SgtPepperette

I suppose your right Erika, I just had a meltdown to. I feel so unprepared to leave in 2 days!!!! Do you know I dont even own a swim suit? I feel a sinus infection coming on so made a doctors appt for tonight. Id prefer to go home and sleep, but I need to pack....figure out my wedding day hair. And the rest of this wedding jewerly situation.

LOL, you girls are making me feel worse! I think its more so my insecurities. There were friends there that I dont usually get like that around, so was a little worried how they woudl perceive it. But I know they wouldnt judge me so I dont know why Im worrying! I was the good one! One of my friends was making out with every guy. They had to peel her off some of them! LOL And they have pictures to prove it. She ended up getting alcohol posioning. Okay so maybe we did get a little too crazy. LOL

do you have a gmail account? You could use their picassa.

I know right? From what I remember I just did a lot of hugging and kissing. To all the girls with me! LOL My sisters went, (they are 20 years older than me), and a friend of mine who is around their age. And this friend is very very close to me so she knows a lot about me, when I try to talk to her about the night she changes the subject or ignores the question. I warned her...you will see a side of me you will only see once. LOL

Keira...when do you leave again? I posted pictures on facebook.....although Im sure I could link them here later Im being silly and overanalyzing the night now. Not that I can remember most of it. Some of the girls that went are acting a little weird now though....

Carly, I resized some last night....and they are okay on my end. Are they still big to you?

Happy Monday Morning Ladies! 1.5 work week for me. I have to say my nerves are shot. I feel like I could puke at any second. I started having wedding dress nightmares to. While I love the new dress when I see pictures Im like wow I like so big. I cant find a bra that works with the dress. My boobs are to big and the dress is really low. So still trying to figure that out. I have even started going back to try on the old dress. Just because it fits me better in the boob/waist area. Im making myself crazy. Koozies...I sent Barry an email telling him how disappointed with his service I was and will NOT be referring his business to the large bridal community I belong to, the same one that referred me to him. He apparently shipped me a new set on Saturday...we will see if it gets here in time. Annie: You can try flickr for a photosite Congrats on your legal day!!!! Vikki: Your BD book is hot! I cant wait to hear how much your FI loves it! Sending you a big hug. Boy have we all had days like that. I start packing tonight, so we shall see how that goes. LOL Ashley: So relieved to hear your box arrived!!!! I know that had to be a huge relief to you, because it was to me! LOL I cant believe your bridemaids. As hard as it is just try to let it roll off your back. Jaime: Congrats on your legal day to! Erika: I can defintely see how traveling this close could make you a bit frazzled...hang in there your leaving sooo soon! Sound like a great shower though! Id ask for pictures but we dont want to add to your to do list ;-) Well my bachelorette party was a blast! Although I didnt think I was going to survive the day after. One of the girls actually got alcohol posioning. Most of the night is foggy. LOL So thats a success right?

My makeup is being done by Grants cousin, Kendra. She just started her own business, All The Glamour and More. I wasnt sure if I wanted makeup or not, since I usually don't wear it. Actually I dont even own one piece of makeup. Crazy eh? I saw a few bridal parties that Kendra has done and everyone looked so great! And its my wedding, why not right? Kendra did airbrush makeup, and I loved it. It was very natural, and I loved how my eyes popped. Before: And here is the after (dont mind my crooked glasses, they need an adjustment badly!): And here is later in the night, still looking great! My hair...still unsure what Im doing.... Grants attire...he found in a few hours. Love to be a guy sometimes! LOL We found his pants at Express - pinstriped Khakis: We found his shirt at Macys, but it will be in white... And his shoes at DSW as well: To save on money right now we are using a ring I bought him a few years ago as his wedding band. We plan on getting him one he wants next year when we have more time and more money! LOL Phew! I think thats it! Love how I was really detailed than I sort of faded out? Sorry! LOL Thank you everyone again!!!! I Cant wait to share our pictures with you when we get back!!!!

