A Perfect Tie In...

I think that I’ve come up with a way to bring all of my reception colors into the ceremony. Tell me what you think about this…

Just in case you need a refresher, here’s a picture of my bouquet:


I’ve actually ordered another bouquet to help make it more the size that I’m looking for in my bridal bouquet and will “fluff” the bouquet with some of these lovelies…

…and then add in fresh cream roses to complete the bouquet and add some real scent to it.

That totally goes along with my color scheme…from the cream tissue paper pomanders, to the lavender poms hanging from the shepherd’s hook, while also including the mixture of eggplant, lavender and cream rose petals lining the aisle. And now you know that it also brings in the eggplant on my shoes (which won’t be visible during the ceremony but I will know that they’re there!).

Having picked such a fun and funky shoes really opened the door to the creativity block that I was suffering from in regards to my Maids’ bouquets. But those shoes solved everything…actually those little hot pink dots solved it all.

I think that I will have my Maids carry a bouquet in the colors of hot pink, light pink and cream flowers. That will tie in perfectly with the rest of my planning, don’t you think?!?! It’s perfect!

Here’s what I’ve found so far…

A hot pink and cream hydrangea…

Light pink roses…

Eva cream and pink berries (to add a different texture to the bouquet-which mimics my own green berries!)…

And then supplement the bouquet with fresh cream roses (like will be in my own bouquet) and possibly a stargazer lily or two thrown in for that splash of big color…

What do you think? Do you agree with me that it’s perfect for what I’m trying to accomplish? I think that if all bouquets are wrapped in black satin ribbon, held with either rhinestone or pearl pins, it will tie everything together SO nicely.

That would leave me being original with the purple hues all being in my bouquet, and the pinks all being in their bouquets.

I need to see them together to make my final decision – I’m SURE that we’ve discussed in detail before how difficult it is for me to picture things in my head sometimes. I've ordered samples of all of the pink hued flowers shown above so that I can see the quality before I settle on this idea. There’s a lot of green to my bouquet, but I’m hoping that adding the cream and lavender roses to my bouquet will tone that down quite a bit. Do you agree?

Can you picture this better than I can? I think that it’s a perfect compliment to our shoes…and I LOVE how the eggplant and hot pink work together on those shoes!

A Home Run Idea?!?!

After all of the re-caps from last week’s shopping trip, I feel like I’ve just been a brainstorming machine over here lately! That’s not actually true, some things have been “stewing” on my “cooktop” but have needed to think about them a little more.

So now, after making some decisions regarding the bridal party attire – WooHoo to us! – I can move forward with some other things that I’ve been thinking of. One of the main topics of focus for me right now is those darn centerpieces. And now that I have these fabulous shoes decking out the entire girl-side of the wedding party, I have my hot pink thrown back into my color mix. Which makes bringing those Stargazer Lilies that Mr. CC loves so much back into the mix a LOT easier.

I know that I posted here about an idea to use a plant seated into the vase with little flowers inserted into the plant. This would bring the cost down on my floral budget, while also allowing me to DIY a lot of the project. But finding what I had pictured in my mind turned out to be harder than I thought. I think that was partly because I wasn’t totally sold on the idea.

Back to square one. Where should you start looking when you’re fresh out of ideas? Well, an obvious choice would be the internet. But I took the road less traveled and pulled out my bridal book. What’s that? Oh, my BRIDAL book, that large three-ring binder that I’ve been lugging around with me, storing snippets of information in each time I see something that I like. Yeah, that book. You mean to tell me that it can be used for things other than just storage? No way.

Apparently so. I took a break from a massive job-role mapping project that I was working on at work the other day, and pulled out my trusty bridal book and started perusing the pictures again. A lot of the pictures that I tore out will not work for my venue, but I kept them to use as inspiration. Because if I decided to go the route of using an actual florist, then I would need some inspiration pictures to provide to him/her so that he/she could get the overall “feel” that I was going for. I thought that it might do me some good to flip back through the pictures looking for fresh ideas and inspiration.

And since I’m posting about it, you’ve got to know that I found something. Actually, I found three somethings. I found three separate pictures that I’m going to try to combine into one finished centerpiece idea. I was going to pull in the pictures here, but as they were all three out of magazines that I collected god only knows when...you get that it was impossible to find them. Although I did look for them online, but no luck.

