Busy Busy Busy

I haven't been a very good blogger the last month or so. But I have been so busy its not even funny! Like working 70 hours a week busy...and I'm not even exaggerating!!

But! I have been productive and have been working on some wedding stuff. A few days ago I posted a picture of my laundry basket full of tissue paper flowers I have working on for over a month now.

Well...I got a total of 7! Yes 7 pomander out of that!! I thought Id get 5 at MOST but not 7 with almost enough left over to make another one. So I was very pleasantly surprised! This means I am a little over half the way done with the poms I need for one part of our centerpieces, which is good because these things are a labor of love for sure!

On Saturday we are going to go look at our ceremony venue to see exactly what its going to look like during the time of our wedding. This way I can decide if I'm going to do poms to hang on the chairs during the ceremony and hopefully get some good pictures of the ceremony venue :)

Tissue Flowers

How many Pomanders do you think this is going to make??

Getting in Shape

**sigh**
Ive been working really hard to lose some weight before I go wedding dress shopping. I told myself I wanted to lose 50lbs before I went and tried on dresses (I wasn't planning on doing this probably until late this summer/early this fall). So I really do have like 2-3+ months before I planned on trying on dresses but I'm getting discouraged :( And I have been working my butt off and its killing me!!! (not really lol) I think I do need to try harder...especially with the eating aspect.

I can tell in some areas that I have been losing weight/inches...which makes me feel good but I feel like with how hard Ive been working and how "closely" I have been watching what I eat/how much I have been eating I feel like I should be seeing better results.

So far I have been:
Cutting calories to about 1400/1500 a day..eating lots of fruits and veggies
And then work outs:
Mondays: I work almost the entire day so theres not much time to exercise but I do walk to and from my internship..and then, if its not too late, walk the halls at one of the retirement communities after work (try and do a mile)
Tuesday: Five mile walk if weather is good
Wednesday: Turbo Jam (40min-burns about 600+ cals)
Thursday: Five mile walk if weather is good
Friday: Turbo Jam (40 min)
Sat: Another busy day in general...I get lots of walking in between going to the farmers market/rallies and work..Im going to start doing at least a 20 min work out video or one of the 30 min yoga classes I recorded on the TV.
Sunday: This is my super long 14 hour work day...Thankfully the lady I do the 12 hr shift with likes to walk so me and her walk a lot which helps...I also do a lot of cleaning over there...Bad thing is I do not eat very well when I'm there :(

I think I need to start adding in more exercise...Good thing is I bought a new bike last night so that should help me squeeze a few extra calories out.

I "think" I have lost 2.5lbs this week....so I guess that's not too bad :)

Here's to eating better, having more self control, and exercising more this next week!!! And losing some more weight ;)

Tissue Paper, and Floral Wire, and Styrofoam Balls. OH MY!

So Im still working on my tissue paper poms! We got 3 more 6 inch balls from Hobby Lobby last week using our 40% off coupons (2.70$ a piece is way better than 5$ a piece).

So I decided that the easiest way to make all these was to do it in steps....so Im making a ton of the flowers first and then making the poms.

Well last Friday I started the mass flower making process and it was going really well...I just sat in front of the tv and just made one after another. After I had a nice pile going a certain little kitty decided that I required kitten assistance and then decided that they were, in fact, for her...for her to play with to be exact! So I had to find some where to put these where she couldn't get to them.

 This is what helping looks like, by the way.

So I put them in a laundry basket and I have decided that I will start putting the flowers in the balls as soon as I fill this puppy up.

This is what I started with last Friday:

And this is what I have as of today:

Making good progress!! (P.S. Ignore all the junk on the floor lol) Its probably about half full? I have used all the tissue I had already cut out so Ill have to do some more before I can continue.

It'll be interesting to see how many full poms I can get out of a full basket :)

Royal Wedding

So I reallllyyyy wanted to see what Kate's dress looked like....mainly to see if my idea of what it would be was correct...and I have to say it was pretty spot on!!

