The Clock is Ticking...6 Months to Go!

It's been a long time since I've written anything, life has definitely gotten in the way. But now that my Master's thesis is done and I'm officially done with graduate school I can find a bit more time to update everyone on the wedding planning. Things are definitely going to switch into high gear pretty soon, since we're going away there hasn't been much for me to do, but now that the wedding is only 6 months away I have to start thinking about the reception, food, flowers, music, and all of the other little details that go into making the day beautiful and special. Eventhough the planning has been pretty light I have gotten three major things out of the way.

1. I bought my dress! Yay! It's a beautiful flowy strapless gown from Wtoo Brides that I can't wait for everyone to see. I absolutely love love love it!

2. The invitations have been designed. My focus for January is to print and assemble them so I can get them in the mail by the end of the month.

3. My niece and I found her bridesmaids dress today! It's a gorgeous strapless sapphire blue dress from David's Bridal. We both fell madly in love with it and she looks fantastic in it. Check it out here.

I can't believe that time has gone by so fast. We went from 18 months to 6 very quickly and I can't wait to get to Jamaica and get this party started. Promise to keep you updated on the planning as we get closer and closer.

Love...

Jenny

Invitation design school

Yay! I have the design for my invitations and I'm ready to get started! I knew when we decided to have a DW that I wanted to try and DIY as many things as I could. I'm not creative at all so I had no idea how I was going to be able to pull this off. Enter Weddingbee, my absolute favorite wedding blog. Through reading this site I found this amazing online store where they only sell handmade items (that includes designs and logos that people have created themselves). I stumbled across my invitation designer, Carla, during one of my daily Weddingbee checks; she made invitations for her own wedding and had since been asked to make invitations for her friends. As a result, she decided to open her own shop on Etsy. I ventured over and loved what I saw. Her designs had a really fun, casual vibe that I loved. This wedding is all about having a good time and her invites were perfect. Since I was her first official customer she gave me an amazing deal and agreed to design my invites so that I could add my own touches, print, and put them together myself. I'm so happy I got in on the ground floor and snatched up my invites in the early stages of her shop b/c as some of you may know wedding invites can be pretty pricey. Luckily, I get to control costs by doing all the leg work myself. I can't wait to post pics of the invites once they're done, but that will have to wait a few months, I want our guests to be surprised ;) but here are a couple pics of Carla's work. Enjoy!

Dress Shopping 101

Dress shopping has been so much fun! I must admit that the idea of putting on a wedding gown made me really nervous, but trying on all those beautiful gowns was so much fun. I've had two dress shopping excursions so far and both have been very successful. I'm getting closer and closer to finding the one and I've been daydreaming about all the contenders (I have a few that I'm currently in love with). In my heart I think I know which one is meant for me, but I'm not quite ready to commit. I think I need one more day of just shopping before I make a final decision.

Trying on dresses has really made the wedding come to life for me. We have less than a year to go and it's becoming more and more of a reality as time passes. It's been hard for me to get into the bride mentality since there is so much that I can't do until days before the wedding when we get to Jamaica, so the dress shopping has really helped me to connect with this experience and start to visualize what I want our big day to feel like. I can't wait to try on more dresses. I wish that I could show you pics of the ones that I'm drooling over but as a consolation I will show you a few pics of a dress that I liked a lot but unfortunately it got bumped out of the race. ;)

Paying homage to where it all began..............

So.....It's been a while since I blogged but the truth is, I haven't really been thinking about wedding stuff that much lately. I've been so busy with work that I just haven't had the time, but once school is out and I'm officially on SUMMER VACATION the real planning will begin. First on the list will of course be dress shopping which I can't wait to do.

Despite my lack of wedding related activities I have created a new inspiration board. I've been collecting pictures along the way of things that inspire me and catch my attention and I've found that I have been really attracted to blue and orange, which is fitting since those are the colors of our alma mater, U of I. So to pay tribute to the place where Jarvis and I fell in love, our wedding will have my interpretation of those two colors: Caribbean blue (to match the water, of course) and tangerine (not orange, tangerine!). Here is my new inspiration board, ENJOY!

(Click on the picture for a better look)

Introducing the Official Save the Date...

