They’e HERE!!!

I know that it doesn’t seem like that long ago to you, but I’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of these bad boys...so the days have just crept slowly by. And then I thought to check on the delivery, so I opened up my personal email and clicked on the notice for shipment and then followed the link that The Tie Bar sent me for tracking. Hmmm...delivered on the 3rd?!?! Wow. Guess we need to check our mail, huh?

Sure enough, once I grabbed the key from the main office desk and went downstairs to check our box, there was an oblong tie box tucked away just waiting for me to open. I didn’t even wait to get back upstairs, but starting easing the packaging open during the short elevator ride!

And here they are...

(Do you like how I snuck in a shot of my Bling???)

You know, they kinda look cool all nestled there together, all different. We had thought that since the Boys were all wearing different black suits that wearing the same eggplant tie would “tie” them all together nicely. But now that I see them all together, they look kinda cool being different! What do you think?

I took the ties with me when I met B for lunch, so that he could be as excited as I am about them. Well, a girl can dream, right? Anyway, we both voted no to the one with squares...it just wasn’t quite right. But the rest of them all were cool with us.

I wish that I could keep a secret better. Then I could NOT tell you which one that we picked. You’d have to wait for the wedding pictures to hit the internet before you knew...but you know that I can’t do that! I’m HORRIBLE at keeping secrets...so the one that we’re going with will be the STRIPED one!

It was my favorite before we ordered them, and it was one of my top two favorites in person. LOVE it. B wasn’t really sure about the lavender stripe in it from the pictures on line, but he admits that it’s sharp looking in person. So that’s one thing done.

I’ve got to return the others and exchange them for the right ones, but otherwise we’re all set on the Boys ties!

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?

Shoes Fit for a Queen!

The last big accomplishment that my Maids and I pulled off on our weekend of shopping came about last. I had on my to-do list for the weekend that I wanted to find some wedding shoes. But it was totally a minor item on the list – first and foremost were the dresses.

Since we took care of the dresses so “quickly” (I know that the Maids probably don’t think that it happened all that quickly!) we had plenty of time to scour the mall for shoes. Except that isn’t really how we stumbled upon our shoes. Here’s what happened…

Like I mentioned before, Maid Britney was happy with her dress, but not sure that she fit in enough with the other girls. So, even though we went ahead and bought her dress along with the others at Penney’s, we continued down through the mall looking for a better dress. I mean, what girl hasn’t bought something and found EXACLTY what she had originally been searching for earlier immediately after buying the one that she settled on? Good thing that returns are so easy!

So we trotted over to Nordstrom’s. Struck out. Their LBD selection was very disappointing, and their shoe sale didn’t have anything that caught my eye. On over to Dillard’s we went. On our way to the escalator to get to the dress section, we saw the shoe event. They were also having a big shoe sale. Like any other normal woman, we headed on over just to check it out.

As we each split up and look through our sizes, Maid Britney comes across a few shoes that she likes. I didn’t really see anything in my size that catches my eye, and I go to take advantage of the chairs located right there (I guess maybe the dresses didn’t happen quite a quickly as I had thought!). Britney tries on a shoe that is a dark brown, but has some accent spots in turquoise peeking through. As Maid Momma is telling Britney how much she likes them, one of them sees another pair of shoes in the same style and picks it up to look closer.

You’re not going to believe this next part.

This shoe is the same style…except that the colors are eggplant with hot pink dots.

I’m not lying.

OMG! They are PERFECT for my wedding shoes. Maid Momma makes a comment about this could be the shoe that we all wear to match since our dresses don’t match, and I pop off a comment back to her. Something to the effect that those shoes are on clearance and what are the odds that we’ll find four pairs, let alone four pairs in the sizes that we need.

How do you like them? Aren't they funky?

What do you think that we found?

Yep, you guessed right. Four pairs. In our sizes.

The best part? The shoes are on the CLEARANCE rack for a whopping $26.70 a pair. That’s under $30 even including the tax!

Seriously. It’s like a sign from God that it was meant to be. And Maid Momma sure did enjoy making me eat my words!

Here's a close-up on the dots - sorry for the blurry picture!

I’m a little stubborn though, and I insist that I need to see the shoes on with the black dresses, because although I’m certain that these are MY wedding shoes (they meet all of my criteria – heel, pop of color, fun and funky), I’m not certain how they’ll look with the LBDs that the Maids have bought. We all go ahead and purchase our pair of shoes, and continue on to the dress section to make sure that we’ve got the best dress for Maid Britney.