And here is my centerpiece (donated by the lovely Maid Britney!):
What I am envisioning happening here is this: the centerpiece is filled with water and maybe some green rocks/filler stuff on the bottom to pull in some color (maybe a light lime green, Mama CC?) with one single Stargazer lily floating on top. The candles are all lit and reflecting off the water beautifully. Around the bottom of the centerpiece, I’ve arranged a bed of moss and lovingly inserted a mixture of fresh and artificial flowers into the moss in shades of cream, lavender and light pink…all nestled on top of those GLORIOUS eggplant tablecloths.

To put it simply…I LOVE IT!

It’s perfect. Simple. Elegant. Goes with the theme and overall feel of our wedding. And would be simple enough for me to do on my own, which is important to this cost-conscious bride! And of course, I have the help of my talented Maids and Mama CC and FMIL CC that would also love to help out. Hint, hint ladies!

It incorporates all of my colors, and MOST importantly the ONE SINGLE thing that Mr. CC has requested of me – the Stargazer lily. I was worried about how the hot pink would look against the eggplant, but since it’s off of the table and floating in the vase, I think that it’s perfect. And seriously, after seeing the great shoes that we’re all sporting, how could I still be worried about the combination of eggplant and hot pink?!?!

Can you picture it all too? It’s a little hard, I know. But try.

It was hard for me to picture too, so i did a mock-up at home with some lilies that I bought at HEB. I mean, I didn't even know if lilies actually float!

From here, you can see the bottom of the vases needs something
Here's a close-up on the flower...although the lily doesn't float, the petals hold it up...even when water gets in the center of the flower.

This is a view that you would walk up to it on a table and see...looking down...it's stunning!

What do you think?

It might be a little bit of work to make the ring around the bottom that I'm envisioning, but well worth it, I think. And can anyone tell me where I can buy moss? I would love to have real moss, along with real roses and of course real lilies. The rest of the flowers would be artificial, to get the colors that I want during the time period that I want them.

I found some artificial moss at http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ but I can’t help thinking that real moss would be THAT much prettier…any ideas on where I can get that? And on a budget?

Another Pomander Trial...

Mr. CC ended up having to work for a little while this past Saturday, which hasn’t happened in quite a while. It gave me the opportunity to have the house to myself for a while, so you know what that means, right?

Wedding TV show marathon!

Haha, just kidding. Well, I’m not really kidding, I did watch quite a few wedding TV shows Saturday morning. I mean, heck, no kids, no future spouse…what’s a bride to do if NOT watch wedding TV shows?!?! But I didn’t just sit around and watch TV, no ma’am. I had a to-do list with a few things that I’ve been meaning to work on and I was bound and determined to get them accomplished during this brief window of opportunity. I hear a few of you back there; you’re thinking what a great time to clean the house, right? WRONG! I can clean the house any old day of the week, and without my kiddos around, that just seems mean – they LOVE those swiffer dusters!

So I set to work. One of the items on my to-do list was to work on the pomanders. Several of you had made the suggestion to maybe use artificial flowers on the pomanders instead of the tissue paper. I made a few trips to Hobby Lobby over the course of last week and purchase quite a few options to work with.

I didn’t really like the miniature roses that Hobby Lobby had to offer. They were cheap and really fake looking, in my opinion. But I bought some anyway. I also bought regular sized roses, because I liked those better. My thought process was that I would be able to gently pull the heads of the flowers off of the stem and stick them into the Styrofoam ball without using any hot glue. Therefore, I would be able to easily return what didn’t work out…you following along with me?

Wouldn’t you know it…the ones that I didn’t like best were the ones that actually looked the coolest. The larger roses were WAY too big for the small Styrofoam balls that I had purchased and would be too oversized once completed – kind of like the tissue paper balls. But those fake-looking miniature roses were the coolest looking thing. Only problem that I ran into? I ended up having to use hot glue to get those little rosebuds to attach well. Some of them had enough of a stem once removed to actually stick into the Styrofoam ball, but a lot of them didn’t. Since I’d rather err on the side of caution, I pulled out my trusty mini hot glue gun and put just a dab of hot glue on the end of each stem before sticking it in…worked like a charm!

So here’s the results!