She was Absolutely stunning!!!! I hope I look a fraction as good as she did on my wedding day :)

Gorgeous..just gorgeous!!!

And on another note..im busting my bum to get some more of these pomanders done...I swear I do like 30 flowers and then i count them and Ive only actually done like 10 lol. I can tell this really is going to be a labor of love! Ive got a lot of these puppies to bust out!

Color combo

Here's a little inspiration for our colors :)

So pretty :)

Tissue Pom

So I finally completed my first tissue paper pom! And in all truth it really wasnt that hard!


So heres a picture of the Pom:

I think the hardest part of the process is cutting out the tissue paper, but besides that its pretty easy and it goes pretty fast!

Heres a rough mock-up of the centerpiece:

This isnt a very good picture because with the flash you cant see the blue light.

I think I might put a ribbon at the top of the vase because I cant fill the aqua gems all the way to the top of the vase otherwise it will make the tissue paper wet and it will probably bleed. I think we decided these will be on the tables with the pink table cloths.

I bought my tissue paper from paper mart and the 400 sheet pack of tissue paper should be enough to make 20 tissue poms...which is more than enough for all of these types of centerpieces and maybe some to hang off the chairs on the aisle during the ceremony. And now I just need to figure out how to store these!!

Hobby lobby also has a 40% off any item coupon for this week, so Kyle and I will be going there a few times to pick up some more Styrofoam balls. With the coupon it brings them down (6 inch ones) to 2.27$ a piece which is a good price for those!!

My next project is to order the lose orchids from the website I found and do a mock-up of our other centerpiece...which hopefully will be a lot less work then these ones!!

Wedding Steal

Last week Michael's was having a really big sale so I decided to check it out...armed with my email coupons of course :)

I wasnt expecting to find much but I scored a major deal...I got 14 boxes of votive candles and two glass containers for 50$!!!!

The candles (12 pack) was originally 7.99 but were on sale for 4.99 and then I had a 30% off my entire candle purchase so that brought them down to 3.49$ a 12 pack!!! Seriously, THANK YOU MICHAEL'S!!!! That saved me over 50$ off of the cheapest place I could find them online..not including shipping.


The glass containers were 1.99$ which was a good deal as well and I will add those to the collection of containers for the candy bar.

But this just reinforces, for me at least, that Micheal's is a DIY brides Best Friend!

So for now we have been slowly purchasing the items we need, Kyle just purchased the take out containers for the candy bar and a large pack of pink tissue paper from paper mart. Im going to do a tissue paper pomander run-through for one of our centerpieces. Hopefully it works out well and I will post the mock-up as soon as Im done.

DYI Ideas

Well now that we have most of our big checks off of our vendor list I have been focusing a lot on the DIY.

We are going to do fuchsia overlays with turquoise napkins and these centerpieces:

Im going to put clear vase filler in the bottom and a pink floralyte. There will also be about 5-6 votive candles around this.

And then the other half of the tables will have turquoise overlays with fuchsia napkins and carnation pomander centerpieces kind of like these:

but with a different vase that will be clear with a blue floralyte and clear aqua marbles and a more round look.This one will also have 5-6 votive's around it. I was talking with one of my BMs, who is getting married in Oct, and she said it will probably be much cheaper to use tissue paper carnations then real ones. I was planning on doing tissue paper pomanders for the ceremony chairs anyways so I think I will take her suggestion. I am trying to do this as cheap as possible so I think it will turn out to save a lot of money. So Im not sure if I will do a full pomander or cut the spheres in half and do a half pomander.

I am also considering doing some kind of bling on the outside of the vases and some faux diamonds I bought off of ebay around the center of the table.

I am also hoping to do a centerpiece mock-up of both the options really soon; so I will post that as soon as I do!

I also think I have found the perfect totes for the BM gifts!

More Big Checks

So we have been working an getting a few more big items checked off our list. Some friends of ours got married a few years ago and Kyle was in the wedding party and we were VERY impressed with the photographer that they had; so we decided to look into him.

