I'm on the hunt...

For a Bible.

As part of the Hispanic traditions that we are incorporating into our wedding ceremony, we will be presented with a Bible and Rosary. The catch is that I don’t want your ordinary, plain leather Bible that you find at your local Christian store. I want something intricate that shouts, “Hey this is our Family Bible!” Something that we will display in our home and, when people ask what it is, we can explain how we received in on our wedding day. Something that our children can always look at and read through, knowing that one day it will be their Bible and their children's Bible, etc.

(images courtesy of Jo Marz website)

I have fallen in love with the Jo Marz Designs, but, unfortunately they are on the more expensive side. I took it upon myself to e-mail them to see if they did custom Bibles, but a quick response from their company let me know that they are not producing anymore until June 2008, when their 2009 line will come out.

I’ve looked and looked online, and I’m afraid I’ve come up with only a few possibilities. I’m on the hunt for a Bible that we will pass down to generations of Hydrangeas to come. So now, I ask you all, my fellow Bees, where can I find an intricate Bible?

Exciting News for Dallas!!!

While I was browsing through the Paper Source website to see if they post the actual RGB or CMYK colors of their envelopes (if anyone knows, I'm searching for the exact color of their Strawberry envelopes), I stumbled upon their employment section and noticed that they are in the works to bring a store to my favorite mall in the whole world, Northpark!

(Image via Paper Source)

All you Dallas brides (and DIY enthusiasts) get ready, because it looks like we are going to be as lucky as some of the other Bees in the very near future! I didn't see an official date posted, but they are searching for employees for the location already.

PTO

About four o'clock this morning, I woke up feeling like someone took a hammer to my face. I have had the mix of allergies and a cold for the past week and a half now, and today I had to take my second day off of work in two weeks. I'm not the type to miss work, I just feel guilty when I do, but it also brought up another issue other then being absent: PTO.

Ever since we got married, I've been carefully eyeing my paid time off to make sure that I have enough for a few days before the wedding, the honeymoon and one day to recover after we return. The extra days I had would be utilized for wedding meetings, portrait sessions, etc. That was until the past couple of weeks when I had to miss work because the unpredictable and oh so ever-changing Texas weather (snowing one day, 80 degrees the next, no lie) decided to work a number on my sinuses.

I should still be ok in the long run, timewise, but I never realized just how much weddings can impact EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE!

How are you all planning on using your PTO, or vacation time ... or, more importantly, making sure you still have some before the wedding comes?!?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some meds from the doc and spend the remainder of the day laying in bed, and, let's face it, work on whatever wedding items I can from my laptop!

Let the details begin...

As I previously mentioned, Mr. H and I will be having a Catholic Mass with some of the traditional Hispanic traditions involved. One of these items are the arras, the 13 coins that will be handed to Mr. H and then to me during the ceremony.

Many families have arras that they pass down through generations, but Mr. H’s family does not, so we began to search around for what kind of coins we wanted to use for the wedding. The only thing I was really picky on was that I wanted them to be silver (or at least a silver tone). No gold for me, I’m just not that kind of a girl.

My immediate reaction was to start looking on the Internet. After Google searches galore, I realized that there seemed to be one particular vendor that dominated the arras world, J. McKinley. Each and every site that I clicked on seemed to only sell these brands of arras. Most of them were simple and it was hard to find silver ones as well.

We also thought about visiting local Hispanic Bazaars for coins, but after speaking with Mr. H’s mom and some of the Hispanic women at work, they didn’t think that I would find anything similar to what I was searching for (particularly when it came to quality).

So I kept searching. I found an article that listed a few sources for purchasing arras, which was helpful, and led me to a few interesting links, one of which was My Barong.

I remember from comments left by several of the Weddingbee readers from my previous post, that the Philippine culture shares many of the same traditions as the Hispanics because of their history of being ruled by Spaniards. My Barong sells Filipino wedding items, but they also sell unity coins in several varieties, silver or gold, shiny or matte, English or Spanish.