What do you think? I think that they look SO cool. Very textured looking and really neat. The one thing that I didn’t like? Now it seemed too small. These artificial flowers didn’t stand up quite like the tissue paper flowers and I think that the Styrofoam ball underneath needs to be a little bigger. I waited (impatiently) for Mr. CC to make it home from work so that I could show off my work and get his opinion on the matter. He agreed with me that the ball needed to be “just a bit” bigger, and off to Hobby Lobby I went.

I mean, the flowers were on a 50% off sale ending on Saturday…I HAD to buy them then! So I picked up more flowers, returned the ones that I wasn’t going to use and grabbed two different sizes of larger Styrofoam balls to see which one worked. Mr. CC and I were once again in total agreement, and Saturday night while we sat and watched a movie, I worked on pulling off all the little rosebuds on the 18 stems of miniature roses that I had purchased. That way on Sunday, when I was ready to work again, I could easily reach into a bag and pull out what I needed.

Here’s the second trial:

We LOVE this one.

A close up shot so that you can see the detail.

So picture 8 of these lining the walkway, 4 on each side, with a mixture of cream, lavender and eggplant rose petals lining the aisle. I can see it SO clearly in my head and it’s perfect! Of course, I will make a pretty bow on the actual ones when we tie them up for real.

What do you think? Do you like these pomanders better than the tissue paper ones? Do you like the smaller size or the larger one? (I'm sorry - I tried to take the pictures from the same zoom setting so that you could compare apples to apples...doesn't look like I accomplished that. In real life, the smaller one is MUCH smaller than the larger one.)

Do My Eyes Deceive Me???

Sorry for my absence yesterday…rough day. We all have them, right?

Anyway, so when I left you last, there were some linen samples winging their way to me. I checked the post office, like a true stalker, about three times a day for the last two days. My hard work paid off yesterday, and when I went for the SECOND time that day, there was a key for a larger package box…

And here’s what I found waiting for me…

Wait a minute…do my eyes deceive me?

Is that EGGPLANT that I see? I don't know - my flash messed up the picture and it's all blurry since I was trying to zoom in so much, but the actual color is almost black. It's not nearly that purpleface to face.

Well, technically it’s Plum. At least that’s what the color swatch says…but it’s eggplant linens, ladies and gentlemen! I’m LOVING it.

I haven’t had a chance with my crazy work schedule to call and talk to the lady that runs this linen company, but MOH just really loved her the other day when they met. She has a lot of cool ideas that I can do with eggplant, and since she knows a lot about colors and such she can totally help steer me around these crazy ideas that I have.

One funny thing that happened. In daylight (I’m sure that the picture quality isn’t good enough maybe for you to tell) the Plum color is the perfect shade of Eggplant that I’ve been (or MOH has been) searching high and low for. But MOH has a concern. She’s wondering if choosing that darkest shade of Plum in a room made completely out of wood and with evening lighting that that shade of purple will be too dark and we might want to go with the swatch right above, called Deep Purple.

I just about looked crossways at my phone when MOH muttered those sacrilegious words…that’s about as bad as me saying that I would change my tablecloth colors…

So what do you think? Can you even tell from the pictures? Should I go with a little more of a “purpley” color since the lighting will be low and it will be dark? HELP!

Yes, the Elusive Eggplant Tablecloths AGAIN...

My MOH might have saved the day once again!

I don’t know how she continues to do this, but she constantly pulls these white rabbits out of a hat and saves the day – and I love her for it! She’s been the main one dealing with the issue of the elusive eggplant tablecloths, which I’ve posted repeatedly about in the past. Which is nice for me, because I don’t have the stress of dealing with it all. That leaves my time free for deciding what to do if we run into the situation where I have to decide to change my colors….

Calm down, MOH…take a deep breath and TAKE A BREAK!

She got to the proverbial end of the barrel when it came to eggplant linens for my wedding, and what did she do? Did she give up? Nope. She found another barrel.

Yep, she found a lady in San Antonio that rents linens out of her house, and was lucky enough to call this lady at a time when she was planning on doing an event there in Boerne (where MOH lives!). The two of them met up on Saturday, put their little heads together and came up with several solutions for me.

Here’s what I know so far:

The MOH likes her and the fabric swatches that the linen lady had with her.
The linen lady was nice enough to let MOH “borrow” the swatches with just a promise to mail them back to her so that I could see them myself.
The price? Only $18/linen, which is in my budget.