The Save the Dates have been sent and since I'm almost positive all of our guests have received theirs, I decided to post a collage of pics that I took during the assembly process. Fortunately they've been a hit with the masses and I'm so happy that they have been received so well. I decided to forgo the plain white envelopes and took a visit to my new favorite store PaperSource to find something that would make the invitations look a bit more put together. I chose Bluebell envelopes and cardstock that went with the beachy vibe that has inspired this wedding. I still used the white envelopes but I jazzed them up a bit with some fantastic stamps that I ordered from PaperSource a couple of months ago. At the time I didn't know what I would use them for, but I think I put them to good use. I love how it all came together!

Sending out the magnets makes everything seem so much more official. We have now started a wedding paper trail and there is physical documentation that the Big Day is coming. Some of our guests have even started to get the ball rolling by beginning the booking process. Granted, we still have 400+ days to go, but it will be here before we know it.

Thanks to all of you who complimented the magnets, Oh how I love them so!

Don't Fret Jamaican me happy

Our invitations have arrived and have been sent. Do not fret if you haven't received an invite to the beach wedding. Due to the restrictions on the number of people we can have on the beach at a time we have to limit the amount of people we have at the wedding. But the celebration will start well before the wedding and continue all night long. So all is invited to our wedding trip but we cannot guarantee those who did not get a invite a seat at the wedding.

Thank you everyone for all of your well wishes, kind words and sincere prayers.

Jarvis

Coming to a mailbox near you...

Yeah!!! The Save the Dates arrived in the mail today. I can't wait to put them together. I still need to go to the stationary store and get paper so I can print my insert cards, get labels, and buy cute stamps. I'm hoping to get this all taken care of tomorrow so they can be mailed by Wednesday. They look amazing and I can't wait for everyone to see them!

Anxiously Waiting...

I was finally able to order the Save the Dates last week since we confirmed our wedding date with our travel agent. Now, I'm sitting on pens and needles waiting for them to get here so I can send them out to everyone. They are soooo cute. When I got the proof last week I was so excited practically squealed at my desk at work. I'm going to have to liven up the plain white envelopes when they get here and I can't wait to get a little crafty with them.

Part of may anxiety also has to do with the fact that I really want people to start booking soon and I don't want them to start planning until they get the official notice. So, I'm waiting, waiting, waiting and getting more impatient by the day. I'm been checking the mail obsessively and I think our door man may think I'm going crazy. Hopefully they'll get here this weekend so I can stop freaking out!!!

Jamaica, here we come!

It's official, the date has been set. Jarvis and I are getting married in Jamaica on Saturday June 26, 2010!!!

We went to the travel agent yesterday to iron out some of the details on resort accommodations. Our biggest concern was making sure that this wedding would be affordable for our guests, and the prices that our travel agent, Karen, gave us were much cheaper than we had expected. Hopefully, this will allow all of our extra special friends and family to join us.

I still can't believe that this is actually happening, no more what-ifs, the planning has officially begun. I was so excited when she told us that our date was available, I was worried because they only do one wedding per day and I had an uneasy feeling before we went in that it might be booked, so I was relieved when we were able to get it. Now I can order the Save-the-Dates and get those in the mail as soon as possible (I'll post a picture of them after they are mailed-don't want to ruin the surprise). I'll also be posting the resort info soon, so keep checking for updates.

Back by Popular Demand...

I've gotten "yelled" at recently for not updating my blog enough, so I promise to try to do a better job of updating everybody on what's going on. I will try to make this a weekly blog for now, I may post more as the wedding gets closer because there will be a lot more going on. Right now we are still in the beginning stages of planning. We have our preliminary guest list done (just have to add addresses and phone numbers) and we hope to meet with our travel agent this weekend to talk about the wedding date and accommodations.

I must admit have been stressing out a bit about the guest list lately. I keep going back and forth about who to invite (or not invite); we can only have 30 people if we have the ceremony on the beach and I get freaked out about the possibility of us going over that number. Jarvis keeps telling me it's not a big deal, he doesn't think that will even be an issue, but who knows. I know that it's customary to invite a few people over your desired number because people will undoubtedly decline the invitation, but how many "extra" people do you invite? What if everyone says yes? I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. We have a few weeks before we plan to start sending out Save the Dates, so I have some time to mull over it.

On another note, I think that I may start trying on dresses next month. I can't wait to see what's out there and figure out what my options are. The idea of trying on wedding dresses is a little scary though, but I am really excited about moving into that next phase of planning.

