turkey w/ stuffing ....

So, even though I am trying to go cold turkey... I would still like my own blog to reflect the hours of work that I have put into my wedding obsession. So here it is turkey w/ stuffing...

My family was DIY before DIY was cool. Mostly it was out of necessity but now that I am at the point in my life where I have the resources to buy "store bought" there are still somethings I would prefer to do myself.

My first DIY project for the wedding was our Save the Date cards. We are getting married on April 15th, tax day! One of the things I most value in our relationship is our sense of humor. When we looked at the traditional cards they did not reflect our relationship. So.... we decided to send tax forms to our friends and family instead. Unfortunately, a fair percentage of our guests thought this was a solicitation or worse yet, information from the IRS. But, those guests that got the joke, seemed to really enjoy our unique approach.

Save The Date Card

Map / Memento : Memento / Map

Once the cards were sent, it was time to find invitations. Again, we wanted something unique and a little bit different. When I started researching invitations I went into sticker shock! $6-$10 per invite is not unusual but seemed a bit unreasonable. Fortunately our friend Anandi recommended Not From A Box and they did a great job printing a very simple invitation. I decided that I did not need to pay someone to tie the ribbons (how hard could that be - note, it is very hard) and we decided that we would add a map to finish off the package.

The map became a bit of a challenge. You see "map" can be defined differently by different individuals. For example, if you are marrying a extremely bright scientist, he may define map as a tool to get from one destination to another. I on the other hand defined map as a piece of art that would symbolize our lives while making note of where the wedding would be held. After much conversations and many different versions of the map we settled on a solution that would meet both of our requirements one side would be defined as a pictorial memento and the other side would be a Map.

Never a bridesmaid ...

I've always wanted to be a bridesmaid. However, as I get older I realize that this dream of walking down the aisle in a brightly colored ball gown is not shared by any of my girlfriends. So, we decided we would give the honor of being dressed up in funny clothes to people who would truly appreciate it - the children in our lives. Our wedding party will consist of 3 bell ringers (this is apparently an English tradition where children enter before the wedding parties and ring bells to announce their arrival), 2 flower girls and one best person (Dave's sister who is by far the best person either of us know. My mom has spent the last couple of months at the sewing machine creating the costumes for the big event. Below is my niece Rawine modeling the final product (which is "itchy" but "twirls"). She says that she is going to wear it to school after the wedding to show and tell. "It's a ball gown you know"

DIY DAVE

Fortunately I am not the only DIY person in the family. Dave, albeit not a DIY with paper and scissors, is a wonderful DIY in the computer and developed a great web site for us (the logo doesn't begin to do it justice.)

daveandlisa

My favorite part of the site is the story of how we met:

Lisa and Dave met......over pink drinks at the "Life's a Beach" bar in Maui...
where they both were attending a wedding...
the wedding of Dave's cousin Lynn from Seattle...
Lisa being a friend of Lynn and Dave's other cousin from Seattle, Beth...
with Lisa having been introduced to Dave's cousins by Dave's mother and father...
when Lisa went to visit Dave's parents cabin in Etna...
a visit where Lisa was accompanied by her parents...
who lived just down the road from Dave's parents cabin...
because Dave's mother and Lisa's mother had known each other for years...
and even worked together...
and Lisa had worked for Dave's father during the summer...
on a tourist train run by Dave's father...
where Dave sold coffee(we hope that answers all your questions)

The Dress and Shoes! Glorious Shoes!

so, now we are on to attire! Yay! This is truly one of my favorite parts. The dress looks something like this:

Dave and I arrived at my parents house the day before Christmas in part so that I could see and try on the dress. After two of my mother's tremendously yummy cinnamon rolls I went in to see the dress which was hanging on a dress form. "I am not that size" I said to my mom. "That is the size of your other dress," she replied. "That is not going to fit" I said. "Try it on," she said. I did, it didn't and we've now been on a diet since Christmas. Fortunately, when she came up to Seattle a few weeks ago the dress was a little too big. So now, I am on the maintenance diet which goes something like - one day on, one day off. I seem to be at my heaviest on Monday and lightest on Friday - go figure ; )

My fabulous mom has now made this dress 3 times. The first time in muslin so I could see what it looked like. The second time in silk (after I called her and told her that I had reached my goal weight) and the third time because the modifications she made to the second dress did not come out as she would have liked. I really thought the second dress is perfect. I can't wait to try on the third - sans the cinnamon rolls.

Here are the shoes I am not wearing but will forever be remembered as the shoes I wanted to wear:

Great, huh. Too bad they snagged the dress when I walked and were tremendously uncomfortable.

Da,da,tada ...

Finally we get to the wedding!

Our wedding is going to be a three day affair (10 days for a few lucky friends).

Day one - Family Dinner (we are not rehearsing therefore no rehearsal dinner)

Day two - Latin pre-party. I work in the Latin America region and many of my friends are making the trip up so we decide to hold a pre-funk at a cool club the night before the wedding. Mojitos and Salsa dancing - how fun!

Day three - Wedding!!!

Day 4-10 - We are bring 6 of our friends on our Honeymoon to Hawaii! We've rented a house on the big island and plan to spend 6 days having a great time with our friends followed by 4 days enjoying married life together and just the two of us.

so there you have it - the stuffing. I think I will still post on the other side dishes ; ) we've had some great pre-events which deserve to be captured.