Lastly I have our wedding attire! I have gone through 3 different dresses, and I think this final dress is what Ill be wearing. But hey you never know. Ive had a lot of health problems in the last couple years so have put on a lot of weight, and have really bad body image issues. So that explains going through so many different dresses Anyways, this was my final choice. I had the sleeves altered from a halter into regular shoulder straps, and have a pink crinonline to go with it. Here it is on me, but couldnt get a great picture because no one to take it. So this is my timer on my camera taking it. LOL Dont mind my crappy hair either! My shoes I found at DSW: My earrings I bought off of Esty seller Kristen Friesen: My bouquet I got from etsy seller High Tide Creations:

Our guestbook is another great idea from the BDWers! We are doing to do the dry erase board guest book. Basically we have two dry erase boards, and each guest will sign the erase board like they are signing a guest book. Than they will pose with their message for the photographer. So than we can create a photo album with the pictures, or maybe blow them up and make a collage to hang in the house, etc. Here is our setup: Favors! Since music is such an impact on both Grant and I we decided to do CD favors. We are only having 20 guests so thought it would be fun to get a little participation from our guests. I emailed them and asked them to forward me their favorite love song, or a song that has a special place in their heart. We got a pretty decent amount of participation, but not all. So we combined the songs they sent us along with some of our special songs (most played at the wedding), and created our CD favors! We used the same cohesive design that we have all along for the CD label, and insert cover. We were able to use a CD machine to create the CDs and labels. So the labels printed right on the CD vs a sticker label. We bought a package of CD inserts to print out the outside/inside cover, but the program wasnt working that great for us. We printed them at home with our old faithful printer (hasnt let us down yet!). When they printed from that program there was black horizontal lines for some reason. So we just made the design in photoshop and printed out on cardstock. A lot more cutting, vs the perforated insert paper we orginally had...but it was worth it in the end. They turned out great!!!! I had a hard time with the wording because I wanted to acknowledge that they helped pick the songs...but not everyone did so I didnt want people to feel left out. So we left it at these songs are special to us. Koozies! We used Barry Promos for the koozies, and I have to say very disappointed with his service. When I received them they were very crooked, so he is rushing a new order to me in hopes that it arrives before I leave. But here is the artwork: Menus: We only have 20 guests and no assigned seating, so are just putting these in the fold of everyones napkins.This is a horrible picture,sorry!

Reception The reception set up is going to be in a U-Shape. I found the great idea from our very own Kristy! Here is a mockup... Oh how the centerpieces were stumping us! We had these tins pails we got from our cousin. We wanted to use them somehow but had a hard time figuring out the right way. So after many trips to the craft store we came up with a idea we both loved. The tins we borrowed from Grants cousin. The sand and shells we bought as samples, but plan on using sand and shells from the beach in Florida. The candles, candle holder, fans, and raffia we got from a wholesale craft store. Now this was a fun project, Cootie Catchers! When I fell upon this DIY project I was so excited. I LOVED these things as a kid, and how fun to incorporate them into my wedding. There are tons of blogs with info on this if you google wedding cootie catchers...the one I used is not available anymore. But here is one I fell upon when I searched... DIY: Wedding Cootie Catcher Template April Foster Events Blog Now this project is not faint of heart, or perfectionist. Actually Im still not really happy with how they turn out, but am trying to let the perfectionist in me let it go. LOL I didnt like the way the lines looked when printed, so I hid the lines. You do need the lines as guide to where the text will fit, but are able to hid them in the end. I still needed the outside lines to cut the box out, so traced over them with one of our wedding colors so I still had those. I added a border line around the outside to give it a little extra something. There are all kinds of options in powerpoint to do that. We did 3 different styles. Two of them were random facts about Grant and I, and the third one was little wedding dares like pose for a photo, have a cocktail, etc. We printed them out at home, and than started cutting and folding. For the most part it went smoothly, but if you dont cut the square evenly your folding can get thrown off a bit. Like I said not for the faint of heart! We plan on putting these around the cocktail hour tables.

We are doing a sand ceremony. We bought a picture frame with an vase like opening. And we purchased blue and white sand. The vases look gigantic, but the frame holds almost 4lbs of sand! My dad has passed and Grants mom has passed, so we wanted to do a little something to remember them. We both had poems we wanted to use, so we stuck those in a frame with pictures of us with our parent. We are going to have these off to the side on a table with a candle lit. And here is our gigantic playlist! http://melissaandgrant.com/playlist.htm

