You're Invited

So I think I've finally made a decision about our wedding invitations. After hours of deliberating, moaning, complaining, and painstaking work/research on the interwebs, I may have possibly made a decision. I say "possibly" because there are still several things that might go wrong in the process and thus I may have to change my mind again.

In the end, after visiting http://www.paperandmore.com/ I fell in love with the idea of printing our bride and groom image on white linen cardstock and the text on translucent vellum, then attaching the two layers, either with a decorative brad or with simple vellum glue dots. Our response cards will then be printed on "Aqua" cardstock (read: akin to Tiffany Blue and David's Bridal "Pool"), and the two elements will be held together with a pretty ribbon of approximately the same color. The response cards will be accompanied by white envelopes, while the entire invitation package will arrive in a pearly/shiny "Aqua" envelope.

I designed the invitation elements using http://www.scrapblog.com/ because I liked their bride and groom image best, as well as the font called "Apricot." It's just whimsical enough while still retaining a slight bit of formality. Best of all, I can practice because PaperandMore sells samples of all of their products at about 50 cents a page! I ordered my samples, which arrived in three days, and I love the quality! I have enough of everything to print out two samples, so pretty soon I'll be going around to various places (such as Kinkos and Staples) to find out who will print on vellum and cardstock and how much they'll charge.


Here are the base images I'm working from:

This is a rough idea of what it might look like to have the text printed on vellum, which overlays the image on cardstock

And here's what the response cards might look like:

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited. This (and lack of funds) has been the most irritating part of this process so far. I'm just about sick of this invitation business and it will feel wonderful to have everything decided.

A Special Post

Today is a very special day. In exactly one year, at this time, I will be married to my wonderful Jordan! And tomorrow marks our fourth anniversary. Hopefully, a year from tomorrow, we will be on our way to Ireland and the best honeymoon I could ever imagine.

We have gone through a lot of stuff since he asked me out on a date four years ago. I was a senior in high school and he was a sophomore at UGA. Three months after we started dating, he told me he loved me and I said it back, meaning it with every ounce of my being. Five months after that, I left home for UGA, dealing with a lot of family issues. Jordan was always there for me when I would randomly burst into tears because of stress and high emotions.

A year after we started dating, we moved in together. Two months after that, we spent the most amazing week together in Jamaica for his brother's wedding. Within a week of returning, we almost broke up because of some very unfortunate issues. We spent the next year rebuilding our relationship from the bottom up, and he had to win back my trust after hurting me very badly. I also had to learn how to trust him again. From that point on, we were both very different people from what we had been when we started dating in 2004. We had reached the breaking point, but instead of giving up, we both showed a lot of maturity and strength and stuck with each other, even when we were both being our most annoying/frustrating selves.

One year after that, Jordan proposed to me in front of the UGA Chapel; he said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked me to marry him. I said yes, and we decided to wait until after we both would be graduated from college (me with a Bachelor's Degree and him with a Master's). So the date was set for September 20, 2009...one day shy of what would be our fifth anniversary.

Here we are, four years after he first asked me out, almost two years after the proposal, and exactly one year from the wedding. We are still growing together, and sometimes the process is painful, but we both try to keep in mind how very much we love each other. Things have been tough for us, especially lately. We're both dealing with the stress of finishing our respective degrees, finding the money to pay for both rent and this upcoming wedding, and still finding the time and energy to show our love for one another. It's definitely not always easy, but anyone who tells you that love is easy has never truly been in love. It takes effort. It takes work. But the final outcome is worth a lot more than what you'll ever have to put into it.

Have I had doubts? Of course. But it's overcoming the doubts that has strengthened our relationship more than anything else.

One year from today, our lives will become even more interconnected than they are now. And we'll be eating delicious food at Paula Deen's restaurant!! :D

Have some pictures:

A wedding party mosaic:

And a bridal mosaic:

I love contests

I have been entering wedding contests left and right, and so far I haven't won anything, but they're usually fun to enter anyway.