So no, I haven’t seen them up close and personal yet, but MOH thinks that one of the three fabric choices that they sent me will work. And I’m HIGHLY excited about that since the linen vendor that I checked out on Friday that SWORE that they had eggplant linens, did NOT in fact carry eggplant linens…and they were $26/linen, which is NOT technically in my budget.

MOH dutifully dropped the sample in the mail to me today…so I’m waiting on pins and needles for it to get here. I hope, I hope and hope some more that these selections will work with what Mr. CC and I have in mind…because if they don’t, I just don’t think that I have the energy to keep looking…

Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ve got my fingers crossed, my legs crossed, as many toes as I can cross, and my eyes are sometimes crossed…but that may not have anything to do with table linens, unfortunately. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the sample.

The Results Are In...

I left the poll open for as long as I could, and although it didn’t receive many votes, a definite opinion was given.

3 out of 4 votes said that I should keep on looking for the eggplant tablecloths.

I didn’t cast my own vote, just to keep it clean and legal and all…but I have to say that I agree with the “voters!”

Especially when I saw these words…FREE SHIPPING…


I found what I think will be the right shade of eggplant in a 120” round tablecloth that I can purchase, but one of the drawbacks to buying them (other than the price!) was that the shipping charges would probably eat my lunch to get them to me. But those two little words start to make me rub my hands together gleefully!

Seriously. I mean, FREE SHIPPING?!?!? Tablecloths, especially tablecloths in the size that I’m looking to order would be HEAVY…and add to the total cost of my decision to purchase these bad boys…but FREE SHIPPING? Makes it a little more doable in my mind. Let’s see if I can make you follow my logic.

The cost of these beautiful babies is now only $28.20/piece. With FREE SHIPPING there would be no extra cost, and since the vendor isn’t located in TX which means that I wouldn’t pay sales tax on the items. So my total out the door price for 16 of these bad boys would be $451.20. I know, I know. It’s a lot.

But bear with me and my thinking for a moment…

The cost of renting the eggplant tablecloths (which maybe NOW is a good time to remind you that I can’t FIND these to rent anywhere?) is running anywhere from $15/cloth on up to $26.25/cloth. Finding an average between these is $20.63. So, to RENT 16 of these would cost me $330.00.

Hmmm…so that makes the difference between renting and buying only $121.20. That’s really not so much to pay for peace of mind, right?

Then again, owning these makes for a few more headaches such as where do I put 16 120” round tablecloths? Or will I need to rent a steamer to get these picture perfect ready for the wedding after being shipped and stored over 6 months? How much would that cost? And then, the most important question – what do I do with 16 120” round eggplant polyester tablecloths after the wedding?

Well, I would sell them. On ebay. To the highest bidder. Or put them on weddingbee.com for sale. And the most gorgeous part about this whole line of thinking? As long as I sold them for more than the difference between buying and renting, then I made money on the whole process. That’s right. As long as I could sell the tablecloths for more than $121.20, then I would cover the cost of buying them versus renting them. So even if I could find them (which I’m having problems doing at the moment…) for $15/cloth to rent, I would only have to see them for $211.20 to cover my expenses. Hmmm…the little wheels in my mind are spinning like mad! And I know one person (yes you, MOH) who is SO happy to hear me say that I'm not giving up on eggplant yet...

Anyone else think that I might be on to something here???

Asking the Looming Question...

So, I’m going to post about a subject that I know at least ONE person will probably hate me for, but here it is.

The question of the day is this: IF I did change my tablecloth color (Gasp!) what could I do to bring the color of eggplant back into my reception venue?

Yeah, I know MOH, I know. It’s almost sacrilegious typing the question…but it’s out there anyway.

