To You Sweetheart, Aloha!

It's finally here! I opened our mailbox today to the above envelope, glistening in all its promises of wedding yumminess. An envelope from my brother and his fiance.

Upon closer inspection (aka, feverishly ripping apart the envelope), this is what greeted us:



Now it's official.

What makes a wedding "real" for you?

Shredding for the Wedding!

Can you believe it's already May?? Have we really been engaged almost an entire year??

As you can see from the photo, my weight-loss efforts continue. Do you see all those pink x's? Each of those represent a day I followed the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD. And ladies, if you want to lose weight FAST, this is for you!! I won't be posting photos until the end of the program (just in time for our last dating anniversary!), but I am halfway through and have already lost multiple inches! I know this because the day I began the DVD is the same day the bridesmaid dress arrived for my brother's wedding (which did not zip up). It now zips up a full 2 inches more than it did just a few weeks ago!!

Now THAT'S motivation!!

What have you been doing to get your body "wedding ready"?

Taking on the Kusudama

Weddingbee strikes again! Ladies, if you EVER need ANY wedding inspiration, I highly recommend surfing on over to www.weddingbee.com for all your DIY needs!

Just last week I saw these lovely images:




(photos courtesy of google images)

And thought to myself, how cute would these be? I absolutely adore the look of these in the ceremony photo, but even if they don't make it to the ceremony, there's still a Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party to decorate!

I found these easy-to-follow instructions online at:

http://www.cute-factor.com/blogs/munkii-girl/166-kusudama-flower-tutorial.html

and set to work. Here is my very first Kusudama flower:


(personal photo)

And how cute would these be as a rehearsal bouquet??? Looks like it's off to Hobby Lobby to pick up more origami paper! (Side note: I made the above flower with post it notes!)

What last-minute decor items do you just HAVE to have?

Return to Sender

Picking out the invitations. A fun and exciting time, right? Full of colors, ribbons, and belly bands. You spend tedious hours picking out just the right font for each line of text. Then, one day, your invites arrive in the mail, and before you know it, it's time to mail your little babies and let the post office take over (which, if you're a wedding-control-freak like me is a little bit of a hard concept to grasp).

But first you must jump over one last hurdle: taking an invite to your local post office to have it weighed. And in some cases, depending on how many people you've invited, it's a high hurdle to jump. Postage is expensive!

Having been unemployed through the majority of this wedding planning experience, I have meticulously plotted out each expense, so as to not need to spend too much all at once. And purchasing wedding postage was no exception. Back in December I began to purchase the 61c wedding cake stamps, one sheet per month. And just two weeks ago I put our first invite together, brought it to the post office, and was shocked to learn that it was only going to cost one of these stamps per invite to mail!

What's this, you say? A little bit of wedding luck coming our way?? Well, yes, and no. Postage on 2-ounce packages (like our wedding invites) is going up by 3c! That's right, after I purchased 4 sheets of 61c stamps. *sigh*

But what did you say, Mr. Post Master? There are 3c stamps available for purchase that will take care of this little predicament? Wonderful! Which one works the best for a wedding? "Well, none of them, ma'am" Wonderful.

And so, after carefully considering each 3c stamp, I reveal to you: our wedding stamp suite!





We chose the chair stamp, simply due to its vintage look. The animal rescue stamps were chosen in honour of our two babies, our pug Tasha and our kitty Maximus, each of whom were rescued by us. I know no one will pay as close attention to our stamp choice aside from myself, but wedding fever knows no bounds!

Did you have any special reasons for your stamp choice, or was it simply a matter of convenience?

Mailing the Very First Invite

The time has come to put our very first invite in the mail!

Do you think the Obamas will come?

The Final Countdown...

It's finally here! I awoke yesterday morning to this beauty of an email from The Knot! Only 6 months to go, and still so much to do!

On the list for this month: transportation (both for our guests and the bridal party), and purchasing the flower girl dresses. More to come on these later. What I am really focusing on right now is....

It is officially time to begin work on our invitations...which is surprisingly the one thing I have not been working on this whole time. It seems like only yesterday my mom and I purchased these delectible goodies and placed them carefully behind hubby's recliner (aka, "Wedding Central"). Has it really been almost a year since last June?

I Spy With My Little Eye...

I spy with my little eye...a game for kids of all ages to enjoy!! This idea started with disposable cameras. One thing I love about weddings is to sit back and look at everyone's candid photos of the night, and we thought long and hard about putting out disposable cameras at every table for guests to use.

After much research, we decided that was not the way to go. Not only is it a huge expense (purchasing the camera, and developing 60 rolls of film), but most of the photos will undoubtedly be the same (or unusable), and it is highly likely that some guests will take the cameras home with them, photos to never be seen again. And really, it's 2011. How many people out there come to a wedding without their digital cameras of much better quality?

And so, while perusing Weddingbee one morning (my go-to DIY inspiration site), I saw "I Spy" cards.



What are these? How do you use them? Where do they go? I loved how they looked, but was very unsure of how they were to be used. Is it a game with prizes at the end? How do the results get shared?

All of these questions came back in September. It was not until now (April) that all has been answered and a clear use for them has been decided.

First, I created a 6x6 template in word using our wedding colors. 6 pages of different items to look for allows for varying photos on each table, so hopefully very different photos will return. One card will be at each table for guests to look at during dinner and use as inspiration for their photos throughout the night. We are not using it as a game with prizes, but more as a suggestion for photo ops, which brings me to the next step...

We created a photo sharing website on shutterfly, and placed the information for this at the bottom of each card. We also created photosharing cards with all the information on them which will get placed in our thank you cards to remind guests to upload all their photos. I cannot WAIT to see what our guests come up with!!



What fun touches are you adding to your special day?

And Baby Makes Three....

Haha no, not me!! Although we are very excited to be visiting that path of our life sometime soon, it will not be until after I get the chance to wear my "newlywed" bikini on our honeymoon!

This party is for my gorgeous Maid of Honor, who will be welcoming a new baby into the world in less than a month!


~Here we are, the four musketeers, all grown up! Each of these lovely ladies will be standing up with me on my wedding day as Bridesmaids and Maid of Honor. I truly cannot imagine my life without them~

We could not believe how many people were there, it was definitely a full house! Even little Tasha got in on the fun:



As you may have noticed from the sari that Maid of Honor is modeling, her baby shower was a Bengali celebration. As such, it was full of yummy Indian food!! My favorite!! It is a Bengali tradition for guests to feed the mother...here we are after a bite:



And of course, there was cake!!



I'm not sure what flavor it was, but it tasted like shortbread. At any rate, it was THE most delicious cake I'd ever had!

I cannot WAIT to meet the newbie and welcome him into the world!

March Gym Check-In

Well, March started off slow, but by the end of the month we are steadily getting back into our gym routine! It's definitely slow-going to motivate ourselves, but I think within the next couple of weeks we'll be back to our 3x a week routine!