general location where there are some townhomes built in the 70s and 80s. There is a dog park, which will be great because we want a dog and it is in a really good location. Only problem is we will be paying for the location :) We are also looking at buying at the end of the year or early next year. The plan is either in June or July to make contact with a realtor and then go on from there.

The possibility of owning property is one of the many reason we decided to relocate back to Madison. DF’s best friend from high school got married and bought a house in Silver Spring, MD last summer, they paid over $300,000 for a 750 sq ft townhouse! We looked at a few properties back when we were living in LA just for fun, and oh my goodness, what 4 mil can buy you! :eek: It’s fun to dream, but comparing the two markets it’s unbelievable how much more reasonable housing costs are here.

We saw a townhouse yesterday that we’re quite interested in, but for now the lady is remaining pretty firm about her asking price, which is just a bit too much of a stretch for us. DF did some research and found a comparable condo in the neighborhood with another bedroom (a 3 br vs 2) listed at the same price, and another 2 br listed for less. We're going to check those out as well. So hopefully she comes to her senses and will consider an offer in the price range we’d be more likely to put a bid in for. We’ll see, just the thought of being a homeowner is very exciting.

Wow that is crazy. I had to look up where Forestville is at. That is on the other side of 495. I actually live and work off of 270 and we are lucky in that both of us work near eachother and can buy a home within a few miles of work.

Shan, prices have actually dropped a bit here. I think it'd be a bit cheaper if we actually did live in Silver Spring but it would also mean dealing with hellish traffic. I think we actually found a the one tiny spot in the DC metro area that doesn't seem as crazy, crowded and trafficky but we are also at the outer fringe of it.

Christine- The Bride and Bloom is new. I think the issue currently on newstands is only the second issue. Their website is the same as the name. I found it at Target. BTW Best wishes!!!

Good luck to everyone with their house hunting! I'm sure your agents have already advised you but, just in case, it's worth your while to research the length of time a property has been on the market. As a general rule, the longer the sellers have had to pay the mortgage, the more eager they are to sell versus make another month's payment. (I'm guessing) I'm older so most of my friends are combining households and trying to sell a home. Many started out looking to land a huge profit and would now be thrilled with any offer, especially for the few who have been trying to sell for 8-10 months.

Back to weddings ;) I work for a nonprofit so I called on a few "non-traditional" vendors for our catering, invitations and photography. I could not be more pleased with the results! We're getting custom-designed invitations for almost the same price as the discount catalogs from a professional graphic designer who typically does advertising, great "event" photography and linens/settings/glassware/appetizers/salads/filet mignon/service with a full open bar for about $63/person, gratuity included, from a caterer that usually does events for the opera, symphony and other performing arts groups. They actually knocked down the price because- and I quote- "We don't have to make dessert." Wha?!? They have no problem serving and boxing cake, either.

Anyone want to get married in Milwaukee? :)

Lafayette- I feel SO silly. I went to my stack of wedding magazines (yikes... I have a really compulsive personality) and saw I had a Bride and Bloom in there. I wholeheartedly agree, they have so many pretty arrangements in there. I am really trying to do a low-budget wedding, but I may have to incorporate some of those ideas. Take care. :)

Lafayette,

I enjoy looking at the pictures of real estate in my area. A lot of the picture have leaves on the ground (indication of the October/November time frame) or snow (which could've been a couple times in the past few months but not recent). So houses are definitely sitting.

DH and I are actually pushing off our home buying plans for a couple months longer. Last year, we had a short local honeymoon and we decided that on our first anniversary, we'd take a longer/international trip. Well, we just purchased a vacation package to Antartica for December. So we'll be looking to buy in January or so :)

Hi everyone,

Christine- congratulations on making it official!! I was thinking of doing some of the flowers myself, but I've got some good discounts (and we're not having complicated arrangements at the venue) so I'm going to concentrate on kicking back and enjoying myself for the day. I'm actually going to see the florist tomorrow now, and booked my weddig cake today (chocolate, covered in chocolate curls) which we're cutting before the meal and having as a dessert with a Baileys sauce.

I hear you all on the house prices. Our 2 bed semi (I don't know what square footage it would be, but it's small) in the middle of a town (no land etc) comes in at $400,000 using the currency converter. Unfortunately we don't own it but will be getting back on the property ladder next year, which is going to hurt!


