Lions and Tigers and Capricorns, oh my!

Getting married at the zoo meant that I had to embrace at least SOME zoo-like motifs. I mean, there were elephants at the ceremony after all! I wasn't ready to go all out with animal print and other theme-y goodness, but I wanted to bring in some cuteness.

Enter my escort cards and table numbers:
I found some animal silhouettes on the web and loaded them into my Silhouette machine (haha!) and cut them out for each guest (and got my mom to write the names. Score!)

I cut larger ones with a base to mark the tables and serve as tags for the dessert table (more on that later).

As an extra bonus, I finally learned what a capricorn looks like...

Paper flower power (or lack thereof)

So remember when I was all hopped up on crack and thought I was going to make my wedding flowers out of coffee filters? Ha. Apparently I underestimated all the other stuff a bride has to do (like go temporarily crazy and attempt to make a wedding dress, but that's another story for another day...)

Anyway, I made flowers until my fingers fell off/I got bored, and only had enough for like 1 table. So I bailed and convinced hubby to let me buy flowers. BUT I did wrangle some of them into a small arrangement for one of our cocktail tables:

Side note: I've got a bunch of assembled but unpainted (i.e. plain white) coffee filter roses in different sizes (plus a few of my interpretation of a carnation/garden rose) if anyone is interested...

I also got what I considered to be a good deal on fresh flowers, and I think they turned out gorgeous. What do you think?

P.S. Did you spot my zoo-riffic take on table numbers? More on those soon!

I'm back....

and I'm MARRIED!!!

Nope, I didn't fall off the face of the earth. I just spent the summer planning a wedding. The fall flew by as I got hitched, enjoyed being a newlywed, and the settled back into my normal busy life.

BUT, my friends, I DIY'd the crap out of my wedding, so you are in for some fun recaps. In the meantime, here's one of my favorite wedding photos:

(Catch up on the first part of my wedding planning adventure here!)

This is not a wedding blog

In case you haven't noticed, there has been very little discussion on this here bloggity blog about my upcoming wedding since the initial excitement. No, I'm not holding out on you (well, actually, I might be...more on that in a sec). There are actually to legitimate reasons why you haven't heard about any wedding planning:

1. I didn't want to overwhelm you with wedding planning craziness. Seriously, I think every girl that has gotten engaged since the dawn of the internet now has a wedding blog. This makes for interesting reading for those of us getting married, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it bores most everyone else to tears. I thought I'd spare you the color scheme/bridesmaid dresses/caterer discussions and just show you any awesome DIY projects that turn out cute. So I may be holding out on you, but just a little.

2. I have not done a single thing to plan our wedding

As for #2, I promise I'm working on that. Mr. McAwesome and I have figured out what we don't want, and have a list of musts. We'll start checking out venues any day now... :)

As for #1, don't worry. I will not be blabbing ad nauseum about my wedding on this blog. BUT if you are into that type of thing, I will be blabbing about my wedding ad nausum on another blog:

I've been asked to talk about planning my Nashville wedding on the local wedding guide of Elizabeth Anne Designs Weddings. Crazy, right? Anywho, I think it should be interesting to say the least. Plus there are a lot of other pretty things to look at over there if you should get tired of hearing me yap on and on
My first post is here. Wish me luck!

Ice cream and cake!

I talked the fiancee--let's call him Mr. McAwesome (because he is, duh)--into going to the big bridal show at the convention center. Promises of ice cream and cake (and food) won him over, and the show certainly didn't disappoint in that regard. Buzzing on sugar, we came to several important conclusions:

1) There are a heck of a lot of photographers, which is going to make choosing hard.
2) We both like the idea of rustic but pretty, like branches with candles and such, for decor. And we want to be as green as possible, natch.
3) Pink is out. Seriously, there was this huge pink booth and it scared both of us.
4) We like cake. A lot.
5) I'm not kidding about #4. We're talking about mini cupcakes now, and other desserts too. Who needs food when you have sweets?
6) I am going to have a hard time finding a dress that isn't strapless.
7) MORE CAKE!!

We finished the day by going to the bridal fashion show. After having some ridiculous DJ try to get us to dance to "We are family" in the rows, we got to see some pretty dresses. All that Project Runway I make Mr. McAwesome watch has paid off, as he has good opinions about fashion. Towards the end of the fashion show, the models were tossing their bouquets. One model aimed for the woman right behind me but her toss was a bit off. As I saw the bouquet flying towards my head, I did what I do at most weddings--I ducked! Mr. McAwesome, however, just opened his hand, with his arm still around me, and caught me this:



Pretty!

After the fashion show they had some raffle giveaways. They called five grooms onstage and asked them one question in order to win one a prize. Mr. McAwesome was one of these guys and the first to be asked:
"When is your wedding date?"

His answer? "We don't have one!"

The place erupted in laughter. But since that is technically true, he won a $25 Lowe's gift card. Hurrah, Mr. McAwesome! After taking in account our tickets and parking, we still came out ahead $1...plus some flowers and a belly full of cake. I could get used to this wedding planning business!

And so it begins...

Within a week of the engagement I could be found under a large pile of bridal magazines, courtesy of my mother. While a grand princess-day was never a consideration for me, we have plenty of mother-daughter bonding time over those silly magazines. Like looking at couture fashion or million-dollar homes, we dreamed about what could be done if money was no object (and what we would do with the money OTHER than blow it on centerpieces!).

On the coldest, iciest, nastiest night in Nashville so far this weekend, mother and daughter braved the elements to go to...our first bridal show! Yes it may have been crazy, but it was so much fun. We hung out at a posh new hotel in town, munched on delish food, had a few too many cake samples, and even took a turn in the photobooth:



As much giggly, girlie fun we had looking at all the nice things, we both knew what would be our favorite part of the wedding--CRAFTS! I can't wait to get my creative juices flowing, and I'll be sure to share my results, good or bad. Get your glue guns, kids, it's going to be a wild ride...