We find only one contender for a better dress for Britney and we all file into the fitting room to wait while she tries it on. Lucky for us, this dressing room was empty (or so we thought!) with a large area for waiting. Britney tries on the dress, and although it’s nice on her and looks great, it’s just not the same to me as the other dress that she had. I ask her to pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top try on the dress that she’s already bought from Penney’s one last time. Just so that I can be sure about it and honestly tell her that I KNOW that she’s got the BEST dress for her that she can possibly have.

You see, I know that she’s already bought the right dress. But she still doesn’t feel it yet. See how crafty I am?

When she comes out, the difference is amazing. She is SMOKING hot, and finally it looks like she knows it. I bug her into slipping the shoes on with the dress and the effect is breath-taking. At least to me. Maybe not to anyone else, but it’s perfect. The whole outfit is perfect. As she turns around to go back and change into her regular clothes, we make some cat calls and convince her to “strut her stuff” a little bit. Here’s a picture so that you have the visual…

You can't even tell from back this far that the shoes are eggplant with hot pink dots...

Right then, while her back is turned to the other dressing rooms and she’s hamming it up for us, a little, older Oriental lady comes out of one of the back dressing rooms and gets an eyeful of Britney doing her “thing.” We all die laughing, and I honestly nearing peed my pants at the surprise that Britney got when she turned around that direction doing her walk. The lady left the dressing room, without making a single comment, and we all exploded in laughter again. It was a great ending to a great day. I was actually still chuckling about it right before I feel asleep that night. It was THAT funny!

So there you have it. We made a few more stops along the way home trying to see if we ran across jewelry or hair accessories for me, but didn’t have any luck. Even though we didn’t find anything for me, I did manage to pick up two hair options for little CC for her to choose from. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more for me to pick from, but all in all, I can’t complain about the outcome of the weekend.

We got dresses and shoes. For all the Maids and the bride. We came to a consensus on what to do with my hair (I’ll post those pics soon!), and we had a BLAST. More than anything, the day spent with my Maids solidified in my mind that I couldn’t have asked for better bridesmaids. They are a great group of gals…and I’m the girl lucky enough to call them friend. And having Mama CC there along with us meant so much to me as well! I was glad to have her meet my Maids and like them and share in this special time with me – it meant more thani can say. Just looking around at the support group of great women who love me and will be there for me no matter what just touched my heart.

Hopefully the fun times that we have together this past weekend will continue on during these last few months of wedding planning and the actual wedding day. I know that I feel blessed to have them there with me each step of the way!

Thanks, girls!

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.)

Loving These Much?

Look what I found when I was “browsing” for some good silk flowers…

Isn’t that GORGEOUS?!?!?

It combines all of my colors, and I love the whimsical look of the whole bouquet. What’s even better? It’s all silk, which means that it’s something that I could keep forever, if I wanted to. Plus, as a personal side note and nod to myself and MOH, these people in the floral business KNOW what color eggplant is! Unlike those fools that seem to abound in the linen business…

This bouquet is already made up and ready to order, with a kickin’ price tag! I think that I’m going to order one JUST so that I can see it in person. How awesome would it be if this was as gorgeous in person as it is online? I would literally die…in contentment!

And if that wasn’t enough, look what other options they had in their pre-made bouquets section:
Not “quite” right on the purples, but still beautiful!

LOVE this one. It brings in some other colors, that I wasn’t really thinking of using, but gorgeous!

And then low and behold, this online store might have become my new best friend. I found something that I didn’t even know existed. Lavendar. Lilies.

Check it out…

Aren’t they gorgeous?!?! Mr. CC has made ONE tiny request on the flowers – to include his personal favorite flower, which is the lily. He actually like the Stargazer lily the best, and I’m working hard to fit it into our black, cream and eggplant color scheme here, but I wonder if these beauties would do? They fit in a little nicer…

So if I place the order for any (or ALL!) of those bouquets just to check them out, I think that I’ll also order some of these lilies. They’re on close-out, being discontinued, and I could probably return them if I don’t end up liking them. But if I did like them…WOW!

Have you ever been searching for something else and stumbled upon what could be a little goldmine for your wedding? I’m loving them!

(All images courtesy of http://www.afloral.com/)

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????

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...

Now for the Maids...

Ever since I first started thinking about my wedding, I knew what I wanted for the bridesmaids dresses. I want them all to wear a LBD. Yep, you read that right – a little black dress. Each of their own choosing, and they can all be different.

