Bridesmaids Jewelry (Check)

To be honest, the bridesmaids jewerly made me as nervous as getting the dresses. I actually told my sister, who is in the wedding party that her only job was finding the jewelry. She called me weeks ago and said she found a winner. Freshwater pearl necklace sets (which included a bracelet and earrings to match) for $20 bucks (are you kidding me?). All of this at a local TJ Maxx. I trusted her and told her to snag them up. Well...she left off one important fact -they were real pearl necklaces, but they were pink pearls. At first I hedged, but then this weekend I saw the jewerly with the deep chocolate dresses and was blown away. They give them a very vintage look and I think with the flowers, they will pop more than the ivory pearls would have.

Could it be true?

I am scared to jinx it, but just checked our 10-day weather forecast. Cloudy, mid-60s...and 10 percent chance of rain on our wedding day. I will totally take that, but please, please no rain....

Bride on Fire

Ok, this would be my worse nightmare.

Let's vent, my friends...

Hello? Am I stressed? Just a little...all the projects (hello, welcome bags?) that I am trying to get done has to happen this weekend, because why? I only have one weekend until my wedding! Yikes!

I will post all my projects that are done - once I find a new battery for the camera - but menu cards, programs and table numbers are done! Yeah! I have to thank a friend of mine, who must have seen my stress level rise a bit this week and offered to do my programs. So right now - she is dealing with cutting ribbon, etc., and not me. (sorry, but I am smiling as I type this).

My goal is to have everything done this weekend...only because I do not want to be stressed out next week. Plus, any little fires that flare up next week, will have all my attention. This week, work is killing me. It is amazing that everyone goes "oh I hate bothering you because I know you have wedding stuff going on...but would you be able to do this for me?" It is not that I am sitting here working on wedding stuff (oops, except I am putting something on my wedding blog)...I am actually trying to get all these other work projects done this week, so I can enjoy my honeymoon! But sure, keep piling these work projects on. I don't mind...

The Ivy Room

I have a friend who is getting married. He is a guy. So much a guy that he told me that they are getting married in downtown Chicago but not wanting to spend more than 7,000 dollars. I said - on the whole chibang? And he was like of course! Yeah, very naive. I laughed, but then realized that they were going to have to see for themselves to actually believe that they could do a whole wedding for that amount in Chicago.

He recently asked me if I could do it over again, what place would I pick as my reception....I love this place - the Ivy Room at Tree Studios. So gorgeous.

Welcome Bag Goodies

Yeah, I completely have delayed on the welcome bags and now with two weeks away from our wedding, I need to get this done. Last week, I started out doing the first of the DIY projects - the water bottles. I followed Tara from In this Instance's DIY water bottle instructions. Oh my god - she was right - this was very easy. I created mine in quark, just because I know it more than word publisher. Again, I have gotten a little to logo happy but it made sense to put it on these. For the non-DIY bride, these were so easy and fast - I was all over this and finished these last night.

Escort Cards (Check)

A while back, I wrote about doing the wine cork escort cards. I felt like they would be pretty easy and go well with our venue, however I immediately had some issues. First - I cut my finger three times while trying to cut the corks. Secondly, I noticed I could not get the corks to look that good because of the way I was cutting them. (I had found in the DIY Bride book that you can cut the cork down 1/4th and then cut a slit for the card). The ones that I did, looked very uneven. Lastly, I just realized I had no patience or the time to cut between 85-90 corks.

That night, I ended up looking online and found Judy of Wineknotcorkit on ebay. At first I debated on spending money, but then decided that I was getting my nice stimulus check, so went for it. It was the best decision I made because Judy was wonderful. She not only does the corks (she doesn't cut them but has a trick to keep them from rolling), but also personalizes the cards for you. I then sent her my table list and she printed the names on the escort cards. She was fast, so fast that I sent her the list on Sunday and had the corks and cards by Tuesday. They look great and I am absolutely thrilled on how they look.