Planning Excitement - It's All Real Now!

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

We have our first wedding appointment scheduled! We're visiting a possible venue on the evening of April 43rd. I was surprised to hear that they were nearly booked for 10/09 already. Fortunately, none of the Sundays are taken yet. Whew! The gentleman I spoke to said that regardless of where we book, we should do so soon, as dates are already filling up. I had no idea so many people were planning as far ahead as we are.

I'm a little bummed today. I had to take my ring back to have it sized. They said it's going to take a week to get it back! :( I was really looking forward to wearing it all the time once I got it. It'll be more comfortable and fit better though, so I suppose it's worth the wait!

Now that this is really and truly official, there are a few things I want to do within the next three to four months.

1) Book our venue.
Unfortunately, we probably won't be able to afford a deposit until late next month. *bites fingernails* I hope our date will still be available.

2) Dress shopping.
There is a problem with this, though...my weight! I am more motivated now than ever before to drop all this extra baggage. No, I don't want to be a size 6 bride, but I do want to be thinner. I'm still keeping up with my weight loss journal pretty regularly. I've lost 11lbs and have 39 more to go. I think once I've lost a total of 25 lbs (so 14 more to go), I'll start seriously looking for dresses. I think that'll be a substantial enough loss that I won't feel so bad when I put on a dress. Maybe it won't feel so much like a tent then!

3) Decide on stationery.
I've had a real problem finding stationery I like. From Save the Dates to Invitations, I just can't seem to find anything that really catches my eye. I've thought about going DIY with stationery, but I think that's a bit too complicated for me. I'm not great with printing/formatting stuff.

4) Talk to our potential officiant.
We'd like a mutual friend/acquaintance to perform our ceremony, but we aren't sure if he'll be comfortable with straying from tradition. I'm writing our ceremony (with input from J, of course), and it's important to me that we make it our own. So, I want to know if he'll be comfortable with it, or if we need to figure out another plan of action.

I know these aren't necessarily the 'proper' order of doing things, but since when is anything J and I do 'proper?' There are a lot of things I need to wait to do, either because it's too early or I simply need this autumn to roll around for reasonably priced supplies to become available. I'm very anxious to try my DIY boquets, but I've heard the flowers I want to use (mums) are more affordable in autumn.

I've put together a binder for wedding planning. I was going to buy one of the wedding planners I saw at Border's, but $30 and up seemed awfully expensive for something I could put together myself. I think what I might add to it is my own timeline/checklist. I've found a lot online, but I want to customize them.

Leafy Ideas

I found this fantastic centerpiece on the blog I mentioned in my last post, Toast and Tables. Though I don't plan on using this for my centerpieces, I think with some modifications, it'd be a simple, beautiful, and inexpensive way to decorate my cake table. I've heard suggestions about using the MoH/BM boquets for the cake table, but I think I'd prefer something different. I could buy short vases, or even votive holders, and cut branches of changing leaves short and place them in the containers. I might even use a few tall containers like these and place them on the place card table.

Speaking of place card tables, I also found this fantastic leafy idea for them! Once again, I found this image on the Toast and Tables blog. I also read something on Martha Stewart's website about how to preserve/press changing leaves. I don't think I'd use the leaves on the table, as I'd prefer a richly autumn colored or printed tablecloth, but I really like the card idea. I was also thinking about trying a variation of this...

I could press changing leaves, then buy a gold marker/pen and write the guests names and table number directly onto the leaf. I'm not sure how well it'll work, but come autumn, you can bet I'll be trying it.

I'm more excited for this autumn than I ever have been before. I'm glad that I'll have this year's autumn to try some of the DIY ideas I've found/thought of, and know whether or not they'll work. I know I'll need to keep season-dependent materials to a minimum, as I'll actually have limited time to gather these supplies during my actual wedding season, but I'm still psyched!

PS
Please forgive all the white space around the images. I'm not exactly tech savvy, so cutting out the parts of the images that I didn't want to include left me with all that blank...

Ceremony

J and I are non-religious people. I am an atheist. J doesn't really call himself anything, but he has made it clear he is a non-believer. While I won't discuss what that means for some of our family members, I will say it means we're having a secular ceremony.

Since we don't have any constraints on our ceremony as far as religious requirements or customs, I thought it would be nice to write our own ceremony. I want to incorporate a few readings, the hand fasting, and the exchanging of rings and vows. I already have a draft and J has looked it over, but asked for more time to digest it. I would like us each to write our own vows, an idea J's not entirely comfortable with. I think I may need to compromise on that somehow.

We made our first wedding related purchase this weekend...ribbons for the hand fasting! It wasn't a big purchase, but it somehow made things seem a little more set...if that makes sense. I'm still keeping an eye out for some sort of autumn related ornament that we can affix to the top knot. Something decorative isn't required, but I just think it would be nice. In the end, I may end up with silk leaves or something. We'll see. It was important to me to make the hand fasting ribbon because I want to use the hand fasting in a very specific way during the ceremony.

We're struggling with an officiant/celebrant for the ceremony. Originally, we wanted to ask a friend of ours who is a JP. Now, we're not so sure he'd be comfortable with our ideas. While he can perform a secular ceremony, I know that he, personally, is a rather religious individual. I don't want to ask him to do anything that would offend him or his religious beliefs. I don't think a hand fasting would, but I'm not really sure how open-minded he'll be about it. At the suggestion of one of my bridal party members, we're considering asking another friend of ours to become a secular celebrant. If he agreed, we would, of course, cover the cost. We have to research this a little bit more. Fortunately, we still have a lot of time to check this out. I think our first option will be to openly and honestly tell our original choice exactly what our plans are to see if he would be comfortable with it. If so, we have our officiant. If not, we ask our friend about it. If that fails...well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Leaf Boquets at DIY Bride

I was perusing through some of the posts on the DIY Bride blog, and came across this fantastic idea.

The author also provided a link that will allow the crafter to use real leaves...but I'm not sure I want to mess around with the wax.

I'm not really into the silk flower look, but I know that I'll need to use some 'fake' foliage to get the look I want at our ceremony and on our tables. I'm beginning to think that I could incorporate this idea into a boquet of real autumn flowers. Of course, as the time approaches, I will speak to my florist about it.