I’ve come up with a few options, but maybe you will be able to help me think up something else…since I SO do NOT want to choose this option, that might have the teensiest little bitsiest part of why I’m having decorator’s block when I think about this option…

The first thing that I thought of was to incorporate eggplant napkins, elegantly draped or folded to take up a good portion of the table top. Not my favorite option, but an option that would bring eggplant back to life at the venue. The main concern? If I’m having this much trouble finding eggplant tablecloths, will I run into the same dilemma with napkins? Possibly. But it’s also possible to me that I could make 200 napkins out of that elegant eggplant satin that I found in Dallas on my last trip up there…and with my serging machine and the right shade of thread, it would be a simple matter for the most part. Of course, they might be simple to find and buy, I haven’t looked into the cost of doing that yet…but it’s an option. Also along those lines is maybe finding or making eggplant table runners…or those draping cloths that cover the tops of the tables, but don’t go all the way to the floor. Something like the picture above. My problem with this option? Once again, finding the right color in a full tablecloth is hard enough…yada yada yada, you get the point. And I’m not sure that I like the look of table runners. It seems to me that the table might get a little busy with runners, napkins, plates and glasses. Not to mention the centerpieces and anything additional that I put on the tables to jazz them up…so I’m not sold on this option.

The only other thing that I’ve thought of is incorporating my beloved eggplant color into the flowers. One of my Maids got married just last September and had some LOVELY centerpiece vase/candle holder combo thingys that Mr. CC and I liked and she has graciously offered us use of them before she sells them. So, when I first started planning this shindig I wasn’t sure about using flowers on the centerpieces, but now it looks like I will have vases for free…a good reason to now use flowers in the décor. So can I incorporate enough eggplant in the flowers to appease my whims and desires?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t.

And the whole reason for trying to bring in more color is because my photographer mentioned that her only complaint about shooting out at Texas Old Town, our fabulous venue, was that everything in sight was wood, which tends to cast a yellowish hue on everything. She photoshops it out, so that it’s not something that I have to actually deal with in my pictures, but I was hoping to bring in enough color to combat some of that for her. Plus, I think that it will look nice…

Other than those ideas, I’ve drawn a blank. Can you come up with anything else that I could do to bring in more color than just the black and cream theme that I’ve got going? Or maybe I should just leave it black and cream and go with that? I don’t know right now….I need HELP!!!

The Saga of the Eggplant Tablecloth Continues...

If you remember, from here, here and here...I'm having a "little" bit of trouble finding the linens that I envisioned having for our reception.

Isn't that how it ALWAYS happens? It does for me, it seems. You would think that linens really wouldn't be THE hardest part about planning my wedding...but that's what I get for loving purple, huh? And a SPECIFIC shade of purple, no less.

I've just quit thinking about it, to be honest. I've had the poll posted to the side here letting readers vote on what they think that I should do - and you're all SO funny about the voting process. Mama CC doesn't want to offend with her vote, and two of my Maids were the obvious other votes...you gals are great!

So I've just been coasting about it all. Letting my MOH (who now considers finding eggplant tablescloths her personal life's mission!) work her magic. Just sitting here crossing my fingers, hoping for the best, all the while starting the conversations with Mr. CC about possible changing the color of the tablecloths...Just In Case.

And low and behold, I get an email on Saturday - my dear friend may have done it again. Now, she's offering me no guarantees, but she found three places in/around our area that MIGHT have something CLOSE to eggplant. And to be perfectly honest here, she and I aren't really sure why there is a problem with people understanding what shade of purple eggplant is...even straight men understand the question, so why is it that linen rental company women CAN'T get the right shade? We don't know...we would lose SO much sleep at night if we continued to wonder on this.

Anyway, so I'm going to start the process of checking these last few out. And then weighing my options. One place will send me a sample of what they call eggplant, and I like that. Another place can't send me a sample, but does have a book that either myself of MOH can go and look at sometime soon. The last place...well, I can't remember what the deal was with them...do you see how tiring this all is? If it wasn't for my FABULOUS MOH putting in such long hours on this "little" project from H*LL...well, you know.

So off we go again. I'll be sure to keep you updated on what we find out. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Did ANYONE else out there have THIS much trouble finding their perfect linens????

What Does A Girl Do NOW?!?!

I’ve been putting off writing about this for a while now…hoping against ALL hopes that it would all work out...

If you remember, I wrote not so long ago here that my maid of honor had saved the day on the dilemma with my table linens. And then I wrote this post about how the tablecloths situation didn’t really resolve itself…so when I left off, I was going to check back in with her in a week and see what she was able to find for me.

Well…one thing led to another, and before I knew it three weeks had passed. Oops! I guess that I got busy with other things. So, I was talking with MOH this past weekend (she HAD to apologize via phone about the April Fool’s joke!) and she asked me what had ever come from the whole tablecloth situation. When I realized that I had not called back yet, MOH offered to go by there one day this week and take a look at things if they were in stock now since she was going to San Antonio on another errand already.