Well even though we are still 16 months out from the wedding he was already booked on our date!!! I was really shocked because I though we were so ahead of the game here...but apparently not. He told us that he is already a fourth booked for 2012, which is really unusual.

Luckily, he has an associate team underneath him, for a little less too, which also includes the engagement session and the rights to all the pictures from both the wedding and the engagement session which was really important for us...a deal breaker actually. So we met with him and the associate we will be working with (she will also have a second photographer with her) and it went really well so we decided to book with them :)

We decided to go with 8 hours (for now...we might add another hour on there) so we can have pictures of getting ready and we are also going to do some on location shots in downtown Madison and the State Street/ Monona Terrace area. So I am really excited for all of that!

I also talked to a DJ who came highly recommended from many people and my MOH. Kyle and I talked about it and we decided to go with him as well.

So we have the ceremony location, reception, photobooth, DJ, and photographer all taken care of!

It feels pretty good to have all these major things in line. So now I can focus on the logistics, planning and all of my DIY projects.

Erin go Braugh

Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!!!!!!!

Bling Shoes

So I love the show Four Weddings

On a previous episode, one of the brides covered her shoes in rhinestones for the ultimate bling effect. Well I love this idea, so I took a shot at it and heres the result:

Not such a daunting task, trust me!

I think they took about 7 hours total...I just worked on them off and on and took my time.

The rhinestones are 20ss (4.8-5mm) and I bought 2 2000 count bags off of ebay. I used E6000 glue to attach them and then just started at the very top and worked my way around. Then repeated for the next rows to keep them lined up.

The shoes were 24.98
Rhinestones were 2.99 a bag with free shipping so 5.98 total.
Glue-3.99
Total project cost: $34.96

Pretty good price!

Another nice weekend

Well today was really nice! I can tell spring is right around the corner, which makes me really happy.

This morning we went and looked at the most promising ceremony site. We have been having a lot of trouble finding a place that has enough room for at least 200 people and doesnt cost and arm and a leg.

We are planning an outdoor ceremony and I really think this place is perfect :)

They are adding a gazebo, pond, and waterfall, which will look amazing. So even though there is still snow on the ground we decided to go for it.

So we have two major checks off the list, which is really a big relief!

Haute Bride Inspired Bracelet

So I said I was going to post this a while ago but with all the things that are going on around these lovely parts, Ive been a little distracted!

So here it is:

So heres the whole thing

 The clasp

A few more views:

So I included my something blue in there along with a little bling :)

So overall, this is an easy project. I would say that using some flexible beading wire/cord is the best way to go with this one. It makes it a lot easier to finish.

One tip is to start at the brooch, string, and then close at the clasp end.

So a cost break down:
Brooch (ebay) 14$ with shipping
Pearls (Micheal's) 1.50$
Rondelles: 1.00$
Clasp (Hobby Lobby) 1.99$
Other findings (Hobby Lobby) 0.25$
Blue Crystals-Not sure, I had these from another project.

Total $18.74

Pretty good and cheap project!

Has anyone else done one of these? Maybe even cheaper?

Happy Planning!

And we have a....

Reception venue!

The event coordinator for the first venue we looked at (the one we really liked) contacted us yesterday and said that another couple with the same date as us contacted her about looking at the place and she wanted to know whether we were still interested. We were planning on looking at one other place but we hadn't made the appointment yet, so we decided this place was really our best option anyways....So we booked!! I was REALLY glad she asked us if we wanted to book because I would have been pretty bummed if we would have missed this opportunity.

We just signed the contract and paid our deposit! :) And its going in the mail in the morning.

Its pretty exciting to have this first major check off the list!!

So we are still on the hunt for a ceremony venue..which is proving to be a little more difficult then I thought it would be. You would think it would be easy to find an outdoor venue for this, but honestly there are just not that many options that can hold 200+ people and cost less than $1000...a lot less than $1000, hopefully.