There are several things that I like about this idea.

#1 – you can find a good LBD anywhere. Doesn’t have to be at a bridal store where the prices can run pretty high. You can find one on sale at a department store, and I’ve even gotten a few really great ones at ROSS.

#2 – they will more than likely wear this dress again. It’s the bane of normal bridesmaid dresses – the fact that you’ll more than likely never wear it again. You spend hundreds of dollars on a beautiful gown, and it looks great on you that one day. (Or maybe not so great – depending on the bride’s choices!) But no matter how hard the bride tries to pick out a dress that you can wear again, it’s hard. Many brides pick a longer dress, thinking in the back of their mind that the maids can have the dress shortened and wear it out again. But more often that not, this doesn’t happen. I know this because two of my own bridesmaids thought that VERY same thought when I was in their wedding. At the time, I agreed with them. In reality, I never had either dress shortened, as I didn’t have anywhere else to wear the dress to anyway – short or long.

#3 – I LOVE the idea of mixing the dresses, the fabrics, the styles. Everyone can choose a dress that fits their own sense of style, their personality, their body type and their budget. This doesn’t have to break the bank.

And I love the idea of all of my ladies and I making a weekend of shopping up in Dallas or somewhere equally fun doing some girl time and bonding over LBD shopping. Love it, love it, love it. I mean, come on – how cute are some of these?

Fun and Flirty? Yes, siree!

















Sultry and Sexy....in spades!

















I LOVE the ruffles/layering effect on this dress - might have to buy it for myself!
















I'm not really sure about the one-shoulder thing, but the look of the whole dress appeals to me...and there is a maid or two that might pick this one for her personality...sassy! I'm not naming names, ladies!
















The little cap sleeves on this makes this dress SO cute!

















Simple and elegant - LOVE IT! Oh, right, I'm NOT shopping for me here....

















This looks like the perfect black sheath dress - check out the sexy slit in the side! growl...
















The rusching here reminds me a little bit of my own dress...and I LOVE the flare hem at the bottom!

















This is just stunning...no other words are needed.

All images courtesy of dillards.com

So what do you think? What I like best about this idea? ALL of these dresses can be found at Dillard's. And in most cases, they were all under $120. LOVE IT! There were even a few that I looked at that were on sale for under $100....and something that you could wear again? I'm sold!

Did anyone else want to do something similar with a LBD? Is any other bride out there just as excited about your BM dresses as you are about your own dress? Sometimes I feel that way...

Flower Girl Dress #1

Yesterday I wrote about how cool it is to get free things…and I think that we can all agree on that point. But I teased you about the flower girls dress(es) that I had already found and bought, so I figured that today I should write about that. actually, just to be mean, I thought about waiting another week before I wrote about it, you know make it a “real” teaser. But I’m just not that mean, contrary to popular belief…

So early on, I had something in mind for my flower girl dresses. Knowing kinda what I wanted for the bridesmaid dresses helped, and with the colors of the ceremony being mainly just black and ivory, it was a simple choice. Having a late October wedding means all kinds of things could happen with the Texas weather, but it’s probably not too early for velvet. In my head, I had conjured up something that had a black velvet top and an ivory or ivory/black skirt that was fuller and some shiny black patent leather shoes. Cute, huh? Yeah, I thought so.

I was at work one day when a co-worker mentioned to me that Macy’s was having a sale. (Now, I have to be honest here, and I’ve never been really impressed with Macy’s. I LOVED Foley’s and the whole store has just gone WAY down hill since Macy’s acquired the chain.) She went on to tell me that they were deeply discounting their winter dresses to make room for Easter dresses and she thought that she remembered seeing black and ivory dresses. Score!

Now me being the procrastinator that I can sometimes be, I waited almost a week before finding time to make it over to Macy’s. I don’t remember what exactly was going on that week, but there were things keeping me from trotting myself over to Macy’s that very night. So by the time that I have my daughter and talked Mr. CC into accompanying us to the dreaded mall for a “quick” shopping trip, it was nearly a week after I had heard about the sale. And of course, by that time there wasn’t much left of the sale. There definitely wasn’t anything in black and ivory, but we did find one dresses that had potential.

It was a simple black velvet sleeveless dress, with a high waist and a small, built-in petty coat to give the skirt some volume. The bad thing? There was a sash on the dress that was god-awful ugly. No, make that U…G….L…Y. The good news? Well, there were two pieces of good news in my opinion. #1 – the sash is removable, so I could easily envision the dress with a different sash (maybe ivory satin or something fancy like that) and could see how that would be easy to make, and fairly cheap. #2 – the dress was on sale. How much you ask?

