Compatibility

Pre-marital counseling, not only is it required (or at least an education course) to get a marriage license in Florida but its also required to get married by a pastor. So basically its a must, no way around it. I was actually kind of excited about this whole counseling ordeal, I mean it can't hurt to have someone give you advice and let you know where in your relationship needs work or places that might cause problems, I want to do it and actually want to get alot out of it. So last night Mr. Coastie and I had our first session. I was nervous when we went in, I won't lie, I mean I had no idea what to expect. After a little meet and greet and basically small talk about who we are and what we do and some future plans the pastor pulls out a test and says okay you're each going to take this and we'll compare next week and see how where there will be issues, this test will really tell us how compatible you are. Our reaction looked a little something like this:

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I mean a 60 question test that was going to tell how compatible we are? Kinda scary. so we separated into our own little rooms and took our 60 question test. and now we wait for one week to figure out how well our answers matched, should be interesting. Everything from finances, to marriage expectations, to in-laws, education and children. We've talk alot about most of these things so I guess were not completely going in blind, but still sort of nerve wrecking. Mr. Coastie and I chatted about the answers we put down on the car ride home (which I'm pretty sure your not supposed to do, but oops) Lets just say some of our answers match and some... well they don't. So I guess we find out how truly compatible we are in a week.

to heel or not to heel, that is the question

I have a shoe problem. I love cute shoes, I love to look at them and want to wear them, but then when I get them on I hate my life. For me heels are fun to look at, not so much to wear. Im not the girl that can throw on a pair of 4 inch stilettos and pull off wearing them through the agonizing pain for hours just for the beauty of them. Nope, not me. I'd rather rock some cute flops and and be comfortably laughing at the girl in the high heels.

So from the beginning I had decided I'd be wearing flats on my wedding day, because A: they are comfortable, B: I'm having an outdoor wedding and C: I'm clumsy and don't think tripping down the aisle will do much for the moment.I was looking at something adorable cute with a punch of color like this:

Lots of brides wear flats these days and I was all for this idea until i came across these:

one word: LOVE. okay these are the most fabulously perfect shoes for my wedding, I adore them, I swoon over them, I want them. problem? 4 inch heels. so here is my problem do i go for these fabulously gorgeous heel or do i got for my adorable quaint little comfortable flats? I love the heels, and It would keep me from getting my dress hemmed and make my 5' 3" self look less tiny next to Mr. Coastie's 6'6" self. but I forsee being in pain and hating these beautiful shoes before the ceremony is even over, and lets face it how am I supposed to dance and enjoy myself when I'm cutting blisters into my feet? and did I mention these shoes are $95.00? Which as far as bridal shoes go is pretty good, Some gals spend upwards of $200 on them. My precious flats come in around $30.00 but will require an entire hem on my wedding gown.

So you see my dilemma. flats or heels? comfort or fashion? someone help me decide!

we've got a logo?

Aparrently there is this new trend (it may not be new, but to me its new) to have a wedding logo or monogram. I think these are really cute, they go on water bottle labels (which we ARE doing even though this may be a labor of love more than its worth) they go on thank you cards, invitations, other random paper products for the wedding. So I've decided to do a few mock ups, I cant exactly decide which i like best or if we will use them or how we will use them but I figured I'd share and maybe get some feedback from everyone out there in internet world. okay so I made a few of them some i like more than others, im just sort of getting the hang of this inkscape thing so i dont exactly know the size they will show up on here so bare with me

This was my first creation, i don't LOVE the font like i do on some of the others

After seeing the first Mr. Coastie suggested that we add an R and a C to the mix, I think this one is a little too busy, he agrees, what do you think?

I dont know about this one, I d

I don't now about this, I like the black background but I'm not sure why I dont love it.

I actually really like this one, I happen to love the ampersand, but Mr. Coastie hates it, he thinks "that and sign is stupid"

 This is Mr. Coastie's favorite. I like it too although im not sure about the indefinite barrier, i.e no circle or anything around it, just sort of floating in nowheres land.

This baby is my favorite, It's sort of hard to see because of the size but I love it, and the font is my favorite. What do you guys think? which one looks the coolest?