David's Bridal is having a "One Love" contest in which you basically make an inspiration board and tell the story of when/how you knew your fiance was your "One Love."

Of course I entered!

http://www.davidsbridal.com/onelove1.jsp?pbb_qsi=4693629&=PBB_DavidsBridalOneLove_336_PPIMEMAIL

If you have about an hour, enter! It takes a while to get used to the editor (very clunky and frustrating). Also, vote for mine please? :) If you enter, send me the link to yours and I'll vote for you too.

A new engagement ring!

Jordan is one of the sweetest people alive. We've had really tough times, and lately has been especially rough on us, but he always manages to make me feel loved. Today he took me to Kay Jewelers, traded in my original engagement ring, and got me a larger engagement ring, along with the matching wedding band. It is absolutely gorgeous and I cannot wait until it arrives next Friday! Here is a picture of the set:

Also, our anniversary is this month. We both had such an awful week that we went ahead and exchanged gifts. He got me the coolest thing ever! It's a set of three stacking rings with hearts, yet when they stack together, they form a four-leaf clover! Here it is:

He spoils me. :)

Bad News

Classes have started back, so I've been rather busy, and not really in the mood for posting on here. Not to mention, because of budget cuts here at UGA, I've sort of lost my job. I have to cut back on hours (which means bringing home $200 less A MONTH) until November, at which time my position will be permanently eliminated. How absolutely thrilling. As if everything else in my life hasn't been falling apart too.

I guess that's a little over-dramatic, but things have really felt awful lately. I'm gaining weight instead of losing, I'm swamped with work for my classes and research, I lost the best job I've ever had, Jordan and I have been fighting a lot more, I'm usually too busy to hang out with my friends, I'm way more irritable than usual, and I don't even really feel like doing any more wedding planning. That's how I know it's gotten bad...the only thing I really want to do is stay in my bed all day, sleeping and maybe coloring. I don't feel like eating, I dread the thought of having to go anywhere, and I especially don't want to go to work or classes anymore.

Ugh. This has gotten bad enough. I'm just hoping that some sunshine will come back into my life pretty soon (sans the heat and sunburn parts). I don't know how much longer I can handle feeling so gloomy and miserable.

Wait, what?! A rehearsal dinner?!

I guess it just slipped my mind, but I had completely forgotten about that whole rehearsal dinner thing until my mom mentioned it a few weeks ago. How else is everyone going to know what the heck they need to be doing on the morning of our wedding?

Well, damn.

So I decided not to stress about it. The wedding is going to be formal and fancy and traditional enough. For the rehearsal dinner, we're just going to have fun!

Jordan has let me make the majority (okay, pretty much all) the decisions concerning the wedding. The pink flowers? My idea. The bride and groom theme? He could care less. He's even letting me pick out most of his outfit. The wedding as it is coming along really reflects more of my personality than his. Most people would agree that that is pretty common and a well-established tradition, but I'd still like to let his personality shine through in some way. That's where The Pirate's House Restaurant comes in!

The Saturday evening before our Big Day, we are going to have the wedding party and the closest members of our family join us at The Pirate's House in Savannah for our rehearsal dinner. This is what their website says:

"Situated a scant block from the Savannah River, The Pirate's House first opened as an inn for seafarers, and fast became a rendezvous for blood-thirsty pirates and sailors from the Seven Seas. Here seamen drank their grog and discoursed, sailor fashion, on their exotic high seas adventures from Singapore to Bombay and from London to Port Said.... At the Pirate's House, our most precious treasure is our food, acclaimed for over three decades.... We operate 15 separate dining rooms each with a distinct charm all its own."