I have had my eye on one place since the bridal show in January, so I contacted them last night to see if our date was still available and to get a little more information. So hopefully we can go look there soon :)

I also contacted a photo booth company, so we will hopefully be booking that within the next few days as well.

Everything, so far, has been going pretty well! and I also finished my Haute Bride inspired bracelet so hopefully I can post pictures, instructions, and cost break-down tomorrow.

Counting Down

So today marks the first day of March and 500 days until the wedding (woot! woot!).

We haven't been doing a whole lot of planning...I guess we're just taking it slow :)

But we have looked at several venues for the reception. The first one we really likes but I was kind of afraid that the dance floor was too small. The second one really beautiful with crystal chandeliers and tons of windows with a beautiful view but there were a few things I didn't like...

The way the room was shaped made it difficult for people sitting on one side to see the dance floor because it was in an adjoining room, and the ceiling in that room was really low, really low. And I guess the biggest thing was that it has a $12000 food and drink minimum....OUCH.

So we took Patrick (One of the Grooms Men, one of my best friends, and our lighting person) to both venues and he said he liked the first, less expensive one, a lot and he thinks he can really do a lot with it. So it looks like that one is at the top of the list, but we still have a few more places to look at so hopefully the final decision will be coming soon!

As for the ceremony location, we want an outdoor wedding but we cant really look at anything until the snow melts :)

On a more DIY note, my Haute Bride inspired bracelet is almost done so as soon as I'm finished I'll post pictures and a cost break down.

Happy Planning!

Let the DIY Begin

We are trying to keep costs as low as possible so I will be doing a lot of DIY...and when I say a lot I mean A LOT. Ive started a list, which I will post on here at some point, and the list is long...

Our date is also a ways away, July 14th 2012, to be exact, but I figure, since we are pretty much paying for everything ourselves, if we space out the purchases here and there and do things slowly it will be easier to handle, we can make things, and we can find better deals.

One thing I will say is that Hobby Lobby and Micheal's are my best friends when it comes to wedding planning and such. Especially HL with their 50% off sales!

So HL was having one of their 50% off sales on jewelry making supplies so I purchased all the stuff to make jewelry for my bridesmaids. And, being bored yesterday, I decided to start working on the jewelry. It really did not take long at all and I made earrings, necklaces, and bracelets for all six of my girls.

Excuse the quality of the pictures, I had to use my phone 
So the necklaces are just basic, silver pearls, with a clasp.
Total cost is approx. $1.96 each

Please excuse our lovely cat Daisy in the picture.


I had found some earrings on the knot shop that I really liked, but they wanted 20$ a pair for them. Well there was no way I was going to pay that much for something so simple, so I made my own version of them.
Total cost is approx. $0.36 each

The bracelets I wanted to be a little more fancy so I added some crystal beads and a few rondelles, which brought the cost up a little more for those. I also found these really cute heart clasps to use.
Total cost is approx. $1.78 each

 Heres a close up of the heart clasps:

So that adds up to about $4.10 a person and about $24.60 for all 6 Bridesmaids! Pretty good considering those earrings were $20 a piece on the knot! Now I have to find some cute boxes to put them in.

If your looking for a simple DIY project jewelry is really a good place to start. I also purchased all the things I need to make one of those Haute Bride inspired bracelets for myself, so I will probably be doing that project some time soon.

So Here it Goes.....

Well. I have decided to join the blogging world!


I guess this is one of those things that I have always wanted to do...but never really had a good reason to do it. I guess putting my thoughts and actions out into the interwebs is a pretty big deal. But planning a wedding is a pretty good reason to start!

Kyle and I got engaged on New Years :) and we have been slowly, but surly, starting to plan it all out. But I can duly say we have not gotten that far.

Its still really hard to believe that I am at the point in my life. It still seems like freshman year of college wasn't that long ago and I still sometimes have a hard time believing I just graduated from college!

So hopefully I can keep up with the blogging thing, since I never was one to keep a consistent journal, and maybe someone else will find what I post on here helpful for their own wedding planning :)