Lafayette- I've done exactly the same as you- we're having the wedding in a private club, which has never done this before (but is very happy to take our money!) and using small local suppliers, who will discuss different ways of doing things so that we get the effect we want and they get to keep their profit margins
I haven't managed to lose any weight either except my Easter weight. I have my last dress tryon before she orders my size on Saturday and really wanted to be down to 159 but am stuck at 161. I think it's a mental thing as it will be another decade of pounds closer to my goal. Willpower push I think.

Good luck with all of your planning!

haha, I have actually seen a home that has the date of their open house in the description, and it is from LAST JUNE :o As I've been looking at homes nearly every day online, I've watched one particular property actually fall from $299,900 to a current price of $249,000 in just a matter of a few months, and it's STILL not sold (which leads me to believe there's something wrong with it, but still)!

I am glad that the market has changed to become a buyers' market, but our mortgage (plus taxes and insurance--full PITI) is still going to be nearly double what we currently pay in rent :dizzy:

As for wedding-related news in my life, we're still trying to figure out if we even want to bother with a big thing or just get hitched and have a family dinner at a restaurant. I guess part of it will depend on how much $$ my parents are willing to help us with, which will depend on when they move and what new jobs they get when they move. They have put an offer in on a house in Va Beach, but their offer is contingent on them selling their house in CT, which hasn't had any offers yet (but has only been on the market for 3 weeks so far)--yes, my parents, my sister and her family, and Jeff and I are ALL moving by the end of this year :dizzy: .

Jill- a price drop that small probably doesn't signal a problem. Even if it does, they would be required by law to disclose it if you ask. I looked at a place that had come down $120k in price ($100k lower than the city tax assessment) and it was just genuinely overvalued. Hang in there!

I started by wedding weight loss a week and a half ago and have lost 6 pounds. I refuse to try on dresses until I weigh less than 140 in shoes. I have never had this much weight to lose so I was astounded when I had lost 5 pounds in the first week but I'm still not back down to my previous highest weight. Last time, I had about 15-20 pounds to lose and was deeply motivated by a college reunion and a friend's wedding- I expected to see a particulary heinous ex at both events and was thrilled when I lost the weight and didn't have to deal with him.

Clareh, good or bad, this last stretch before the big day will probably push you toward your goal! Take care of yourself and it will happen!

Good luck everyone!

We have a reception site picked out! Now that we have the ceremony and reception sites taken care of I feel like we can relax for a bit, everything else will fall together. We already have a florist and photographer we think we’ll likely work with, the reception site does all the catering, next on the agenda will be the dress I suppose.

This is where we’re having the reception: http://www.mononaterrace.com/index.html
At first I wasn’t too crazy about the terrace because I thought we’d have to use the ballroom, and I thought it was kind of silly to be at a lakeside facility and not be able to see the lake. Turns out our party is small enough to use the community terrace, which is basically a long room with one wall being glass overlooking the water. Very nice! If anyone is interested you can get a 3D “tour” of the space in flash or quicktime via this link http://www.mononaterrace.com/convention/vr.html just scroll down to “community terrace”. And the catering menu looks has some good looking vegetarian options. :D

Also, we are moving ahead with the house buying! Very exciting, we’ll be closing June 8. :faint:

Shananigans--congrats on the house! And on picking out a (gorgeous) reception site! Glad to hear things are coming together.

I'm thinking more and more about a destination wedding for us. I know that means that a LOT fewer people will be able to attend, but I think it may be the only way we can have a honeymoon (since we can't afford a honeymoon ourselves, and Jeff's parents are both, hmm, financially unstable). It will be like the wedding and honeymoon wrapped up into one (assuming Jeff and I could stay a few days longer than our family and friends so we'd have a bit of alone time ;) ). My parents are going to have to foot the entire bill, and a destination wedding may actually be a better bargain in the end. But who knows--I'm sure I'll change my mind again in 5 minutes :p

Shan- What exciting times for you! Your reception site looks gorgeous.

Jill- I bet a destination wedding would be really fun, and I'm sure everyone who attended would enjoy it.


We spent the weekend looking at reception/ceremony locations in my hometown. Next we'll look at our "destination" spot, which would be about an hour and a half drive for either family. Planning a wedding in a short time frame is fairly stressful- We need to get invitations out in a little over a month, and we don't even know where we're having it yet! We'll work it out, though. Well, we'd better. Wish us luck!