(~:~ Love ~:~ Trust ~:~ Commitment ~:~ Respect ~:~ Joy ~:~ Happiness ~:~ Harmony ~:~ Wisdom ~:~ Unity ~:~ Nurturing ~:~ Caring ~:~ Cooperation ~:~ Peace ~:~)

A nice feature about the coins is that they are large compared to most. These coins are about the size of a silver dollar instead of the usual dime or nickel sizes. What I loved the most about the coins is that on one side, there was an image of the Irish Wedding Knot, but on the opposite sides were 13 different icons with words that are meaningful to any marriage.

It meant more to me that the coins truly symbolized Mr. H and I coming together in marriage, more so then just the same image on each one.

Before we made our final decision to purchase from My Barong, FMIL Hydrangea planned a trip to Mexico to visit her sister and offered to check out what they offered for arras. If she couldn’t find anything similar to what we were looking for, she was going to see about having them custom made. In the end, it turned out that, in order to custom make them, we would have to have the same image on each coin, so we opted to order from My Barong.

Mr. H wanted the shiny silver coins, and I decided that they should be in Spanish because it is one of the Hispanic traditions we are incorporating into our wedding, so we placed our order and received them in about a week. I took a short survey after the purchase and also received a $5 credit back to my card!

In the end, we really were happy with our decision and satisfied with the transaction. Have any of you had to find arras for your wedding? Was it as hard of a search for you as it was for me?

A Year Ago Tomorrow...

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of something very special to myself, and to Mr. Hydrangea. A year ago from Saturday I converted to Catholicism.

Changing religions can be a controversial topic, and I'm not here to preach. I just wanted to share my experiences with all of you as marriage often brings up the issue of religion.

I grew up in a small, southern and religious town, yet I never was a regular church attendee. I was never baptised, never a member of a church, but I was always curious. My parents raised us with morals and values, but we never went to church and we never really spoke of it much throughout my life. I believe my parents had some issues with religion in the past, so they raised us to be open-minded and never really set any guidelines when it came to religion.

When Mr. Hydrangea and I began getting serious, he asked me to attend church with him as it was important in his life. He grew up Catholic, my sister-in-law is a practicing Catholic (my brother, however, is not), and my Aunt and Uncle are also Catholic so I wasn't completely unfamiliar with the religion. Although I've had struggles with my faith throughout my life, I enjoyed attending Sunday Mass with Mr. H and I feel as though it brought us closer together and helped us to discuss topics that we might not have regularly discussed.

About ten months into our relationship, I decided to attend RCIA (The Rite of Christian Initiation), the process by which one must go through to become Catholic. Mr. Hydrangea never asked me to do so, and never voiced any concerns about our future together being affected by religion. To me, it was important that if we were planning on one day starting a family, that our religious values be on the same page. I admire those who will be raising their children in inter-faith marriages, but since I didn't previously have a faith, I knew I wanted to become Catholic.

(Mr. H and I on the night of my conversion)

So, after about 6-7 months of weekly classes, last year, on the eve of Easter Sunday, I was Baptised, Confirmed and received Holy Communion all in one night. It was a long mass (3-4 hours), but one of the most beautiful and moving nights of my life, thus far.

I'd be lying to you if I said that I didn't still struggle at times with my faith, but overall I am more at peace with myself then ever before. I know this was the right decision for myself, and for my future.

What sort of a part has religion played in your relationship? Are you converting to a new faith?

Super Late Save the Dates

I've been on the ball with everything for this wedding. Ahead of the game, way too early at times, but never really late. Until my Save the Dates.

I kept putting off designing them (and they weren't even intricate) and when I FINALLY decided on what I wanted and chose where to get them printed, I realized that they will get here with less then 6 months to go. Then I still have to account for addressing and the time it takes to deliver them.