STDs

save the Date's that is.... Since we're planning on doing alot of things DIY our first major paper product that needs to be designed is the save the dates. I've decided to use vistaprint for these little lovelies. Its pretty awesome if you dont know about it, you can use pre designed things or upload your own design and you can get your first 100 postcards for free. yes FREE, just pay shipping and handling. so BINGO! We're doing STD postcards.  Ill then buy plain white envelope which I'm dressing up with some stamps that I've bought (we'll get into that later). Anyways even though save the dates won't go out till about December/January  I started working on them this week, I'm a little bit of a perfectionist so this sort of stuff takes me a while and seeing as my amount of free time is about to dramatically plumit I figured I should get started. so after many hours of fussing with inkscape (free version of a photoshop) this is what I've got

There will be a picture from our engagement shoot in October that goes in the empty space below the flower and next to the calendar on the left. I had something like this already mocked up with more yellow flowers that I got from weddingchicks.com, pulled form the free template for dahlia invitaions but it seemed to busy. Then when I was doing my daily weddingbee browsing I came across a fellow bride who used the same flower and had this type of mock up. It was exactly what I was going for so i adjusted her idea a little and viola! I like them, I cant wait to get a picture in there and see how it all comes together. what do you think?

"all i got was 'ensacola beach' Cause his head was in the way"

So yesterday we took our previously mentioned pre engagement picture engagement pictures, nothing to fancy just a few shots at the beach where Mr. Coastie proposed. Im pretty happy with them seeing as they were just taken by a fellow Coastie who offered his time and we just used my dinky little digital (cause daddy doctor was being a hoarder with his uber nice camera) Anyways, It really made me very excited for a real engagement pictures coming in October, I cant wait to have some awesome photos by a professional done and get to work with the couple that will be doing our wedding. But, for the time being this will have to hold me over. here's a few of my favs from the evening

Pre Engagement Pictures Engagement Pictures

For those of you who know me, or have seen my previous room in Gainesville, or have had me be the paparazzi and take 20,000 pictures of you on one night out know that one of my loves is photography. Whether is is fun pictures of friends and family or artistic pictures of sunsets and flowers or just about anything, I love it. So of course some of the things im really excited about for the wedding are engagement pictures and wedding pictures. I ABSOLUTELY love looking at other people's engagement pics and wedding pics, it makes my heart happy. So it shouldn't surprise you that I've already got tons of ideas and pictures printed out for the engagement pictures and I can hardly wait to do them. Sadly, our real E-Pics wont be taking place until October (*tear*). You see Florida is 90 degrees from now until about October and the 100% percent humidity will have my curly hair looking like Monica in the Barbados episode of FRIENDS in season 10 (see)

not exactly a good look for some beloved E-Pics. So for our official engagement shoot we'll have to wait. However, I've found something to hold me over! I've decided that I really want to have some pictures taken in Pensacola, after all that is where we got engaged. However, our pictures are going to be taken in Tallahassee, a whole 3 hours away, which is a problem. So One of Mr. Coastie's friends has graciously agreed to help us out! we are going to be using a very nice camera and have some shots taken on Pensacola Beach where Mr. Coastie proposed. Ive got some awesome ideas for under the pier and some sand writing and feet in the water shots will definitely be taking place. I figured this will be our practice shoot so when the real pics come around we'll be ready! and it will give me a little taste of some pictures while letting us have some where it all happened.

I found this ADORABLE dress at Target (for only $19.99!)

If I like the way It looks in Pictures I may wear it for one of my official E-Pic outfits ( we'll be having two outfits and 2 locations). So monday night when the sun is going down (which apparently is the best light) we'll be taking our pre engagement picture engagement pictures. of course Ill be posting a few after the shoot. Get hyped.

Will you be My Bridesmaid?

