Awhile back, I mentioned colouring my crinoline. Well today I finally did it. I would have done it sooner, but my seamstress had to hem it. I just brought it home on Sunday night and this was the first time I've had a chance. It isn't dry yet, but I am beyond happy with the results so far! 
I dyed it in a plastic storage bin (I bought it at Target for like $3) because we juuuuust bought a brand new, super expensive front-loading washer that I didn't want to risk ruining. Our tub is plastic, and I didn't want to dye that... so the plastic bin it was.
My slip is 100% nylon and, as you can see, the dye "stuck" just right. I used 7 quarts (28 cups) of HOT water- I let it simmer on the stove before dumping it in the bin. I added a cup of vinegar to help it soak as recommended by RIT, and added two bottles of aquamarine dye and 3 tablespoons of kelly green dye. I am so in love with how it turned out and can't wait for it to dry so I can see the true colour!
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So I know I haven't written in awhile, but it's not for lack of things to say. I have been SO busy and haven't had much time for anything NWR. When I do have a few precious minutes of not wedding planning or working, I don't want to spend them writing about wedding planning. Haha- I am all planned out!! Now I feel like I can write some stuff, so I'm going to :) On August 5th I had my bridal shower. It was amazing- beyond my expectations. It was a Paris theme and I loved it. There was a great mix of friends and family and I was SO nervous but had no reason to be. My mum, FMIL, and bridesmaids did a great job. We got some great gifts and everyone had a lovely afternoon.   My bridesmaids and I. My MOH was unable to make it because she lives in Georgia and her first day of school (she's a teacher) was the following day.  My beautiful mum & I  My fabulous ribbon hat  Most of the lovely ladies who came out for my shower We've also checked A LOT off our lists. There is still quite a bit to go, but it's definitely do-able. We bought the lanterns for our cocktail hour centerpieces, confirmed the reception set-up with our DJ (and made most of our playlist, just need to confirm a few little details with Fi). We cancelled the Vieques leg of our stay in PR and extended the time in San Juan because of the hassle (ie- ferry times being unreliable, rental cars not being allowed to leave the main island, no full moon = no biobay, etc.). We also went to Lowe's and bought the wood, paint, and nails to make our table numbers, as well as dowels and wood to make the base for our stacked paper lanterns for beside the bar.
Our RSVP deadline was today as well. We are still waiting to hear back from 26 people, but we are officially below our max amount, so I am thrilled. We are giving the mail until the end of the week to come in (we figure there will be a few stragglers) and then we'll start calling around on Monday. If everyone else says yes (and there are a few we're expecting to say no), then we'll have 96 guests. The smaller, the better, I like to say :) We also made our final payment to the WCC today, which feels REALLY good. We are really coming along!! On Thursday we go to apply for our marriage license, which I am SUPER excited for. Mostly because it means we get to go to the beach! We haven't been AT ALL this summer because of work, and we're using all of our time off for the wedding and honeymoon :( Which will be awesome then... but sucks a lot right now. Finally, we took my engagement ring to be re-dipped. I want it to be nice and sparkly for pictures! They should all be back on the 28th, but I won't be wearing my e-ring again until the wedding weekend. We engraved our rings, too. His will say, "Big Spoon" and mine will say, "Little Spoon." I am in love :) 33 DAYS UNTIL I'M CHRIS' MRS.!! Houston, we have a contract! Woohoo! After months of talking about it, we FINALLY got our contract with our caterer. We are signed, sealed, and official. I could cry. SUCH a HUGE weight off my shoulders... you know, since we have 9 weeks until our wedding and all haha.
