Sneek Peak Pictures

Our fabulous photographer sent us a slideshow of some sneek peak pictures. We love 'em and can't wait to get the rest. Unfortuneatly we are going to have to wait about 5 more weeks. Arggghhhhhhhhh the agony!

http://www.ciullaphotography.com/darkroom/share/?client/vanessaandandy

BACK!

Hi all I am back from the wedding and honeymoon. I am happy to report that everything went smoothly and our day was perfect, absolutely perfect. I couldn't imagine it going any better. It was the happiest day of my life! I wish I could go back and relive it all over again.

It is going to take a little time of getting back into the groove of things so please forgive me if my blogging is sporadic. Right now I am attempting to get thank you cards out, unpack gifts, decide what we need to purchase that we didn't get, clean up the house from the wedding tornado and such. The week before the wedding I had complete tunnel vision on the wedding and now it's time to pick up all the other pieces.

I can't wait to tell you all about it!

All Coming Together!

This week is my wedding and it is all finally coming together. Today we finished the programs, dropped the welcome bags off at the hotel and took care of some other small details. Tomorrow I am going to work on one more project but after that it is all down hill! I can't wait for Friday to get here.

I thought I would be better at blogging this past week or so but I have just gotten caught up in getting everything taken care of. I don't think that I will be able to post in between now and the wedding so this will be the last one until after I get back from the honeymoon. I will leave you with some last minute detail shots. I will be back at the very end of July and will be able to fill in all the details I left out the past few weeks in all the craziness.

The table numbers all ready to go.

Programs completely done!

Items in the welcome bag. A cookie for each guest, welcome letter and brochure on local areas and transportation. I forgot to take a picture of the bags completed but they were put in purple bags tied with orange ribbon.

ONE WEEK!

I can't believe it but I am one week away from my wedding! WOOHOO!

Weather Stalking

The weather stalking has begun. On weather.com you can get a ten day forecast and since we are nine days out I have begun the daily checking of the weather. As of today the forecast for our wedding is 86 degrees, partly cloudy with a 20% chance of rain. Thus far not too shabby of a forecast.

Official Songs for Ceremony

We(or I should say I) have picked the final music for our ceremony. It was important to me to have beautiful, classical music that I hadn't heard a million times at every other wedding. So despite the fact that Pachabel's Cannon is a great song you won't see me walking down the aisle to it. Here are the final choices:

Seating of the Mothers: Bist du Bei Mir, J.S. Bach
Attendants' Processional: Salut D'Amour, Edward Elgar
Bride Processional: The Swan, Camille Saint-Saens
Recessional: Selections from Water Music, J.S. Bach

All of the music is being played by a local piano/cello duo. I think it is going to sound Beautiful!

Fittings

Today I had my final fitting for my dress. I had envisioned putting the dress on making a few minor adjustments and walking out on cloud 9. Instead what happened was an internal freak out when I realized the dress was too short and then tears ensued when I realized there might be a chance it couldn't be fixed.

As a tall woman this is a worst nightmare that something is too short especially your wedding dress. I am used to not being able to buy certain styles because they don't come long enough. I have even attempted to pull off a few items despite them being too short. But for my wedding dress to have a dress be visibly to short is a dreaded thought. I even spent a good chunk of change to order my dress with extra material so that I wouldn't have to worry about the dress being too short.

Needless to say I am 99% sure the dress will be fixed. Despite the fact that the material was cut and there was only about a half inch that could be let out. We also stretched out the bodice so that it sits lower, cut out some of the tulle so that it lays more streamline, and took out part of the bra cups to get the dress to where it needs to be.

I do have to say that the bodice and the rest of the dress look fabulous. My seamstress had to take in the dress about 2 dress sizes and I was worried that it would affect the look and style. But she did a wonderful job. Most likely the fact that it had to be taken in so much is the reason the end product was too short because once we took the dress in it sat higher on my hips. Overall I am happy and know that the day of the wedding it should look great, luckily a major crisis was adverted.

Today we also had a second fitting. I went with Andy's sister, Christy, to have her final fitting. The dress looks great and I couldn't be happier. The fit is fattering, it is a nice cut and I LOVE the color. I was happy to have one smooth sailing fitting.

Purple and Orange

So I always wanted to make an inspiration board for my color palette of orange and purple because so many people had a hard time envisioning it. While I never got around to the board here are some of the pictures that have helped to inspire my choices along the way.

Ceremony Walk Through

Yesterday we did the final ceremony walk through. It was fun to go through the steps with the minister in the sanctuary. The process made it all seem very real. Both of us were smiling and giddy like little kids. Despite the stress of tying up all the loose ends the walk through put everything into perspective again.

Today I spent hours on the phone confirming details with the DJ and putting in our final numbers, meal choices, seating arrangements and such with the reception hall. I never in a million years thought that confirming all the details with all of my different vendors would eat up as much time as it has.

I also picked up the program covers and escort cards I designed. When they are all finished I will post pictures but it was a big step to get those things back, I feel like the end is in sight!

Fallen By the Wayside

I have had a few projects fall by the wayside as we grow nearer. One being the photo sharing cards. While I created a group account on photobucket for our guests to share their wedding pictures with us and others I dropped the ball on the cards. I have a design ready to go but it's just to late to order the cards. I could order them and pay ridiculous amounts to have them rushed but at this point it's just not worth it. I might just print slips and put them in thank you cards.

Another project that might get dropped is making myself a bracelet. I bought the materials months ago but just was plain lazy and haven't done it yet. Now I might not have time, I guess we will just see. oops.

Excited, Elated, Nervous and Sad

The above words are all the feelings I am currently experiencing at once. I am excited and elated that the wedding is almost here! It feels very surreal that everything is actually happening. I am also excited and elated that soon I will get to go back to normal life as a married woman and just relax and be me again. As I tell people, "Just humor me I will regain my brain in less than 2 weeks."

I am nervous about getting all the loose ends taken care of in time. I am nervous about everything coming together smoothly. I am not at all nervous about getting married but I am nervous about walking down the aisle and having everyone stare at me.

I am sad because soon it's all going to be over. Over a year of planning, thinking and preparing for the big day. But in one day after a day of bliss poof it will be gone I am also sad that there is no more dreaming about what I could do or might do. No more picking up bridal magazines and looking through the pages for new ideas to incorporate. At this point what has been planned will get executed but we can't add anything else.

How it's possible to feel excited, elated, nervous and sad about the same exact thing, I'm not really sure.

Guest Book

I made and ordered the guest book about a month ago. It came in right after I moved and in the shuffle I forgot to post about it. I am really really happy with it. The book houses all of our favorite engagement pictures and has blank pages so guests can actually write messages and do more than just sign their name. I feel that this version of a guest book we will actually look through time to time. I formated it by doing 2 picture pages, 1 blank page, 2 picture pages, 1 blank page and so on. Here it is, or at least some of it.