Reception stuff

Also, here's a wedding post for you!

I spent the day working on wedding things. Why? Because I didn't want to study or do research for moving costs and budgeting. Oh yeah, we're moving! But anyhow, I spent the day messing with the wedding.

First I was trying to find a template for mini cupcake wrappers. Um, what, Becca? This is what I'm talking about, but of course in our colors and style.

Source: etsy

Then I was looking for cupcake tower plates, platters, and cake boards. I wasn't sure if I'd make a true tower or just have a bunch of funky platters with tons of mini cupcakes on them. I checked etsy, ebay, Oriental Trading, Amazon, and finally did a search and found the site I'll be buying the Styrofoam pieces from: The Baker's Kitchen.

In the end, I decided to get a 10" board and a 14" board for the cupcakes and a fun plate for the 6" cake. Assuming each cupcake will take up a 2" block, I can fit 25 on the 10" board and 40 on the 14" board. Oh, there will be a 6" wide x 4" tall column hooking the 2 together and taking up 9 2" spots. Yes, I am anal retentive about all this. :-)

I also found some little orange and blue dessert plates on Oriental Trading for like $3 for 18 plates. So 2 packs will (hopefully) cover everyone!

New Ink!

No, it's not really wedding related, but Steve and I spent the day together yesterday and, at his suggestion, we hit up a tattoo shop. I, of course, have had 2 in mind that I really wanted: a rising phoenix for graduation and the star and 42 for our wedding. The wedding one will be after the wedding of course!

So I got my rising phoenix. On my collarbone. I love the hell out of it and where it's located... but the healing process will be a total pain! Yes, it is where my bra strap lies. Wanna see it??

Steve took photographic liberties with my blackberry camera. Without further ado, here they are:

the layout of the stencil

cleaning... something?

making sure he gets it done correctly

it's done!

Stinkin Budget

21:31 debating pro hair/makeup for the wedding. seems silly to only have for our day after photo shoot. suggestions? besides @ameliacartist :)


16:26 is $180 a lot for wedding day hair & make-up? i know i know, the pictures are priceless, but .....


16:31 & the $180 is including coming to our hotel room for me only. no one else. @seblagg @diybride @brideonbudget

So, in discussing Vegas nuptials with another bride on FB using the same company, I started thinking about getting pro work done for the wedding itself. I will be totally pro (for FREE) during our day after shoot (or rather 2 days after) and it seems kinda silly to not be made up similarly for the actual wedding. When I put the question out to my consultants on Twitter, by this I mean all the brides and wedding planners I’m friends with, they said $180 is damn cheap considering they come to your location. I’m still not sold on it.

Which bring me to another reason...


16:44 i wish i could remove our flight/hotel to vegas from our wedding budget. it's so much prettier w/out them.


18:24 are you including travel & hotel in your wedding budget or is it an extra expense?

Considering our wedding is a destination wedding, I automatically including hotel and airfare in our budget. The hotel is deeply discounted (yay for @LuxorLV and they’re amazing deals), but still about $600. The airfare, when I last did estimates, is between $600-750 for 2 round trip flights. Now granted, that’s from Raleigh; Miami is about $60 less. Without including hotel and airfare, our budget/ actual spending is really low. The wedding is $400, marriage license is $60 and cake/ cupcakes are about $100. With a budget of $1500, that leaves plenty for tours, shows, dinner, rental van and gas out to the Grand Canyon, and so much more. Also, if this damn wedding dress does sell, that’s an extra $400 towards the purchase of the $125 dress I want. So obviously, now I’m reconsidering how to figure our budget.


Now onto a much more fun topic... graduation and bling!

18:57 have been looking at amethyst & citrine for grad rings. (school colors are purple & gold) just realized i can get any stone! #noclassring


19:13 i'm considering this: bit.ly/cFAeEA to wear with this: bit.ly/2SmvHm (already have) whatcha think?


19:19 the ring will be a "hooray i now have an MBA" gift to myself :) @Tryphyna


19:24 oooooh another option: bit.ly/cWC5Jj


20:36 new options, graduation gift: bit.ly/bRYwgw, bit.ly/9Bfpnw, bit.ly/dCIFww, bit.ly/9XqiHm, bit.ly/9UxqRm


20:46 and bit.ly/bh4Kvp - yes, i'm indecisive!

