Crazy Taste Test

Side Note: I love sandwiches. And that may be an understatement. I don't know what it is about them. It would actually be relatively easy for me to go a week and not eat anything but sandwiches. In fact, I've probably done this before subconsciously. So as for the food for our wedding reception, it was a no brainer. I thought, "Hands down, no question about it: we are definitely doing sandwiches for our reception." (Isaac fully supported me on this in case you were wondering). But after a while, I gave it a little thought... Do I want my wedding to feel like a picnic or do I want it to feel like a wedding? I tossed and turned at night thinking about this, what felt like, huge decision... my love of sandwiches or the propriety of my wedding. Oh, silly decisions. The thing that cinched it for me was imagining myself going to a pretty wedding and then being served sandwiches and chips. And although my love of sandwiches was tested, I realized that sandwiches would not be a meal I would expect to be served at such a lovely occasion. So we decided to go with a hot buffet meal (I'm sure many of you are thinking, "oh thank goodness!").

Now the decision was: what are we serving? So we set up our first tasting with the caterer to start figuring all this out. Like a good little fiance, I printed off the directions to their facility, and even changed the path to one that we were familiar with, thinking that would help. We left 45 minutes early, even though it only takes 30 minutes to get there, to ensure that we wouldn't be late. Isaac picked me up after he got off work and we were on our way, ready to eat some, hopefully, yummy food.

Ten minutes into the car ride I got car sick. Headache, hot spells, nauseousness... the whole nine yards... but was luckily able to control my cookies-with a lot of concentration. One thing we couldn't control with concentration? The directions. Yep, we got lost. And of course we didn't have cellphone service to call the caterer. Stupid tiny town. And this was about the time my irrationality started to kick in thinking that this was something out of a horror movie and we were driving to our death. Somehow or another Isaac managed to call the caterer and we finally found our way; after an hour or driving around. My car sickness started to subside by then and there was not a mass murderer waiting for us at the caterers house, but instead a really nice, likable guy by the name of Earl. Phew! Lucky us.

We sat down at the little table they had set up for us and prepared ourselves for the worst (just in case). As we waited for him to put the finishing touches on our food, Isaac dove into the salad while I looked at their portfolio.

(the only picture we got of the food)

After a couple minutes, I heard a little clunk and Isaac go silent. I looked up and guilty looking Isaac had dumped his cup of water on the table. We both just sat there and looked at the wet spot grow bigger and bigger, and then we started laughing. "Did you really just do that?" I laughed with tears in my eyes, as if this is one more thing to top off our fantastic evening.

I ran to go grab my camera (which I had spent all day charging the battery) from the car, thinking that I needed to document this crazy night, but I had left my memory card at home. UGH! Nothing is going right!

(Luckily Isaac has an iphone and was able to capture the moment)

We finally spotted napkins in the corner and quickly tried to clean up the mess before Earl walked back in with the food, but when he did, he was as sweet as could be and didn't mind the huge water spot on his table linen. Then Earl set two heaping plates of food in front of each of us. Chicken, pork loin, green beans, mashed potatoes and bread. It looked yummy, but I still braced myself (considering I've never had yummy tasting catered food). Two bites in, it finally registered: This stuff is good. A couple bites later: this stuff is realllly realllly good!

After we were done stuffing our faces (my plate was completely clean, and I may have eaten a couple bites off of Isaac's) we talked business with Earl, nailing down a few details and then left, bellies full and minds at ease. We have nothing to worry about with this guy as our caterer. He's got it all in good hands. So after our crazy night, there was one thing we were able to get right- the yummy food... even though we aren't serving sandwiches.

Winter weddings

I think winter weddings are so romantic. I'm not getting married in the winter but if I was, I'd want it to look a little something like this.

If Oprah can do it, why can't I?

Quite honestly this doesn't have anything to do with my wedding but getting into the Christmas spirit, I thought I'd do a 'favorite things' post just for fun. So...

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAAAVOOORITE THINGS!

It may seem silly, but I never leave the house with out mascara on my lashes. I've been known to have dark circles under my little peepers since I was a little tot, and mascara helps to disctract from that. So my pick for quite some time now has been L'Oreal Voluminous mascara in Carbon Black. If you don't like spider eyes but long lashes, this is the stuff for you.

I could very well be obsessed with candles, and my favorite are White Barn Candle Company. They run sales all the time so you can get like 2 for the price of one and they always have new scents. My current favorite for Christmas time is 'Tis the Season'.I tried for quite some time to find a less expensive alternative to this next one but every boot I tried fell apart or lost its shape. After months of walking through the snow in ballet flats, I got fed up and asked for these boots for Christmas. If I had bought these boots myself, I would say that these are the best purchase I've ever made, and every winter I thank God for these boots. Ugg Boots. I'm not sure what it is but I love these cups. I find that I've been drinking like 70% more water everyday. My complexion has been thanking me. You can get them 2 for $10 at Macy's right now, which is exactly what Isaac and I did.



Moleskines. Isaac and I bought a few of these for our wedding vow ceremony, and I love mine. They are such awesome quality.

Have you ever tried working out with your Ipod and the Ipod headphones fall out or feel like they are going to fall out alllll the time? Problem solved. Sony Earbuds fit inside your ear and stay in there. They also block out sound. It's so nice.