Is it super late that my save the dates will get to everyone with only about 5 months until the wedding? Most of the guests that will have to travel to be at the wedding have the date, so I don't think that it should be an issue.

I hate being improper, but the time just got away from me. I definitely have learned my lesson and will be doing all things paper as early as I can before the wedding from this point forward.

From most of my wedding planning lists that I've accumulated during our engagement, they say to send them out around the six month mark. When did you all send out your save the dates?

Personalized Permanents

Since we've decided to go with a photobook as our guestbook, we'll most likely need some Sharpies for our guests to use to sign the pages. I really wanted something cute of personalized, but that is hard to come by. Until I found this:


Sharpie will let you personalize their markers with your names, date and even a little icon. For $11.99 you will get six of these cute things. I only wonder if we might need the thin tip Sharpies so that the names will be legible.

What will you all use as the pen for your guestbooks? Anyone find some cute Sharpies out there?

Our Monogram(s)

Since I'm beginning to really work on all the paper items, I figure I would introduce you to the main tie-in for everything in our wedding: our monogram. I found a vector image on istockphoto that I purchased, and just took the bits of the image that I liked and added our initials from there in Illustrator.

For all items before and during the ceremony, this is what will be on everything:


And when all of our guests arrive at the reception, this is what they will see:


I had all these grand ideas of invitations, but when it just came down to it, I wanted something simple and classic. I still haven't decided on the packaging yet, as I'm totally inspired by Miss Penguin's boxes, but a little apprehensive about taking on that big of a task.

I'm still finalizing all the little details on the invites, so a preview will be coming soon.

What did you all use to tie-in the little details in your wedding?

Cake for Breakfast

Our first cake tasting was this past Saturday at Romano's Bakery. Because the bakery is pretty popular, and obviously busy, we had to have our tasting at 9 am. Talk about early!

We arrived and were seated to look through albums and when the saleswoman finally came to talk to us, I showed her some pictures of what I liked and explained how I wanted to add our monogram. We talked about both bride and groom's cakes, but I was surprised at her lack of suggestions. In the end, I like what we chose, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

Next came the tasting. I wasn't expecting full sized pieces of every cake, but I was hoping to have more then a small bite and also get to taste the fillings as well. The chocolate bites contained their fillings, but all of the bride's cakes had no filling in the bites, and none on the side to try. So pretty much, we had to choose something and *hope* that it tastes good when all is said and done.

We ended up going with the following for the brides cake:
- White champagne w/ strawberries and strawberry mousse
- Raspberry swirl
- Italian cream w/ cream cheese filling
- Bride's white cake with lemon filling

For Mr. H's cake we chose:
- Caramel fudge
- Cappuccino

The pricing on the cakes was very reasonable and within our budget, so I haven't ruled out this bakery. Mr. H and I were taken aback with a couple of the saleswoman's comments that seemed to rub us the wrong way.

While a little disappointed with the tasting, I know that their reputation is great and it was a busy Saturday (we saw MANY wedding cakes being rolled out) so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, and their cake tasted really good :)

We have another tasting coming up this week with another bakery, so we'll see how that goes. How many bakers did you all try before you found the one? Is it normal to taste both the cakes and the fillings, or was our experience pretty norm?

Lots of Glass

My vases are in! I placed my order from Dollar Tree Direct on March 4 and they were in the store, ready for me to pickup on March 13. I called the store while I was on my way home from work to make sure that my shipment had come in when I heard him say, "I thought you picked those up earlier today." Uh, oh.

Turns out that the only people who have ever purchased the votives/vases from our local Dollar Tree was a florist in our area. The manager accidentally gave them all 20 boxes of vases, but 17 of those were mine. He was so embarrassed and went immediately over to pick up my boxes. Since three of the boxes were still in the back of the florist's van, he went first thing the next morning to pick up the remainder for me.

