Veil in the Mail

I got an email last week that the veil I had ordered online had shipped. This morning when I checked the tracking number, it said the post office tried to deliver it twice already, and that they had left notices saying that it could be picked up at the post office. Of course, no notices were ever left so when I went to the post office to claim it, they gave me a hard time.

All's well that ends well though; I now have my veil.

We were getting ready to leave for the day, but of course I had to try it on before we left. The apartment is incredibly dry because of the weather here, and as a result it made the veil a static mess. I got Mark to snap a few pictures before taking it off though.



It's a two-tier veil. I'm not sure if I'm going to be using a blusher or not, but this at least gives me the option. I also opted for a metal comb, so I could easily take the veil out for the reception if I want to. I was actually surprised how easily I could put it in and take it out.

The veil was ordered from Occansey Designs - a recommendation from my Knottie friend Maureen. If any other brides are looking for a place to order their veil from, I'd highly recommend Occansey - they offered a ton of choices and their prices were great.

With this ring...

That, right there, is my wedding ring. You know, the one that I'm going to wear for the rest of my life starting in July? I've talked to a lot of brides-to-be about moments that make the wedding feel "real". For me, getting the rings was definately one of them.

My ring was ordered through Blue Nile, because that's where my engagement ring came and it was the only place we could find the same width band. Mark's was ordered from a local jewler. It's from the Classics collection by Scott Kay.

My ring arrived a couple days ago, and I tried it on more than a few times. Mark made fun of me for it. He's tried his on a few times since we picked it up tonight, though. I think he's just as excited about them as I am!

Parasol DIY Instructions

I had some unexpected free time today, and a fresh box of unripped parasols, so I decided to re-do the monogram parasol I made earlier, and tackle a "Thank You" one too.

And, since I had so many questions about it, I figured I'd document my how-to for other brides who might want to tackle this project.

Step 1: Measure your parasol, and create a poster of about the same size of whatever you want on your parasol. I found the easiest way to do it was in Publisher. (If you don't already have it, you can download a 60 day free trial here.) If you're doing just one letter like I did, you'll want to create a paint file, type the one letter in the font you want and save it. You can then insert this into Publisher as a picture and stretch it to fit your poster.

Step 2: Print the poster, tape the pages together and then cut out your letter (or other design). I left a little white space around the letter to avoid the pixilated look that was the result of stretching the picture file.

Step 3: Tape it to the parasol very lightly. I only taped it in a few key places to keep it from moving. The less tape you use, the less of a chance you have ripping the parasol when the tape comes off.

Step 4: Trace around your pattern lightly with pencil. I found that mechanically pencils worked well because they gave me a lightly darker line without having to press down. The parasol was thin, so less pressure was good!

Step 5: Once you're all traced, remove the pattern and start filling in the lines with the color (or colors) of your choice. I used two soft brushes (the foam ones and the ones with plastic bristles didn't work so well on the first test parasol) - one larger to fill in big chunks, and one smaller to do detail work. I applied the paint pretty thickly - if you go to thin you may end up seeing the brush strokes.

I used standard acrylic paint that you buy in the craft store for less than $1. Because the paint is flexible by nature, the parasols can be stored closed until the wedding without having to worry about the paint flaking off. The more you open and close them, though, the more wear you will see.

Not only was this project fairly quick, it was cheap too. I bought the parasols 12 for $30 from Oriental Trading, and got free shipping. I picked up the paint during a sale, 2/$1. It makes the cost per parasol right around $3 - not bad when they're selling on the internet for $30 and up!

Well, that didn't go as planned...

Rule #639 of living in New Jersey: Don't expect to be able to keep plans during winter months.

This weekend was supposed to be a busy one. I was supposed to go up to Morristown to do a test run of wedding day hair and makeup. We had talked about going down to Hamilton to order Mark's wedding band. And, we had a double date planned with Jackie and Joe to watch the Giants game.

Of course, it snowed, so we didn't get to do any of that.

We did, however, get to go out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate six months to the wedding. (Can you believe we're less than six months away?!)

The original plan behind Saturday's dinner plans was that I'd have my hair and makeup done from the trial, so we'd try a place that's a little fancier. We eat out quite a bit down here, and are well-versed in the many chain restarants, but coming up with somewhere a little dressier took a little brainstorming. We ended up going to Avanti in Pennington.

Avanti is hidden, litterally. Rather than being on a street, it's in the parking lot of the Pennington municipal complex. We've walked past it several times because we park in the municipal lot to go to the pottery studio in Pennington, and we've always said, that place looks cute, we should try it sometime.

Because it's an old house, it feels like you're going into someone's house for dinner - you hang our coat on the front hooks and then get seated in the cozy dining room. The food was excellent, but not stuffy. We will absolutely go back.

I didn't bring the camera inside, but I snapped this last picture as we were leaving. It really doesn't do the place justice - the old colonial house and the Christmas lights looked so pretty against the snow. The reason I decided to post it, though, was because you can see the chef in the winow. It sums up the feel of the place pretty well.

We must be getting close!

Yesterday morning, my time off request for time around the wedding/honeymoon was officially approved. My manager at work has known for months I was planning to take a chunk of time around the wedding, but I couldn't sumit it until after January 1st because the new time-off calendar wasn't up yet.

I officially have the day before, the day of the wedding, and two weeks after off. Knowing that the wedding is now in this calendar year makes it sound a whole lot closer!