Jordan loves pirates; or rather, he loves the concept of pirates (and I'll be honest, so do I!). I think we'll all have a grand time...and the food is said to be freakin delicious. :D Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be haunted... ;)

Okay, cool. Location? Confirmed. Now what's that about invitations? Well, I guess that's necessary, too. Since we're only inviting a handful of people, we can afford get a little more creative with the invitations. Here's something I found that fits Jordan perfectly:

I have to admit that I also have a bit of a soft spot for the Wii as well (especially Paper Mario and Cooking Mama), so this is a fabulous idea. I'm a pretty awesome Mii maker too, so I look forward to perfecting our Miis that will be used on the invitation!

We are going to use the rehearsal dinner to relax with our close friends and family before the Big Day, and also to hand out gifts to these same people, who will have tolerated my wedding talk for over two years by the time next September rolls around. Plus, since the wedding is so early in the morning on Sunday, they'll all have to be in Savannah Saturday evening anyway; us providing dinner will help them feel welcome and loved.

In other news, I created yet another wedding website, haha! I was on Shutterfly and noticed the "free share sites" link; so I created a wedding planning website that focuses mainly on pictures, but it also has a calendar, a discussion forum, polls, etc. Check it out!

http://samanthaandjordan.shutterfly.com/

JEWELRY!!

Just wanted to share some quick news before launching into Wedding Planning City: Jordan and I are now officially moved into our AWESOME new apartment! It's just across town from our old apartment, but it feels like the two places are worlds apart! We have working AC, better neighbors, more space, and a washer, dryer, and dishwasher, yay!

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Okay, so besides being a ridiculously difficult word to type correctly, jewelry is one of my favorite things in the world. Fortunately for Jordan's wallet, I'm usually attached to inexpensive, plastic, funky colored jewelry rather than diamonds and gemstones, though I do have my weaknesses.

Being that I love jewelry so much, you would think that deciding on my bridal jewelry would be a piece of cake, but I've discovered that narrowing down my choices is harder than the hardest diamond on earth. *le sigh*

I have come to a few general decisions: 1) I want my bridesmaids to wear turquoise to match their dresses and possibly pearls to match their bouquet purses. 2) I want to wear some combination of pearls, diamonds, and turquoise. 3) I will have one piece of jewelry that reflects my personality and typical jewelry tastes. And 4) None of these materials have to be real, except for the metals. That is, I don't mind substituting glass beads for real turquoise, fake pearls for freshwater pearls, and cubic zirconia for diamonds, but I have to have either sterling silver or white gold. Oh yeah, and I might as well throw in 5) I don't want to spend a ton of money on my jewelry.

I can't say it hasn't been fun surfing the internet for ideas, and here are the results of two days worth of searching:

First of all, I love simple bridal tiaras, with just pearls and diamonds:

Because of the neckline of my dress, as well as the halter straps, I want my necklace to be fairly simple, so as to not to detract from the many details of the top of my dress. Also, because my hairstyle will also be pretty fancy, I want my earrings to match the simplicity of the necklace. Alas, this is where I am most indecisive about what exactly I want. Some ideas:

Earrings to the left, necklace to the right:

Two different sets I like:

Next up is my bracelet. Not a necessary part of bridal jewelry, but this is the piece I am going to use to show off my personality. I know I want it to be made up of pearls and/or turquoise, and I want it to be chunky and bold. But there are so many options!

For the bridesmaids, I have found these pieces that I love:





















Also, this is a set at David's Bridal that I love. It comes in the color Pool, which would match their dresses exactly:

And let's not forget the rings! This is the easiest part of all my jewelry decisions. I know exactly what I want, and Jordan mostly knows what he wants. Mine will be white gold with inset diamonds, and he wants titanium with very little fancy stuff on it. Our wedding bands will be pretty much exactly like these:

As a little sidenote, we are going to get our wedding bands engraved as well. We are thinking about having the phrase "Less Than Three" engraved because when we first started dating, we were in a long-distance relationship for several months and we chatted a lot on AIM. We started using <3 a lot and it just kinda stuck!

So that's where I stand on jewelry for the big day. Rather indecisive and in need of a lot of suggestions/ideas/advice. Feel free to offer it! :)