Ceremony Details We have some ideas on how the decor will be for the ceremony, but since we havent actually seen the property we are going to figure it out better once we get there. But we plan on hanging starfish with twine down the isle chairs, here are a few inspiration photos: We also are planning on decorating the pergola with some green and brown organza with starfish hanging down the sides. Its in my head...we shall see how it turns out. Our program inspiration is from a DIY program we found on weddingbee, DIY Programs - Another Labor of Love - Weddingbee - The Wedding Blog. We had a vision but needed to try to execute it. So we headed out to shop for paper, because clearly we can find some locally right? 6 hours later we found out that wasnt such an easy task! We did fall upon this paper at Staples that were 5x7 cardstock, and had scalloped edges. We loved the look, but werent sure if we wanted to pay the money it would cost to get 80 pieces of cardstock. They were only packaged in 10's and that was $4 a pack. So we kept looking, and came up with nothing. After coming home and searching online and than sleeping on it, we decided that that the scalloped paper was what we were ready to go with. A little more than we wanted to spend, but what can you do. When you see something you like, you cant get it out of your mind. So the next day Grant went to 3 different Staples and got all the ivory and green he could find. We decided to use brads from Michaels to hold the pages together. We went again with the cohesive design that we have been using, and are VERY pleased with how they turned out! So I guess you could say we half DIY'd these since the paper was precut. But the design, hole punching, and brad pushing was all us LOL

We ran into one big snafu. We printed them at home on our inkjet printer. We weren't sure how that would work but it actually printed them quite nicely. But our printer does not print borderless on custom sized paper. So everything was printing out with this weird border. We just readjusted the design and created a brown border on everything. I actually liked it better. It really brings everything together nicely. The pocketfold is a tight fit so we couldnt mat the inserts (which is what my original vision was), so it all worked out in the end.I went back and forth on the addressing of the envelopes to. I know there's all these etiquette rules, but honestly we arent really paying attention to them. The envelopes we got had this shimmer to them so I wasnt sure how the handwriting would look. So we ended up doing labels. We created the brown border on the labels to give it an extra special touch. The problem with that was our inkjet printer again...the ink easily smeared. I learned that after about 5 labels. So I had to peel the labels off carefully, and stick them on the envelopes holding on to only the sticky part. Than I smoothed them out with a blank sheet of paper. That effort had to be as good as handwriting didnt it? That printer rocks, we didnt even have to refill any of the ink! Get this....the cost per invite came out to $3.11! Not bad at all! Especially since the cheapest invites we priced were $6-$7 each! After we finished I sort of wished we would of went with a more daring pocketfold color. Like the orange or green. Besides that one small regret, Im soooooo happy with the outcome! And cant wait to work on our next project P.S. Of course we have a mock up invite done in photoshop that I also have to share. This will help you see the invite in better details, since my pictures are so crappy! Once you click on the link, than click on the image and it will enlarge. But Ill also post the image below to. http://melissaandgrant.com/images/invitation.jpg