Shan- Congrats on the reception site! I've attended events in that area of Monona Terrace and it has been gorgoeus every time- even bad weather looks beautiful through that wall of windows!

Shananigans- I've just 'toured' your reception area and it looks amazing!!

Jill- excuse my transatlantic ignorance, but over here there is a trend for honeymoon lists (where rather than buying house things, people contribute to the cost of your honeymoon) We get married in November and can't go away until December so fingers crossed, after we've spent all of our pennies on the reception, we will be able to go for 2 weeks somewhere hot, and our guests will have paid for us to have the experience, which makes it doubly special. We looked at destination weddings but our relatives would kill us!

Christine- you'll be fine. If it wasn't for the fact we are paying for everything ourself and have to save, we could get married tomorrow. My dress would be a bit bigger, that's all!

The dress is now ordered (in a US 10) so there's no taking the eye off the ball for me now- I'm 160 so hope to see a 'new decade' of numbers by the end of the week. I think the last time I've seen 159 was about 10 years ago. I'm looking into BFL but it seems a bit more commitment that I think I can give at the moment, but we'll see.

I think I've decided on flowers (stephanotis and lisianthus for a 'country' feel) and we have a volunteer soprano friend to sing during the ceremony, so it's all coming together now.

Hi ladies! We're back! I don't have a ton of time (unpacking/gift unwrapping/work catchup has me going crazy) but I wanted to show you the one picture I've gotten back from the photographer. I was taking group pics at the Claremont hotel in Berkeley, and there was a birthday party next door with all of these little girls. They RAN over to me all wide eyed, and one of them said "are you the BRIDE?". Then they handed me a bunch of balloons. I love, love, love this picture.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...2/balloons.jpg

Oh, and I'm not changing my ticker until I've had some time to push water/sodium out with lots of water for a few days, but the scale isn't good. I am sort of OK with it, though - I mean, I get to honeymoon once, and I didn't go crazy, but I did have some AMAZING food. Did lots of walking and exercise, so we'll see where I finally settle out scale-wise.

Welcome back mandalinn! Hope your wedding and honeymoon was all you dreamed.

That picture is adorable. Can’t wait to hear all the details when you have time!

Love the pic... so beautiful! Really great flowers. Happy catching up on everything, looking forward to hearing about it all!

You look beautiful!! Can't wait to hear the story

Aww, Mandalinn, that's so adorable!

Awesome story, pictures and flowers! You look awesome!

I know you're probably "wedding-ed out" by this point, but what are the white flowers with the roses?

The white flower is a hydrangea...it sort of formed a "base" for the arrangement into which the other flowers were placed.

Hello all!

Not sure if I mentioned that I got my dress a couple weeks ago, but couldn't really tell how well or if it fit as I couldn't really get myself totally into it.

Well, today my friend came home with me for lunch, and helped me put it on. The good news is that not only does it fit, it's a smidge big! I've got about 1/2" extra around my rib cage (most fitted part).

So, I don't need to worry about stressing myself out about the dress not fitting, and in fact, I'm hoping I will actually have to have it made a bit smaller for me before the big day!

How soon before a wedding do you usually do your final fitting?
Cindy

Jill, penguins would be awesome. When I go to Antarctica, I'm going to try to sneak one back with me.... I noticed there are some interesting "mountain" weddings in various places including NC and NY. I really want to visit the Adirondacks in NY, the pictures look pretty cool.

Cindy, congrats on the dress!

Mandalinn, my florist suggested that and I just couldn't picture it. That looks great- I think I may have to go back and change my order!

I have officially gotten over the dieter's worst part of the wedding planning: I picked the hors d'oeuvres, salad, dinner and cake! Thank God, too, because I haven't lost any weight in almost three weeks! I felt like I was munching salads all day so I could go pig out at these tastings (which I did!). Now, I just have to get gorgeous so I can eat the meal guilt-free!

How's everyone else doing?

Lafayette - my partner is a floral designer, and she did the designs (not the construction, but the designs) for all of our flowers, so we requested lots and lots of detail photos. I will try to get you some more bouquet pics as they become available so you can get a better idea what it looks like. For now, look at this (crappy quality) pic that shows what this concept looks like on a centerpiece:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mandalin...93253674246546

For those of you who want to see photos (Warning - they messed up the photo CDs on the table cameras so I have to get them re-done, but you can get an idea of the pictures here. At least the prints are ok!)