Today we are going to meet with our rental company to change a few things, see some things and possibly add them to our list, and put down a deposit. Then we're off to taste some cake! Hopefully this bakery will be "the one," and we can sign a contract today. After the deposit is down at the the rental place and the cake lady is (hopefully) booked, I'll be screaming from the rooftops- but not on Facebook haha- about how ALL of our vendors will have been booked. Please send positive happy vibes out into the universe that everything goes well and that I can finally relax after today!! PS- I got some texts yesterday from friends saying they got my invitations already!! That was SO fast! We might even get some RSVPs before the mailing week is over! I literally spent the whole day yesterday working on invitations. I printed everything out and cut it down (each invite was 2, 8x10 sheets of paper that had the invite, RSVP card, accommodations card, and directions card- I had to cut down the 8x10 page to get all the little elements). Then I started mounting the invites to the pocket fold, and stuffing the pockets with enclosure cards. That took forever, because I made a different set of directions for each person- to match the state they are coming from.
It feels SO good to be done. I just need to go to the post office on Monday and buy postage. We still need to add stamps to the RSVP envelopes, as well as the mailing envelopes... and then we'll send them off on Tuesday! I hope we start getting some RSVPs this week!! And we have 69 days left, but who's counting? :p For the past several months, I have been holding off on printing my invitations. Not because I wanted to- oh no- but because I *thought* there was a problem with the brand new, supposed-to-be-amazing printer that Chris' parents bought us for Christmas. Every time I tried to print out my beloved documents, there was a series of dots along the sides of the wording. I thought it was smudging from the rollers. I can't even tell you how many times Chris cleaned those stupid rollers.
A friend brought my paper to her workplace and I sent her all her files. I got desperate! My invites go out on July 23rd and they aren't even freakin printed yet!! She printed them and the same stupid dots were on them. Turns out the stupid dots are on the document. I could kick myself. I am SO happy that it was something so small. I just took an erase and removed them from that layer on Photoshop. Thank the lord I didn't merge all my layers!!! So as I write this, I am currently printing the invitations & RSVP cards for all of the parties of two invited to our wedding. Then I'll do parties of one. Then I'll do alllll the directions cards. I had Fi buy new ink last night. I am finishing these invitations THIS weekend. Once and for all. ...wish me luck... We are down to double digits-- 99 days! Holy moly, I can't believe we are SO close. At this time last year I didn't even have a date solidified, and now I'm down to mostly little details and getting super nervous about paying for all of this and making sure it's going to come together smoothly.
I haven't written in a little while because things are really busy right now between work, planning our wedding, and planning the pre-wedding parties for the wedding we're both in two weeks before ours. But lots of things are done now and there are still some things I am just itching to scratch off of our "to do" list that I'm obsessed with these days. I literally have a copy on this website, a copy printed out in my planning binder, mini lists everywhere, and a list of weekly checks in my iPad. Crossing something off is so satisfying. So here's what we've recently got done... -We got our guest book tree in the mail! I used a free graphic I found online, added our name and wedding date in PhotoShop and bought a Groupon to have it printed on canvas. It is SO cute and I can't wait to hang it in our future house! -We also got the picture frame for our sand ceremony. It's a vase/frame combination that we got online that wasn't marketed for sand ceremonies, so instead of paying $50/60 we paid $9.99 on clearance. Love! -Bridesmaid's dresses arrived yesterday! They are SO pretty. The colour is amazing! When we ordered them, we only got to see a small swatch of the colour, so we had to use our imaginations on the rest of the dress. It is so vibrant and lovely. We also got the guys their ties and pocket squares in the same colours. -I figured out my something old/new/borrowed/blue and attached a sixpence to my barefoot sandal. My old is the promise ring my dad gave my mum when they were teenagers; my new is my new last name (Mrs. undies!), my borrowed is a lady bug brooch that a close friend carried on her own wedding day, and my blue is my crinoline. Nice to have those little details sorted out! -I bought serving trays for our seating card display (we're going to fill them with sand and put the seating cards inside). I painted them white and finished them with an acrylic clear coat, so those are ready to go! -Started working on wedding cake stuff with my mum. I think we have our cake!! On my list for this weekend: -Call about rentals (so nervous to do this for some reason- probably because I know it will be expensive!) -Harass our caterer to send us a contract. This is killing me! -Call to make a fitting appointment for tuxes (the shop owners were on vacation so we had to wait for this one) -Call about alterations and set up my first fitting Hopefully my next update finds that bottom paragraph "checked off!" One of these days I'm going to post a giant super post with tons of pictures of all the little details that are currently hanging out around our house and at FMIL's house. Till then, you'll just have to use your imagination <3 My mum ordered her dress for the wedding last week and I LOVE it. I can't wait for it to come in!! She ordered it in navy. 