23:00 big surprise, more choices: http://bit.ly/bjyh4Y, http://bit.ly/db4hvj, http://bit.ly/aOcBk8, http://bit.ly/b44uOH in order of pref.

I have been checking out different websites with gorgeous rings for my graduation gift. After graduation from UF, I bought myself an utterly gorgeous diamond and sapphire ring that was stolen a few years later. I loved that damn thing. So yeah, I started looking at other rings for my ECU graduation gift. So far my favorites, in order, are: http://bit.ly/bjyh4Y, http://bit.ly/db4hvj, bit.ly/9UxqRm

Did you buy yourself anything for graduation? It's such a huge accomplishment and... why not?! Also, making payments is my friend. ;-)

a real blog

One day, when I have more time, this will become a real blog. One with it's own domain name - heck, I'll settle for a subdomain of our website - and a pretty design that I can fully control.

Perhaps over spring break. Or maybe in 70-something days once I've graduated and I'm not up till all hours of the night writing papers and doing homework. Like tonight.

Ahhhh... that'll be nice.

Oh, you want something wedding-y? I'm returning the cute blue sandals I bought for the wedding. I'm probably buying either a pair of blue Converse or a custom pair of orange and blue with our wedding date and initials on it.

Favor Bottles/ Tumblers

Which wedding favor would you like better: http://bit.ly/a2ldtC - 32oz or http://bit.ly/97U49r - 34oz

http://twitpic.com/14ufpy - To imprint on bottle #1 - single color

http://twitpic.com/14ulr7 - Revised bottle #1 imprint. :)

coffee/ travel tumblers as favors maybe? http://bit.ly/bbOINz or http://bit.ly/caS8Sg or even http://bit.ly/aZ3NEa


Do you use coffee/ travel mugs or water bottles more frequently? Which would you want to have another of? Yes, bad sentence structure, I admit it.

Whichever bottle or travel mug is chosen will be deep blue (or orange if blue isn't an option) with white or silver imprinting. I designed it in a single color (black) for the printer. On the bottles, what’s black will be white or silver and white will be the color of the bottle (blue).

I have been stalking the Discountmugs.com site for months now. But I’m not making any purchases until we have a better idea of how many guests there will be. Now, granted, it’s not like extras will go to waste as we can send them off to family.

Also, I registered us on Amazon.com and am really excited about it. However, I think some people are still leery of shopping online still - which I completely can’t comprehend! – so we might need to double register at Target. Whatcha think?

Wanna Buy a Dress?

i would like to burn my wedding dress & buy one of these: http://bit.ly/b75U4w (champagne) or http://bit.ly/anO10D (marine)

The wedding dress has been re-listed on @ebay. Help a girl spread the word & please RT: http://bit.ly/bd6w2Z

Yes, I relisted it. After talking to Jessie this morning and doing my weekly online dress searches, I reposted the wedding dress on ebay. It is still posted on BravoBride, RecycledBride, and a few other wedding classified sites. I just wish it would go away already.

I re-wrote the page that I link to in the ebay ad to be more of a sales pitch instead of "omg I love this dress and cannot picture myself in anything but it on my wedding day." BLAH.

So here's hoping! Please spread the word. Surely someone out there wants to purchase this gorgeous dress, right??

Photo Shoot, Cupcakes, & Favors

After a few emails back and forth, I finally got to speak to Jessie this morning about our Vegas photo shoot that we won with Emeric Photography. I am ridiculously excited about it! We (and by that I mean "I") decided on October 12th so whoever is in Vegas for the wedding can join Steve, Cathy, Dan and myself on a trip out to the Grand Canyon on the 11th. Jessie suggested a just-before-sundown shoot, around 5pm, for optimum lighting. As the professional, I'm totally deferring to her on that one! I'd given a list of places I really wanted to go for the shoot and she agreed with me on 2 of them: The Neon Boneyard and the Fremont Street Area (Google images pics). My other options are a Strip tour (hitting all the major hotels and taking pictures as we wander about) or Red Rock Canyon (but we'll need to decide if outdoorsy is what we want). She is going to check on the pricing to do a shoot in the Neon Boneyard (facebook link) as that's completely my first choice.

