Yellow Shoes

No matter what dress I end up wearing I am already set on wearing some amazing and unexpected shoes. My current favorite shoes are a pair of purple scaled flats, so finding some outrageous heels will easily fit into my eclectic wardrobe. Fluevog creates unique kicks in styles and colors I've never seen before, and they are notoriously comfortable. I browsed their entire inventory and at this moment I am set on getting a pair of yellow shoes. I'm not even a big fan of the color yellow, but for these beautiful boots... I'd deck the whole ceremony and reception in cheery yellow!

Guest Book

I'm a lover of art and totally a fan of anything that goes on a wall. We are definitely doing this as our guestbook. Looks like I will have to brush up on my calligraphy skills!

Real Wedding Inspiration

Corinne is a amazing bride who was married August 2009 in Flagstaff Arizona. I love all aspects of her wedding; the location, ceremony, after party, photography, her dress and all the little touches that made her wedding a sensation. I love how natural and effortless the whole thing appears, as if everyone was compelled by their love of the couple. I also love the sense of community involved in bringing the whole event together. And it came together in just 3 months time!

And the red victorian style bolero is TO DIE FOR! It screams energy, vibrance and romance in an earthy way. Seriously, visit her site NOW!

Sadly, Florida weather is not suitable for gorgeous wood structures like the lodge she hosted the reception in. My search for "Florida Lodge" brought up the one in Wakulla State Park. As beautiful as Wakulla Springs and the Wakulla river are (truly... a treasure!) neither Karl or I are jumping to get hitched in "Will-kill-ya" county. Although it did provide me with the idea to have the ceremony in a national or state park (once again, the nature-loving hippie inside of me).

From this I also have taken the idea that there doesn't need to be a theme or mandatory color scheme and that bridesmaids and groomsmen do not have to be in matching attire--and the more comfortable they are the more natural the whole event will appear.

Selecting a date

When I called my father to tell him that Karl had proposed to me after 7 years of dating last May, the first question he asked me was So when is the wedding?

I honestly didn't have an answer. I had been secretly obsessing about getting engaged for two years. I had a plan!... We were gonna get hitched April 25th, 2010! It was a Saturday, the weather would be mild, slightly warm! We would both be done with college and beginning careers with stable paychecks! GRAVY!!! MANDATORY PERFECTION!

I wish I could tell the "me" of years gone that life is not planned. That after college I would not know where I was going or what I wanted to do. That at least half of our income would not be stable. That months of "dropping hints" to my boyfriend would not magically manifest itself in a ring. That on April 25, 2010 I would still not be "engaged" when it comes to the sparkly portion of the meaning. That a ring wouldn't matter at all to the commitment we would be making.

No, instead I look back at wasted potential spent lurking The Knot for hours on end like a pink and lace taffeta zombie.



Lesson learned... moving on!

May 1st, 2010. We're engaged and now obligated set a date. THE date. THE DATE TO END ALL DATES! In both our minds anything this year was out of the question, too soon! And then to complicate things, I couldn't compute 2011. I'm still trying to rationalize that but I can't. So the year became 2012 and after browsing the numerous Friday/Saturday/Sunday combinations available it was determined that 2 years would be too long of an engagement for us. Plus I wanted to get all the bang for my buck before the dreaded end of the Mayan calendar. January it is!

When I met dad and his wife a month later with the agreed upon date they seemed disappointed that it was such a long way away. I mentioned one of the reasons being that we needed to save up for it and they asked if we were planning a big wedding. Actually, no. We want to keep it as small and intimate as possible, but damn! I still want it to be AWESOME! And to me AWESOME no longer means spending ungodly amounts of cash on flowers. I don't know if I even want flowers. And I don't want to agonize over every little detail. However I do find myself with a lot of time for planning, and so welcome to my diversion!



As of today I have only 536 days left to go...

Intro

So, you might ask "why?"

Because I wanted to create a blog to store my ideas and inspirations with some focus, not a hodgepodge of shiny things. Although, who am I kidding, I am a girl and I love shiny sparkly things. And hell, I can't even guarantee my posts will be wedding related...

Because its ironic that my ideal ceremony location would be out west in a desert or by some mountains or redwoods or something. But we live in Florida. And I'm quite anti-swamp. And I still want an outdoor ceremony because there's a little hippie inside of me. I think that's a good place to start.

Because "ZOMG!!! IT'S MY PRETTY PRINCESS DAY!!1" is not my thing and I wanted to add some humor to wedding planning on the internet existence.

Because Adobe Illustrator is my biotch. Seriously, we tight. And the fiance wishes I would do more work with it, though I doubt he ever anticipated this outcome.

Because of INTERNET! FOREVER...

For that I dedicate this blog to a complete stranger. Allie, you complete me.

"This is indeed a disturbing universe." - Maggie Simpson