Llama farm wedding!

Why didn't I think of this? Check out this reception site:


LLAMAS EVERYWHERE!

You can see the rest of the wedding, which is decidedly less llama-ful, here.

Old-Timey Tuesday: the album

Mom and Dad's wedding album is covered in off-white ostrich leather (not sure if it's faux or real) and has pages, separated by sheets of vellum, that are large enough to display 8x10" photographs. Grandma and Grandpa's miniature version holds 3.5x5" pictures. Despite the super cool cover, I think my favorite part of both albums is the inside cover-page illustration:


The reverse of this page has the fill-in-the-blank prompts of "So-and-So and This Guy were married on the ___ of _______, 19__," which I don't think anybody filled out. Not that it isn't clear who was getting hitched here, what with all the newspaper clippings folded up in the front of the album.

Isn't this drawing awesome though? It's still got a bit of a '60s vibe to it, don't you think? Old-timey indeed!

is it just me?

Or is it not a little weird when a bride insists on referring to her dress as a "she" as opposed to an "it"? As in, "She. Was. Perfect. Her ivory satin is to-die-for... AND she FIT with lots of room to spare! ...I wish I could wear her every day. " (brought to you by Weddingbee.)

I realize that many styles are named names as opposed to serial numbers,which makes them easier to remember -- mine is named Desiree, which reminds me of Des'ree, whom I never really cared for (and dammit now her song is in my head) -- but this is just one of those things that irks the hell out of me. And I do my fair share of anthropomorphism... just usually with my cats, cars or things I bake.

It's a dress, y'all. It.

two golden rings!

On Saturday, Jon and I decided to go look at wedding rings for the first time. I'd perused a few stores online and sent Jon a couple of things from Etsy, but we were basically starting from scratch. That being the case, we decided to go to Solomon Brothers, a conveniently located local jeweler that seemed to me to have an extensive selection and a good reputation.

Both of those impressions turned out to be true, and after less than an hour in the showroom, we were 99 percent sure we had found our rings! I didn't want to slap down my credit card and commit then and there -- I tend to shop around/consider big purchases for a while -- but after about an hour of pondering and talking about the prices and styles while continuing our errands, we decided to call our saleslady back and put down a deposit. Here are the ones we chose:

for Jon

for me!

Both of these are white gold. I looked online later, and Jon's ring would be more than $3000 in platinum (before the "discount" that they appear to offer on everything). Ha! Fat chance. My ring was actually the first one the saleslady pulled out of the case for me to try on. The size was perfect, and it looks really nice with my engagement ring. As far as the width and carat weight goes, this was the middle of three options. It's a bit wider than the band on my engagement ring, and it's got .33 carats of sparkles. Fancy!

I have been baking up a storm lately, which translates to a lot of dish-washing, which means my engagement ring was a little scuzzy when we went into the store. I had the saleslady clean it while we browsed the men's rings section, and while she was away, I took a covert picture or two of my ring on my hand. Isn't it pretty?



I do wish I had a picture of my two rings together, but that will happen soon enough. In the meantime, I'm thrilled to have checked another big thing off of the list! Done and done.

ponderings...

You know how people resemble their pets, or how married couples eventually start to look alike? A lot of the engaged couples I know have obvious superficial similarities, so I can see how they'll "match" as they get older (brown hair, similar noses, etc.). I don't think Jon and I look much alike, though, aside from the fact that we both are ghostly pale -- even at that, we have different colorings and skin tones. Will we still start to look like each other, too? How? Or is that all in the eye of the beholder anyway?

For now, we both wear hipster glasses that kind of match. I guess we'll have to wait and see about the rest...

More from my first shower...

My friend emailed me a shutterfly album of photos from Saturday, so I have a few more pictures from the shower and one of my decorated tree to share with y'all! I'll dive right in:

These are my bridesmaids from the high school gang. (Actually, I
guess they'd more correctly be called the elementary school gang...)

I think Mr. Flamingo here won the prize for most intense ornament of the night.

Here's my pretty pretty seester (and maid of honor, duh) keeping
track of the festive ribbons for an eventual rehearsal bouquet

Krista and her whimsical felted wool ornament get a thumbs-up from me! I'm really going to have to break myself of this habit during all these showers, aren't I?

Without further ado, here is our tree with all of these awesome new ornaments on it!


Not too shabby, eh? What I like best about it is that each of those ornaments has a story or a name to go with it. However, I was over at my parents' house last night (which in recent years has become a two-tree household) and was put to shame by the massive quantity of ornaments they had. To keep it all in perspective, I reminded myself that they have been married for 37 years now... they had to start somewhere too!

The week after next I am off to Germany for a week with a choir, and I've got big plans to hit up the famed Christmas markets and augment my collection. Jon's mom also tells me she's going to gather up some of his childhood ornaments at her house and send them back home with us after Christmas. Maybe next year we'll be able to use all the branches on our tree!

to press we go!

Just moments ago, I approved the final proof of our save-the-date postcard and sent it off to the press at UPrinting.com. Wanna see it? Of course you do!


Our incredibly talented friend Larissa provided the artwork, and I laid it out with some text in InDesign with my recently acquired Adobe skillz.

This is actually Larissa's second take on our portrait (I posted about the first drawing back in the summer) because her style changed a bit since she finished the original, she said. I think both versions are pretty badass in their ways, but I absolutely love how she has started drawing hair, don't you? Speaking of badass, in the next year, Larissa's work will be on display in galleries in California, Oregon, South Carolina, Sweden and Germany as well as included in two books. Damn!

As I probably mentioned in that post about the earlier drawing, Jon and I are really excited to be able to incorporate actual art into our wedding -- awesome local art at that! Not only is this save-the-date super cool, it also makes a quiet statement about the things that are important to us in our life together.

We should have 100 postcards in hand next week -- I won 100 free postcards from a blog giveaway, so I thought I'd get a look at the freebies in person first in case I managed to screw something up. Once I confirm that they are stunning and flawless, I'll order 150 or so more and start addressing.

Which brings me to a question for y'all: When should we send out our postcards? We're within six months of the wedding so they can go out any time, but my question is this: will they be overlooked in the onslaught of catalogs and holiday cards if we send them before Christmas? Should we wait until the holiday madness is past? Or is this a case of the-sooner-the-better? Jon wants to send them ASAP, but I'm a little paranoid about getting lost in the shuffle. Please advise...