Bits From a Mini Vacation

We did it! My fiance and I finally got out of town last weekend, for a mini vacation in wonderful wine country. Here are some bits... because we didn't manage to take many photos, they're all from one (of many fabulous) dinner.

I wish we could escape like this every weekend...

This and That

Hi friends. It's Monday again. And with that I've decided to throw in a colorboard, which is pretty much all thanks to the many hours I spend browsing the blog 100 Layer Cake. I love this blog, I love everything about it. Even if you have no interest in weddings, or the planning of them, it's worth giving a look just for all the visual and creative stimulation. And it provides links to so many amazing blogs out there.

Anyway, my favorite colors have always been brown and seafoam green (which can easily be confused with seafoam blue, although very different)... and white. White is not a color, of this I am aware, but I do love it so. That being said, choosing the colors for our wedding was the first thing I actually accomplished. Piece of cake! I also happen to enjoy each of these little pictures individually.

I'm also going to report today that I've decided to make my own wedding dress. Initially I wasn't going to, but one fateful day last year brought me to a "discount" wedding gown shop, where I was forced against my will to try on some of the most hideous wedding gowns you have ever seen. One of them actually fit me perfectly and was hilariously fun to wear. I could have had a flock of sheep under the dress and it would have been my little secret! But it was shortly after that day that I decided the only way I was going to get the perfect dress was if I made it myself.

And that's when I discovered Elizabeth Dye of the English Dept. Elizabeth is a designer in Portland, Oregon (hello friends!) whom I am just so impressed with. All of the designers at the English Dept. make gowns that are so tasteful and well thought out and not your typical gigantic wedding gown billowing with a thousand yards of fabric. Who wants to wear a 50 pound dress in the middle of July on the one day you've been working so hard to look your best for? Yuck. Here are some of the dresses that I really like, but you should just really check out the website. They design regular clothes too, the ones to be worn on a day when you're not making life-altering decisions and feeding everyone you've ever met.

I kind of want to stand in a room full of paper lanterns now too. Looks nice.

New Old Things

First things first. Apricot glazed pork tenderloin cooking in the oven and The Doors playing on the stereo. A very nice beginning to the weekend if you ask me. And yes, my weekends do begin on Sunday.

SO. Back to the business at hand. I am attempting the insane operation of hand making 80 - 100 invitations and Save The Dates for my wedding. I love making cards and layering paper and fabric, and I just couldn't fathom the idea of paying someone to do that for me. Since I'm not into letter pressing, and it just wouldn't be the same to print out all of my invites off of the computer, I'm going to hand make each and every one. And I've recently acquired this beautiful vintage Royal typewriter; which is going to make the magic happen.

I don't believe in naming my appliances or inanimate objects, but I do refer to such things as "he". That being said, isn't he a beauty?! Of course now I'm going to have to actually get started on the endeavor so as to show examples. But that's what the weekend is for!

And with that I leave you to it.

And so it begins...

Greetings friends! Thus begins a blog of which I am just as much a part of the audience as you are. Meaning.. I have no idea what I've just gotten myself into. So here's the deal. I am in the process of planning my very own wedding, my very own very much DIY wedding. Which all began with this...

And since I've been scouring the web for the past six months or so looking at some very nice blogs, wedding related and not (so many amazing things to look at, one gets distracted) I've decided to just go ahead and start my own.

My hope is that if anyone reads this, they will be inspired to have a more hands-on approach to their wedding, or every day life, or whatever. Of course I'll probably thrown in quite a bit of random goodies when I'm just not feeling very wedding-y.

And that's it. Here we go.