Great. I checked with Adrianna and sure enough the eggplant tablecloths were in and MOH could easily stop by and look. I waited “patiently” for Wednesday to come around. And waited patiently for the afternoon to pass…until I got MOH’s text message. It’s too funny not to share…

Okay-No it is no April fools joke ~~~~~~~~~~~~we are back to square one. I guess know one understands the color eggplant!!!!!!! It's on my dam computer as a color!!!!!!It is no more Dam you and your colors, it's WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!!!!!!! I never thought it would be this hard to find or hard for someone to understand the color, but I assure you I am not done trying. Okay- Adriana tried, it is a deeper purple that a normal purple but it is not DARK DARK purple. She showed me the table cloth as soon as I got in the door and I explained to her what we were looking for and I even had a fan deck for our paint with me and I showed her something close to what you want, she went back herself to make sure that they did not pull the wrong one for her, a few minutes later she came back with another table cloth and I thought YEA YEA YEA, I got excited to fast, it was the same color as they brought up the first time. So~~~~~~~~~~~~~I will be contacting people over the next few day to try and find them for you. I will be in touch!!!!!

So we’re back to square one on the table linens…while MOH is searching frantically for them elsewhere, I’m trying to consider other options.

While I was in Dallas last week with work, I managed a quick trip to Harry Hines (fabric deluxe shopper’s mecca!) and found the perfect shade of purple in a satin material that would make beautiful tablecloths…but there are issues. #1 – it’s WAY out of my budget for this and #2 – I’d have to make them and last, but not least, #3 – the store didn’t have enough material anyway….

So I’m back to square one…what options do you think that I have? Here are the ones that I see:
#1 – keep looking – they HAVE to exist somewhere
#2 – buy them online and try to resell them after the wedding to recoup some of the extra cost vs. renting
#3 – find the material somewhere and make them
#4 – change the color of the tablecloth and go with either black or cream, letting purple just be a true accent color in the floral arrangements

What do you think? Am I crazy for even considering making them? Can you imagine how many yards upon yards of fabric that I would need to accomplish this? Vote on the poll to the right on what you think I should do…I can’t wait to see the results!

The Elusive Eggplant...Tablecloths

So this post is coming to you a bit belated….the truth of the matter is that I had to figure out what I was going to do and THEN I could write about what happened. And although I still don’t know “exactly” what the plan is, I have a good idea in my head…which is the best that I can do at this point.

Ok – a few weeks back, I wrote this post regarding the quest for eggplant colored tablecloths. And at that time, my MOH came through with flying colors on finding a vendor that could supply these linens to us and NOT charge an arm and a leg for them. All of that changed a few Saturdays ago…

It all started out so innocently. We don’t have the kiddos this particular weekend, so early on Saturday morning we’re up and at ‘em…making our way down I-35 to get to San Antonio. I know that it might seem a little paranoid for me to check these personally, but in my defense MOH had not seen the color in person either; and we both were going to feel better knowing that the shade of purple that they were calling eggplant was the same shade of purple that I was calling eggplant. Most people are aware that color hues range from darks to lights within each color family and Mr. CC had only to see one really bright example of what I’d call “burple” to convert to my way of thinking on this one. And since I sold him on the idea of eggplant, he’s kind of taken with it all.

The store was busy when we went in, but we killed the time checking out their table set-ups and looking at different tableware, glassware and silverware options. Because if we’re going to go to all the trouble to rent the linens from this place in San Antonio, we’re just going to get it all from there, you know? Having made our selections, a salesman came over to ask if he could help us. I explain that my MOH had called earlier about seeing the example of eggplant tablecloths that they had and he led me into a room off of the main showroom. Once there, he showed me a very pretty tablecloth. That was not eggplant. It was a nice shade of purple, with embroidery and sequins or other such sparkly things, but not eggplant. Not the tablecloth that I came there to see. Hmmm…

I politely inquired about solid colored linens. To which he directed me to the napkin table where they had all colors of solid linens displayed with just the napkin from the matching set. Yes, thank you sir. I saw that display earlier, and though there are several nice shades of purple on there, there’s not an eggplant. Nothing darker than the dreaded burple color….now we’re starting to get worried. When I told him that we had been told on the phone that there was a new linen (not even in the computer yet) that was a deep, dark purple, almost a black, he politely (not really) told me that what I could see before me was what they had.

