If you’ve found your wedding dress but are still looking for the perfect dress for your bridesmaids, check out these cute and colorful dresses.  My favorite is the green Jenny Yoo – modern, stylish, and best of all, comfortable!

A sampling of what I've done in the last week.

With 17 days to go until the wedding, I’m feeling absolutely frazzled. Not that I wasn’t feeling that way last week, right? I keep telling myself to keep moving forward and to keep working hard, and that this will all be over the second we get into Jarrod’s jeep and drive away from the reception.

But it still feels like infinity days away. In the last week, I’ve gotten quite a bit done. I painted the cake toppers, created a program (which still needs final editing), bought the guys’ ties, began to decorate the bubble bottles, got a shower put on by Jarrod’s church, secured the song leader, bullied people into RSVPing, wrote thank-yous, and attended to countless other tiny-yet-incredibly-important things that came up. (You can see a bit of what I’ve done in the picture on the left. It’s been raining for the last week, but today it’s very nice, so I went out and enjoyed the sun. I tell myself that May is saving all the good weather up for June!)

I’m currently finishing up the table names. I was going to name the tables after different varieties of tea, but there really aren’t that many unique varieties, unless you get into different names for flavored teas and/or obscure Chinese varieties of black and green tea. I decided instead to use red flowers as the table names, and I’m actually really happy about how they’re turning out. Once I discovered my mom’s light box, things got waaaay easier.

There’s a bird outside my window right now, which reminds me that I haven’t been sleeping well recently. This stupid catbird–I’m pretty sure it’s the same I’m hearing now–decided to perch outside my window at 1:30 AM and sing it’s tiny little heart out. I had to move downstairs to the couch where at least it wasn’t so loud. I think my insomnia is due to a number of factors, actually. A lot of it has to do with the fact that my mind is racing with wedding-related things I know I’m going to forget to do if I fall asleep, and I’m sure that my increase in coffee intake–especially in the afternoon–really hasn’t helped things. Etcetera. I really want to know–has anyone else had trouble sleeping? Thankfully I’m not really having any wedding nightmares in the time I am asleep!

Hey, what do you think of the ties? Jarrod’s is the paisley, and the groomsmen are wearing the solid lavender. They were a super good deal at thetiebar.com–I think only $15.00 each. They seem to be good quality to me, though I really don’t know what makes a tie good quality versus poor quality. I’m happy though. I did have a premonition of our children making fun of Dad’s wedding tie in about 15 years. Great.

So that’s that. I’ve got to get going now, because my list for today is quite massive, and includes packing for the trip to Colorado that I’m leaving on tomorrow at 9:00 in the morning. Yes, I’ll be gone for a crucial week in the middle of the hardest part of planning in order to watch Jarrod graduate. It’s okay though; it’s going to be a nice bit of a break that I need.

Until next week. I’ll try to stay sane!

–Emily

Hi folks!

Well, premarital counseling last week was great. You know it’s good when the guy doing your counseling says, “This is not an approval process” and then goes on to tell horror stories of couples he’s known who have been advised not to marry for ridiculous reasons. Seriously–he once did a last-minute wedding gig because the pastor had dropped out a week before the wedding, refusing to marry the couple because the man getting married said that he hadn’t been attracted to his fiancee at first sight. Weird!

So Jarrod and I had a big sigh of relief. We’re gettin’ married! Bob (our pastor for the wedding and our premarital counselor) has already shown himself to be really good at analyzing the ins and outs of our relationship. It’s really funny, too. One of the things he had each of us do was to write down (without peeking at the other’s paper) the reasons we’re getting married. My reason was, “Because I love Jarrod! And he loves me! And we want to spend the rest of our lives together!”, while Jarrod gave a very logical response–I’ll make a great companion, our goals match, etc. This, in a few words, summarizes the main difference between Jarrod and me: Jarrod is very logical and rational, while I’m all about emotion.

Anyway, so wedding stuff. I’ve been avoiding dealing with the bridesmaid dress situation, but I really need to get this taken care of, seeing as the wedding is in 123 days! Um, I have this procrastination problem…Really all I need to do is go and spend some time at a fabric store, which I’m planning on doing after my root canal on Thursday (woop woop), since I’m taking work off early.

Jarrod’s mom and Kristen, one of my bridesmaids, have been browsing around JoAnn fabrics for pattern and fabric ideas. The biggest problem I’m having with my strategy to make the girls’ dresses is that dresses that can be made in cotton fabric are hard to come across. Well, not too hard I guess, but a lot of patterns recommend more flowy, organza or chiffon-like fabrics.

Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of having these made, right? I mean, I can send my girls to David’s Bridal to pick out any lavender dress of their choice. Well, we’ll see what I find at JoAnns on Thursday.

And then there’s the registry. Jarrod…well, he discovered Ikea, which I think is Swedish for “Cheap and awesome household goodness”. That’s a rough translation, of course. So now he’s wanting to revamp the entire registry, which will take time, patience, and caffeine. We were going to do it on Saturday, but now we’re going skiing instead! Silly mountains. We’ll find a time though.

I mean, we could have done it this weekend, but I didn’t want to bring it up, because I saw how distressed he got the last time we tried to register. So instead we spent the evening watching 2001: A Space Odyssey (okay, weird movie.), and then on Monday he called me and said, “Okay Em. We need to change our registry.” And I said, “Yeah…we really do.”

And then there’s the honeymoon–don’t even get me started! This is what we know for sure. We know that we have transportation to Greece and a hotel room once we get to Santorini. And we know that we will spend the rest of June backpacking around Europe. This is all we know.

I just need to calm down. Things will work themselves out, this much I am sure of. One step at a time!

(PS–The picture at the top of the page is the dress that my sister has chosen. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s so Becca! I might have to make one for myself while I’m at it.)

I just love looking at the flowers from The Wildflower Floral Design in Dallas Texas.  Their signature is an abundance of flowers and textures which, to me, translates into stunningly impactful flowers.

And what is clear when browsing their website, is the clear passion and dedication that Creative Director, Stacy Murcdock, puts into every wedding she produces. (And she will only do a select number a weekend to ensure she can manage every detail).

If you are looking for a florist in Dallas, or want to see some beautiful inspiration, visit their website.  Here are some of their lovely bouquets to feast your eyes on.