Speaking of Ipod, the CD that I've been playing over and over is Flags by Brooke Fraser. Makes me want to sing and dance around like a ballerina.

I love burts bees chapstick, especially the peppermint flavor but I stumbled upon these lip tints which are one step better. Same flavor, but has a little bit of color too. Tinted chapstick! Genius. My favorite is the Fig color.

In high school, my friend Katie would have these little babies in candy jars all over her house. Her grandma would fly big packs of them from Germany because they didn't sell them in the US yet and we would eat tons of them! But much to my eternal happiness, they now sell them in big packs at most grocery stores! Let it be noted that these are the only gummy bears I will touch.

Most girls I know always wear tank tops under most shirts or as a base to most outfits. I used to wear 'wife beaters' but those always shrunk in the wash and I would end up buying new ones every few months. Then I tried these. The 'Essential Tank Top' in the Pink line at Victoria's Secret. They are long and have elastic in them so they don't roll up. Best tank tops I've ever owned.

I may not be rich like Oprah and give people 2012 VWs but One Lucky Reader will get a White Barn Candle! So tell me, what are a few of YOUR favorite things?

A few of my favorite wedding dresses

10. The Unconventionalist

9. Wedding day Barbie

8. Cowboy take her away (please)

7. Rufflicious

6. Takes puffiness to a whole new level

5. The Q -Tip

4. Pleated shoulder poofs AND a poof skirt beats your average cupcake any day

3. I think the dress is under more stress than the bride.

2. Clearly not ashamed of that illegitimate child

1. The cocoon

You're welcome.

I'm getting pretty good at this stuff

Remember that one time it took me a WEEK to finish my napkins... well yesterday I figured since I had extra time, I would finish yet another mundane task: tying ribbon around each bottle of bubbles. As Isaac and I walk down the aisle as husband and wife, we are going to have our beloved guests blow bubbles, and to spice up my dollar store purchases (only $1 for 9 bottles!!!) I thought ribbon would do the trick. Now considering the last time it took me to cut and tie ribbon around my napkins, I felt disgusted thinking how long this was going to take me....

but I underestimated myself. I'm getting really good at this stuff and it took me less than an hour to cut all the ribbon and tie them around the bubbles. Relief. It's not too exciting but here they are.

By the way, OUR STRAWS CAME!!! And as you can see, we are verrry excited!

Don't worry, we got an extra pack for ourselves. We won't be serving you these straws.

Craft Time

My glitter wedding shoes needed a little pick me up and I was feeling crafty....

so I cut some circles from a pink fabric I picked up, grabbed a few earring clips (because I couldn't find shoe clips) and found needle and thread (which is actually really hard to find in our house... we apparently aren't very domestic).

After a half hour, I had these...

The earring clips worked perfectly. I'm pretty stoked.

6 MONTHS and STD's!

Six months from yesterday we will be saying 'I Do'!!!! What's even weirder is that we've been engaged for 9 months already. That's so crazy. People told me it would fly by and it definately has.

We just sent out our save the dates (or STD's as they are known in the wedding blog world) this week! In case you were wondering, that picture was taken by my fabulously talented cousin Tami Paige. I told her I wanted it to look vintage and she definately delivered.

Once the picture was ready, I went to weddingpaperdivas.com and was able to pick from about 100 different save the date designs. They have really cute invitation designs too but their save the dates are more afforable. I picked about 6 designs to test out which ones looked the best with our picture. You can also choose the different color you want, and the different fonts. Once we narrowed it down to the one we liked, I ordered them, and they sent me a digital proof to show exactly what it was going to look like. After I gave them the ok, they printed them off and shipped them to me. They said it was going to take about two weeks but they actually sent them to me after only 3 days! I'm very happy with how they turned out.

Please excuse my horrible cropping job. Thanks.

I think I might be....

.... a little obsessed ... Or maybe a lot obsessed. During my many hours of searching through wedding blogs and websites, I found myself just staring at these pictures.

I love these straws. I love straws in general and think they make drinking so much more fun but THESE straws are by far my favorite and I knew I HAD to have them for my wedding. But after doing my homework, I realized that they are very hard to find, and when you do find them, people are charging somewhere in the vacinity of $9 for a pack of 25 straws and you don't even get to choose what color you want. So considering I would need somewhere around 250 straws, that would mean I'd be spending about $100 on straws alone... an arm and a leg ... AKA not going to happen.

So I did what I do in all my little situations... I prayed. Kind of silly thinking back on it now- that I would bother God about helping me find affordable straws but that's what I did. And sure enough God was like, "Here you go Whitney. Here's an awesome website where you can get your straws." Oh, my goodness! Thank you Jesus!!

So for all of you who love these straws but were in the same sad state that I was, I'm going to share this with you!

http://www.greenpartygoods.com/

You can get a pack of 50 for $3 and you can even choose the color you want!!! (I picked pink, of course) So rather than spending $100, I only spent $15.


No matter how small or silly the request, God has still shown himself through all of this and has been with me through this entire planning process, guiding me to exactly the right places at exactly the right times. I feel so blessed :-)