I've been waiting to make this post for a while! I have officially asked all my girls to be by my side on the big day (Yay!) For some reason I was very VERY excited about this, for some reason I just couldn't wait to tell the chosen ones that I wanted them to be there. I searched the internet and tried to come up with some awesome ideas for proposing to my six lovely ladies and one little lady. I had tons of ideas but somethings just didnt pan out the way that I wanted, however I knew i wanted to do more than just shoot each one a phone call and ask. SOO this is what I came up with, I made each one of them picture frames they can put a picture from the wedding in (in a year...) or some other picture of their choosing. And I made each one a handmade card. Im not going to lie, i was pretty proud of these babies. For the frames I hit up my new favorite store Michaels armed with some 40% coups and on the day of their "biggest sale of the season" and got the frames, ribbon, cardstock and paint. 

So, I painted the wood frames black ( took like 4 coats for me to get them the color I wanted) Then i painted in yellow and white each girls name and position in the wedding party, Im pretty happy with the way they turned out, a couple of them I accidentally did upside down and had to drill a new hole in the bottom, which didn't turn out the way i wanted ( sorry for the 4 of you that got those, i tried to remedy it by adding paint into the whole thats a little big, but a little glue on the stick should do the trick)hey, im not perfect at this DIY business yet. ha ha

And the final product :)

Next I did the cards, I glued two sheet of construction paper together and used card stock to back the poem on the front ( which there are two different versions of), Then I cut out a dress shape or found a photo of me and the girl who's card it was for the inside, added a personal message and tied the card to the frame with ribbon and voila!

and the final product :)

disclaimer: The maid of honor's card was different, cause she is special :) no picture of that one, sorry, but it included "top 10 reasons to be my maid of honor" which i might add were pretty hilarious. 

coming soon:we'll get to know my lovely ladies a little better, so stay tuned for that one.

Im no longer a wedding DIY virgin...

Ive officially completed my first DIY project for the wedding (except for my Bridesmaids "will you be my" gifts, but more on that to come later). I was doing my browsing a Michael's today and decided there must be something i can do to kick off my DIY projects. so I decided to start with something simple, my bridal hair flower. I love the look of a white flower for a bride

source

I mean lets be honest how incredibly gorgeous is that? So i began doing some research on these babies thinking oh this is awesome a gorgeous accessory i can find for like 10 bucks. WRONG. Bridal hair flowers run anywhere from 30-80 dollars. Talk about sticker shock. So of course i started thinking there's got to be a way to make that, it cant be hard, or maybe i can just buy silk flower and put it in my hair (the effect is not exactly the same FYI). So of course i found some tutorials online, did a little test run with a hawaiian lei flowers and some buttons i had laying around and decided I could totally make this.

Back to the present, I was at Micheal's craft store and picked up 

2 big white roses (@ 1.99)

1 pack of crystal beads (4.99)

and I headed home to get to work

First I pulled the flower head off of the rest of flower, usually these are just attached by those lieelt plastic pieces so its easy to pull them off, you can throw away the leaves/steam, no need for them anymore.

then I separated the roses into the individual petals, just pull them apart, they are attached in layers, mine had a few other plastic pieces holding it together so I pulled those out as well. ( sorry i forgot to photo this part!). Once the layers are pulled apart I took the layers from both roses and stacked them to my liking, making sure each petal was where i wanted it and I pinned it as I went along to make sure the layers stayed

After pinning all the layers i simply took white thread and stitched through the middle tightly several times and then I stitched each layer of petals a few times (where i had placed the pins) to ensure that everything was secure.

Lastly I took a piece of white fabric and stitched it once over the center of the flower (just to make a smooth pretty surface for the beads to be placed.Then I sewed each of the beads individually into the middle of the flower. At the end I glued all the threads on the back to secure it. 

The flower will be glued onto a alligator clip or hair comb for use, I havent decided how i will have a veil but I will have an updo with the flower in the side

When i was done i sprayed it with hair spray to just make sure it stays crisp and clean over the next year and I put it in a plastic bag and placed it in my "wedding" box. So there it is! my bridal hair flower for a total of 8 dollars and about 30 minutes of work, not too shabby eh?

Just call me Martha Stewart

Wedding planning is making me super crafty. I'm not usually a very crafty person, I try to pain picture frames or bookshelves and other things or make fun gifts for people but i never really imagined myself to be a DIY type of bride. This has changed. just a month into the wedding planning and I've got a super long list of DIY projects that I'm sure will grow as time goes on. I'm very excited about all these projects and cant wait to really stretch my crafty brain. Anyways here is a list of the projects i plan to complete in the next year, and I will be chronicling the ins and out and how tos of them all.