Table Cameras from wedding:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mandalin...ddingTableCams

Our digital cam pics from the wedding and honeymoon:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mandalin...ngAndHoneymoon

Sorry for the high photo volume...no time to sort through and post links to all the good ones individually. :-(

Warning: Extremely long wedding summary below!

OK, so the wedding was gorgeous. It was POURING, of course, but we had a plan for that and it all worked out ok. I think we actually managed to pull off a wedding where everyone had a good time, which is amazing…although we did have a couple of people get seriously out-of-control drunk, which was a bit of a bummer because they got inappropriate with some of my family. We have a ton of wine in the apartment now, all the leftover bottles, and we’re trying to share the wealth with friends as much as we can because we can’t store it all! The food and wine were really good and I think everyone had a blast. Sarah and I wrote our vows independently, but they basically said the same thing, which was funny…essentially, we said that things never go as planned, and that is ok because we are together…which is really true. It was absolutely gorgeous and the arch that my dad built for us was amazing…so special. It was great to see everyone, particularly Sarah’s best friend Alicia who lives in DC and Anthony, who came out from Taiwan.

((ok, so this is poached from a letter to a friend. Elena and Chris = my sister and her fiance, Dean = Sarah's dad))

We were just so amazed at how wonderful everyone was. Elena and Chris REALLY made magic happen for the whole thing…taking care of all kinds of details so I wouldn’t have to. We have a lot to live up to for her wedding in July! Since we had to move inside for the ceremony, Chris drove all the way down the hill to find us firewood in the pouring rain…they took care of packing up all the stuff, making sure everything was in place, making sure we didn’t have to worry about details, and etc…it was really, really amazing. Elena gave a toast that said how crappy it was to grow up so close in age, but how great it is now to have planned our weddings at the same time, it was really sweet. Dean and my dad also gave toasts that were great (Dean essentially talked about how he not only got me in the family, he also got my entire family, and went on for a bit about how great they are). We danced and had fun.



Afterward we took a limo over to the hotel where Sarah proposed…what was great was that we ended up in the exact same room, which was so special. Then we boarded the ship on Sunday, and it was AMAZING. We just relaxed and enjoyed…my sister got us a fabulous honeymoon package for the boat, so we had lots of special perks (champagne, really plush robes, chocolate covered strawberries, facials…). We also got a really relaxing couples massage. The ports were great…we took a Mexican cooking class in Acapulco that redeemed the city (the time we were on our own was really sort of sketchy…the people are really aggressive and it has aged from being a nice resort to a dirty, run down version of its previous self. The other cities, though, were amazing. Our favorite was probably Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo…the people were so friendly and it was very pretty, plus the food was amazing. We had the best fajitas of our lives...I am drooling just thinking about them. In Puerto Vallarta, we went horseback riding, which was really cool. After we had ridden out to a river, we got to swim on horseback. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. Then we just walked around in Cabo. It is a touristy town, but still nice, and we had another great meal. Then back on the boat for another couple of days at sea before we had to finally go back to real life. It was really a once-in-a-lifetime, great experience. I put on a few pounds, but I’m absolutely 100% convinced it was worth it…where else can you have room service bring you hot tea and chocolate chip cookies before bed every night?

I am stressing out. The reason to plan a wedding a year in advance is to be able to book a place to be married, I suppose. Every place we want to get married seems to be booked already. I know we'll figure something out, but it has me down. We may have to opt for Friday or Sunday instead, in order to have a place to get married. There are advantages and disadvantages to either day. Opinions? If you had to pick a Friday or Sunday, which would you prefer?

Mandalinn

We posted at the same time- everything sounds like it was wonderful! I am so happy for you! And love the flowers, I may have to steal some ideas!

I'd probably do a Sunday, and start it a bit earlier so it can end at a reasonable hour (10 or 11pm), or even do an afternoon. That way, people still have ample time both to get ready (the problem with a Friday evening is that people don't have getting ready time after work unless they get off early) and to get to work the next day.

Sorry you're having such trouble finding an available spot. I know how frustrating that can be...