Photo Booth!

I won a photo booth for my reception! That's right, its free! whoo hoo! A couple of weeks ago my sister and I were at the Haute Bridal Show at the Adolphus Hotel (where I'm getting married) and I won a photo booth from picstrips for four hours for my reception! I am super excited! It looks something like this, but I'm hoping to cover the whole thing in black fabric so that it doesn't look so modern. Most everything else at my wedding has a vintage feel to it so I don't want this to stand out like a sore thumb! My sister and I were also trying to come up with some good props we could put in there for people to use in their pictures. I think its going to be so much fun!

What do you think? Any good prop ideas?

I know I've been MIA...

I have been working diligently on my save-the-dates and I'm happy to say the printing process is finally done! Whoo hoo! This is such an enormous weight off my shoulders! I will have pictures to come, but I'm going to make you wait for the final product!
I am having Carrie of 'The Event Messenger' (more about her fabulousness later!) finish them off for me by printing the same silhouette design onto cardstock and addressing the envelopes for me. My sister and I and hopefully a few other helpers will still have to assemble them (tie the hankie to the piece of card stock with a piece of ribbon), but it will be so much easier than the printing! I'm going to be sending them out the week of Christmas since that will mark our six month countdown! I can't believe its getting down to six months! After being engaged for 9 months already, that is seeming a lot sooner! haha.
Keep looking for updates on my save-the-dates! They are almost finished! Then what will I do with myself???

Engagement Pics are Here!

Look at our beautiful engagement pictures taken at the Stoneleigh Hotel! They turned out beautifully and I couldn't have asked for more! Thanks Sil!

Save-the-dates!

My brother-in-law designed my fabulous save-the-date design for our vintage hankies! Check it out!

I'm not going to lie, this has not been an easy and stress-free project! My sister and I started on Sunday to try to print the design on the hankies. I bought a yudu screen printer to use, but we were both new to the contraption so it definitely took some learning! It started out with a trip to Kinko's to print the design on to the yudu transparency, the first step in the process! Come to find out, Kinko's is not allowed to print on ink-jet transparencies, so back to the house to try it on the home printer! It actually worked out really well so the first step was complete and successful!

Then to the tricky part...creating the screen. I won't even tell you about all the steps we went through, but at the very end of it we figured out we didn't "expose" the screen long enough. That is a nerdy yudu term that you probably wouldn't understand unless you have read the manual a million times like I did! Anyway, the screen we created basically melted away and we had to start all over! The second time it actually worked and we were ready to start printing! Of course we started on a couple of sample hankies because I didn't want to mess up any of the ones I really loved. The first one seemed to work out perfectly! On to the next two...not so perfect. The first one that turned out so well was a thicker fabric and the ink did fine on it, but the other 2 were extremely thin (as you can imagine most vintage hankies would be) so the ink on the silhouettes started bleeding. Enter MELTDOWN. Ok, I didn't have a total meltdown, but after 6 hours of working on this I was tired and frustrated and I didn't know what to do!

We called it quits for the day as I contemplated ways to avoid this little ink-bleeding problem. Over the last couple of days I have tried other things trying to make the ink not run and nothing was working. I read on someone's blog that they had better luck with the metallic paints because they are thicker than the flat paints. So I went to Michael's today and bought some metallic ink and decided to give it a whirl. And whah lah! Look below to see some examples of my successful hankies. The ink is VERY thick and does not run at all so I think we may have a winner people!

The pictures didn't turn out perfectly because I took them on a glass table and the reflection of the silver in the ink makes it look a little grayish in the picture. Anyway, they look cuter in person!

I only have 6 done so far, but I'm going to try and get a lot done this weekend! That's another thing about the yudu. Its a slow printing process because you have to wash the screen off after about 5 hankies because the ink will dry on the screen! What a pain! It will be worth it in the end though!

Remodel complete!! ...almost

Hubby-to-be and I have been remodeling our house for the last few months and it is almost complete! We expanded the master bathroom, moved the master closet, added a half bath, and got new tile and carpet all through the house! Its been crazy and I can't tell you how happy I am to almost be done. All we have left is getting the carpet installed Friday and then a few minor touches here and there and we are done! Whoo hoo! I will definitely share some before and after pictures when we are finished. Here are a couple of pictures of us getting our paint on...

Oh yeah...

Fab Photo Shoot!

Justin and I got our engagement pictures taken on Sunday and it was fabulous! Unfortunately I don't have any pics to share yet, but soon! We started outside and got some pictures with our puppies, which wasn't easy I might add. Penelope is our boxer and she is huge and crazy! Here she is in her little veil. Like mother like daughter! Isn't she precious??

And then there is our little Tini, who did a much better job at the photo shoot. For one, he is quite the mama's boy and as long as he's in my arms he doesn't complain much. And two, he was freezing to death outside while we were taking the pictures so he just sat there and shivered while we got them done! Here he is in his hot pink t-shirt that was a gift from his Aunt Leah. As you can see, he's not all that amused by it, even if he is from the Gayborhood.

Anyway, after the puppies did their thing with us outside for the photo shoot, we took the rest of our pictures inside at the wonderful Stoneleigh hotel. It was really fun and I know we got some really great shots. Can't wait to see what they look like!!!

So Shoe me.

I love my new shoes! I got these to wear with the dress I bought for our engagement pictures. I think they are perfect because the big flower on the ankle makes them interesting and the color pops! My dress is very neutral colors so I wanted to find something with a pop of color for my shoes. I'm still on the lookout for a cute top to wear for our more casual look outfit we're going to do. Hopefully you will be seeing that soon! I only have 2 weeks left!

These shoes are Kelsie Dagger and I got them at Nordstrom. They also come in black and she also makes a cute bootie that is very similar.

Bridesmaids!

I haven't really had much to blog about lately for my own wedding since I'm kind of at a stand still. So I thought I would share some pics of two of my best friend's weddings that I was in this summer. We are all becoming old married women!

First is my friend Aly. Her wedding was June 22nd in Riviera Maya, Mexico. It was so much fun to have a mini vacation in Mexico and the wedding was beautiful. She was the first one to take the plunge!

Here are Aly and Charles at the rehearsal. Beautiful scenery right????

Rehearsal dinner at the Hibachi restaurant at our resort.

Pretty bridesmaids with the bride at the rehearsal dinner!

Here is the bride getting her nails done the morning of the wedding. Bridesmaid bonding time!

Pretty bridesmaids awaiting the beautiful bride!

Bridesmaids at the reception with the giant shrimp!

Me and the fiance getting ready for the champagne toast!

So that about wraps up Aly's wedding. It was so much fun! 

Last weekend was our other friend Jami's wedding. It was here in the Dallas area and was also so much fun! Check out the pics!

Here's me and the bride getting our hair done before the wedding.

The bride with her TCU garter. Go frogs!

Here she is showing off her 'I love Jason' shoes!

Everybody's gotta eat, right?

Me, Aly, and Jami

Here comes the bride!

 

Mr. and Mrs.!

Pretty bridesmaids with the bride

Cake time!

Aly, Jami, and I have been friends since the beginning of college. It was so special for me to be in both of their weddings and I can't wait for them to be in mine! It all starts tomorrow because we are going to try on bridesmaid dresses! Whoo hoo!