Save The Dates Our Save The Dates were our first DIY project, and we loved the way they turned out. We wanted to get a pre-RSVP count because we really had no idea on how many guests would we have. This helped in picking our venue and other vendors. We created an invite, along with a RSVP postcard, and a magnet. First, we spent a few weeks coming up with this cute little poem. We were really excited about it! We bought the image from stock photo, and Grant worked his magic on it. As you might notice our date and location changed since the Save The Date! LOL We printed these at vista print on the postcards with a blank backside. We also did a magnet to match. I didnt really like the magnets from vistaprint, they looked a little cheap. But since we ordered them and had so many of them we sent them to our guests anyways. We ordered the business card size, and I think if we would of ordered the size bigger the quality might have came a little better. Lastly, we created a RSVP postcard. This was the front of the postcard, which we matched the invitiation. Here is the back part of the post card. I wasnt sure how people would respond to the RSVPs, but we got about 80% of them back. It narrowed our guest list down by 10 people, so that made such a difference in looking at intimate wedding packages vs regular wedding packages! We loved how these turned out, which also set the tone of DIY projects for us. Our guests seemed to love them as well, which was nice to hear :-) Website With Grants amazing web developing skills our wedding website turned out better than I could ever imagine! We loved this stock photo that we found when creating our Save The Dates, so we decided to base the website off of that. It was a tree with hearts on it, and a couple kissing next to it. The hearts on the tree had exactly the same number of years we have been together. And from that point the creativity kept flowing. We created pages with all the wedding info, photos of us, photos of our kids (furbabies), a guest book, a fun quiz, and the music to the song Grant proposed to me. Melissa & Grant Invites I LOVE LOVE LOVE our wedding invitations. When I saw the pocketfold design invitations I knew I wanted to go with that style. And after doing some research online I found that it can be done at a reasonable price! First, here are the links to the tutorials that helped me the most... DIY Pocketfolds Finished!!! - Weddingbee - The Wedding Blog superfabulousdiypocketfolds - The Super Fabulous Guide to creating Super Fabulous DIY Pocketfold Invitations! by Knottie themar The vendor that I found that made these so affordable is Cards & Pockets. We bought 20 sets of the invites. That set included the pocketfold, invitation card stock, invitation mat card stock, 2 precut card stock inserts, RSVP card, RSVP envelope, and mailing envelope. They have a ton of colors to chose from. They offer samples to which is nice. So before you place a big order you can order the samples, either in the actual product or just small cardstock samples to see if the color is what your looking for or size. After ordering what seemed like 20 samples, we finally decided on our color selection. Which helped us finally make a decision on the wedding colors. Killing two birds with one stone...I love it! While we waited for our shipment to come in we started working on the invitation. We weren't really sure what we wanted to go with. Palm trees, star fish, etc. We loved how we designed our website, so we went with that same theme. It worked out perfect! The more we hashed out the details the more excited we got. Dont you love how those small details really pull everything together? Next we worked on the inserts. First up was the map. I spent a good 4 hours working on that thing in PowerPoint! After slaving on it I realized it was to big, so we had to adjust. Thats seems to be the role DIY projects work with me...work, rework, and rework again! The wedding details insert was easier, just text mostly. The last thing was the RSVP. We were debating between a mad libs RSVP or not. We thought some people might get confused with the Mad Libs, so we did more along the norm.We bought the inserts precut. But they sell them uncut and its a little bit cheaper. Being perfectionist we thought it was better to get them precut. We did have to trim the map insert so we could get the staggered look in the pocketfold. But that was a simple cut. Besides that nothing in the invite needed any additional cutting. Dont worry I didnt get off that easy as you will see as you read on. Ha! The most tedious part was probably the belly band and monogram. I found our ribbon at JoAnns. I wanted something with a design vs the solid color ribbon, and found the perfect retro-like design ribbon. While at JoAnns I also picked up some card stock for the monograms, and monogram mat. Being cohesive, we designed the monogram to match the website. All the text on our website are in billboard like signs, so we made the monogram a sign to. We were able to print out a ton of monograms out on one sheet of card stock, and than I just cut them up with my handy dandy cutterbee trimmer. I was also able to cut the mats for the monogram out of one sheet of card stock, which I used my lovely trimmer again. This is when the perfectionist in me worked against me! I cut probably three times than I needed to so I could find the best 20 to use. LOL When I was finally satisfied I started to put everything together. I used scrapbooking adhesive which was much easier than glue. Soooo happy with the finish product.

We leave in just 3 days. EEEEEEKKKK! Its hard to believe that our time is here. The last few weeks have seriously gone by in a blink of an eye. I can not express how thankful I am for this forum!!!! Thank you Tammy for starting such an amazing, supportive place for all us destination brides to be!!! I got so many wonderful ideas from you ladies, so I apologize that I dont have everyones names where I bumped ideas off of. Thank you!!!! The engagement Grant and I went on a trip to Carefree, Arizona. It was a work trip for Grant but his boss so kindly paid for me to go along as well. Grants work hours were very limited, so we had a chance to do all kinds of fun things. Hiking, couples massage, horseback riding, and even a hot air balloon ride! The day we came back to Michigan was my birthday. We planned to go see Newton Faulkner that night. He was playing at a venue we often go to. It was also the first place Grant ever told me he loved me. So during the song, Dream Catch Me, Grant pulled me to the side and sent a very (nervous) sweet speech about how he loved our romantic week, and wouldnt think of a better place to propose to me. Than got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. Of course I said yes! I was so surprised about the engagement, I literally had no idea! He designed my engagment ring himself, turquoise (Im native american), and diamonds. Ill be using the engagment ring as my wedding band as well. The Venue When we decided on a destination wedding we were going to elope to Hawaii. Well after losing my dad shortly after we got engaged we decided to do something closer to home so our family and friends could attend. Grant grew up in Fort Myers, Florida and is always talking about how much he loved it there, so we decided to make that our destination spot. We spent a few weeks researching and finding everything quite pricey down there, so decided to rent a beach house and hold our wedding there. We found this amazing property, and are so excited to finally see it in person! We will be having the cocktail hour around the lounge furniture. This pergola is where we will be holding the ceremony. I was a little disappointed that is wasnt directly on the beach, but you have to walk through the tide to get to the beach and we have some guests in wheelchairs. We will have the ceremony here, as well as the dancing.