A little hiccup, but with a happy ending :)

Here they are in all of their glory:

(Our dining room has turned into our wedding warehouse)

(I put one next to a bottle of rubber cement to give you a better idea of the size, although Mom H says this really doesn't help much)

The vases are awesome! The glass is THICK. I mean, not like the $1 vases you find at the store, these are sturdy. They are also a little larger then I envisioned, but they will work perfectly and make for a nice reusable item for all of our guests to take home.

The only thing that was not so lovely about my vases were the stickers on the bottom of each and every one of them.
So, since Mr. H is a huge hockey fan, we spent part of our Saturday night watching his beloved Dallas Stars and taking the stickers off of half of the vases.

(Mr. H with our little helper, Chango)

I figure just one more night of this and we'll have that taken care of in no time!

Let's Rehearse

Since I decided to take on the task of creating our wedding invitations, I figured what the heck, might as well do them all. To be honest, playing with Illustrator and coming up with invitations is actually something I look forward to....a lot.

Because Mr. H's family isn't used to throwing a rehearsal dinner, I offered to come up with an invitation for it. And, since it's one of those items I can knock out way in advance, I decided to get it off my plate.

Mr. H and I perused different stationers to get some inspiration and when I found this invitation at Wedding Paper Divas, Mr. H loved it. Mr. H showing excitement about paper is rare (ok, it never happens) so I tried to come up with something to mimic what he liked, but add the elements that I wanted.

(from Wedding Paper Divas)

I knew that I wanted to do tea length invitations, with the invite on the front and a map with directions from the church to the restaurant on the back. I also wanted a decorative envelope to match as well. To come up with the chandelier image, I asked our very own Miss Flamingo how she created the image on her awesome invitations. She was gracious enough to create the image for me (my Illustrator skills aren't THAT great) with a sample photo I gave her.

Here is what we ended up with:

(Front)

(Back)

(Envelope)

They are now being printed, so I'll update you on my printing source and the quality once we get them in the mail!

Printing Problems

A couple of days ago I received a coupon code for a popular online printing company to get half off of our order. I figured this would be the perfect time to print our rehearsal dinner invitations and save a little cash. I previously decided that this was where I would print the invites, and I used their InDesign templates to create my document, so it looked like everything was lining out perfectly.

I had e-mailed them a few weeks earlier because, even though I followed their guidelines, the image of my invitation showed up pixelated on my screen. I wanted to be sure this was not going to happen when it would print, that it was just my screen. I never got a reply.

I figured it was due to spam mail, so two days ago I re-sent the e-mail to be sure that my cards would be nice and clear when printed. Again, no reply (their website says someone will be in touch within 48 hours).

I decided to call them today during my lunch break and was informed by their customer service that all of their e-mails go to an unmonitored inbox so that is why I didn't receive a reply. What is the point of advertising their e-mail information if they don't even reply?!?

So, now I'm at a standstill. Do I still use them and take the great deal even though my experience with them has been mediocre, at best, so far? Or do I find another company that will print my tea length invitations and envelopes?

What sources have you all used for printing stationery for your wedding?

I've Been Cheating

I have to confess to the hive. I've been cheating on you.

I'm not as tech savvy as many of you, and with the wedding planning being in this awkward lull (you know, you've booked all the main vendors but it's not quite close enough to start with the detail items yet) I've discovered Google Reader.

My hours of searching on the hive have given way to hours of searching through blogs on the Reader. And with the wedding planning lull, and also my slight wedding planning burnout, I've come to find the Google Reader as both my great escape from the wedding madness and also a great source of inspiration for shopping and decorating (and, let's face it, some more wedding planning as well).

That being said, I realized that this Saturday we will have our first cake tasting with Romano's Bakery here in Dallas and I'm in desperate need of some inspiration ideas for cake. I am loving Miss Sundae's posts on cake (and weddings in general), and have decided that in my dream world April Reed would be designing our cake. I love the shapes and simplicity of her cakes, they just look so classy.