One step closer to paradise

We met with a travel agent last Wednesday. They had a Sandals night at their office, so we got a chance to speak with the rep that we met at the Bridal Show. She was fantastic, she gave us some great options for potentially saving money and getting the most out of our wedding experience while in Jamaica. Our biggest worry was making the trip affordable for everyone who decides to go and now I think that we are more confident that we can make that happen.


Our travel agents name is Karen and she is amazing. She definitely has our best interest at heart and since she already has such a great relationship with Sandals, we know she will take great care of us. It's comforting for me to know that I can just call her, tell her what I want to do, and she will help me make it happen. It's also going to make it a lot easier for our guests to have someone that they can call if they have questions about the trip and the resort.

We were at the event for almost 3 hours and it was definitely exhausting, but it was all worth it. Now we are one step closer to making this whole thing happen. I just have to start attacking my to-do-list now. First up: reserve the date and make the guest list.

My Style Inspiration

I am totally in love with everything blue when it comes to wedding style. I'm really loving the combination of sapphire blue, khaki (sand), and white. F.Y.I expect to see everything related to our wedding in those colors because I just can't get them out of my mind lately. The beachy vibe that they create really fits into the laid back, casual feel that J. and I are going for. Here are a few pics of some things that I've been looking at lately...






If you guys have any ideas let me know, looking at wedding stuff has become my second job and I'm definitely open to suggestions.

Love,

The Future Mrs. Alexander!!

Destination Stress!

So, doing a destination wedding seemed like the perfect idea: sun, sand, and relaxation. Theoretically they're supposed to be easier, less stress fewer worries, but who ever put that idea out there was oh so wrong. To a certain degree I think that this will make life simpler for me, it would definitely be a few less things on the to-do list but the worrying part is still a pain in the butt. All I've been thinking about lately is how much will it cost, will people have a good time, will people be able to come? I know I shouldn't be freaking out about all this stuff, because the people that love us will no doubt be there to celebrate on our special day, but stress is my middle name and I just can't help myself. Hopefully, I can let it all go soon. J. and I are trying to put the plans on paper within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we can get everything together pretty smoothly. Stay tuned, you might have to dust off that passport pretty soon!

Now how romantic would this be? The sun is setting, the light hitting the waves as they crash against the white sand. An embrace and a kiss. Could this moment be coming to a groom near you? (namely myself). Only time will tell.

When it's gone...

It's funny how quickly you get attached to the ring. I only wore it for a week, but as soon as I took it off my finger and handed it to the jeweler last week I felt like a part of me was missing. Thankfully we went and picked it up today and let me just say that it's even more beautiful than I remember. It makes me think about that old cliche, "you never really miss something until it's gone". When I put the ring back on today I thought about what it really represents. This little piece of jewelry is a symbol of the connection that Jarvis and I share with each other and I realized that that bond is something that I never want to live without. I never want to know what it feels like not to have him in my life. So this Valentine's Day I hope that everyone takes some time to really show the people in their lives how much they love and care for them because once they're gone and you start to reminisce about how significant they were to your life and your happiness, you might not get a chance to know that kind of love again.

Jarvis, thank you for giving me 7 of the most amazing years of my life. Happy Valentine's Day!!

Hey honey. I will be barging in on your blog every now and then. So this is our first Valentines Day as an engaged couple. Today I won't surprise you with any flowers and a card, I have already given you a diamond and how many times can we go out to a restaurant. What I propose (I have been prosing a lot over the past year) is that on our first valentine as my fiancee is that it be just me, you a bottle of wine and the day. How is that? Circle Yes, No or Maybe. 

Never felt a love like this before...

I'm in love! (with this dress). So, I've been looking in every magazine I can find and on every wedding website there is trying to find the perfect dress. I wanted something cute, and flowy that would go with the whole romantic, beachy vibe that I'm going for and I think this is it. It wouldn't be in this color though, it would be a beautiful sapphire blue. I think that this would look good on all my girls (they don't know who they are yet though, that part is still a surprise). FYI I think I know what dress I want too but that's a conversation for another day.

To view the dress in blue click on the link below. You have to click on the sapphire box to see the dress in the wedding color:

http://www.dessy.com/dresses/bridesmaid/6556/

Moet!!

Wow! Our first engagement gift. I can't believe this wedding thing is actually happening. No more dreaming about when and how, we're finally going to do this.