I ordered my girls' dresses today! We went with Dessy D498 in Aquamarine. My celebrant loved the dress, too, so she got one in black. I ordered from ebridalsuperstore.com, which I heard from in Bridal Bargains and has great reviews. Now I just sit and play the waiting game. I also ordered the ties & pocket squares for Chris and the groomsmen. They are the same colour & fabric as the bridesmaid's dresses, and are from Dessy as well so we should get a perfect match. I ordered my barefoot sandals from Etsy last week and they are shipping tomorrow. I'm going to wear them alone on the beach, and add a pair of ivory flip flops for the reception. 
These are the sandals I ordered, but I'll be wearing ivory satin flop flops to keep the more formal feel. Also, she's replacing the large glass bead accents with genuine pearls free of charge.
Also! I finally got in contact with the lady from Vital Statistics in Stone Harbor about having our ceremony on the beach. She told me I needed to send her a letter with our time/date/location on the beach and she'd okay it. Another perk we weren't expecting is that it's free! When we were considering Cape May, it was $50 for a half hour permit (that is, a half-hour to set-up, have your ceremony, and break-down), so we thought it'd be the same in Stone Harbor. She told me it was free, though, so that's super exciting! Another $50 we don't have to come up with :) The letter is on its way to her now.
I just finished my serving set, and since it's halftime for the SEC Championship game, I can post about it!  Serving Set, "Before"  Serving Set, "After"  A detail shot. You can see that my lines got a little wiggly on the knife, but it still looks great! It took me three hours, on the dot, to finish this project. I did work on it during the first half of the game and was obviously a bit distracted, so I probably could have finished sooner. Anyway, here's my "how-to:"
1. Purchase your serving set. Don't buy one of the plastic, "faux crystal" ones, even though their low price might be tempting. The handles are not smooth, so it will be difficult to glue the rhinestones down and get the look you want. I bought mine from Crate & Barrel (link goes to serving set). 2. Purchase your rhinestones. I used 16ss hotfix rhinestones and felt they were perfect- any smaller would be too small and a lot work, and bigger would have fit awkward. I got 720 crystal clear, and 720 light aquamarine (though I'm almost positive she shipped aquamarine instead, but I kept them because Fi liked the colour so much). We got them on eBay from this seller. Shipping was free, so that was an added bonus! 3. Purchase glue if you don't have some. I highly recommend using E6000. I barely needed any to complete the project, and it holds steadfast. 4. Purchase tweezers if you don't have them already. I used a pair with a flat tip from Tweezerman. I found that they were easier to use than those with an angled top. I'm sure it's a matter of preference though. 5. Purchase Q-Tips if you don't have some. 6. Once you have all your supplies, put some glue on the top of the handle and use a Q-Tip to spread it over some of the handle. Don't spread too much- the glue dries super fast. 7. Use your tweezers to pick up a rhinestone and place it where you want it on the handle. 8. Continue to use your tweezers to pick up/place the rhinestones in a straight line around the handle. I really do recommend working around the handle, instead of straight down. It ensures your lines stay straight going around, and gives you the opportunity to fill in gaps more readily if you need to. You can see on my serving knife that I started to get sloppy toward the end, and it's because I didn't take my ow 9. Move onto the next row, and keep going until the handle is covered :) And that's all there is to it!! Though my bank account is slowly draining, I love making wedding purchases. Nothing like going to the mailbox and finding a package- however small- with wedding goodies in it. The wedding stash I currently have in our bedroom keeps getting bigger. It's lovely. 
I'm pretty excited about this VS "newlywed" bikini bottom I purchased from another DW Knottie.
Just a close-up shot of the "newlywed" detail. I love that the crystals are in blue!
I plan to use this in my hair for the ceremony, and then hopefully on my bustle for the reception. It might become a bouquet charm, though. We'll see!
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