Hmmm…how disappointing. We thanked him and left rather quickly.

How disappointing. We were both bummed for the afternoon. I could tell that Mr. CC was just as upset as I was…probably not. Oh well. We still had some options of buying the tablecloths from the place online that I had found them…and I was certain that putting a post on weddingbee.com would help me find a good solution too.

Luckily for me, when MOH and I put our heads together on this, we both thought that before giving up all hope that it would be best if we called the initial lady back one more time to verify what the gentleman told me on Saturday. I told MOH that I would handle her this time, and called Adrianna right away. Adrianne was most helpful, and she assured me that there was another newer shade of purple that she would call eggplant. (somehow I just trust a girl’s sense of color over a guy’s…) And in fact, the color is so new that she didn’t even have a sample to show me at her main location.

I’m supposed to call her within the next day or so and see if she has an estimated arrival date on these new linens…so I sit patiently to hear the final verdict. Now with everything that’s gone on recently trying to track these down, I want to see them in person before I call the search off.

So keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ll let you know what I hear from Adrianna…I know that you can’t wait...

Has anyone else out there had trouble tracking down that specific item that you just KNOW will make the wedding perfect? I'm trying not to lose hope here...

The TO DO list shortens...by one

Let’s talk about table linens. They have been the BANE of my existence for about two or three weeks now…seriously. It’s been a major dilemma and road block in the whole wedding planning process. I know, Mr. CC, I know. I’m making it harder than it has to be…just like SO many things. Oh well. That’s me, and you know that you love me anyway. Thanks for being patient while I was the linen-Nazi there for a few weeks. You’ll be happy to hear that thanks to my MOH coming through in a pinch…we HAVE table linens!

YEAH! YEAH! The crowd roars in the background…ok, so maybe that’s all just in my head. In real life, it’s just me doing the happy dance here while I write this post...

So here’s the problem with my linens. They’re not abnormal in any way, just your standard 120” round tablecloths that I’m looking for. I’m not looking for special material, just plain old regular tablecloth polyester. But I am looking for a specific color. It’s eggplant. (see color chart below)

It’s not purple, it’s not lilac, and it’s definitely not Burple. (If you don’t know what color burple is, just comment below and I’ll explain on a case-by-case situation…) The color that I’ve been looking for is eggplant. A deep, rich, elegant shade of purple that’s almost black it’s so dark. And it’s elusive. Very, very elusive. At least it is in Austin, TX. Maybe in other parts of the country it’s really easy to find. But not in Austin. All of the major party rental places that I’ve contacted do not carry this color. Now, they carry a nice ivory tablecloth that I could then rent a dark purple organza overlay that would work nicely in a pinch…but that’s $12 for the cloth and then $20 for the overlay??? Uh, uh. No way, no how.

I’ve searched high…and I’ve searched low. And honestly, I think that I’ve searched everywhere in between high and low. I’ve searched in person (don’t even bring up the disastrous shopping trip, Mr. CC!) and I’ve searched online. I’ve contacted smaller rental companies by phone and email. I feel that I was VERY diligent in my search here in Austin.

So then I started searching for alternative ways to score me some eggplant tablecloths. Because by this time in the wedding planning process, I’ve worked VERY hard to sway Mr. CC over to the eggplant team, and now he’s set on having these dark purple, very elegant looking, eggplant tablecloths. When I slightly suggested that we use lilac or ivory tablecloths, the look that was shot in my general vicinity was almost murderous. And who can blame him, after riding the color merry-go-wheel ride for several weeks/months and finally being able to stop the craziness – no one wants to start that up again! So, the search started.

I thought of three options: buy them, make them, or rent them from out of town.

Rentals still topped the chart on my list because of the price factor of the other two options. But I was a little leery of renting online without seeing the color with my own eyes.

I found a wholesale party supply place online that I fell in love with their shade of eggplant (image source of above color chart) but unfortunately, to buy the tablecloths, they were $28 a piece. Kind of steep when you’re talking about ordering 15 of those bad boys. Mr. CC gave me the go ahead to order them, but I was a little scared. What if the quality was bad? What if I didn’t like them? So I tried to order just 1 to see how they would work in real life so that I could touch and feel, but since it’s a wholesale supply place, the minimum order was 10. Not going to work. And at $450 for the 15 that I needed, I just didn’t feel right spending the budget on linens.

