We have been so busy lately that I haven't been blogging probably as much as I should and I have some downtime today, so I can properly update and download all the things that have been floating around in my brain.

Last week (before the snowstorm hit) I mailed out our Save the Dates. I have had so many people telling us they received them and loved them so it's making all my hard work seem so worth it. It made everything seem so much more real.

Last weekend I ended up buying rhinestones at JoAnns while they were on sale and I had a coupon so I did the "I Do" on the bottom of my shoes and made myself a "day of" hoodie. The hoodie is black with the royal blue rhinestones, but I have a tendency to ruin anything white, so it made more sense to me. Plus I wanted to have something I could wear again so I didn't put "bride" or anything like that on it. Everything turned out really well and I was really happy with it. I still have some rhinestones left over that I may stick into the flowergirl pomander or use on the card box, but I am going to wait and see what I feel like a little closer to the time.

Yesterday I checked off two more big things on the list....honeymoon and Tony's ring. We decided to go to Jamaica and I put the deposit on the trip yesterday! I am so excited, especially now because it's been soo cold and snowy here lately. We also went a picked out Tony's ring a few weeks ago but finally decided to buy it yesterday. I thought it was on sale, but I guess it wasn't because it rang up the regular price. That's okay though because it was less money than I expected to spend originally anyways and he really likes it which is more important to me. He wore it home from the mall so he must have been pretty excited about it too!

I know I've been a little absent on the blogging and wedding planning stuff, but with the holidays and work things have been a little busy lately. I did get almost all of our save the dates addressed and stamped waiting to go out at the end of the month. Today I also got the bridesmaids jewelry made. Also did a TON of bargain hunting while I was in the homeland last weekend. Got thank-you notes from the Dollar Daze (200 for $12) and our cake knife and server there also. Bought our cake topper at Michaels for about $8 which was an amazing deal! I also had to buy my shoes this weekend because they were about to pull them out of the stores.

I haven't been doing much on the wedding front lately. I guess I kind of exhausted everything I was thinking of at the time, and now I'm in between projects again. I have about half of our save the date addressed but the rest need more glue dots, or I'm waiting for people to give me their addresses so not much I can do. 
I spent the weekend in Chicago with my "new" family which was fun but still different. I guess I am just not used to being part of the family yet. But I did get all my Christmas shopping done for our families and everything is wrapped and under our tree. Our tree looks so pretty now!

Thursday night, Kathe and I went to get my dress. I almost forgot how gorgeous it is since I only had crummy cell phone pictures of it from when I tried on. It's so wonderful! I just love it and I am so happy with it! It was a little snug, but hopefully by eating well for the next 10 months or so, I'll lose a couple pounds and it will fit perfectly. I am really lucky because it fits like a glove now, so it won't need any alterations, only the bustle.

Friday, I made the tutu for our flowergirl A. The tulle was on sale at Hobby Lobby last week so I figured what the heck. Well turns out my $5 adventure was a good one. It's long on her now, but I don't want to trim it until closer to the wedding so we will know how tall she will be. It looked so stinkin cute on her though :) Only sad thing was when she said "Jess....off" Hopefully it will grow on her.

This weekend was a work weekend and a crazy one at that. But I did have some time to work on the STDs last night and Friday night. I started doing the addressing on the envelopes, just because I am afraid December is going to fly by with both of us going on vacations and the holidays and then it will be time to mail them before I know it. I would rather have the majority of them addressed and waiting ready to go so I won't have so much to do in

I started working for real on the STDs tonight. A couple hours and waaaay too much hot glue later, I have about 100 ready to have the magnets stuck on. I also got myself enough with the glue gun to get a blister on my knuckle :( . I need a new printer cartridge, but WallyWorld didn't have it today so I will have to check again later this week. I can't print anymore since I'm out of ink, but I may get this bunch all put together and addressed before I print more, just to see how many more I will actually need.
Kathe and I are going to pick up my dress tomorrow and hopefully we will order my veil too. I am super excited about that!

We got so much accomplished today! I'm really happy with the way things are shaping up.
First things first, MY DRESS CAME IN! :) I am so excited to go see it and try it on again. I am going to pick it up this week and will be taking FMIL with me so she can see it in person too.
Second, we picked a BM dress today. My sister is the shortest of the bunch, plus she is probably the most picky one so we had her try them on and pick which ones she liked the best. The one she liked best was the one I originally wanted so I was really happy we picked those out. One more sigh of relief here. They don't have to be ordered until February, but since L will be in town over Christmas, I wanted to have things ready so she could try on in town if she wants too.
Third, we had our flower consultation today and it went so much better than I expected. It was so easy and I pretty much knew what I wanted for bouquets. The centerpieces were a whole other story, but I think we came up with some really good options with our consultants help. She did the flowers for a wedding I went to earlier this year and we are basically using the same flowers just in different colors since I loved my friend's bouquets so much. She has to send us the estimate next week, but as long its under what I ballparked in my head, I'm going with it. She has all the vases to rent which is awesome because I don't know what I would do with all of them after the wedding.