The "down side" to this is that hair and make-up can potentially take 2-3 hours. Now, I am not a make-up person and usually wear minimal to work when I even put it on. My updo from Kim's wedding took about 30 minutes because it was very detailed and completely up. I am going to find some picture to send to Amelia C for both my hair and make-up... and of course pictures of me. I did friend her on facebook, so she's got those hundreds of pictures to look at of us. :-)

 Source: Retro Bakery on Flickr

I emailed my wonderful bakery Thursday evening as I was thinking about our budget. I asked the price of 3 dozen regular cupcakes, 3 dozen mini cupcakes, and a 6" cake similar to the picture but in deep blue with "Congrats Becca & Steve" written on it.

I got this back yesterday:
Cupcakes are $29 per dozen
Minis are $1 each ($12 per dozen)
6-inch cake is $20

Maybe we'll forego the regular cupcakes and just get a ton of mini's and the 6" cake; or maybe a dozen regular cupcakes for throughout the week and 4-5 dozen mini's and the 6". What do you think?

Source: my InDesign talents!

This afternoon I started working on favor items, namely the logo for the favors.  I also order a tote bag and t-shirt from VistaPrint with the logo on it so I can see what they look like.  For both plus shipping, it cost just over $8.  Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE VistaPrint??  Ordering 1 bag per guest unit (not person) I figure it'll break down to about $5-6 per bag.  These'll be favor bags or welcome bags or whatever you want to call them.  I doubt I'll do the shirts for the guests, but I wanted one! LOL  Yes, there will be a post when they arrive. :-)

So, what d'ya think?

Wedding Veil and ... Pawn Stars?

You want to read more about our wedding? Not much is going on, but while nothing is happening, I’ve still been knitting. That’s right, yesterday at lunch I hit row 83 of 126. Not only that, but it marks the end of the main body of the veil. Up next are the peacock feathers then the color changes.

Oh, you want to see a picture too? Man are you demanding! ;)

More pictures on my flickr page

Also, Steve and I watch Pawn Stars whenever we remember it’s on. It’s not one of those “OMG we have to watch it” shows, but we do love it. As we were watching it last night, he said we should go to the store when we’re out there in October. You know, for our wedding... and I said absolutely! But would love to bring something with me to try and sell. We looked around the house and finally I looked up.

Hanging over my head is this amazing plate brought back from the People’s Republic of China around the time when I was born. My grandmother gave it to my parents and said I was small enough to sleep on it. Yeah, I was. So it’s at least 33 years old, and stamped with Chinese characters and “Made in Taiwan People’s Republic of China” on the back.

The only thing is I haven’t the foggiest idea how to find out it’s value...

Source: my wall

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy valentine's weekend. Normally I despise this day. Not for not being in a relationship as I have been for the last 3 valentine's days, but for other very personal reasons. Steve has changed my viewpoint on this commercialized Hallmark holiday. He's very lucky that I hate roses (yeah, I said it!) and would much rather have daisies or carnations or whatever else. I don't demand flowers or jewelry or chocolate. All I want is to spend the evening with him with a home-cooked meal and just relax together.

The last 2+ years have been amazing with my fabulous fantastic fiancé. I cannot even begin to put into words how lucky I am to have met him and have him in my life. I cannot wait to spend the next 40-50 years (hey, we're old) with him and our children and our pets. We have a life plan and are just waiting for the first domino to fall into place. The rest of the dominos are set up ready to go.

He is amazing and romantic and has the most amazing heart, similar ambitions and dreams, and goals... the man has goals! He loves me for who I am and doesn't care what I look like or how miserable I am with myself. He loves me unconditionally and I am ridiculously lucky.

This year, I drew him 2 cards. One was a wedding/ Vegas scene with us standing in front of the Luxor pyramid with the Welcome sign in the background. Below is my actual valentine's card to him.

What do you like to do on Valentine's and who do you like to spend it with?

The Heroes seem Lost

This is totally not wedding related, it's just amazing! I adore the snot out of both Lost and Heroes and watch them religiously, week after week.

Tuesday night during Lost, there was a scene with a cab. Steve immediately said "that's the puppeteer from Heroes" but I wasn't totally sure. Being me, I tweeted out:

source: twitter

then immediately, not ever thinking he'd respond cuz hello busy celebrity life!, I checked IMDB and saw that it was, in fact, David Lawrence. Yes, Steve was right.

source: twitter

Little did I know that I only had to wait a few minutes to get this tweet in return:

source: twitter

I KNOW!