I'm Obsessed!

I do not know what has gotten inside me this weekend, I have been a wedding planning {{and blogging}} fiend!!

Chris and I went to JoAnn Fabrics today to be inspired. Well really for me to be inspired. Chris kind of just tagged along. Found some fabric I'd love to make into a table runner. Then some lovely navy blue ribbon to go with it. We decided today that navy blue and yellow will be our colors {{until next week!}}. I really liked green and yellow for the past month or so. I thought they'd be our wedding colors. When we went to the store to find fabric, we found that it's hard to find that perfect shade of green. It's a lot easier to find navy blue. So our decision was made. Navy blue and Yellow. They are both of our second favorite colors [[red and blue are our first-- too Christmas like!]] so they make us smile still.

Here is the fabric that I like a lot. They only had a small piece of it. I love the color, and adore the pattern. May be somewhere else has a similar pattern.

--The colors don't show as well on here though:(--



--Now for the close up! The yellow is almost exact! The ribbon is navy blue, not black ((like it shows)). --



They also had some very, very cute fabric I want to make a dog bed for Shadow and Jake! It was another small piece.. may be I can make bandannas!

Then, I found some inspiration for an art project. I bought these:


I want to paint these and put them onto a painted canvas. The canvas will be yellow and the letters will be blue. Or vice versa. OR the canvas will be the fabric we use for the table runners, and the letters will be the blue. We also like the idea of getting a BIG letter "B" to paint or something.. next to the canvas. I bought them and won't do anything until more things are finalized.


Moving onto centerpieces.... I like these lanterns from IKEA. Bonus-- They're only like $7!!! They have more at the store too.


I LOVE all of these ideas for using mason jars! My mom has about a million of these in our basement. So that will definitely cut that price down. She just can't make her sauce for about a month or so! haha.



--These are cute too! I could collect bottles from family members throughout the year.--

I'd have to remind them of APPROPRIATE bottles to give us. Budweiser bottles with the label will not make such classy wedding centerpieces.


++And last but not a least... an adorable picture [[or two]] of us.++

Eco-friendly Wedding

Instead of doing my student teaching unit (too much of a bore!), I've been indulging myself in wedding blogs!

I am finding SO MANY great ideas. I think I may have the reception still at Petruzello's or some other fancy place to appease my "likes gaudy things" Italian father and "likes nice things" mother-in-law. I am on the search for an earth friendly ceremony site though! Any suggestions? We are looking in the Troy/Rochester area.

Today, I am impressed with {{eco-friendly}} options for a wedding!

I like the idea of printing our own invitations. Not only will it probably save my money which will be nice for the budget, but if we use environmentally safe paper... it'll be eco-friendly too! I love this idea:


From: Green Field Paper Company

Invites that you can water and grow flowers! HOW AWESOME IS THAT!? Now, I just have to find a place that will print on them. OR see if we can use our own printers at home.

And... how awesome would it be to use recyclable wrapping paper to line the envelopes. I love this wrapping paper:


From: Green Field Paper Company
haha! May be not for the wedding, but I do love it!

OR


From: Green Field Paper Company
A little retro, but I think I like it!


I also like the idea of this! A quilt!

from fellow blogger: 2000 Dollar Budget Wedding

I found this on a fellow blogger's site. They asked for their guests to mail a piece of fabric. They sewed the pieces together to make a quilt. [[THIS IS THE BEST PART]] instead of doing a unity candle or that sand thing.. they were wrapped in this quilt. They even signed their wedding license while wrapped from the "love of family and friends". Absolutely LOVE it!


Also I like the idea of using sheets as tablecloths! You can probably find some very cute ones at resale stores or just on clearance, I love these...{They're from some retro website}






Okay, one last thing {for now}.


from fellow blogger: 2000 Dollar Budget Wedding

Vases for centerpieces made out of recycled wine bottles. LOVE IT. I even like the idea of using recycled wine bottle as water pitchers.


There's SO many ideas out there. I love them all! :)

Save the Dates

I have spent my whole night looking at fellow brides-to-be's wedding blogs {that and regretting eating school cafeteria nachos! haha}. I am more confused than ever! I feel SO far behind! I have fell in love with a lot of DIY projects. They are all saved onto my laptop. My parents keep stealing my laptop to look for cars online. :( So I'm stuck researching ALL over again to show Chris. With the whole summer of [[only]] going to work, I feel like I can squeeze some of the DIY projects in ((hopefully)).

My worry for the moment... save the date cards. Can you plan on making these when you don't have a date yet? {{{It may possibly be July 17, 2009}} When do you start making these? When do you send them out? When do you take engagement photos? I JUST DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! At least, that's what it seems like!

P.S. Good news! My graduation audit came in the mail!!! :) :) After my pre-school student teaching, I AM DONE!! WHooooooHHHHHOOOOOO! :)

Pictures from our adventures in Weddingland

Not much has changed from Sunday. We are leaning towards having the wedding at Petruzzello's. My dad likes it much more than the golf course. The true gaudy Italian in him is coming out! haha. He just heard chandeliers and he was sold!

Chris and I supposedly won something from Pink Apron . We have a "preview" we can go to this Friday to pick up a gift basket that includes a free vacation. I'm kind of worried it's a big huge scam. ESPECIALLY since the number I had to call was a 1-866 number. We're not sure if we are going or not. We'll see how we feel tomorrow when it's about time to leave. We will definitely keep you updated if we go.

Now, I thought you'd like to see some pics from our adventures! :)



Chris is SUPER excited to be at the bridal show at the San Marino Club!