So Im trying to figure out what to do in regards to my hair appt. I found a girl that was referred that will come to where the wedding is and do my hair. I have a family friend who is doing my makeup at the house already. She will charge me $75, which includes my hair and the travel fee. My other option is there is a salon down the street from our wedding location. They charge from $55+. I think it would be easier to have someone come to the house, but we really are cutting in close to our budget now, so the salon seems more logical.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE my dress!!!! Sorry for the tease, Ill try to get some pictures this weekend Off to the party!

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got my koozies in and they are crooked!!!!!

I fell in love with trumpets myself. It had to be the right trumpet though...more like borderline trumpet/slim A. It gave me a nice hourglass shape. If it was anything but that I did feel just fat.

Ashley, getting a breast reduction was the BEST decision I could of ever made. I was a FF, and now am a D/DD. I had the worse back pain and shoulder pain. And the very next day in the hospital I could feel a difference. Like weight was lifted right off my shoulders! That is nice you can return it with Avon. I sell lia sophia jewelry and have been feeling guilty for not wearing lia sophia for my wedding. But they dont have anything pearl really, which is what I wanted to wear. Tonight is my bachelorette party. WOOT! WOOT! Its raining like cats and dogs and is suppose to all night into tomorrow. BOOHOO! We are started at a brewery for dinner, and than bar hopping. No set plan really....lol

Vikki, that letter was so sweet. Ashley, post a picture so we can see the shirts. I bet only you will notice, thats just how we are! So my dress came in today....ell....not a perfect fit. I will say when I first put it on, I was in love. The boob area wasnt right though. It felt like the back was a little loose, and there was a ton of extra material in the front. I went to the bra store to find a bra to see if that made much of a difference. The problem was the front is really low cut, really low...which is odd because its not in the picture. So I thought maybe it needs alterations. Well the girls there finally found a bra that worked with the dress but it was small. It held me up but wasnt the best bra. They talked me into it.Which now Im regretting because I cant return it. When I take the straps off it doesnt support me at all. On the way home I passed this alterations place that a friend told me about so I stopped in to see what they thought. She had me put on the dress, and she started pinning up the length. And than she started to mess with the top. It was weird because although there was extra material in the boobs...it still didnt come up all the way on the sides, so I had a lot of armpit fat sticking out. My most insecure part of my body! So the woman said, how about we take it from a halter to regular shoulder straps. She pulled it back and everything just filled out better. And the sides came up where they should. I orginally thought the halter balanced it out, but it didnt look bad the way she did it either. I was more secure with it the way she showed it. She said she thought doing that also gave me more of an hourglass shape, and gave me tasteful clevage. LOL She than said she thought I should ditch the bra because it wasnt doing much for me, and tape my boobs. She than proceeded to grab my boob and show me how to tape them. Yeah, akward. Good thing I had a breast reduction and Im use to people grabbing my boobs like that. LOL I dont know if I agree with taping my boobs....they are to big for that. They would be flopping around. I figure with the way shes altering it than I can probably find a bra that works. She will have it ready for me tomorrow at 6 Keeping my fingers crossed. Nervously. The dress is really cute, especially with my shoes. And I really do love the pink crinoline

JPitts....I think it was when I hit the 3 weeks when it hit me. And than time started FLYING by! Yeah, your MOH is annoying me. Get it together. Seriously. Or at least dont talk about it on facebook! Thanks Vikki! Annie..I get the dress today! Ill try to take some pictures and post them. The crinoline is weird..its all crinkled from the packaging. I think Ill need to take it in to get steamed. Someone said yesterday...why did you get pink, that doesnt even match your wedding colors. ARGH....dont tell a bride that!!! LOL Id be milking it to

Wow, amazing. I cant wait to hear about that story to! LOL

So I shredded last night. Gain I will knock you down! Usually Id veg on the couch with a bag of flaming cheetos. (Now Im telling you my deep dark secrets. LOL) Melissa 1 Fat Rolls 0 Take that! I like water challenges, I excel at that the most