And I did toy with the idea of trying to resell them as eggplant is a popular wedding color right now. I even thought about trying to find someone to go in together with them through the boards on weddingbee.com. If someone else could pay half and I could pay half and we both got to use them, that would be cool. And when you actually think about it, I would only have to sell them for the price that I paid for them MINUS the rental price that I would have paid to rent them. That way I was selling them for the extra money that I paid out, not just trying to recoup what I had actually paid. You get that? A nice idea, but still seems like a lot of work.

And making them? Even more work. And lots of money. I found some material at a fabric store in North Austin that would work, but it was $5.99/yard. And I calculated that I would need between 5-6 yards per table…not a budget-friendly decision. Not to mention the time that it would take to actually MAKE the darn things.

Enter my MOH. Apparently in all of my forgetfulness I didn’t recall that she organizes her community Christmas dinner each and every year for the Fire Department. And this isn’t some little small-town deal, this is big. So she has all sorts of contacts with restaurants in her town to get linens and such for her party. When I sat down and had dinner with her last week and officially asked her to be my MOH (yes, we both cried) her first official act was to agree to work her contacts for the table linens.

And she came through for me today. She emailed me just now and told me that she found them from her first choice lady for $15/cloth. In the right color. The only downside being that the lady just has 14 cloths, not the 15 that I had originally told her to look for. No problem! Book it! Does she need a deposit? The total of 15 cloths needed that I had given her originally was just an estimate and if I did need extras, then I can always do the bride/groom table or the wedding party tables in ivory to set them apart. No worries. And even though it’s renting sight unseen for me, my MOH assures me that the color is right, and she’ll be able to just bring them in with her and take them back with her. No worry about shipping them back and forth if renting from afar. A NICE solution!

Table linens…CHECK!

Do you feel a great sense of accomplishment when you manage to check off items on your own personal to do list?

Am I Obsessed with Colors???

This is a question that I’ve recently been asking myself…which is shortly followed by an even bigger question…is this NORMAL for most brides? I’ve never been one to follow the strict code of what is most popular, but in this case I’d like to think that my temporary insanity is perfectly normal, and an affliction that hits most brides at the start of the planning process.

I mean, like I’ve stated in an earlier blog, the main problem is that I like too many colors. I like brown, I like black, I LOVE purple and pink, I think that green is pretty, but could also go with a deep navy color. Not to mention those nice fall colors that make such beautiful centerpieces that I’ve been seeing EVERYWHERE!

And that’s the real problem…once you start obsessing over these kinds of things, it just grows exponentially on you so that everywhere you go, everything you see reminds you of something that you saw somewhere in some bridal magazine that you probably paid too much for to just rip pages out of it anyway! ARRGGGHHHH!

Ok. I can do this. I can take nice, deep breaths that will calm me and settle my nerves. Breathe in. Breathe out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

You see, last week I didn’t have all of this tension. I had decided upon my color scheme for the wedding, and I had even talked Mr. CC into a color that I was certain he’d have problems with. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly since I know that he just wants me to be happy with it all, that was a very easy decision for him to come to terms with. But then, over the weekend, I talked to some new people about the wedding and one of them didn’t like my color selection at all. And she was SO against it, that I started to doubt and rethink my whole vision.

It’s not that she’s against my choice, it’s just not what she would do. And that’s something that I need to learn to deal better with. It’s not a personal thing if you don’t like my color selection, you might simply not like the color purple (like in this case). That doesn’t mean that I need to question what I want, right? But you know, she had some good arguments for some other colors…and that brought up decisions that I had long since made, so that I’m rethinking those initial decisions too…what a mess!

I’m just a mess. There’s no way around it. And poor Mr. CC…he literally does NOT know what to do with me, or what the big deal is. He doesn’t get that I can’t move forward in my planning (or my envisioning) until this VERY important decision is made…and stuck with. I know that he’s wondering if he got engaged to a total wacky lady – he knows that I didn’t used to be this color obsessed…even if I have always been slightly wishy-washy…

I’ve made a deal with myself. I WILL make this decision soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon. Like within the week….or two…