Time Out for the Holidays

Sorry for such a long time between updates. There is nothing new to report on the wedding plans. My mom said she was browsing mother-of-the-bride dresses today but didn't see any she liked. She said she better start looking now for something pretty because the selection she saw was not making the cut. Again, glad we have a little under two years to get everything together!

As the holidays are now here, I will not be updating until after the 1st of the year unless something major comes up. This is my last week of classes, so I'm looking forward to heading home to spend the holidays with my family. This will be mine and Matt's first Christmas as an engaged couple.
Happy holidays everyone!

Check back after New Year's for new updates!

Unbroken Candles Arrive

After the disappointment of the candle shipment from Khol's last week, I am very happy to report that the new shipment of candles were packed much better and arrived almost completely undamaged. There were only 3 out of 53 broken this time, which is a huge improvement. Hopefully there won't be too many more obstacles or upsets in planning our wedding, but it's nice to know I have a great family and fiance to help and be there for support.

Broken Candles....Completely Broken

Well, last week was somewhat of a disappointment. We got our shipment of the monogram candle holders in and when I opened the box every single one was broken. They shipped all 53 of them in the same box with one sheet of bubble wrap layed on top of them. There was no packing in between them and the box was breaking apart because of the weight. Matt, my mom, and I took them back to Kohl's and returned them, then reordered them again. We asked the woman we talked with to put a note under shipping to package them in multiple packages and to wrap them with more bubble wrap in between them. I got on my email a couple days ago and had an email from Kohl's confirming our order, and I saw that yet again they have put all 53 in the same package. Hopefully they wrapped them each with bubble wrap, but I'm very doubtful. I don't know how you could think that putting 53 glass objects in a box together with nothing between them wouldn't result in them all being broken. I could ask an elementary student to do this task and they would even say that they would need to put something between them because they would break. I have been pretty relaxed about things, but this is stressing me out and is absolutely ridiculous. Bridezilla may come out if this next shipment is completely broken.....

The broken, damaged box they came in.

The one sheet of bubble wrap they put on top.

All of the candle holders completely broken, cracked, or chipped.

Centerpieces

Things were slow last week, but I finally have a new update! We have gathered all the centerpieces for the wedding! Over the weekend my mom and I were shopping at Khols when we saw these monogram candles. We started pulling out the letters to make CLARK and then pulled out all the remaining C's. The CLARK candles will sit in front of us on our table at the reception and the C's will be on the guest tables. We were only able to find 7 C's in the store, but we found them on Khols.com and ordered about 50 more. They were such a good deal, to get a monogramed candle holder with the candle already in it: perfect! We also found some white pumpkin candles at Khols that are going to be placed by the book, cake, food, etc. This ties in with our other centerpieces which are white pumpkins cut into baskets with flowers in them. My uncle is a farmer and is going to grow the white pumpkins for me. I've put a picture below to show what they will look like only we are going to cut the pumpkin into a basket and the flowers will be purple. I'm so excited to get all this stuff this weekend, and on sale!! I can just imagine what the reception is going to look like and I must say, I think it will be beautiful!


Monogram Candle Holders/Candles



White Pumpkin Candles



White Pumpkin Centerpieces (Basket Cut w/Purple Flowers)

Wedding Dress

Well another week has passed and another update to make. This weekend I tried on my mom's wedding dress to see if we could possibly make it more modern and I could wear it for my wedding. I did not think this was going to work, as much as I wanted it to, because her dress has long lace sleeves and goes up into a collar around the neck (very 80's style). My mom and I tucked the sleeves in and the top piece under the rest of the bodice, and I could not believe my eyes. The dress looks completely different, and very modern. It is almost exaclty what I thought I wanted: cream, lots of lace, and a very romantic look to it. I am so happy that I will be able to wear my mother's wedding dress on my wedding day. I was not going to wear it if I had to cut it up completely, but there are just a couple of minor alterations to make and it will be ready for me to wear on my wedding day, modern and beautiful. The lace that we do cut from the dress will be used to make my veil and garter, so almost all of the dress will reamain on something I will be wearing. My mom is so nice to let me do this and have this special story behind my wedding dress. She said I'm her only daughter and she's not going to ever wear it again, so why not : ) My mom and I are still going to go dress shopping at a couple of places just to have the experience of going, but her wedding dress sets the bar high. Knowing what my dress will look like has made me very excited and anxious for the wedding...I have a long time, but being able to marry Matt is worth the wait.