(from fayeandgreer)

However, I think that instead of flowers I want to incorporate our monogram (to be revealed soon). Also, I was thinking that instead of one cake, what if we did two smaller cakes, one white w/ the black monogram and one black w/ the white monogram.

So, I'll limit my fashion and decorating binges on the Reader and get back to work on this wedding. Any suggestions on good resources for cake inspiration?

Summer Sun

As summer is approaching, and my desire for the warm weather is increasing daily, one thought crossed my mind...

TAN LINES.

(image found here)

What in the world am I going to do about tan lines? I'd love to get a little summer glow, but I also have to remember that in September I will have to put on my wedding dress and the last thing I want are tan lines that take attention away from the awesome structure and details of the dress.

I used to do the "fake 'n bake," aka sunless tanning, all the time, but here in the past couple of years I've moved to a lighter shade of pale to avoid the skin cancer. While I'm not opposed to a little sunless tanning to get some color before the wedding, I also don't want to become bright orange or have the streakiness that is sometimes associated with tanning lotions and spray on tanning beds.

For those of you who are married, what was your solution? For those of you in the same boat as myself, what is your game plan?

Sorta Wedding Related

Many of you were so kind about our teaser e-pics and I had a lot of comments about the dress that I wore.

(shameless e-pic repost)

I actually got the dress at The Warehouse Sale.
They have the sales all over the country and, while it mainly has a large selection of denim, you can still find some cute accessories, dresses, children's clothes, etc. I was fortunate enough to find a couple of cute ABS samples on sale and that was how my engagement picture dress came to be.

If you are in the mood to hunt for a good deal, and in search of some new threads for wedding functions (or just because), I'd suggest keeping an eye on their schedule for upcoming events near you!

Buying in Bulk

For our reception, I plan on incorporating vases with our escort cards which our guests can then take to find their tables and then also take home as favors. 2-in-1, can't beat that.

This was my inspiration for the idea (from The Knot).

Instead of using round vases, I decided that I wanted cubes. Because we want them large enough for people to reuse, but small enough to carry, the size that we chose (3"-3.5") was listed for use as vases on some sites and votive holders on others (just incase you are looking too).

After calling local wholesale places, floral suppliers, checking E-bay and doing Google searches, I realized that I was looking at spending as much on shipping as the 200+ vases I would need. After a suggestion from one supplier to check out dollar stores, I came across the Dollar Tree Direct.

They sell their products on the site in bulk, and you can also have them check on items that you find in-store as well. The best part? If you pickup from your local store, you only have to pay $4.95 in handling. NO SHIPPING CHARGE!

We ordered their 3" square vases (pictured above) and will be picking them up next week. As for the favors, I'll keep you posted on their progress as it happens!

To Top It Off

While rummaging through the sale section on the Pottery Barn website, I came across this adorable cake topper.

You can also customize it with your monogram. How cute would this be with one of your engagement pictures in it? You can find it online right now for only $10.

We haven't even started to think about our wedding cake yet, so I'm not sure if we'd even use it, otherwise I'd snatch this cutie up in a heartbeat!

Is It An Unoriginal Dress?

I spent Sunday looking around on different websites, mainly local photographers because I love to get ideas of locations around town for photos. While browsing one site, I saw another bride with my dress on.

I understand that I'm not the only one who will own this dress but this is the second bride in Dallas that I've seen wearing it in photos since I bought it (aside from it also being in a local wedding magazine). It just makes it feel unspecial to me now.

I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to have a total bridezilla moment and go get a new dress elsewhere. I'm completely irrational and I'm worried that now when I go to try it on again, I'm going to hate it.

I know it's too late to change it. I know that I loved it when I first put it on, but now all I can see in my head is that other girl wearing it and posing in it...what the hell is wrong with me?

I feel like my dress has cheated on me with another bride.

Am I the only one who has had a bit of a meltdown upon seeing their dress on another bride? What did you do to calm yourself down?