Invites, revealed!

Well, it seems like it's safe to unveil these babies.  Meet our invites!

Proof courtesy of etsy seller Twigs Print Studio

Expectation vs. Reality: Envelope Addressing Edition

Today's blog is simply a PSA.
If you want your wedding invitation envelopes to look anything like this...

image from paperblog

...even remotely, just HIRE A CALLIGRAPHER.  Just do it.
I thought I was going to be able to find a shop in Vegas that could print out our envelopes in white ink, but that was a delusion.  None of the places I called could print on envelopes.  It was extremely frustrating.  So was the result of me sending my envelopes to a calligrapher, but more on that later.  Just wanted to warn you.

Necklaces are Complicated

YOU GUYS.
I cannot decide on a necklace.  You're gonna have to help a sister out!

BEAU:  You probably want to go away now.

Simplicity

Well kids...there's officially 78 days left until we get married.  WTF?  When did that happen?  I feel like I have a gazillion things to do (we don't even have an officiant yet....GAH), and I've officially gone into simplicity mode.  I skim over most the pretty and uber unique things in the blogs and on Pinterest.  I just can't  care about naming the tables other than "1", "2", etc.  I am still crazy enough to try and DIY our programs since I can't seem to find anything similar to the picture in my brain on Etsy.  And if it's not on Etsy it doesn't exist, just FYI.  Not from over here, anyways.  It's looking like I'm going to have to simplify the transportation (just getting a limo vs. something unique and photogenic...sigh) and I've already thrown out my guest book idea.  I was going to try and compile a scrapbook of sorts, and have a Polaroid out and have people bring in fun scraps...but then I read a couple of accounts about how people just don't seem to sign guest books.  Regardless of how creative it is or if they had the DJ announce it...nothing seems to work.  Our planner verified this too.  So, in lieu of the guest book, I'll have some wish tags out.

via Etsy seller luvs2create2

Nailed it!

I consider myself a fairly vain person.  We've discussed this before.  I will run errands in gym clothes, but usually I try to look my best, even when I'm going casual.  I worry about details that many people just don't.  One of my big worries is actually fairly common in the bridal world:  I have crappy nails.  It's not because I chew them, it's not that I'm dehydrated or neglect my nails...it's just that they like to peel, constantly.  In the middle of winter, they usually look like this:

Yuck, right?
My nail lady even told me once I have good cuticles and bad nails, and that makes no sense what so ever.  I'm fairly certain I've tried every kind of nail protein ever, with no results.  I'd given up the fight, until, as usual, WeddingBee saved my life.  While Mrs. Macarons and I have different issues (she bites, mine just self-shred), her before and after pictures convinced me to try Nailtiques Nail Protein.  I chose Formula Two at first, and had great results after about 3 weeks.  After that, I had some fun with Shellac manicures:

my favorite mani, ever!  

Shellac is good for me...it usually doesn't peel or chip, and my nails stay strong under it.  Then in May, my nailist and I tried a Gelish mani.  It was gorgeous:  

"Sakura" (cherry blossom) written in Hiragana and Kanji

But complete hell on my nails.  The gel was very hard to get off--Chigusa was still peeling pieces of gel off my nails before I left for America!  And it made them peel again.  This time Formula Two wasn't helping, so it took about 3 weeks of Formula Two Plus to get back to this:  

Nothing fancy, just mostly un-shredded nails!  So it's safe to say I'm staying away from Gelish, unfortunately.  They have more colors than Shellac, but it's just too hard on my nails!  I found a cute nail place in Milwaukee that does Shellac manicures, so I will be going to Polished Nail Bar before my wedding.  Bonus:  since Beau and I are immediately going on our honeymoon, I'll have pretty nails the whole time!  Now...what color and designs should I do???

Planning in MKE

Well friends, my time in Milwaukee was super brief.  But I got so much done!  Pardon the lack of pictures...my travels did not go smoothly and I was rushed (one of my least favorite state-of-minds).  Here are the things I did and/or was supposed to do...

Visited my venue:  Right after arriving in Milwaukee, I checked into my hotel and walked a few blocks down the street to pick up a rental car.  Immediately after that, I met with Amanda at the 333.  Good news:  I absolutely love the venue!  It's unique and open and rustic-y beautiful.  More good news:  There was another room I loved more that freed up, the 325.  It's got wooden pilars and street-lamp-like light fixtures...when Kori told me about the space being available, my eyes lit up...I love the wooden pillars so much!  But seeing it in person made me realize it's just not a big enough room to do everything we want to do.  Our ceremony AND our cocktail hour AND our reception will all be in one room, and it's much better suited to the 333.

Discussed decorations with Amanda:  the absolute best part was getting to sit down with her and go over details!  And she knows a carpenter that may be able to make a torii gate for me...I will do a separate post about decorations soon!

Met my florist:  Bobby is amazing, and lovely, and warm.  And his house is gorgeous.  And he was really excited about my ideas!  I think our centerpieces are going to be different than what I originally envisioned, but I'm still stoked to see them.

Went to two catering tastings:  Catering was something I was really struggling with.  Have you ever tried to pick out a menu without tasting stuff?  It's impossible.  For me anyways.  So Amanda set up two appointments for me.  Our first one was at Chef Jack's.  I was drawn to them because they mention trying to use local ingredients and staying as green as possible.  They had a good selection of food (and lots of it), but I felt like it was fairly ordinary fare.  The second tasting was at Gracious Events.  Amanda said from the very beginning that she thought I would like this place, and she was far from wrong.  I absolutely loved it...it was well thought out food that was literally mouth-watering.  It started off with a lemon-ginger spritzer and some beautiful appetizers.  It got even better with each dinner option she brought out...scallops, pork tenderloin, mahi mahi and beef shortrib.  I had to choose three of them and it was one of the more difficult decisions I had to make!  I eventually cut the mahi mahi because I didn't want to scare people off with fish (I'm from Kansas...we're not used to fish that's actually tasty).

Had my first gown fitting:  Before I knew I was going to be able to fit a trip to America in, I was going to have my dress altered in Japan...but that scared me because I didn't want anything lost in translation.  So when I planned the trip, I got a recommendation to go to Caron Sherer.  She was warm and fantastic and friendly as well!  I love the Midwest.  I was prepared to make quite the payment to have the dress taken in and bustled, but was happily shocked to pay less than $300 all together.

Ate cake:  Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke!

Hyperbole and a Half

I already basically knew what we wanted for cake, but Susan put out all kinds of stuff to make sure.  I ended up going with one layer of marble cake with chocolate buttercream inside, and two layers of lemon cake with cream cheese and raspberry inside.  The outside will be vanilla buttercream with a semi-pleated look.  This was the original inspiration:

Charm City Cakes

But the buttercream will make it look a little rougher.  That's ok.  I like it rough!  Heehehe...  

The cake was also pleasantly inexpensive!  It's a smaller cake, because we're going to have a beautiful yummy desert bar, but it was nice that I have a few dollars leftover from the cake to put towards other deserts.  

Got my hair did:  But oh wait....that didn't happen. At Neroli Salon & Spa, the first recommendation I got was for Sydney, who was on vacation.  The second was for Dez, who doesn't work at the downtown location anymore.  And the third was for Madison, who doesn't work on Saturdays anymore.  Amanda felt terrible...they hadn't shared their changes with her!  But I got all set up for October with Sydney.

Set up our rehearsal dinner:  Another failure...the restaurant we wanted to book for this not only didn't have our reservation written down, they also let us know we wouldn't be able to reserve the whole room.  Arrrghhh.  Jason and I talked about it and decided to go back to the drawing board for this one.