Our Wedding Date: October 14, 2011

We have our wedding date set!!! October 14, 2011 is officially set as our wedding date! I'm so happy! We chose to move it from our original choice because the church holds a Turkey Shoot on that weekend. The wedding will be on a Friday which will give us the freedom to set the time of day and decorate without having to schedule around Saturday night mass. This is the first bit of planning and I'm so excited to have at least one thing completed.

We had our first meeting with Father John on Sunday. It was nice to meet him and start our journey of marriage. We took a survey that we will later compare our answers with. I think we will probably have a lot of the same answers on them, but it will be interesting to see what we differ in. Matt also got to see the inside of the church for the first time. He thought it was pretty and that his family would like it too.

I wanted to announce the bridesmaids and groomsmen this week as well. We have so many special people in our lives and chosing who to be our attendents was a task that left us feeling blessed to have so many loving and caring friends and family.

Maid of Honor:
Maggie Crum (friend)

Bridesmaids:
Sally Wade (cousin of bride)
Carrie Tegart (cousin of bride)
Katie Hahn (friend)

Best Man:
Josh Robinson (friend)

Groomsmen:
David Novak (friend)
Corey Clark (cousin of groom)
Nick Townsend (brother of bride)

I also recieved my first wedding piece this weekend from my cousin Carrie. She got me a handkerchief that is stitched with flowers and says sister on it. It is stiched with blue thread, so I will be using it as my something blue on my wedding day. I absolutely love it!



I hope to post more details soon! I'm just happy with our wedding date for now!

Week 5: Meeting With Father John Moved

Well, we have been engaged five weeks now. It's a good thing we have two years to plan because time seems to be flying by! I'm excited to say that our meeting with Father John has been moved up to this Sunday, October 11. I'm hoping that we can get our date secured and officially announce it to our friends and family. I will also let everyone know who we have selected to be in our wedding party next week. I'm excited to finally have at least a couple of things started....makes me feel like a bride to be!

3 Amazing Years Together

Today is the three year anniversary of Matt and I being together. It seems like I've known him my whole life and yet all our memories seem like just yesterday. It feels so good to have found my soul mate, my best friend, and the man that will be by my side for a lifetime. It also is exciting that in exactly two years we will be waking up to get married. I can't imagine how amazing that feeling is going to be: to wake up knowing that in the evening your going to marry the man of your dreams, who makes all your dreams come true. I can't hardly wait! This week we are celebrating our anniversary, so I won't be working on too much wedding stuff. I can't really do too much until our meeting with Father John to make our date official anyways. I feel so blessed to be in a loving, caring relationship and also have so many family and friends around us to give us their love and support. I'm living the life I've always dreamed.

Gathering Ideas...And More Waiting

Well not much has progressed since last week. I didn't look at any reception sites because I think we might be changing the date to the Friday, September 30. I'm getting very anxious about getting the date officially set so we can tell everyone and start planning everything else. We won't know the date until our meeting with Father John on October 25...1 month! Geez. In my spare time I've been gathering pictures of dresses, flowers, cakes, decorations, etc. that I like and saving them to a file on my computer. This will give me ideas and pictures to take into the different vendors so they can have a starting point to go from. Not much else going on with wedding planning. Just enjoying being engaged and spending time together.

Week 2: Trying to Secure Our Wedding Date

It's week two and I've accomplished my first three missions. I showed the ring off to the remaining people who had not yet seen it, enjoyed a great weekend with my fiance, and I have contacted St. Joe church. We have a meeting set up on October 25 to talk with Father John about making our wedding date official. We have chosen the date of October 1, 2o11. This is a special date to us because our dating anniversary is on September 30. In 2011 we will have our 5 year dating anniversary and get married the next day. Hopefully everything will work to have the date we have picked and an evening wedding. The Catholic church doesn't seem to like having evening weddings on Saturday because of Saturday night mass, but I really want an evening wedding so that the reception can follow directly after and last into the night. My mission for this week: start looking at possible reception sites. St. Joe always has their Turkey Shoot on that weekend in October and Father John said it was likely we would not be able to use their facilities for the reception because of this event. I never thought trying to get the date we have chosen would be so difficult with the church, but it seems to be that way. Good thing I have two years to plan!

We're Engaged!

Matt and I are now engaged as of September 3!! I'm so happy to be the future Mrs. Clark! Although we are not planning to get married until fall 2011, I'm excited to start planning our wedding celebration. I am going to try to keep this blog updated with ideas and progress as a record of our wedding and to keep family and friends involved in the process. I look forward to sharing the details of the wedding as they come together and hopefully getting feedback from everyone. My missions for this week: Show the ring to remaining friends and family, contact the church about having a Saturday evening wedding, and enjoy being engaged to an amazing man!