I really like both of these bouquets! Even though they're kind of extremely different. But that's what I do. I contradict myself! I think I like the sunflowers more as a centerpiece arrangement.
Speaking of centerpieces... right now, I think I know what I want to do. Something simple and cheap! I'm liking the idea of doing big lanterns with pillar candles and mason jars filled with flowers. That could change! haha, just like every other idea I have for this wedding!


LOVE this cake!



Chris and Adrianna getting their caricature done. Very fun!


Absolutely in love with BOTH of these dresses. Can't wait to go dress shopping!


Well, that's all I really have for now. There won't be too many more updates for a little while since we don't have another bridal show till next month. I am hoping we making a decision on where we are having the reception site by the end of April. But for now, that's enough for today:)

Petruzzello's Bridal Show

So today we headed out to Petruzzello's in Troy for another bridal show. The Myth Golf and Banquet Center that was our top choice in our previous blog may have been ousted as a reception site. We both liked Petruzzello's very much. It is cleaner and a bit more elegant than Myth and, simply put, it feels like the kind of place that you should have a wedding reception. They have some cool lighting setups as well. We would need to find a separate ceremony site though, which left us both scratching our heads a bit, but other than that, we liked it very much.

The bridal show itself was a bit smaller than the previous shows but was enjoyable and a perfect size for the flower girl Adrianna who tagged along for this one. She and Chris had a caricature of themselves drawn by a guy that will do caricatures at weddings. We both agreed that the photobooth would still be cooler. Nina found a couple dresses that she liked from a shop in Berkeley. She may be heading out there to check them out eventually. There were also some delicious cakes at this show.....Chocolate Raspberry Mousse to name but one.

We are free of bridal shows and venue visits for at least a couple weeks now, so we can hopefully sit down and make some decisions. Unless the venue we decide on is booked on July 17, 2010; that will likely be the date of our wedding! We will keep you posted!

The Latest on the Wedding Front

So it has been a busy few weeks for us when it comes to wedding planning and still, after multiple wedding/bridal shows, several visits to ceremony and reception locations, and lots of cake taste-testing, we are still undecided on...well everything. But we are getting closer. So we will try to update you as best as possible...we know it's been awhile. BEWARE! THIS IS A VERY LONG BLOG!

Starting in February, bridal shows have started taking over our Sundays. For the first one, Nina went with the girls to Crystal Gardens. Nina's mom won a free Mary Kay skin care class from that show. The party was last Monday. It felt good to be pampered! Nina found some cool tree centerpieces there that she fell in love with. Trees are things that grow in the ground with leaves on them. These tree were made of metal, which is sort of unrealistic, but cool none the less.

March has seen our weekends filled with wedding stuff. Chris has been thrilled by this. The first Saturday in March we drove out to Saline to check out Weller's Carriage House. The ceremony site was beautiful and the reception location had a very nice historic air about it. Weller's was actually an 1840's era flour mill that was later purchased by Henry Ford to use for processing soybeans. Unfortunately, the decor was a bit against Nina's liking and there were some space limitations so we ruled it out. The drapes were a dusty maroon color and the other decor just did not seem to fit our preferences. In addition, the bar looked eerily similar to the crematorium ovens at the Dachau Concentration Camp (which Chris thought was kind of cool in a morbid way). However, if the decor was changeable, this would probably be one of our top choices.

Wellers Carriage House

That Sunday, we attended a wedding show at the Inn at St. John's in Plymouth. This place was incredible, but a bit out of out price range. The church looked like an Americanized version of a typical European church. We found a bakery at the show that had orange cake with passion fruit filling that we are passionate about. They may win the "Who wants to be a Chris and Nina Cake Person?" contest.

The Inn at St. John's

The following Saturday we drove out to Ann Arbor to check out Cobblestone Farm. This was our first choice for our venue so we were excited to see what it was all about. The farm is very nice and would make a great place for a venue! But....our 200+ guest list again became a concern. The barn can hold 200, but that is without a dance floor and with 70+ in a loft, which is kind of cozy but provides a limited view of the main floor and....us. We still like it but we would have to seriously cut down our list to make it work.

Cobblestone Farm

That Sunday involved another drive. This time out to the San Marino Club in Troy for a bridal show. There were a lot of people at this one. Nina did gain some ground in the ring department as one of the vendors gave her some good ideas on how to make a ring for cheap that would look nice with her engagement ring. We also had a second chance to check out a photo booth vendor that we saw at the Inn at St. Johns. Though it's $900, the idea of a photo booth seems fun and they also would give us an album at the end of the night of everyone's photos. This could be interesting :)

Last weekend we headed out to the Myth Golf and Banquet Center in Oakland Township. Nina fell in love with the place because it has a timbered lodge-type feel to it. The price is right and the food sounds delicious. They have meatballs! The lady has given us a special deal and we are very, very positive about this one. At this point this is the front-runner and we could have it booked within a couple weeks.

The Myth Golf and Banquet Center

While this is still up in there, we are looking at a possible date of July 17. What is the symbolism behind this you ask? This is the date Disneyland first opened (which, as my Mom would say, is the happiest place on Earth), two days after Nina's parents anniversary, the date John Bell Hood took command of the Army of Tennessee, and perhaps most importantly, the Saturday after the World Cup ends.

John Bell Hood

Tomorrow, we are headed out to Troy once again to check out a wedding show at Petruzello's. Nina's niece, Adrianna, the flower girl, is coming with us and is superbly excited. She has even packed extra outfits so she can look nice.

In the next blog, we will post some pics of the various places mentioned above for everyone to check out. Stay tuned!