$17. A whopping $18.40 after sales tax. Sold, ladies and gentlemen.

But to be frank, I wasn’t sold right away. Mr. CC was the one who encouraged me to go ahead and get it, just in case. You see, the velvet isn’t the type of velvet that I had pictured in my head. I was envisioning a lush, very fancy or formal velvet. This dress was velvet, but it was a cheaper, stiffer, not quite as fancy of a velvet as the one in my head. That was pretty much the only thing that I didn’t like about the dress. Well, and that UGLY sash!

But like I said, in my head I could totally see this dress on my daughter the day of the wedding with a fancier ivory sash and possibly a small bolero style fancy jacket to further dress things up a little bit. VERY cute.

And at that price, Mr. CC had a good point. Even if I wanted to keep looking for something else for my daughter to wear, it was a good deal and could be worn just as a regular church dress any given Sunday. Yes, thank you, I would like to keep that hanging!

One flower girl dress down…possibly more to find? Should I keep looking or try to make this one work?

So Many Choices...So Little Time

So I talked a little bit yesterday about my struggle with colors. And to be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure why this is SUCH a dilemma for me. I talked about that yesterday, but I do feel the pressure to get this one “little” decision under my belt.

I think that there is just so much pressure on me to get SOME decision made before I lose all sense of time here. My project at work happens on January 1st, and my life from pretty much next week until the middle of January will be one wild ride…so I guess knowing that that big deadline is fast approaching, I would like to have some decisions made before then.

Especially one as simple as colors should be…

So maybe you can help me. Why don’t you weigh in on the issue? Has anyone out there seen some really pretty wedding combo colors lately? (And no BH, you own wedding colors don’t count – I was there, I already know how pretty they were!)

You can at least help me narrow it down, so here are your choices:

· Black and Cream – very classic and elegant – throw in a pop of color to offset all the black and cream and we’re good to go
· Chocolate Brown and Cream – this is a newer classic – also very elegant – and once again, a contrasting pop of color will break up the sea of brown and cream

So, cast your vote on the color poll that I've posted to the blog and I’ll know which ones you might help me to select. By the way, if you have another idea, tell me about it in the comments section too, since I'm not blogger-savvy enough to know how to add a blank voting spot...

Thanks for your help!

Color Police...9-1-1...HELP!!!

I’m not really sure why I’m struggling so hard with this decision…I cannot pick out a color theme for the wedding!

HELP!

The main thing is that I go back and forth…between WAY too many choices. When I first started thinking about my vision of my perfect wedding, it was brown all the way. A deep, rich chocolate sort of brown paired with a nice ivory. Choosing one more accent color would be easy.

Then my fiancé wasn’t too keen on the idea of a chocolate brown tux…

So my vision shifter to black and ivory. Elegant and classic, so I REALLY like that. Especially if you pick one more accent color that will make a nice pop. But what color. I’m partial to a pink or purple, but not really sure that it works for me.

The problem is that there aren’t any colors that I don’t like. It would be easy if there were shades of color that I absolutely don’t like. Or if I had an absolute favorite, then I would know that I had to incorporate that one color and build the rest around it. Orange is my least favorite color, but I’ve even seen it done in ways that I love! There are just TOO many options…brown…black…cream…sage green…violet blue…magenta…red/crimson…plum…lemony yellow…

Then not to mention there are those color themes…like harvest since we’re thinking fall wedding…or winter colors since it might be cool enough at the end of October or early November when we’re thinking of doing this…or what about peaceful and relaxing colors that soothe and calm the soul? I like that thought too! And looking at pictures isn’t helping – I like them ALL!

What’s a girl to do? And my fiancé is a trooper. He doesn’t really care. He wants me to have whatever I want, even if that means pink or purple. As long as I don’t expect him to actually wear pink or purple…

I know that I do want cream for one of the colors, since my dress with not be white-white. So yea me! I’ve picked one! Yeah, the easiest one of all to pick! Yikes!

And is it just me being irrational to think that you can’t really do much more than this for planning purposes on your wedding until you get the color scheme down? I don’t think so. I think that colors set the tone, mood and sometimes feel for the overall wedding, so I really can’t move on further with planning until I can get this decided! Yikes!

Help! Color scheme 9-1-1 please!