I started looking a little bit for tulle for our flower girl tutu that is in the works and I think that is going to be another cheap and easy project to work on too. I also want to start looking for ideas for our unity candle so I can start to figure out how we will display it in the church and what kind of decoration we will need around it.

Well the first DIY is completed!

After reading some posts on TK about 80% sales at Michaels, I decided to make a trip there this afternoon (plus I need more ribbon for the STDs.) I bought 4 bunches of flowers and hot glued them to a styrofoam ball. Granted, I didn't need to get this done right now but I was too excited and couldn't wait. I think it turned out pretty good. I might add some sparkle to it later on, but for now it's good.

I also started working on printing the cards for the save the dates, but then I ran out of ink. So I started cutting ribbon for the decoration on them, then ran out of ribbon. So I have a lot of pieces all set up to just do an assembly line process when I have everything together. The ribbon wasn't on sale and I didn't have a coupon so I didn't get it today. Maybe this weekend I will be able to get some since I have a coupon now and might have another one from the paper at my parents house.

Since I will be deer widowed again this weekend, I will be heading home to see my parents and take care of some more wedding planning details. We're going dress shopping for bridesmaid dresses, have a flower consultation, and we're going to a bridal show on Sunday. Plus I will be working at my old store on Monday so I get to stay at home an extra night. I am really looking forward to seeing my parents and just being at their house. I know that this is my home now, but there's just nothing like that feeling of going "home."

Tonight I haven't really been doing much wedding stuff, but I've been busy anyways. I've done all the laundry (except the sheets cuz Tony will go to bed soon), baked cookies, and attempted a mock up of the cards we're sending our save the dates on. This is what I came up with. I'm not sure if it looks dumb or not. I will probably try to get some people to feel it out, and show it to mom this weekend then maybe start working on them next week if it looks okay.

I know it's not officially gun season until a week from Monday, but I am already a deer camp widow starting this weekend. The boys are up bow hunting, so I'm taking advantage of my alone time to work on some crafting and wedding projects.

I have been working on Christmas presents for my mom to give to our extended family and I will probably do the same thing for FI's parents and g-parents. I need more background fabric to make anymore though so now I'm on a hiatus for a bit. I've been making snowman wall hangings and I've got all the cutting and pieces ironed on, I just need to finish the sewing. I don't want to sew tonight though because I don't want the neighbors to call security on me. So tomorrow will be the sewing and finishing marathon. Overall this project hasn't really taken a whole lot of time and has been really easy so it's going well.

On the wedding planning front, things have been a little busy this week. We got our save the date magnets, and I have been trying to find some inspiration for the cards that we will send out with the magnets. Everything I see in my head I can't find in reality so I am having a really hard time with it. I also don't know if writing on all of them would look tacky or if anyone would even really care. I am almost starting to feel like the things I have been thinking of are tacky and I'm really starting to second guess myself and my judgment on a lot of this stuff lately. I did decide to start looking for some tulle to make a tutu for my flower girl. She will be about 2.5 at the wedding so we really don't want to have mom spend a ton of money if she doesn't even make it down the isle. We're going to use ribbon to tie, so it's adjustable as she grows and we can make it early. She will wear either a onsie type top or a dance leotard underneath with tights most likely. So next on my list of things to

Hope you all enjoyed your candy!

We didn't do much of anything for Halloween this year because I'm in the middle of a killa stretch at work and Tony's starting working his 4am shift at work so we're both pretty wiped out. We did have a little date on Friday night which was really nice. We went out to dinner and went to see Life as we Know it. It was really a cute movie and it was nice to spend some time together outside the house.

I can't wait for Thursday to get here so I can work on starting some crafting projects. The magnets for the save the dates should be here this week so I'll have to start playing with ideas for how to attach them to the cards I bought and how to do a little decorating on them. I plan to attach them to the cards because it was the cheapest way I could come up with the envelopes we needed to mail them and I thought it might make things a little sturdier. I bought some stuff to decorate the cards, but now I am kind of rethinking my original vision so I might look for some other stuff this weekend. I also will probably start shopping for beads to make my bridesmaids jewelry. Last weekend in Chicago I found the perfect bracelet to cut apart and make all of us matching bracelets with flowers as the centerpiece. They won't be really big and bold which is good, but now begins the hunt for the pearls and other beads I want for the bracelets. It's also time to start working on the Christmas presents I was going to start on last night until I realized I don't have any white fabric. I'm making snowman wall hangings and that's a little difficult to do with no white! I have all the rest of the stuff I need, just somehow forgot that one small thing last time I was at Jo