Wedding direction signs

Centerpieces

Poms for decoration

Veil

Bridal Hair Flower

Flower girl head piece

Fan programs

Invitations

Save the dates

Out of town bags

Water bottle Labels

Favors

Ceremony aisle decorations

Table signs (sweetheart, reserved, buffet)

Sparkler Jars

Mr & Mrs chair sign

Flowers ?

"i don't watch that show 'this is the dress' so i dont know"

I bought a wedding dress! sudden? yes. unexpected? even more yes. happy? ecstatic! So mom doctor and I decided to go on our first wedding dress hunting adventure yesterday. David's Bridal was having their big sale and we were doing nothing and figured it was about time to start searching. I had a general idea of what i like: assymetrical rouching, flattering, A-line, strapless, gorgeous, not too fancy but not to simple. something like these:

So armed with this info and about 37 pictures printed off the website I went into my appointment just expecting to look and then go home wait a awhile come back and try again. Welp that plan didn't exactly work, I fell in love with a dress, and it was on clearance and it was being discontinued, so with not much thinking we bought it.

Being a huge important purchase I left the store with a little doubt in my mind wondering if maybe i should have just waited, and keep looking, but I knew that i loved it, i knew it was the one, so why would i keep looking? My mom was surprised at the fact that you could order your dress a year in advance, the consultant and I informed her that generally its about 9 months so while im a little early its no big deal, and she replied oh wow really? "i dont watch that show this is the dress" (referring to say yes to the dress) and everyone in the near vicinity chuckled. So I said yes to a dress. Which means Ive got a venue, a dress and registered. planing is moving along even though we havent gotten to the nitty gritty of the details and things ill have to do and make yet, some of the biggest things will be done before I head off to med school, which is exactly what i wanted.

p.s. one of the dresses pictured above is the one i said yes to

Inspirations

Okay so I've posted someone elses inspiration board that pretty much fit what i was going for but today I attempted to make my very own insipration board, its a little rough, just thrown together with microsoft word but it puts some ideas floating around into one place so here it is:

Thats all for now

It's Raining (Grooms)Men!

Now that they have  *officially* been asked I'm excited to introduce the Men of the hour.  We will be have six ( that's right SIX) groomsmen. Each one of them is very important to Mr. Coastie and he didn't want to cut any of them out, so we decided just to have a huge bridal party, no biggie. so here's the role call of the guys who will be standing up on our big day (i apologize in advance for the bad nicknames I gave these guys, it ended up being whatever popped into my head as im writing this post):

To start with we have the Best Man Whiter. Him and Mr. Coastie have been friends since age 3 (I believe) and are just about brothers, along with 3 of the other Groomsmen, who actually are his brothers.  He is about to graduate College with a physics major and will be spending a semster living with Mr. Coastie at the beach in the Spring.

Up next is Doctor groomsman, He is the oldest of the 4 brothers and again Mr. Coastie has known him for ages. He is a student at MSU COM and a great resource for advice for me seeing as he's doing the same thing ill be doing next year but is a year ahead ( Doctor groomsman is in the middle, with a funny looking highschool version of Mr Coastie on the right).

Then we have the third brother of the bunch Western Groomsman. He goes to Western Michigan University (hence the nickname) and again has been Mr. Coastie's buddy for pretty much ever.

The Last of the brothers is Music Man Groomsman. The youngest of the clan He is really like a little brother to Mr. Coastie (another pic of Mr. Coastie's high school days... always makes me laugh)

 Next we have Brother Groomsman. My brother that is. not much explination is needed here, he has been my big brother my whole life, ha ha.

and lastly we have Wolverine Groomsman, Mr. Coastie's Cousin and much to my dismay a very big Univ of Michigan fan (ha ha just kidding!) and him and wifey are expecting a baby girl soon!

So there they are, the official list of our boys. The role call for the bridesmaids will be coming soon, I'm going to begin asking at the end of this week and I'm very excited to post my bridesmaid asking project blog and introduce you all to my lovely ladies :)